The first translation into English and the first detailed interpretation of Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit and of Philosophie des Geistes, the two earliest surviving versions of Hegel’s social theory. Hegel’s central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

In order to develop his pragmatist and inferentialist framework, Robert Brandom appropriates, reconstructs and revises key themes in German Idealism such as the self-legislation of norms, the social institution of concepts and facts, a norm-oriented account of being and the critique of representationalist accounts of meaning and truth. However, these themes have an essential ethical dimension, one that Brandom has not explicitly acknowledged. For Hegel, the determination of norms and facts and the institution of normative statuses take place in the (...) context of Sittlichkeit (‘ethical life’). By engaging with some of the more ontologically and ethically substantive points raised by Hegel, I argue that, from a Hegelian perspective, Brandom’s project regarding the social determination of truth and meaning cannot be divorced from ethics, specifically, the ethical dimension of social recognition. Furthermore, I argue that, in real situations (as opposed to ideal ones), claims to normative authority cannot be considered independently from the legitimacy of those claims, a legitimacy that Brandom is unable to reasonably explain. Finally, I argue that a Hegelian solution to the problems facing Brandom’s framework calls into question the unity of reason that is at the core of Brandom’s normative pragmatics and inferential semantics. (shrink)

The first translation into English and the first detailed interpretation of Hegel’s System der Sittlichkeit and of Philosophie des Geistes, the two earliest surviving versions of Hegel’s social theory. Hegel’s central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

This chapter contains sections titled: Hegel, Hegelianism, and Historicism The Old Chisholm Trail: Historical Facts, Bits of Knowledge Artworks, The Artworld, and The Brillo Box Revolution The End of Art: Not the End at All Individualism Triumphant Danto and Nietzsche: A Hegelian Synthesis.

Sittlichkeit seduces: Hegel’s third category of Right, intended to synthesize impartially derived rights with a subjectively centered morality of the good, understandably piques the hopes of his modern readers. How could it not? Sittlichkeit, Ethical Life, holds out the prospect of so much that we still seek. It promises to reconcile welfare and autonomy while guaranteeing concrete content for their product. By combining legal duty with a place for conscience and freedom, it could solve a central problem of (...) politics. Most broadly, Sittlichkeit would graft Enlightenment individualism onto a more Aristotelian conception of social order, merging the benefits of ancient virtue and modern liberty. Who would not want to have their cake and eat it in this way? (shrink)

This exploration of Hegel's critique of the individualistic ethos of modernity and the genesis of his alternative vision traces the conceptual schemes Hegel experimented with to show how he settled on the concepts of 'ethical life' (Sittlichkeit) and Spirit as the means for overcoming subjectivity and domination.

Sittlichkeit seduces: Hegel’s third category of Right, intended to synthesize impartially derived rights with a subjectively centered morality of the good, understandably piques the hopes of his modern readers. How could it not? Sittlichkeit, Ethical Life, holds out the prospect of so much that we still seek. It promises to reconcile welfare and autonomy while guaranteeing concrete content for their product. By combining legal duty with a place for conscience and freedom, it could solve a central problem of (...) politics. Most broadly, Sittlichkeit would graft Enlightenment individualism onto a more Aristotelian conception of social order, merging the benefits of ancient virtue and modern liberty. Who would not want to have their cake and eat it in this way? (shrink)

Georg Lukács wrote that "there is autonomy and 'autonomy.' The one is a moment of life itself, the elevation of its richness and contradictory unity; the other is a rigidification, a barren self-seclusion, a self-imposed banishment from the dynamic overall connection." Though Lukács' concern was with the conditions for the possibility of art, his distinction also serves as an apt description of the way that Hegel and Hegelians have contrasted their own interpretations of self-determination with that of Kant. But it (...) has always been difficult to see how elevation is possible without seclusion, or how rigidification can be avoided without making the boundaries of the self so malleable that its autonomy looks like a mere cover for the power of external forces. Yeomans explores Hegel's own attempts to grapple with this problem against the background of Kant's attempts, in his theory of virtue, to understand the way that morally autonomous agents can be robust individuals with qualitatively different projects, personal relations, and commitments that are nonetheless infused with a value that demands respect. In a reading that disentangles a number of different threads in Kant's approach, Yeomans shows how Hegel reweaves these threads around the central notions of talent and interest to produce a tapestry of self-determination. Yeomans argues that the result is a striking pluralism that identifies three qualitatively distinct forms of agency or accountability and sees each of these forms of agency as being embodied in different social groups in different ways. But there is nonetheless a dynamic unity to the forms because they can all be understood as practical attempts to solve the problem of autonomy, and each is thus worthy of respect even from the perspective of other solutions."Everyone recognizes the importance of Hegel's critique of Kantian morality as empty, but until now there has not been a fully worked out presentation of how Hegel's views in his discussion of Sittlichkeit actually provide the missing content. Yeomans has finally provided us with a reconstruction of Hegel's mature position that makes good on all the promissory notes that Hegel gives in his famous descriptions of his alternative to Kantian ethics. Yeomans offers a compelling account of Hegel's view of individuality, societal differentiation and its roots in Kantian and Fichtean moral theory. The book will be a major contribution to the scholarship on Hegel's practical philosophy." - Dean Moyar, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University -/- "Yeomans' book is a subtle, detailed and original explication of some key ideas having to do with how Hegel's general philosophy of action relates to his social and political philosophy. It is attentive to Hegel's texts, and it ties its discussions into all the relevant contemporary themes in philosophy. It is very ambitious in its attempt to make Hegel's theory into a real competitor to other views that are currently in wide play in the philosophical world. It will very likely become one of the key texts in the secondary literature on Hegel." - Terry Pinkard, University Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University. (shrink)

