Justice and Freedom in Hegel 9781040037218, 9781032423784, 9781032423791, 9781003362531

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Justice and Freedom in Hegel

This volume explores the relationship between justice and freedom in Hegel’s practical philosophy, with a particular focus on the pivotal concept of reciprocal recognition. The contributors analyze the intersubjective relations between individuals and institutions through the lens of Hegel and demonstrate how his account of justice and freedom can be applied to address pressing issues in political philosophy. Despite extensive scrutiny of the concept of justice by political philosophers, Hegel’s unique account has been notably overlooked. What sets Hegel apart is his emphasis on the inseparable link between justice and freedom. Freedom is inextricably tied to an account of just social relations and institutions, while justice itself is intertwined with a robust endorsement of freedom. The chapters comprising this volume examine three crucial dimensions of Hegel’s framework for freedom and justice. First, the contributors address how Hegel’s distinctive integration of freedom and justice sheds new light on the nature of his practical philosophy. Second, they relate Hegel’s theory to other prominent accounts of justice, including Rawlsian forms of Kantian constructivism, Habermas’ neo‑Kantian discourse theory, republican views, neo‑Aristotelian accounts, and critical theory approaches. Finally, the contributors apply Hegel’s reconstructed theory of justice to ongoing debates encompassing criminal justice, distributive justice, global justice, environmental justice, and issues related to racial and gender justice, as well as populism. Justice and Freedom in Hegel will appeal to scholars and advanced students engaged in research on Hegel’s practical philosophy, 19th‑century philosophy, and political philosophy. Paolo Diego Bubbio is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turin and Adjunct Associate Professor at Western Sydney University. He is the author of Sacrifice in the Post‑Kantian Tradition (2014) and God

and the Self in Hegel: Beyond Subjectivism (2017) and the co‑editor of Hegel, Logic and Speculation (2019). Andrew Buchwalter is Presidential Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of North Florida. He is the author of Dialectics, Politics, and the Contemporary Value of Hegel’s Practical Philosophy (2011) and the editor of Hegel and Global Justice (2012), Hegel and Capitalism (2015), and Culture and Democracy (1992).

Routledge Studies in Nineteenth‑Century Philosophy

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy Edited by Luca Corti and Johannes‑Georg Schülein Nietzsche as Metaphysician Justin Remhof Kierkegaard and Bioethics Edited by Johann‑Christian Põder Hegel and the Present of Art’s Past Character Alberto L. Siani Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics Daniele Fulvi Schelling, Hegel, and the Philosophy of Nature From Matter to Spirit Benjamin Berger The Concept of Property in Kant, Fichte, and Hegel Freedom, Right, and Recognition Jacob Blumenfeld Fichte on Free Will and Predestination Kienhow Goh Justice and Freedom in Hegel Edited by Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge‑Studies‑in‑Nineteenth‑Century‑Philosophy/book‑series/SE0508

Justice and Freedom in Hegel

Edited by Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978‑1‑032‑42378‑4 (hbk) ISBN: 978‑1‑032‑42379‑1 (pbk) ISBN: 978‑1‑003‑36253‑1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531 Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

Contents

List of Contributors ix Acknowledgmentsxi List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii Introduction

1

PAOLO DIEGO BUBBIO AND ANDREW BUCHWALTER

  1 Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account

11

ARTO LAITINEN

  2 Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom: How “The Free Will Wills the Free Will”

29

THOM BROOKS

  3 Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism

40

MICHAEL QUANTE

 4 Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel

56

ITALO TESTA

  5 Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity in Hegel’s Theory of Justice

75

DEAN MOYAR

  6 A Legal Concept of Justice JEAN‑FRANÇOIS KERVÉGAN

94

viii  Contents   7 Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations

110

HEIKKI IKÄHEIMO

  8 Reciprocal Recognition and Hegel’s Embedded Conception of Practical Normativity

129

ANDREW BUCHWALTER

 9 Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht: History and the Idea of the World in Hegel

147

ANGELICA NUZZO

10 Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution as an Emblem of Modernity

164

ESPEN HAMMER

11 Hegel’s Externalization of Justice: From the Rabble to True Personhood

181

PAOLO DIEGO BUBBIO

12 Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice

201

KIMBERLY HUTCHINGS

13 Hegel on Justice and Nature

216

ELAINE P. MILLER

Index233

Contributors

Thom Brooks is Professor of Law and Government at Durham ­University, UK. He is the author of Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right (2nd edition 2013) and the co‑­ editor (with Sebastian Stein) of Hegel’s Political Philosophy: On the Normative Significance of Logic and Method (2017). Paolo Diego Bubbio is Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin, Italy, and Adjunct Associate Professor at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the author of God and the Self in He‑ gel: Beyond Subjectivism (2017) and Sacrifice in the Post‑Kantian Tradi‑ tion (2014) and the co‑editor of Hegel, Logic and Speculation (2019). Andrew Buchwalter is Presidential Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of North Florida, USA. He is the author of Dialectics, Politics, and the Contemporary Value of Hegel’s Practical Philosophy (2011) and the edited volumes Hegel and Global Justice (2012), Hegel and Capitalism (2015), and Culture and Democracy: Social and Ethical Issues in Public Support for the Arts and Humanities (1992). Espen Hammer is Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, Philadel‑ phia, USA. He is the author of Adorno’s Modernism: Art, Experience, and Catastrophe (2015) and Philosophy and Temporality from Kant to Critical Theory. He is the editor of German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives (2007). Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, UK. She is the author of Hegel and Feminist Philosophy  (2003) and the co‑editor of  Hegel’s Philosophy and Feminist Thought: Beyond Antigone (2010). Heikki Ikäheimo is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, Australia. His recent publications include the mon‑ ograph Recognition and the Human Life‑form: Beyond Identity and Difference (2022) and the edited collections (with Kristina Lepold and

x  Contributors Titus Stahl) Recognition and Ambivalence (2022) and (with Ludwig Siep and Michael Quante) Handbuch Anerkennung (2021). Jean‑François Kervégan is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Univer‑ sity Paris 1 Panthéon‑Sorbonne and honorary Senior Fellow of the Insti‑ tut Universitaire de France. Last book: Explorations allemandes (2019). Book in English: The Actual and the Rational: Hegel and Objective Spirit (2018). Arto Laitinen is  Professor of Social Philosophy at the University of ­Tampere, Finland. His books include Strong Evaluation without Moral Sources (2008),  Recognition and Social Ontology  (ed. with Heikki Ikäheimo, 2011), Hegel on Action (ed. with Constantine Sandis, 2010), and ­Dimensions of Personhood (ed. with Heikki Ikäheimo, 2007). Elaine P. Miller is Professor of Philosophy at Miami University, USA. She is the author of  Head Cases (2014),  The Vegetative Soul (2002), and a­ rticles in the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Hegel Bulle‑ tin, Idealistic Studies, Environmental Values, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, and Oxford Literary Review, among others. Dean Moyar is Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, USA. He is the author of Hegel’s Value: Justice as the Living Good (2021) and Hegel’s Conscience (2011). He is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Hegel (2022) and The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy (2010) and the co‑editor (with Michael Quante) of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide (2009). Angelica Nuzzo is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College (City University of New York, USA). Among her books are Approaching Hegel’s Logic, Obliquely. Melville, Molière, Beckett (2018); Memory, History, Justice in Hegel (2012); Ideal Em‑ bodiment. Kant’s Theory of Sensibility (2008); and Kant and the Unity of Reason (2005). Michael Quante is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mün‑ ster (Germany). Currently, he is Vice‑Rector for Internationalization, Knowledge Transfer, and Sustainability and Chairman of the Interna‑ tional Marx‑Engels‑Foundation (IMES). He is the author of Pragmatis‑ tic Anthropology (2018), Spirit’s Actuality (2018), and Hegel’s Concept of Action (2004). Italo Testa is Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Univer‑ sity of Parma, Italy. He is the author of La natura del riconoscimento ­ abits: (2010) and Hegel critico e scettico (2002) and the co‑editor of H Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and ­Social Theory (2021).

Acknowledgments

We express our gratitude to Routledge Editor Andrew Weckenmann for his keen interest in and unwavering support for this collection. Special ap‑ preciation goes to Editorial Assistant Rosaleah Stammler for her guidance throughout the entire project. Additionally, we acknowledge the Center for Instructional Research and Technology at the University of North ­Florida for its assistance in preparing the index.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Hegel’s works are cited by page, section, or paragraph (§) number; Hegel’s remarks (Anmerkungen) to his sections are cited by an accompanying ‘R’ (e.g. EL, §140R); Hegel’s additions (Zusätze) with ‘A’ (e.g. EL, §140A). Citations of additions, remarks, and sections are separated with a comma. For example, (EL, §140, R, A) would refer to a citation of the section, its remark, and the addition. Where there are multiple remarks or additions to a single section, a number is placed after ‘R’ or ‘A’ (e.g. EL, §136A2). English Translation of Hegel’s Works If more than one translation is available, the translation used by the author will be indicated in an endnote within the chapter. The Berlin Phenomenology, ed. and trans. Michael J. Petry. Berlin: Springer, 1981. DIFF The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy, trans. H.S. Harris and Walter Cerf. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977. E17 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, and Critical Writings, ed. E. Behler, trans. A.V. Miller, S.A. Taubeneck and D. Behler. New York: Continuum, 1990. Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. EL Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline, Part I: Science of Logic, ed. and trans. Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.   The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting and H.S. Harris. Indianapolis, IN, and Cambridge: Hackett, 1991.

BP

xiv  Acronyms and Abbreviations   Hegel’s Logic: Part One of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1830), trans. William Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.   Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. EPM Philosophy of Mind (Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830)), together with the Zusätze, trans. William Wallace and A.V. Miller, revised with introduction and commentary by Michael J. Inwood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.   Philosophy of Mind (Part Three of The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830)), together with the Zusätze, trans. William Wallace and A.V. Miller, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.   Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. EPN Philosophy of Nature: Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.   Philosophy of Nature: Being Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), 3 vols, trans. Michael J. Petry. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970.   Philosophy of Nature: Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.   Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. ETW Early Theological Writings, trans. Thomas M. Knox. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. FK Faith and Knowledge, trans. Henry S. Harris and Walter Cerf. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988. JPS Hegel and the Human Spirit: A Translation of the Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805–6) with commentary, ed. and trans. Leo Rauch. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983. HW Heidelberg Writings: Journal Publications, trans. and ed. Brady Bowman and Allen Speight. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. LA Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, 2 vols, trans. Thomas M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. LE The Letters, trans. Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler, with commentary by Clark Butler, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. LHP I‑III Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825–6, 3 vols, ed. and trans. Robert F. Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Acronyms and Abbreviations  xv LHP1 I‑III Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983.   Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson. London: Kegan Paul, 1896. LPG Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God, trans. Peter C. Hodgson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. LPR I‑III Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 3 vols, trans. Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson and J. Michael Stewart. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. LPWH Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History, trans. Hugh B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.   Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Volume I: Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822–3, ed. and trans. Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. NAPS Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science: The First Philosophy of Right, trans. J. Michael Stewart and Peter C. Hodgson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.   Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science: The First Philosophy of Right, trans. J. Michael Stewart and Peter C. Hodgson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. NL Natural Law: The Scientific Way of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law, trans. Thomas M. Knox. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975. PC The Critical Journal, Introduction: On the Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and Its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy, in Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post‑Kantian Idealism, edited by George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris, 272–91. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000. The Philosophy of History, trans. John Sibree. New York: PH Dover Publications, 1956. Reprinted: Kitchener: Batoche Books, 2001; Scotts Valley, CA: IAP, 2009. Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, trans. Thomas M. PR Knox, ed. and revised Stephen Houlgate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.   Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood, trans. Hugh B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

xvi  Acronyms and Abbreviations   Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. PS The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans., with introduction and commentary, Michael J. Inwood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.   The Phenomenology of Spirit, ed. and trans. Terry Pinkard and Michael Baur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.   The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. PSS1‑III Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit: Being §§377–482 of Part Three of The Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1830) with Zusätze and Including Two Fragments; A Fragment on the Philosophy of Spirit (1822/5) and ‘The Phenomenology of Spirit (Summer Term, 1825)’, 3 vols, trans. Michael J. Petry. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1978.   Cited by section (§) number unless otherwise stated. PW Political Writings, ed. Laurence Dickey and Hugh B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. SEL System of Ethical Life (1802/3) and First Philosophy of Spirit (Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/4), trans. H.S. Harris and Thomas M. Knox. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1979. SL Science of Logic, ed. and trans. George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.   Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller. Amherst, MA: Humanity Books, 1999. SP On the Relation between Skepticism and Philosophy: Exposition of Its Different Modifications and Comparison of the Latest Form with the Ancient One, trans. H.S. Harris, in Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post‑Kantian Idealism, ed. George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris, 311–62. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000. Complete German Editions of Hegel’s Works GW W

Gesammelte Werke, ed. Hartmut Buchner and Otto Pöggeler. Hamburg: Meiner, 1968‑. Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970.

Acronyms and Abbreviations  xvii German Editions of Hegel’s Works (Not Translated into English) Vorlesungen. Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983ff. VR 1819–20 Philosophie des Rechts: Die Vorlesung von 1819/20 in einer Nachschrift, ed. Dieter Henrich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1983. VR 1821–22 Die Philosophie des Rechts. Vorlesung von 1821/22, ed. Hans‑Georg Hoppe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004. VR‑ILT Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie 1818–1831, ed. Karl‑Heinz Ilting. Stuttgart‑Bad Cannstatt: Frommann‑Holzboog, 1973. HV

Introduction Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter

In the realm of contemporary discussions of justice, Hegel’s philosophy is seldom given the attention it deserves. Contemporary debates on justice encompass a wide range of perspectives, including utilitarianism, liber‑ tarianism, egalitarianism, communitarianism, consequentialism, and femi‑ nism, to name a few. The nature of justice and its requirements have been at the center of contemporary political philosophy ever since John Rawls published his influential work A Theory of Justice in 1971 (see also Rawls 2001). Rawls argued for a notion of justice as fairness, uniting freedom and equality, drawing on Kant’s ideas. This framework, often referred to as “Kantian constructivism,” has since become a dominant paradigm in discussions of justice. Surprisingly, despite Rawls acknowledging Hegel’s significance as both an exponent and a critic of Kantian thought, this rec‑ ognition has remained limited in the extensive literature on justice. Recent scholarly endeavors have reignited interest in the broader topic of justice in a way that extends beyond the confines of Kantian construc‑ tivism (Sen 2009; Dworkin 2013; Gaus 2016). At the same time, schol‑ arship on Hegel’s political philosophy broadly conceived has flourished: various scholars have explored the depths of Hegel’s political thought (Wood 1990; Hardimon 1994; Williams 1997; Neuhouser 2003; Pippin 2008; Ruda 2011; Avineri 2012; James 2017). Within such exploration, however, justice is rarely a central concern. Analyses of the idea of jus‑ tice in Hegel’s thought have been pursued within the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory, notably in the work of Axel Honneth (2010, 2014); but apart from this and some other notable exceptions (­Buchwalter 2012; Hoff 2014; Pinkard 2017), Hegel’s notion of justice has typically received only limited attention. This neglect is puzzling, given that justice (Recht as well as Gerechtigkeit) occupies a central posi‑ tion in his political philosophy and offers a perspective that can signifi‑ cantly enrich current political thought and debates. Of particular interest is Hegel’s interplay between justice and freedom, which is the primary focus of this collection. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-1

2  Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter This book aims to restore justice to the core of Hegel’s philosophy and reintroduce Hegel into the discourse on justice. Its goal is to elucidate and extend his contributions to the understanding of justice, challenging conventional assumptions. The contributors to this volume, by clarifying aspects of Hegel’s account of justice, offer a more diverse view of his con‑ tribution to the issue. They demonstrate that he addresses the topic in a rich and instructive manner and that, therefore, his arguments and insights can significantly enhance contemporary discussions and debates on justice. While exploring themes such as normativity, environmental justice, race and gender theory, and populism, the contributors also consider Hegel’s connections to contemporary theorists involved in discussion of justice, in‑ cluding Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Rainer Forst, Charles W. Mills, and Carole Pateman. It is worth noting that the contributors to this volume bring a variety of approaches to the theme of Hegel and justice. They hold differing views about the meaning of justice and have diverse interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy. Despite these variations, however, the essays collectively share a unifying perspective that aligns with the central thesis that inspired this collection: that elements of a systematic approach to justice, capable of bridging the gap between specific issues and general principles (between theory and practice), can be found in Hegel’s work. Indeed, what makes Hegel’s account unique is that the practical application of justice is integral to the theory of justice itself. Unlike many other philosophers, Hegel does not treat justice in isola‑ tion; rather, he weaves it into the fabric of ethics, politics, and history while construing the idea of right (Recht) as itself identical with justice. This ap‑ proach has sometimes led to the misconception that Hegel is not genuinely concerned with justice. Axel Honneth’s (2014) recent work has corrected this misunderstanding by asserting that it is Hegel’s comprehensive phi‑ losophy of right that fundamentally embodies his theory of justice. When Hegel explores the notion of justice, his primary focus is on the norms that guide individuals in their actions, thereby infusing their very agency. In contrast, injustice arises from forms of coercion, effectively representing a refusal to recognize others as free beings. For Hegel, the norm of justice is freedom. Hegel’s understanding of in‑ dividual freedom distinguishes itself from the conventional interpretations offered by liberal, egalitarian, and republican theorists alike. Unlike these interpretations, Hegel’s notion of individual freedom is not isolated within the realm of personal experience or individual capacity. Instead, freedom is actualized through practices rooted in mutual recognition. Within Hegel’s framework, individual autonomy relies not only on the recognition of oth‑ ers but also on the commitment on the part of the individual to foster and sustain relationships of mutual recognition. Consequently, Hegel’s notion

Introduction  3 of freedom becomes inseparable from a vision of just social relations and equitable social institutions, just as justice itself becomes intertwined with support for notions of freedom. Hegel’s perspective is unique in its em‑ phasis on the intimate connection between justice and freedom. Inasmuch as freedom normatively entails an account of reciprocal recognition, its realization is contingent upon a society committed to just social relations, especially those institutionally supportive of cooperative and intersubjec‑ tive interactions. Appreciation of these points is essential to grasp fully elements of Hegel’s position often overlooked in scholarly discussions. Firstly, his concept of individual freedom extends beyond the constitution of personal identity to encompass the conditions of social justice. Secondly, a just social order is justified not despite but precisely due to its reliance on the knowledge, will, and interactive involvement of affected individuals. The objective of this collection is to revive the centrality of a concep‑ tion of justice as advanced by Hegel. Hegel navigates the balance between moral realism and relativism, grounding justice in intersubjective practices of cooperation. Hence, we suggest that Hegel’s conception of justice has the potential to overcome the shortcomings associated with approaches based on monadic conceptions of the self and to offer an alternative foundation for such discourse. Drawing on Hegel’s rich philosophical resources, this collection strives to reinstate the core notion of justice crucially linked to an intersubjective account of freedom. Our aim thus is twofold: to enhance the integration of freedom into a comprehensive framework that intercon‑ nects a robust theory of justice with the practical application of justice and, by focusing on intersubjective relations between individuals and institu‑ tions, to show that Hegel’s account displays how the concrete enactment of justice stands as a pivotal element of justice itself as well as a fundamental dimension of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). Through these endeavors, we aim to contribute substantively to contemporary discussions on justice. This volume principally delves into three distinct dimensions of Hegel’s unique conjunction of freedom and justice. First, its contributors examine this conjunction with the aim of shedding new and further light on the na‑ ture of Hegel’s political philosophy. They do so by addressing the following questions: How does Hegel’s account of justice overcome the limitations of theories rooted in atomistic or “monadic” individualism? How does Hegel connect his account of freedom to the establishment of a just society? Is Hegel’s apparent emphasis on a juridical interpretation of justice compat‑ ible with moral notions of freedom? Can a normatively robust concept of justice coexist with Hegel’s focus on localized notions of ethical life? Can individual rights be affirmed while also acknowledging the centrality for Hegel of communal membership? How does Hegel’s account of justice relate to other important features of his practical philosophy, notably his theory of recognition? What is the relation between justice and history?

4  Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter The second consideration involves situating Hegel’s theory in the ­context of other influential and currently prevalent theories of justice. How does it compare to Rawlsian forms of Kantian constructivism, which also root justice in rational agreements achieved among affected individuals? How does it compare to Habermas’ neo‑Kantian discourse theory, which simi‑ larly grounds justice in structures of intersubjectively achieved interaction? How might Hegel’s socially grounded theory of justice compare to other accounts of the freedom‑justice connection, such as those by Honneth and Forst? How might Hegel’s position relate to recent republican accounts of freedom as non‑domination? How does it bear on approaches to crime and punishment? Third, the essays within this collection apply Hegel’s reconstructed theory of justice to currently debated fields. They address questions of distribu‑ tive or retributive justice, examining the extent to which Hegel’s theory of justice, characterized by its comprehensive focus, can serve as a foun‑ dation for reevaluating contemporary institutions and relations from the standpoint of their capacity to facilitate intersubjectively based modes of freedom. In terms of global justice, the essays inquire about the capacity of Hegel’s theory of justice to account for the global social consequences of worldwide inequality, social and economic marginalization, and the ac‑ companying rise of political populism. Furthermore, they explore ques‑ tions of environmental justice, investigating Hegel’s perspective of nature as intertwined with the development of self‑consciousness, in its relation‑ ship with the state and in its relevance for the development of ethical life. Finally, they address questions of racial and gender justice: Hegel’s funda‑ mental insight emphasizes the institutional realization of justice rooted in intersubjective freedom; do these insights hold normative implications that transcend the social and historical context in which Hegel developed them? Can they be utilized to address issues related to racial and gender justice, even if that means challenging some of Hegel’s own applications of these ideas, which have been criticized for their perceived neglect of these issues? The essays within this collection not only tackle distinct themes but also engage in a rich discourse with each other. The order according to which they are presented follows a general principle of progression from broader, overarching concepts to more specific concerns. The first contribution is by Arto Laitinen, who argues that important forms of freedom may be analyzable not only in the conventional terms of negative freedom or “freedom from” and positive freedom or “freedom to” but also by introducing the concept of “freedom in.” This distinction reveals a profound contrast: having the freedom to lead a self‑directed life versus experiencing freedom in the process of leading such a life, and pos‑ sessing the freedom to engage with others as moral or legal persons versus truly being free while engaged in these roles. This notion of “freedom in”

Introduction  5 encapsulates two crucial dimensions: one connected to one’s capacity for agency, involving the exercise and enactment of freedom, and another that pertains to relationships, arising from one’s interactions with others and institutions. Laitinen sees the two dimensions of “freedom in” as repre‑ sented especially in a “third” notion of liberty, the republican conception of freedom as non‑domination, a conception that has special affinities with what he terms Hegel’s idea of “social freedom.” Hegel’s conception is dis‑ tinctive, however, both for the way it connects the agential and relational dimensions with the idea of reciprocal recognition and for the emphasis it places, with its notion of ethical life (Sittlichkeit), on how individuals real‑ ize themselves through their engagement in social roles. In his contribution, Thom Brooks also situates Hegel’s conception of freedom in relation to established notions of negative, positive, and re‑ publican freedom. Asserting further that freedom for Hegel is not arbi‑ trary, Brooks aligns with Laitinen, and others in this volume, in connecting Hegel’s view to relations of social recognition. Brooks’ focus is unique, however, for its emphasis on the contextual nature of Hegel’s account. Highlighting the definition of the free will as “the free will which wills the free will,” he claims that freedom for Hegel is best understood not through any of the traditional accounts or even by the idea of social recognition itself but by focusing on the specific circumstances for which freedom has meaning for those to whom it applies. He illustrates the point by consid‑ ering Hegel’s theory of crime and punishment. While not disputing the general characterization of Hegel as a retributivist, Brooks contends that Hegel’s theory is most properly appreciated by referencing the significance crime and punishment hold for a particular time and place. Like Laitinen and Brooks, Michael Quante also examines freedom as espoused by Hegel in the Philosophy of Right. In addition, he follows both in construing Hegel’s notion of freedom—characterized here as the “in‑and‑for‑itself free will”—in terms of relations of reciprocal recogni‑ tion. Quante’s particular focus, however, is on the normativity of Hegel’s conception of recognitive freedom and its bearing on an account of justice. As against the abstract ahistorical view common to the metaphysical tradi‑ tion, Hegel promotes a view of freedom conceived in terms of the social practices specific to an account of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). Central to that view is the idea of a just social order constituted in individuals’ mutual ascription of rights and duties. In his reading, Quante details how Hegel’s position bears on different conceptions of justice: the commutative, re‑ tributive, and distributive. But he aims as well to show how it harmonizes with the broader design of Hegel’s practical philosophy and his philosophi‑ cal system generally. Building on this idea of social grounding, Italo Testa discusses how ­Aristotle’s notion of philia is relevant for Hegel’s understanding of the

6  Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter social prerequisites of justice. This bidirectional perspective highlights both the influence of Aristotle on Hegel’s conception of political dispo‑ sition (Gesinnung) and the potential for Hegelian ideas, particularly the notion of “recognition,” to elucidate the Aristotelian account of philia and its connection to the idea of justice. Moreover, in accentuating connections between Hegel’s notion of recognition and an affective account of disposi‑ tions rooted in Aristotelian philia, Testa advances a view of the relation‑ ship of recognition and justice that he claims is more compelling than one, as with Axel Honneth, keyed to intentional attitudes. Dean Moyar’s contribution marks the culmination of this initial cluster of essays. He emphasizes that the telos of the free will is the system of jus‑ tice itself, underscoring the progression from property rights to a robust social conception of freedom. This perspective aligns with the previous discussions on recognition and social grounding. Moyar’s chapter posits that Hegel’s concept of free will serves as the foundational basis for an expressive theory of action, in which choice holds a notable yet secondary role. Through the development of this system via two more foundational phases of right, it becomes possible to affirm individual rights without ren‑ dering them absolute. The legitimacy of practical inference constitutes the fundamental aspect of the legitimacy of right, and the full institutional framework of justice emerges as the embodiment of expressive legitimacy elevated to the status of a way of life according to a teleological logic that advances towards a robust social understanding of freedom. The second set of essay shifts the focus toward the language of justice within society, the public sphere, the state, and history. Jean‑François Kervégan delves into Hegel’s sparse use of the term “justice” in his philoso‑ phy of law. He underscores that justice primarily emerges within the context of addressing infringements upon the law, thus linking this idea to the topic of the rectification of injustices in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right. The provisional association of justice with retribution serves as a means to distinguish his approach from ­ ervégan to advocate Enlightenment notions of punitive measures, leading K for a moderate form of retributive justice that bestows significant impor‑ tance on institutional methods for rectifying injustices. Heikki Ikäheimo expands on the freedom‑justice connection by examin‑ ing the views of Axel Honneth and Rainer Forst. In an internal dialogue with the previous discussions on social norms, this comparison underscores the multifaceted nature of this connection and the challenge of reconciling individual and collective perspectives. Ikäheimo critically contrasts Hon‑ neth’s and Forst’s perspectives with Hegel’s own conception of “concrete freedom” as the inherent ideal of social life, with the state embodying its Wirklichkeit. Hegel’s concrete freedom is regarded as capable of accommo‑ dating both the human capacity for assessing the justice of the social order,

Introduction  7 which is relevant for Forst, and the practical constraints experienced by individuals and groups in overcoming their particular perspectives, which is a focal point in Honneth’s work. The chapter also initiates a discussion regarding what transforms a theory of an ideal society into a theory of justice—a question which resonates in some subsequent chapters. Andrew Buchwalter continues the journey by engaging with recent criticisms from Jürgen Habermas. This chapter explicates how Hegel, de‑ ploying the concept of reciprocal recognition, affirms general principles of freedom and justice even while advancing an account of normativity rooted in ground‑level forms of social practice. First, the argument centers around how Hegel’s notion of ethical life, grounded in mutual recogni‑ tion, actualizes the normative objectives of Kantian moral and natural law theory. Subsequently, Buchwalter focuses on how recognition theory can effectively address the “deontological” concerns of justice while simulta‑ neously highlighting the importance of “teleological” modes of individual self‑realization. It also underscores how a recognitive perspective fosters consensus on social norms while subjecting this consensus to ongoing scru‑ tiny and reevaluation. Hegel’s concept of the political public sphere (Öffen‑ tlichkeit) is invoked to bolster this framework of embedded normativity. The chapter ends with a focus on Hegel’s account of history: drawing on the resources of recognition theory, it is possible to provide an account of normativity addressed not only to change and transformation but progress as well—and in a way that remains open‑ended, despite and even because of Hegel’s commitment to notions of finality. The exploration of the role of justice in the context of history advances with Angelica Nuzzo’s essay, serving as a fitting conclusion to the second group of essays. Nuzzo’s chapter takes a closer look at the Hegelian as‑ sertion that “world‑history” is the “world’s court of justice.” By dissect‑ ing Schiller’s original concept, the essay brings the idea of the “world” to the forefront. On this basis, Nuzzo posits that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right represents a transformation of metaphysical cosmology into a “­political cosmology,” where the world is, dialectically conceived, its own process of ongoing self‑critique and self‑constitution. Nuzzo’s perspective on world‑history adds a broader dimension to the previous discussions on justice and recognition, framing these notions within a global context. The third set of essays deals with specific aspects of Hegel’s theory of justice and its relevance to contemporary issues. Espen Hammer conducts a comprehensive exploration of Hegel’s intricate evaluation of the French Revolution and its profound impact on modernity. He examines how the French Revolution challenged Enlightenment and liberal ideals, a theme that has a direct connection to previous discussions on the foundations of justice and freedom. The chapter examines both Hegel’s early and later works and contends that the revolution played a particularly crucial

8  Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter role in the context of modernity and in how Germany could n ­ avigate a philosophically sound path toward modernization. The revolution leads to ­terror and thereby questions the Enlightenment principles upon which it was founded. Nevertheless, its advocacy for abstract freedom gives rise to a dialectic of enlightenment, characterized by one‑sided ration‑ alization, a phenomenon that Hegel ties to modernity and endeavors to critique. The theme of revolution is also addressed by Paolo Diego Bubbio in terms of a radical change, which sometimes appears as a necessity for over‑ coming systemic injustice. Bubbio explores Hegel’s distinctive approach to justice, rooted in intersubjective identity. This approach has implica‑ tions that make Hegel’s approach particularly apt for addressing aspects of political life often overlooked by dominant paradigms in political phi‑ losophy, such as Kantian constructivism. Within this context, the chapter explores how Hegel’s theory of justice is exemplified in his conception of property, especially concerning the dynamic of alienation (Entäußerung) and his use of the notion of Vermögen (“resource” but also “capacity”). Bubbio delves into the analysis of the “rabble” (Pöbel) and its implications for confronting systemic injustice, a subject closely connected to previous discussions on the dynamics of justice in society. The chapter argues that Hegel’s analysis can provide valuable insights into addressing the rise of populism that has characterized the last decade. In the concluding remarks, the chapter explores the interplay between individual agency and external resources and contends that actively engaging with historical memories and embracing a transformative process can serve as a crucial catalyst for the changes necessary to overcome systemic injustice and achieve the full realization of freedom in genuine personhood. The last two chapters deal with the application of Hegel’s approach to issues of sexual difference and race and to environmental justice, respec‑ tively. Kimberly Hutchings refocuses our attention to Hegel’s conception of justice as freedom, introducing the often‑neglected dimensions of race and sexual difference within Hegel’s political philosophy. These aspects are sometimes considered peripheral to the core meaning of Hegel’s accounts of justice and freedom. Other interpreters have argued that his treatment of race and sexual difference undermines the value of his view on justice and freedom for a contemporary audience. In contrast, Hutchings argues that focusing on race and sexual difference brings to light the fragility of the temporal and spatial conditions through which Hegel formulated his understanding of justice as freedom in the Philosophy of Right and that examining this fragility helps us comprehend the significant failures of the state as the central expression of justice as freedom since Hegel’s era. It also sheds light on why his work has been a source of inspiration for anti‑colonial, decolonial, and feminist critical thought.

Introduction  9 Elaine P. Miller’s essay concludes the collection by tracing the concept of nature within Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, unveiling an implicit under‑ standing of environmental justice within Hegel’s work. This connects with previous discussions regarding Hegel’s portrayal of justice as a form of life and the nuances of systemic injustice. The implicit Hegelian perspective on environmental justice is delineated by examining it through the lens of Hegel’s essay on natural law. In this early essay, Hegel characterizes the relationship between nature and the state as “tragic” because, while nature is crucial for the continuation of ethical life, it can never be completely integrated into the realm of spirit. Hegel terms this element of natural necessity that resists harmonization with the state as “fate.” The concept of “nature” that endures is retroactively constructed, it is argued, in op‑ position to the state. The broader aim of Miller’s intervention is to suggest that elaboration of Hegel’s notions of justice and actualized freedom also requires access to and support for the clean, safe, and sustainable environ‑ ment on which life depends. These essays weave a rich tapestry of ideas encompassing justice, free‑ dom, recognition, and their social dimensions, providing an in‑depth un‑ derstanding of Hegel’s enduring relevance in contemporary discussions on justice. The authors in this volume offer diverse perspectives; collectively, however, they advance a distinctively Hegelian approach to the question of justice. Many of these scholars employ Hegel’s recognitive logic as a foun‑ dational tool to illuminate critical aspects of justice, reaffirming Hegel’s emphasis on historical nuances and contingencies, elements he regarded as indispensable for genuine philosophical reflection. Furthermore, by es‑ tablishing a framework deeply rooted in intersubjective conceptions, they contribute to the promotion of a paradigm shift. Their combined efforts not only bring new perspectives to contemporary discussions on justice but also expand the horizons of these conversations, showing how the practi‑ cal application of justice is integral to the theory of justice itself. We hope that this collection will contribute significantly to a comprehensive and innovative reconstruction of Hegel’s theory of justice. References Avineri, Shlomo. 2012. Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State. Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press. Buchwalter, Andrew, ed. 2012. Hegel and Global Justice. New York and London: Springer. Dworkin, Ronald. 2013. Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Gaus, Gerald.  2016. The Tyranny of the Ideal: Justice in a Diverse Society. ­Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hardimon, Michael O. 1994. Hegel’s Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconcili‑ ation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

10  Paolo Diego Bubbio and Andrew Buchwalter Hoff, Shannon. 2014. The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice. ­Albany: State University of New York Press. Honneth, Axel. 2010. The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social ­Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Honneth, Axel. 2014. Freedom’s Right. New York: Columbia University Press. James, David, ed. 2017. Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neuhouser, Frederick. 2003. Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory: Actualizing Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pinkard, Terry. 2017. Does History Make Sense? Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pippin, Robert B. 2008. Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999 second revised edition Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ruda, Frank. 2011. Hegel’s Rabble: An Investigation into Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. London: Continuum. Sen, Amartya. 2009. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press. Williams, Robert R. 1997. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wood, Allen W. 1990. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1 Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In A Hegelian Account Arto Laitinen

This paper argues that important forms of freedom may be analyzable not only in terms of “freedom from” and “freedom to” but also in terms of the proposed category of “freedom in.” It is one thing to be free to dance, and another thing to be free in dancing; one thing to be free to lead a self-directed life and another thing to be free in leading a self-directed life; one thing to be free to relate to others as a moral or legal person, a family member, or a citizen, and another thing to be free in being related to others as a moral or legal person, a family member, or a citi‑ zen. Such freedom-in has two important facets: a relational one (constituted in one’s relations to others and institutions), and an agential one (consisting in the exercise, or process of doing something), which come together in such “relational, processual states” as self-realization through social roles. Hegel’s theory of social freedom, embedded in his notion of Sittlichkeit or ethical life, illustrates this structure of freedom, especially its relational vari‑ ant.1 Hegel’s theory of social freedom is a multifaceted one, including not only concrete relations mediated by social roles, but also a layer of “reflective free‑ dom” embedded in his idea of morality and a layer of negative freedom embed‑ ded in his account of abstract right. Arguably, these forms of freedom are also ­relational—they constitute important forms of interpersonal r­ecognition— and so contain an important element of relational “freedom in.”2 Another important notion of freedom which is arguably analyzable in terms of “freedom in” is the republican notion of non‑domination. The other aspect of freedom-in is agential, which in Hegel’s account is located in the realm of Moralität. The analysis here draws from Charles Taylor’s distinction between opportunity and exercise concepts of freedom. Section One of this chapter will provide essential background by a­ nalyzing the two traditional concepts or models of freedom: ­negative freedom and pos‑ itive (especially reflective) freedom, and the aspects of “freedom from” and “freedom to.” Section Two will introduce the n ­ otion of ­freedom‑in, showing that the agential form of freedom‑in is at play in reflective freedom. Section Three turns to the relational aspect of freedom‑in with reference to Hegel’s DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-2

12  Arto Laitinen theory of social freedom, which is arguably a third concept of liberty, going further than negative or reflective freedoms. Further, the relational aspect of freedom‑in will cover also the (sublated) negative and reflective freedoms. Section Four discusses the republican notion of non‑domination, showing how it contains equally the aspects of freedom‑in and freedom‑from, and examines how exactly it is embedded in Hegelian social freedom. Section Five discusses how the two facets of f­reedom‑in come together in agential, relational states such as self‑­realization through social roles. Section Six is a brief conclusion. Freedom From, Freedom To, Negative, Positive After Isaiah Berlin’s classic essay, it was thought that negative freedom is a form of “freedom from” and positive freedom a form of “freedom to.”3 Let us call this interpretation the “straightforward view.” (In naming this positive freedom 1, or reflective freedom, I anticipate the next sections that introduce social freedom as another type of positive freedom) (Table 1.1). Negative freedom, on this (and indeed almost any) reading, focuses on freedom from obstacles. The obstacles include physical ones that prevent one’s action just like a stone can be prevented from rolling down the hill (Hobbes 1651), or a stone wall can prevent crossing a border, or a bouncer can intentionally physically intervene and block someone’s entry to a build‑ ing. If the bouncer decides not to intervene, then one’s negative liberty is not affected (see below for how this can however be a case of domination, on the republican understanding).4 Another important class of obstacles are not physical but are based on institutional statuses; so negative freedom is centrally freedom from sanctioned and coercively upheld regulations (Bentham 1776). Crossing a border can be sanctioned effectively even in the absence of physical obsta‑ cles, and entrance to a building can be sanctioned even in the absence of ­bouncers.5 Any legislation can be seen to involve limitations of freedom in this sense. Positive freedom, on this reading, is analyzed in terms of what one is free to do. Even in the absence of external interventions and sanctions, one Table 1.1  Positive and negative freedom, the straightforward view Freedom from Negative freedom positive freedom 1: (“reflective freedom”)

Interference, physical obstacles, and sanctions

Freedom to

Do what one autonomously or authentically values and wills (Wille)

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  13 may be prevented by psychological features—ranging from addictions and compulsions to akrasia, lack of self‑respect or courage, and other forms of “heteronomy”—from leading a genuinely autonomous, self‑directed, or self‑determined life, so that one lacks self‑control or self‑mastery. So, one main candidate for a free life is that one is free to lead a life autonomously. Kant’s moral theory (1785/1998; 1797/1996) famously emphasized this understanding of individual autonomy: being ruled by one’s practical rea‑ son, unhindered by passion, desire, compulsive motivation. Rousseau’s earlier, collective version (1762/1997) emphasized collective acceptance of a law that everyone is subjected to: only when everyone is subject to a shared law, can we be free from being subjected to the arbitrary will of others. So, in striking contrast to mere negative liberty Kant and Rous‑ seau think that freedom consists in holding certain impulsive or unlawful actions in check. Being subject to one’s own impulses, even in the absence of external coercion, is unfreedom that can be countered by obeying one’s own reason (Kant), and being subject to sanctioned shared law that binds everyone is a form of freedom in striking opposition to Bentham’s view (Rousseau). This is positive freedom because understanding it as a form of freedom instead of unfreedom requires understanding the value of the end that one is enabled to follow and the disvalue of the ends that one is blocked from following. While Kant and Rousseau stress the importance of who sets the law (first‑personally, individually, or collectively), other views of positive lib‑ erty could simply state that the ability to do important, strongly valued, things is central (Taylor 1979a). Another classic view of positive liberty is that especially ends that are related to something like one’s “true self” or authentic self or one’s central capabilities and whose pursuit counts as self‑realization have the privileged position and are central to positive freedom (e.g. T.H. Green 1879, some readings of Hegel and Marx and Rousseau). One more aspect of freedom that is typically related to positive accounts of freedom is the idea of real, effective freedom (see e.g. van Parijs 1995). This sense of freedom is at stake when it is examined whether a person can afford to do the things that they are otherwise permitted to do—it focuses on various external resources (and perhaps abilities and skills) that are needed in realizing one’s aims. Libertarian nightwatchman states would not be in the business of providing anyone such resources despite other‑ wise valuing freedoms. On a closer look, it is however hard to see why this would be related specifically to positive liberty, rather than be about a form of obstacle: lack of resources (and perhaps abilities and skills). The same goes for ad‑ dictions and compulsions that were central foils of Kantian autonomy— logically speaking freedom from addictions and compulsions suggests that

14  Arto Laitinen they are a threat to negative freedom and not merely to positive freedom. The “straightforward view” linking negative freedom and “freedom from” and positive freedom and “freedom to” starts to crumble. This takes us to Gerald MacCallum (1967), who showed that freedom (both negative and positive) typically has both the aspect of “freedom from” and the aspect of “freedom to.”6 There may be some exceptional usages, but indeed it seems that the best characterization of negative and positive freedom appeals to both. The real distinction between Hobbesian or Benthamian or Libertarian conceptions of “negative liberty,” on the one hand, and Kantian, Hegelian, Rousseauian, Taylorian “positive liberty,” on the other hand, can however be done while using the notions of “free‑ dom from” and “freedom to” to analyze both of them. A central conceptual distinction is that between doing whatever one happens to want and doing what one autonomously wills—the distinction between Willkür and Wille (see Kant 1785; Hegel 1821). This gives us two aspects of two concepts of freedom and thus a more complex view (see Table 1.2). The aim of this section has been to introduce this more complex reading where the distinction between “freedom from” and “freedom to” is or‑ thogonal to recognizably different minimal or negative (e.g. Hobbes) and demanding or positive (e.g. Kant) notions of freedom. The most minimal, Hobbesian, notion of freedom is the idea of freedom from interference, to do whatever one wants, “to be free is, more or less, to be left alone to do whatever one chooses” (Lovett 2022, 1.1). By contrast, the more de‑ manding ideas of freedom are to make evaluative distinctions concerning the aims that one is free to do: goals that are authentic or autonomous or represent one’s free will (Wille), in contrast to desires that one does not reflectively endorse (see also Frankfurt 1971). This is a form of positive liberty or what Honneth (2014) calls “reflective freedom.” With these preliminaries, we are now in a position to take a look at the category “freedom in.” The analysis will be done in two steps, first con‑ centrating on the agential aspect and then the social or relational aspect. Table 1.2  Negative and positive freedom, a more complex view Freedom from Negative freedom Positive freedom 1: “reflective freedom”

Freedom to

Interference, physical obstacles, Do whatever one happens and sanctions to want (Willkür) Not only interference, physical Do what one obstacles, and unjustified autonomously or sanctions, but also compulsions, authentically values and inner obstacles, lack of wills (Wille) resources, etc.

