Social pathologies are social processes that hinder how individuals exercise their autonomy and freedom. In this book, Gustavo Pereira offers an account of such phenomena by defining them as a cognitive failure that affects the practical imagination, thus negatively interfering with our practical life. This failure of the imagination is the consequence of the imposition of a type of practical rationality on a practical context alien to it, caused by a non-conscious transformation of the individuals' set of beliefs and values. The research undertaken provides an innovative explanation in terms of microfoundations based on the mechanism of "availability heuristic", by which the diminished exercise of the imagination turns the intuitively available or prevailing rationality into the one that regulates behaviour in inappropriate contexts. Additionally, this incorrect regulation results in a progressive distortion of the shared sense of the affected practical contexts, which becomes institutionalized.

Consumerism, bureaucratism, moralism, juridification, some forms of corruption and the particular Latin American case of "malinchism" can be interpreted as social pathologies insofar as they imply such distortion. This way of conceptualizing social pathologies integrates the traditional sociological macro-explanation manifested through the negative consequences of the processes of social rationalization with a micro-explanation articulated around the findings of cognitive psychology such as availability heuristic.

Understanding social pathologies as a cognitive failure allows us to identify the introduction of normative friction as the main way to counteract their effects. One of the potential effects of normative friction, as a specific form of cognitive dissonance, is the intense exercise of the imagination, thus operating as a condition of possibility for the exercise of autonomy and reflection. Democratic ethical life, understood as a shared democratic culture, as well as social institutions and narratives, are the privileged social spaces and means to trigger reflective processes that can counteract social pathologies through a reflective reappropriation of the meaning of the shared practical context.

An extraordinary contribution by a Critical Theorist to the return of the concept of imagination today. It takes up the challenge once taken by Kant to think about imagination as the pivotal activity not only of knowledge and experience, but above all, for action. The author claims that imagination makes criticism possible (pathologies) and it allows us to envision alternative views into the path for social transformation. Without imagination nothing is possible. María Pía Lara, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Mexico

Autorentext

Gustavo Pereira is Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy and Director of the Department of Philosophy of Praxis at the Faculty of Humanities, Universidad de la República (Uruguay). He has founded and is co-director of the interdisciplinary research group Ethics, Justice and Economy at the same University. His research has been mainly focused on social justice and theory of democracy, and more recently on social philosophy, in particular social pathologies, alienation and the cognitive microfoundations of those social phenomena. Some of his books are Medios, capacidades y justicia distributiva (UNAM, 2004), Las voces de la igualdad (Proteus, 2010) and Elements of a Critical Theory of Justice (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013).

Inhalt

Introduction

I Practical life: imagination, autonomy and reflection

I.1. Practical imagination

I.1.1. Ethical imagination

I.1.2. Moral imagination

I.1.3. Political imagination

I.1.4. Legal imagination

I.2. Autonomy I.2.1. Reciprocal recognition autonomy as descentered autonomy

I.2.2. Differentiated autonomy and perfectionism

I.3. Reflection

1.3.1. Self-distancing, identification and endorsement

1.3.2. Superficial and deep reflection

1.3.3. Normative friction as a trigger for reflection

I.4. Imagination, autonomy and reflection as normative criteria

II Social pathologies as a blockage to imagination****

II.1. Social pathologies: tradition and conceptualization

II.1.1. Modern imaginaries, anonimyty and social pathologies

II.1.2. Alienation and social pathologies

II.1.3. Tradition and projection

II.1.4. Appropriaton of the tradition and conceptualizaton

II.1.5. Social pathologies as a distortion of practical contexts

II.1.6. Social pathologies as a failure of imagination

II.2. Social pathologies: distinctive features

II.2.1. Social rationalization and anonymous social processes: from Weber to Habermas

II.2.2. The imposition of a type of practical reason

II.2.3. The undermining of imagination, autonomy and reflection

II.2.4. Ideology and masking as deceptive justifications

II.2.5. Perception of social pathologies through sensitivity to vulnerability

III. Counteracting social pathologies: normative friction and anonymous injustice

III.1. Civil society, institutions and democratic ethical life

III.1.1. Civil society, democratic ethical life and communicative power

III. 1.2. Institutions

III.1.3. Democratic ethical life

III.2. Anonymous injustice III.2.1. Obstacles to justice and anonymous injustice

III.2.2. Lifestyles and justice

III.2.3. Comprehensive conceptions, ideas of the good and lifestyles

III.2.4. Complex societies and uncoupling of lifestyles

III.2.5. Justice and lifestyles

Concluding remarks