In this paper, the tragedy of Hegel's works on索佛克里斯 is interpreted as the object of analysis, to clarify the "Phenomenology of Mind" chapter of the first link: ethical implied the dialectical development of relations. Hegel Antigongnie and Craig Wong as the conflict between the play to express the central theme, the duo behind it as the ethical forces of the two entities split out the two sets of rules of self-symbol, through the wave Li Naike burial period of confrontation (...) with the two sides is not only a Antigongnie ─ ─ Weng personal conflict with Craig, but also family and country, God, law and human law, obligations and civic responsibilities of genetic conflict between, or Sex between women and men conflict. In the ethical stage, the individual and the unity of ethics has a direct relationship between the entities, and directly by its intrinsic norms of behavior, but to achieve out of the ethical nature of the dialectical development of the end point then, replaced by another type. (shrink)

_An Ethical Modernity?_ offers a new view of Hegel’s doctrine of ethical life (_Sittlichkeit_) in relation to modernity. In this collection of essays, the authors investigate various aspects of this relation and its importance for today’s world.

The central aim of this article is to set out the essential elements of Hegel’s conception of evil. I demonstrate that Hegel understands evil primarily as a moral phenomenon. In particular, he identifies evil as a pernicious subjectivism and hypocrisy that undermines the social and institutional conditions for ethical action. An appropriate understanding of his conception of evil points to the centrality of trust to ethicality (die Sittlichkeit).

This chapter contains sections titled: Religion: A Moral‐Metaphysical Interpretation of ‘Positivity’ Love: Outline of an Ethical Relation Law: Death and Absolute Sittlichkeit References Secondary Sources.

In this paper we present a reconstruction of Hegel's critique of Kant. We try to show the congruence of that critique in both theoretical and practical philosophy. We argue that this congruence is to be found in Hegel's criticism of Kant's hylemorphism in his theoretical and practical philosophy. Hegel is much more sympathetic to Kant's response to the distinction between matter and form in his theoretical philosophy and he credits Kant with ‘discovering’ here that thinking is an activity (...) that always takes place within a greater whole. He, however, argues that the consequences of this are much more significant than Kant suspects and that, most importantly, the model of cognition in which thought (form) confronts something non-thought (matter) is unsustainable. This leads to Hegel's appropriation of Kantian reflective judgements, arguing that the greater whole in which thinking takes place is a socially shared set of meanings, something resembling what Kant calls a sensus communis. From here, it is not far to Hegel's Geist, which eventually gains self-consciousness in Sittlichkeit, a whole of social practices of mutual recognition. In practical philosophy, Hegel argues for the importance of situating oneself within such a whole in order to attain the self-knowledge required for autonomous, or ethically required, action. For this to happen, he claims, it is necessary to recognise the status of Kantian Moralität as a form of Sittlichkeit or social practice. This would justify our practices without an appeal to a ‘fact of reason’ and also allow a wider range of actions that could count as autonomous. (shrink)

