Introduction

Abstract

Acts of recognition infuse many aspects of our lives: receiving a round of applause from a rapt audience; being spotted in a crowded street by a long-forgotten friend; having an application for a job rejected because of one’s criminal record; enjoying some words of praise from a respected philosophy professor; getting pulled over by the police because one is a black man driving an expensive car; fighting to have one’s same-sex marriage officially sanctioned in order to enjoy the same legal and social benefits as heterosexual marriages. Evidently the various ways that we are recognised matter deeply to us and they play an important role in shaping the quality of our lives. Recognition theorists go further than this, arguing that recognition can help form, or even determine, our sense of who we are, the value accorded to us as individuals, and the ways in which we understand freedom and justice.