What is Normative Theory? On Critique and the Normative Struggle Against Subjection

This contribution questions the conception of normative theory that Martijn Hesselink seems to embrace in Justifying Contract in Europe. The question it asks is ostensibly simple and straightforward: what is normative theory? And: what does Hesselink mean when he speaks of normative theory? By connecting the method and approach of Justifying Contract in Europe to the question of delimitation, the article raises several concerns with the reasons Hesselink offers for excluding feminist and Marxist theory, including their heterogeneity and presumed hostility to normative questions and approaches. The article suggests that these reasons point to a broader and more profound difficulty with Hesselink’s understanding of normative theory, which rests on a problematic distinction between normativity and critique. To this, the article responds that critique and normativity (moral philosophy), properly understood, are intimately related – in fact: inseparable – and that one without the other leaves us with a significantly impoverished and unduly narrow understanding of both normativity and critique.