Normative individualism
Normative individualism describes the basic idea of liberal or humanistic philosophy, according to which the ultimate point of reference for justifying ethical, moral, legal and political decisions is always the individual, but not a collective like the family, a religious community or the state.
Basic idea
The focus of every normative individualistic theory is the individual with his concerns and interests. The decision of a community, but also its norms and rules can only be justified if they take into account the concerns of all affected individuals. For example, the philosophers John Locke , Immanuel Kant , John Rawls , Otfried Höffe , Julian Nida-Rümelin and Martha Nussbaum choose normative individualistic starting points for all differences in detail . In current philosophy, Dietmar von der Pfordten in particular analyzed the concept of normative individualism and worked out the foundations of normative-individualistic ethics. Normative individualism stands in contrast to theories that allow collective decisions to be justified with reference to the community concerned. An ethics or political philosophy always has collectivist traits when it precedes the community over the individual. The individual then only appears as part of a collective and his individual concerns are only taken into account insofar as they are compatible with the purpose or interests of the collective. Normative collectivist approaches can be found, for example, in communitarianism ( Michael Sandel , Michael Walzer ) and in the early approaches to care ethics ( Nel Noddings , Virginia Held).
Delimitations
Methodological individualism
As a socio-ethical justification approach, normative individualism is to be differentiated from various theories of methodological individualism, particularly represented in economics and social science: These explain social action descriptively from the interaction of the individual actors. In contrast, normative individualism deals with the ethical, moral, legal or political legitimation (justification) of collective actions such as moral rules, laws, ordinances or political decisions.
Libertarianism
Nor should normative individualism be confused with theories of libertarianism such as those developed by Friedrich von Hayek , Robert Nozick and David Gauthier . In them the possibilities of collective action are radically limited by declaring the factual interaction of individuals to be the highest principle of justice. Political institutions such as the state and its institutions and legal interventions in private life and the economy are therefore primarily assessed as restricting freedom and should be minimized in their influence. In contrast, normative individualism recognizes the freedom-enabling purposes of political institutions and state legislation and takes into account the importance that private social communities such as families, friendships, associations and religious communities have for individuals. Normative individualistic theories are therefore also entirely compatible with the idea of a common good, provided that the general interest of a political community can be linked back to the concerns of the individuals concerned.
Normative collectivism
In contrast, the assumption of an interest of the community that is detached from the individuals, which is then placed before them and opposed to their exercise of freedom, cannot be justified. Such theories are called normative collectivist. The difference can be explained using the example of the legal regulation of the family: A family can have a common (collective) interest in the protection of their privacy, which may be taken into account when regulating family law, provided and to the extent that it relates to the interests of all members of the family agrees or is to be agreed in any case. The law may therefore, for example, grant family members the right to refuse to testify in court or prohibit the deportation of family members under aliens law and justify this with the special protection of the family as a private social community (cf. also Art. 6 I of the Basic Law: "Marriage and family are under special protection of State. "). On the other hand, it would not be compatible with the normative individualistic starting point that the family's privacy as a collective interest is placed above the legitimate concerns of individual members, for example by giving children no protection from abuse or neglect. Because in this case the legal regulation does not take sufficient account of the concerns of all individuals affected by it.
Directions
Immanuel Kant
In Immanuel Kant's ethics the normative-individualistic idea is particularly evident in the human-purpose formula of the categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you humanity both in your person and in the person of everyone else at the same time as an end, never just as a means. ”With this, the individual becomes the ultimate, unavoidable point of reference for moral action. The normative individualistic orientation is also evident in Kant's doctrine of law: for him, the law has the purpose "to unite the arbitrariness of one with the arbitrariness of the other according to a general law of freedom."