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  15 It will turn out that in a complex analysis of notions of freedom all layers of freedom—negative, positive, and “third” conceptions of liberty—will include aspects of freedom from, to, and in. The Agential Aspect of “Freedom In”: Opportunity vs Exercise Charles Taylor (1979a) has stressed the importance of the distinction ­between opportunities and exercise for notions of freedom.7 This idea of exercise and actually leading a free life8 take us from freedom‑from and freedom‑to onto a significant, undertheorized aspect of freedom, which can be called freedom‑in. The freedom to make a self‑governed choice is a matter of having an opportunity, which precedes and cannot logically depend on whether or not one exercises that freedom. By contrast, what Taylor calls the “exercise concept” of freedom suggests that freedom is re‑ alized in one’s leading a self‑governing life (i.e., a free life): the claim is that one is free in living the life of self‑governed choices and acting accordingly. If one has the opportunity to engage in such a life, but chooses not to, one has shied away from freedom. This cannot be explained with the notion of “freedom‑to”: the degree of one’s freedom to pursue a self‑directed life does not depend on whether one chooses to pursue or not. In the debates on negative and positive liberty, Taylor’s distinction between an opportunity concept and exercise concept is sometimes mis‑ leadingly taken to coincide with the distinction between negative and positive liberty.9 Or more precisely, this is misleading if negative liberty is straightforwardly understood as “freedom‑from” and positive liberty as “­freedom‑­to.” This is hardly coherent as opportunities are literally free‑ doms to do something, whereas in the actual exercise, one has gone be‑ yond the freedom‑to‑do (which one had whether one chooses to exercise that freedom or not) into doing. The structure of the exercise concept is, rather, that in the happy cases one is free in doing what one does, one ac‑ tualizes one’s freedom precisely in acting, while in the preceding situation when one is free to do so but has not yet done so, the free activity remains a mere possibility. The difference between claims that “I am free to dance” and “I am free when I dance” is readily understandable. Compare the claim that one is free to realize one’s fundamental purposes in one’s life with the claim one is free in realizing one’s fundamental pur‑ poses in one’s life. The former refers to facts about situations, which are not altered by one’s choices. The latter refers to different ways of living: one is free in living a self‑determined life in pursuit of one’s most cherished goals, but one lacks such “freedom‑in” if one lives a life of social conform‑ ity instead; say, because one lacks the courage or otherwise ends up taking the conformist route. On the other hand, as will be central below, the Hege‑ lian approach emphasizes that such freedom‑in can be actualized through

16  Arto Laitinen Table 1.3  The agential exercise‑concept of “freedom‑in” Freedom from

Freedom to

Freedom in

Negative

Interference (domination)

—

Positive 1: reflexive

Not only interference (domination) but also compulsions, inner obstacles, etc. (opportunity)

Do whatever one happens to want (Willkür) Do what one autonomically or authentically values and wills (Wille)

Doing so; self‑realization; and leading a free life (exercise)

social roles,10 so the point is not the rebellion against social ­expectations— rather the point is the conceptual structure of freedom being realized and actualized in some stretches of life. The opportunity concept focuses only on features of antecedent situations, what one is free to do, whereas the exercise concept of freedom‑in focuses on the actualization. Acting au‑ tonomously or realizing one’s true self is an actualization of freedom. To be free is not merely to have an opportunity (to so act or realize) or “freedom to”; one is free in actual exercise. Some theorists challenge the distinction between opportunity and ­exercise and point out that the absence of all factors that could prevent the action x is, quite simply, equivalent to the realization of x.11 But without extra premises that is not so: one may enjoy the absence of obstacles to do either x or y, and one may have as such sufficient motivation to do either but choose to do only one of these. Exercise quite understandably goes further than opportunity. This understanding of the exercise concept of freedom can be captured in Table 1.3. The Relational Aspect of “Freedom In”: Hegel’s Social Freedom as a Third Concept of Liberty The preceding analysis of agential forms of freedom‑in remained in the confines of negative vs reflective notions of liberty. The Hegelian notion of social freedom, as developed especially in the Philosophy of Right (1821),12 presents a third concept of liberty in addition to the negative and reflective notions of liberty. On the traditional distinction between negative and pos‑ itive liberty, the reflective and social layers of freedom are best classified as forms of positive liberty. This is insightfully articulated in Neuhouser (2000) and Honneth (2014). This section argues that such social freedom brings to fore the relational aspect of “freedom in.” The Hegelian idea of freedom, especially “social freedom” related to ­Sittlichkeit, is a matter of standing in relation to others, of being recognized

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  17 by others or occupying a societal role.13 The logical form of all freedom for Hegel is that of “being (with) oneself in another”—this is especially visible in social freedom but holds also of one’s relations to the natural world or the universe as a whole and to one’s inner world.14 In this essay, the focus is on the social world. One can approach the idea of “being (by) oneself in another” with a simple observation. There are two ways in which one can be free from in‑ terference and domination: either in the absence of others or in relation to others. Only in the latter mode does one enjoy a standing or status (say, that of a free citizen, instead of a slave). Of course, it is only in that mode that one needs such a standing or status, either, as regulating relations to those others. Empirically speaking, there is no choice here: we co‑exist simply as a matter of fact, like it or not. But an evaluative follow‑up question can be raised: should we like it or not? Are the others mostly obstacles, hindrances, and disablers, or does their presence also enable, facilitate, and constitute something valuable? As there are many good things that human co‑existence enables (from emotional interaction to joint political action and participation in histori‑ cally evolved practices), such co‑existence can be preferred or regarded as a blessing, for many reasons. Importantly, such co‑existence is to be pre‑ ferred even after the developmental or genetic phase of childhood where interaction may be necessary for the development of the central capacities to enjoy freedom.15 The crucial question here is whether co‑existence is to be preferred because it (when structured correctly) entails the realization of freedom? Hegel clearly thinks so. Rational forms of co‑existence realize something that is not possible in their absence. Freedom is constituted in relations of recognition: being free is a standing, just like being a slave is a standing. Societal and institutional structures actualize or embody freedom and are of higher importance in themselves over and above “facilitating” other valuable things. Free co‑existence, affirmed by each other in relations of recognition, may facilitate other important things—for example, ­Amartya Sen (1999) argues that poverty and world hunger can be eradicated by guaranteed freedom, even though there is no conceptual connection. For Hegel, erecting the system of such free co‑existence is itself the goal, even the purpose of history. And even if one does not think that history has a goal or purpose, one can judge that, given the high value of free co‑­ existence, people should take it as their highest goal. And even if not the sole highest goal, at least a very valuable goal. On this view, freedom in relation to others is a higher, truer, form of freedom qua freedom than any freedom in the absence of relations (which is impossible anyway). For Hegel, freedom partly consists in standing in the freedom‑friendly relations to others. This view can be expressed by stating that an aspect of “freedom‑in” is missing when one does not stand

18  Arto Laitinen in freedom‑constituting relations of recognition to other individuals and institutions. There are arguments trying to show that lacking the freedom‑friendly ­social roles amounts to pathologies or mis‑developments, such as indetermi‑ nacy (e.g. of responsibilities: who should do what?), anomie, role‑lessness or “uselessness” (Honneth 2014, see also Neuhouser 2022). Naturally, also freedom‑unfriendly forms of social relations such as slavery or domi‑ nation are inconsistent with social freedom. The social roles enable valua‑ ble forms of existence, such as the possibility to contribute to the common good and to fulfil important role‑obligations that may be central to one’s sense of identity and belonging. On the Hegelian analysis they are also im‑ portant in constituting one’s social freedom, which consists in having the recognized standing or status as free (Table 1.4). If this is correct, then one aspect of “freedom in” consists in having the status or standing of being recognized by others, being related to others. This is fundamentally different from the agential aspect of “freedom in,” but the two aspects also come together fruitfully (see below). The third part of the Philosophy or Right, focusing on Sittlichkeit, pro‑ vides the analysis of family, civil society, and state. These contexts provide individuals mutually supportive roles via which one can lead one’s life. Arguably, however, also the first two parts of the book contain contexts in which one can be recognized to be free. Thus, to complicate things, ­Hegel’s social freedom in the context of concrete social roles is one layer of a complex three‑layered account of freedom, the other two layers consist‑ ing of negative and reflective freedom. They all share the general structure of “being (by) oneself in another” but are otherwise very different. Hegel’s full account of social freedom contains the three notions of liberty in a structured whole: each of these three has its own sphere of validity, with pathologies or mis‑developments resulting when any of them is applied outside its context of validity (see Honneth 2014). In this way, Hegel’s account on the whole synthesizes two modern indi‑ vidualist notions with one deriving more from the communal ethics of the Table 1.4  Social freedom as “freedom in” Freedom from

Freedom to

Positive Indeterminacy (e.g. of Fulfil important role‑obligations freedom responsibilities: who and contribute 2: social should do what?), freedom anomie, role‑lessness, to shared good “uselessness,” and from freedom‑unfriendly roles (e.g. slavery, status domination)

Freedom in Having the standing or status; [+ in acting accordingly; self‑realization through role‑obligations (family, civil society, state). See §5 below]

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  19 ancients: among the most important ideals that are definitive of the m ­ odern era are the negative personal freedom from interference to do what one likes (related to the capacity to choose, Willkür), the moral autonomy to define what is good and right and act accordingly (related to will, Wille). By contrast, the “social freedom” secured via social roles that (objectively) enable personal and moral freedom and constitute or actualize a relational or social aspect of freedom is a version of the ancient ideal of communal ethical life, with a modern twist. “Social freedom” complements negative liberty and positive self‑determination or self‑rule and is in that sense a “third concept of liberty.” One complication is that in the Hegelian scheme, even negative lib‑ erty is a form of being recognized. So, is that then a form of relational or social “freedom‑in” as well? Here one could go either way. On the one hand, one way of realizing negative liberty is the absence of oth‑ ers who would interfere or dominate. The status aspect of being recog‑ nized as a person who is entitled to a sphere of negative liberty is not a constitutive aspect of all forms of negative liberty. However, when the negative liberty is backed up by sanctions, laws, and institutions (e.g. of civil society), it becomes an important modern form of freedom‑in; per‑ haps this form can be called “relational, institutional negative liberty.” (Table 1.5) Table 1.5  Social freedom as “freedom in” Freedom from

Freedom to

Freedom in

Negative

Interference (domination)

Positive 1: reflexive

Not only interference (domination) but also compulsions, inner obstacles, etc.

Do whatever one happens to wants (Willkür) Do what one autonomically or authentically values and wills (Wille)

Positive 2: social

…and also from indeterminacy (e.g. of responsibilities: who should do what?), anomie, role‑lessness, “uselessness” and from freedom‑ unfriendly roles (e.g. slavery, status domination)

(Relations of recognition as a rights‑bearer) Doing so; self‑realization; leading a free life (exercise); and relations of recognition as a moral subject (relational) Having the standing; [+ in doing so; self‑realization through role‑obligations (family, civil society, state).]

Fulfil important role‑obligations and contribute to shared good

20  Arto Laitinen The Republican Ideal of Non‑Domination as a Third Concept of Liberty We have so far seen that freedom‑in comes in two important forms, agen‑ tial and relational, and that Hegelian social philosophy articulates the especially latter. This section has two aims: to first show how also repub‑ lican freedom as non‑domination contains the aspect of “freedom in” and then to suggest how it relates to Hegelian social freedom in all of its three ­layers—negative, reflective, and social. Pettit (1997, 2002) and Skinner (1998, 2002) argue for a republican conception of freedom as non‑domination, as opposed to non‑limitation or non‑interference, which to them are not adequate conceptualizations of freedom. On this view, it is not interference or limitation per se that mat‑ ters, but rather the fact that the dominating party is in a position of power, to interfere arbitrary. However, it is still meant as a negative understanding of freedom (see, for example, Pettit 2002).16 For the republican tradition, the central contrast case for freedom is that of slavery.17 Imagine a group of slaves with a generally well‑meaning master. While the latter has an institutionally‑protected right to treat his slaves more or less as he pleases (he might start whipping them just for the heck of it, say), let us suppose that this master in particular leaves his slaves for the most part alone. Now to the extent that he does not in fact interfere with his slaves on a day‑to‑day basis, we are committed to saying—on the non‑interference view of liberty—that they enjoy some measure of freedom. Some find this conclusion deeply counterintuitive: if there is anything to the idea of political liberty, one might think, surely it cannot be found in the condition of slavery! (Lovett 2022, §1.3) That the position of domination matters over and above interference can also be seen when we consider that the slaves may avoid interference be‑ cause they have internalized the master’s wishes and learnt not to make the master angry. They may pay lip service and behave in a servile way in order to avoid harsher consequences. Having to behave in a servile way certainly diminishes one’s freedom. The main constituent of non‑freedom is being in a subordinate position where someone else has the arbitrary power to inter‑ fere in a position of being dominated by someone. And accordingly, it de‑ fines “freedom as a sort of structural independence—as the condition of not being subject to the arbitrary or uncontrolled power of a master” (ibid.). This republican ideal of non‑domination has been put forward as a third concept of liberty (see Skinner, Pettit). Pettit has argued that it is ultimately a negative concept; here articulated by Lovett 2022

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  21 Notice that the republican view of freedom is, at least in the broad sense, a negative conception of political liberty. One need not do or become anything in particular to enjoy political liberty in the republican sense; one need not exercise self‑mastery, on any view of what that en‑ tails, nor succeed in acting on one’s second‑order desires (Skinner 1984, 1991, 2002; […]). Republican freedom merely requires the absence of something, namely, the absence of any structural dependence on arbi‑ trary power or domination (ibid; italics added). While this characterization gets it right that non‑domination is freedom from domination and that it is not a matter of freedom in doing or ex‑ ercising, it can be argued that it requires the presence of something: the positive, recognized standing as a free citizen or free person, protected by institutional sanctions. In the words of Philip Pettit, contrasting the causal effect of institutions with its constitutive role in non‑domination to enjoy such non‑domination, after all, is just to be in a position where no one can interfere arbitrarily in your affairs and you are in that posi‑ tion from the moment that the institutions are in place. (Pettit 1997, 107; italics added) Thus, far from being a mere absence, republican freedom is a positive state one may be in. This suggests that this is another central aspect of “freedom in”: a relational, social aspect that goes beyond acting, doing, or exercising one’s capacities. It is the Hegelian conception of relational social freedom that captures this nature of freedom the best. Arguably, we do not understand the nature of republican freedom, unless we see it as involving the aspect of freedom‑in. Thus, another theory of freedom that centrally involves the idea of “freedom‑in” is the republican understanding of ­freedom (Table 1.6). How exactly does the idea of non‑domination fit Hegel’s social ­ hilosophy?18 The most famous passage where Hegel analyzes domination p is in the Phenomenology of Spirit,19 where mastery and slavery or bondage is discussed in the context of struggles for recognition. It turns out that sat‑ isfactory forms of recognition can take place only in the absence of domi‑ nation. That analysis proceeds on a very abstract level of a consciousness Table 1.6  Republican freedom and the relational aspect of freedom‑in

Republican freedom

Freedom from

Freedom to

Freedom in

Domination

Do whatever one happens to want (Willkür)

The recognized standing as a free and equal person, non‑slave (relational freedom)

22  Arto Laitinen facing an external world and itself as a living self‑conscious experiencer of the world, and the external world turning out to also contain the same conceptual structure of a living self‑conscious experiencer of the world. The analyses in the Philosophy of Right presuppose the ultimate o ­ utcome ­ etween of the dialectic of mastery and bondage—mutual recognition b self‑consciousnesses. Thus, the Philosophy of Right presupposes that ques‑ tions of domination have been settled. It provides a social theory for such self‑conscious subjects that regard each other as equal and free self‑­conscious subjects. The social theory proceeds in terms of five importantly different relations of recognition: in Abstract Right, the parties recognize each other as rights‑bearing persons, respecting each others’ negative ­liberties.20 To be an equal rights‑bearing subject whose negative liberties are to be respected is to enjoy the position of non‑domination. In ­Moralität, the parties rec‑ ognize each other as self‑determining moral agents.21 The servile lack of self‑respect that the position of the subordinate, dominated party is likely to come with is in direct conflict with the self‑relations and relations of rec‑ ognition between free and equal moral subjects. Hegel’s brief notes about the antinomy of slavery in the Philosophy of Right suggest that one con‑ stitutive aspect of freedom is taking oneself to be free–such self‑relation is hard to sustain in the absence of recognition from others as free.22 These two forms of recognition, in Abstract Right and Morality, are analyzable in abstraction from the social and institutional setting, but they have the ideal of non‑domination built into their very structure. Hegel understood well that such relations need institutional, sanctioned backing, so he held that while conceptually analyzable in abstraction from Sittlichkeit, in reality they presuppose and are grounded in existing social and institutional reality. Sittlichkeit then comes with three further impor‑ tant concrete forms of recognition in positive social roles, in family, civil society, and the state. They each contain not only horizontal forms of rec‑ ognition between the role‑holders but also vertical forms of institutional recognition—family members are in vertical relations of recognition to the family, the different roles in civil society are in vertical relations to the ­legal system regulating the market and to the mediating institutions such as corporations, and citizens are in vertical relations of recognition with the state. The vertical relations have a downward aspect, for example, where the state recognizes someone as a citizen, and an upward aspect, for exam‑ ple, when the citizen recognizes the state as legitimate. Taken together, the institutionally sanctioned rational relations of recog‑ nition guarantee a very robust standing of non‑domination. Societal rela‑ tions could be robust even when they are not rational but contain forms of domination, but the reconstruction in Philosophy of Right concerns a rational variant which presupposes that domination is not acceptable. Ar‑ guably, more democratic versions of the republican ideal than Hegel’s are

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  23 possible, and on contemporary lights, they are likely to be more r­ ational and favored over Hegel’s non‑democratic version, but Hegel’s social philosophy contains a very convincing analysis of the standing on non‑­ domination as an institutionally guaranteed, relational form of freedom, where freedom partly consists in standing in those relations: it is a form of freedom‑in. Self‑realization through Roles: How Agential and Relational Aspects Meet To conclude this essay, it is good to discuss how the agential and relational as‑ pects of “freedom in” are related. Conceptually, they seem like separate ide‑ als, and there can be passive aspects of relational freedom and non‑­relational activities, but importantly they come together in states that are both relational and agential or processual. The Hegelian ideal of self‑­realization though so‑ cial roles, analyzed by Hardimon (1994), illustrates this nicely. When one is engaged in some activity, when one is Phi‑ing, this is a state of activity or an active state. One is dancing, or swimming the Canal, or leading a life.23 The relational aspect of freedom‑in concerns social states that can be pas‑ sive: being recognized as a citizen or being loved, for example. In having a standing, one is not merely an agent but a “relational self—equally an agent and a patient, a contributor and a recipient. The passive, patient‑like role can be had even in the absence of any activity (say, one is granted the role of a citizen and an institutional rights‑bearer at birth), and it is this aspect that is in clearest contrast to the previous “agential” aspect of freedom‑in. Thus, in some sense, one can enjoy not only opportunities (freedom to) but the actual state of being free (freedom “in”) while doing nothing. A balanced view of having a social role will stress the active and passive aspects equally: roles typically come not only with rights but also with tasks and obligations. Having the social role defines not only one’s “being” but also one’s “doings.” Hegel endorses also the exercise aspect of freedom. Hegelian freedom concerns one’s actual ways of being and doing, rather than merely the capa‑ bility to do and be. Realizing the aims of one’s roles (family member, partic‑ ipant in civil society, and member of state) is at the same time the activity of self‑realization. It is a form of freedom‑in in two ways, not mere ­freedom‑to. One is free in realizing one’s purposes. The self‑realization thereby freely and actively brought about and being oneself in relations to others are inti‑ mately related and of central value in Hegel’s social philosophy. Thus, while in principle the agential and relational aspects can come apart, they can also come together in the most important forms of social freedom.

24  Arto Laitinen Conclusion This paper has argued that there is more to freedom than “freedom from” or “freedom to”. There are two forms of “freedom‑in”: A’s agential freedom in acting and the relational freedom of “A being free in relation to B.” The former is the case, for example, when we say that A is not merely free to dance but is free in dancing. The latter is the case when we say that A enjoys freedom in relation to other agents and social institutions: for example, a free and equal citizen and not a slave. Both these forms of “freedom‑in” are arguably conjoined in forms of acting in an institutional role. As a final observation, we can note that the former arguably also fits the more aesthetic and playful notions of freedom of Schiller: one is free in playful and artistic processes of self‑realization.24 Notes 1 This paper relies on the vast scholarship that has analyzed Hegel’s notion of freedom with the help of the notion of recognition. For the threefold analysis of freedom, see Neuhouser (2000; Honneth 2014). See also Anderson & Honneth (2005), Baynes (2002), Brandom (2007), Bohman (2010), Ikäheimo (2022), Patten (1999), Pippin (2008), Siep (2014), Williams (1992), Wood (1990, 2010), and Yeomans (2012). 2 I use “freedom in” and freedom‑in interchangeably; both are admittedly clumsy expressions. 3 The classic source is Berlin (1959) and the essays in Berlin (1969). 4 See Pettit (2001) and section 4 below. 5 See Searle (2010) on the distinction between stone walls and sanctioned bor‑ ders which require “status functions” to work. Lagerspetz (1998) discusses (in Finnish) seven conceptions of freedom in an illuminating way. 6 MacCullum (1967). 7 Taylor (1979a). This idea of actualization of freedom is of course central for Hegel. Cf. Wood (1990), who argues that self‑realization is central for Hegel. See also Ian Carter (2022, §7). 8 Indeed, perhaps the value of freedom is best seen in the value of “leading a free life,” where freedom is a necessary aspect of a valuable whole, one which would be of less value in an un‑free variant. Other important aspects include the subjective experiential quality, and objective success and worthwhileness of a person’s specific goals, which each partly explain the value of the good life as well–but a free, good life is importantly more valuable, unless freedom turns out to be mere bogus value (for discussion, see Raz 1986, Laitinen 2023). 9 For example, Carter (2022, §7), refers to “this defence of the positive‑­negative distinction as coinciding with the distinction between exercise‑ and opportunity‑­ concepts of freedom.” 10 See Hardimon (1994). 11 Nelson (2005) and Carter (2022, §7). 12 The Philosophy of Right is cited according to the 1991 Nisbet translation. 13 Hegel (1821/1991), Honneth (2014), Neuhouser (2000) and Pippin (2008). 14 See e.g. Ikäheimo (2022) and Pippin (2008). 15 Taylor (1979b).

Freedom From, Freedom To, and Freedom In: A Hegelian Account  25 16 Arguably the republican ideal of non‑domination, discussed by Q. Skinner (2002) and P. Pettit (2001, 2002) turn out to have an aspect of “freedom‑in” (and is not fully explicable as “freedom from”). For discussion, see Laitinen (2015), Allen (2006), Bohman (2005), Thompson (2013), Buchwalter (1993), Schupper (2008), Markell (2008), Schemmel (2021) and Krause (2013). 17 See also Constant (1819/1988). 18 Hegel’s republicanism is convincingly defended by Markku Mäki (2013). 19 I employ the 1977 Miller translation of the Phenomenology. 20 See Laitinen (2017) and Quante 1997. 21 See Laitinen and Sandis (2010), Quante (2004), Knowles (2002). 22 See e.g. Alznauer (2015), Siep (2014), Honneth (1992), and Ikäheimo (2022). 23 It is an interesting follow‑up question what to think of past achievements in this respect. If one is free in acting, is one also free in having acted: does retire‑ ment mean that the degree of one’s agential freedom decreases? Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right §151Z thinks the latter: ”man is active only in so far as he has not attained his end and wills to develop his potentialities and vindicate himself in struggling to attain it. When this has been fully achieved, activity and vitality are at an end, and the result–loss of interest in life–is mental or physical death.” 24 Sabona Roehr (2003) distinguishes three conceptions of freedom in Schiller, the third one is the “aesthetic state” in which a person does one’s duty effortlessly and gracefully as if out of instinct, and so‑called material and formal drives are united with the help of play drive. That conception of freedom seems relevantly to have the grammar of “freedom‑in.”

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28  Arto Laitinen Taylor, Charles. 1979b. “Atomism.” In Powers, Possessions and Freedom: Essays in Honour of C. B. Macpherson, edited by Alkis Kontos, 39–61. Toronto: Uni‑ versity of Toronto Press. Thompson, Michael J. 2013. “Reconstructing Republican Freedom: A Critique of the Neo‑republican Concept of Freedom as Non‑domination.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 39, no. 3: 277–98. van Parijs, Philippe. 1995. Real Freedom for All: What (if Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Robert R. 1992. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London: University of California Press. Wood, Allen W. 1990. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, Allen W. 2010. “Hegel on Responsibility for Actions and Consequences.” In Hegel on Action, edited by Arto. Laitinen and Constantine Sandis, 119–36. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Yeomans, Christopher. 2012. Freedom and Reflection: Hegel and the Logic of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2 Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom How “The Free Will Wills the Free Will” Thom Brooks Introduction One of the most famous, and elusive, passages in G. W. F. Hegel’s ­Philosophy of Right is his claim that “the Idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the free will” (PR, §27).1 This claim that freedom is about a free will that wills itself defends a view of freedom that is distinc‑ tive from alternative theories. Whereas other varieties view themselves in terms of whether an individual is inhibited or dominated by another or what an individual can achieve, Hegel’s conception of freedom is focused on how we are free. This forces us to reflect on the foundations of our freedom and how this might shape our free pursuits. This chapter has three main parts. The first considers the varieties of freedom, including negative freedom, positive freedom and republican freedom. The second part explores Hegel’s contribution and its relation to these key varieties. In the third part, this chapter explores how Hegel understands crime and freedom in order to illustrate the novelty of his views. It will be argued that accounts that claim Hegel’s theory of freedom are merely social or a form of social recognition neglects the contextual nature of his thought. Where we stand in relation to others matters and it can differ from one setting to another. It is important not only that freedom has some essential social basis formed through mutual recognition but that our freedom is a product of our context without arbitrariness. Varieties of Freedoms In this first section, we will consider three broad theories of freedom. The intention is not to be comprehensive but to identify the three major views defended by most political philosophers today. This section will provide a general definition of each and critically explain their appeal. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-3

30  Thom Brooks Negative Freedom

Negative freedom is the idea that we are free where another has not ­coerced or interfered with us. It is self‑described as negative freedom in defining ­itself in terms of what it is not. A classic defense of negative freedom is given by Isaiah Berlin: I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others … You lack political liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by human beings. (Berlin 1969, 122) This view of freedom claims that I am free so long as I am unfettered. To be unfree is to be tied down or constrained. To be free is to act without such interference. Thus, someone in prison is unfree as their movement is severely restricted while the general public outside is largely free inso‑ far as they are at liberty to do or be as they please. This definition has been very persuasive insofar as it taps into the idea that being free is being unconstrained. An important aspect of Berlin’s specific defense of negative freedom is that we should not confuse the concept of freedom with other concepts, such as equality, fairness, or justice (Berlin 1969, 125). To be free is not necessarily to be equal, fair, and just or even happy. In fact, these concepts can be in tension with each other, such as when the exercise of my freedom may lead to my enjoying unfair advantages over others. A second crucial aspect is that I am only unfree where I am prevented from achieving some aim by another individual (Berlin 1969, 122). This may not make intuitive sense. For example, if I was walking along the coast on a windy day and the gusts were so strong that I could not climb up a hill, it would seem intuitive to say that I was not free to climb up. However, for Berlin, I am free to do what I cannot achieve only on account of being stopped by nature, not people. But it seems odd, if not false, to claim that I am free to do what I cannot achieve irrespective of whether I was stopped by nature or others. Positive Freedom

There is an alternative way of thinking about freedom. This is the idea that freedom is about having the ability to achieve some end. This view of freedom is positive freedom as it self‑describes freedom as achievement. A classic definition of positive freedom is given by the nineteenth‑­century British Hegelian T. H. Green. He says freedom is “a positive power or capacity

Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom  31 of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying” (Green 1986, 199). For Green, freedom is about what can, and should, be done. It makes no sense to claim we are “free” to do what cannot be achieved. For exam‑ ple, it might be said that everyone is free to study at a prestigious university or stand for elected office. But there is no genuine freedom, in the positive freedom sense, if my chances of gaining a university place or winning an election are virtually impossible given my class or other circumstances. If I cannot obtain an education, I am not free to gain it. Positive freedom can address some concerns raised with negative ­freedom. For example, negative freedom would claim we are free to climb a hill even if strong gusts prevented us from doing so. Negative freedom proponents would say we are free because no one was constraining us. D ­ efenders of positive freedom would counter that it is not material whether it was an‑ other person or nature that prevented us from achieving some goal. If we are not able to do it, then we are unfree to do it. One important aspect of this view is that the state can often play a role in securing freedom. So, while negative freedom sees the intervention of others as threats to (negative) freedom, our ability to achieve certain ends like educational or health goals may often give the state a positive role where its intervention secures, rather than threatens, our freedom. A second aspect is that freedom is about achieving ends that are “worth doing and enjoying” (Green 1986, 199). This raises the concern of deter‑ mining who decides what is worth my doing or enjoying some end. It is not clearly paternalistic as this need not require that the state is the sole arbiter of what ends should be pursued. However, Berlin was not alone in criticizing positive freedom for making at least some aspect of our enjoy‑ ing freedom dependent on the actions of the state, which was no guarantee that the state might be tempted to restrict our freedoms under the guise of being “forced to be free,” to use the famous phrase from Jean‑Jacques Rousseau (2011, 167; see Brooks 2005). Republican Freedom

An alternative to both negative and positive freedom is republican freedom originating in the republican political thought of ancient Rome (Brooks 2016, 43). Republicanism is a theory of non‑domination. Philip Pettit de‑ fines republican freedom by citing Letters of Cato: “Liberty is, to live upon one’s own Terms, Slavery is, to live at the mere Mercy of another” (Pettit 1999, 33). The idea is that we are free when we have control and free from coercion. Republicanism rejects negative freedom insofar as negative freedom would say someone is free where one lacks the ability to live on one’s own terms and where one is not directly constrained by another. The problem

32  Thom Brooks with this, for republicans, is that the absence of constraint by others does not mean I am free from domination by others in alternative ways. Republicans also reject positive freedom. This is because positive free‑ dom proponents see freedom is achieving certain ends, but republicans see freedom in terms of being able to exercise discursive control over what those ends might be. Where I do not have a voice and sufficient control over decisions that impact me, then I am dominated by others and so un‑ free for republicans. An important aspect here is that republicans do not see myself as unfree when subject to laws, even those with significant sanctions for breaches. The state’s laws are not seen as dominating where I can exercise some con‑ trol over what those laws are. In this way, there is nothing unfree about living in a state that prohibits murder or theft. This is because republicans see these crimes as acts of domination that we would all want to prohibit. The law may have coercive effects, but this coercion need not inhibit our freedom. Conclusion

This section has considered three broad theories of freedom: negative, positive, and republican. The focus is on providing general definitions for each and critically explaining their appeal. In the following section, we will consider Hegel’s distinctive contribution in relation to these three theories of freedom. Freedom in Context This section changes tack and will examine Hegel’s views on freedom, fo‑ cusing on the claim that freedom is where the free will wills itself. This view will be shown to be more than merely social or a product of mutual recognition but defined, in part, by its context. This allows Hegel’s theory of freedom to relate to each of the three varieties of freedom discussed in the previous section without being necessarily a part of any one of them. It will be argued that Hegel views freedom as not arbitrary, essentially social, and, at least in part, contextually determined. Freedom Is Not Arbitrary

Hegel argues that freedom is essentially non‑arbitrariness. He claims that it is not a right “to do as one pleases” (PR, §15R). Such “arbitrariness” is a “contradiction” of freedom (PR, §15R). He argues that “the common man thinks that he is free when he is allowed to act arbitrarily, but this very arbitrariness implies that he is not free” (PR, §15A). Freedom involves

Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom  33 options of doing “this or that” but it is not truly free if we are unable to determine our choice from our own ability to choose (PR, §15A). The natural world provides a helpful example. For Hegel, animals act arbitrarily as slaves to their passions. They eat whenever hungry or sleep whenever tired. Following wherever our passions momentarily desire is thought contrary to freedom insofar as there is no control over what we choose; our choices are determined by nature. If this was all there was to say, then no one is free because no one has any choice over how to act or live. But, of course, this is implausible. We choose daily on what, how, or why we do whatever we want to do. This may often be despite the pull of our passions, such as fasting in religious observance or pressing on with paper‑ work long after one is tired or even against our immediate self‑­interests, such as the courage of a soldier who risks, or even loses, their life for the safety and protection of others. The question is not whether we make choices; we do. Instead, the ques‑ tion is on what grounds can we decide whether what we do is a product of our choices or arbitrarily following wherever our passions may lead us. For Hegel, we are free when our choices are the cause behind what we do and have control over our choices but not when the cause is the momen‑ tary drives from our passions. Individuals are rational and have desires. Hegel claims that a key difference is that rationality is universal and can direct us together to certain ends, whereas our desires and feelings are purely subjective so following them leaves us “isolated” in our “private and particular self” apart from others (EPM, §447).2 Such isolated, private particularity driving decision‑making is not governed by reason or any other objective factor. Hegel argues that freedom has a universal content. He says: “True ­liberty … consists in the will finding its purpose in a universal content, not in subjective or selfish interests” but a “concrete universal” (EPM, §§469, 469A). Hegel acknowledges that passions are an essential part of who we are. He says, “Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion” (EPM, §474). Our challenge is to control the exercise of our inclinations so that our passions do not determine our choices. This is heightened where we must choose between inclinations if they should clash (EPM, §477). It is because “in this situation, the deci‑ sion in favour of one assertion or the other likewise depends on subjective arbitrariness” (PR, §18). Therefore, we must seek “a free will, which realizes its own freedom of will” (EPM, §481). This is restated in the Philosophy of Right as that famous phrase that “the free will which wills the free will” is what we seek (PR, §27). Our “will to liberty” has “a non‑impulsive nature” (EPM, §482). This is possible through “self‑consciousness” raising the issue

34  Thom Brooks of how we can determine when our choices are free or merely arbitrary (PR, §21R). This is made possible through the sociality of mutual recogni‑ tion, which we turn to next. Freedom Is Essentially Social

Hegel’s view of freedom is that it is essentially non‑arbitrary and social. In the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel notes that when individuals “look for their freedom” they will go “wrong” if their view “diverges from what is universally acknowledged” and so “invent something particular for itself” (PR, Preface, 12). For Hegel, freedom requires the mutual recognition of another with a free will. This is because only someone with the possibility of freedom can recognize and ground the possibility of freedom in another (PR, §41). Hegel develops the idea of mutual recognition from its most basic form as property ownership. A thing is ours when it is rightly recognized as ours by others. The recognition by others transforms my claim to property from being purely subjective to a more objective status as it is not merely my word or wish that property is mine (PR, §§43R, 44A, 45A). The mutual recognition by others gives my claim to property a concrete “existence” (PR, §51A). In being recognized by others, the claim is not arbitrary and obtains a more universal, substantial character. Hegel describes this mutual recognition as a “struggle” (EPM, §432; PR, §57R). Each individual has its own particular view of its freedom. However, if everyone did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to, this could lead to inevitable clashes. There is this difference that can arise between what I claim to be or have and what others claim I am or have. Thus, my freedom to do or be is not absolute but mediated and grounded through the mutual recognition of others. In this way, Hegel claims that “every genuine law is a liberty” (EPM, §539). While we might normally think of laws as binding us or limiting our freedoms, Hegel sees it differently. What we mutually recognize as free has limitations as it is not arbitrary, nor subjective. There is no such right to act however we want, whenever we wish. Laws properly recognized pro‑ tect, maintain, and enhance our freedoms. We have no freedom to breach laws—such as no freedom to commit crimes—and so to be forbidden from doing so is no constraint on our freedom. This idea of freedom grounded in mutual recognition is a view of free‑ dom as essentially social. We require an other—and they require us—to engage in the mutual recognition necessary to discern, determine, and ­develop our freedoms in a mutual way cooperating together. Freedom in Context

Context matters. Hegel speaks of “the realm of actualized freedom” (PR,  §4). Our freedom does not operate in an ideal space or imaginary

Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom  35 world, but here and now. This wider social environment within which freedom is exercised can be, in part, determinative to the development of our freedom. For example, it matters whether or not we are “at home” in our social world (see Hardimon 1994; Brooks 2000). Freedom must be grasped in both its universality and its “determinacy” in “the actual world of right and the ethical” (PR, Preface, 17). What mat‑ ters, for “true freedom,” is when “I am only truly free when the other is also free and is recognized by me as free” (EPM, §431A), as Hegel states. This is where “men must will to find themselves again in one another” (EPM, §431A). So, being free is not merely being recognized, but our being recognized within a concrete context. As Hegel says, “The Idea of freedom is truly present only as the state” (PR, §57R). It is these complex interrela‑ tions between citizens that can shape the contours of mutual recognition within a shared community, as a “relation of will to will … in which free‑ dom has its existence” (PR, §71). The context within which we exercise our freedom may be more or less advanced. In less historically advanced communities, the actualization of freedom may look different than in a more advanced community where freedom is itself more developed. This background can make a difference in how mutual recognition can function—and the ways in which we enjoy our freedoms. This will be explained further through an illustration in the following section. Conclusion

This section has examined Hegel’s theory of freedom, seeking to make sense of how a free will can will itself. Firstly, we considered the founda‑ tional idea that whatever freedom is, it cannot be arbitrary like an animal. This raises the issue of how we might discern where we act freely versus acting arbitrarily. Secondly, we looked at Hegel’s solution that the only true judge of whether our free will is willing freely is the free will of an‑ other. This highlights freedom as essentially social and produced through mutual recognition. Thirdly, we considered that the context of any mutual recognition can differ from place to place. Freedom must be understood as social, mutually recognized, and, most importantly, in context if we are to grasp its essence. This is a very different perspective than negative, positive, or republican theories of freedom. An Illustration: Crime and Punishment This section will develop an illustration of Hegel’s theory of crime and punishment that will help explain his views on freedom and its contrast to alternative theories. Hegel distinguishes three different kinds of wrongs. They each relate to the ways in which we might not mutually recognize something in error.

