Recent discussions of Hegel's conception of second nature, specifically focused on Hegel's notion of habit, have greatly advanced our understanding of Hegel's views on embodied normativity. This essay examines Hegel's account of embodied normativity in relation to his assessment of good and bad habits. Engaging Hegel's account of the rabble in the Philosophy of Right and Frank Ruda's assessment of Hegel's rabble, this essay traces the relation between ethicality, idleness and race in Hegel. In being a figure of refusal in (...) its affirmation of idleness, the rabble disallows the progressive revision of the project of modernity central to Hegel's philosophy. Hegel's discussion of the rabble is thus key to assessing the production of race within Hegel's notion of ethical life. (shrink)

The conventional interpretation of Hannah Arendt's accounts of forgiveness considers them secularistic. The secular features of her thinking that resist grounding the act of forgiving in divine criteria offer a good corrective to religious forgiveness that fosters depoliticization. Arendt's vision of free politics, however, calls for much more nuance and complexity regarding the secular and the religious in realizing forgiveness for transitional politics than the secularist rendition of her thinking allows. After identifying an area of ambiguity in Arendt's thoughts that (...) invites further investigation of religious forgiveness, this study seeks to relieve her misgivings about religion's role in politics by engaging with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, which emphasizes worldliness and altruism in religious faith. Through constructive engagements with both thinkers, the article presents a balanced Arendtian position that is neither solely secularist nor complacent about religion in politics. (shrink)