Hegel attacks Kantian morality most often without stating an opposing moral theory, tending to subsequently take up discussion of religion or the state. Commentators have variously suggested the logical consequence of Hegel's position is "the dissolution of ethics in sociology" without "room for personal morality of any kind" or that Hegel's argument is against Kantian <i>Moralitat</i>, which allows the private individual to appeal beyond social mores to universal moral standards, with Hegel insisting that concrete values come instead (...) from <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, the social order. If thinking of morality as a purely private matter of the individual's conscience seems too abstract, the Hegelian criticisms should show that moral reflections are vacuous unless they take account of the social world in which they will be realized as concrete actions. From the Hegelian's perspective on morality as seen from the more inclusive context of <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, social action that is also moral will not need to be analyzed in terms of Kant's metaphysical dualisms between reason and inclination, intentions and consequences, or the sensible and the intelligible realms. Whereas Kant thinks moral theory leads directly to religious and metaphysical postulates, Hegel deliberately leads it in another direction. He can be understood historically as going beyond Kant's effort to secularize moral philosophy. Kant begins this process by grounding moral philosophy in reason alone, not in religion. Religious postulates may follow from moral beliefs, says Kant, but morality is not derived from religious premisses. In going from private moral conscience not to religious beliefs but to social, political, and historical considerations (which could include religion seen as a social institution), Hegel extends the process of secularizing moral philosophy." Marcuse and Knox could thus both be right, since Hegel's goal is not to replace Kant's moral philosophy with another, competing moral philosophy, but to accept it, while recognizing its limitations, as a special case of a larger theory of social action. In the Hegelian jargon, from a standpoint recognizing Sittlichkeit, Moralitdt is thus <i>aufgehoben</i>, that is, Kant's formal procedures will be both "negated" (criticized for their limitations) and "preserved" (embedded in a more inclusive philosophy). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical LifeLiz DisleyRobert B. Pippin. Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xi + 308. Paper, $29.99In this work, Pippin offers an interpretation of freedom, rationality, and agency in Hegel’s work and adds substantive content to the key concept of recognition. In doing so, he offers not only a compelling elucidation of a particularly (...) opaque part of Hegel’s analysis of human action and interaction, but also demonstrates the relevance of his practical philosophy to contemporary discussions about free will, intersubjectivity, autonomy, recognition, and liberalism. Pippin provides a substantial defense of Hegel’s position in the context of contemporary political philosophy, arguing against a commonly-held view that Hegelian political philosophy must be much closer to modern communitarian theories than those of classical or modern liberalism. Pippin’s work is central to the recent resurgence of interest in Hegel’s theoretical philosophy by analytical philosophers such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell, as well as the renewed study of recognition in a practical context.Controversially, Pippin claims that Hegel has only one theory of intersubjectivity and recognition from the time of the Jena writings to the Philosophy of Right. The theory develops from an initial stage, where “the desideratum of mutual recognition is posed and explored,” to a realization that ethical life as described in the Philosophy of Right provides the necessary conditions for rational, mutual recognition (184n4). Thus, he rejects the common view in recent Continental Hegel scholarship, asserted by critics including Jürgen Habermas, Michael Theunissen, and Axel Honneth, that Hegel fails to develop adequately the theory of intersubjectivity initially present in his earlier writings and subsumes intersubjectivity into a “grand metaphysical process” of the Absolute Subject’s self-manifestation (184).Pippin defends Hegel from this common charge on the basis of his “very unusual” concept of freedom (185). The key claim here is that Hegel does not set recognition or indeed other-relation as a precondition for any kind of self-relation, but rather, “A true individual [End Page 112] is a free subject and recognition relations function in a complex way as conditions for that possibility” (186). This seems like a promising method of demonstrating that Hegel’s intersubjectivity does not, after all, dissolve in the face of a monological divine conception of reality. The difficulty with the approach, as Pippin concedes, is that it involves making a series of radical, strange, and controversial claims. These claims, in general, focus on the temporal priority of freedom, recognition, and rationality: deeds can count as “mine” in Pippin’s special sense only if they are undertaken rationally, but this state of rationality depends on being in a social state of recognizing and being recognized (190). However, it is neither radical nor strange to make a clear distinction between human interdependence in terms of our particular social psychology and in terms of “an ideal of normative mutuality inherent in any attempt to act” (211).Pippin appreciates that defenders of Hegel’s concept of recognition do not want to say that I cannot be a free subject by myself, but at the same time want to leave the door open for there to be some kind of possibility of ascertaining moral harm in cases of failure to recognize. For Pippin, free actions, and actions committed out of free will, are those committed by agents in a particular social context, namely being situated within norm-governed relations of reciprocal recognition to others. Such an approach fulfills neither of these criteria, since it means I cannot be free by myself but also that, in the case of my being placed in a situation where I am not within these relations of reciprocal recognition to others, there is no obvious originator of moral harm caused by this recognition (218). Pippin accepts that there is no clear answer to this difficulty, but his account of the genesis of norms and social rationality does save Hegel’s account from the objection by Theunissen, Habermas, Honneth et al. mentioned above. Like Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Pippin sees the answer to charges of introducing a... (shrink)

This book is a translation of a classic work of modern social and political thought. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel's last major published work, is an attempt to systematize ethical theory, natural right, the philosophy of law, political theory, and the sociology of the modern state into the framework of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel's work has been interpreted in radically different ways, influencing many political movements from far right to far left, and is widely (...) perceived as central to the communitarian tradition in modern ethical, social, and political thought. This edition includes extensive editorial material informing the reader of the historical background of Hegel's text, and explaining his allusions to Roman law and other sources, making use of lecture materials which have only recently become available. The new translation is literal, readable, and consistent, and will be informative and scholarly enough to serve the needs of students and specialists alike. (shrink)

이 글은 헤겔의 자연법 비판과 법철학 개요에서 전개된 철학적 법학 그리고 인륜적 국가의 기초를 살펴본다. 먼저 헤겔은 전통적인 자연법사상에서 자연 개념의 이의성(二義性), 자연 상태의 허구성, 자연법의 무비판적 도구화 가능성, 계약론적 사고의 폐해 등을 비판한다. 그리고 이에 대한 대안으로이성법으로 이해된 자연법 개념, 자유의지의 현존으로서의 법 개념 그리고 이 개념의 현실화를 전개하는 철학적 법학을 제시한다. 이 철학적 법학의 정점은 철학적으로 사유된 인륜적 국가라 할수 있다. 인륜적 국가는 자기의식의 본질로서의 자유의 현실, 더구나 모든 개별자들이 자신의 특수한 이해들을 자유롭게 충족시킬수 있는 구체적 자유의 현실이다. (...) 여기서 개인들은 항상 공동체적보편의 관점에서 저마다의 이익을 추구한다. 이렇게 한편으로는인륜적 성품으로, 다른 한편으로는 인륜적 제도들로 형성되는 헤겔의 인륜적 국가는 고대적 인륜성과 근대적 주체성이 매개된 자유의 실현 장소라 할 수 있다. (shrink)

G. W. F. Hegel's discussion of the Antigone in the Phenomenology of Spirit has provoked ongoing debate about his views on gender. This essay offers an interpretation of Hegel as condemning social arrangements that take the authoritativeness of identities and obligations to be natural or merely given. Hegel criticizes the ancient Greeks' understanding of both the human law and the divine law; in so doing, he provides resources for a critique of essentialist approaches to sex and gender. On this (...) interpretation, Hegel views the conflict between Antigone and Creon as tragic because the gendered identities and obligations inherent to Greek Sittlichkeit are naturalized and withheld from scrutiny and revision. In the conclusion, I suggest how Hegel's criticisms pose a challenge to certain approaches to religious ethics. (shrink)