36  Thom Brooks The first kind of wrong is “unintentional” where someone makes a mistake in how and what they mutually recognize of another (PR, §§84–5). This is where two individuals each attempts to do what is right but get wrong “in considering that what they will is right” (PR, §86A). The second kind of wrong is “deception” where both individuals appeal to what is right while one does not do so honestly (PR, §87). Hegel does not argue that uninten‑ tional wrongs should be punished because neither seeks to act contrary to right, whereas this is different with deceivers (PR, §89). However, the clearest concern is what Hegel calls “crime” where an individual infringes the rights of another (PR, §§90, 95). All crimes are, in effect, rights violations: theft violates a right to property, murder violates a right to life, breach of contract violates a right to uphold contractual stipulations, and so on. Hegel defends punishment as “the restoration of right” (PR, §99). In other words, punishment seeks to “cancel,” or annul, crime (PR, §99). This is a process of recognition of crime as a wrong that ought not have been done—and where punishment reasserts the existence of the right that was threatened by the crime. While many have likened Hegel’s theory of punishment to retributivism as it is clearly only justified where the offender deserves punishment, the full picture is more complex and makes clear the relevance of context. For example, Hegel claims that the relations between a crime and its punishment can justifiably change over time. He says: “it is not the crimes or punishments themselves which change, but the relation between the two” (PR, §96A). This “equality” of value between the wrongfulness of a crime and the necessary severity of punishment to restore rights can change based on the context (PR, §§101, 101A). The changes over time relate to the stability of society and the degree to which it is threatened by a crime. He says: “through the deeper rea‑ sonableness of laws and the greater stability of the legal state, it gives rise to greater and more stable liberty” (EPM, §539). Elsewhere he says the “danger to public security” (or described as “danger to civil society”) is what determines proportionality (PR, §§96R, 218). Hegel says that crime should be considered within the context of the “consciousness of the va‑ lidity of the law” in our society (PR, §218). He claims that “this quality or magnitude varies, however, according to the condition of civil society” and that this justifies punishing the same crimes more harshly or leniently depending on circumstances (PR §218R). This means, for Hegel, that the death penalty, for instance, is not neces‑ sarily always just or unjust. Instead, he argues that it “has consequently become less frequent, as indeed this ultimate form of punishment deserves to be” (PR, §100A). Hegel says that “the stability of society” can make “crime appear in a milder light, so that its punishment also becomes

Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom  37 milder” (PR, §218A). If it is unstable through civil war or under attack, then punishment may be harsher as a crime poses a greater risk to social stability. He says: “harsh punishments are not unjust in and for them‑ selves, but are proportionate to the conditions of their time; a criminal code cannot be valid for every age” (PR, §218A). As a result, “a penal code is therefore primarily a product of its time and of the current condition of civil society” (PR, §218R). It is worth pausing first to reflect that this view is not retributivist. Re‑ tributivists argue that offenders deserve punishment and that punishment is proportionate to their crimes—where the context or circumstances play little, if any, role (see Brooks 2003). In contrast, Hegel’s theory accepts that the relation between crime and punishment can—and even ought to— vary significantly depending on the context and circumstances.3 But now let us stocktake Hegel’s theory of freedom versus alternatives. On crime, the proponent of negative freedom will claim we are unfree where another prohibits her actions. This might not warrant anyone hav‑ ing the freedom to infringe the freedom of another, such as by coercing or constraining them against their will. But it does not clearly rule out a freedom to harm others without constraining others or in wrongfully harming oneself such as in engaging in criminalized activities around ille‑ gal drug possession or use. On the contrary, Hegel’s theory of freedom can ­account for having no such freedom to engage in criminality whether other‑­ regarding harm or self‑regarding harm so long as it is mutually recognized. The defender of positive freedom lacks freedom where he or she cannot achieve certain goals. A freedom to education is the freedom to receive an education. If educational opportunities are inaccessible, one’s freedom is denied. This can have the character of a wider wrong, such as a rights vio‑ lation. But the central concern is how to know which goals are the proper ends of freedom. Typically, this might be decided on a different basis, such as the pursuit of virtues. However, this is contested with no obvious way of discerning between different views of the good, and so where wrongs are committed. However, for Hegel, we can discern the proper ends of freedom through the social context of our mutual recognition. So, Hegel’s theory of freedom can not only relate to positive freedom but also develop it by showing how a positive freedom account might determine its goals. In so doing, it can help discern where wrongs might occur. Finally, republican freedom is about non‑domination. The lack of domi‑ nation is a state where mutual recognition happens within a space of gen‑ eral equality. However, while we all have a right of equal participation in deliberating on public policies, not all may engage. Indeed, in many societies everyone may have an equal vote, yet broader social and political inequalities can lead to disengage and not participate as they do not feel an

38  Thom Brooks equal among others in their community. So, Hegel’s theory of freedom can not only connect with republican theories but also specify the wrongness of domination as a subversion of the mutual recognition process. In all these examples, Hegel’s theory of freedom can be brought into relation with other leading theories of freedom. But what is different is the theory of wrongness. Negative theories do not distinguish between the free and the arbitrary. Positive theories fail to see the importance of so‑ cial mutual recognition. Republican theories do not take seriously enough the context within which freedom is exercised as having an equal right to participation does not entail all will have a conviction that they have an equal voice. Hegel’s theory of freedom is alive to these issues as a theory of non‑arbitrariness, essentially social and where context matters—that can address these issues and provide us with new insights into how we might understand our freedom. Conclusion Hegel’s theory of freedom holds that it is the free will that “wills the free will” (PR, §27). This chapter has attempted to shed further light on this im‑ portant contribution. It has been argued that Hegel’s theory is not merely social or a view grounded in mutual recognition but a product of context and contextualism. It is not merely how you and I perceive the exercise of freedom that has relevance for ethical life, but the mutuality of recognition of our community—and this, as Hegel was at pains to make clear, is always a product of its own time and place. How we grasp our freedom depends on the mutual recognition of my freedom and of others within a wider social context. Where the context changes, such as in civil war, the way we understand freedom changes. Context matters. In these ways, Hegel offers a distinctive contribution to theories of freedom that connects to, but independent from, the main three general theories of freedom (negative, positive, and republican). It is hoped that understanding Hegel’s theory of freedom as contextual will shed new light on a much analyzed, and famously obscure, passage that shows a compel‑ ling alternative to how we might consider ourselves free. Notes 1 This chapter follows the “systematic reading” methodology outlined in Brooks (2013). Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is quoted according to Nisbet’s translation. 2 The Encyclopaedia Philosophy of Mind is quoted according to Wallace and Miller’s translation. 3 I have argued elsewhere that Hegel defends a “unified” theory of punishment as he endorses desert, deterrence, and rehabilitation all playing a role. See Brooks (2013, 39–51, 2017, 2021, 143–79).

Hegel’s Contextual Theory of Freedom  39 References Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brooks, Thom. 2000. “More than Recognition: Why Stakeholding Matters for Reconciliation in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” Owl of Minerva 51, nos. 1/2: 59–86. Brooks, Thom. 2003. “Kant’s Theory of Punishment.” Utilitas 15, no. 2: 206–24. Brooks, Thom, ed. 2005. Rousseau and Law. Aldershot: Ashgate. Brooks, Thom. 2013. Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brooks, Thom. 2016. “What Is Freedom?” In What Is This Thing Called Philoso‑ phy? edited by Duncan Pritchard, 35–51. London: Routledge. Brooks, Thom. 2017. “Hegel on Crime and Punishment.” In Hegel’s Political Phi‑ losophy: On the Normative Significance of Method and System, edited by Thom Brooks and Sebastian Stein, 202–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brooks, Thom. 2021. Punishment, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Green, Thomas Hill. 1986. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardimon, Michael. 1994. Hegel’s Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconciliation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, Philip. 1999. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford Uni‑ versity Press. Rousseau, Jean‑Jacques. 2011. The Basic Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett.

3 Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism Michael Quante

Under the title of a theory of objective spirit, Hegel presented his practical philosophy as part of his system, which, in the form of an Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline, he first published in 1817 and continued to elaborate until 1830, with the publication of a third ­edition.1 With the 1821 Elements of the Philosophy of Right he published his conception of Natural Law and Political Science in O ­ utline—the work’s alternate title—as a standalone version of the theory of objective spirit. “The immediate occasion for me to publish this outline,” Hegel explains at the beginning of the Preface, “is the need to provide my au‑ dience with an i­ntroduction to the lectures on the Philosophy of Right” (PR, 9).2 When in what follows I speak of Hegel’s practical philosophy, I refer to the account that he presented with the Elements. The aim of my reflec‑ tions is to show the connection between recognition and justice in Hegel’s conception of the in and for itself free will. In doing so, I proceed from the interpretive hypothesis that the conception developed in the Elements can be reconstructed as cognitivist ascriptivism (see Quante 2024). Hegel’s practical philosophy, it is here argued, represents a philosophical explica‑ tion of our social practices in which we mutually ascribe responsibility for our actions as well as for our rights and duties. Therefore, questions of material ethics are not addressed directly in the Elements; rather, Hegel’s philosophical explication aims to show the rationality of our social prac‑ tices and the validly deemed norms inherent in them. In this explication, such diverse social practices are given a philosophical order, which Hegel presents as the development of an underlying principle. The in and for itself free will, which he identifies as this principle, is in turn developed with the tools of his logic. Thus, two processes take place at the same time in the Elements: on the one hand, by means of a development of the in and for itself free will, Hegel pursues the immanent path of recon‑ structing validity claims that can be found in our social practices. On the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-4

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  41 other hand, this development unfolds by means of the conceptions of con‑ cept and idea detailed in his Science of Logic, itself conceived as part of the conceptual development of his overall system. In order to elucidate the connection between recognition and justice in Hegel’s practical philosophy, I will, in a first step, present some system‑­ immanent as well as general systematic arguments, independent of Hegel’s presuppositions, that make plausible why he develops practical philosophy in his encyclopedic system with the help of the principle of the in and for itself free will (I). In the second step, evidence is presented as to how and why the principle of the in and of itself free will, when fashioned within the framework of a cognitivist ascriptivism, presupposes recognition (II). In the third step, the systematically reconstructible connections between recognition and justice found in the Elements are then elaborated (III). In the concluding fourth step, it is shown that Hegel’s practical philosophy entails an ethical (sittliche) concept of freedom (IV). My aim is to show not only that Hegel distances himself from the classically conceived metaphysi‑ cal view of freedom, which is understood as a presupposition subsisting independently of our social practices. It is also to show that he simultane‑ ously elucidates the underlying principle of the in and for itself free will in such a way that it corresponds to the overall design of his practical philosophy, according to which freedom is that which we mutually ascribe to each other in our social practices. The content of this philosophy thus results from validity claims that inhere in these practices and can be philo‑ sophically explicated. Hegel’s concept of freedom, like his entire practical philosophy, thus remains committed to the perspective of an immanent reconstruction of our normative practices of ascription. From the Principle of Recognition to the In and For Itself Free Will After 1807, Hegel reorganized his practical philosophy. What motives he had for no longer using recognition as the principle of his practical philos‑ ophy, we do not know. But system‑immanent as well as general systematic reasons can be put forward as to why “the will which is free in and for itself” (§22A) became the organizing principle of the Elements. System‑immanently, at least the following three arguments can be for‑ mulated in favor of this change in Hegel’s conception of practical philoso‑ phy: First of all, this change entails—at least prima facie—a “seamless” transition from the system part of Subjective Mind to that of Objective Mind. On closer examination, however, systematically far‑reaching ques‑ tions arise because Hegel changes his perspective on the will itself: in the system part Subjective Spirit he treats willing as a mental phenomenon,

42  Michael Quante whereas in the system part objective spirit will is viewed as a phenom‑ enon of validity. Although Hegel also discusses the “the process of rec‑ ognition” (PSS III, §430) in the section Self‑consciousness (PSS III, §424) in §§424–37, he clarifies at the same time that the “force” (PSS III, §433) effective in it as a physical and mental quantity “is not the basis of right” (PSS III, §433). It is, according to Hegel, “the external or apparent begin‑ ning of states” (PSS III, §433). This analysis presented by Hegel in the first edition of his Encyclopedia (1817), which immediately preceded his Ele‑ ments, is also found without modifications in the here quoted third edition of the Encyclopedia published in 1830. The factual basis of this transition is grounded in human action, in which both mental and validity aspects are equally inherent.3 Hegel, in any case, presents this transition as a further internal differentiation of his conception of the will. The second system‑immanent reason can be seen in the fact that Hegel is able to use the different kinds of recognition and their respective struc‑ ture, which can be explicated in terms of speech act theory as an internal motor of system development. In this way, he is able to represent them as internal developments of the structure of the will, i.e., as elements in the underlying principle of the Elements. Moreover, this procedure enables him at the same time to show this development with the tools of his logic as an increasing self‑realization of the will. Thus, the danger is averted of having to base the conceptual development on a multiplicity of different kinds of recognition. The third point that was system‑immanently attractive for Hegel might have been that developing the conception of the in and for itself free will may have been more plausible as a case of his conceptions of concept and idea than it would have been with the acts or validity states of recognition.4 Moreover, there are two systematic reasons for this new construction of his practical philosophy, independent of the system‑immanent assump‑ tions. “Recognition” exhibits an ambiguity: on the one hand, it represents an act; on the other hand, it can also mean the result of such an act in the sense of a certain social or normative status.5 In the sense of such a social or normative status, recognition denotes the totality of a social practice within which such status has validity. At issue is the case of intentional action. What is entailed here is an explication based on the conception of will.6 Thus, because a social or normative status is based on ascriptions, a reason is simultaneously given as to why recognition also refers to actions. Moreover, the grounding in a fundamental principle of social practices and the various inhering states is attractive. In this way, connections, transi‑ tions, and—this is at least Hegel’s claim—the coherence of these various social practices, in which social or normative states are ascribed, can be philosophically explicated.

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  43 Regarding the in and for itself free will as the structuring principle of social practices does not entail understanding it as a merely psychological faculty. In social practices, as Hegel himself points out, “freedom, as the sub‑ stance, exists no less as actuality and necessity than as subjective will” (§33). Furthermore, Hegel also rejects the view according to which appeal to this principle means basing social practices on arbitrariness [Willkür]. Do‑ ing so would require an underlying metaphysical concept of freedom that proceeds from the assumption “that freedom in general consists in being able to do as one pleases” (§15A). According to Hegel, such a metaphysi‑ cal notion, one conceived prior to and independently of our ethically en‑ cumbered social practices, cannot be the basis or a necessary condition for the validity claims that we formulate only in our practices. “[S]uch an idea [Vorstellung] can only be taken to indicate a complete lack of intellectual culture” (§15A). Instead, to understand Hegel’s argument, we have to start from an ethical (sittliche) concept of freedom, which is presupposed as an internal standard in our social practices of recognizing and ascribing normative states, but which at the same time first gain substantive contour through enactments in these practices (cf. on this section IV). Recognition as a Presupposition of the Free Will in and for Itself In the introduction to the Elements, Hegel explains the basic structure of his conception of free will in and for itself with the help of the categories of generality, particularity, and individuality. The “freedom of the will” (§7), so Hegel explains with reference to “individuality [Einzelheit]” (§7), is not a third thing added to the determinations of generality and particu‑ larity but is understood as “the unity of both these moments—particularity reflected into itself and thereby restored to universality” (§7). Hegel delineates the structure of the will in the next paragraphs, arguing that the content of will freely chosen by an individual subject is identical with the objective content of the concept of the will itself: “The will which has being in and for itself is truly infinite, because its object [Gegenstand] is itself” (§22). The freedom that Hegel ascribes to the will as it serves as the principle of the objective spirit is based on this identity of the willing with the content willed: “Only in this freedom is the will completely with itself [bei sich], because it has reference to nothing but itself” (§23). In Hegel’s teleological conception, the will qua concept realizes itself as it manifests itself in “a series of shapes” (§32) understood as “Idea” (§29). The concrete form of this self‑realization, termed “the existence of the free will” (§29), is, according to Hegel’s explication, “Right” (§29); the com‑ plete unfolding of the in and for itself free will then results, so the Elements

44  Michael Quante reads, in a system of rights. The latter can thus be understood as a ration‑ ally reconstructed totality of social or normative practices in which claims or rights are ascribed. Hegel bases his analysis of the “activity of the will” (§28) on an action‑­ theoretical account.7 In intentional action, an individual ascribes to ­himself an intention in which he selects a concrete content as the goal of his ac‑ tion. Self‑ascription occurs through indexical self‑reference by means of “I” (the moment of generality), which as “the pure thinking of oneself” (§5) in the form of a concrete purpose abstracts from all determinacy of content. By choosing a particular end, the will not only negates its general‑ ity but makes itself a particular individual: “Through this positing of it‑ self as something determinate, ‘I’ steps into existence [Dasein] in general” (§6). In other words, by choosing a particular end as his own, an agent distinguishes himself from other agents with whom he shares the same formal moment of self‑ascription as “I.” The chosen purpose individu‑ ates the respective individual by committing him to a specific content (the moment of particularity). Neither moment, generality of self‑ascription or particularity qua chosen content, must, according to Hegel’s account, be conceived of as a sequence ending in the moment of particularity; they are “only abstractions” (§7A). Rather, both are to be understood as moments of individuality: this individuality consists in the fact that an agent decides to realize the chosen purpose through his action. In an action conceived by the subject as freely chosen, the first‑­personal self‑ascription of the inten‑ tion of the agent (as “I”), the knowledge of the purpose, and the belief in being able to give up the chosen purpose again and to want something else are all united. If an individual understands himself as an intentional agent, then he assumes freedom ­towards the chosen purpose, which is thereby “a mere possibility by which it is not restricted but in which it finds itself merely because it posits itself in” (§7). In other words: “Whatever the will has decided to choose (see §14), it can likewise r­ elinquish (see §5)” (§16). According to Hegel, the practical constitution of the will manifests itself in an individual’s knowledge that he can and must realize his purpose through his action in an external world presupposed as independent. Qua idea, ac‑ cording to Hegel, the will, which is free in and for itself, must realize itself; to be merely subjective would be a “contradiction” to its being idea (in Hegel’s sense). This means that the purpose is transferred from the form of subjectiv‑ ity (in the form of an intention to act) to the form of objectivity (as a product of action) through intentional action (as a process of realization): The activity of the will consists in cancelling [aufzuheben] the contra‑ diction between subjectivity and objectivity and in translating its ends from their subjective determination into an objective one, while at the same time remaining with itself in this objectivity. Apart from the for‑ mal mode of consciousness (see §8) in which objectivity is present only

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  45 as immediate actuality, this activity is the essential development of the substantial content of the Idea (see §21), a development in which the concept determines the Idea, which is itself at first abstract, to [produce] the totality of the system. This totality, as the substantial element, is independent of the opposition between a merely subjective end and its realization, and is the same in both of these forms (§28). This paper does not seek to explicate Hegel’s conception of the in and for itself free will in detail or to render it plausible in any systematic way as a conception of intentional action. The sole concern here is to demonstrate that and how Hegel’s conception of the will presupposes recognition.8 The connection we are looking for can be shown, as I will now demonstrate, in three contexts, each of which reveals different kinds of recognition. The first connection between recognition and the structure of the in and for itself free will is shown at the beginning of the first part of the Elements. The indexical self‑ascription of an agent by means of “I,” in‑ troduced as a moment of generality, constitutes the personhood of a hu‑ man being: “The universality of this will which is free for itself is formal universality; i.e., the will’s self‑conscious (but otherwise contentless) and simple reference to itself in its individuality [Einzelheit]; to this extent, the subject is a person” (§35). No specific content or purpose is contained in this moment of self‑ascription, but “personality contains in general the capacity for right and constitutes the concept and the (itself abstract) basis of abstract and hence formal right” (§36). In the self‑ascription of an inten‑ tion to act, as Hegel’s argumentation can be understood, a subject not only performs an indexical self‑reference but also positions itself as a potential agent in social space vis‑à‑vis other subjects who are also capable of such self‑­reference and can comprehend the associated validity claims.9 The normative content, which goes beyond mere self‑reference and co‑constitutes the self‑ascription, is expressed as “the commandment of right (…): be a person and respect others as persons” (§36). On the one hand, Hegel explains that in the self‑ascription of an intention to act, the realization of the subjective purpose in the spatio‑temporal reality is always intentional. On the other hand, he also locates in it a validity claim made to other subjects who, for their part, are able to make and understand such claims. In this way he connects the general moment of will with mutual rec‑ ognition. Such self‑positioning is necessary for the development of abstract right and its specific forms of validity (property and contract). The particu‑ lar content that an individual sets for itself as an end remains “still differ‑ ent” (§37) from it; “concrete action” and “moral and ethical relations” (§38) are not thematized in this form of mutual recognition of persons. “Concrete action,” the second connection between conceptions of will and recognition, then becomes the subject of the Elements’ morality ­chapter, which Hegel details by means of his conception of action. The recognition

46  Michael Quante associated with being an intentional agent thereby coincides with the mo‑ ment of generality, which Hegel had presented as the principle of “person‑ ality” (§37) for abstract law. From the moral standpoint, concrete action, i.e., the moment of the particularity of the will, now comes into play. As an agent, the subject has the right to have the result of an action intentionally produced by him (as an objectification of his will) evaluated from his per‑ spective. The ascription of an action and the latter’s accompanying respon‑ sibility entail reference to the subject’s reasons for action. Not every aspect of an action outcome is ascribed to the agent as our practice of producing and accepting justifications or even excuses shows. If an agent A intends to give B a glass of water, but, unbeknownst to A, there is vodka in that glass, then he does not have to be imputed either the action of “giving B a glass of vodka” or the action outcome of “B’s inability to drive.” If A were exposed to this reproach, he could cite his actual intention as an excuse as well as his ignorance as a reason for the excuse. Hegel summarizes this as follows The autonomously acting will, in the ends which it pursues in relation to the existence [Dasein] it has before it, has an idea [Vorstellung] of the circumstances which that existence involves. But since, on account of this presupposition, the will is finite, the objective phenomenon [gegen‑ ständliche Erscheinung] is contingent for it, and may contain something other than what was present in the will’s idea [Vorstellung] of it. It is, however, the right of the will to recognize as its action, and to accept responsibility for, only those aspects of its deed which it knew to be pre‑ supposed within its end, and which were present in its purpose. (§117) Beyond the standpoint of abstract law, our social practice of ascribing re‑ sponsibility for actions, of offering criticisms and justifications, and of pro‑ viding excuses requires us to take into account the specificity of the acting subject. What is relevant here is what someone intended by his action and what he knew and wanted. And in certain situations of moral conflict, it also matters how an acting subject morally justifies his decision or how he positions himself as a moral subject in the social sphere. If a subject is criti‑ cized, for example, because its action violated valid moral norms, it can refer back to his own moral judgment and present the action in question as an expression of conscience: The right of the subjective will is that whatever it is to recognize as valid should be perceived by it as good, and that it should be held respon‑ sible for an action—as its aim translated into external objectivity—as right or wrong, good or evil, legal or illegal, according to its cognizance [­Kenntnis] of the value which that action has in this objectivity. (§132)

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  47 Thus, according to Hegel’s analysis of conscience, the moment of indi‑ viduality itself also becomes the object of the intersubjective evaluation of moral validity claims articulated by an acting individual. For the right of the subjective will consists, and Hegel attaches great importance to this, precisely in being allowed to articulate one’s own moral standpoint and to bring it into the consideration. The evaluation of “action as such,” how‑ ever, must not be reduced to a “right of insight into the good” (§132A). It depends on the overall circumstances whether the moral perspective is intersubjectively recognized. But every acting person submits to the latter by acting: “Whoever wills an action in the actual world, has, in so do‑ ing, submitted himself to its laws and recognized the right of objectivity” (§132A). In summary, this means: in the practice of ascribing and evaluating ac‑ tion, the acting subject is recognized in the three determinations of formal generality, specific constitution qua particular subject pursuing particu‑ lar purposes, and in its individuality as a universally valid moral subject pursuing purposes. This recognition does not mean that the acting sub‑ ject is successful with its self‑ascription and can successfully assert its own claims to validity. Recognition in these three forms is established—both in the case of intersubjective acceptance and in the case of intersubjective criticism or rejection—as a constitutive moment. On the one hand, the acting subject must express its claims to validity so that it can see itself as a responsibly acting subject. On the other hand, the existence of address‑ ees, who behave approvingly or disapprovingly to these validity claims, is presupposed. Therefore, Hegel introduces “the will of others” (§113) as a constitutive element of intentional action. In other words, our social prac‑ tice of ascribing responsibility is based as a validating event on processes of mutual recognition. As an in and for itself free will objectifies itself qua actions, it thus depends on recognition. The “ethical realm” (§155) occurs in multiple ways as a third place in the connection between recognition and the in and for itself free will in ­Hegel’s conception of morality (See Siep 2010, 245). Common to all forms of morality is the “identity of the universal and the particular will” (§155). In that an agent chooses objectively valid rights and duties as the content of its actions, the in and for itself free will references itself through the action of a moral subject: “The ethical substance, as containing self‑consciousness which has being for itself and is united with its concept, is the actual spirit of a family and a people” (§156).10 Here is not the place to go into the complex structure of Hegel’s conception of ethics. For the evidentiary pur‑ pose of this paper, it is sufficient to be clear about the connection between the standpoint of morality and the reciprocal recognition as it occurs in ethical life. By mutually recognizing each other as moral subjects, agents generally understand themselves as part of a shared normative order.11 Ac‑ cording to Hegel, such Sittlichkeit exists as a system of different social

48  Michael Quante practices including different social roles, whereby the a­ ssociated claims, rights, and duties are generally recognized and mutually ascribed. These “distinctions give the ethical a fixed content” (§144), whose claims to va‑ lidity as “substance made concrete” (§144) have abolished the abstractness and subjectivity of the previous spheres (of abstract law and morality). Individuals who identify as agents with such a moral order mutually rec‑ ognize each other as members of the same normative order, ascribing to each other the general norms of their morality and, depending on the social practice at hand, the duties and rights that accompany specific social roles. In this differentiated space of social practices, subjects recognize the shared claims to validity as “authority and power” (§146); they mutually ascribe freedoms and responsibilities to each other by recognizing and acknowl‑ edging themselves both as members of a shared normative order and as holders of specific social roles in their morality. Hegel conceives the nor‑ mative validity claims of a shared morality as the realization of the in and for itself free will, manifested through the ascription of rights and duties. Because and insofar as such ascription presupposes the mutual recognition of agents as well as the common recognition of shared rights and duties, Hegel’s conception of ethical life can be deemed to be grounded in a recog‑ nitively based theory of action. Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism In his philosophy of the objective spirit Hegel emphasizes the importance of not simply contrasting the factually existing social practices in his Ele‑ ments with a normative order detached from them as an abstract ideal: “As a philosophical composition, it must distance itself as far as possible from the obligation to construct a state as it ought to be” (PR, 21). Nev‑ ertheless, his Elements do not represent a purely positivistic conception but also contain a normative standard. Where the existing social reality does not satisfy this standard, Hegel’s practical philosophy unfolds its criti‑ cal potential. But above all Hegel is concerned with a double proof: first, the existing practices with the validity claims inscribed in them are shown to be rational by the means of his philosophy; his claim and aim is to show how “the ethical universe should be recognized” (PR, 21) Second, the philosophical conceptions detailed by Hegel in this explication are to be justified. Through this approach, Hegel undermines the opposition between for‑ mal and material justice. On the one hand, he examines the extent to which certain social practices (can) do justice to their own validity claims. The dia‑ lectic which, for example, drives the conception of conscience beyond itself can be reconstructed in one respect as an internal critique. Given the nor‑ mative standards presupposed its conception, conscience as a justificatory

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  49 instance cannot adequately redeem them. It therefore r­equires another source of justification, which Hegel then provides with his conception of ethics (Sittlichkeit), which in turn is presented as a further development of the in and for itself free will: “The objective system of these principles and duties and the union of subjective knowledge with this system are present only when the point of view of ethics has been reached” (§137). The im‑ pression that Hegel does not want to formulate material criteria of justice with his practical philosophy could be strengthened by the fact that he con‑ sistently remains on the level of social practices as obstinate normative or‑ ders and does not undertake the concrete evaluation of individual actions. Nevertheless, material justice is inscribed in his practical philosophy in the form of his conception of the in and for itself free will. This he pursues as a speculative conceptual development, which acquires normative force as a teleologically organized process of rational self‑realization.12 At the same time, because Hegel starts from the finite will of embodied persons, focusing on individual well‑being and the realization of individual inter‑ ests, axiological aspects are also involved in the moment of particularity.13 Finally, in the moment of self‑determination constituting the will, which Hegel speculatively conceives as generality applicable to all instantiations, the aspect of intersubjective generalizability is also included. Within the cognitivist ascriptivism he pursues, systematically recon‑ structible references to the three central criteria of justice arise, which can be taken from a material conception of justice. Since I cannot present in detail in this chapter the conception of justice contained in Hegel’s practi‑ cal philosophy, I briefly name points of reference connecting recognition and justice. It is crucial to start from Hegel’s conception of action, which conceives the latter as the raising of intersubjective validity claims. Commutative justice underlies the unfolding of abstract right from the moment of the intersubjectively shared and mutually ascribed role of being a person. Qua actors referring to themselves as “I” and ascribing claims to themselves, agents, as explained in the previous section, take a normative position. This is symmetrically constituted and at the same time purely for‑ mal since in the mutual ascription of this normative position all concrete contents (of the respective intentions of the agents) are abstracted away. Hegel accordingly explicates property and contract as relations of validity that imply recognition through the mutual ascription of this normative position on the part of freely acting subjects: The stipulation in a contract […] is itself already the existence [Dasein] of my will’s decision, in the sense that I have thereby alienated the thing [Sache] I own, that it has now ceased to be my property, and that I ­already recognize it as the property of the other party. (§79A)

50  Michael Quante Hegel also develops retributive justice in this way, unfolding the norma‑ tive point of punishment from the general structure of the normative self‑­ positioning of agents making intersubjectively comprehensible claims to validity. Questions about the nature and measure of punishment, however, cannot be addressed by means of practical philosophy in Hegel’s eyes: [T]he justice (in terms of their qualitative and quantitative character) of whatever punishment are determined is in any case a matter which arises later than the substance of the thing [Sache] itself. Even if, for this later determination of punishment, we had to look around for princi‑ ples other than those which apply to the universal aspect of punishment, this universal aspect remains what it is. Yet the concept itself must al‑ ways contain the basic principle, even for the particular instance. (§101A) Property, contracts, and the legitimacy of sanctions can be philosophically justified within the framework of Hegel’s conception on the basis of gen‑ eral claims to act in a self‑determined way in a normative practice. Since mutual recognition of these claims is ineliminably involved in their ascrip‑ tion, justice in these two forms presupposes recognition. Commutative and retributive justice underlie equality as a criterion in the sense of equiva‑ lence (of exchange as well as of harm and punishment). For them it is suffi‑ cient to derive the responsibility of the agent (qua deciding particular) and free self‑determination (qua generality) from the structure of the in and for itself free will. Hegel alludes to this with his remark: “If we may speak here of more than one person where no such distinction has yet been made, we may say that, in terms of personality, these persons are equal” (§49A). For distributive justice, on the other hand, what is needed is the moment of particularity, with which Hegel considers the point of view of the re‑ spective individual action or the respective individuality of the agent real‑ ized in it. The social roles, which, for example, are identified in ethical life as moments of the ascription of specific claims, contain perspectives with respect to which human individuals differ. These differences then allow diversities (of needs, goals, and states associated with offices) to be grasped and specified as the criterion of justice of a qualified equality. Furthermore, in the morality chapter of the Elements, Hegel details his theory of action, in which both the individual interests of agents (their interest and their good) are delineated as legitimate moments of the structure of the will and the individual perspective of the agents on their actions becomes the object of reciprocal ascriptions. The former can be identified in social practices of cooperation and the social division of labor. The latter, however, comes into view in regarding our practices of justification and of accepting or rejecting excuses and apologies as processes of recognition.

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  51 Hegel’s Conception of Ethical Freedom A central determination of the will existing in and for itself—the organizing principle of Hegel’s practical philosophy—is freedom. In the introduction of the Elements, he clarifies this principle with the help of categories devel‑ oped in his Science of Logic.14 In this context, he also explains the different conceptions of “the freedom of the will” (§15) found respectively in meta‑ physics and practical philosophy. In doing so, he addresses the concept of freedom of choice, which he calls “arbitrariness” (§15), and analyzes in terms of the interplay of the moments of generality and particularity in the in and for itself free will. If, according to Hegel, we hear it said that freedom in general consists in being able to do as one pleases, such an idea [Vorstellung] can only be taken to indicate a complete lack of intellectual culture [Bildung des Gedankens]; for it shows not the least awareness of what constitutes the will which is free in and for itself, or right, or ethics, etc. (§15A) Freedom in the sense of arbitrariness consists in Hegel’s analysis of the interplay of the moment of generality as “free reflection, which abstracts from everything” (§15) and which takes place in pure self‑ascription by means of “I.” As abstraction, every content of the will, every subjective purpose, is “determined as a possible content” (§15) only. The subject as‑ cribing freedom of choice to itself is convinced that it can also choose other ends. At the same time, however, such an abstraction, according to Hegel, presupposes given ends; they are conceived as the subject’s “inwardly or externally given content and material” (§15). Because they are all con‑ ceived only as possible ends, freedom of choice can conceive of them only as “contingency” (§15), i.e., as contingent options, and the subject’s deci‑ sion for or against them can only be understood as “arbitrariness” (§15). Hegel criticizes this philosophical conception of freedom, which in his opinion underlies “all reflective philosophy” (§15A), because it does not reference the moment of individuality, in which the two poles that in free‑ dom of choice are opposed in an unmediated way and immediately turn into each other are conceived as integrated moments of the total constella‑ tion. Thus conceived, and this is Hegel’s alternative, the choosing subject is not confronted with random content but with ends whose content is noth‑ ing but determinations of the in and for itself free will. In choosing these, it does not abandon itself to something that “comes to it from outside” (§15A) and is thus foreign to it but realizes itself in them. The mistake “in the controversy which arose chiefly at the time of Wolff’s metaphysics as to whether the will is actually free or whether our

52  Michael Quante knowledge of its freedom is merely a delusion” (§15A) is twofold: On the one hand, freedom has been understood only in the sense of freedom of choice and as that which could‑have‑been‑done‑otherwise.15 And on the other hand, it has not been understood as an integral part of our so‑ cial practices of ascribing duties, rights, and responsibilities but has been sought in a principle of the free will conceived as a metaphysically expli‑ cable precondition of those practices. Hegel’s counter‑proposal, independ‑ ent of the system‑immanent considerations stemming from his speculative logic, is to understand freedom as always already ethically encumbered.16 Philosophically, we can understand Hegel’s argument to be explicable only on the basis of our prior understandings of what “right and ethics” are (§15A). In other words, what we understand and allow to be valid under freedom arises in and through our practices of ascription as an element internal to them.17 Hegel thus rejects the central presupposition of the classical debate on freedom of will. The notion of a metaphysical free will, conceived as a presupposition of our attributive practices independent of them, leads to the dilemma of freedom and determinism. In contrast, freedom, accord‑ ing to Hegel, must be conceived from the outset as an integral moment of our practices of ascription and thus as an ethical (sittliche) conception. This ethical conception of freedom fits seamlessly into Hegel’s conception of ethical life. Existing social practices are conceived as adequate realiza‑ tions of the ethical substance of an in and for itself free will, in which the subject “has its self‑awareness [Selbstgefühl]” (§147).18 The adoption of normative positions and roles in these practices takes place with attitudes of “faith and trust” (§147A), which become the object of critical reflec‑ tion only with disturbances in these practices. By presupposing these atti‑ tudes as a default, the members of a normatively ordered domain engage in moral conduct “as a second nature,” and not in the sense of “the original and purely natural will,” but as “habit” in which the ethical appears “as their general mode of behavior” (§151). This overall constellation must not be misunderstood as a defense of the thesis that the claims of habitual ethics always have priority over the claims made, for example, by an acting subject qua moral subject.19 On the basis of Hegel’s practical philosophy as a whole, the latter is also an indispensable and lived part of our social practice. The Elements aim precisely to identify abstract law and morality as moments of a comprehensive and rationally ordered ethical realm. At issue is not a question of a general hierarchy of validity claims, even if such a weighting must be undertaken in individual cases of conflict. Rather, Hegel’s conception of the in and for itself free will seeks to elucidate philosophically the justificatory interdependencies be‑ tween the various kinds of validity claims discernible in our differentiated social practices.20 Inasmuch as these can be philosophically explicated as

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  53 realizations of the structure of the will, they are for Hegel philosophically legitimated. His practical philosophy thus operates, according to the thesis advanced in this chapter, at the general level of explicating the normative content of our social practices, in which we mutually ascribe responsibility for our actions. The evaluation of concrete individual cases, by contrast, is not the focus of Hegel’s philosophical design of a cognitive ascriptivism.21 Notes 1 In this chapter, I refer to Subjective Spirit and Objective Spirit (in upper case) as the sections in Hegel’s philosophical system, which he presented as Encyclope‑ dia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline from 1817. By contrast, when speaking of the objective spirit in the lowercase variant, I mean the ­social or normative ascriptive practices that Hegel explicated in their systematic context. 2 Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right is cited according to the Nisbet translation. Quotations directly in the text, either with reference to the § or a page number, always refer to the Elements; if the quotation is taken from the notes on the respective paragraph in the main text, indicated by indentation, this is indicated by an A following the paragraph number. 3 The question of how to explain this change of perspective in a philosophically appropriate way is, of course, not yet answered by naming this factual basis; cf. on this also Peperzaak (2001, 334), who also notices the fact without referring to the systematic questions to be clarified here. 4 Cf. on the ambiguities of recognition Meyer, Quante and Rojek (2021). 5 I use the label “social practice” in this paper in a broad sense that includes all implicitly or explicitly regulated ascriptive practices (in this sense, for example, family roles are also part of a social practice). Social practices may include axiological or normative criteria of ascription and evaluation. By “normative practices,” on the other hand, as a subset of all social practices, we always mean those ascriptive practices in which explicit rules determine what counts as normatively right (or wrong). 6 Hegel also did this in the chapter on morality; cf. my analysis in Quante (2004). The thesis I formulated there, “that one can apply Hegel’s concept of action even if one does not accept his theory of the will,” as well as my claim that Hegel’s concept of the subjective will “has implications for moral philosophy, whereas the the concept of action has no such implications” (167), has been criticized by Pippin (2008, 169) as well as by Moyar (2011, 131 n51). Indeed, if the ascriptivist dimension detailed in this paper is counted as an integral part of Hegel’s concept of action, then the latter already has direct moral philosoph‑ ical implications. At the time, this ascriptivist dimension of Hegel’s practical philosophy was not clear to me, so I must revise my view of that time. 7 The explication of Hegel’s practical philosophy presented by Moyar (2021, 25) as a system of “practical inferences” goes in a similar direction; see also Moyar (2021, 107). The same applies to the interpretation of Yeomans (2015, 90), who speaks of “self‑appropriation” qua self‑ascriptions and conceives of action as the grammar of our social practices; see Moyar (2021, 112). 8 On this question, see also Pippin (2008, chapter 7). 9 Already in chapter “Sense‑Certainty: Or the ‘This’ and ‘Meaning’ [Meinen]” of his Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel explained that the use of indexical ex‑ pressions depends on intersubjective comprehensibility and rule‑­guidedness.

54  Michael Quante Therefore, indexical statements, which always represent epistemic self‑­ascriptions (of the “I‑here‑now”), cannot be reduced as validity phenomena to private experiences or pre‑linguistic sense data. The protocol sentences of sensory cer‑ tainty are not sense data that would be prior to claims of cognition and truth that could serve the latter as a pre‑linguistic basis of cognition. In his concep‑ tion of the in and for itself free will, Hegel follows this line by unfolding the self‑ascription by means of “I” at the same time as self‑positioning in the social space of personhood. On Hegel’s analysis of the use of indexical expressions in the context of epistemic validity claims, see DeVries (2008). 10 On Hegel‘s pragmatist conception of reality, see the remarks in Quante (2018a). 11 Cf. Neuhouser (2000, 98), who recognizes in the “performing particular roles” in the web of “social roles” the realization of the “practical identity” of human persons. 12 This normative relevance can be seen, for example, in Hegel’s critique of al‑ ternative theories of punishment (§§ 99–100), in which he rejects justificatory strategies that either fail to hit the normative core of state punishment or even destroy it. In an analogous way, he also addresses the function of excuses or the exculpation via sanity (§120); on this, see Michael Quante (2018b, chapter 10). 13 As soon as it is about the satisfaction of needs and interests, the bodily constitu‑ tion of the human being comes into view, which Hegel discusses with reference to the good. 14 Neuhouser (2000, 134) claims that his reconstruction does not depend on the presuppositions of Hegel’s logic. The question of how Hegel’s practical philoso‑ phy can be explicated independently of his metaphysics also depends on how one interprets Hegel’s logic metaphilosophically; cf. Meyer and Quante (2022). 15 Pippin (2008, 186) also argues that Hegel holds “no voluntarist position on the nature of freedom,” and Yeomans (2012, 32) urges philosophy—in my view, quite in line with Hegel—“Stop thinking this way!”. 16 Rózsa (2007, 122) suggests accordingly to understand “freedom as motivation of practices,” see also Rózsa (2012, 75). 17 Pippin (2008, 39) and Moyar (2011, 39) who speaks of “institutional norms of action” also come to this conclusion. 18 This can be understood as a dimension of Neuhouser’s “practical identity,” cf. Neuhouser (2000, 98). 19 See Quante (2018a, 2018b, Chapter 13) and, as locus classicus, Siep (1992, Chapter 12). 20 Hegel points to this plurality with reference to justice itself in Elements: “So far as the mode of existence [Existenz] of justice is concerned, the form which it has within the state, namely that of punishment, is not its only form, and the state is not a necessary condition of justice in itself” (§100A). 21 Thanks to Anna May Blundell for all the necessary corrections and helpful improvements.

