Journal article
Immanent Critique and Particular Moral Experience
Stahl, Titus
Published in Critical Horizons
Abstract
Critical theories often express scepticism towards the idea that social critique should draw on general normative principles, seeing such principles as bound to dominant conceptual frameworks. However, even the models of immanent critique developed in the Frankfurt School tradition seem to privilege principles over particular moral experiences. Discussing the place that particular moral experience has in the models of Honneth, Ferrara and Adorno, the article argues that experience can play an important negative role even for a critical theory that is committed to the necessity of conceptual mediation, as moral experiences can undermine our confidence in the appropriateness of our moral concepts. Building on McDowell’s account of moral perception and Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel’s theory of experience, one can reconstruct Adorno as providing a “radically negativist” approach to immanent critique that takes particular moral experience seriously.
Publication details
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-21
- Additional links
Bibliometrics
OpenAlex
View record- Citation count
- 31
- Collected 2026-08-22
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.67
- Collected 2026-08-22
- Citation percentile
- 94.9%
- Percentile among comparable publications of the same age and field.
About FWCI: Field-Weighted Citation Impact compares citations received with the number expected for a work of the same type, year, and subfield. A value of 1.0 represents the world average.
Google Scholar
View record- Citation count
- 64
- Collected 2026-08-16