Solidarity and Contractualist Justice

Abstract Solidarity has recently become an object of increasing attention after a long period of relative neglect. One area that still remains relatively undertheorized is the value of solidarity and its place in our moral-political thinking. According to Axel Honneth, the contractualist understanding of justice neglects the value of solidarity and should therefore be rejected. The paper discusses this charge. Negatively, it is argued that the contractualist understanding of justice does indeed fail to account for the value of solidarity. Positively, I provide a tentative sketch of how one might supplement contractualist justice with a view to solidarity rather than abandoning that understanding of justice. Overall, the paper aims to clarify and contribute to vindicating solidarity as a political value.