LECTURES »The Nature of Normative Concepts: Dependence vs. Independence«

From October 3-5, 2023, Rainer Forst will be giving the Jerome S. Simon Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled »The Nature of Normative Concepts: Dependence vs. Independence«. In these lectures, he discusses the distinction between normatively dependent and normatively independent concepts. Normatively dependent concepts, such as solidarity and trust, are descriptive in nature and require other normative sources to have normative value. The normatively independent concept of justice, on the other hand, entails a normative content that guides all possible conceptions of justice.

Find more information on the lectures here:

Jerome S. Simon Lectures

WORKING PAPER »The Justification of Trust in Conflict«

As part of the cluster initiative "ConTrust - Trust in Conflict", Rainer Forst has published a working paper entitled "The Justification of Trust in Conflict. Conceptual and Normative Groundwork". In this paper, he argues that trust and conflict should not be understood as opposing terms. Furthermore, he differentiates between a general concept and specific conceptions of trust, and argues that trust is only normatively valuable if it is well justified.

Download the full working paper here:

»The Justification of Trust in Conflict«

TALK »The Radical Rawls«

On September 21, 2021, Rainer Forst held a talk at the »9th International Symposium on Justice in Honor of Professor Manfredo Araújo de Oliveira. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of John Rawls’s Birth and 50 years of A Theory of Justice and of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Theology of Liberation« entitled »The Radical Rawls: Justice as Fairness as a Critique of Liberalism«. He speaks of a radical idea that lies at the basis of Rawls's egalitarian theory: »I call that the all-in-principle of the founding moment of the charter for the well-ordered society, which is a Kantian rather than a Lockean moment.«

Here you can listen to the presentation in full length (from minute 50:00):

• Talk »The Radical Rawls«

SYMPOSIUM on Forst's conception of power

Rainer Forst responds to the critics of his theory of Noumenal Power in the Journal of Political Power.

The final manuscript of Forst's reply ‘Noumenal Power Revisited: Reply to Critics‘ is available online.

• Download: ‘Noumenal Power Revisited: Reply to Critics’
• special issue, part I
• special issue, part II
• Forst's reply