This paper attempts in a preliminary way to bring out the ‘pragmatics’ or ‘performativity’ in Hegel’s conception of tragedy and the tragic in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The secondary literature has tended to focus on ethical content (the tragic) at the expense of cultic form and dramaturgical enactment (tragedy); and even with the tragic it has tended to overlook the different linguistic levels in use. I argue that the peculiar term ‘Individualität’ allows Hegel, in chapter VI, to describe a logic (...) of equivocal representation he sees at work in ancient ‘Sittlichkeit’ (ethical life). I argue furthermore that we seriously misrepresent Hegel’s conception of tragedy if we do not include the astonishing claims made of ‘Art-religion’ in chapter VII. Here tragedy takes on a meta-aesthetic color. Hegel sees tragedy as more than an ancient phenomenon, but as a recurring feature in attempts to represent (vorstellen) a speculative truth in sensuous form. (shrink)

For Hegel, personhood is developed primarily through the possession, ownership, and exchange of property. Property is crucial for individuals to experience freedom as persons and for the existence of Sittlichkeit, or ethical life within a community. The free exchange of property serves to develop individual personalities by mediating our intersubjectivity between one another, whereby we share another’s subjective experience of the object by recognizing their will in it and respecting their ownership of it. This free exchange is grounded the (...) abstract right to property which is defined by the liberal institution of private property. Like all legal/juridical rights, the abstract property right and its related institution are productions of the state, which can also claim priority over them. This prioritization reveals the dialectic inherent in the both the conception and exercise of the right, in which the private right to property at the level of civil society confronts the public right of the state, resulting in both the preservation and uplifting of the right, and, at the same time, its cancellation or annihilation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Hegel's complete and mature view of crime and punishment is more robust than many interpretations of the Unrecht passage in the ‘Abstract Right’ section of Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right suggest. First, I explain the value of revisiting the interpretation of Hegel as a simple retributionist in the contemporary debate. Then, I look at Hegel's treatment of crime and punishment in the section on abstract right to show the role (...) of punishment in Hegel's account. Next, I argue that this needs to be situated in Hegel's broader social philosophy and that we can accomplish this by looking at how the Unrecht passage fits in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right’s dialectical structure. I do so by building on the sections on civil society and state in the part of Elements of the Philosophy of Right dealing with ethical life (Sittlichkeit), which include considerations of prevention and rehabilitation. I contend that this analysis reveals an account of punishment as more complicated than simple retribution. (shrink)

In this work, Pippin offers an interpretation of freedom, rationality, and agency in Hegel’s work and adds substantive content to the key concept of recognition. In doing so, he offers not only a compelling elucidation of a particularly opaque part of Hegel’s analysis of human action and interaction, but also demonstrates the relevance of his practical philosophy to contemporary discussions about free will, intersubjectivity, autonomy, recognition, and liberalism. Pippin provides a substantial defense of Hegel’s position in the context of contemporary (...) political philosophy, arguing against a commonly-held view that Hegelian political philosophy must be much closer to modern communitarian theories than those of classical or modern liberalism. Pippin’s work is central to the recent resurgence of interest in Hegel’s theoretical philosophy by analytical philosophers such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell, as well as the renewed study of recognition in a practical context. (shrink)

Does Hegel have anything to contribute to moral philosophy? If moral philosophy presupposes the soundness of what he calls the 'standpoint of morality [Moralität]' (PR §137), then Hegel's contribution is likely to be negative. As is well known, he argues that morality fails to provide us with substantive answers to questions about what is good or morally required and tends to gives us a distorted, subject-centred view of our practical lives; moral concerns are best addressed from the 'standpoint of (...) ethical life [Sittlichkeit]' (ibid.). Hegel's criticism of morality has had a decisive influence in the reception of his thought. By general acknowledgement, while his writings support a broadly neo-Aristotelian ethics of self-actualization, his views on moral philosophy are exhausted by his criticisms of Kant, whom he treats as paradigmatic exponent of the standpoint of morality. My aim in this essay is to correct this received view and show that Hegel offers a positive argument about the nature of moral willing. (shrink)

Hegel’s Social Ethics offers a fresh and accessible interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Drawing on important recent work on the social dimensions of Hegel’s theory of knowledge, Molly Farneth shows how his account of how we know rests on his account of how we ought to live. Farneth argues that Hegel views conflict as an unavoidable part of living together, and that his social ethics involves relationships and social practices that (...) allow people to cope with conflict and sustain hope for reconciliation. Communities create, contest, and transform their norms through these relationships and practices, and Hegel’s model for them are often the interactions and rituals of the members of religious communities. The book’s close readings reveal the ethical implications of Hegel’s discussions of slavery, Greek tragedy, early modern culture wars, and confession and forgiveness. The book also illuminates how contemporary democratic thought and practice can benefit from Hegelian insights. Through its sustained engagement with Hegel’s ideas about conflict and reconciliation, Hegel’s Social Ethics makes an important contribution to debates about how to live well with religious and ethical disagreement. (shrink)

