ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the liberation philosophy by comparing it to its more recognized counterpart, liberation theology. It describes the consequences of misrecognition and how the leads to certain false assumptions about rights. The chapter examines J. G. Fichte theory of rights as relational and regulative and also discusses Fichte’s theory in the context of contemporary struggles for recognition. It suggests that Fichte’s principle of forfeiture instills in oppressed groups the right to revolution. The chapter focuses on a view, which asserts that certain groups of people continue to be excluded from democratic processes because of biological differences and further socially produced differences. It explores the democratic struggles or struggles for recognition in light of Fichte’s principle of forfeiture. Fichte’s great contribution to post-Cartesian philosophy is the construction of a more intersubjective view of the self-formative processes of the human subject. Fichte claims that, “the right of coercion arises where the equilibrium of right has been violated.”