ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an initial defence of invoking theories of recognition in normative debates concerning global poverty. It does so by justifying the role of moral injury and social suffering in those theories, in contrast to more familiar approaches in normative political philosophy based on resource-redistribution and compliance with the social rights in Article 25 of the UDHR especially. While it is argued that Axel Honneth's theory seems to offer a more compelling rationale than Nancy Fraser for viewing material poverty through the lens of ‘recognition’, nonetheless distinct problems seem to arise from the attempt to universalise Honneth's modes of recognition, namely love, rights and esteem. There seems, therefore, to be a need to search elsewhere within recognition theories for the key normative values in a cosmopolitan theory of justice.