Contract theories
The enlightened idea of the social contract ( contract theory ) is also rooted in normative individualism: it is the individual who concludes the social contract in order to preserve his freedom, self-preservation or other concerns and thereby legitimizes the government or the legislature. In the design, however, the normative individualistic principle has very different meanings: With Thomas Hobbes , the individual only decides on the conclusion of the contract as such and with this subordinates himself to the ruling power in almost all his interests. Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract ends ultimately in the far-reaching subordination of the individual to the general will. In such constructions, the legislature is (no longer) obliged to consider individual concerns. For John Locke, on the other hand, individuals retain important elements of their natural freedom and equality even after the conclusion of the contract, so that the government or the legislative power are in any case obliged to a certain extent to the interests of the individuals affected by its decisions. Modern contract theories such as those of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon make the fictional character of the contractualist idea more prominent by tying collective actions to the criterion that the individuals concerned must reasonably agree to them. Collective actions can therefore only be legitimized by being linked to the legitimate interests of the individuals concerned.
utilitarianism
In any case, the starting point of utilitarian theories is normative-individualistic insofar as they use individual pleasure and individual suffering as a criterion for justifying collective action. In the design, however, utilitarian theorists go different ways: If in the end, as for example with Jeremy Bentham, it is only a matter of maximizing the sum of benefits (the “greatest possible happiness of the greatest number”), the normative individualistic starting point is abandoned in favor of a collectivistic maximization principle. In contrast, John Stuart Mill in his work “On Liberty” evaluates the individual's freedom to develop his or her life plan outside of collective values as the ultimate purpose of a political order and thereby relieves the individual of the freedom restrictions of the collective calculation of utility.
Skills Approach
That of Martha Nussbaum as an ethical theory largely developed skills approach or formal approach (English capability approach ) evaluated a political order and collective decisions about whether they let the individuals ample room, a number than for a life of freedom and equality indispensable understood abilities to unfold. Her approach is normative-individualistic not only in the starting point of a fictitious conclusion of a contract or abstract equal opportunities, but also in recourse to real conditions with which individuals are first able to assert their interests in the political community.
The normative ethics Dietmar von der Pfordtens
In the German-speaking countries, Dietmar von der Pfordten in particular coined the term normative individualism and presented an ethic based on this principle. The principle of normative individualism is formulated as follows: “In the last instance, moral norms, rules, evaluations and convictions can only be justified by fundamentally equal consideration of all affected individuals.” This principle contains three sub-principles: According to the individual principle, only individuals can take the final starting point be a legitimate ethical obligation. The universal principle indicates that not just a few, but ultimately all of the individuals affected by a decision or action must be taken into account. After all, according to the principle of equal consideration, it is necessary, in principle, to give equal consideration to all affected individuals.
criticism
The normative-individualistic starting point is criticized for neglecting the real social entanglements of the individual. In particular, communitarian theories turn against the isolated consideration of the concerns of individual individuals with the objection that in reality every individual is tied into collective contexts from the outset. From the perspective of normative individualism, however, the rules in private social communities such as the family or a religious community also require normative justification based on the interests of their individual members. Individual interests are therefore necessarily influenced by the interests of others as well as social and political communities, but on the level of justification they can and must be thought of as analytically and normatively differentiable from the collective context. The normative postulate of self-determination therefore exists despite the factual social relationships between individuals. Only in this way will it be possible and legitimate for individuals to be able to counter a collective with their justified claims to freedom and development.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dietmar von der Pfordten, Normative Individualism versus Normative Collectivism in the Political Philosophy of Modern Times, in: Journal for Philosophical Research, Volume 54, Issue 4, 2000, p. 491 513; ders., Normative Individualism, in: Journal for Philosophical Research 58 (2004), pp. 321–346
- ↑ Klaus Mathis, Efficiency Instead of Justice? In search of the philosophical foundations of the economic analysis of law, 3rd edition 2009, p. 21
- ↑ Dietmar von der Pfordten, Rechtsethik, 2nd edition 2011, p. 249 ff .; ders./Lorenz Kähler, Normative Individualism in Ethics, Politics and Law, Tübingen 2014
- ↑ Immanuel Kant, Basis for the Metaphysics of Morals (1758), Berlin 1911, p. 429
- ↑ Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, 3rd ed. 1999, p. 153
- ↑ Dietmar von der Pfordten, Normative Ethik, 2010, p. 17 f.
- ↑ Dietmar von der Pfordten, Normative Ethik, 2010, p. 23 f.