Abstract

The notion of a right to a room of one’s own has hardly been explored philosophically. An impulse for such a discourse, however, can be found in Axel Honneth’s recent reconstruction of the social foundations of democratic life. This paper takes up Honneth’s mentioning of a right to a room of one’s own, and it provides a critical discussion of the underlying conception of private property. One the whole, it appears that while Honneth, who is strongly influenced by Hegel here, delivers a convincing account of the basic conditions of personal freedom and privacy, he also spuriously conflates privacy with the right to private property.