 This model fits happily enough with our basic idea of alienation as consisting in a  problematic separation between self and other that belong together. However, the conditions for identifying the relevant dysfunctional relation here are intended to be less demanding and controversial than those involving claims about our essential human nature. There is a kindred notion of freedom as self-realisation, but it is said to be the realisation of a thin kind of self-determining agency and not the actualisation of some thick ‘pre-given’ identity of an essentialist sort. A normative dimension remains, but it is presented as expansive and broadly procedural. It is expansive in that a wide range of actions and projects might be included within its remit. And it is procedural in that the benchmark for judging the success of these various actions and projects is that they were brought about in the right kind of self-determination delivering way, and not that their content reflects a narrow and controversial account of what human beings are ‘in essence’.