Reference List DeVries, Willem A. 2008. “Sense‑Certainty and the ‘This‑Such.’” In Hegel’s Phenom‑ enology of Spirit: A Critical Guide, edited by Dean Moyar and Michael Quante, 63–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, Thomas and Michael Quante. 2022. “Hegel’s Metaphilosophy as Ascriptiv‑ ist Metaphysics.” In The Relevance of Hegel’s Concept of Philosophy, edited by Luca Illetterati and Giovanna Miolli, 413–30. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Recognition and Justice in Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivism  55 Meyer, Thomas, Michael Quante and Tim Rojek. 2021. “Status von A ­ nerkennung (als Kategorie/Konzept/Konzeption oder als Theorietyp/Theoriefamilie).” In Hand­ buch Anerkennung, edited by Ludwig Siep, Heikki Ikäheimo, and Michael Quante, 39–53. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Moyar, Dean. 2011. Hegel’s Conscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moyar, Dean. 2021. Hegel’s Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neuhouser, Frederick. 2000. Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Peperzaak, Adriaan T. 2001. Modern Freedom. Dordrecht: Kluver Academic Publishers. Pippin, Robert B. 2008. Hegel’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‑ versity Press. Quante, Michael. 2004. Hegel’s Concept of Action. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‑ versity Press. Quante, Michael. 2018a. “‘Handlung ist Wirklichkeit’: Hegels handlungstheore‑ tische Fundierung des Wirklichkeitsbegriffs.” Rechtsphilosophie 1: 1–15. Quante, Michael. 2018b. Spirit’s Actuality. Paderborn: Brill mentis. Quante, Michael. 2024. “Hegel’s Cognitivist Ascriptivismus.” In The Necessity of Freedom in Hegel: Logic, Phenomenology and History, edited by Emilia ­Angelova. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (forthcoming). Rózsa, Erzsébet. 2007. Hegels Konzeption praktischer Individualität. Paderborn: mentis. Rózsa, Erzsébet. 2012. Modern Individuality in Hegel’s Practical Philosophy. ­Leiden: Brill. Siep, Ludwig. 1992. Praktische Philosophie im Deutschen Idealismus. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Siep, Ludwig. 2010. Aktualität und Grenzen der Praktischen Philosophie Hegels. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Yeomans, Christopher. 2012. Freedom and Reflection. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yeomans, Christopher. 2015. The Expansion of Autonomy. Oxford: Oxford Uni‑ versity Press.

4 Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel Italo Testa

Aristotle and philia Philia appears only occasionally in the Politics, but it is in the N ­ icomachean Ethics, the Ethics to Eudemus, the Rhetoric, and the Magna Moralia (a  work whose attribution is controversial) that Aristotle develops this ­notion in the most articulate way. First of all, it should be remembered that the notion of philia referred to by Aristotle is a broader phenomenon than what we call “friendship”: the latter is rather a particular case of the phenomenal field embraced by philia. The fact that there does not seem to be a single term in modern languages that embraces the whole phenomenal field of Aristotelian philia has given rise to various translation proposals, ranging from the equivo‑ cal “friendship” to “love.” But none of these terms are really adequate as they capture only one aspect of a phenomenon that is, on the contrary, expressed in many different ways. The range of phenomena covered by philia is very broad indeed and concerns a set of attitudes and affections found among individuals of the same species, even in the case of other animal species (see Aristotle 2009, 1155a 16 ff.),1 and involving, for example, parents and their offspring, brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, friends, lovers, eco‑ nomic partners, fellow citizens, and so on: among the examples Aristotle cites are parental care, filial feeling, friendship, fraternity, love, solidarity, and camaraderie. With regard to these phenomena, philia theory focuses on the perspec‑ tive of the individual agent—who is here always a social actor—specifically analyzing the kind of capacity for action he or she must have in order to in‑ teract with other agents. In this sense, philia is conceived of as an affective disposition necessary for life. It is first and foremost a disposition (hexis), i.e., an ability to repeatedly produce behaviors of a certain type. The be‑ haviors thus produced are precisely those forms of interaction accompa‑ nied by affects that are necessary for the constitution of the social bond. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-5

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  57 Philia is therefore a capacity for action that is necessary for p ­ articipation in a socially organized form of life. It is precisely in this sense that, for Aristotle, the question of the neces‑ sity of philia for life is strategically linked to the doctrine of the political nature of the human animal. Political action, in fact, is something that, as deliberative agents, we would appreciate as an indispensable component in the flourishing of our social form of life: as such, it is constitutive of h ­ uman nature as we understand it. But to be part of a polis, to participate in a politically organized form of social life, we need to be able to act socially, i.e., to interact in such a way as to establish relationships of a certain kind. The social action required here must be such as to establish relations of community, of koinonia—a capacity to act as a member of a community. Indeed, the polis is nothing other than a community of communities: thus, the capacity for action that disposes us to establish relations of communal‑ ity is presupposed by the anthropology of the zoon politikon. In this sense, the reference in the Nicomachean Ethics to the doctrine of zoon politikon does not have a purely illustrative value—that is, it is not simply a question of providing philia with an example to confirm human being’s political nature. On the contrary, through the analysis of philia, Aristotle highlights the fundamental structure of the type of action required to be social ani‑ mals. In fact, koinonein, the form of social action by which we establish community relations, is coextensive with philein: “friendship depends on community” (Aristotle 2009, 1159b 32). In this sense, the analysis of philia provided in the eighth book of the Nicomachean Ethics plays a central role in Aristotelian anthropology since it is precisely the doctrine of philia that makes explicit the structure of the capacity for action that enables people to establish relations of koinonia, i.e., social bonds. But how does Aristotle analyze the structure of philia as agency? It is, firstly, a disposition that has a natural component (Aristotle 2009, 1149b 9)—it is based on the functions of our first animal nature with which we are endowed from childhood—but which must at the same time be developed through education—in a process involving deliberation and choice (ibid., 1157b 30–1)—and then consolidated in the form of a second natural habit of action. Secondly, philia is characterized as a disposition accompanied by af‑ fections. In this sense, philia is not an affection—which would otherwise only have a passive character—but rather it is a capacity for action ac‑ companied by affection, a capacity to act by forging sensitive bonds. The third fundamental requirement of philia is to be a reciprocal affective dis‑ position, meaning that interaction must be accompanied not only by the anticipation of the other agent’s reaction but also by the disposition to “reciprocate” the affections that others show towards us: an exchangeable affection, the disposition to reciprocity (ibid. 1155b 28).

58  Italo Testa If, then, we return to the idea that philein is coextensive with koinonein, we shall see how the analysis of philia as hexis, understood as a disposition to action, brings out the sentimental and reciprocal structure of the social bond. To clear up any misunderstanding, I do not claim that the theory of philia contains Aristotle’s entire theory of action—in a way, the intra‑­ subjective analysis of the structure of individual action that Aristotle de‑ velops in the account of poetic and practical action is presupposed here, as shown by the fact that the analysis of the disposition of philia presupposes the conception of deliberation and choice developed in Book VI. On the contrary, the theory of philia contains the Aristotelian hermeneutics of the social character of action, of the inter‑subjective structure within which the intra‑subjective structure of choice and deliberation is actually real. However, the theory of philia is not limited to explaining the general structure of the disposition that underpins our social agency. In Chap‑ ters 2 and 3 of Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle presents a typology of the different forms of philia. This typology is derived from an analysis of the motivational structure that coordinates the interaction of philia. In this sense, the analysis of the different forms of disposition to philia includes an analysis of the different forms of social action. The Different Forms of Philia

The criterion for dividing up the different forms of philia is given by the type of connotation that affection has towards the other with whom we interact. The other with whom we interact may present itself as useful (chresimon), pleasant (hedu), or good (agathon). The other may satisfy our interests, bring us pleasure, or have value in itself. We can therefore distin‑ guish three motivations for interaction: utilitarian motivation, hedonistic motivation, and disinterested ethical motivation. Whereas in the first two cases, the interaction partner is valued for something else, as an instrumen‑ tal good—the profit or pleasure it brings us—in the third case, we value it unconditionally, for its intrinsic value. I cannot dwell here on the details of Aristotelian typology of social ­action. It is important to note, however, that Aristotelian analysis has both a descriptive and an evaluative component. From the descriptive point of view, it encompasses, as already mentioned, a very wide range of inter‑ actions, from economic forms of self‑interested action, to pleasure‑based sexual and affective interactions, to supportive interactions between com‑ rades and citizens, or to morally motivated actions in the strict sense. From a descriptive point of view, all these are forms of philia in their own right. At the same time, Aristotle’s analysis also has an evaluative ­dimension. He identifies in the third form and in particular in some of its occurrences—­ ethical friendship between virtuous men, similar and equal to each

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  59 other—the excellent form of philia, insofar as it satisfies the requirement of perfection/completeness, as of what is chosen in itself and not with a view to something else: Complete friendship is that of good people, those who are alike in their virtue: they each alike wish good things to each other in so far as they are good, and they are good in themselves. (ibid. 7–10) It’s no coincidence that interpreters like Gregory Vlastos and Martha Nussbaum, who take disinterested benevolence as the essential meaning of philia, opt for a translation of philia as “love.”2 In my opinion, this meaning is too narrow, firstly, because it covers only one area of the phe‑ nomena of philia that Aristotle identifies; secondly, because, by ultimately understanding love as disinterested benevolence—wanting the good of the other as such, of the other as an end in itself, as a person—we end up con‑ sidering philia solely from the point of view of moral friendship. Above all, however, it should follow from our reading that, by reducing philia to the question of disinterested benevolence, we lose sight of an important part of Aristotle’s analysis, failing to grasp that it also offers an account of social action, which as such must be able to embrace forms of interaction that constitute social bonds even without being motivated by disinterested benevolence or intrinsic appreciation. Of course, in the Aristotelian conception, social action—precisely be‑ cause it consists of action dispositions that must be developed through education and become habitual—does not occur in a vacuum: it is always inserted into a context of customs, into an ethos, and this is one of the reasons why the Aristotelian conception of social agency is developed in the books of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is precisely for this reason that the theory of philia serves as a hinge between the “political” and “ethical” books, insofar as it deals with the social structure of the disposition to act that is common to both political and ethical actions. If what I have tried to show is plausible, then the Aristotelian theory of philia cannot be reduced to a part of the theory of ethical virtues, whether philia is understood as an application of virtue—a specific virtue, friend‑ ship, alongside the other virtues. Or in the sense we see, for example, prevailing among interpreters such as John M. Cooper (1980), who under‑ stands philia/love as the crown and intermediary of the virtues, the highest example of the ethical virtues in which individuals find their fulfillment: insofar as, as Nussbaum also asserts (1986, 343 and 352), one cannot exercise and choose a virtue as an end in itself if one does not choose to‑ gether the good of the other as a constitutive part of that end. If, in the first case, in my opinion, we arrive at too narrow a definition of philia, which

60  Italo Testa sacrifices the descriptive extension of the Aristotelian conception, in the second case, we arrive at too lofty a conception, which ends up losing sight of the gradation of the Aristotelian analysis. Only if we are able to make the descriptive and evaluative dimensions compatible can we then account for the role that the notion of philia also plays in Aristotelian analysis of the constitution of the various forms of community that form the basis of the polis. Indeed, if we assume that philia is complete or perfect only among virtuous men—that which satisfies to the highest degree the constitutive requirements of similarity and equality— then the doctrine of philia must seem absent at the beginning of the Poli‑ tics, where the family, the village, and the polis are analyzed as a set of relations of koinonia—motivated by utility, pleasure, or goodness— which also include relations between unequal people—between man and woman, parent and child, master and slave. On the contrary, according to A ­ ristotle, for each of the three forms of philia identified, the partners can find them‑ selves either in a relationship of equality—with respect to fundamental abilities and moral value—or in a hierarchical relationship, where one commands the other. The latter can still be described as a relationship of philia, as long as it satisfies the requirement of similarity and equality at least in a proportional sense—only the relationship with the slave is prob‑ lematic from this point of view. In this sense, philia relations also include asymmetrical reciprocal interactions involving relations of authority. For this reason, on the one hand, the doctrine of philia—as an analy‑ sis of the disposition that establishes community ties and thus the social bond—can be read as an analysis of the intersubjective structure of those relations that constitute the social and political community—­reciprocal relations that can be between equals and unequals, symmetrical and ­asymmetrical—that Aristotle sets out at the beginning of the first book of the Politics. On the other hand, the evaluative dimension of the theory of philia plays a role in justifying the legitimacy of the social authority of superiors over inferiors, and thus of political authority, which is precisely that type of reciprocal authority exercised between those who can attain to the highest degree the requirements of similarity and equality embodied in the completed form of philia. Hegel: Philia, Ethical Disposition, and Recognition Let me now turn to the passage from Aristotle to Hegel. In what sense can the Hegelian perspective help us articulate the content of the doctrine of philia? Firstly, it seems to me because Hegel explicitly highlights the recognitive structure of the interaction of philia already implicit in the Ar‑ istotelian analysis. This is most apparent in Hegel’s treatment of friendship and love. Robert R. Williams has paid particular attention to this aspect, in

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  61 an interpretation which, starting from the translation of philia as “love,” tends to identify philia with love and friendship (Williams 2010, 20–36). Thus, for example, in the “Phenomenology” of the Encyclopedia of Philo‑ sophical Sciences, in the part of the section on self‑consciousness where he analyzes the dynamics of “Anerkennung” (recognition), Hegel dwells on “universal self‑consciousness,” understood as “affirmative awareness of oneself in the other self,” i.e., a form of self‑relation that is constituted through the process of mutual recognition. In this regard, in the Remark’ to §436, Hegel writes: This universal mirroring of self‑consciousness, the concept that is aware of itself in its objectivity as subjectivity identical with itself and there‑ fore universal, is the form of consciousness of the substance of every essential spirituality of the family, the fatherland, the state, as well as of all virtues, of love, friendship, courage, of honour, of fame. (EPM, §436R)3 In a similar sense, in the Addition to §7 of the Introduction to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the work in which he sets out his theory of the constitution of the social and political community, Hegel points to friend‑ ship and love as examples of affective dispositions constituting the social sphere of spirit, Geist. But we already possess this freedom in the form of feeling [Empfindung], for example in friendship and love. Here, we are one‑sidedly within ourselves, but willingly limit ourselves with reference to an other, even while knowing ourselves in this limitation as ourselves. In this determi‑ nacy, the human being should not feel determined; on the contrary, he attains his self‑awareness only by regarding the other as other. (PR, §7A) Hegel thus sees the various instances of philia (love, friendship, honor, and fame) as exemplifications of the same structure of recognition. Finally, he shows that the interactions of philia can be analyzed as interactions of recognition, as examples of relations of mutual recognition. This focus on the recognitive structure of philia allows us to highlight two aspects of Aristotle’s analysis. Firstly, as Paul Ricœur has pointed out (see Ricoeur 1990, 214–5), we should note the Aristotelian discovery of mutuality or reciprocity as a constitutive aspect of philia—where I would like to point out that this mutuality or reciprocity is not necessarily sym‑ metrical. This aspect reappears forcefully in the Hegelian conception of mutual recognition—a reciprocity which, for Hegel, occurs even when the relationship of recognition is not a symmetrical one between equals.

62  Italo Testa Secondly, it underlines in Aristotle’s analysis of philia the presence of the structure of “doubling,” what Hegel calls Verdopplung—and which is a key element in the analysis of the constitution of the recognition of self‑consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit, where the moment of doubling and of mirroring oneself in the other is seen as a necessary mo‑ ment for the establishment of a self‑conscious relation. This is an aspect that also emerges strongly in Aristotle, who, in the Nicomachean Ethics and also in the Ethics to Eudemus and the Magna Moralia, returns several times to the question of the friend as “another self (allos autos)” (Aristotle 2009, 1166a 32). Aristotle not only shows how the structure of the mutual mirroring manifests itself in love and friend‑ ship, he also argues that both partners recognize themselves in the other as an image of themselves (ibid., 1161b 28–35; see also Ethics to Eudemus, 1245a 29–30 and 1245a 34–36). In the Magna Moralia, the idea is explic‑ itly expressed that self‑knowledge and self‑awareness are not constituted independently of the mutual mirroring relationship (see Magna Moralia 1213a 13–26). This is an idea that the chapter on self‑awareness in the Phenomenology of Spirit will fundamentally re‑articulate in the context of an analysis of the recognitive process of mutual constitution between self‑consciousnesses. If this reconstruction were to have its own plausibility, then it would conversely allow us to read the Hegelian conception of recognition in a new light as a modern articulation of the Aristotelian conception of philia. It is perhaps no coincidence that, in interpreting the Hegelian theory of Anerkennung (recognition), a problem similar to that affecting the inter‑ pretation of Aristotelian philia has arisen. On the one hand, in the Phe‑ nomenology of Spirit, Hegel eminently analyzes relations of asymmetrical reciprocal recognition between unequals—the master‑servant dialectic, for example; on the other, he speaks of the “pure Notion” of recognition as a form of free reciprocal relation between equals (PS, 112). Hence, the temptation for many to reduce recognition to just one of the two sides, by emphasizing the asymmetrical dimension—as in the case of Alexandre Kojève (1947) and his reading of history as a struggle for recognition—or by focusing on the evaluative notion of mutual recognition — the “pure Notion” of recognition—and thus ending up reducing the theory of Anerk‑ ennung to a normative doctrine of free moral equality. In its more general sense, however, the Hegelian conception of recognition is an analysis of the microstructure of the relations that make up social life and thus, from the individual’s point of view, of the dispositions with which they must be endowed in order to interact with other individuals and thus organize and constitute a social world. And it is for this reason that the dispositions of recognition can generate both predominantly asymmetrical reciprocal interactions and asymmetrical reciprocal relations, in certain domains that Hegel, in the course of his itinerary, increasingly narrowed down.

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  63 Friendship, Philia, and Gesinnung

Love and elective friendship, as we have said, are but two particular and distinct cases of the more general structure of recognition. Friendship, un‑ derstood in this sense, is for Hegel a particular virtue in the same way as love—and in this sense a specific instance of a relationship of recogni‑ tion. It is in this light that we can examine Hegel’s critique of Fries. In the Preface to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel, in polemics with Jakob Friedrich Fries, bitterly attacks positions that place “friend‑ ship [Freundschaft]” understood in a sentimental and moral sense as the foundation of the politico‑social bond. All this, according to Hegel, results in the edifice of culture melting into a “mush of ‘heart, friendship and e­nthusiasm’” (PR, 16). Hegel’s criticism of Fries does not, therefore, concern the notion of philia in its broad Aristotelian sense, but rather the modern tendency to read philia in exclusively moral terms, to reduce it to its restricted sense of elective friendship, dropping its core of social theory, which Hegel instead takes up, as we shall see, in the terms of his conception of Gesinnungen (dispositions), as structures of recognition. In this sense, it cannot be said, as Williams argues (2010), that Hegel generalizes the Aristotelian concep‑ tion of friendship since, as we have seen, even in Aristotle elective love and friendship do not coincide with the disposition of philia. It must also be said that the passages relevant to the Hegelian reception of philia are not only those where he deals with friendship and love but also the passages where love and friendship are treated as particular virtues. This is all the more true since, as I have been argued, Aristotelian philia does not coin‑ cide with the phenomena of love and friendship.4 On the one hand, as we have seen, it is in the theory of recognition, as not only expounded in the Phenomenology of Spirit but also present in the other major works, that Hegel develops a level of abstract analysis of the microstructure of philia’s dispositions. On the other hand, if we take the Elements of the Philosophy of Right as the work that expounds Hegel’s conception of the social community, we should expect to find other func‑ tional correspondents of philia as well. In particular, it is in the conception of Gesinnung that Hegel takes up the question of philia on a more general level. In order to participate in ethical life (Sittlickeit)—understood as a set of institutionalized spheres of interaction or, in other words, as a set of stabilized habits or customs of interaction—individuals must, for ­Hegel, be endowed with inner dispositions, which, moreover, develop in turn through the formative process required to become actors in a Sittlichkeit. In this sense, in §515 of the Encyclopedia, Hegel writes: The disposition [Gesinnung] of the individuals is awareness of the sub‑ stance and of the identity of all their interests with the whole; and when

64  Italo Testa the other individuals are actual and reciprocally aware of ­themselves only in this identity, this is trust,—the genuine, ethical disposition [­sittliche Gesinnung]. (EPM, §515) But Gesinnungen are ultimately for Hegel affective dispositions accompa‑ nied by trust and in this sense social dispositions: a certain level of trust is, as in the case of every type of philia relation—from the economic to the moral—necessary to participate in a form of social life. Thus, at the beginning of the section on “Ethical Life” of the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel introduces this conception of Gesinnung as an affective disposition, without explicitly naming it, into his analysis of the subjective moment of objective ethical powers, i.e., social institutions. In §147, he writes about the ethical substance, its laws and powers: On the other hand, they are not something alien to the subject. On the contrary, the subject bears spiritual witness to them as to its own es‑ sence, in which it has its self‑awareness [Selbstgefühl] and lives as in its element which is not distinct from itself—a relationship which is imme‑ diate and closer to identity than even [a relationship of] of faith or trust. (PR, §147) Then, in another passage of fundamental importance for the structure of the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, namely §257, which intro‑ duces the third section, devoted to the state, Hegel confirms the structural function that the notion of Gesinnung plays for the constitution of social interaction within the political community and its objective institutional structures. In this sense he writes that the state has its immediate existence [Existenz] in custom and its mediate exist‑ ence in the self‑consciousness of the individual [des Einzelnen], in the individual’s knowledge and activity, just as self‑consciousness, by virtue of its disposition [Gesinnung], has its substantial freedom in the state as its essence, its end, and the product of its activity. (PR, §257) In this respect, it should be noted that, on the one hand, Gesinnung, as a subjective disposition to action, has the structure of Aristotelian hexis. It is not only a disposition accompanied by affects but also a habitual disposi‑ tion, which has the form of a durable aptitude: an aptitude acquired as a habit, a habitual disposition of interaction. On the other hand, the structure of Gesinnung, as we have seen with reference to §515 of the Encyclopaedia, is made explicit by the vocabulary

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  65 of recognition, as an intersubjective disposition. And this explanation of philia through the theory of recognition is linked to the modern transfor‑ mation of social relations and the modern conception of individual free‑ dom. As Hegel writes in the Remark to §503 of the Encyclopedia, the ethical determinations of the modern subject must have “their approval, recognition [Anerkennung], or even justification in his heart, disposition [Gesinnung], insight, etc.”5 (EPM, §515R). In this sense, the notion of Gesinnung is indeed the place where, as J.‑F. Kervégan (1989a, 11; 1989b) argues in the wake of J. Ritter, Hegel ­attempts to reconcile the Aristotelian tradition of ethical life with modern subjectivity. This reconciliation is made possible, according to the thesis I present, precisely by the fact that the notion of Gesinnung is a reconstruc‑ tion by means of the theory of recognition, of the structure of philia. In this sense, recognition theory is the modern vocabulary that makes explicit the content of the ancient notion of philia. On the other hand, the notion of Gesinnung in turn is central to understanding the Hegelian theory of recognition as it makes explicit the dispositional structure of recognizing attitudes, that is, the fact that recognitive relations are not mere intentional attitudes but are possible only insofar as they take the form of dispositions that can become habitual. In this sense, in §207, Hegel writes: The ethical disposition within this system is therefore that of rectitude and the honour of one’s estate, so that each individual, by a process of self‑determination, makes himself a member of one of the moments of civil society through his activity, diligence, and skill, and supports him‑ self in this capacity; and only through this mediation with the universal does he simultaneously provide for himself and gain recognition [aner‑ kannt zu sein] in his own eyes [Vorstellung] and in the eyes of others. (PR, §207) In §253, this relationship between recognition and Gesinnung is reiterated at a further level when Hegel writes that in ethical institutions such as family and corporation recognition, the fact the individual “is somebody” becomes a pattern, a standing within such a context of interaction, rather than something that must be intentionally affirmed and justified: In the corporation, the family not only has its firm basis in that its liveli‑ hood is guaranteed—i.e. it has secure resources (see PR, §170)—on con‑ dition of its [possessing a certain] capability, but the two [i.e. livelihood and capability] are also recognized [anerkannt], so that the member of a corporation has no need to demonstrate his competence and his regular income and means of support—i.e., the fact that he is somebody—by any further external evidence. In this way, it is also recognized that he

66  Italo Testa belongs to a whole which is itself a member of society in general, and that he has an interest in, and endeavours to promote, the less selfish end of this whole. Thus, he has his honour in his estate. (PR, §207) Gesinnung, as the intersubjective disposition underlying ethico‑political life and its objective institutional structure, is then qualified according to the concrete contexts of interaction of social institutions. In this sense, it is in the analysis of the family, civil society, and the state that “ethical Ges‑ innung,” as Hegel refers to it in §207 of the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, speaking of ethische Gesinnung as Rechtschaffenheit (rectitude), can be determined in its content: insofar as it is made up of patterns of “recognition” that underlie these circles of interaction. Thus, for example, in the analysis of the family, Gesinnung qualifies as a grateful disposition of love and intimacy (PR, §173) between spouses; in the analysis of civil society, in mutual dispositions such as righteousness, trust, honor, and loy‑ alty (PR, §§207, 253, 255); and finally, in the sphere of the state, as the political Gesinnung of patriotism (PR, §268) and civic virtue (PR, §§269 and 273). Like philia, ethical Gesinnung can be said in many ways, and in the different forms of Gesinnung we find the specificities of the different configurations that philia can assume within ethical and political relations and institutional contexts. In this sense, when Hegel, in the section on internal state law, speaks of the notion of political Gesinnung, rather than introducing a specific po‑ litical virtue, he rather qualifies the structural meaning of ethical‑political action from the notion of Gesinnung. In this respect, in §268 of Elements of the Philosophy of Right, he writes: The political disposition, i.e. patriotism in general, is certainty based on truth (whereas merely subjective certainty does not originate in truth, but is only opinion) and a volition which has become habitual. (PR, §268) By characterizing the political disposition as patriotism, Hegel is using a modern term but at the same time distancing himself from the usual inter‑ pretations of the term as the remark of the same paragraph makes clear: Patriotism is frequently understood to mean only a willingness to per‑ form extraordinary sacrifices and actions. But in essence, it is that dis‑ position which, in the normal conditions and circumstances of life, habitually knows that the community is the substantial basis and end. It is this same consciousness, tried and tested in all circumstances of ordi‑ nary life, which underlies the willingness to make extraordinary efforts. (PR, §268R)

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  67 The notion of political disposition, in this sense, makes explicit the ­constitutive role that Gesinnung, as hexis, habitual disposition, plays in collective life and vital relationships. In this respect, we can see in this analysis of the notion of political disposition a revival of the Aristote‑ lian idea that koinonein, the form of social action by which we estab‑ lish community relations, is coextensive with philein: “philía consists in community” (Aristotle 2009, 1159b 32). In other words, in the Hegelian transcription, Gesinnungen form the basis of the communal structure of collective life. Philia and Justice The analysis of political disposition as patriotism can now be read as a modern transcription of Aristotelian considerations on the political role of philia. It is in this sense that Aristotle states that it is philia that holds the city together and that legislators are more concerned with it than with justice: Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice […] and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality. (ibid. 1155a 22–9) Aristotle asserts here first and foremost the socio‑ontological role of philia, the fact that philia is the glue that holds cities together. Philia is in this sense more fundamental than justice as a political notion in the strict sense since the latter presupposes the existence of a communal bond whose structure is constituted by interactions of philia and cannot be realized ex‑ cept within that fundamental context. Second, philia is more fundamental in that it incorporates at the pre‑institutional level some individual disposi‑ tion to justice—in that sense when one is a friend one does not need justice in the formal sense—even if realizable in different senses and in different contexts, depending on the different types of philia that permeate different social and institutional contexts of justice. Justice alone for Aristotle cannot be the fundamental principle underly‑ ing a political community, unlike what Plato argued in the Republic: it presupposes both as its condition of possibility and as its context of re‑ alization and fulfillment relations of philia. This is why a community can formally realize criteria of justice but suffer from deficits and pathologies rooted in philia interactions that can render it fundamentally unjust. And conversely, a society, to be just in the full sense, must realize itself and be sustained by not damaged, successful philia relations, which will have their paradigmatic model in the exemplary friendship among the virtuous

68  Italo Testa as free and equal: “when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.” Certainly it is impossible for Aristotle—given the definition of philia— for there to exist any form of society in which there are no relations of philia: for philia is the arrangement that establishes communal nexus and social bonding. If communal relations are rooted in the disposition to philia, the latter including some disposition to equality, then in every com‑ munity there is some form of justice. In this sense Aristotle writes: Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our discus‑ sion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as friends their fel‑ low voyagers and fellow soldiers, and so too those associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of their association is the extent of their friendship, as it is the extent to which justice exists between them. Since community relations of philia can differ, it will follow that even re‑ lations of justice will not all be homogeneous with each other, but rather will mirror the intersubjective structure of the community to which they compete, including both asymmetrical and symmetrical relations. Different communities and institutional contexts will then have different criteria of justice and the obligations of reciprocity to which those who, living within such communities, are bound by more or less accomplished different rela‑ tions of philia. In light of the connection between philia and justice, we can now focus on a further aspect of the Hegelian reconstruction of the recognitive struc‑ ture of philia as Gesinnung. Indeed, the lexicon of recognition, by explicat‑ ing the intersubjective structure of the interaction of philia as a constitutive moment of the relations of commonality that underlie the socio‑political community, allows us to better understand the deep reason why philia is both the presupposition and the paradigmatic realization of justice. Philia in the broad socio‑ontological sense is the presupposition of justice insofar as the latter has communicative presuppositions grounded in the relations of recognition. Philia in the narrow sense as a paradigmatic relation of friendship between the virtuous as free and equal, in Aristotle, and as a recognizing relation between free and equal in potency for Hegel, on the other hand, would be the exemplary model at the intersubjective level of an accomplished, politically realized justice. In this key, the thesis, argued by Axel Honneth, that the Elements of the Philosophy of Right can be read as a theory of justice centered on the reconstruction of the communicative presuppositions of formal principles

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  69 of justice assumes a new meaning (Honneth 2010). Indeed, reading the theory of recognition in light of the Aristotelian notion of philia allows us to appreciate at a deeper level the internal connection between recogni‑ tion and justice in Hegel. Indeed, the Aristotelian passage on the nexus between philia and justice allows us to understand why recognition theory is relevant for reconstructing both the socio‑ontological presuppositions of justice, its paradigmatic dimension, and the diagnosis of the social pa‑ thologies related to it and rooted in the intersubjective infrastructure of society. Moreover, the link between Hegel and Aristotle also allows us to grasp the limitations of Honneth’s reading. The latter, in fact, does not focus on the connection between Aristotelian philia and Anerkennung. While valuing the nexus between recognition and friendship, Honneth reads the latter only in relation to the modern notion of elective friendship between free and equal people and thus as a paradigmatic model of communicative freedom of the recognition type (cf. Honneth 2014, 134–41). First, let me stress that the reference to Aristotle allows us first of all to understand not only why elective friendship may count as a paradigmatic model of rec‑ ognitive freedom for Hegel but also why the exemplary form of the latter concerns the question of the social realization of justice in different social and institutional contexts. Second, the reference to Aristotle allows us to understand that philia plays a broader structural role than friendship as a particular modern social institution—to which Honneth tends to limit his interpretation of friendship by Hegel—since it concerns the question of the general socio‑ontological presuppositions of community bonding. But the reconstruction of the nexus between philia and justice also al‑ lows us to critically revisit the notion of recognition that Honneth places at the basis of his reconstruction of the Hegelian theory of justice. In fact, Honneth, in his reading of the Elements, completely neglects the notion of Gesinnung and gives it no role as far as understanding the communicative presuppositions of justice is concerned. This prevents Honneth from grasp‑ ing the systematic meaning that §§203 and 257 play for the understand‑ ing of the Hegelian theory of recognition. These paragraphs, as we have shown, allow us to understand that, for Hegel, recognitive interactions within a social community must be understood from the socio‑ontological point of view not on the model of mere intentional attitudes, but rather as habitual and institutionalized patterns, such as dispositions (see Testa 2017, 2020, 2021), recognitive Gesinnungen. If, in alterative to Honneth’s model of social action as an intentional at‑ titude, we reconstruct recognition theory in terms of Gesinnungen, we can also better understand the connection between Anerkennung and justice. In the Phenomenology of the Encyclopedia, Hegel states that “we know […] that in that the others have rights I have them too, or that my right

70  Italo Testa is also essentially that of the other” (BP, 77). Hegel’s assertion that the right is essentially the right of the other, while bringing to light the connec‑ tion between justice and recognition of the other, reflects Aristotle’s thesis that “for this same reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be ‘­another’s good,’ because it is related to another” (Aristotle 2009, 1130a 3–4): a thesis that in turn must be understood in relation to the Aristotelian claim that the friend is “another self (allos autos)” (ibid., 1166a 32). The recognitive explication of the relational structure of justice in light of its connection with Aristotelian philia now enables us to better appre‑ ciate the Hegelian passage in §207 of the Elements in which it is stated that “the ethical disposition within this system is therefore that of recti‑ tude (Rechtschaffenheit).” Indeed, this passage takes up in Gesinnung the Aristotelian motif that philia entails some informal individual disposition to justice, which Hegel designates here as Rechtsschaffenheit. This is for Hegel rooted in individuals’ recognitive dispositions to interaction, which in the political community and its multiple social and institutional con‑ texts can be cultivated and stabilized habitually as a virtue. In this sense, in §274 of the Elements, Hegel understands civic virtue as Gesinnung, i.e., as a political disposition that underlies every kind of free and just politi‑ cal community—whether monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic—as its necessary, though not sufficient, condition, and which can be differently perfected according to historical and institutional contexts.6 Objections and Responses

Finally, however, let’s consider some possible objections to this interpreta‑ tive strategy. It is undoubtedly true that, for Hegel, the modern principle of subjectivity establishes a clear distinction between the ancient and the modern states—insofar as, according to Hegel, the ancient conception, and therefore also Aristotle’s, was not in a position to fully recognize the role of subjectivity in its various expressions. But, as we have seen, the vocabu‑ lary of recognition has precisely the function of transcribing the notion of philia in a way that is compatible with the meaning of modern subjectivity. It is also true that, for Hegel, another distinction is constituted by the centrality in modern state life of individual interest and egoism‑driven eco‑ nomic interaction—an element that finds no recognition at the social po‑ litical level in the Aristotelian model, which assigned no role to civil society in the Hegelian sense. However, it seems to me that these two observations cannot be used in favor of the thesis—supported, for example, by Alfredo Ferrarin (2001, 347–55) and Miguel Marti Sanchez (2017, 37–49)—that in Hegel philia could not be at the root of the life of the state, as it was in Aristotle.7 On the one hand, we have seen how philia includes among its spheres interaction motivated by profit and thus also economic interaction.

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  71 So it is not the theory of philia per se that marks Hegel’s distance from Aristotle, but rather a certain evaluation of economic activity that depends on external factors. On the other hand, it can be shown that Gesinnungen, as the subjective roots of ethical life, play a functional role analogous to philia: they are concrete forms of philia, stabilized in a certain social and historical context. Finally, another possible objection to this reading of philia in terms of recognition—and thus of Gesinnungen as concrete dispositions of ­recognition—can be drawn from Williams’ (2010) assertion that recogni‑ tion in Hegel is conceived dialectically, as something that is produced and that is generalized and universalized through the negativity of conflict and domination, whereas Aristotelian philia, on the contrary, would concern isonomic relations between equals in power‑virtuous friends. But as I have argued, interpretations that tend to identify philia and friendship often end up, on the one hand, impoverishing the Aristotelian notion of philia and, on the other, reducing Hegelian recognition, understood as friendship and love, to an irenic and positive dimension. On the contrary, I have tried to show here that Aristotelian philia is not identified with love or elec‑ tive friendship between equals and that it does not exclude phenomena of negativity and asymmetry. In this sense, what is parochial in Aristotle is not so much the general conception of philia, but rather the evaluative conception of an accom‑ plished philia—limited to a restricted circle of Athenian males, and im‑ mediately harmonious. It is also true, finally, that Aristotle misses the idea of a progressive universalization of recognition through dialectical conflict (which by Hegel too is at the end restricted to constitutional monarchy and the males included within it)—he doesn’t seem to recognize any progres‑ sive role for negativity as a modern engine of universalization. But that’s another story. Conclusion In conclusion, I have argued in this article that, first, Aristotle’s theory of philia is not simply a part of his theory of moral virtue but must rather be read in relation to his theory of action and in particular of the social action of which we are capable as political agents. For this reason, philia should not be translated as love as Vlastos, Nussbaum, and others do. Second, in relation to Hegel, I have shown that, insofar as philia does not correspond to friendship in the modern sense, we must not think we can exhaust the question of philia in Hegel by considering only the pas‑ sages where he speaks of Freundschaft (friendship), passages which are certainly significant but which always concern only a particular virtue. Consequently, we must be prepared to look elsewhere for the phenomena

72  Italo Testa covered by philia and more generally wherever Hegel analyzes forms of disposition for action. Third, I have argued that, in Hegel, friendship and love are often men‑ tioned together: this is why some have come to identify them. It is no accident, however, that Hegel cites friendship and love as two distinct ex‑ amples. They are occurrences, exemplifications of the same structure of social recognition, i.e., dispositions for interaction accompanied by affec‑ tions. In this sense, Hegel does not identify them but captures the broad structure of philia. He thus grasps the fundamental recognitive structure of what Aristotle would have called philia, of which friendship and love in the modern sense are two special cases. In this way, Hegel enables us to articulate the recognitive structure of the disposition of philia. Fourth, I have shown that particularly significant in this sense is the doctrine of Gesinnungen, which are the basis of ethical life understood as a set of institutionalized spheres of recognitive interaction. In order to participate in these spheres, individuals need to develop Gesinnungen, un‑ derstood as the dispositions for action with which they are endowed. As an affective disposition accompanied by trust, Gesinnung is the functional equivalent of what Aristotle calls philia and is reconstructed by Hegel in terms of recognitive dispositions. Finally, I have argued that the Hegelian reconstruction of philia in terms of recognition allows us to revisit the Aristotelian nexus between philia and justice, that is, the idea that formal justice has substantive presuppo‑ sitions in social interaction and its multiple institutional contexts. I have also argued that this reading allows the notion of recognition to be reread in terms of Gesinnungen, habitual dispositions to interaction, and thus to criticize some of the limitations of Honneth’s conception of recognition and its relation to justice. Notes 1 Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics is quoted according to Ross’ translation in Aristotle (2009). 2 See, for example, Vlastos (1981); Nussbaum (1986, 355); Ikäheimo (2012). 3 The Encyclopedia Phenomenology is quoted according to Wallace and Miller’s translation (1971). The Elements of the Philosophy of Right is quoted accord‑ ing to Nisbet’s translation. The Phenomenology of Spirit is quoted according to Miller’s translation. 4 Ikäheimo (2012) following the interpretative line of Vlastos, but with some important corrections, argues that (1) love, understood as unconditional care for the happiness, the well‑being of the other, would be the central meaning of Aristotelian philia; (2) for Hegel too, unconditional care would be the interper‑ sonal attitude constitutive of love; (3) Hegel would then conceive love thus un‑ derstood as a species of the genus of attitudes of recognition (where the g­ enus of recognition would then include other species of interpersonal attitudes, such

Philia, Recognition, and Justice between Aristotle and Hegel  73 as respect, esteem). In my opinion, this type of interpretation clarifies impor‑ tant aspects of the phenomenon of unconditional love and of the Aristotelian and Hegelian analyses that Williams has not sufficiently differentiated. It can‑ not, however, exhaust the question of philia in all its theoretical scope, since it ultimately concerns only the completed form of philia between virtuous per‑ sons, and therefore cannot account for the full spectrum of philia interactions identified by Aristotle: it is no coincidence that, for the author, interactions based on pleasure and utility would only be qualified by Aristotle as philia by analogy and without any real reason (Ikäheimo 2012, 15, n12). According to the analysis I am proposing, on the other hand, the Aristotelian theory of philia is situated at a more general level, covering the whole range of social interaction, encompassing different species of this kind. And in this sense, the Hegelian theory of recognition, which as such embraces not only the positive and accomplished forms but also the negative forms of the recognitive relation, is a reprise and reformulation of the theory of philia precisely at this general level (which does not exclude that unconditional love can be understood as one of the different species of the genus of recognition). For a different critique of the identification between love and recognition, see Merle (2014). 5 On this point, see Neuhouser (2000, 17, 53 and 100). Neuhouser tends to inter‑ pret this disposition of the subject as an attitude of recognition, which he char‑ acterizes as a “state of mind,” a “representation.” This reading seems to me to fail to grasp that dispositions and attitudes of recognition have a pre‑­reflective, habitual aspect and are embodied activities rather than representations: on this question, see Testa (2009 and 2020). On the compatibility between the cogni‑ tive and pre‑flexive dimensions of ethical and political dispositions, see also Novakovic (2017, 43, 54–5); Tortorella (forthcoming) also emphasizes the link between the pre‑reflexive dimension of Gesinnung, obligation, and political legitimacy. On affinities and differences between Gesinnung as pre‑reflective disposition and the Bourdieusian notion of habitus see Djordjevic 2020. 6 PR, §274: “In the same way, we must avoid the misunderstanding of imagin‑ ing that, since the disposition of virtue is the substantial form in a democratic republic, this disposition thereby becomes superfluous, or may even be totally absent, in a monarchy; and still less should we imagine that virtue and the le‑ gally determiend activity of an articulated organization are mutually opposed and incompatible.” 7 On the mainly methodological function of the revival of Aristotelian mo‑ tifs in Hegelian philosophy of mind, with an interesting exploitation also of proto‑materialist motifs, see Renault (2000).

References Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. 2009. Translated by David Ross, revised with an Introduction and notes by Lesley Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooper, John. M. 1980. “Aristotle’s Concept of Friendship.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, edited by Amelia O. Rorty, 301–40. Berkeley: University of ­California Press. Djordjevic, Élodie. 2020. “L’ambivalence normative de l’institution.” In Les Équi‑ voques de l’institution. Normes, individu et pouvoir, edited by Élodie Djordjevic, Sabina Tortorella, and Mathilde Unger, 221–56. Paris: Classiques Garnier. Ferrarin, Alfredo. 2001. Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

74  Italo Testa Honneth, Axel. 2010. “Hegel’s Philosophy of Right as a Theory of Justice.” In The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory, 1–24. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Honneth, Axel. 2014. Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. New York: Columbia University Press. Ikäheimo, Heikki. 2012. “Globalising Love: On the Nature and Scope of Love as a Form of Recognition.” Res Publica 18, no. 1: 11–24. Neuhouser, Frederick. 2000. Foundations  of Hegel’s Social Theory: Actualizing Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kervégan, Jean‑François. 1989a. “La disposition politique: Ses connexions sociales et morales.” Hegel Jahrbuch: 109–115. Kervégan, Jean‑François. 1989b. “Les conditions de la subjectivité politique: ­Incidences du concept hégélien de ‘politische Gesinnung’.” Les Études Philos‑ ophiques 1: 99–111. Kojève, Alexander. 1947. Introduction à la lecture de Hegel. Leçons sur la Phéno‑ ménologie de l’esprit, professées de 1933 à 1939 à l’École des Hautes Études, réunies et publiées par Raymond Queneau. Paris: Gallimard. Martí Sanchez, Miguel. 2017. “Amistad y reconocimiento. Sobre la philia aristo‑ télica. Lo que Aristóteles vio y Hegel pasó por alto.” Contrastes. Revista Inter‑ nacional de Filosofía 22, no. 3: 37–49. Merle, Jean‑Christophe. 2014. “Friendship in Hegel and Its interpretation in Theo‑ ries of Recognition.” In Recognition–German Idealism as Ongoing Challenge, edited by Christian Krijnen, 311–22. Boston, MA: Brill. Novakovic, Andreja. 2017. Hegel on Second Nature in Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge ­University Press. Renault, Emmanuel. 2000. “Aristote dans la philosophie hégélienne de l’Esprit.” Kairos 16: 187–206. Ricoeur, Paul. 1990. Soi‑meme comme un autre. Paris, Seuil. Testa, Italo. 2017. “Recognition as Passive Power. Attractors of Recognition, ­Social Power, and Bio‑Power.” Constellations 24, no. 2: 192–205. Testa, Italo. 2020. “Embodied Cognition, Habit, and Natural Agency in Hegel’s Anthropology.” In The Palgrave Hegel Handbook, edited by Marina Bykova and Kenneth Westphal, 269–95. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Testa, Italo. 2021. “Embodiment and the Recognitive Manifold: A Multidimen‑ sional Approach to Natural Recognition and its Subpersonal Layers.” Itinerari 60: 15–32. Tortorella, Sabina. Forthcoming. “L’obligation politique chez Hegel.” Archives de Philosophie. Vlastos, Gregory. 1981. “The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato.” In ­Platonic Studies, 4–34: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Williams, Robert R. 2010. “Aristotle and Hegel on Recognition and Friendship.” In The Plural States of Recognition. Citizenship and Identity, edited by Michel Seymour, 20–36. London: Palgrave Macmilian.

5 Teleological Right Stages of Expressive Validity in Hegel’s Theory of Justice Dean Moyar

Modern political philosophy has been incredibly successful at bringing to actuality a practice of rights, both natural and positive. Yet for all this success, theories of justice remain elusive and almost inevitably utopian. One problem is that core rights are basic and prohibitory, while justice is complex and aspirational. Another problem is that the core rights are ori‑ ented around powerful economic interests, whereas justice typically tries to subordinate the economic to the political. Behind these problems is an issue with the nature of argument at the basic and total levels: basic right can be seen as following with deductive validity from a few basic premises, whereas the justice of the social system depends on a whole host of inter‑ locking features that make it seem more like ideal construction than logical consequence. Hegel’s political philosophy solves this problem by moving from basic to total justice through an inferential method that places a pre‑ mium on the logic of the free will. This is a teleological system of right that reconceives right’s validity through an expressive theory of action. Rigid social determinism is the great stumbling block for theories of right that claim that individuals must express themselves in political in‑ stitutions. At one point in his career Hegel was in fact attracted to a Pla‑ tonic model according to which gold, silver, and bronze natures express themselves as the different classes (guardian, military, and productive) in the city. Yet in his mature thought Hegel endorses freedom of the human will as the basis of right and thus the idea that every individual has a set of competencies that enable him or her to occupy multiple social roles (his notorious views on women are of course inconsistent with this view). I ar‑ gue that his core theory of expressive validity, developed across Abstract right, Morality, and Ethical Life, remains a live option for our thinking about justice. The view is comprehensive and liberal, for Hegel does take his bearings from the minimalist modern foundation in life, property, and welfare. The expressive view, as a theory of practical inferences culminat‑ ing in an organic system of justice, can restore an aspirational vision to an often anemic liberalism. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-6

76  Dean Moyar Practical Inference and the Goodness of the Free Will Validity in contractualist thought lies in the definition of right as a limita‑ tion of freedom for the purpose of peaceful coexistence. There should be a protected sphere of activity, as in Kant’s formulation: “Act externally in such a way that the free employment of your power of choice [Willkür] could exist together with the freedom of everyone according to a universal law” (Kant, quoted in PR Nisbet, 403 n2). There is an abstract reciproc‑ ity here. I will your right along with my right and assume that you do the same. This right typically has the form of a prohibition on certain forms of interference with my body, property, and external movement. The prob‑ lem is that if this abstract right is presented as deontological and formally valid, then systematic justice seems non‑logical, whereas in fact it has a different kind of validity and different success conditions. Part of Hegel’s strategy is to reinterpret these basic rights as the starting point of a tele‑ ological system of freedom.1 The challenge is to subordinate and integrate the basic rights without forfeiting their foundational role as the basic ex‑ pressions of personality. Hegel’s definition of right is curiously general, the “existence of the free will” (PR, §29). In contrasting this to the Kantian definition, he does not mean to say that the Kantian idea of limitation is completely wrong. But he does think of it as at once empty and overly restrictive. The focus of his comments is on the impoverished conception of freedom in the idea of choice (Willkür). Hegel’s concept of the free will, by contrast, undergirds an expressive theory of action in which choice plays an im‑ portant but subordinate role. The telos of the free will is the system of justice itself. By developing this system through two more basic stages of right, he can affirm individual rights without making them absolute. He begins with the core idea of property right as the most basic expres‑ sion of the will. By seeing abstract right as already a stage of expressive validity, enriched by the subjective will of morality, we can make sense of the full institutional system of justice as the idea of expressive validity raised to the level of a form of life. The logic of this will is a teleological logic that begins in the immediate property relation but progresses to a strong social conception of freedom and a valid inferential account of institutions.2 Hegel sums up his own conception of the rational will in §§5–7 of the Philosophy of Right. I interpret this universality‑particularity‑individuality structure as an expressive logic of the will that implies a conception of the expressive validity of actions. An action is valid or not as the conclusion of a practical syllogism. This is not exactly how he puts things in the text, so let me say a little bit about how I arrived at this reading. The first mo‑ ment of the abstract freedom or universality of the will is the ability of the thinking subject to rise above all content. Hegel associates this moment with various forms of religiosity and with political fanaticism, especially

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  77 the French Revolution.3 The second moment of the will, particularity, is supposed to bring content into the picture. Yet it is also the moment that Hegel associates with choice. Taken on its own, particularity carries a cer‑ tain arbitrariness. The big question is how the two moments are integrated in the third, where the third has the rather peculiar status of individuality or singularity [Einzelnheit]. Hegel clearly means here the full notion of individuality, a realized structure of universality and particularity, not the thin or bare notion of individuality as numerical distinctness. He gives “subjectivity” as an alternate reading (in the handwritten notes) and writes of the will as an active positing of content, a self‑determination through action. The unity of the moments is closely bound up with Hegel’s doc‑ trine of self‑relating negativity, which for all its obscurity is clearly Hegel’s core notion of self‑expression. This passage from §7 captures expression in negativity: [T]he self‑determination of the ‘I’, in that it posits itself as the negative of itself, that is, as determinate and limited, and at the same time remains with itself [bei sich], that is, its identity with itself and ­universality … This is the freedom of the will … (PR, §7) You see yourself expressed as a universal, as a free being, in the determi‑ nacy of the action or relationship. His example, friendship, indicates that other people are required if I am to realize the logic of the will. Aligning the three moments of the will with the premises and conclusion of the practical inference, we can use the validity of the practical infer‑ ence to interpret the validity of right as the existence of the free will. At the most abstract level, the universal purpose (of the major premise of the inference) is just the willing to be free. The particular minor premise then gives the specific ways in which one is free, the means to freedom, or the particular ways to realize freedom. The particular is not always what we think of as a mere means to the end, for it is that through which the end is expressed, and therefore may seem even on the surface to be more substan‑ tial than the abstract purpose (anyone can will the purpose in the abstract, but the following through on it requires identifying the specific ways to accomplish it). The conclusion of the inference is individuality as a real‑ ized action. Such individuality gives the full conditions of the realization of the purpose, all the conditions that are in place for expressive success or expressive validity. The individual conclusion of action brings with it the whole context, both the agent’s full specificity and the world in which the intention is carried out. The validity of the practical inference is no straightforward matter, for it does not follow the standard syllogistics of Aristotelian logic. That logic typically works by subsumption of instances under a concept, which is

78  Dean Moyar a different relation than the purpose‑means‑realization relation. I take my bearings for this question from Elizabeth Anscombe’s work (esp. ­Anscombe 2005). I draw from her the basic form of practical inference, where E is a general purpose and A is some more specific action that can be taken to achieve E E is to be achieved. If A, then E will be achieved. Therefore do A in order to attain E. The first premise has to be more or less general, in Hegel’s terms more or less universal. Anscombe rightly argues that this premise should state an objective or purpose and that where Aristotle seems to give something more like a principle he is actually giving a generic purpose. The purpose states some good that refers to the purpose, e.g., to the health of human beings. Anscombe argues that there is nothing distinctively practical about the hypothetical that connects the purpose to the means, for it can be re‑ formulated in terms of a truth condition for that purpose. One could say, “If A is the case, then the truth conditions for E will be met.” The acting subject is in a position to make A true and therefore acts in order to bring about E.4 This implies that truth conditions for the practical inference are typically intelligible quite apart from the psychology of the agent, for what the agent is trying to accomplish is a connection of facts available to ordi‑ nary theoretical reasoning. While the practical inference as a whole does not float wholly free from the subject’s attitude, the means‑purpose rela‑ tion is objective in the sense that it concerns relations of facts in the world.5 Nothing in the basic form of the practical inference says that there is a strict necessity that A must be done in order that E be achieved. If the sec‑ ond premise had been, as von Wright suggested, “Unless A is done, E will not be achieved,” then something closer to logical compulsion would have led to the action.6 This is perhaps more intuitively expressed by the idea that “only if A is done will E be achieved.” But not all practical inferences require one and only one specific action in order to achieve the end. One goal of a political account is to locate a kind of necessity in the practical inference while allowing individuals some discretion as to the particular actions they take. There have to be general requirements that specify which types of action are necessary for expression, but those requirements cannot be so specific and demanding that freedom for individuals to shape their own lives through their choices is eliminated. One of the crucial differences between theoretical and practical validity concerns the prevalence of defeating conditions in the latter. The addition of premises can render the inference invalid, which is not the case in deduc‑ tive inference. In the technical language of philosophical logic, practical

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  79 reasoning belongs to other kinds of reasoning that are non‑monotonic. Take all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. No addition of premises will change the conclusion that Socrates is mor‑ tal. But in the practical case, where the major premise is a statement of a purpose and the minor premise is a statement of means that will realize that purpose, all sorts of circumstances can intervene to alter the validity of a simple statement. To adapt a case from Plato: I may take it to be the case that my purpose of being a good friend will be realized through giving back to him the weapon he entrusted to me, but if the circumstance of my friend being mentally deranged and likely to harm someone obtains, then returning the weapon will not realize my purpose. To deal with such cases one typically adds a ceterus paribus clause, “all things being equal,” in or‑ der to dismiss the problem of defeaters. But for political philosophy, where conflict is normal, all things are never equal. As we will see, Hegel makes his greatest advances in deriving the content of right when he complicates an expressively valid inference of right by (re‑)introducing another right that collides with the first. The result is a new purpose and a new concep‑ tion of means that can accommodate the conflict.7 In logic the appeal to validity typically leads to a discussion of soundness as the result when the premises of the inference are true. Is there the same split between validity and soundness in the practical inference? Not ex‑ actly, because the non‑formal nature of practical validity means that there is an element that is not straightforwardly true or false, namely the original purpose or objective. We can always say that the truth of the conditionals can be separated from the general validity of the means‑ends schema (to say that it is false that Y is a means to X even though it is stated in the proper means‑ends form), but in any specific case the validity will already imply that the means really are means to this purpose (the practical infer‑ ence is materially valid). The question is not just about the truth of whether the means achieves the end but rather also about the purposes themselves. Anscombe holds the validity of practical inference to be connected to the goodness of the actions, parallel to the way that the validity of theoretical inference is connected to the truth of belief. She asks in effect what we are doing when we evaluate a practical inference. Do we assess solely its valid‑ ity as a formal structure, or is there a dimension akin to soundness or truth in theoretical cases? Considering the idea of criticizing the practical infer‑ ence for its content rather than for the “calculative” connection of purpose and means, she rejects the idea that such criticism would be “moral” rather than “a criticism of practical inference as such” (Anscombe 2005, 146). She argues that we should “distinguish between goodness and validity” in the practical inference just as we distinguish between truth and validity in the theoretical case. With this “great Aristotelian parallel” (Anscombe 2005, 146) in hand, she argues that it makes sense to evaluate a practical

80  Dean Moyar inference both for the means‑purpose connection and for the goodness of the purpose itself. Her point is that the separation of validity and goodness is important for seeing not only that both properties belong to the practical inference (it is not neutral with regard to the goodness of the purpose) but also that this separation is not total and that the goodness of the premises and conclusion is connected to the validity of the reasoning. When writ‑ ing of the conditions that provide the full expressive validity of a practical inference, I refer to truth and goodness conditions to cover both the factual conditions and the evaluative conditions. What would it take to say that the major premise of a practical inference is bad? It can be bad in itself, and, more interestingly, the implementation under certain circumstances can make it bad. The purposes are subject to criticism through the reference to more universal purposes and ultimately to a final purpose (in the next section I will draw this out through a com‑ parison of Hegel to Anscombe’s Aristotle). One can insist on the validity of property right, but in the face of the starving poor one can be criticized; one’s valid inference may be invalid when set in a wider nexus of consid‑ erations. For my account of the stages of expressive validity, the key point is that only in the third stage of Ethical Life are the full evaluative condi‑ tions present. Moral validity is still formal (“ought”) but “ethical validity” includes the full range of value considerations, so there is no separation of the abstract validity of rights from the goods expressed through the insti‑ tutional actions. The expressive view relies heavily on the concept of mutual recognition.8 This is a basic reciprocity that is in play in many versions of the contractu‑ alist picture of rational consent. Contractualism typically stresses the con‑ sistency of our ends, the reciprocity of not interfering with each other. For the Hegelian, mutual recognition works both deontologically and teleolog‑ ically, for recognition is the form of the bindingness of rights and duties and sets the terms for the value of the actions realized. In the deontological use, Hegel sees in the relation of individuals to each other the basic form of objective spirit. From the introduction of the recognizability of posses‑ sion, to contract, to punishment, and to the right of objectivity, mutual recognition is a key element. The adjudication of expressive validity is not something that any individual can do on their own. One is expressing one’s freedom, and the adequacy of the means to that universal is something that others can and must affirm for it to be expressively valid. That’s just what universality means in the realization. The recognition must be mutual because it matters to my expression that the recognition of the success be given by someone whom I recognize as free and to a certain (and some‑ what problematic) extent “like me.” And this seems to imply that a system of right has to will the mutual recognition of free wills, much in the way that a Kantian universalization wills a kingdom of ends.

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  81 The teleological version of recognition comes with the development of the subject and the purposes into more complicated configurations of value. We want to know what the purposes of justice are, not just whether the purposes that are adopted get expressed in the world through appro‑ priate means. The Hegelian world of mutual recognition takes shape in the development of the logical structure of the will into more and more determinate embodiments. Hegel’s teleological use of recognition coincides with his account of value, for value (Wert) and the good (das Gute) take shape as universals that rely on shared commitment to the freedom of all. What I call Hegel’s Dual Root account of value is similar to contemporary “fitting attitude” accounts of value.9 Our natural, living side is one root, and our thinking, self‑conscious side is the other. The first attitudes are basic needs/desires, which are fitting insofar as their objects satisfy and can be communicated to others as doing so. The standards of value are set by the processes of recognition that tend towards symmetrical relations of af‑ firmation. The good is rooted in our natural condition but attains its status as a universal through recognition. An action is expressively valid when it is adequate to the standards of the person, the subjective will, the citizen, etc. We start from a living indi‑ vidual, formally free, and the working through of those initially immediate drives leads to a world of freedom. That world has the form of a living system, an internal purposiveness with the Good as its reflexive purpose that is expressed in the individual members and institutions. The initial standard of personality as the abstract free will also takes the individual in their naturalness (and thus as a contradiction). At the outset, before devel‑ oping an account of right and the social self that goes with it, all that can be expressed is my nature as a living being, along with my formal capacity for pure thought. Our immediate living nature, the set of our basic needs and wants, is an irreducible source of value. We develop socially mediated needs and wants, but that does not affect the basic role that life plays.10 The Validity of Formal Right How does this conception of expressive validity operate in the derivation of justice in the Philosophy of Right? We begin with the structure of the rational will and the drives of the individual taken over from the account in the “Psychology” section of Subjective Spirit. The turn to objective spirit brings a telos of realization in the world, the development of a substantial content of freedom. He writes, The activity of the will consists in suspending [aufzuheben] the contra‑ diction between subjectivity and objectivity and in translating its pur‑ poses from their subjective determination into an objective one, while

82  Dean Moyar at the same time remaining with itself in this objectivity.… this activity is the essential development of the substantial content of the Idea (see §21), a development in which the concept determines the Idea, which is itself at first abstract, to [produce] the totality of its system. (PR, §28) Expression is what Hegel describes here as “translating its purposes” from subjective to objective, with the universal moment sometimes described as the subjective purpose and the individual moment identified as the objec‑ tivity of action. Here the idea of expression stands for the development of the “substantial content” of the totality of right, a system of justice. The development takes place through the idea of expressive validity in that Hegel asks, at each stage, what further shapes of right are required for the previous concept to remain valid given the potential challenges from within that same conceptual order. I conceive of these further structures as truth conditions and goodness conditions (that one must will insofar as one wills the previous structures). They will not absolutely guarantee the truth of what was previously capable of falsity, but they will bring out to the open the norms and institutions that stabilize the expression of the early norms—i.e., that give clearly defined conditions for their truth and goodness. The further conditions are introduced to bring out the full expressive validity, where that includes new conceptions of value and new contexts in which the previously abstract rights can be exercised. Property right begins with possession as the immediate expression of the subject in the world. This brings in relations to other persons right away since possession must be recognizable by others (PR, §51). That recogni‑ tion is just what a successful act of possession, an exercise of the right, entails. But the immediate judgment, “this is mine,” can only be sustained when it is “inferentially articulated,” when a set of consequences follow from the concept of property that go beyond mere physical possession of an isolated individual thing.11 Property (like meaning) is truly owned only when it is (at least in principle) available for use. Use is the developed meaning of possession. Hegel’s dialectic then moves to the total use of property, its value, which he interprets as its potential to satisfy the need in general.12 Property expresses the will as a virtual measure of need. The right to property is thus the right to its use and the right to the value of the property. Hegel further develops the valid actions of the will in his discus‑ sion of the alienation of property. He thematizes the activity of the will as itself a source of value insofar as individuals can alienate their capacities in labor. That is, in labor, the expressive validity involves a transfer of value from the worker to the world. Just what counts as a valid alienation of labor is, of course, hugely contested. In Hegel’s account it leads to the explicit mutual agreement of value transfer in contract.

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  83 Hegel’s treatment of contract brings the mutual recognition of right into the open and sets up an argument for the actuality and validity of right through the overcoming of “wrong.” Contract comes on the scene with a strong reference to mutual recognition of persons as both the ground and telos of right (PR, §71). What had seemed valid on its own, namely owner‑ ship of private property, only achieves explicit intersubjective validity once contractual relations are in place. But as the existence [Dasein] of the will, its [property’s] existence for another can only be for the will of another person. This relation [­Beziehung] of will to will is the true distinctive ground in which free‑ dom has its existence [Dasein]. (PR, §71) In the terms I am setting out in this chapter, the expressive medium proper to the will’s validity is the relationality with other wills. But of course Hegel is not satisfied with contract in general as he associates it with Willkür, the power of choice or the arbitrary will, and uses this section to critique the idea of an original social contract. In Hegel’s view we form a common will for the purpose of this specific exchange. Yet while there are universal impli‑ cations of this contract (our formal equality and the equality of value are in play), there is no well‑founded reason for engaging in the contract in the first place, no stable structure of the two wills that would form a lasting bond. The will is expressed, the contract is valid, yet the will thereby expressed is a relatively empty one, and the object of the contract, an individual item of property and its value, also is the relatively poor shape of a thing. In one sense, Hegel’s argument for punishment of wrong as securing the validity of abstract right is perfectly straightforward. A conception of right that did not include a mechanism for enforcement against violations of right would be lacking an essential component of its validity. Hegel argues that right is not analytically linked to coercion (as is the case in Fichte’s Foundations), but he does hold that punishment brings right to a new level. “Through this process of mediation whereby right returns to itself from its negation, it determines itself as actual and valid [Wirkli‑ ches und Geltendes], whereas it was at first only in itself and something immediate” (PR, §82). Matters are complicated in Hegel’s view because while the (retributivist) concept of punishment is available at this stage of right, the specific enforcement of punishment is a problem. The punishing will looks only like an avenging will, and the value of the punishment to be meted out remains indeterminate. A more developed will and a more developed medium of recognition are required for securing the conditions of just punishment. But rather than moving from the violation of right to a contract to establish power to enforce the right, Hegel makes a long detour

84  Dean Moyar through “Morality” in order to fill out the expressive capacities of the will and the conception of value that is expressed through the institutional and individual agency of Ethical Life. The “subjective will” expresses itself through its actions as a particular being oriented by the universal. The basics of the expressive will are con‑ tained in this statement from the introduction to “Morality”: The content is determined for me as mine in such a way that, in its iden‑ tity, it contains my subjectivity for me not only as my inner purpose, but also in so far as this purpose has achieved external objectivity. (PR, §110)13 So, too, the relation to the will of others now takes on a positive expressive character. “The implementation of my purpose therefore has this identity of my will and the will of others within it—it has a positive reference to the will of others” (PR, §112). Whereas personality had previously been expressed through taking possession of things and contracting with others for those things and where the main notions of right were negative (do not violate the personhood of others) with the subjective will there is a concep‑ tion of expression according to which I cannot express my will without taking into account the good of other wills. Expressing and Resolving the Conflict of Property and Welfare The right of necessity is the turning point of the Philosophy of Right, for it is in the conflict between abstract property rights and the moral right of welfare that Hegel’s holistic solution to the problem of justice comes into view. In the middle of the “Morality” section, Hegel stages a conflict between property right and welfare right to show why property must be limited and to bring home the need to put the welfare of all above lim‑ ited property claims. Hegel is clearly a defender of robust private property rights, for those rights do express at the most basic level the free will. He therefore argues against those who justify stealing from the rich to feed the poor. There is no general argument against property rights in Hegel’s en‑ dorsement of the right to welfare. Yet the right to necessity comes into play for Hegel precisely as the right of life against the right of private property. The issue is about the grounds for limiting property rights in comparison to the total loss of freedom that comes with losing one’s life. The difficult point for interpreters of Hegel is how to think of the scope of the right of necessity. Must the case be literally one of life or death, or can the poor and exploited invoke the right to justify forced transfers of wealth from the rich? Hegel suggests a broader right in his comments on “the benefit of competence” (PR, §127R) as the right of a bankrupt person to retain what they need in order to continue to make a living in their trade. An

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  85 institutionalized right of necessity could be very far‑reaching in protecting workers from the hazards of the free market. In the right of necessity the claims of property right are limited in relation to the more comprehensive claim of life, without which there would be no freedom at all. We see in Hegel’s analysis a result of the non‑­ monotonic nature of the practical inference (its susceptibility to defeat‑ ers). The right to property is a title to exclusive use and a permission to keep others from interfering with one’s property. It is a form of freedom through which we express ourselves in the world. Yet property right is not absolute. It can be defeated, for while it expresses the purpose of freedom it is also subject to conditions (or circumstances) that would make the as‑ sertion of the right a kind of wrong. When a starving person is at hand, whose very existence is threatened by the lack of food, the insistence on your right is no longer valid. Because this conflict is central to my case for teleological right, it is worth going into a little more detail on how we are to conceive of the potentially conflicting purposes of the will in the formal stages of expressive validity. Clearly, Hegel wants us to think of freedom as the goal of every shape of right. We could then say that the various stages are different purposes of the free will, where each of those purposes is a kind of freedom with its own distinctive right. The book progresses to higher stages of freedom (of expressive validity), but each of these higher stages are based on the seemingly more fundamental and yet  also more abstract earlier stages.14 The comprehensiveness of the later shapes gives them a higher right over the basic earlier shapes. But this does not mean that the earlier shapes can be arbitrarily trumped by the higher. This does bring us to the question of how to think of the unity of the stages. Is there a single concept of free‑ dom that is the aim in the various rights? Hegel suggests as much when he writes that collisions are possible because every right embodies the concept of freedom, the highest de‑ termination of spirit, in relation to which everything else is without substance. But a collision also contains this further moment: it imposes a limitation whereby one right is subordinated to another … (PR, §30R) The idea is that every shape of right embodies the three‑moment struc‑ ture of the free will (PR, §§5–7), and what we are after is a full system of freedom in which the various rights are subordinated to each other and integrated within a system in which the conflicting expressions are not cor‑ rosive of the ethical whole. As the result of the conflict precipitating the right of necessity, the rights of property and welfare are set in relation to each other within a whole, as parts of that whole. The Good, Hegel’s comprehensive conception of rights

86  Dean Moyar as value to be realized, modeled on Kant’s Highest Good, and named by Hegel “the final purpose of the world,” is an abstract version of “realized freedom.”15 What this primarily means at this point is that welfare is only valid with right and right is only valid with welfare. Each is a goodness condition of the other. Or, to state it now in almost tautological terms, the Good as a whole is the evaluative condition of all free willing, the gen‑ eral purpose through which the will realizes itself as free. The Good as a collection of rights, however, does not specify the content of duty, which is determined at this point by the judgments of individual (formal) con‑ science. The precedence relations of the earlier rights, and their integration in specific purposes and agencies, is underdetermined. The particularizing subjectivity, individual conscience, is not on its own in a good position to know when its actions are expressively valid. The transition to Ethical Life through conscience (and evil) is driven by the need to specify the purposes and means of expressively valid right.16 Hegel sets up the transition as the integration of two practical syllogisms: one in which realizing the good is the major premise that is lacking a specifica‑ tion, and the other in which the subjectivity of conscience is the major con‑ trolling premise lacking any necessary connection to the good. The Good is expressed as the subjective will in the institutions of ethical life, where those institutions provide the truth and goodness conditions for the practi‑ cal syllogisms of the ethical agent. There is no clear way with the resources of “Morality” for the particular and universal moments of the will to reach a stable configuration of agency. There is only an “ought to be good” on the side of the agent and an “ought to be specific” on the side of the good. Ethical Life achieves determinate application conditions and more exclusive patterns of means to realize the purpose of the Good. Individual judgment still has a part to play as the vehicle of the Good, and the Good is itself realized as the actuality of conscience. Apart from the terms of Hegel’s inferential logic, the transition to Ethical Life is structurally clear in an Aristotelian framework. For Anscombe the main form of criticism of the purpose is based on appeal to other purposes. This leads Anscombe to conclude with a strong statement of the conditions under which criticism of the pursuit of certain purposes or ends is possible: This can be made out only if man has a last end which governs all. Only on this condition can that illusory “moral ought” be exorcised, while leaving open the possibility of criticizing a piece of practical reasoning, valid in the strict and narrow sense in which in theoretical contexts validity contrasts with truth. The criticism will be of the practical rea‑ soning as not leading to the doing of good action. An action of course is good if it is not bad, but being inimical to the last architectonic end would prove that it was not good. (Anscombe 2005, 147)

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  87 She shares with Hegel the hostility to the abstract moral ought. Her main thought in this passage is that practical reasoning starts from ends or pur‑ poses, and the only way to ground criticism of that reasoning is thus to have a final end (or system of ends) that allows the critic to evaluate practi‑ cal inferences as a whole rather than through their internal purpose‑means hypothetical structure. Though Anscombe is known for her hostility to Kant, this idea of an architectonic end lines up with Kant’s idea of the Highest Good as a complete object of practical reason. This is the tele‑ ological idea that Hegel takes over and brings to fruition in his account of a system of purposes in ethical life. Hegel’s transition brings the account to the form of self‑reproducing life as the form of justice. This transition follows the transition from “­Teleology” to “Life” and from the “Idea of the Good” to the “Absolute Idea” in the Science of Logic. A stable institution does not only identify what is good and provide avenues for individuals to express themselves within them. The institution must reproduce itself and interact with other institutions in a whole system of justice. As in the Science of Logic tran‑ sitions (from Teleology to the Idea and from the Good to the Absolute Idea), the purposive form finds its completion in the form of life, the living good.17 Only as a self‑reproducing system does the good receive a systematic particularization that supports the action of the individual and the reproduction of the conditions of justice. Indeterminate choice and deliberation give way to settled dispositions in which particular and universal purposes are integrated. The inferential relations of life have expressive validity as organic part‑whole relations. But the formal valid‑ ity of abstract rights and moral rights must be preserved within the or‑ ganic conception as well, without, however, overly weakening the unity of the whole. In the expressive validity conception, the property rights of “abstract right” are first in a sense that gives them only a limited primacy in the final picture of justice. As we have seen, the point of a teleological ac‑ count is to find in the subsequent shapes the truth and goodness condi‑ tions of the previous. If I will property rights, I have to will the conditions in which those are fully (truly) expressed. In one sense Hegel thinks that personhood and property are necessary conditions of all the subsequent phases. Yet he does argue, by introducing morality as a higher perspective, that the welfare rights of living human beings are superior to the property rights of individuals (the right of necessity). While we might worry about the State eliminating the authority of conscience, we should celebrate the limitation of the authority of property within the Good and, of course, within Ethical Life. We can build a robust conception of the Good into our politics without overstepping the bounds of the self‑determining will and without becoming perfectionist in a way that would imply a problematic paternalism.

88  Dean Moyar Ethical Validity and Institutional Justice The teleological character of the will pushes it beyond one‑sided expres‑ sions to a totality with the form of a living system. The account depends throughout on the claim that self‑consciousness only exists for another self‑consciousness, so that only in mutually recognitive structures does ex‑ pressive validity work. For “Ethical Life,” where the system of justice is spelled out in its institutional form, there is a question of how recognition, which seemed to be a relation between individual wills, can still play a central role. It can seem that recognitive relations are superseded by the institutional norms and powers. This is not entirely false, but it is highly misleading. All the institutions are sites of mutual recognition between individuals. But they are also more than that. Institutions exercise agency as well, and in seeing their agency as expressive, and their actions as ex‑ pressively valid, we can give much greater definition to the dynamics of Hegelian justice. An institutional agency, while differing in many respects from ordinary individual agency, stands in a relation of mutual recognition with the individuals within the institutions. The actions of an official body are only expressively valid if they can attract and maintain the recognition of the members. So too the individual members have to be treated as free by the institution so that the recognition can be mutual.18 Within an institutional context I am bound to express myself in certain ways, and I can expect that those expressions are valid because of the norms that characterize that institution. For this to work as a theory of justice for a free will, the purposes and norms of the institutions must themselves be defined by freedom. Each institution must provide both for welfare (in the sense of bodily needs, etc.) and for the development of the capacities to employ the formal rights, such as personal independence and the right of particularity.19 The most dramatic instance of this dynamic is the purpose of the family to produce independent children capable of beginning their own families and taking on their own roles in civil society and the state (obviously his alternate path for women in this structure is a major problem). At the same time there is a problem in the family of how it is “governed” as the notion of a “head of the family” is hard to conceptu‑ alize once the traditional patriarchy is discredited. The institutions of civil society express themselves through the activity of individuals seeking their own interest and developing their own talents.20 The estate and corpora‑ tion structures on Hegel’s view are also supposed to provide a more local version of recognition. I cannot in this paper even sketch the outlines of Hegel’s system of jus‑ tice; I will instead review a number of points that are essential to seeing how expressive validity functions within the liberal‑organic model. It is es‑ sential to Hegel’s view that the three domains of Ethical Life have separate

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  89 principles that express separate values. The logic of the family is distinct from the logic of the market. A practical syllogism that would be valid within the family would be invalid within civil society, for the relations of recognition are differently structured and the available means to one’s ends (and thus the ends themselves) are different. This point about the distinc‑ tiveness of the spheres is in the background of his claim about the inappro‑ priateness of contract to the marriage relation. He thus has a version of the “give to each what is their due” version of justice that accords to each their specific role within a specific institutional sphere. His challenge, which the Greeks manifestly failed to meet, is to contain the negative self‑interest of civil society.21 His view is liberal because of the subjective rights and the centrality of civil society, but it is organic in its robust attempt to keep that individualism from dominating the whole.22 While Hegelian justice is built upon the distinct spheres of family and civil society, justice as a whole is the relation of these domains to each other and to the state. For the theme of expressive validity, we need to ask how expressive validity contributes to the holistic functioning of the system. Looking back at the expressive dialectical transitions from earlier in the book, we should expect that something similar is at work in the transitions from family to civil society and civil society to the state. The expressive realization of the family pushes beyond itself, which shows its limitations in the very process of its realization. This happens in a twofold way: the “family resources” are just the (male) members engaged in the external world to bring resources to the family. Then, at the end of the process, the reproduction leads to an output that depends upon another sphere—the child must leave the family to enter their own career in civil society and to start a new family. The processes of civil society involve in‑ dividuals and groups with the legislative and regulative power of the state and thus with a political landscape above the market. Hegel’s view of expression makes room for the individual choice char‑ acteristic of liberalism while nesting the chosen attachments within higher level commitments. It is distinctive of the modern age that individuals are free to choose their spouse, their career, and even their religion. The dis‑ tinctive element of modernity can be seen as agent‑relativity, where the fact that the valuable is mine (by choice or by birth) is essential to its value. The connection of expression and validity helps to spell out the relation of the agent‑relative and agent‑neutral. The agent‑relative expresses the particularity of a will that is universal in its concept and whose full deter‑ mination as individual depends on relations of mutual recognition. Some of our relations are freely chosen, and yet sustaining those relations (and civil society as a whole) requires that we are embedded within institutions that are strongly characterized by universality and agent‑neutrality. This is why Hegel praises the modern state for letting the particular develop in

90  Dean Moyar all directions while bringing it back to the universal (PR, §260). It may sound strange to think that your marriage commits you to the laws of the state, though maybe a little less strange to think of your job (and all of its background conditions) as implicating you in the universal. If we are not to think of the civil society‑state relation as one in which detached self‑interested individuals barely consent to the state for strategic reasons, we need to know how the expressive validity model could help with the pressing question of the detachment of these two domains. We should ask how the state and civil society reciprocally inform each other and how each is formed such that they are capable of expression in the other. How can we think of the economic activity as expressed in the state and the political activity as expressed in the economy? I can just mention briefly here the provocative and enigmatic passage on the state as absolute mechanism, where Hegel writes of the individuals, their needs, and the government, as inferentially mediating each other. One essential aspect of this mediation is that the individuals in civil society have to be formed into entities that can be effectively represented politically.23 This happens through the workings of education and the related groupings into estates and corporations. Hegel is skeptical of atomistic geographical voting, but the important point is the emphasis on organization, a point that remains relevant today for political and labor organization. There is much that one could say at this point about the inadequacy of Hegel’s integration of the economic and political. His concern for the ex‑ pressive validity of right in a holistic system seems to give way to a vertical power structure of validity emanating from the sovereign will. And while he tries to bring political participation to a point where we can see work‑ ers contributing to the validation of the government policies, there is little to guarantee that the quality of the work itself is humanizing rather than exploitative. All of this is to say that we have only the outlines of a way to avoid pathological capitalism. Yet elements of Hegel’s story should inspire us even without a stronger story about democratic will formation and a right to meaningful work. We can reach a common understanding of our core expressive capacities and why they cannot be held hostage to prop‑ erty. The dialectic of morality shows that none of us should expect our judgment to have the final word, but we should celebrate a life in which individual expression is respected and institutions recognize the purposes of individuals, and groups, as valid. Notes 1 Neuhouser (2000) has argued that Hegel’s theory is in fact amenable to a contractualist logic. I am sympathetic to Neuhouser’s attempt to bring He‑ gel into the liberal camp, but the kind of holistic Rousseauian contractualism that is closest to Hegel has internal tensions that render doubtful that it really

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  91 conforms to the original intuitions behind contractualism. See Moyar (2016) for a contrast between atomistic and holistic contractualism. 2 Hegel inserts in his Introduction, right at the beginning, a long discussion of legal validity, the validity of positive law in contrast with the philosophical right based on his logic. This essay is operating at the level of validity in the do‑ main of philosophical right and not in the domain of legal positive right. A full story of Hegelian justice has to say something about the relation of these two kinds of validity. I try to do this in Hegel’s Value, Chapter 7. On the general question of law and right, see Brudner (2012). 3 See Moyar (2023). 4 “But now, it appears that all the reasoning is ordinary ‘theoretical’ reasoning. It is, for example, from potential elements of truth‑conditions for the attainment of his goal. ‘If he does this, he will have that situation, which has such‑and‑such relevance to the attainment of the goal.’ Such conditionals and such relevance will themselves be established by ‘ordinary’ inference from various facts. What he is trying to do is to find a truth‑condition which he can effect, make true, (practicable ways of making not straightaway practicable truth‑conditions true). As he does so, or as he finds potential conjuncts of a truth‑condition which he can effect, he acts. Where in all this is there any other than ‘ordinary’ reasoning–i.e. reasoning from premises to the truth for a conclusion?” Ans‑ combe (2005, 124). 5 For a discussion of Anscombe’s view, see Vogler (2001). 6 Von Wright, cited by Anscombe (2005). 7 For an excellent discussion of how the problem of political conflict undermines accounts of basic absolute rights, see Miller (1981). 8 See Siep (2014) for a pioneering work on recognition. Also Honneth (2008), Pippin (2008), and Brandom (2019). 9 See Anderson (1993) and (1996) for an account of value that is akin Hegel’s. 10 For an excellent account of the roles that life plays in Hegel’s social philosophy, see Khurana (2017). 11 Brandom (2009, 119). 1 2 See Hegel’s Value, Chapter 3. For an excellent account of value in “Abstract Right,” see Houlgate (2017). 13 See Quante (2004) for an analysis of this section. 14 “In opposition to the more formal, i.e. more abstract and hence more limited kind of right, that sphere and stage of the spirit in which the spirit has deter‑ mined and actualized within itself the further moments contained in its Idea possesses a higher right, for it is the more concrete sphere, richer within itself and more truly universal.” (PR, §30). 15 See Wood (1990) on the relation of the Good to Kant’s Highest Good. For an account of Hegel’s view of final ends, see Pinkard (2012). 16 I have commented on this transition in Moyar (2007, 2011, 2016, 2021). 17 On the idea of life in Hegel’s philosophy, see Ng (2020). 18 Ludwig Siep brought this out in his pioneering 1979 study of recognition (Siep 2014). 19 See Siep (2004). 20 On talents in civil society, see Yeomans (2015). 21 See Honneth (2010) on the idea of social pathologies. 22 I do not claim to have shown that Hegel succeeds in this effort. He gives so much leeway to civil society that it becomes quite difficult for the state to reign it in. 23 See Ross (2008) and Moyar (2021, 6.1).