_On Mechanism in Hegel's Social and Political Philosophy_ examines the role of the concept of mechanism in Hegel’s thinking about political and social institutions. It counters as overly simplistic the notion that Hegel has an ‘organic concept of society’. It examines the thought of Hegel’s peers and predecessors who critique modern political intuitions as ‘machine-like’, focusing on J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. From here it examines the early writings of Hegel, in which Hegel makes a break with the (...) Romantic way of thinking about ethical community. Ross argues that in this period, Hegel devises a new way of thinking about the integration of mechanistic and organic features within an organizational whole. This allows Hegel to offer an innovative theory of modern civil society as a component in ethical life. The second half of the book examines how Hegel develops this thought in his later works. It offers an in depth commentary on the chapter on mechanism in the Science of Logic, and it demonstrates the role of these thoughts in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. _On Mechanism in Hegel's Social and Political Philosophy_ offers a critical response to debates over communitarianism by arguing against one of the central figures used by scholars to associate Hegel with communitarian thought, namely the notion that society is organic. In addition, it argues that Hegel political theory is deeply informed by his formal ontology, as developed in the Science of Logic. (shrink)

This paper examines Hegel’s idea of nation and its significance for his theory of the modern state, namely, the role that ‘the national’ plays for his justification of right in the Philosophy of Right. It is argued that Hegel strikes a balance between historicism and a rational justification of state and law. He bases the state on a notion of Sittlichkeit (ethical life) that is both national and subjected to a world historical development toward rationality and universal right. Consequently, (...) ‘nation,’ in the sense of a group of people invoking identity and rights based on a primordial common language, culture, and territory, does not cover what Hegel means by the modern nation state. ‘Ethical life’ is national, but it also constitutes a historically changeable community of values supported by citizens’ conscious participation in communal life (patriotism). Today, Hegel’s idea undermines the legitimacy of nationalistic invocations of primordial ethnic cultures within politics. (shrink)

By focusing on Sittlichkeit, or ethical life, in Hegels mature period, Alan Patten offers an extensive interpretation of Hegelian freedom as self-actualization rather than as the limited fulfillment of social and political roles. Patten admits that there are obvious difficulties in seeing freedom at work in the Sittlichkeit thesis. For instance, Hegel attributes the individuals morality to the duties imposed on him by his social station. Increasing the difficulty in Pattens case for individual freedom, Hegel argues at length (...) in the Philosophy of Right that the ethical norms that guide practical reason consist in the duties and virtues of ethical life of three central institutions: the family, civil society, and the state. (shrink)

Although this conference, held at Oxford on September 6–7, 1993, did not completely fulfil the ambitions of its subtitle, it nonetheless provided a stimulating forum for the presentation and exchange of ideas on various topics arising from Hegel’s Phenomenology. In the first paper, “Rupture, Closure, and Dialectic,” Joseph Flay dealt with the Phenomenology in its role as an introduction or beginning to the system. David Duquette then discussed the master/slave dialectic and the political significance of Hegel’s concept of recognition in (...) the Phenomenology. Following this, Jay Bernstein focussed on Hegel’s treatment of conscience and guilt, and related this to his views of ethical action, arguing that Hegel leaves room for moral autonomy and hence tragic suffering even within his conception of Sittlichkeit. In the fourth paper, “The Presence of Aristotle in Hegel’s Phenomenology,” Nicholas Walker analyzed the relation between Hegel and Aristotle, and the complexities of the latter’s influence on the Phenomenology. H.S. Harris then offered a sketch of his own view of the Phenomenology in “Let’s Not ‘Leave out the Ethical’: A ‘Conscientious’ Response to S.K.”, starting from a discussion of Hegel’s theory of truth and how this shapes the structure of this work. Finally, in “The ‘Unhappy Consciousness’ and Conscious Unhappiness,” Simon Jarvis examined Adorno’s critique of Hegel, and emphasized the continuing importance and value of this critique for any truly living contemporary Hegelianism. (shrink)

Although this conference, held at Oxford on September 6–7, 1993, did not completely fulfil the ambitions of its subtitle, it nonetheless provided a stimulating forum for the presentation and exchange of ideas on various topics arising from Hegel’s Phenomenology. In the first paper, “Rupture, Closure, and Dialectic,” Joseph Flay dealt with the Phenomenology in its role as an introduction or beginning to the system. David Duquette then discussed the master/slave dialectic and the political significance of Hegel’s concept of recognition in (...) the Phenomenology. Following this, Jay Bernstein focussed on Hegel’s treatment of conscience and guilt, and related this to his views of ethical action, arguing that Hegel leaves room for moral autonomy and hence tragic suffering even within his conception of Sittlichkeit. In the fourth paper, “The Presence of Aristotle in Hegel’s Phenomenology,” Nicholas Walker analyzed the relation between Hegel and Aristotle, and the complexities of the latter’s influence on the Phenomenology. H.S. Harris then offered a sketch of his own view of the Phenomenology in “Let’s Not ‘Leave out the Ethical’: A ‘Conscientious’ Response to S.K.”, starting from a discussion of Hegel’s theory of truth and how this shapes the structure of this work. Finally, in “The ‘Unhappy Consciousness’ and Conscious Unhappiness,” Simon Jarvis examined Adorno’s critique of Hegel, and emphasized the continuing importance and value of this critique for any truly living contemporary Hegelianism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI draw connections between Hegel’s concepts of recognition and morality and demonstrate how they are compatible with an ethic of care. I explore Hegel’s Sittlichkeit and demonstrate the rol...

