Abstract

The British idealist philosopher Bernard Bosanquet argues that the legitimacy of the law and the obligation to obey the law are rooted in what he calls the ‘real will.’ This notion of the real will, however, has often been claimed to be problematic. In this paper, I argue that the notion of the real or general will can be made clearer and, arguably, more satisfactory, if one looks at Bosanquet’s notion of aesthetic consciousness. I provide a short account of Bosanquet’s views on art and aesthetic consciousness and identify a number of points on which aesthetic consciousness and awareness of the real will are, arguably, similar. This similarity suggests that the notion of the real will may be more plausible – or, at least, less problematic – than critics have alleged.