92  Dean Moyar References Anderson, Elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, MA: ­Harvard University Press. Anderson, Elizabeth. 1996. “Reasons, Attitudes, and Values: Replies to Sturgeon and Piper.” Ethics 106, no. 3: 538–54. Anscombe, G.E.M. 2005. Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. ­Anscombe. Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. Exeter: Imprint Academic. Brandom, Robert B. 2009. Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brandom, Robert B. 2019. A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brudner, Alan. 2012. “Hegel on the Relation between Law and Justice.” In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, edited by Thom Brooks, 180–208. Oxford: Blackwell. Honneth, Axel. 2008. “From Desire to Recognition: Hegel’s Account of Human Sociality.” In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide, edited by Dean Moyar and Michael Quante, 76–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Honneth, Axel. 2010. The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social The‑ ory. Translated by Ladislaus Löb. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Houlgate, Stephen. 2017. “Property, Use and Value in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” In Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right: A Critical Guide, edited by David James, 37–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Khurana, Thomas. 2017. Das Leben der Freiheit. Form und Wirklichkeit der ­Autonomie. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Miller, Richard. 1981. “Rights and Reality.” The Philosophical Review 90, no. 3: 383–407. Moyar, Dean. 2007. “Urteil, Schluss und Handlung: Hegels logische Übergänge im Argument zur Sittlichkeit.” Hegel‑Studien 42: 51–80. Moyar, Dean. 2010. “Hegel and Agent‑Relative Reasons.” In Hegel on Action, edited by Arto Laitinen and Constantine Sandis, 260–80. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moyar, Dean. 2011. Hegel’s Conscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moyar, Dean. 2016. “Fichte’s Organic Unification: Recognition and the Self‑­ Overcoming of Social Contract Theory.” In Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right: A Critical Guide, edited by Gabriel Gottlieb, 218–38. Cambridge: C ­ ambridge University Press. Moyar, Dean. 2017. “Hegelian Conscience as Reflective Equilibrium and the ­Organic Justification of Sittlichkeit.” In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: A Critical Guide, edited by David James, 77–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moyar, Dean. 2021. Hegel’s Value: Justice as the Living Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moyar, Dean. 2023. “Fanatical Abstraction: Hegel on the Hazards of Pure Think‑ ing.” In The History and Philosophy of Fanaticism, edited by Paul Katsafanas, 161–176. New York: Routledge. Neuhouser, Frederick. 2000. Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory: Actualizing Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Teleological Right: Stages of Expressive Validity  93 Ng, Karen. 2020. Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self‑consciousness, Freedom, Logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pinkard, Terry. 2012. Hegel’s Naturalism: Mind, Nature, and the Final Ends of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pippin, Robert. 2008. Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quante, Michael. 2004. Hegel’s Concept of Action. Translated by Dean Moyar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ross, Nathan. 2008.  On Mechanism in Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy. London: Routledge. Siep, Ludwig. 2004. “Constitution, Fundamental Rights, and Social Welfare in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” In Hegel on Ethics and Politics, edited by Robert Pippin and Otfried Höffe, 268–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Siep, Ludwig. 2014. Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie: Un‑ tersuchungen zu Hegels Jenaer Philosophie des Geistes, 2nd edition. Leipzig: Meiner. Vogler, Candace. 2001. “Anscombe on Practical Inference.” In Varieties of Practi‑ cal Reasoning, edited by Elijah Millgram, 437–64. Cambridge: MIT Press. Wood, Allen. 1990. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yeomans, Chris. 2015. The Expansion of Autonomy: Hegel’s Pluralistic Philoso‑ phy of Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

6 A Legal Concept of Justice Jean‑François Kervégan

Introduction: The Law as an Alternative to Justice? In the Elements of the Philosophy of Right,1 the language of justice (­Gerechtigkeit) is used parsimoniously: about 15 relevant occurrences, most of them in the last section of part one, Wrong (Das Unrecht). The issue of justice (or injustice) therefore arises mainly when considering the forms of law violation, especially with regard to crime (Verbrechen). Consequently, the use of the language of justice has an emphatic, almost ceremonial, character: “the objective consideration of justice […] is the primary and substantial point of view in relation to crime” (PR, §99R). There are some other occurrences of this vocabulary in the Rechtsphiloso‑ phie, but they are rare; the most relevant ones are related to the issue of the restoration of law and rights by the judicial institution within civil society and the state. Thus, the problem of justice is addressed from the perspec‑ tive of the redress of injustice. A possible explanation for the scarcity of the language of justice in a “philosophy of law” (a phrase that was far from being widespread in 1820: one still spoke mainly of “natural law”) can be found in the historical con‑ text: it can be a consequence of the process of positivization of natural law driven by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen which, when incorporated into the French Constitution of 1791, turned these “natural and imprescriptible” rights into the basis of a positive constitutional order. This process is linked to a rejection of the subordination of law to morality as professed by most of natural law theories: a “philosophical doctrine of law” is not “a chapter of morals” (Fichte 1971, 10). For example, it can be described in Weber’s terms (the “revolutionary created law” completes the formalization of natural law and finally makes it obsolete: Weber 1980, 496–513) or in Schmitt’s (substitution of the Rechtsstaat’s formal legal‑ ity with legitimacy linked to certain conceptions of justice: Schmitt 1958, 263–350). This trend prevails in continental legal theory since the Revolu‑ tion established a law with no other validity basis than its own integrity DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-7

A Legal Concept of Justice  95 and without any other legitimizing principle than its efficacy within a civil society where equality of conditions in Tocqueville’s sense already exists. But the issue is more complicated, for two main reasons. First, Hegel’s connection to modern natural law is more complex than stated. Moreover, it has been interpreted in completely different ways. Thus, Joachim Ritter underlines Hegel’s rejection of the individualistic assumptions of modern natural law and sees in the theory of Sittlichkeit a rehabilitation of Aristo‑ tle’s concept of nature (Ritter 2003, 281–309). Conversely, Manfred Rie‑ del regards Hegel’s critique of natural law as opposed to ancient thought: it rather follows Kant’s distinction between laws of nature and laws of freedom (Riedel 1982, 65–84). In order to get beyond this dilemma, I be‑ lieve that several levels must be differentiated in Hegel’s critique of (mod‑ ern) natural law, which remains almost unchanged from the 1802 essay on natural law to the mature writings and lectures. Hegel first points out the inadequacy of the vocabulary of “natural” law, which inappropriately refers to naturality rather than the rationality of the law: “The term ‘natural right’ or ‘natural law’ [Naturrecht] ought to be abandoned and replaced by the term ‘philosophical legal doctrine of right’ [philosophische Rechtslehre] or … ‘doctrine of objective spirit’” (NAPS, §2). But it is clear that the issue is not a mere matter of terminology; since the Natural Law essay (1802), the lexical critique of natural law is coupled with a methodological and speculative critique of the conceptual tools of that theory, namely the concepts of state of nature and social contract (PR, §75; PR, §258; EPM, §502).2 But Hegel endorses the project of “natural” law theory, that is to determine the normative basis of any rational legal and political order. The vehement critique of Hugo’s and Savigny’s legal historicism in Elements §3 shows that Hegel remains committed to the normative goals of rational natural law. However, he criticizes Kant’s and Fichte’s accounts of natural law because of the inability of their concept of rationality to fulfill their own programs. Neither Hobbes’ computational rationality nor Kant’s and Fichte’s abstract normative rationality is able to provide the rational foundations of law and rights to which natural law theory aspires. In order to overcome the fruitless alternative of historicism and normativism, it is therefore appropriate to turn to another, speculative conception of the philosophy of law. The normative concept of law elabo‑ rated in the Elements involves a break with the theoretical premises of the diverse versions of rational natural law, historicism, and legal positivism. A second reason for not following the explanation initially given is that Hegel sometimes uses the idea of justice to point out the weakness of some legal constructions, for example, the then prevailing philosophy of criminal law based on the ethical principles and legal standards of the Enlightenment. The issue of punishment (Strafe) and theoretical bases of criminal law bring back the old question of justitia. But, before turning to

96  Jean‑François Kervégan Hegel’s position in the debates raised by the “enlightened” critique of the ­barbarism of the traditional punitive practices, it is instructive to consider the Phenomenology of Spirit.3 Ethicality, Justice, and Freedom in the Phenomenology of Spirit One of the most famous pieces of the Phenomenology of Spirit provides a commentary on Sophocles’ Antigone, more precisely on the dialogue be‑ tween Antigone and Creon (verses 441–525). At issue is a kind of reflective digression in the sequence of events, during which the two protagonists are debating the nature of justice (Dikè) and law (nomos). Hegel does not un‑ derstand this debate––which focuses on the relationship between “divine law” and “human law”—in the modern perspective of a concurrence of different normative systems (law, morals, religion…); he rather views it as a symptom of the insuperable limits of the legal, political, and religious conceptions of the Greek polis and, more generally, of the ancient world. Beyond the confrontation between Antigone and Creon and the fate of the Labdacids,4 Hegel’s concern for Greek tragedy (shared by fellow students Hölderlin and Schelling) is part of a “nostalgia for Greece” ­ (Taminiaux 1970), which is a structuring dimension of German idealism and early romanticism. It is intended to serve as a political reflection on the two great events that fascinated the German intellectuals of the period: the ­Copernican Revolution implemented by Kant in philosophy and the French Revolution. The latter aroused considerable enthusiasm in ­Germany, but the execution of Louis XVI and the Terror ended it. Hegel, for his part, would never renounce the principles of 1789, whose proclamation repre‑ sents a “glorious dawn,” as he says in one of his last lectures on the philoso‑ phy of history. Despite Savigny’s and the conservatives’ criticism, he still supports Napoleon’s codification of civil and criminal law, which had insti‑ tutionalized the principles of the Revolution; for him, “to deny a civilized nation, or the legal profession within it, the ability to draw up a legal code would be among the greatest insults one could offer to either” (PR, §211). Greece as imagined by Hegel and his friends (which no doubt has an only approximate link with historical reality) exemplifies in their eyes the confluence of two revolutions: the political one (with the rise of democ‑ racy) and the philosophical one (which culminates in Plato and Aristotle). The connection between this idealized image of classical Greece and the present is quite obvious to Hölderlin and the young Hegel: the rule of law, democracy (or republicanism), and free thinking (free from political and religious control) must happen together. In a piece written in 1796, Hegel contrasts the ancient citizen with the modern “pious C ­ hristian,” who is too concerned with the salvation of his soul to really care about

A Legal Concept of Justice  97 the salvation of his country (GW I, 203).5 The Greek literature was thus a c­ entral i­nterest for him; according to Rosenkranz, Hegel sought in sec‑ ondary school to translate the classics, with special love for Antigone (­Rosenkranz 1988 [1844], 11–2). Greek tragedy possesses a highly politi‑ cal and contemporary significance; it highlights the interests and contradic‑ tions which, mutatis mutandis, are always also those of the present: how to reconcile individual autonomy and collective interests, particular and general will, individual morality and collective ethics? However, this nostalgia for ancient Greece gradually vanishes, and ­Hegel becomes convinced that the polis model and the normative system on which it was based are obsolete. The early writings refer to this system with the term Sittlichkeit. In everyday language, this word roughly means “morals”; Kant uses it in this sense when he formulates the categorical imperative of morality (Sittlichkeit) in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1996, 69). But in Hegel it has a special meaning, opposed to that of morals, as the Rechtsphilosophie expressly indicates: “Morality and ethics, which are usually regarded as roughly synonymous, are taken here in es‑ sentially distinct senses” (PR, §33). What does Hegel mean by Sittlichkeit, also “ethical life” or “ethicality”? The writings preceding the Phenomenology of Spirit suggest a “heroic con‑ ception” of freedom and Sittlichkeit (Hyppolite 1983, 94); they criticize the “political nullity” of the “bourgeois” world and the withdrawal of the modern individual into a “universal private life” opposed to the “free ethi‑ cal life” of the Greek citizen (NL, 102f). The “compulsion” (Bezwingen) of individuality is therefore the condition of a true ethical life, “absolute” and not “relative” (ibid. 104; GW IV, 457–8). The later writings, stamped with a concern for “reconciliation with the time,” leave behind the ideal of “the beautiful and happy freedom of the Greeks” (JPS, 159). From now on, Hegel believes that the dissociation of private and political life and the distinction of three ethical spheres (the family, civil society and the state) are the indicators of the superiority of the modern world, where Sittli‑ chkeit has diverse but coordinated forms. Not only does Hegel no longer consider the “disappearance of self‑knowing individuality” (ibid. 160) a condition for a true ethical life, but its affirmation, promoted by Christian‑ ity and the disappearance of feudal society, is deemed a positive feature of modernity. However, what has changed is not so much the concept of Sittlichkeit itself, as the definition of its implementation conditions, and the evaluation of its impact on individual and collective action. According to Hegel, ethicality always consists in a certain connection between the ­objective structures of the social and political world and individual sub‑ jectivity; what has changed is his assessment of the modalities and e­ ffects of this connection.

98  Jean‑François Kervégan In this development, the Phenomenology of Spirit is a turning point. Here we can find the last vestiges of the “Greek” conception of Sittlichkeit and also indicators of its undermining. Chapter V draws a grandiose ­picture of the “realm of the ethical life” (Reich der Sittlichkeit: PS, 204): in a free people reason is in truth actualized. It is a current living spirit not only in that the individual finds his destiny, that is, his universal and singular essence, expressed and found present as thinghood, but also that he himself is this essence and that he has also achieved his destiny. For that reason, the wisest men of antiquity made the claim: Wisdom and virtue consist in living in conformity with the ethos of one’s people. (PS, 206) Sittlichkeit consists of a fusion of the “universal self‑consciousness,” ­generated by the spirit of the people (Volksgeist) and embodied in law and morals (Montesquieu’s influence is obvious here) and of individual sub‑ jectivity, which is “ethical” when it unconditionally embraces collective institutions, customs, and representations and has “sacrificed [its] singular individuality” (PS, 205). This picture is obviously based on the (recon‑ structed and idealized) image of the ancient polis transmitted by the phi‑ losophy and literature of classical Greece (and secondarily of the Roman republican era). Of course, philosophy has also been involved in destabi‑ lizing the polis model (PR, Preface and §185): Socrates, by invoking the right of the individual to think for himself at the risk of seeming impeity; and Plato, by stretching to the limit in the Republic the unacceptable char‑ acter of a civic ethic based on the ban on individuality. However, in the mentioned section of the Phenomenology, it is still this anti‑individualistic vision of Sittlichkeit to which the idea of a “free people” is linked; this implies that modern people are no longer (or not yet) free despite the hope raised by the French Revolution. Now, after having described the “happy fortune” (Glück) of the polis citizen, to which “the universal substance speaks its universal language within the ethos and laws of a people” (PS, 206), Hegel goes on to say: “Reason must depart from this happy fortune, for the life of a free people is only in itself or immediately the real ethical life” (PS, 206).What was missing in this political conception of the good of fusing individual aspira‑ tions, on the one hand, and morality, collective representations, laws, and the institutions of the polis, on the other? First of all, it lacks the recogni‑ tion of the individual’s autonomy and primarily of his moral autonomy as conceptualized by Kant. Hegel differentiates ancient ethics from morality, which is a modern invention. The ancient Greeks did not know what mor‑ als are because morality gives rise to a subjective assessment (have I done the right thing?), whereas subjectivity (as an autonomous instance) was

A Legal Concept of Justice  99 unknown to them: ethics was rather an internalization of the polis’ laws and customs as the intangible norms of individual behavior. Hegel thus explains the rise of morality by the breakdown of civic ethics (PS, 208). This phenomenon involves two contrasting sides. The negative side is that the collapse of this “collectivist” ethics has done away with the “happy fortune” of citizens enjoying the political freedom (eleutheria) of taking an active part in the institutions’ life. But the positive side is that the loss of the individual’s identification with the community opens the way to a form “closer” to “our time” (PS, 208), one also richer and more complex, of the relationship between individual subjectivity and sociopolitical ob‑ jectivity. The rise of a separate economic and social sphere to which Hegel will give the name of civil society (the phrase is old, but the idea is new6), renders obsolete the purely political conception of a human community, which was the core of the polis’ ethics; it is now a case of accounting for the intricate relationships within this sphere, which has its own regu‑ lations (as theorized by the newfound science of political economy, one that “does credit to thought”: PR, §189A), and the state, its norms, and its laws. The disappearance of the individual was the prerequisite for the exist‑ ence of the polis: this observation explains not only Hegel’s renunciation of the dream of restoring the polis but also the way in which the first section of chapter VI of the Phenomenology (“True Spirit, ethical life”) comments on the dispute between Antigone and Creon. Antigone’s story reflects the contradictions of the ancient polis, which cause the fate of the tragedy’s protagonists and prefigure the ineluctable ruin of this model. The ancient Sittlichkeit, as explained by Hegel, is split between two principles, the ­human law and the divine law, which have as their respective media the polis and the family, namely the political (masculine) and the natural (feminine) poles of common life. In another language, this is what Book I of Aristotle’s Politics explains with the distinction of oikos and polis, reali‑ ties that are equally “natural” and ordered, respectively, according to the principles of “living” and of “living well” (eu zèn). But, according to Aris‑ totle, the polis is teleologically prior to family, for it is within the political space that humanity reaches its highest ends; besides, to live apart from the framework of a polis, one must be “either a beast or a god” (Aristotle, Politics, I‑2) but not human in the full sense of the word. Hegel comments that the oikos and polis are the two poles between which, if their relation‑ ship is well balanced, the ethical world is able to comply with both divine and human laws: man (as citizen) and woman (as wife, mother and house‑ hold manager) are the respective main actors in these two entities. But it can happen that the “peaceful equilibrium” of these two axes of Sittlichkeit is disrupted; “injustice” occurs when one or the other of the two laws is violated (PS, 266).7 This is the kind of “anomic” situation staged

100  Jean‑François Kervégan by the tragedy, which details its dreadful consequences. Using A ­ ntigone’s fate as a guideline, Hegel examines the disintegration process of the beauti‑ ful ethical totality, now “split into two laws” (PS, 270). Among these laws, the individual consciousness––both Creon’s and Antigone’s––must make a choice, and de facto makes that choice by its action. Creon’s action, which makes the viewpoint of the city’s unity prevail, chooses human law; ­Antigone’s action (which infringes upon Creon’s decision, thus human law) chooses divine law and prioritizes family devotion. Neither of them ­willingly breaks the “other” law; they do not deem it null and void. This is why these two damaged consciousnesses need to act with “obstinacy” as they do while at the same time feeling guilty for doing so; they are victims of what Hegel calls in another context “the absolute misfortune of contradiction” (Hegel 2000, §321R, GW XIII, 191). This is the sense with which Hegel quotes v. 926, where Antigone says, according to the translation he gives: “Because we suffer, we recognize that we have erred” (PS, 272). Some modern interpretations view the tragedy of Antigone as a conflict between law and morality, between law and justice, or between the indi‑ vidual and the authority. In such a (wrong) perspective, one has to question who is right following Hegel according to his sinuous (rather dialectical) exposition of the positions of both protagonists. Neither of them, in fact! Antigone and Creon, through the choice they are compelled to make, are the symptoms of the contradiction running through the polis and each of its members, man or woman, and which inevitably leads to their downfall. The play reveals the ethical deficiency of the polis’ ethics, its incapacity to reconcile the two harbored legislations, political and non‑political. This is the meaning of the often‑misunderstood phrase: the woman is “the polity’s eternal irony” (PS, 275). Hegel does not mean that she is the target of this irony but that she is this irony. Antigone’s act is what splits and opposes to itself a community that considered itself united by its beliefs, customs, and values: it is the critical moment (“critical” in the true sense of the verb krinein, from which derives krisis) that highlights the contradiction of this ethics. I would not say that Hegel is a feminist (Vuillerod 2020): such a terminology would be irrelevant in a context where the question of wom‑ en’s political existence (if not of their social existence) could not even be asked. But it cannot be said that Hegel regards Antigone’s pious sacrilege as absurd, let alone laughable: he sees it as revealing the weakness of an ethics that requires a normative monism while recognizing a pluralism of norms and their sources. The “modern” ethics that will be outlined in the Elements does not cancel out the plurality of normative configurations and their respective conceptions of justice. But it does enable their co‑existence by defining, for each, a validity domain (family, society, state) and a mode of coordination with the other interaction areas.

A Legal Concept of Justice  101 In the above‑mentioned section of the Phenomenology, justice is ­ escribed, according to Aristotle’s pattern of corrective justice in Book d V of the Nichomachean Ethics, as what restores a “peaceful equilibrium of all the parts” when it has been broken (PS, 266). In this situation, a breach of equilibrium occurs when action in accordance with one of the two laws involves a serious infringement of the other, which is the case of both ­Creon’s decision to deny Polynices a burial and Antigone’s act of burying her brother despite the ban. Within this framework of two con‑ flicting normative paradigms, the restoration of equilibrium is inevitably violent: it will have the form of revenge embodied by the Erinyes, the vin‑ dictive divinities who relentlessly chase the criminal in the Oresteia (PS, 266). In normal circumstances, a sound role distribution occurs between the representatives of the two laws, the woman and the man, and between the domains where each one rules (oikos and polis). But just one act (An‑ tigone’s) is enough to break the balance. In the Elements, Hegel points out that genuine injustice is the result of an act claiming to be just (PR, §140R). Therefore, an action (that of Antigone, but also that of Creon condemn‑ ing her) seen as just according to one of the two laws is necessarily guilty (schuldig): it is, according to the other law, a guilt (Schuld) of the actor. “Everyone is guilty!”: this is the meaning Hegel gives to verse 926: “if this is what is beautiful among the Gods, I will acknowledge my guilt at what I suffer.” According to Hegel, the uncertainty of the justice in the context of a potential rupture of equilibrium and the lack of a mediation8 between the two laws mean that “the ethical shape of spirit has disappeared” (PS, 277). In the ancient world, justice remains irrevocably destined to failure. It points towards its own dismissal or towards a unification of both laws under the regime of a universal, abstract law. Violation of Law, Justice, and Punishment in the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts Hegel’s conception of justice evolves substantially from the Phenomenol‑ ogy of Spirit to the mature work. The final framework of the theory of objective spirit is established in the Heidelberg lectures and the first edition of the Encyclopedia (1817); consequently, the idea of Sittlichkeit is deeply reshaped. In this new context, what are the relations between law and justice? To answer this question, we must start from the section of the Ele‑ ments which deals with the infringement of law and its legal restoration; indeed, as mentioned, it is mainly in this passage that justice is discussed. In the doctrine of abstract law and right––which sets out the basis of rational private law as “the embodiment of freedom in the external sphere” (EPM, §496)––the analysis of the violation of law (das Unrecht)9 follows that of property and then of contract. The person‑thing relationship is the core

102  Jean‑François Kervégan of the whole of abstract law and the guiding principle of its examination: “Here, it is clear that personality alone confers a right to things, and con‑ sequently that personal right is in essence a right to things […]. This right to things is the right of personality as such” (PR, §40, modified). Conse‑ quently, property, i.e., the legally understood complex forms of appropria‑ tion and disappropriation, is the very subject of the doctrine of abstract right and abstract law. However, the term has a broader extension than in current usage: as in Locke, it means “life, liberty and estate” (Locke 1995, §87). My property does include not only material goods but also my own body (which does not “naturally” belong to me: I must appropriate it by “cultivating” it: PR, §57) as well as my mind’s products. When it comes to redressing a breach, whether minor or serious, of law and rights, it is always a matter of reappropriation (of an ownership, of a moral quality, and finally, in the most severe case, of personal dignity: that of the victim as well as that of the offender). In that sense, justice is always corrective. Infringements of law (and therefore of rights) reduce it to an “sem‑ blance.” But “the truth of this semblance (Schein) is that it is null and void, and that law10 (Recht) re‑establishes itself by negating this negation of it‑ self” (PR, §82, modified). The three consecutive forms of this violation are as follows: the unintentional violation of law (das unbefangene Unrecht), which refers to the different kinds of civil litigation; fraud (der Betrug), where the violation of law is intentional, and which covers all torts; and finally, the various kinds of violence that personality itself can undergo, the most serious of which being the crime (das Verbrechen). Beyond the repair of a harm experienced by a particular person (when it is possible), to restore the law is to give back its rights to the free will, the unique founda‑ tion of abstract law. It means to give back to the personality, the objective expression of which is legal capacity (PR, §36), not only its dignity but also its actuality, which consists in connecting the universal (the law) and the particular (my right) in the singular position of a subjectivity knowing itself “in [its] finitude as infinite, universal, and free” (PR, §35). The meaning of justice is emphasized in the section on crime (PR, §90). Crime is a violence (Gewalt) inflicted not only on the rights of a particular person but on the law as a law (PR, §95). Justice is the symbolic face of this second or retroactive violence, through which law, i.e., objectivized freedom, is re‑established in its universality: A violation of law committed against it is a force (Gewalt) directed against the being‑there (Dasein) of my freedom in an external thing. Consequently, the protection of this being‑there against such a force will itself appear as an external action and as a force which supersedes the original one. (PR, §94, modified)

A Legal Concept of Justice  103 What drives a discussion on justice is therefore the experience of injustice, understood as violence against the law via the exercise of a right, and hence the need for a philosophical theory of punishment (Strafe), as coer‑ cion (Zwang) or normative violence that re‑establishes the law by means of what seems to be its negation, for example, imprisonment. However, this examination of justice requires going beyond its initial, purely legal framework. That justice is defined negatively, starting from injustice, is to be ­explained by Hegel’s option for a procedural approach, rather than any ­essentialist or ontological definition of it. There is no essence of justice to which the legal claims of individuals, or even the legal norm intended to arbitrate between them, should be measured. There are only certain proce‑ dures, partly contingent, for remedying injustice, i.e., violence to the law. In some sense, as Sartre might say, the existence of the unjust act precedes the essence of justice. However, justice cannot be reduced to the facticity of punishment. On the contrary, Hegel emphasizes the objectivity (thus the universality) of the question of justice (PR, §99R); but justice “in and for itself” is entirely involved in the practices of repairing the existing in‑ justice, understood as an “semblance” that must be eliminated (PR, §82). According to the Science of Logic, the essence (justice) is nothing else than the dissolving process of the appearance (the unjust breach of the law): it is “the reflective shine posited as reflective shine” (SL, 489).11 Against this philosophical background, Hegel builds a theory of punish‑ ment that aims to be free of all moral concerns. To this purpose, he starts from a critique of the definition of punishment given by Ernst Ferdinand Klein, a moderate Aufklärer: By punishment, in the most general sense, is meant the evil (das Übel) that follows the unlawful action as such. […] Punishment, in the usual sense, is the use of such evil to promote future actions or undertakings being in accordance with the law. (Klein 1799, §9) Why does Hegel reject this definition of punishment, although it seems to be close to his own? What is the difference between evil that follows an evil (Klein) and violence that repairs violence (Hegel)? The difference lies in Klein’s use of a vocabulary and argumentation that is borrowed from the inventory of morals (although it is true that the German word Übel does not belong to the vocabulary of morals as clearly as does das Böse, evil). The ensuing remarks, oriented against the theory of the deterrence func‑ tion of punishment (as developed, for example, by Anselm Feuerbach), clearly indicate that, according to Hegel, the conception of punishment as an evil remedying an evil is the root of the Aufklärung’s mistakes in penal

104  Jean‑François Kervégan theory. At stake in this controversy is therefore the relationship between law and morals which Hegel, in the wake of Kant and Fichte, aims to dis‑ tinguish strictly: If the crime and its cancellation, which is further determined as punish‑ ment, are regarded only as evils [Übel] in general, one may well consider it unreasonable to will an evil merely because another evil is already present [….] This superficial character of an evil is the primary assump‑ tion in the various theories of punishment as prevention, as a deter‑ rent, a threat, a corrective, etc.; and conversely, what is supposed to result from it is just as superficially defined as a good. But it is neither a question merely of an evil or of this or that good; on the contrary, it is definitely a matter of law violation (Unrecht) and of justice. As a result of these superficial points of view, however, the objective consideration of justice, which is the primary and substantial point of view in relation to crime, is set aside; it automatically follows that the essential consid‑ eration is now the moral point of view, i.e. the subjective aspect of the crime, intermixed with trivial psychological ideas. (PR, §99R, modified) To Klein’s “superficial point of view”––that is, to the representation of punishment and its effects in moral rather than legal terms––Hegel opposes “the objective consideration of justice,” pointing out that this is the “pri‑ mary and substantial point of view.” What does this consideration consist of, and what is its role in the theory of punishment? The critique of the “reformist” discourse of the Aufklärer (Klein in §99 of the Elements; Bec‑ caria in §100; Anselm Feuerbach in the lectures of 1817–18 and 1822–23) provides a good entry point. Against the psychological representation of the dissuasive function of punishment (Feuerbach), the moral expectation of an alteration of the criminal’s soul through punishment, or the societal perspective of protecting society (Beccaria), Hegel holds to a formal “rule of justice,”12 immanent to the legal sphere: “punishment in and for itself is just” (PR, §99R). In other words, it is required that the law, harmed in its very idea by each particular infringement of the rights of this or that person, be restored in its plenitude and, if I might say, in its majesty. For a Foucault reader, it seems clear that Hegel, at the transition mo‑ ment from large‑scale punishments to small disciplines, is going against a historical trend: his punishment theory is based on the logic of retribution, or even social vengeance, and not on that of rehabilitation. However, He‑ gel’s critique of the moral conception of punishment among enlightened jurists has something in common with Foucault’s analysis of the transfor‑ mation of punishment into the moral and psychological re‑education of the criminal deemed to be suffering from a more or less treatable disease

A Legal Concept of Justice  105 (Foucault 1975). By defining punishment as the Aufhebung of crime and justice in action as a retribution (PR, §101), Hegel is clearly in the camp of retributivism. Punishment does not aim at repairing what cannot be re‑ paired (an eye does not replace an eye), even less at altering a soul involved in a bad course of action (this is not the judge’s business); it aims rather to cancel “an injury suffered by the will which has being in itself (and hence also by the will of the injuring party as well as by the injured and everyone else)” (PR, §99): a breach of the law. At first sight, the punishment so conceived has something to do with revenge (Rache): “In this sphere of the immediacy of law (Recht), the can‑ cellation of crime is primarily revenge, and its content is just so far as it constitutes retribution” (PR, §102, modified). This sentence seems to identify the punishment of crime (justice in action) with revenge. How‑ ever, the limits of this connection are quickly pointed out. True, revenge, in its rough (pre‑legal) form, may be just in its content since it complies with the formal rule of justice: if the action of restoring law is based on the principle of the equality in value of punishment and crime (PR, §101), vendetta (you killed my brother, so I’ll kill yours, or one of his children or grandchildren) can be seen as the innate face of justice. But revenge is not just in its form, and this is what is crucial: to make a “subjective will” the agent of justice is to afflict the latter with a contingency that dooms it, like vendetta, to “infinite progression” (PR, §102). The equation of justice and revenge is therefore misleading. A particular will (that of the victim or his family) cannot be able to restore the law in its universality because, in this case, the act of dispensing justice becomes “a new infringement” [of the law] (PR, §102) and sinks into bad infinity. In the form of revenge, justice suffers from contradiction; it is therefore required to free justice from its “subjective shape” (PR, §103). Even if its scope is narrow, this comparison of justice and revenge, which clearly offends the modern legal conscience, is not only a provocative re‑ sponse to the theoretical mistakes of enlightened scholars wishing to mor‑ alize punishment. It also intends to point out a basic feature of abstract law: its independence from the forms of social and political institutionali‑ zation that it takes hic et nunc. Law itself, in its abstraction, is conceptually distinct from the historical forms of its implementation. There is only one law and one justice, however various the translations that peoples have given them. Let’s look at the following elliptical assessment: “So far as the mode of existence of justice is concerned, the form which it has within the state, namely that of punishment, is not its only form, and the state is not a necessary form of justice in itself” (PR, §100R). It should be noted that ­Hegel––this is his way of remaining a natural law theorist, underscored by his controversy with Gustav Hugo, precursor of the Historical School of Law (PR, §3R)––made a distinction between the law per se (whose norms

106  Jean‑François Kervégan have a validity independent of any political and social context) and the concrete administration of law (Rechtspflege), the management of legal matters in a given society. To say that the state is not the condition of justice in itself is to point out that one must think of the violation of law and its restoration without presuming anything of the historical forms of social and political ordering of legal practices, in particular of punishment techniques. In itself, any “retribution” is just, regardless of the actors’ rep‑ resentations and motivations, if it aims objectively only at restoring the law. And never mind the enlightened conscience that denounces the bar‑ baric and primitive forms of retribution, such as the Biblical talion––quite rightly, no doubt, if we consider the social and political significance of these acts. (Hegel himself assumes this point of view when he denounces, quoting The Merchant of Venice, the barbarity of the statute partes secanto in ancient Roman law: PR, §3R.) But pure retribution is only just in itself, and this is why we must avoid considering it as the archetype of justice. The comparison of justice and revenge highlights the importance of depersonalizing and institutionalizing acts of justice, regardless of their context (historical, social, political). In the case of crime, the punishment may have taken on the brutal form of vendetta, and it will still maintain some of its features. But it should also overcome that form, not for moral or religious reasons, nor even for social reasons (the costs of the vendetta are too high) or political reasons (the state holds the monopoly on legiti‑ mate violence) but for a legal reason: from the very point of view of a just conception of law, its infringement, and its restoration, one must perform “a punitive rather than an avenging justice” (PR, §103). What is the dif‑ ference between the one and the other? It is not a difference of content, for criminal justice is not inevitably more merciful than revenge; it is due to the crucial formal aspect of the involvement of an impartial third party, the judge.13 Punishment, in the precise meaning of the word, can only be imposed by an institution acting not only in the name of society or the people but in the name of law in its majesty. Criminal justice carried out by a judicial institution (a court) is only al‑ luded to in the theory of abstract law and right, where it is enough that its principle be stated. When analyzing Sittlichkeit, more precisely civil soci‑ ety, Hegel refers to the institutional forms of the law’s enforcement and to the modern forms of punishment of crime. The concrete implementation of law under the conditions of modernity––essentially characterized by the differentiation of economic, legal, and political spheres––is the concern of civil society, not of the state; indeed, the state, although it is a legal insti‑ tution in the broad sense of the word (PR, §30R), goes beyond the limits of abstract (private) law as the theoretical weakness of contractualist ex‑ planations of the state reveals a contrario (PR, §75R; §258R). Certainly, within the framework of the post‑revolutionary rational state, jurisdiction

A Legal Concept of Justice  107 (Rechtspflege) is “a duty” and “a right” of the “public authority” (PR, §219R); for this reason, jurisdiction is now the exclusive competence of judges, who are state officials, and not heroes or wandering knights. Jus dicere is a social function: the abstract law, although in itself ahistorical, is hence‑ forth a condition, not to say the condition, of the correct administration and legal regulation of civil society with its relative autonomy from the state. The implementation of abstract law (embodied in positive law) by the judicial institutions is thus one of the keys to the depoliticization, or more precisely to the de‑statization, of the social links that are typical of post‑revolutionary societies. The jurisdiction aims at the recovery of the law in its abstract universal‑ ity, in a historical and social framework which determines its modes. Under these conditions, a right becomes, unlike revenge, “a right just in a form that is lawful,” a right “just in its existence,” and not only just “in itself,” in its abstract concept (PR, §220). To what can such a “just right” corre‑ spond? Paragraph 214 of the Elements discusses this topic in a consciously aporetic way. Under specific historical circumstances, “the concept” (the law itself) provides only “a general limit within which variations are also possible” (PR, §214). However, the empirical trial and error, which every judge has experienced, must lead to a decision that is undoubtedly fair and consistent with the law: It is impossible to determine by reason, or to decide by applying a de‑ termination derived from the concept, whether the just penalty for an offence is corporal punishment of forty lashes or thirty‑nine, a fine of five thalers as distinct from four thalers and twenty‑three groschen or less, or imprisonment for a year or for 364 days or less, or for a year and one, two or three days. And yet an injustice is done if one lash too many, or one thaler or groschen, one week or one day in prison too many or too few. (PR, §214R) The sentence is inevitably partly contingent, but it must be just: such is the dilemma that faces the judge. What can prevent the idea of justice from becoming mere nonsense or a tool for more or less declared social policies? It is, Hegel says, “the interest of actualization” (PR, §214R). The aporia of repairing the irreparable, illusorily settled by the logic of revenge, has a practical outcome thanks only to the adoption of a moderate decisionist postulate. In an urban civil society, in an organized state, the law must be enforced justly and not merely accurately; but this requires that a decision be made, and this requirement overrides any other concern. This doesn’t mean that any decision should be rendered, as a radical decisionism would suggest, for justice is the actualization of the law itself. Therefore, justice, whose “common sense,” as embodied in the post‑revolutionary world by

108  Jean‑François Kervégan public opinion, contains “eternal and substantial principles” (PR, §317), must be understood as a kind of permanently revisable normative provi‑ sion, setting out the requirement for the positive legal order to be consist‑ ent, effective, and (not‑un)just. Notes 1 The book is quoted in the Wood‑Nisbet edition; but, as explained elsewhere, I  have some problems with the translation of “Philosophie des Rechts” by “Philosophy of Right”: see Kervegan (2020). 2 The Encyclopedia Philosophy of Spirit is quoted according to the 2007 Oxford translation. 3 The Phenomenology of Spirit is quoted according to the Pinkard/Baur translation. 4 The Phenomenology also allusively mentions the fate of Oedipus (PS, 271). 5 The antichristian overtones of young Hegel’s texts will gradually disappear: in Berlin, he strongly asserts his Lutheran identity, while polemicizing harshly against Catholicism (PR, §270; EPM, §552). 6 Since Cicero, one had become accustomed to translate Aristotle’s formula of koinonia politikè by societas civilis, where civilis, until Hegel, means “political.” 7 These “laws,” of course, have nothing to do with laws and statutes in the mod‑ ern sense of the word. According to the proper meaning of the word nomos, they rather outline, in complementary way, the contours of a good ordering of the world. 8 This mediation is personified in Aeschylus’ Eumenides by Athena, who suc‑ ceeds in transforming the Erinyes into Eumenides, into the “benevolent” divini‑ ties of the city––but that’s another story. 9 The usual English translation of the words Unrecht and unrechtlich as “wrong” seems to me inadequate, since it burdens the term with moral connotations it does not have: it is a breach of law, and nothing else. 10 In Kervegan (2020), I gave the reasons why the translation of Recht by “law” seems to me to be required in some instances. 1 1 The Science of Logic is quoted according to Di Giovanni’s translation. 12 I borrow from Chaïm Perelman (1990) the notion of the rule of justice. Indeed, Hegel’s conception of justice has some common features with Perelman’s idea of a formal rule of justice distinct from the different material conceptions of what is just. 13 This is the core idea of the “phenomenology of law” of the post‑Hegelian ­Alexandre Kojève.

References Fichte, Johann Gottlob. 1971. Grundlage des Naturrechts. In Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte, Volume III, 1–385. Berlin: de Gruyter. Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et punir. Paris: Gallimard. Hyppolite, Jean. 1983. Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire de Hegel. Paris: Ed. du Seuil. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical Philosophy, translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A Legal Concept of Justice  109 Kervegan, Jean‑François. 2020. “Recht und Rechte in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie.” Hegel‑Studien 53–4: 13–34. Klein, Ernst Ferdinand.  1799. Grundsätze des gemeinen deutschen peinlichen ­Rechts, nebst Bemerkung der Preußischen Gesetze, 2d ed. Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke. Kojève, Alexandre. 1981. Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du droit. Paris: Gallimard. Locke, John. 1995. The second Treatise of Government. In Two Treatises of Govern­ ment, edited by Mark Goldie. London: Everyman Library. Perelman, Chaïm. 1990. “La règle de justice.” In Éthique et droit, 108–17. ­Bruxelles: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Riedel, Manfred. 1982. “Freiheitsgesetz und Herrschaft der Natur.” In Manfred Riedel, Zwischen Tradition und Revolution: Studien zu Hegels Rechtsphiloso‑ phie, 65–84. Stuttgart: Klett‑Cotta. Ritter, Joachim. 2003. “Moralität und Sittlichkeit.” In Metaphysik und Politik: Studien zu Aristoteles und Hegel, 281–309. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Rosenkranz, Karl. 1988 [1844]. G.W.F. Hegels Leben. Darmstadt: Duncker & Humblot. Schmitt, Carl. 1958. Legalität und Legitimität. In Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Taminiaux, Jacques. 1970. La nostalgie de la Grèce à l’aube de l’idéalisme alle‑ mand. Den Haag: M. Nijhoff. Vuillerod, Jean‑Baptiste. 2020. Hegel féministe: Les aventures d’Antigone. Paris: Vrin. Weber, Max. 1980. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Edited by J. Winckelmann. ­Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.

