Justice as politics of enabling reflexive self-determination

Drawing on Gunter Dux' thesis concerning the co-evolution of social development and cognitive competence, the article argues that the 21st century offers the opportunity to universalize, for the first time, a human potential deemed a general, species-typical capacity, namely the capacity to reason logically and reflexively at the levels of formal operations (Piaget) and post-conventional understandings of social order (Kohlberg). A key prerequisite for realizing this potential are enabling policies aimed at equalizing the freedom of self-determination. Once this is accepted as a central tenet of social policies, a shift in the relative priorities guiding the allocation of public welfare funds is required that broadly follows Scandinavian models. Both considerations of justice and sustainability support such a shift.