Justice from Injustices Through Social Conflicts

This paper tries to stimulate the debate within political philosophy about the concept of justice by adopting a critical perspective towards social phenomena implying conditions of domination. Despite the undervaluation of this category in political philosophy's field, the goal to prevent and to avoid social conditions implying domination should be conceived as one of the fundamental parts of a (negative) theory of justice. This negative approach to the concept of justice is suggested by a double impasse, coming from the weakness of political philosophy in understanding social feelings and judgements about the illegitimacy of certain policies. and, secondly, from the main goal of a critical theory of society. That is, in my account, the presentation of a theoretical framework within which the possibility of emancipation from social conditions of domination is directly related to the experience of subordinate social groups and to their capacity to overcome them. In this sense, a critical theory of society should connect the normative role played by the concept of justice with the immanent character of a social diagnosis abou contemporary social pathologies (Honneth A., 1994; Pulcini E., 2009; Renault E., 20t08). Moreover, this perspective would allow political philosophy not only to use some theoretical and political criteria to assess contemporary societies, but also to understand people's motivations in lasting conflicts and to value the rightness of their goals.