Hegel’s Social Ethics: Religion, Conflict, and Rituals of Reconciliation, by FarnethMolly. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 165.

Mark Alznauers Studie bietet eine ebenso konzise wie originelle Deutung von Hegels praktischer Philosophie. Sie erreicht dies, indem sie Hegels praktische Philosophie unter die überraschende Überschrift einer Theorie der „Verantwortung“ oder „Schuld“ („Theory of Responsibility“) stellt. Das ist zunächst überraschend, da weder Verantwortung noch Schuld zu den tragenden Grundbegriffen der Hegelschen Darstellung zu zählen scheinen. Alznauer will in seiner Studie aber zeigen, dass wir Hegels Behandlung seiner zentralen praktischen Begriffe – wie Wille, Person, Recht, Moralität, Sittlichkeit – nur dann (...) angemessen verstehen können, wenn wir sie im Ausgang vom Problem der Verantwortlichkeit verstehen: Hegel lasse sich in seiner praktischen Philosophie von der Frage leiten, was alles erforderlich ist, damit wir zu Wesen werden können, die für ihr Tun Verantwortung tragen. Die verschiedenen normativen Ordnungen, die Hegel herausarbeitet – das abstrakte Recht, die Moralität, die Sittlichkeit und schließlich die Weltgeschichte – ermöglichen uns auf jeweils unterschiedliche Weise, uns „schuldig“ zu machen: Handelnde zu werden, die durch ihr Tun geistig wirken und für das Getane einstehen können. Verantwortlichkeit ist nach dieser Deutung das große Desiderat der praktischen Philosophie Hegels: „Der Mensch soll schuldig sein, insofern er gut ist, soll er nicht sein, wie ein natürliches Ding gut ist, sondern es soll seine Schuld [...] sein“ (Hegel 1986b, S. 253). Damit dies möglich wird, ist deutlich mehr erforderlich, als es zunächst scheint: Wir müssen geistige Vermögen ausbilden, durch die wir unser Tun als Ausdruck unserer Gründe erfahren können; wir müssen in einer Welt leben, die uns ein Selbstverständnis als freie Wesen ermöglicht; und wir müssen schließlich – dies ist wohl das Überraschendste der von Alznauer reklamierten Erfordernisse – als ein anerkanntes Mitglied eines Staates leben (21). Dass der Mensch Schuld haben kann, ist in diesem Sinne kein triviales Vermögen, sondern „das Siegel der absoluten hohen Bestimmung des Menschen.“ (Hegel 1986a, S. 50). (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

This article endeavors to draw out and explicate some of the normative tensions that animate the imaginary and practice of solidarity. It begins by examining the account of solidarity set forth in the writings of Jürgen Habermas. It then considers Axel Honneth’s recognition-theoretic conception of the solidaristic attitude. While remaining sympathetic to the left-Hegelian intersubjectivism of Habermas’ discourse-ethic, Honneth seeks to redress the “cognitive-centric” limitations of the latter thinker’s conception of solidarity. In this context, particular emphasis is placed on Honneth’s (...) engagement with the idea of Sittlichkeit, or shared form of ethical life, discussed in Hegel’s early “Jena period” work, as well as in his later Elements of the Philosophy of Right. To Honneth, while these writings can contribute significantly to a recognition-theoretic understanding of solidarity, they must be distinguished from the philosophy of consciousness that circumscribes the famous recognition struggle between master and slave in The Phenomenology of Spirit. In conclusion, the paper questions the capacity of Honneth’s approach to criticize ideological forms of solidaristic recognition, offering a qualified defense of Habermas’ contravening perspective. (shrink)

Hegel's central concept of the spirit evolved in these two works. An 87-page interpretation by Harris precedes the translations.

Despite a profound concern for the epistemological, ontological and ethical conditions for being-at-home-in-the-world, G.W.F. Hegel published very little on a particularly serious threat to being-at-home: mental illness and disorder. The chief exception is found in Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830). In this work, Hegel briefly provides an ontology of madness (Verrücktheit), wherein madness consists in the inward collapsing of subjectivity and objectivity into the individual's unconscious and primordial feeling soul. While there has been an increasing number of (...) studies on Hegel's conception of madness, I propose that there is another overlooked way to understand madness in Hegel's system: as social pathology. I argue in this article that Hegel offers a compelling social account of madness in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), which arises at the elevated, self-reflective and community level of spirit. This sociality of madness, as I call it, occurs when spirit is unable to reconcile two contradictory yet equally essential aspects of its reality, resulting in spirit's structural homelessness. I argue that by examining this overlooked sociality of madness, we may read Hegel's political-philosophical project in a new light: on the one hand, the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) presented in the Philosophy of Right (1821) becomes understood as a political therapeutic. On the other hand, if the ethical life fails to live up to the demand of being an adequate spiritual therapeutic, then the traditional reading of the Philosophy of Right as a reconciliatory hermeneutic becomes problematized, opening up new avenues for the proliferation of social pathology. (shrink)

Molly Farneth, Hegel’s Social Ethics: Religion, Conflict, and Rituals of Reconciliation, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2017 Slobodan Golubović.