7 Freedom and a Just Society— Three Hegelian Variations Heikki Ikäheimo

Hegel’s legacy has been the object of numerous reactualizations and ­reappropriations, each new thinker reading it from the point of view of their take of the social and political concerns and philosophical needs of their time. Perhaps more often than with any other major philosopher, the exact relationship of appropriation and interpretation of Hegel has often been less than fully clear. Given Hegel’s unique manner of conceptualiza‑ tion and writing, what exactly his view is on a particular issue formulated in contemporary terms has often been remarkably difficult to say. There is no doubt that freedom is a core concept of his mature social and political thought, but what exactly is his concept of freedom? What about justice? Does Hegel have a theory of justice, and if so, what are its basic contours? Rather than trying to answer these questions directly, I will first criti‑ cally examine two variations of the freedom‑justice connection each of which draws on a fundamental principle or principles in Hegel and thus thematize different aspects of his thought, though neither of them are exactly Hegel’s in detail. The first of the Hegelian accounts is by Axel Honneth whose work thematizes for the reader the question of the rela‑ tionship of a theory of good life to a theory of justice, in that there is move from the first to the second in it that requires clarification. We find such clarification in Rainer Forst’s response to and critique of Honneth and in his emphasis of “justification” as the core issue of justice. The confronta‑ tion of Honneth’s and Forst’s accounts also exemplifies a central question around Hegel’s social and political thought, namely that of relativism or historicism versus universalism, with Honneth’s thinking seemingly oscil‑ lating between these options and Forst taking a more straightforwardly universalist (and formalist) line. Contrary to views which emphasize the historicist aspects of Hegel’s thought, if not simply construe him as an a priori historicist, I argue that Forst’s is in fact the more Hegelian of the two accounts in its commitment to the capacity of human thought and discourse—in principle—to transcend any given horizon of thought or normative order. And yet, Honneth’s insistence on the embeddedness DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-8

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  111 of discourses of justification in the given system of norms and normative roles in which individuals find themselves resembles Hegel’s own political realism and thematizes the need to reconcile both aspects of his thought: both the human capacity in principle for context‑transcending reflection on the justness of the social order and the limitations in practice of indi‑ viduals and groups for transcending the embeddedness and particularity of their perspectives. This brings us the concept of freedom which I will argue forms the fundamental principle of Hegel’s own mature social and political thought: that of “concrete freedom.” A third account discussed will be my reconstruction of this concept and its implications to the problems raised in the critical examination of ­Honneth’s and Forst’s accounts. I will argue that the actual concept of freedom on which Hegel operates is more capacious than Honneth’s and that it can do justice both to the actual, historically and socially given limitations, and to the capacity in principle of human thought to transcend them. I will end by returning to the question of the relationship of a theory of the good life to that of justice—this time in Hegel himself—and point to a reason stemming from the ontology of objective spirit to consider his account of a good society as the actualization of concrete freedom also as an account of justice. Freedom as the Ultimate Good Provided by a Just Society Axel Honneth’s The Struggle for Recognition, published in German in 1992 and in English in 1995 (Honneth 1995), is perhaps the most influ‑ ential recent account to reactualize elements of Hegel’s social and political thought. The first thing to note about the book with regard to our theme is that Honneth does not originally frame the book as presenting a theory of justice, or of a just society, but rather a “critical social theory” (­Honneth 1995, 2) or a “social theory with normative content” (1). Instead of “­social theory,” Honneth could have equally well described his work as a work in critical “social philosophy,” a branch of philosophy whose heritage ­Honneth subsequently locates in Continental European thought, starting with Rousseau’s, Hegel’s, and Marx’s ideas of better or worse forms and tendencies of social life, the worse end shading into “social pathology” (Honneth 2007). What Honneth explicitly contrasts this branch of phi‑ losophy with is Anglophone political philosophy starting with Hobbes and Locke, which is the natural home also for the modern discourse of justice. Notably however, a theory of justice is the framing in terms of which the English translator of Struggle for Recognition Joel Anderson intro‑ duces the book in his (possibly quite influential) translator’s introduction (Honneth 1995, x–xxi), and it is the framing in terms of which Honneth’s work is often framed in Anglophone discussion. But more importantly, it

112  Heikki Ikäheimo is a framing that Honneth himself subsequently increasingly adopts for his ­theorizing, apparently due to a growing influence of Anglo‑American political philosophy on his thinking. What, then, is the difference between framing the project of The Struggle of Recognition in terms of critical so‑ cial philosophy and in terms of a theory of justice? A core idea of the book on the critical social philosophy framing is that a good society or a good form of human co‑existence is one that to a reasonable extent pro‑ vides individuals opportunities to the experience of being “recognized” by relevant others. The experience of recognition, in the three forms of love, respect, and esteem, supports the individuals’ positive self‑­conceptions, which have similarly three dimensions corresponding to the forms of recog‑ nition. These positive self‑conceptions—basic trust, self‑respect, and self‑­ esteem—are crucially important for the individuals’ capacity for agency or self‑realization and thus freedom in this sense (Honneth 1995, 92–130). In short: a good society provides its members reasonable chances to develop psychological resources for a free life. Unlike in the original formulations in The Struggle of Recognition, where “justice” or “injustice” is barely mentioned,1 in the early 2000s, Honneth starts describing experiences of lack or denial of recognition as “experience[s] of social injustice” (Honneth 2004, 352). This new framing arises together with the theme of norms or principles. Whereas in the old framing Honneth focused on the benefits of recognition for agential ca‑ pacities of recognition, the psychological damages of its lack or denial, and the motivational underpinnings of emancipatory action, he now focuses more in particular on expectations of recognition “held to be legitimate” (352). What, then, makes a particular expectation legitimate? This is done according to the new framing by “norms” or “principles of recognition,” an idea that becomes particularly prominent in Honneth’s debate with Nancy Fraser in their co‑authored book Redistribution of Recognition? (Fraser and Honneth 2003). More exactly, in Redistribution or Recogni‑ tion? Honneth thinks of the three dimensions of recognition familiar from The Struggle for Recognition in terms of corresponding three “principles”: that of “love” in intimate relationships, the “equality principle” in legal re‑ lations, and the “achievement principle” which applies to social hierarchy or distribution of material goods. On the new framing, undue withholding of recognition from individuals is not only something harmful but a failure to satisfy a relevant principle or norm of recognition and thus an injustice. As for the ultimate legitimacy of recognition claims or expectations as matters of justice, Honneth’s account seems hesitant between two views. On the one hand, the historically particular principles—Honneth has pri‑ marily the recent institutional history of Western Europe in mind—can be understood as the normative rock bottom without any further justifica‑ tion or legitimation other than that they have become generally accepted

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  113 and institutionalized or at best justified or legitimated by a more general principle whose general acceptance is specific to European modernity: that of freedom. Or else, one can refer to a foundation that transcends the historically given. Honneth opts for the latter strategy in a few places in Redistribution or Recognition? where he describes the need for recogni‑ tion as a “quasi‑transcendental interest of the human race” or the “form” of expectations for recognition as “an anthropological constant” underly‑ ing their historically changing “contents” (174) or, when he suggests that struggles for recognition point at “unmet demands of humanity at large,” a reference point “beyond all given forms of social organization” (244). On this view, whatever is historically or culturally specific to the three recognition principles, they somehow rely for their ultimate legitimacy on universal human “interests,” “expectations,” or “demands.” Combining the dots here, whatever more concrete specification legitimate recognition expectations may take in European modernity (or anywhere else), recogni‑ tion in general is still something that humans need in the way argued for in The Struggle for Recognition: for developing psychological resources for freedom in the sense of self‑realization. Honneth presents a further con‑ sideration for thinking that the institutionalization of the three principles of recognition, though they are on his view specific to modern societies, nevertheless represents normative progress. He says that they enable indi‑ viduals “a higher degree of individuality,” allowing them “to learn more about their own personality through the different patterns of recognition.” They also allow for a greater inclusion of individuals with different person‑ alities or characteristics as full members of society (Honneth 2004, 360). The institutionalization of the three forms of recognition in modern society as normative expectations in other words supports a greater range of pos‑ sibilities for freedom as self‑realization. And yet, Honneth does not seem to think that freedom in this sense is a universal human aspiration but rather sees it as a specifically modern ideal. But if this is so, then the normative rock bottom for recognition claims as claims of justice appear, after all, historically specific or contingent. This is the direction that Honneth’s theory takes on in the later book Freedom’s Right, in which freedom is explicitly the central concept, with recogni‑ tion receding somewhat in the background. Whereas in The Struggle for Recognition Honneth focused on the psychological conditions of freedom as self‑realization, in Freedom’s Right his focus is on their objective social conditions. The book puts forward an ambitious three‑componential the‑ ory of freedom, comprising of “negative freedom” in the sense of absence of hindrances to realizing one’s aims and desires (with Hobbes, Sartre, or Nozick as some of the philosophical proponents of the idea), of “reflexive freedom” as the capacity to autonomous setting of aims (with Kant as the prime representative) or to finding out and following aims that are

114  Heikki Ikäheimo authentically one’s own (the romantic version of reflexive freedom), and, finally, of “social freedom” in the sense of one’s ends or goals being sup‑ ported by social reality and thus having a chance of actually being realized in it (Hegel’s idea according to Honneth) (Honneth 2014, 1–11). Honneth now explicitly presents his theory as a “theory of justice,” though as one with a heavy investment in social philosophy in the form of a “normative reconstruction” of the legitimizing ideal of modern society and its con‑ crete institutionalization in its basic structures. There is, on Honneth’s con‑ strual, ultimately one overarching ideal providing a modern democratic society legitimacy in the eyes of its members and thus grounding claims of justice and injustice for them: that of individual freedom (1–2). What Honneth conceives of as different forms of freedom— negative, reflexive, and social—form the essential components of what is actually required for an individual to be free in a concrete meaningful sense. On this conception a just society is—in the eyes of its members—one in which each of these require‑ ments of individual freedom is supported by the various institutionalized spheres of social life. Whereas in The Struggle for Recognition the question of whether free‑ dom in the psychological sense of capacity for agency or self‑realization should be thought of as a universal human aspiration or something spe‑ cific to Western modernity remains open (see Zurn 2002), and whereas Honneth’s thinking in Redistribution or Recognition? seems undecided between these options, in Freedom’s Right Honneth apparently solves the problem by arguing that freedom is de facto the central value against which members of modern societies judge the legitimacy of the social order and thus one that they have accepted as the key criterion. Whether or not social institutions support the freedom of individuals is hence the criterion on which they are judged as just or unjust by their members. That said, Honneth’s “normative reconstruction” of what is required for freedom to be actual involves a rather ambitious revision or rearticulation of simpler theoretical and everyday ideas. Ultimately, it requires not only negative freedom as a sufficient space free of external hindrances to realizing one’s aims and to experimenting with different lifestyles and not only the reflex‑ ive freedom to autonomous moral reflection or search of authenticity in the setting of aims but also social freedom in the sense of the concrete reality of social relations and structures being congruent with or supportive of one’s ends so that they can be actualized. As for the last‑mentioned requirement of individual freedom, Honneth’s “normative reconstruction” presents the modern forms of personal relationships as promising to support freedom in this concrete social sense by—according to their legitimating principle— promising mutual care and support for the realization of one’s aims for their participants. Honneth then presents the market economy as harbor‑ ing the legitimating principle of freedom in the cooperative or social sense

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  115 of support for the actualization of the respective aims of its participants.2 Finally, he reconstructs the modern democratic society and state according to its legitimizing principle or promise as a deliberative enterprise where decisions are deliberated and made cooperatively, the actualization of any one actor’s aims being thus dependent on the realization of those of many others—ideally of most if not all members of society. Both versions of Honneth’s theory of justice—the earlier recognition‑­ focused one (on the justice framing) and the latter one focused on freedom— are clearly Hegelian in that they draw on and reactualize an important idea that is Hegel’s: recognition is undoubtedly a fundamental concept in Hegel’s social and political thought; also, Hegel clearly subscribes to a con‑ cept of freedom that is more substantial, demanding, and “social” than the negative or reflexive concepts. Neither one of these theories pretend to be Hegel’s theory of justice however, differing in methodology and details in multiple ways from anything Hegel wrote. A particularly salient difference concerns Honneth’s normative reconstruction of democratic institutions as a sphere of social freedom and Hegel’s suppression of democratic will formation.3 But there are other respects in which Honneth’s account dif‑ fers from Hegel’s and in terms of which, I shall argue, Hegel’s account is superior. These will be taken up in the second and third section. Justice and Freedom as Participation in Justification One of the questions that Honneth’s move from the original framing of his theory to a justice framing has thematized is this: how does one actually get from saying that someone needs something, or that humans generally need something, to saying that their having it is a claim of justice, or that their not having it or being deprived of it is an injustice?4 This question takes us to the second approach to a theory of justice, one represented by Rainer Forst whose own inspiration is more Kantian, but which, as I will argue, is in a certain respect more Hegelian than Honneth’s: namely in its commitment to the capacity of the human mind—in principle—to transcend limitations it has set for itself. In an article commenting explicitly on Honneth, Forst argues that whereas “recognitional accounts provide an indispensable sensorium for experiences of social suffering generally and of injustice more narrowly […] when it comes to the question of the criteria of the justification of justice claims, a procedural‑deontological, discourse‑theoretical account is necessary” (Forst 2011, 307). Two things are notable here. Firstly, Forst connects the idea of justice to justification. Secondly, he refers to the Haber‑ masian idea of discourses of justification or more broadly concrete social processes of asking for and providing justification for claims and critically reflecting on the validity of the offered justifications. On his account, it

116  Heikki Ikäheimo is crucial to distinguish conceptually between “fundamental (or minimal) and maximal justice.” “Fundamental justice” requires the establishment of a “basic structure of justification” where all members of a society or social whole have a say on the institutions they live under, this requiring that they have a sufficient “status and power” to do so. “Maximal justice” then refers to a “fully justified basic structure […] that grants those rights, life chances, and goods that citizens of a just society could not reciprocally deny each other,” or in other words a system agreed upon by those partici‑ pating in processes of deliberation on what goods are such that deprivation of them counts as an injustice (309–10). To refer back to Honneth, is it, for example, a requirement of justice that a society provides individuals reasonable opportunities to receive love or care in families or other close relationships or that social hierarchies or distribution of wealth mirror the value of contributions to the common good or social cooperation? These are undoubtedly good things, but that alone does not make them matters of justice. What would lend claims for them legitimacy as claims of justice according to Forst is that they can be accepted as such by those participat‑ ing in processes of deliberation and thus “justified” by and for them. The first and primary question of justice is hence now who has a “status and power” to participate in such processes. For Forst this is the normative rock bottom: everyone affected has a fundamental or “basic right to justi‑ fication” as a rational being or person (Forst 1999). It is the foundational justice claim the denial of which is impossible: there are no good reasons you could offer for depriving me of the right to be offered justifications and participate in deliberation on institutional arrangements that affect me. Not respecting that right of mine, Forst argues, means not respecting me as a rational being or person with “dignity” (Forst 2011, 309). The question that became thematic in considering Honneth’s account— what provides the transition from alleged needs to claims of justice—is hence answered by Forst thus: some appropriate justificatory process in which particular claims are collectively accepted as legitimate and hence as something that can be expected to be met as a matter of justice. Is this something Honneth could accept as a complement to his view? Could he accept that the “principles” or norms that make something a claim of jus‑ tice are something whose ultimate legitimacy rests on processes of justifica‑ tion a la Forst, at least on potential ones in which they could be justified for the concerned individuals? Honneth resists the possibility. In a response to Forst he mounts what sounds like a familiar Hegelian critique of Kant and Kantian accounts: Forst’s basic idea of the “right to justification” suffers from, and ultimately fails due to its “abstractness.” In positing the idea of a “free and unre‑ stricted discourse among all members of society” Forst does not take seri‑ ously enough the “historicity of contexts of justification” (Honneth 2011,

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  117 415). What Honneth has in mind more exactly is historically developed “social norms and corresponding roles” against and from within which in‑ dividuals always judge the justifiability of particular social arrangements. Strikingly, Honneth seems to posit the historically developed “norms” or “principles” themselves beyond critique or challenge, presenting them as something that critique or challenge always appeals to. In the introduc‑ tion to Freedom’s Right, he criticizes Kantian (and Lockean) theories of justice for stipulating “that the normative principles according to which we judge the moral legitimacy of social orders may not stem from within existing institutional structures” (Honneth 2014, 1). Is he thus actually implying that they should stem from them and that the existing institu‑ tional structures or the given norms, principles, and values of a culture or society are the ultimate reference point for claims of justice? Not quite. He is equally critical of historicist accounts that present the given principles, norms, or institutions of a culture or community as the normative rock bottom without asking whether they themselves are “rational or justified” (2). But what then makes them rational or justified on Honneth’s account? In short, this is the promise of individual freedom as self‑realization. This, however, as I pointed out, is on Honneth’s more recent construal in Free‑ dom’s Right, a specifically modern ideal or value (1)—not (to borrow Honneth in the earlier book Redistribution or Recognition?) a normative reference point “beyond all given forms of social organization” (Fraser and Honneth 2003, 244). The difference as well as possible connections between Honneth and Forst can be seen here in two interesting ways. Firstly, though the central role that Forst gives to the idea of justification might at first sight seem to introduce a drastic difference between his account and that of Honneth’s, as we have seen justification is actually central for Honneth as well. The difference is rather in how the two thinkers frame justification: whereas Forst thinks of it in terms of concrete discursive processes of deliberation, Honneth thinks of it in terms of more inchoate acceptance. For Honneth, there is one overarching modern ideal or aspiration: that of individual freedom as self‑realization. What makes a modern society just in the eyes of its members is that it enables or supports individual self‑realization. In other words, social structures are justified for individuals—and thus freely accepted by them—if they can experience them as living up to this legitimizing or justifying promise. One difficult question here concerns the relationship between the philosopher Honneth’s highly sophisticated con‑ strual of freedom and its requirements, on the one hand, and everyday un‑ derstandings of freedom by the people in question, on the other. Does their understanding of freedom correspond to anything like Honneth’s concep‑ tion of it? And do they have any clear conception of the relationship of the basic structures of their society to their freedom? These are empirical

118  Heikki Ikäheimo questions, but realistically “legitimization” on the Honnethian version must remain mostly in the form of inchoate, inexplicit, less than perfectly articulated thoughts, experiences or feelings about the social order and its relation to one’s life chances. Here philosophical articulation or “recon‑ struction” may have a socially emancipatory role however: providing vo‑ cabularies or conceptual means for individuals to clarify the relevant ideas, realities, and their connections. To the extent that this can be connected to Forstian discourses of asking for, providing, challenging, and agreeing on justifications, perhaps the two thinkers are not very far from each other on this score after all. The other way of seeing a difference and possible connections between the two accounts concerns their respective conceptualizations of freedom. In contrast to Honneth’s highly elaborate construal of the psychologi‑ cal and social preconditions of individual freedom as self‑realization, the fundamental concept of freedom in Forst’s model is the broadly Kantian concept of freedom as autonomy, thought along Habermasian lines as par‑ ticipation in collective “law‑giving” or the determination of the basic prin‑ ciples of justice and their application in discursive practices or processes of “justification.” There certainly is a place for that in Honneth’s Freedom’s Right in its account of deliberative democracy (Honneth 2014, 253–335). At first sight one might think of this as only one aspect of what is required for a society to enable free individual lives according to Honneth. Yet, if one considers deliberative democracy as the discursive site where questions of the justness of social institutions and arrangements in Honneth’s sense— as requirements of individual freedom—can be explicitly thematized and debated, there is again a clear point of proximity b ­ etween ­Honneth and Forst. A remaining question is, however, how far Honneth would want to maintain, against Forst, that individuals will participate in democratic de‑ liberation always from the point of view of given “social norms and cor‑ responding roles,” unable to transcend them to an unrestricted discourse a la Forst or Habermas. If such ability, disability, or degrees thereof are regarded as empirical matters, Forst should not have any difficulty with agreeing that the transcendence is often difficult to achieve and that the “unrestrictness” of justificatory discourses in this sense is hence an ideal by no means easily realized. On the other hand, if Honneth is making the a priori or transcendental claim that it is logically or metaphysically impos‑ sible for individuals to question the given particular social norms or nor‑ mative principles,5 then in this respect Forst who would resist such claims is more Hegelian than Honneth. Let me explain. There is a certain fundamental vision that unites the influential strand of recent neo‑Hegelian thought represented by the Americans Robert ­Brandom, Robert Pippin, and Terry Pinkard. For all of these thinkers, reasons, norms,

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  119 and justification are fundamental to what Hegel calls “spirit.” With dif‑ ferent emphases and not insignificant differences between their individual programs, they all see spirit in deontological terms, as a realm in which hu‑ mans transcend the dictates of nature, instituting a space where action and thought are guided by reasons and self‑governed norms whose power over them relies on justification rather than instinct or brute force. Collectively, speaking humans are thus on this picture autonomous, self‑­legislating, and self‑governing beings. Thought together with an ontological view of the being of social norms and a fundamental idea from Hegel concerning limi‑ tations that the human mind sets for itself, deontological neo‑Hegelianism puts in doubt any a priori or transcendental claims about the limitedness of horizons of justification. It is a basic social ontological fact that the existence of norms and nor‑ mative principles as social realities, or as “objective spirit,” depends on their acceptance by the individuals whose life activities are governed by them (see Ikäheimo and Laitinen 2011). The theoretical reference to such acceptance or “vertical recognition” alone would be however vulnerable to a simple objection: an individual is not bound by norms at all if the existence of the norms is wholly dependent on the individual’s acceptance of them. The neo‑Hegelian solution, in a nutshell, is to refer to “horizon‑ tal recognition”6 between individuals in the sense of taking the respective others as having normative authority over the social norms in question. In short: the authority of norms over us is the authority of the others we recognize as (co‑)authorities. Given these arguable facts about the ontol‑ ogy of norms, any idea of social norms as having a transcendental func‑ tion strictly speaking in setting the horizon within which the justifiability of something else can only be asked by individuals is a non‑starter. Social norms exist and have power over individuals only insofar as the individu‑ als accept or recognize them vertically and recognize each other as authori‑ ties over them. Such vertical and horizontal recognitions are for the most part by no means deliberate or explicitly conscious acts, nor is there any guarantee that they are not ideologically colored or corrupted, or other‑ wise less than fully rational. Yet the idea that norms and corresponding roles posit a transcendental horizon strictly speaking for individuals living according to them is simply not viable. All of this is but a concretization of Hegel’s dialectic of the limit ap‑ propriated by Gadamer (1989, 338) and others: limitations that the hu‑ man mind sets for itself are ones it has—in principle—already transcended. How difficult such transcendence is in practice is a context‑dependent em‑ pirical question, and this holds also for Forstian justificatory discourses, or Honnethian deliberative democracy. Though Hegel himself was skeptical about the actual viability of collective discourse or deliberation for his time and place, the principle is nevertheless true to a fundamental tenet of

120  Heikki Ikäheimo his thought: the capacity, in principle, of humans to question or withdraw their acceptance or recognition from, and to change what they limit or govern themselves by—here the norms of their social life. The distribution of actual status and capacity to do so—to return to Forst—is obviously a fundamental question. Though collectively speaking humans are free in the sense of self‑governing beings, everyone actually having equal share of this freedom is a different matter. Forstian unlimited justificatory discourses in which all potentially affected have the right to participate are a way of ad‑ dressing this issue in terms of status, yet they face a crucial limitation: the unequal distribution of the actual reflective capacities of individuals and groups participating. Hegel’s Concept of “Concrete Freedom” and Justice It is all well and good to insist on the fundamental demand for justifica‑ tion as requirement of respect for persons, as Forst does, and his argu‑ ment that no reason can be offered which could deprive someone of that right is profound. And yet, it does not address the empirical question of, not the recognized status, but the actual individual capacity to participate in unlimited reflection. The same goes for Hegel’s idea of the capacity of the human mind—in principle—to transcend any self‑posited limitations: for individuals and groups, the actual capacity comes in degrees and is issue‑dependent. Hegel was of course perfectly well‑aware of this fact, and his reading of the actual capacities of his fellow Germans or Prussians undoubtedly affected his view of the viability of genuine democracy as the ideal political order for his time and place. Though Honneth might not want to frame matters this way, his resistance to the unlimitedness of Forstian discourses has a certain analogy with this “realism” of Hegel’s: though the philosopher (Honneth, like Hegel) is capable of reconstruct‑ ing the rationality or justness of the social whole from a transcending perspective, ­ordinary citizens judge it from their limited perspectives or particular “contexts of justification” (Forst 2011, 415).7 But how then to reconcile the demand for justification of the institu‑ tions or norms of social life on the one hand with realism about people’s actual capacities for context‑transcending rational practices of reflection, deliberation, or justification on the other? Here Honneth’s account has both some initial promise and certain fundamental problems. The promise is the intuitiveness of the notion of individual freedom or the everydayness of the experience of it, which would seem to provide a pre‑theoretical, everyday measure of the acceptability or justness of social institutions, one which can function without requiring highly educated reflective or reason‑ ing capacities. However, the problem which I have already hinted at is that everyday understandings of what is required for individual freedom

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  121 may differ drastically from Honneth’s theoretically elaborate and erudite reconstruction of it. Indeed, part of why the reconstruction is needed is precisely because individual freedom is mostly thought of in inadequate ways. The hope is that the theoretical reconstruction will gradually seep into everyday understandings. But there is another problem: Honneth’s conception of freedom is, on the other hand, in a certain respect problematically limited and in a way which sheds further doubt on its actual application to social reality as a measure in light of which social institutions or norms appear justified to individu‑ als. Namely, everything that Honneth says about freedom is eventually ori‑ ented towards one idea: that of individual freedom as self‑realization. This is precisely the purpose of the psychological resources that experienced recognition according to The Struggle for Recognition supports. And it is what the abstract, reflective, and social dimensions of freedom and their institutionalization according to Freedom’s Right support or are condi‑ tions of realization for. At the center of this conception is the individual who needs to be adequately free from hindrances to realize her aims (nega‑ tive freedom), who needs to have adequate capacity and opportunity for moral reflection and experimentation of aims that she can recognize as her own (reflective freedom), and who needs objective support for realizing the aims she recognizes as her own (social freedom). Honneth’s is ultimately a reductive picture of the sole value to which all other values are reducible for modern individuals: self‑realization.8 Do modern individuals, in fact, judge the justness of a social order or social institutions solely in light of such a concept? How about, say, hap‑ piness or well‑being? Honneth’s claim for the primacy of individual free‑ dom as realization of one’s aims can reasonably only be an empirical claim about the relative priority of values in a typically modern Western value horizon and as such its veracity is a question for empirical social research. On a reasonable assumption this is something that varies significantly be‑ tween individuals and social groups in any modern society—and not only since such societies, according to a view Honneth approves of, embody a plurality of views of the good life. What would Hegel say? Freedom is after all undoubtedly the central normative or evaluative principle of his social and political thought. Is his account hence vulnerable to the same critique as Honneth’s? I will argue that it is not and that the reason for this is that the concept of freedom Hegel operates with is in decisive respects different from that of Honneth. On the whole, I want to suggest that Hegel’s concept is more promising as a framework for understanding what makes the given social order accept‑ able or justified for individuals than the models discussed above. What is the concept of freedom I am talking about? It is what Hegel in the Intro‑ duction to the whole of his Philosophy of Spirit presents as the “essence

122  Heikki Ikäheimo of spirit”: “concrete freedom” (LPS, 66–7; EPM, §382). Concrete freedom contrasts with “abstract freedom” as freedom in the sense of abstraction from determinations. Since everything finite is on Hegel’s account constitu‑ tively determined by things other than it, the concept of abstract freedom can have only a limited range of applications as it cannot apply in relations to constitutive determinants. I can only be free from something that deter‑ mines me contingently, not from something that determines me essentially or constitutively.9 “Essence,” in an Aristotelian manner, is here is an im‑ manent ideal which something can live up to more or less. Yet, Hegel does not suggest that its realization is a natural tendency independent of human action and choice: it is a “Bestimmung” in the dual sense of a given deter‑ mination and of a vocation, something that “the human” should “make of himself” (LPS, 60). This formulation is open enough to allow for differ‑ ent degrees of conscious human foresight and planning, depending on the ­issue, level of analysis, and the humans in question. What, more exactly, does he mean then by “concrete freedom”? It is not “abstract” freedom from determination, but freedom, in the sense of, to use Hegel’s familiar metaphor, finding oneself in it, or being conscious of oneself in it. Its logical structure is that of “absolute negation” or “double negation” (SL, 531) or to use another familiar formula of Hegel’s, the “unity of identity and difference” (SL, 358). The fundamental issue here is constitutive relations to something other than oneself. Freedom in such re‑ lations means firstly acceptance of its otherness (difference or a first nega‑ tion) and secondly overcoming its alienness (identity or a second negation). Combining the dots here, concrete freedom as the “essence” of “spirit” applies to all the constitutive relations of human persons to otherness as the immanent ideal of these relations.10 Hegel’s state, in the overarching ethical sense as including all the spheres of social life, is a system of con‑ crete freedom or in other words the ideal organization of society enabling maximization of concrete freedom in all of the constitutive relations of human life: with regard to one’s own given determinations (self‑relations with regard to one’s physical and other needs, particularities of character, talent, and capacities), with regard to other human beings (horizontal rela‑ tions), and with regard to the state or the society as a whole and its various institutions (vertical relations).11 There are two immediate advantages in Hegel’s conceptualization of freedom compared to the models discussed above. Firstly, it is formulated at a level of abstraction that can accommodate different levels of the capac‑ ity for context‑transcending rational reflection and discourse and different modes of acceptance or vertical recognition of social institutions. Thinking in terms of opposite ends of a spectrum, both approval based on an ideally rational context‑transcending reflective process or “unlimited reflection” and non‑reflective satisfaction with them and one’s life in them can count as forms of “consciousness of oneself” in them and thus as concrete free‑ dom. Furthermore, and importantly, there is no radical gulf between the

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  123 reflective and the unreflective modes since concrete freedom is the criterion on which all relations constitutive of spirit or the human life‑form are to be rationally evaluated, and the realization of the concept is nothing else than human beings being conscious of themselves in core elements of their world, whether reflectively or unreflectively. For the philosophically edu‑ cated, the society which they can evaluate from a purely rational perspec‑ tive as realizing its essence or concept is a world where they (given sufficient personal luck and effort) can also concretely experience it being realized in their relations with the fundamental determining “others” of their ex‑ istence: their needs and capacities, the other people of their lives (family members, other members of civil society, their compatriots), and the social institutions and structures at large, all of these forming an interlocking, reasonably harmonious whole. The philosophically uneducated can have the same lived experiences, and becoming philosophically educated (think of a member of the “substantial estate” going to university and becoming an educated member of the “universal estate”) merely means learning the conceptual means for reflecting the rationality of the whole, which is to say evaluating it in light of the concept of concrete freedom.12 In the ideal case he is able to conclude that it lives up to its concept and thus that the social whole is the “actuality of concrete freedom” (PR, §260), i.e., realization of the immanent ideal of spirit or the human life‑form. The other advantage of Hegel’s conceptualization of freedom is that it is capable of encompassing a range of values without reducing them to one as Honneth’s conceptualization does. Importantly in this regard, Hegel’s “concrete freedom,” unlike Honneth’s self‑realization, is not merely free‑ dom of doing but also of being. Consider Hegel’s parade example of con‑ crete freedom—friendship and love. Hegel writes (as cited by and translated in Honneth 2014, 44) in the Addition to §7 of his Philosophy of Right13: Here [in friendship and love], we are not one‑sidedly within ourselves, but willingly limit ourselves with reference to an other, even while knowing ourselves in this limitation as ourselves. In this determinacy, the human being should not feel determined; on the contrary, he attains his self‑awareness only by regarding the other as other. (PR, 32) Now compare this to Honneth’s construal of social freedom, including in friendship and love, here formulated in terms of “mutual recognition”: […] “mutual recognition” merely refers to the reciprocal experience of seeing ourselves confirmed in the desires and aims of the other, because the other’s existence represents a condition for fulfilling our own desires and aims. […] both subjects recognize the need to supplement their re‑ spective aims, thus seeing their own aims in the other […] (Honneth 2014, 44–5)

124  Heikki Ikäheimo Honneth’s construal here and elsewhere in Freedom’s Right is focused on realizing “aims” and thus on action,14 in general that of self‑realization, whereas Hegel’s is not. This is not to say that action is irrelevant for Hegel, far from it: §7 of the Philosophy of Right is part of Hegel’s description of freedom of the will in the concrete sense of freedom. Yet, Hegel’s focus on the will at the beginning of the Philosophy of Right should not be read as meaning that action is the only dimension of life in which concrete freedom as the concept or immanent ideal of spiritual, i.e., human life applies. He is clearly not suggesting, in contrast to Honneth’s construal, that friendship and love realize freedom solely in the sense of supporting my capacity to realize aims that I have. Concrete freedom is a broader ideal according to which I am free when I can accept the fact that I am determined by otherness and when I can “willingly” limit myself or allow myself to be limited or determined by it since it is something in which I can be conscious of myself. Crucially, the world of objective spirit—the social or human world—is brought about by human will, and concrete freedom is not merely the immanent ideal of willing, but also of what it creates: ideally a world of concretely free being, i.e., human life. Though willing is an essential component of such being, being is not reducible to willing. We can apply this basic idea to the three constitutive relations men‑ tioned earlier: horizontal relations with other persons, vertical relations with social institutions, and self‑relations. In horizontal or intersubjective relations my being concretely free has a subjective and an objective as‑ pect analogous with the subjective and objective focus of Honneth’s earlier and more recent work. In the subjective sense I am concretely free when relevant others affirm me by their attitudes of recognition towards me, whether in the sense central for the above‑mentioned neo‑Hegelians of respecting me as a co‑authority on the norms of co‑existence,15 in the sense of recognizing me as a legal person (PR, §36), in the sense of caring about my happiness or well‑being (especially in the family) in the sense of ap‑ preciating me as a competent contributor with “honour” (PR, §253), or in some other sense—with the different social spheres embodying different combinations of the different forms of recognition (see Williams 1997, 133–282). Though part of this is its supporting or enabling the realization of aims I have, relationships of recognition are not merely instruments for action but themselves, ideally, free ways of being with other persons. The objective aspect here is that the individual and collective ways of life of the others relevant for my life are compatible with or supportive of my ways of life and the other way around. This involves not only the com‑ patibility of “aims” a la Honneth, and thus willing in a narrow sense, but everything that gives an individual human life its particular characteristics. The mutual complementarity of friends obviously consists of much more than their aims in life, and the same goes for all interpersonal or intergroup

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  125 relations. Though the civil society is the realm of economic action and realization of interlocking individual aims, Hegel’s state as a whole is an ethical unity in which individuals can be “conscious of themselves” in their compatriots not merely as enablers or complements of the realization of their individuals aims but also, and more broadly, existing, by and large, harmoniously with them in all essential aspects of life. The mix of the ex‑ act modes of finding oneself in the relevant others differs from one social sphere or kind of social relation to the other (relations within the family, within the different areas of civil society, or within the political state), but they are all specifications of the ideal of concrete freedom. It should be clear that freedom in this sense is not a value separate from other values such as happiness or well‑being but rather accommodates them. Concrete freedom in vertical relations with the formal institutions and norms as well as with the informal norms of social life means then noth‑ ing else than freely (meaning here not under coercion) accepting or verti‑ cally recognizing them as good or just, where the mode of acceptance or recognition ranges from the most reflective and distanced philosophical thought and discourse to unreflective feelings of being at home in the so‑ ciety (see PR, §§132, 268). Crucially, the criterion on which philosophical thought or unlimited reflection—whether individual or collective—judges the goodness or justness of the social institutions and structures of social life is none other than that on which it is also unreflectively experienced as good or just: that of them facilitating concrete freedom in all the essential relations of life, including horizontal relations and self‑relations. Finally, concrete freedom in self‑relations as finding or being with one‑ self in one’s individual determinations—particularities of character, talent, capacities, and needs—is integrated with the two previous axes of rela‑ tions. It is these determinations being developed in socialization into a sys‑ tem which is both genuinely one’s own, not forced or externally imposed but fitting to me as in individual, and in sufficient harmony with the social relations and social whole more broadly in which one lives, given the par‑ ticular roles one inhabits in them. Only when I am also concretely free in my self‑relations, can I actually experience the social world as realizing concrete freedom in my individual case.16 Much of the above is compatible with Honneth’s and Forst’s accounts of social justice and aspects of it can be further elaborated or developed on in terms of insights by the two thinkers, even if Hegel himself might not have agreed with the further developments, especially in the important issue of democracy and concrete democratic processes and discourses of justifica‑ tion. Yet, Hegel’s is a broader and more systematical sweep on everything that makes individual and social life good according to its concept. But how about the question I posed at the beginning with regard to Honneth: what, if anything, makes all of the above not merely a matter of a good

126  Heikki Ikäheimo society but a matter of justice? There is one general perspective which pro‑ vides an interesting answer: as I said, the realization of or “actuality” of the concept or immanent norm of human life according to Hegel is not a natural process but something that “the human” should “make of himself” (LPS, 60) and that (s)he thus bears responsibility for. However obscured in‑ dividual or collective agency in bringing about a free society may be in He‑ gel’s mature treatment, and despite the fact that focusing on action alone in reconstructing Hegel’s conception of freedom is one‑sided, it is striking that the Philosophy of Right begins (in PR, §§5–7) with a treatment of the will. Ultimately, the world of objective spirit is a human creation, a creation of willing in a broad collective and historical sense, and thus the realization of its immanent ideal—concrete freedom—is a human respon‑ sibility. Though not a duty in a narrow moral sense, it is a duty of justice. Notes 1 For the few uses of the term “injustice” (Unrecht) in the book, none in a theo‑ retically emphatic sense, see Honneth (1995, 131, 138, 154). 2 For critique, see Jütten (2015) and Ikäheimo (2022, 188–95). 3 This is something Honneth criticizes Hegel for in Honneth 2010, a reconstruc‑ tion of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, which includes many of the ideas applied to contemporary social reality in Freedom’s Right. 4 Interestingly, Honneth’s (2023, 14) himself ask this question concerning ­Miranda Fricker’s work: how does one get from a discourse of epistemic virtues to claims of epistemic justice and injustice? 5 See the revealing formulations on taking social and institutional norms as given in Honneth (2020, 4–5). 6 I borrow the language of “vertical” and “horizontal” recognition from Siep (2014). 7 See Yeomans (2015) on Hegel’s take on the social situation and respective forms of accountability of the different estates. 8 See Halbig’s (2018) analysis of the ways in which Honneth reduces all other values to that of freedom. 9 For a more extended discussion of this theme in Hegel, see Gleeson and Ikäheimo (2019), and Ikäheimo (2022, Chapter 3). 10 See idem. 11 For a more detailed working out of these dimensions, see Gleeson (2020). 12 This is crucial for avoiding the common impression that the philosophical jus‑ tification of Hegel’s state is something obscure hidden somewhere in the Sci‑ ence of Logic, the precise nature and connection to the argumentation of the Philosophy of Objective Spirit, or of Philosophy of Right, is a topic only for a very small minority of specialists. 13 The Elements of the Philosophy of Right is cited according to Nisbet’s translation. 14 Two examples: “we cannot experience ourselves as free as long as the pre‑ conditions for the implementation of our autonomous aims cannot be found in external reality.” (Honneth 2014, 47); “to be reconciled with reality, the

Freedom and a Just Society—Three Hegelian Variations  127 subject must seek to realize aims that presuppose other subjects who pursue complementary aims” (Ibid. 48). 5 PR, §217A: “My will is a rational will; it has validity, and this validity should 1 be recognized by others.” 6 Reconstructing the details of this dimension of concrete freedom would require 1 drawing at length on the Subjective Spirit section of the Encyclopaedia [EPM], a task for which there is no space here.

