The paper addresses the question of how to read Marx in the light of current discussions about theories of social justice – and vice versa. It argues that Marx saves us from a one-sided and truncated way to think about justice – but that his own thought is in danger of leading to another form of one-sidedness.

Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. He is Co-Director of the Research Cluster on the ‘Formation of Normative Orders,’ of the Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Justitia Amplificata’, Director of the Leibniz Research Group ‘Transnational Justice’ and Member of the Directorate of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Bad Homburg. He has previously taught at the Free University Berlin, the New School for Social Research in New York and Dartmouth College. His work in moral and political philosophy focuses on questions of practical reason, justice and toleration and critical theory; his major publications are Contexts of Justice (Suhrkamp 1994, Univ. of California Press 2002), Toleration in Conflict (Suhrkamp 2003, Cambridge UP 2013), The Right to Justification (Suhrkamp 2007, Columbia UP 2012), Justification and Critique (Suhrkamp 2011, Polity Press, 2013), The Power of Tolerance (with W. Brown, Columbia UP 2014), Justice, Democracy and the Right to Justification (with Replies by Critics; Bloomsbury 2014) and Normativität und Macht (Suhrkamp 2015, Oxford UP forthcoming). In 2012, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Price of the German Research Foundation. He is also a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Associate Editor of Ethics, Member of the Executive Editorial Committee of Political Theory and on the boards of numerous other international journals. He is co-editor of the book series “Theorie und Gesellschaft” and “Normative Orders” (Campus).

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