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Recognition theory is at once a diagnosis of contemporary social pathologies, a normative political philosophy, and an account of social struggle by which actors mobilize against assaults on the self made by the prevailing social order. Though Honneth and its other proponents would resist dividing the theory of recognition into three analytically separable parts, I shall in this chapter be concerned principally with the theory in its normative guise, as a set of principles which help delineate a just political order and spur action for social reform. The debate on which this chapter intervenes is the place of religion in the political domain of secular liberal democratic states, a debate to which recognition theory's insight that individuals need to have their particular identities publicly affirmed and acknowledged seems well placed to contribute. The debate has a number of dimensions, which include: the limits of the right to religious expression, the legitimacy of permitting religious symbolism in public institutions, the place of religious instruction in publicly funded schools, and the rights (if they are rights) of minority religious groups to maintain a traditional way of life against modernizing pressures. Recognition theory has something to say about all of these debates, I think, and it offers a distinct perspective to the liberal emphasis on individual liberty and the republican call for greater appreciation of our civic responsibilities.

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