Hegel the Society

8/3/2019 Hegel the Society

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c. Ethical Life

Hegels analysis of the moral implications of good and conscience leads to the conclusion that aconcrete unity of the objective good with the subjectivity of the will cannot be achieved at the level of

personal morality since all attempts at this are problematic. The concrete identity of the good withthe subjective will occurs only in moving to the level of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), which Hegel says isthe Idea of freedomthe concept of freedom developed into the existing world and the nature ofself-consciousness (

142). Thus, ethical life is permeated with both objectivity and subjectivity:regarded objectively it is the state and its institutions, whose force (unlike abstract right) dependsentirely on the self-consciousness of citizens, on their subjective freedom; regarded subjectively it isthe ethical will of the individual which (unlike the moral will) is aware of objective duties thatexpress ones inner sense of universality. The rationality of the ethical order of society is thusconstituted in the synthesis of the concept of the will, both as universal and as particular, with itsembodiment in institutional life.

The synthesis of ethical life means that individuals not only act in conformity with the ethical good

but that they recognize the authority of ethical laws. This authority is not something alien toindividuals since they are linked to the ethical order through a strong identification which Hegel saysis more like an identity than even the relation of faith or trust ( 147). The knowledge of how thelaws and institutions of society are binding on the will of individuals entails a doctrine of duties. Induty the individual finds liberation both from dependence on mere natural impulse , which may ormay not motivate ethical actions, and from indeterminate subjectivity which cannot produce a clear

view of proper action. In duty the individual acquires his substantive freedom ( 149). In theperformance of duty the individual exhibits virtue when the ethical order is reflected in his or hercharacter, and when this is done by simple conformity with ones duties it is rectitude. Whenindividuals are simply identified with the actual ethical order such that their ethical practices arehabitual and second nature, ethical life appears in their general mode of conduct as custom (Sitten).Thus, the ethical order manifests its right and validity vis--vis individuals. In duty the self-will ofthe individual vanishes together with his private conscience which had claimed independence and

opposed itself to the ethical substance. For when his character is ethical, he recognizes as the end which moves him to act the universal which is itself unmoved but is disclosed in its specificdeterminations as rationality actualized. He knows that his own dignity and the whole stability of hisparticular ends are grounded in this same universal, and it is therein that he actually attains these (152). However, this does not deny the right of subjectivity, i.e., the right of individuals to be satisfiedin their particular pursuits and free activity; but this right is realized only in belonging to an objectiveethical order. The bond of duty will be seen as a restriction on the particular individual only if theself-will of subjective freedom is considered in the abstract, apart from an ethical order (as is the casefor both Abstract Right and Morality). Hence, in this identity of the universal will with the particular

will, right and duty coalesce, and by being in the ethical order a man has rights in so far as he hasduties, and duties in so far as he has rights ( 155).

In the realm of ethical life the logical syllogism of self-determination of the Idea is most clearly

applied. The moments of universality, particularity, and individuality initially are representedrespectively in the institutions of the family, civil society, and the state. The family is ethical mind inits natural or immediate phase and is characterized by love or the feeling of unity in which one is notconscious of oneself as an independent person but only as a member of the family unit to which oneis bound. Civil society, on the other hand, comprises an association of individuals considered as self-subsistent and who have no conscious sense of unity of membership but only pursue self-interest ,e.g., in satisfying needs, acquiring and protecting property, and in joining organizations for mutualadvantage. Finally, the constitution of the political state brings together in a unity the sense of theimportance of the whole or universal good along with the freedom of particularity of individual


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pursuits and thus is the end and actuality of both the substantial order and the public life devotedthereto (

157).

i. The Family

The family is characterized by love which is minds feeling of its own unity, where ones sense ofindividuality is within this unity, not as an independent individual but as a member essentiallyrelated to the other family members. Thus, familial love implies a contradiction between, on the onehand, not wanting to be a self-subsistent and independent person if that means feeling incompleteand, on the other hand, wanting to be recognized in another person. Familial love is truly an ethicalunity, but because it is nonetheless a subjective feeling it is limited in sustaining unity (pars. 158-59 ,and additions).

(A) Marriage

The union of man and woman in marriage is both natural and spiritual, i.e., is a physical relationshipand one that is also self-conscious, and it is entered into on the basis of the free consent of thepersons. Since this consent involves bringing two persons into a union, there is the mutual surrender

of their natural individuality for the sake of union, which is both a self-restriction and also aliberation because in this way individuals attain a higher self-consciousness.