Hegel's reflections depend on the unique semantic richness of the German term Gleichheit, which has a wider range of application than the English term "equality." While Gleichheit can certainly mean equality or "parity" in the sense of sharing the same set of rights or status as another, it can also mean "to resemble" or "to be like" something in a certain respect. For Hegel, however, resemblance is not merely a relation between shared external properties, but rather two things are (...) said to be "equal" or "alike" to the extent they are united within the same horizon of existential conditions. Consequently, Gleichheit can mean both a kind of parity in respect of some external set of shared properties or rights, or to be alike in respect of some fundamental condition of existence. The originality of Hegel's conception of equality is to explicitly segregate these two senses of Gleichheit, so that he may reject the status of mere parity or "equivalence" of individuals before the law, in favor of a conception of complete ethical "likeness" or similarity between moral agents, in which Self and Other are united within the same ethical horizon. (shrink)

This book presents a reconstruction of the trajectories of freedom in Axel Honneth's recognition theory in the context of the conflict between autonomy and social cohesion. Honneth's re-appropriation of Hegel's notion of Sittlichkeit, or "ethical life," provides a potent descriptive theoretical perspective of social conflicts and an articulated praxis of Hegel's social theory. Amidst the current critical literature posed against the normative aspect of Honneth's critical theory, there is an already implicit solution to the problem of normativity (...) and reification. By articulating the conflict between freedom and normativity as both a pathological problem and a progressive movement in critical theory, the theme of solidarity is further reinforced in the development of Honneth's social philosophy. Through the consolidation of the process of recognition, and the spheres of social interaction where individuals develop, reinforce, and build their identities, it is possible to develop a reverse analysis of a complementary system of social interactions between personal relations, market economy, and democratic spheres to identify deficiencies in societal needs. The book proposes the Reconstructive Normative Simulation (RNS) to consolidate Honneth's social philosophy. Through RNS, it is possible to examine social pathologies by locating deficiencies in normative resources in the three social spheres. By articulating these deficiencies, the possibility of adjusting societal norms becomes historically bound to existing norms, while at the same time receptive to forthcoming identities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition by Robert R. WilliamsLawrence S. StepelevichRobert R. Williams. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. Pp. xviii +433. Cloth, $60.00.The eminent Hegel scholar, Vittorio Hoesle, perceived the major weakness of Hegel’s philosophy in its seeming failure to adequately deal with the issue of interpersonal relations. Hardly a new objection, as Hoesle’s critique has a lineage that reaches at (...) least as far back as Schleiermacher. Against this thesis, Robert Williams had earlier developed a counter-argument which he presented in his work, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (1992). In this foundational work, Williams drew out and clarified Hegel’s concept of recognition from its inchoate source in Fichte; and by so doing defended “Hegel against charges that his thought violates intersubjectivity and difference by reducing the other to the same.”(1) In the present work, the conceptual and textual grounds established by Williams in his first work on the topic allow for a more extensive extrapolation of Hegel’s doctrine, and argues that “The story of recognition is a story about Fichte and Hegel. Fichte introduced the concept but did not make it the basis of either his ethics or his politics. Hegel appropriated and transformed the concept of recognition and regarded it as the fundamental intersubjective structure of ethical life.” (26)After a brief introductory critical survey of some of the more or less misleading contemporary views of both Hegelians and non-Hegelians regarding Hegel’s concept of interpersonal recognition, Williams proceeds to present its historical genesis, of how it emerged from its early and unfocused appearances in the philosophies of Fichte and Schelling. Williams then traces the further development and elaboration of this concept as it gains expression in the course of Hegel’s own ethical theory, not only as it is found in such major works as the Phenomenology of Mind and The Philosophy of Spirit, but also as it appears in his earlier and lesser known Jena Manuscripts of 1805. After this preliminary doctrinal and historical introduction, Williams turns to the most substantial section of his study, that work of Hegel’s in which the concept of recognition would be expected to and does indeed play its most evident ethical role: The Philosophy of Right.Almost every category within The Philosophy of Right is examined not only for the appearance of the concept, but for the defining role which it plays in the construction of that category. Such an examination is necessary for Williams, since “Reciprocal recognition in its various determinate types and instances is the general structure of ethical life and the embodiment of social reason that underlies and supports the concepts of law and state.” (364) Among the categories considered, categories that Williams discusses within the context of contemporary issues and each of which is taken up in a separate chapter of his work, are Family, Crime and Punishment, Poverty, and the State. In every instance considered he argues that an understanding of the defining role of recognition is a necessary prerequisite not only for a clear and correct comprehension [End Page 174] of Hegel’s ethical theory but of all ethical theory. Certainly, after this scholarly tour de force Hegel’s concept of recognition will have to be taken into account in any credible discussion of his ethical theory. In a final chapter Williams turns to some contemporary ethical theorists who have not taken that concept into consideration, or if they have, have either misunderstood or have rejected it. For Williams, such thinkers as Kojeve, Sartre, Deleuze, Derrida and Levinas, in their misunderstanding or rejection of the ethically mediating concept of recognition, have all contributed toward the “disrupted and fragmented cultural situation at the end of the twentieth century.” (412)In sum, Williams’ presentation and support of Hegel’s ethical employment of the concept of intersubjective recognition cannot but encourage theorists to reconsider the subject, and to see in it not only a conceptual tool which can serve to lucidly contextualize Hegel’s ethical theory into the matrix of his total philosophical system, but also as a needed ethical concept able to transcend both... (shrink)