(B) Family Capital

The family as a unit has its external existence in property, specifically capital (Vermgen) whichconstitutes permanent and secured possessions that allow for endurance of the family as person ( 170). This capital is the common property of all the family members, none of whom possess propertyof their own, but it is administered by the head of the family, the husband.

(C) Education of Children & Dissolution of the Family

Children provide the external and objective basis for the unity of marriage. The love of the parentsfor their children is the explicit expression of their love for each other, while their immediate feelingsof love for each other are only subjective. Children have the right to maintenance and education, andin this regard a claim upon the family capital, but parents have the right to provide this service to thechildren and to instill discipline over the wishes of their children. The education of children has atwofold purpose: the positive aim of instilling ethical principles in them in the form of immediatefeeling and the negative one of raising them out of the instinctive physical level. Marriage can bedissolved not by whim but by duly constituted authority when there is total estrangement of husbandand wife. The ethical dissolution of the family results when the children have been educated to befree and responsible persons and they are of mature age under the law. The natural dissolution of thefamily occurs with the death of the parents, the result of which is the passing of inheritance ofproperty to the surviving family members. The disintegration of the family exhibits its immediacyand contingency as an expression of the ethical Idea (pars. 173-80).

ii. Civil Society

With civil society (brgerliche Gesellschaft) we move from the family or the ethical idea still in itsconcept, where consciousness of the whole or totality is focal, to the determination ofparticularity, where the satisfaction of subjective needs and desires is given free reign (pars. 181-182). However, despite the pursuit of private or selfish ends in relatively unrestricted social andeconomic activity, universality is implicit in the differentiation of particular needs insofar as the


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welfare of an individual in society is intrinsically bound up with that of others, since each requiresanother in some way to effectively engage in reciprocal activities like commerce, trade, etc. Becausethis system of interdependence is not self-conscious but exists only in abstraction from the individualpursuit of need satisfaction, here particularity and universality are only externally related. Hegel saysthat this system may be prima facie regarded as the external state, the state based on need, the stateas the Understanding (Verstand) envisages it ( 183). However, civil society is also a realm of

mediation of particular wills through social interaction and a means whereby individuals areeducated (Bildung) through their efforts and struggles toward a higher universal consciousness.

(A) The System of Needs

This dimension of civil society involves the pursuit of need satisfaction. Humans are different fromanimals in their ability to multiply needs and differentiate them in various ways, which leads to theirrefinement and luxury. Political economy discovers the necessary interconnections in the social anduniversalistic side of need. Work is the mode of acquisition and transformation of the means forsatisfying needs as well as a mode of practical education in abilities and understanding. Work alsoreveals the way in which people are dependent upon one another in their self-seeking and how eachindividual contributes to the need satisfaction of all others. Society generates a universal permanentcapital (

199) that everyone in principle can draw upon, but the natural inequalities between

individuals will translate into social inequalities. Furthermore, labor undergoes a division accordingto the complexities of the system of production, which is reflected in social class divisions: theagricultural (substantial or immediate); the business (reflecting or formal); and the civil servants(universal). Membership in a class is important for gaining status and recognition in a civil society.Hegel says that A man actualizes himself only in becoming something definite, i.e., somethingspecifically particularized; this means restricting himself exclusively to one of the particular spheresof need. In this class-system, the ethical frame of mind therefore is rectitude and esprit de corps, i.e.,the disposition to make oneself a member of one of the moments of civil society by ones own act in this way gaining recognition both in ones own eyes and in the eyes of others ( 207).

The substantial agricultural class is based upon family relationships whose capital is in theproducts of nature, such as the land, and tends to be patriarchial, unreflective, and oriented towarddependence rather than free activity. In contrast to this focus on immediacy, the business class isoriented toward work and reflection, e.g., in transforming raw materials for use and exchange, whichis a form of mediation of humans to one another. The main activities of the business class arecraftsmanship, manufacture, and trade. The third class is the class of civil servants, which Hegel callsthe universal class because it has the universal interests of society as its concern. Members of thisclass are relieved from having to labor to support themselves and maintain their livelihood eitherfrom private resources such as inheritance or are paid a salary by the state as members of the

bureaucracy. These individuals tend to be highly educated and must qualify for appointment togovernment positions on the basis of merit.

(B) Administration of Justice

The principle of rightness becomes civil law (Gesetz) when it is posited, and in order to have binding

force it must be given determinate objective existence. To be determinately existent, laws must bemade universally known through a public legal code. Through a rational legal system, privateproperty and personality are given legal recognition and validity in civil society, and wrongdoing now

becomes an infringement, not merely of the subjective right of individuals but also of the largeruniversal will that exists in ethical life. The court of justice is the means whereby right is vindicatedas something universal by addressing particular cases of violation or conflict without mere subjectivefeeling or private bias. Instead of the injured party, the injured universalnow comes on the scene,and this pursuit consequently ceases to be the subjective and contingent retribution of revenge andis transformed into the genuine reconciliation of right with itself, i.e, into punishment ( 220).


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Moreover, court proceedings and legal processes must take place according to rights and rules ofevidence; judicial proceedings as well as the laws themselves must be made public; trial should be by

jury; and punishment should fit the crime. Finally, in the administration of justice, civil societyreturns to its concept, to the unity of the implicit universal with the subjective particular , althoughhere the latter is only that present in single cases and the universality in question is thatofabstractright ( 229).

(C) The Police and the Corporation

The Police (Polizei) for Hegel is understood broadly as the public authorities in civil society. Inaddition to crime fighting organizations, it includes agencies that provide oversight over publicutilities as well as regulation of and, when necessary, intervention into activities related to theproduction, distribution, and sale of goods and services, or with any of the contingencies that canaffect the rights and welfare of individuals and society generally (e.g., defense of the publics right notto be defrauded, and also the management of goods inspection). Also, the public authoritysuperintends education and organizes the relief of poverty. Poverty must be addressed both throughprivate charity and public assistance since in civil society it constitutes a social wrong when povertyresults in the creation of a class of penurious rabble ( 245). Society looks to colonization toincrease its wealth but poverty remains a problem with no apparent solution.

The corporation (Korporation) applies especially to the business class, since this class isconcentrated on the particularities of social existence and the corporation has the function of

bringing implicit similarities between various private interests into explicit existence in forms ofassociation. This is not the same as our contemporary business corporation but rather is a voluntaryassociation of persons based on occupational or various social interests (such as professional andtrade guilds, educational clubs, religious societies, townships, etc.) Because of the integratingfunction of the corporation, especially in regard to the social and economic division of labor, whatappear as selfish purposes in civil society are shown to be at the same time universal through theformation of concretely recognized commonalities. Hegel says that a Corporation has the right,under the surveillance of the public authority, (a) to look after its own interests within its ownsphere, (b) to co-opt members, qualified objectively by requisite skill and rectitude, to a numberfixed by the general structure of society, (c) to protect its members against particular contingencies,(d) to provide the education requisite to fit other to become members. In short, the right is to comeon the scene like a second family for its members ( 252). Furthermore, the family is assuredgreater stability of livelihood insofar as its providers are corporation members who command therespect due to them in their social positions. Unless he is a member of an authorized Corporation(and it is only by being authorized that an association becomes a Corporation), an individual is

without rank or dignity, his isolation reduces his business to mere self-seeking, and his livelihoodand satisfaction become insecure ( 253). Because individual self-seeking is raised to a higher levelof common pursuits, albeit restricted to the interest of a sectional group, individual self-consciousness is raised to relative universality. Hence, As the family was the first, so theCorporation is the second ethical root of the state, the one planted in civil society ( 255).

iii. The State

The political State, as the third moment of Ethical Life, provides a synthesis between the principlesgoverning the Family and those governing Civil Society. The rationality of the state is located in therealization of the universal substantial will in the self-consciousness of particular individualselevated to consciousness of universality. Freedom becomes explicit and objective in this sphere.Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual has objectivity,genuine individuality, and an ethical life and the individuals destiny is the living of a universallife ( 258). Rationality is concrete in the state in so far as its content is comprised in the unity of


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objective freedom (freedom of the universal or substantial will) and subjective freedom (freedom ofeveryone in knowing and willing of particular ends); and in its form rationality is in self-determiningaction or laws and principles which are logical universal thoughts (as in the logical syllogism).

The Idea of the State is itself divided into three moments: (a) the immediate actuality of the state as aself-dependent organism, or Constitutional Law; (b) the relation of states to other states in

International Law; (c) the universal Idea as Mind or Spirit which gives itself actuality in the processof World-History.