In this significant contribution to Hegel scholarship, Robert Williams develops the most comprehensive account to date of Hegel's concept of recognition. Fichte introduced the concept of recognition as a presupposition of both Rousseau's social contract and Kant's ethics. Williams shows that Hegel appropriated the concept of recognition as the general pattern of his concept of ethical life, breaking with natural law theory yet incorporating the Aristotelian view that rights and virtues are possible only within a certain kind of (...) community. He explores Hegel's intersubjective concept of spirit as the product of affirmative mutual recognition and his conception of recognition as the right to have rights. Examining Hegel's Jena manuscripts, his _Philosophy of Right_, the _Phenomenology of Spirit_, and other works, Williams shows how the concept of recognition shapes and illumines Hegel's understandings of crime and punishment, morality, the family, the state, sovereignty, international relations, and war. A concluding chapter on the reception and reworking of the concept of recognition by contemporary thinkers including Derrida, Levinas, and Deleuze demonstrates Hegel's continuing centrality to the philosophical concerns of our age. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: John Rawls on Hegel Legislating and Testing Moral Rules: Christine Korsgaard vs. Hegel Moralität and Sittlichkeit: Transcendental Argument or Reflective Equilibrium? Conclusion: The Transition from Reason to Spirit References Further Reading.

Among the most influential parts of the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) were his ethics, his theory of the state, and his philosophy of history. The Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts) (1821), the last work published in Hegel's lifetime, is a combined system of moral and political philosophy, or a sociology dominated by the idea of the state. Here Hegel repudiates his earlier assessment of the French Revolution as a "a marvelous sunrise" in the realization (...) of liberty. Rejecting the republican form of government, he espouses an idealized form of a constitutional monarchy, whose ultimate power rests with the sovereign. (shrink)

The problem of poverty and the emergence of a rabble (Pöbel) in modern society does not find any reasonable solution in Hegel's Philosophy of Right (henceforth PR). Some scholars have stressed how unusual this is for Hegel, claiming that it would have been uncharacteristic for him to leave a major, acknowledged problem of his system unsolved: "On no other occasion does Hegel leave a problem at that." The importance of this problem is not limited to the threat it poses (...) to the sphere of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). It also pertains to some central issues in Hegel's philosophy of history and the role he assigns to philosophy and philosophers in the making of history. In the present paper, I have three objectives. First, I will point out some bold, radical claims in Hegel’s discussion of poverty and examine the way he restrains them. Second, in contrast to the common view which holds that Marx ignores Hegel’s discussion of poverty in the PR, I will point to one of Marx’s early works which clearly refers to this discussion and in fact makes an intriguing use of Hegel’s claims by uncovering their radical elements and setting them free. Finally, I will argue that the deep reason for Hegel’s avoidance of social radicalism lies in his philosophy of history. The last point will also serve to explain Hegel’s willingness to leave the problem of poverty unsolved. I will begin however, with a short summary of Hegel’s discussion of poverty. (shrink)

Being and Nothingness argues that in the master–slave dialectic Hegel had a ‘brilliant insight’ contra solipsism, to the effect that each self-consciousness depends on other consciousnesses. Against Hegel, however, Sartre claims that the separation of the for-itself remains an insurmountable ‘scandal’ and that collectivity can at best exist as a ‘de-totalised totality’, never as Subject. In a confrontation with Hegelian Sittlichkeit, Notebooks for an Ethics extends this analysis to the historical modalities of the mutual recognition of freedoms. A (...) ‘concrete ethics’ must be ‘revolutionary socialist’, centrally concerned with ‘the dialectic of the ends and means of revolution’. Finally, Sartre’s analysis of the dialectic of society and the state in the Critique of Dialectical Reason explains why sovereignty can never be the embodiment of an imaginary Subject. Sartre thus ultimately occupies a highly distinctive middle ground between Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Marx’s critique of Hegel. A fulcrum of the argument, focused on Notebooks for an Ethics, consists in a comparison between Sartre and Trotsky’s Their Morals and Ours. (shrink)

To understand Hegel’s concept of Sittlichkeit (ethical life) and the role that love and marriage play in it, we must understand his concept of recognition. It is a mistake, however, to think as some do that mutual recognition between equals is sufficient for Sittlichkeit. Rather, for Hegel, the more significant and powerful the recognizer, the more real the recognized. Ultimately recognition must come from spirit (Geist). Understanding this will allow us to see, despite Hegel, that he can capture, (...) better than other theorists, many of the central concerns of contemporary same-sex marriage proponents and help provide them a philosophical underpinning. (shrink)

Hume and contemporary Humeans contend that moral sentiments form the sole and sufficient basis of moral judgments. This thesis is criticised by appeal to Hume’s theory of justice, which shows that basic principles of justice are required to form and to maintain society, which is indispensable to human life, and that acting according to, or violating, these principles is right, or wrong, regardless of anyone’s sentiments, motives or character. Furthermore, Hume’s theory of justice shows how the principles of justice are (...) artificial without being arbitrary. In this regard, Hume’s theory belongs to the unjustly neglected modern natural law tradition. Some key merits of this strand in Hume’s theory are explicated by linking it to Kant’s constructivist method of identifying and justifying practical principles (à la O’Neill), and by showing how and why Hegel adopted and further developed Kant’s constructivism by re-integrating it with Hume’s central natural law concern with our actual social practices. (Slightly revised English translation by the author of „Von der Konvention zur Sittlichkeit. Humes Begründung einer Rechtsethik aus nach-Kantischer Perspektive“, on which see below.). (shrink)