1) Constitutional Law

(1) The Constitution (internally)

Only through the political constitution of the State can universality and particularity be weldedtogether into a real unity. The self-consciousness of this unity is expressed in the recognition on thepart of each citizen that the full meaning of ones actual freedom is found in the objective laws andinstitutions provided by the State. The aspect of identity comes to the fore in the recognition thatindividual citizens give to the ethical laws such that they do not live as private persons for their own

ends alone, but in the very act of willing these they will the universal in the light of the universal , andtheir activity is consciously aimed at none but the universal end (

260). The aspect ofdifferentiation, on the other hand, is found in the right of individuals to their particularsatisfaction, the right of subjective freedom which is maintained in Civil Society. Thus , according toHegel, the universal must be furthered, but subjectivity on the other hand must attain its full andliving development. It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can beregarded as articulated and genuinely organized (

260, addition).

As was indicated in the introduction to the concept of Ethical Life above, the higher authority of thelaws and institutions of society requires a doctrine of duties. From the vantage point of the politicalState, this means that there must be a correlation between rights and duties. In the state , assomething ethical, as the inter-penetration of the substantive and the particular, my obligation to

what is substantive is at the same time the embodiment of my particular freedom. This means that in

the state duty and right are united in one and the same relation ( 261). In fulfilling one s duties oneis also satisfying particular interests, and the conviction that this is so Hegel calls politicalsentiment (politische Gesinnung) or patriotism. This sentiment is, in general, trust (which maypass over into a greater or lesser degree of educated insight), or the consciousness that my interest,

both substantive and particular, is contained and preserved in anothers (that is, the states) interestand end, i.e., in the others relation to me as an individual ( 268).

Thus, the bond of duty cannot involve being coerced into obeying the laws of the State.Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together , but in fact itsonly bond is the sense of order which everybody possesses (

268, addition).

According to Hegel, the political state is rational in so far as it inwardly differentiates itself accordingto the nature of the Concept (Begriff). The principle of the division of powers expresses innerdifferentiation, but while these powers are distinguished they must also be built into an organic

whole such that each contains in itself the other moments so that the political constitution is aconcrete unity in difference. Constitutional Law is accordingly divided into three moments: (a) theLegislature which establishes the universal through lawmaking; (b) the Executive which subsumesthe particular under the universal through administering the laws; (c) the Crown which is the powerof subjectivity of the state in the providing of the act of ultimate decision and thus forming intounity the other two powers. Despite the syllogistic sequence of universality, particularity, andindividuality in these three constitutional powers, Hegel discusses the Crown first followed by the


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Executive and the Legislature respectively. Hegel understands the concept of the Crown in terms ofconstitutional monarchy.

(a) The Crown

The power of the crown contains in itself the three moments of the whole , namely, (E)

the universalityof the constitution and the laws; (F) counsel, which refers theparticular to theuniversal; and (K) the moment of ultimate decision, as the self-determination to which everythingelse reverts and from which everything else derives the beginning of its actuality ( 275). The thirdmoment is what gives expression to the sovereignty of the state , i.e., that the various activities,agencies, functions and powers of the state are not self-subsistent but rather have their basisultimately in the unity of the state as a single self or self-organized organic whole. The monarch is the

bearer of the individuality of the state and its sovereignty is the ideality in unity in which theparticular functions and powers of the state subsist. It is only as a person , the monarch, that thepersonality of the state is actual. Personality expresses the concept as such; but the person enshrinesthe actuality of the concept, and only when the concept is determined as a person is it the Idea ortruth (

279).

The monarch is not a despot but rather a constitutional monarch,

and he does not act in a capriciousmanner but is bound by a decision-making process, in particular to the recommendations anddecisions of his cabinet (supreme advisory council). The monarch functions solely to give agency tothe state, and so his personal traits are irrelevant and his ascending to the throne is based onhereditary succession, and thus on the accident of birth. In a completely organized state, it is only aquestion of the culminating point of formal decision he has only to say yes and dot the i . In a

well organized monarchy, the objective aspect belongs to law alone, and the monarchs part is merelyto set to the law the subjective I will ( 280, addition). The majesty of the monarch lies in the freeasserting of I will as an expression of the unity of the state and the final step in establishing law.

(b) The Executive

Hegel the Society

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