References Forst, Rainer. 1999. “The Basic Right to Justification: Toward a Constructivist Conception of Human Rights.” Constellations 6, no. 1: 35–60. Forst, Rainer. 2011. “First Things First: Redistribution, Recognition and Justifica‑ tion.” In Axel Honneth: Critical Essays, edited by Danielle Petherbridge, 303–20. Leiden & Boston, MA: Brill. Fraser, Nancy and Axel Honneth. 2003. Redistribution or Recognition?—A Political‑­Philosophical Exchange. London: Verso. Gadamer, Hans‑Georg. 1989. Truth and Method. Second revised edition, transla‑ tion revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. London and New York: Continuum. Gleeson, Loughlin. 2020. Reconstructions of Hegel’s Concept of Freedom: To‑ wards a Holistic and Universalist Reading of Concrete Freedom. Doctoral Dis‑ sertation at UNSW Sydney. https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/21898. Gleeson, Loughlin and Heikki Ikäheimo, Heikki. 2019. “Hegelian Perfectionism and Freedom.” In Perfektionismus der Autonomie, edited by Douglas Moggach, Nadine Mooren and Michael Quante, 163–82. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Halbig, Christoph. 2018. “Hegel, Honneth und das Primat der Freiheit: Kritische Überlegungen.” In Ist Selbsverwirklichung institutionalisierbar? Axel Honneths Freiheitstheorie in Diskussion, edited by Magnus Schlette, 53–71. Frankfurt/ New York: Campus Verlag. Honneth, Axel. 1992. Kampf um Anerkennung: zur moralischen Grammatik sozi‑ aler Konflikte. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Honneth, Axel. 2004. “Recognition and Justice: Outline of a Plural Theory of Justice.” Acta Sociologica 47, no. 4: 351–64. Honneth, Axel. 2007. “Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy.” In Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory, 3–48. Cambridge: Polity Press. Honneth, Axel. 2010. The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social The‑ ory. Translated by Ladislaus Löb. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton Univer‑ sity Press. Honneth, Axel. 2011. “Rejoinder.” In Axel Honneth: Critical Essays, edited by Danielle Petherbridge, 391–421. Leiden & Boston, MA: Brill. Honneth, Axel. 2014 [2011]. Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Demo‑ cratic Life. Translated by Joseph Ganahl. Cambridge: Polity. Honneth, Axel. 2020. “Reply to Darwall.” European Journal of Philosophy 29, no. 3: 575–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12679.

128  Heikki Ikäheimo Honneth, Axel. 2023. “Two Interpretations of Social Disrespect: A Comparison between Epistemic and Moral Recognition.” In Epistemic Injustice and the Phi‑ losophy of Recognition, edited by Paul Giladi and Nicola McMillan, 11–35. New York: Routledge. Ikäheimo, Heikki. 2022. Recognition and the Human Life‑Form: Beyond Identity and Difference. New York: Routledge. Ikäheimo, Heikki and Arto Laitinen. 2011. “Recognition and Social Ontology: An Introduction.” In Recognition and Social Ontology, edited by Heikki Ikäheimo and Arto Laitinen, 1–21. Leiden: Brill. Jütten, Timo. 2015. “Is the Market a Sphere of Social Freedom?” Critical Horizons 16, no. 2: 187–203. Siep, Ludwig. 2014 [1979]. Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie: Untersuchungen zu Hegels Jenaer Philosophie des Geistes. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Williams, Robert R. 1997. Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yeomans, Christopher. 2015. The Expansion of Autonomy: Hegel’s Pluralistic Phi‑ losophy of Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zurn, Christopher. 2015. Axel Honneth. Cambridge: Polity Press.

8 Reciprocal Recognition and Hegel’s Embedded Conception of Practical Normativity Andrew Buchwalter

In his 2021 essay “Once Again: On the Relationship between Morality and Ethical Life” and, more extensively, in his 2019 Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, Jürgen Habermas reprises a theme that he has addressed throughout his long and illustrious academic career: Hegel’s reception of Kant’s practical philosophy. Here, as elsewhere, Habermas’ account of that reception is nuanced. On the one hand, he accentuates the merit of Hegel’s position. With his notion of freedom as self‑determination Hegel did well to reaffirm elements of Kant’s “revolutionary new conception” of freedom as self‑legislation—“one of the three or four truly major innova‑ tions in the history of philosophy” (Habermas 2021, 544). In addition, Habermas praises Hegel’s concept of ethical life or ethicality (Sittlichkeit), which, against a notion of moral agency conceived principally for the ex‑ perience of a noumenally positioned and spatio‑temporally unconditioned intelligible ego, redefines the Kantian notion of autonomy to accommo‑ date the sociohistorically embedded conditions of individuals’ actual life practice and experience. Moreover, Habermas affirmatively notes how in the Philosophy of Right Hegel further concretizes his critique of Kantian morality by challenging the modern tradition of rational natural law, itself bedeviled by a commitment to abstractly ahistorical principles of freedom and justice (Habermas 2019, 514). On the other hand, Habermas claims that Hegel, owing principally to the requirements of a conceptual system rooted in a philosophy of the subject, squandered what was of value in his contextualization or “detranscenden‑ talization” of Kantian autonomy. Focused above all on the autonomized and anonymous self‑manifestation of the supra‑individual subjectivity that he terms absolute spirit, Hegel fashioned freedom’s sociohistorical articu‑ lation in terms of a notion of objective spirit that champions community over against the experience and agency of actual individuals. Habermas argues similarly with regard to Hegel’s account of the constitutional mon‑ archy, which, in its role as the worldly embodiment of an absolute subject, is itself fashioned as a higher‑level subjectivity expressive of a universal will DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-9

130  Andrew Buchwalter deemed to instantiate political community itself. In both respects, Hegel fails to accommodate the idea of concrete freedom suggested by the so‑ ciohistorical contextualization of the Kantian principle of self‑legislation, one for which the universal will could denote the capacity of individual members of a political community to shape the conditions of their shared existence. Indeed, far from promoting this “republican” option, Hegel is said to hold that the very identity of individuals is properly realized only when subordinated to the expectations and authority of an existent form of social life. Part and parcel, moreover, of such subordination is a repudiation on Hegel’s part of attention to the wider norms that individuals and groups might invoke to challenge the rationality and legitimacy of an existing so‑ cial order. To the extent that Hegel does advance a notion of normativity, it is one that, reaffirming the tradition of Aristotelian ethics, is directed to conditions according to which individuals might realize themselves in an existing community. Absent is the notion of normativity associ‑ ated with the traditions of Kantianism and rational natural law, both of which empower, however problematically, binding universal or at least context‑transcending norms of right and justice that might be invoked to question the rationality of an existing political order. Habermas summa‑ rizes this preference on Hegel’s part for an Aristotelian rather than Kantian ethic by referencing a concept central to the Hegelian account of social life: reciprocal recognition. Hegel is not concerned with issues of justice, but with the conditions for the successful integration of a political community. He is not interested in justifying what is morally right but in how morality is embedded in a network of reliable relations of reciprocal recognition. (Habermas 2019, 548; 2021, 545) In this chapter, I engage Habermas’ recent assessment of Hegel’s rework‑ ing of the Kantian notion of practical reason as an occasion to reexamine what might be called Hegel’s account of embedded normativity. On the one hand, I endorse aspects of Habermas’ understanding of Hegel’s Kant reception. Hegel’s practical philosophy does affirm a notion of freedom that proceeds from Kant’s notion of autonomy. With his concept of ethical life, Hegel did seek to affirm an embedded notion of freedom, one purged of the abstractions associated not only with the Kantian position but with the tradition of rational natural law as well. He did so, moreover, by rely‑ ing on a robust conception of reciprocal recognition, one that, rooted in actual practices of social interaction, is entwined with conditions for indi‑ vidual self‑realization. On the other hand, I dispute the contention that Hegel’s particular con‑ ception of embedded normativity is beset with the problematic features

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  131 identified by Habermas.1 My remarks are divided into four main parts. First, I review Hegel’s account of ethicality, arguing that, while it does situate indi‑ viduals and groups within a wider account of community, it also allows that community itself remains answerable to the knowledge and will of those groups and individuals. Here I present the role played by reciprocal recogni‑ tion in a way that differs from Habermas’ reading, claiming that it permits Hegel’s engagement with the natural law tradition to be understood as its re‑ alization rather than repudiation. Second, I consider the specific normativity of the concept of reciprocal recognition that informs the account of ethical life, arguing that, while—consonant with Aristotelian conceptions—it does articulate conditions required for the concrete self‑realization of individuals and groups, it also accommodates the wider concerns of justice consonant with Kantian approaches. I also claim that, while a recognitive approach does tie the validity of social norms to their social acceptance by members of an existing life‑form, it also provides how any merely accepted account is subject to ongoing review, reevaluation, and revision. Third, I  consider ­Hegel’s account of the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit), showing how, contrary to Habermas’ appraisal, it does support the more robust form of recognitive normativity just noted. Fourth, I argue that Hegel’s approach to reciprocal recognition promotes an account not only of ongoing normative review and reevaluation but also one of historical progress—linked, however, not to the hypostatized self‑movement of an absolute spirit but to the ground‑level interaction of members of diverse historical life‑forms. Included here is con‑ sideration of how (i) Hegel’s account of history as progress in the conscious‑ ness of freedom takes the form of ground‑level problem‑solving; (ii) such problem‑solving relies on recognitive relations between historical life‑forms; and (iii) a notion of history so understood entails an open‑endedness even as it is also committed to claims of finality. This chapter concludes with some summary observations on Hegel idea of practical normativity as a ground‑level social practice together with some themes for further inquiry. Ethicality, Objective Spirit, and Reciprocal Recognition We begin with some observations on Hegel’s doctrine of ethical life. Haber‑ mas is correct to assert that, with the doctrine of objective spirit, Hegel does assign a certain priority to community over the individual. Central to Hegel’s treatment of ethical life—which, according to the logic of the Philosophy of Right, does supersede accounts of the individual legal and moral subject—is the view that individual identity is inextricably inter‑ twined with membership in a social and political community. Whereas Kant and modern natural law theorists may proceed from pre‑political or pre‑social conceptions of the self, Hegel maintains that individual free‑ dom and identity have meaning and reality only within the context of an ­already existing set of practices and institutions.

132  Andrew Buchwalter This is not to say, though, that Hegel simply subordinates the individual to community or that the task of political thought is to integrate individu‑ als and groups into an existing social or political order. However much he may assign a preexisting “substantiality” to political community, he also maintains, consonant with a notion of spirit conceived as the conjunc‑ tion of substance and subjectivity, that community acquires and sustains its own legitimacy and reality only as it also expresses the subjective will and agency of member individuals. Invoking the idea of a “self‑conscious ethical substance” (EPM, §535),2 he asserts that community itself properly exists only in its endorsement, explicit or habitual, by constituent individu‑ als. Speaking generally of a polity, he writes: “It is the self‑awareness of in‑ dividuals that constitutes the actuality of the state” (PR, §§265A & 263).3 Granted, from the perspective of a third‑person observer that Habermas claims that Hegel adopts (Habermas 2021, 545), assertion of the socio‑ historical embeddedness of thought and experience may promote a view of social life that subsumes individuals and groups to the exigencies of an existing social order. Yet this is not the only or even the principal perspec‑ tive espoused by Hegel in his approach to social analysis. Proceeding from a notion of rationality that obtains not only “in itself” but “for itself” as well, he holds that a state of affairs in the domain of human experience can claim validity only if also accepted and affirmed from the first‑ and second‑person perspective of affected participants. Hegel makes the point specifically with reference to what for Habermas is a source of the asymmetry: his reliance on the concept of recognition. Hegel does say that individual freedom and identity depend on a “state of being recognized” (Anerkanntsein). But for him Anerkanntsein possesses that status only formally or implicitly (an sich) (PS, 388).4 Understood “in and for itself,” it depends as well on its affirmation and endorsement by recognized and recognizing subjects. A third‑person perspective may situate individuals and groups within existing institutional structures, but the first perspective also required in philosophical analysis reaffirms the dependence of those structures on the cognitive and volitional capacities of affected individuals. At issue is what, referring to the logic of recip‑ rocal recognition, Hegel calls the “reappearance” (Wiedererscheinen) of self‑consciousness (EPM, §436). None of this is to suggest that in the end Hegel endorses the pre‑political or pre‑institutional view of individuals common to modern natural law theory. It remains the case that individual experience and identity remain inseparably intertwined with existing practices and institutions. In assert‑ ing this view, however, Hegel does not jettison attention to modern notions of individual freedom and dignity. His point rather is that such principles are properly accommodated only in an embedded account of social rela‑ tions. On his intersubjective understanding of identity formation, it is only

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  133 when located in a robust system of such relations, one empowered above all by practices of reciprocal recognition, that notions of individual selfhood are best addressed. Similarly, freedom itself—understood by Hegel not as a denial of external determination but as an ability to assert and maintain a sense of self in the face of otherwise constraining conditions—depends on the capacity for individual self‑expression within a set of existing practices and institutions. Both views attest to the central place occupied by the concept of selfhood in otherness in Hegel’s social philosophy. But they also make clear that, while he may reject elements of both Kantian moral phi‑ losophy and natural law theory in favor of an embedded account of ethical life, he does so, not because he rejects a commitment to modern notions of freedom and dignity but because those notions are properly realized only when situated in an existing system of social and political relations. Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity As noted, Habermas recognizes the centrality of an account of reciprocal recognition for Hegel’s normative theory. On his reading, however, recip‑ rocal recognition is simply Hegel’s device for integrating individuals into an existing form of life, one whose validity is already presumed. In this way, Hegel is said to opt for an Aristotelian rather than Kantian approach to practical reason and thus one that champions teleological over deonto‑ logical considerations. Infusing his approach then is a commitment not to general principles of justice but to those of individual self‑realization, not to what is objectively right but to what is subjectively good or desirable. Yet this reading does not do justice to Hegel’s actual position. While recognition theory for Hegel does attend to conditions for individual self‑­ realization, it does not thereby jettison concerns for justice. On his account, teleological self‑realization is also articulation of deontological principles of what is right. According to a theory of mutual recognition, I acquire recognition for my own identity only as I recognize another also disposed to recognize me. Yet the other’s recognition can be meaningfully forma‑ tive for me only if I recognize the other as a genuine other and thus as an autonomous self whose recognition of me is freely given. In other words, my own well‑being and autonomy requires that I recognize the other not just as a means to my ends but also as an end‑in‑him or herself. In this way Hegel does affirm concerns of Kantian deontology even while accentuating elements of Aristotelian teleology. That which conduces to what is sub‑ jectively desirable goes hand in hand with an account of objective duties to others. Nor should such attention to what is individually desirable be construed as a diminution of attention to the requirements of moral obli‑ gation. For Hegel, the latter is properly accommodated only with reference to the former. Norms of moral obligations can be effectively binding only

134  Andrew Buchwalter when viewed not as abstract theoretical principles which may or may not comport with individual motivation but as articulations of the latter. A similar point can be made about social norms. For Hegel, social norms are generated in processes of recognition. Above all through recognitive struggles, such processes reflect modes of mutual adaptation and adjust‑ ment that at least tendentially give rise to a set of norms shared by affected individuals and groups. A characteristic of such norms is that they too es‑ chew opposition of the right and the good. At issue instead are values that are simultaneously objectively binding and subjectively empowering. As enacted in recognitive relations, social norms are those that individuals are inclined to accept as obligatory just as their power and authority rest on the ability and willingness of individuals to affirm them as their own. Here the I is a We, just as the We is an I (PS, 110). In his Jena writings, Hegel presents right or justice (Recht) as the “relation of recognition” (JPS, 111). Central to this recognitive account, however, is a view of justice under‑ stood, not as an expression of abstract principles but as an articulation of actual social practices rooted in conditions for individual self‑realization.5 To construe social norms as a product of relations of recognition, to be sure, is not to say that those relations do not themselves already pre‑ suppose social norms of their own. To do so would not least contravene Hegel’s claims about the sociohistorical embeddedness of thought and ex‑ perience. Yet to acknowledge this point is not to say that Hegel’s account of normativity is vitiated by circular reasoning. While he may acknowledge that recognitive relations will unavoidably presuppose an empirically ex‑ isting set of norms governing those relations, those norms are properly val‑ idated only when objectified in the shared analysis and assessment enacted through processes in recognitive interaction. Here, too, Hegel espouses a notion of normative validity focused on that which is true not only in itself but for itself as well. An account of normativity that, like the Kantian, appeals to norms ab‑ stractly juxtaposed to conditions of historical embeddedness is no doubt vitiated by acknowledging an anterior reliance on preexisting norms of rationality. Yet this is not obviously a concern for a Hegelian approach, for which attention to historicity inheres in the validation process itself. On a view of practical rationality tied to recognitively structured modes of social interaction, norms are not abstract theoretical constructions but the expression of ongoing processes by which existing individuals and groups forge and reforge agreement on the conditions of their shared existence. Certainly, to hold that social norms are the product of agreements by affected individuals is also to say that their validity remains tied to their acceptance by members of an existing community. Indeed, attention to such acceptance is part and parcel of an approach to normativity rooted in matters of everyday social practice. Even if general context‑transcending

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  135 principles are engaged, as they in fact are in Hegel’s reception of the natural law tradition, their meaning and binding quality remains dependent—and this presumably applies as well to Habermas’ principle of the “constraint free force of the better argument” (Habermas 2019, 552)—on their in‑ terpretation, appropriation, endorsement, and embrace by members of a particular community. Yet to connect norms to their social acceptance is not to restrict their validity to prevailing community values and attitudes (cf. Honneth 2014). On the recognitively understood notion advanced here, social acceptance also includes resources that can challenge those values and attitudes. This is so first simply with regard to the process of norm appropriation itself, whose validity involves fidelity to modes of collective identity defined in terms of the general capacity of affected individuals to recognize them‑ selves in the conditions of their existence. In addition, the sheer number of possible interlocutors dictates that processes of recognitive interaction, for which individual identity is tied to achieved relations with recognizing others, can never be complete but remains subject to continued expansion and rearticulation. Further, the diversity and ever‑changing composition of recognitive partners, especially in modern societies, likewise dictates that the norms and values fashioned in recognitive practices will be subject to ongoing review and reevaluation. Relevant also is the reflexivity that at‑ taches to the recognition process, one for which participants “recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another” (PS, 12). Central to the fruitfulness of the recognitive relations on which successful identity forma‑ tion depends is continued attention on the part of participants to the con‑ ditions of recognition itself, both as regards relations to one another and community generally. According to Habermas, reciprocal recognition is a tool for Hegel to integrate groups and individuals into an existing social‑­ political order. It may be that, but it is also a means by which members of a particular community, drawing on resources internal to the community itself, can subject those practices to ongoing review, reevaluation, and revi‑ sion. The distinctiveness of Hegel’s embedded approach to normativity is that the practices that require regular and renewed scrutiny can also be the source of that very scrutiny. The Public Sphere and the Politics of Recognitive Normativity The last section of this chapter examines more closely the dynamism ­attached to Hegel’s idea of practical normativity, focusing on how on a recognitive view ongoing processes of normative review and reevaluation can foster not only change but historical progress as well. Before doing so, however, we consider a possible rejoinder to the preceding observa‑ ­ entral here is the role played by a public sphere (Öffentlichkeit) tions. C

136  Andrew Buchwalter in a Hegelian account of political community. For Habermas, that role is limited indeed. Owing to what Habermas characterizes as an overarching commitment to a philosophy of the subject, Hegel not only identified any robust account of political community with the personage of a constitu‑ tional monarch; he affirms a monadically self‑enclosed view of the indi‑ vidual person, thereby ensuring that any notion of popular community can only take the form of an aggregation—an “atomistic heap”—of private views (Habermas 2019, 524ff, 534). In neither case does he allow for the more robust communal engagement with shared social norms and prac‑ tices implied by the recognitive account outlined above.6 Yet, again, this assessment does not appear to do justice to Hegel’s ac‑ tual position. Here I leave aside the nature of Hegel’s status as a philoso‑ pher of the subject, what that might mean generally for his account of political life, and whether it does entail an account of political community comprising only monadically self‑enclosed individuals. I leave aside as well the (much discussed) question of Hegel’s support for the constitutional monarchy and whether it has the significance for Hegel’s political thought claimed by Habermas.7 Instead, I confine myself to Hegel’s account of the public sphere itself, which arguably does accommodate the type of collec‑ tive scrutiny and clarification of norms suggested above. Hegel’s is a broad conception of the public sphere, comprising a wide range of practices and institutions that can foster public discourse (NAPS, §§155–8). Included here is support not just for freedom of speech and the press but also public education, academic research, the arts, and even religion—the domain in which “a people defines what it considers to be true” (LPWH, 105).8 Its specific focus, however, is directed to the activ‑ ity of representatives in the legislative assembly. Against the aggregative view ascribed to him by Habermas, Hegel here does espouse a delibera‑ tive conception of legislative activity. At issue is not a form of legislative decision‑making that simply conglomerates already entrenched views and precommitments, one that conceives deputies merely as “commissioned or mandated agents.” Instead, deputies are expected to “instruct and con‑ vince one another” (PR, §309) and with the aim of forging consensus on matters of common concern—indeed, “the universal interest” (Angelegen‑ heit) itself (PR, §301). The work of the legislature is at least in princi‑ ple fueled by processes of joint “knowledge, deliberation, and decisions” (Mitwissen, Mitberaten, und Mitbeschließen) themselves rooted in “insight and reasoned argument” (PR, §§324, 316). Nor are such deliberations confined to the formalities of legislative en‑ actment itself. In keeping with Hegel’s expansive view of the public sphere, they serve rather to forge the identity of the polity as a whole, indeed the people itself. On the one hand, citizens, in following legislative de‑ bates, are assisted in gaining “insight with regard to the conditions and

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  137 concept of the state and its affairs” (PR, §315), thereby acquiring a “­public ­consciousness” (PR, §301). On the other hand, deputies, inasmuch as they do attend to matters of common concern, are expected to engage the gen‑ eral public and “the wider implications of public opinion,” those that also provide “an oversight and weighty judgment of their work” (NAPS, §154). Such widened concern is further facilitated by the structure of the legisla‑ tive assembly itself, which, consonant with Hegel’s idea of corporate and estate representation, is formally organized to accommodate the diverse interests or “branches” of society as a whole (PR, §311). With his notion of public opinion, Hegel does countenance a merely ag‑ gregative account of political sentiment, one akin to Rousseau’s volonté de tous. Indeed, more so than Rousseau, Hegel makes clear how public opinion in modern societies has tendentially degenerated into the cacophonous arena of particularized private interests that he associates with civil society’s atom‑ istically structured system of needs. With his notion of legislative delibera‑ tion, however, he maintains that public opinion can be transformed into the “universal rational will” (NAPS, §131)—his version of Rousseau’s volonté générale—identifiable with the idea of political public sphere itself. Moreo‑ ver, inasmuch as such deliberation both enacts and is directed to a shared political identity, it also attends to the conditions for its achievement and maintenance, including those articulated above all by norms of freedom and justice. The public sphere fosters processes by which a political community cultivates a “self‑consciousness of its freedom and its right” (NAPS, §154).9 Furthermore, inasmuch as they are fueled by efforts in which members of a diversely structured and sociohistorically conditioned community “instruct and convince one another,” such processes can empower modes of recogni‑ tive interaction reflexively directed to their ongoing review and reevaluation. Recognition, Embedded Normativity, and Historical Progress We now turn to the question of how the forms of normative review and reevaluation that Hegel associates with ongoing practices of recognitive interaction may empower not just change but historical progress as well. In praising Hegel’s concept of objective spirit, Habermas also praises his idea of history. In the same way that objective spirit situated the idea of freedom in the life of culture and society, so history itself, characterized as progress in the consciousness of freedom, innovatively locates “traces of practical reason in history itself” (Habermas 2019, 511). Yet in the same way that Hegel squandered the positive potential residing in his move to objective spirit, he did so as well in his account of history. Historical progress is construed, not as a function of the actual efforts of affected individuals and groups but as the self‑instantiating production of an anonymous and autonomized divine spirit for which the mundane experiences of human

138  Andrew Buchwalter beings are simply the means for its own realization. Far from contributing to historical progress, groups and individuals remain subordinate to the values and structures of an existing political form of life deemed to express a self‑objectifying absolute subject. Here, too, however it appears that Habermas has done a disservice to Hegel’s position. Again, I shall not engage in any detail his account of the concept of absolute spirit or the role it may play in the theory of objective spirit. Instead, I seek to show that members of a political community on his view can indeed contribute actively to a notion of historical development understood as progress in the consciousness of freedom. I do so, moreover, by again emphasizing the role played by reciprocal recognition in Hegel’s social philosophy. Here, too, my broader aim is to suggest that Hegel ad‑ vances an emphatic notion of practical normativity that eschews appeal to external norms and standards in favor of those intwined with the actual practices of groups and individuals. Human Agency, Problem‑Solving, and Historical Progress

We begin by noting that the very idea of progress in the consciousness of freedom is tied to recognitive practices. As noted, realized freedom denotes a state of affairs in which individuals are not only deemed objectively free but know themselves as free as well. On Hegel’s account of freedom as selfhood in otherness, this means that individuals are free only inasmuch as they recognize themselves in the conditions of their existence. On this view, then, history, qua progress in the consciousness of freedom, advances through achievement of more expansive and, indeed, more just modes of recognitive relations—those in which individuals and groups understand themselves as experiencing and enacting more robust accounts of the re‑ lationship of self and other. Consider Hegel’s depiction of the evolution from the unmediated ethicality of classical Greek society, through ancient Rome’s simultaneous attention to the private person and corresponding principles of abstract justice, through Christianity’s focus on the relation‑ ship of the individual and the divine, and to the politically mediated ac‑ counts of the relationship of individual and community central to modern secular societies. At issue is a developmental process shaped by richer and ever more differentiated understandings of individuals’ apprehension of themselves, their sociality, and their world generally. Appreciation of this point corrects the notion that history for Hegel is an objectified process that occurs independently of human knowledge and agency. History here can be adjudged a developmental process not only because it gives voice to more expansive and variegated understand‑ ings of the relationship of human beings and their world and not only because human beings recognize themselves in those more expansive and

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  139 variegated relationships but also because in doing so they contribute to realizing a process understood precisely as progress in the consciousness of freedom. Historical progress occurs in “the actualization produced by such consciousness [of freedom]” (LPWH, 118). Yet the distinctiveness of Hegel’s position is that historical progress, further defined as progress in “the self‑consciousness of freedom” (LPWH, 120), also occurs only as par‑ ticipants reflexively know that they are contributing to it. Important here is how history for Hegel may be understood as a “learning process”—an important category in Habermas’ own treatment of historical evolution— linked to efforts through which members of historical life‑forms manage to resolve problems bequeathed by earlier forms of life.10 For Hegel, historical progress occurs as one culture more adequately responds to the problems and difficulties that afflict a predecessor, those expressed in the unresolved forms of social tension and conflict he charac‑ terizes as a general lack of cultural vitality (PH, 92). Such response is not available to the predecessor, as it lacks the perspective and insight sufficient to discern what might properly count as a solution to its travails. Deficien‑ cies of this sort are attributable not just to the inextirpable embeddedness that Hegel associates with the “finite” domain of historically realized ob‑ jective spirit but also to the reality that, on pain of infinite regress, no com‑ munity can ever properly fashion the comprehensive self‑understanding needed to appreciate what might count as an adequate resolution to its difficulties. At most it possesses an “unsatisfied longing” for a solution (PR, 20), maybe even an inchoate inkling of one—a “vague foreshadowing of something unknown” or an anticipation of “an approaching change” (PS 7, amended)—but no solution in any concrete sense. As for the latter, that can be fashioned, if at all, only by a subsequent life‑form which, with the benefit of historical hindsight, can better comprehend both the nature of the difficulties and their possible solution. It is “a later form of Geist … that … knows what a previous one is” (VR‑ILT3, §260). To the extent that a subsequent life fashions a solution and thus to the extent that it proffers an account of the relationship of self and other more adequate than the tensive one afflicting the predecessor, it also effectuates a historical advance, understood just as progress in the consciousness of a notion of freedom conceived as the mediation of self and other. Nor should such progress be understood just with reference to the third‑person reflec‑ tions of the philosophical historian. Rather, it finds proper expression only in the agency of relevant participants. It is in the self‑awareness of mem‑ bers of a particular form of life as they both respond to received problems and contribute to the latter’s resolution that a life‑form effectuates an ad‑ vance in the consciousness of freedom. For Hegel, progressive articulation of norms of freedom and justice is indeed a function of the ground‑level activity of groups and individuals.

140  Andrew Buchwalter Historical Progress, Life‑forms, and Reciprocal Recognition

In saying that history progresses as a particular life‑form surpasses a pre‑ decessor, Hegel is not also saying that that life‑form simply jettisons the latter. Rather, a developmental account of history depends on individual life‑forms fashioning recognitive relationships with their precursors. Inas‑ much one culture historically emerges in response to problems afflicting a predecessor, its identity and even existence is bound up with the latter. What Hegel says generally about the historicity of experience applies as well to forms of life: “we are what we are through history” (LHPI, 2). Sim‑ ilarly, inasmuch as a subsequent life‑form establishes its historical singular‑ ity in correcting the problems afflicting a predecessor, its identity is likewise shaped by the experiences of the latter. Further, insofar as the inadequacies of an age come to light and, indeed, assume reality only in an affected life‑form’s knowledge and awareness of those inadequacies—­Hegel speaks of “conscious deficiency” (JPS, 169n, amended), a subsequent life‑form, in rectifying those inadequacies, must also engage a predecessor’s self‑­ understanding. In all respects, the identity of a successor community—its “integrated consciousness of itself” (LPWH, 136)11—remains intersubjec‑ tively intertwined with the latter. To be sure, to say that the relationship of one age to a predecessor is an intersubjective one is not to say that it is conventionally one of reciprocal recognition. Not only may a precursor have already perished, the succes‑ sor exists as an advancement just in virtue of the superiority in its self‑­ understanding vis‑à‑vis the other. In addition, however much one culture, in appreciating of its own limitations, may occasion the solution that con‑ stitutes the identity of a successor, it lacks any ability to know and engage the latter. Further, a successor culture, fettered by its own incapacity for comprehensive self‑reflection, engages a predecessor even as it also attests to limitations in its own possibilities for self‑realization. In these and other respects the interrelationship of historical cultures is one that falls short of the robust form of mutual self‑affirmation ideally constitutive of relations of reciprocal recognition. Yet this does not mean that the relationship of cultures in an account of historical progress does not enact elements of a theory of reciprocal recog‑ nition. Rather, such elements are evident precisely in the way in which for Hegel historical development denotes a problem‑solving learning process directed to correction rather than just change. Consider the case of the life‑form to be surpassed. In line with recognitive relations, that form of life contributes to the formation of the subsequent life‑form that is its rec‑ tification. Not only is it the source of the problem for which the latter is a solution; through its own activity, it both identifies the problem and calls for the subsequent correction. “Through knowledge spirit makes manifest

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  141 a distinction between knowledge and that which is; this knowledge is thus what produces a new form of development” (LHP 1, 54f).12 An existing form of life is “the inward birth‑place of the spirit that will later arrive at actual form” (LHP 1, 55). Hegel’s point though is not just that the earlier form of life contributes to the identity of the correcting life‑form; also in line with recognition theory, it acquires its proper identity only in the latter. As an advance in a notion of freedom understood as the mediation of selfhood in otherness, a later stage concretizes a view of collective identity more unified and in‑ tegrated than was the case with a predecessor, plagued by fragmentations the successor seeks to heal. Calling historical development “change in the direction of completion” (LPWH, 108), Hegel asserts that as regards a pre‑ decessor the self‑formation of a later stage also effectuates a “self‑return … that for the first time constitutes the subject” (LPWH, 150). Consider, conversely, the dependence of a later on an earlier stage of historical development. In line with Hegel’s view of development as a pro‑ cess of resolving problems afflicting an earlier form of life, a later life‑form knows and effectuates itself as an advance only as it establishes a rela‑ tionship to what preceded it. In this way, it also establishes a recognitive relationship with the latter, forging its own identity and autonomy while also acknowledging its dependence on it. In the domain of world history, such retrospective recognition takes the form of a process of recollection (­Erinnerung), one predicated on a life‑form “incorporating the aware‑ ness of its past” (LPWH, 116). Not only does a later stage know itself as historical advance only as it comprehends its relationship to the stage of development from which it emerged; it also fashions the autonomous sense of self‑identity enacted in that advance through a mode of historical recollection that is simultaneously a reworking or “re‑membering” of the received set of circumstances otherwise determining the conditions of its existence (LPWH, 116f, 149). Nor should this process of recollection be understood as a narrow in‑ strumentalization, one relegating the legacy of the past to a means for the cultural‑political ends of the present. Consonant with a theory of mu‑ tual recognition, it must also attend to preceding life‑forms as “ends in themselves” (LPWH, 97). Attention to the autonomous “heterogeneity” (Fremdartigkeit) (PH, 226) of the other comports with a philosophy of history focused on individual stages as expressions of freedom. But it is also essential to the subsequent stage itself, whose own freedom depends on carefully engaging not only the inherited conditions shaping it but the self‑understanding of the culture—its aporias included—that is the source of the inheritance. This mediation of “the adventitious and the autoch‑ thonic” (Eingeführtes und Autochthonisches) is achieved only as one stage recollectively acknowledges its dependence on a precursor (PH, 228).13

142  Andrew Buchwalter These considerations make clear that world history for Hegel is not the autonomized and autarkic product of a divine subject unfolding itself nec‑ essarily in the contingent concatenation of human affairs. As progress in the consciousness of freedom, it depends instead on the knowledge and agency of the affected human parties themselves. With regard both to the stage experiencing the problem to be corrected and to the one subsequently providing a correction, progress for Hegel is “mediated by consciousness and will” (LPWH, 109). Such progress, moreover, is expressive of a logic of recognition, at least insofar as that is applicable to entities diversely situated in time. The process whereby one historical life‑form contributes to its own transcendence is also one in which it acquires a better account of itself. Conversely, the subsequent life‑form effectuates a transition to a higher stage of freedom only as it acknowledges its dependence on the nature and identity of a predecessor. The relationship between stages is indeed one of “communication” (LPWH, 194). Here as well, then, the principle of recognition does perform the norma‑ tive function addressed earlier. It provides a means to assess whether and to what extent an existing life‑form conforms to a norm of freedom under‑ stood as the relationship of selfhood and otherness, what a more adequate articulation of that norm would be, and how that more adequate articula‑ tion might be realized. Moreover, the rationality of history is itself to be judged from the perspective of whether it accommodates the ongoing rela‑ tionship of problem and attempted solution characterizing the recognitive interaction between a life‑form and its historical successor. Importantly, though, the norms at issue are not those that are abstractly juxtaposed to the historical phenomena in question. In the case of problematic and corrective stage alike, they are embedded in the experience of the particu‑ lar life‑forms themselves. Nor does such embeddedness empower mecha‑ nisms of accommodation, those that might simply integrate individuals and groups into an already existing form of life. Rather, a recognitively structured form of life has the capacity to effectuate its own transcendence. It is through its appreciation of a discrepancy both between its objective reality and its subjective self‑understanding and in its own self‑identity that a particular form of life triggers a call for a superseding solution. Likewise, any solution is itself achieved only as the subsequent form of life, in fashioning its own self‑identity, forges a relationship between itself and a predecessor. In these and other ways Hegel’s account of history, qua progress in the consciousness of freedom, enacts the “immanent devel‑ opment of the thing itself” (PR, §2)—not, however, as the self‑unfolding of a hypostatized super‑subject but as the endogenous and ongoing pro‑ cess of self‑formation and self‑transformation shaping the relationship of life‑forms to one another. And inasmuch as right for Hegel is the realized existence of freedom (PR, §29), recognitively generated advances in the consciousness of freedom are advances in justice as well.

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  143 Finality, Open‑Endedness, and Historical Progress

The ongoing nature of the process of historical development may be fur‑ ther appreciated by noting that it is not gainsaid by Hegel’s talk about a final or absolute end to history. At issue is certainly not a state of affairs subsisting beyond time, like the good said by Hegel to characterize Kant’s conception of the ultimate end of the world (LPWH, 167; LHP III, 462). This view misrepresents not least the absolute itself, whose very nature requires jettisoning conventional distinctions like conditioned and uncon‑ ditioned, finite and infinite, and time and eternity. But it also misrepresents a final end, which, qua end in itself or Selbstzweck, connotes not a static achievement but a phenomenon of self‑production. On both counts the final or absolute end for Hegel denotes a productive activity coeval with historical development itself. But this is also not to say that the final end is what Habermas s­ uggests: expression of the necessary and autarkic self‑manifestation of an abso‑ lute subject for which finite objectification is simply the means for its infinite self‑actualization. Aside from itself ratifying untenable dualisms ­ uman and divine, immanent and transcendent, necessity and con‑ (e.g., h tingency), this view also misrepresents what is entailed by a final end as it pertains to world history. Rather than reflecting the agency of an au‑ tonomized and self‑enclosed divine subject, an historical final end refer‑ ences the individual stages comprising the development of world history. As moments in the history of the consciousness of freedom, each stage is itself an “end in itself” (LPWH, 76). Not only does each represent richer and more differentiated articulations of the relationship of selfhood and otherness that is freedom itself; in line with the self‑productivity appro‑ priate to a Selbstzweck, each effectuates such articulation by perform‑ atively enacting freedom itself—reworking an inherited legacy in ways that actualize a distinctive sense of self. Asserting that world history is concerned not with “yesterday or tomorrow” but with “an absolute pre‑ sent” (LPWH, 150),14 Hegel attends to how each particular stage, as a moment in the progressive development of freedom, can itself be deemed a final end. This of course is not to say that world history terminates with any in‑ dividual stage. As noted, every stage triggers its own transcendence. His‑ torical agency on the part of a particular life‑form is always challenged not only by the density and changing nature of historical circumstances that it seeks to master but by the impossibility of achieving the complete self‑comprehension that might yield the sovereign self‑awareness required of a full account of the self‑consciousness of freedom. In this respect an in‑ completeness attaches to the identity of any historical stage, whose own ef‑ forts engender both a dissatisfaction among affected parties and the call for a more adequate articulation of its own aspirations. “The completion of

144  Andrew Buchwalter an act of comprehension is at the same times its alienation and ­transition” (PR, §343). Even as one historical stage does represent a solution to the problems afflicting a predecessor, that solution is afflicted by problems of its own, a situation that calls forth future corrections, and so on ad infini‑ tum. To the extent that a particular life‑form is indeed a final or absolute end, it is more in the sense of John Dewey’s “end‑in‑view” (Dewey 1971, 88, 301–3), i.e., one addressing particular problems from its particular perspective and set of experiences (Dewey 1971, 88). In this sense each stage is what Hegel says it is: a unity of means and ends (LPWH, 100). As a distinctive response to problems inherited from history and social life, it is also a resource for a subsequent culture even as it stamps its own imprimatur on a given set of circumstances. To the extent that Hegel does see the whole of world history as expressing an “absolute rational final purpose” (83), it is not with regard to a definitive conclusion but to the “ceaseless conflict (Kampf) with itself” (LPWH, 109) whereby one stage progressively supplants a predecessor. And inasmuch as this struggle em‑ bodies an ongoing and mutually enriching relationship of dependence and independence, it also enacts elements of a logic of reciprocal recognition. Conclusion A complete account of the value of a theory of recognition for a Hegelian understanding of practical normativity would address its possible expli‑ cation of universal norms. Important though it is, this is a matter that exceeds the parameters of this particular essay.15 It is hoped, however, that the preceding considerations, employing Habermas’ recent critique as a foil, have illuminated some features of a theory of practical norma‑ tivity that draws on the resources of Hegel’s social philosophy. Among other things, these features include (i) support for a situated account of ethicality which, while opposing the ahistorical abstractions of Kantian moral theory and rational natural law, does not reject but further realizes those traditions; (ii) articulation of an account of ethicality fueled by a notion of reciprocal recognition that renders systems of existing practices and institutions answerable to individual knowledge and will even as it integrates individuals into those systems; (iii) a theory of reciprocal recog‑ nition that accommodates “deontological” principles of right and justice even as it proceeds from and empowers ground‑level “teleological” forms of individual self‑fulfillment; (iv) explication of how on the recognitive view an account of norms generated and sustained in actual social agree‑ ment is subject to ongoing processes of review, reevaluation, and revision; (v) exposition of how such processes are underwritten by Hegel’s theory of the political public sphere; (vi) clarification of how a treatment of social norms keyed to recognitive processes accommodates not only change but

Reciprocal Recognition and Practical Normativity  145 progress, understood, not as the autonomized experience of a autarkically conceived divine spirit but as a function of efforts by members of particular life‑forms as they address existing and historically received social problems and contradictions; and (vii) explanation of how Hegel’s treatment of his‑ tory as progress in the consciousness of freedom remains an open‑ended affair, his appeal to notions of finality notwithstanding. Many questions may be raised about the account offered in this chapter. Can, for instance, acknowledgment of the historicity of thought and ex‑ perience really accommodate context‑transcending norms of right and jus‑ tice, can processes of reciprocal recognition both facilitate and challenge agreement on social norms, can cultural life‑forms express modes of col‑ lective identity and, if so, can they really promote processes not only of normative reflection but also of self‑transformation, is it at all meaningful to speak of normative progress and, if so, can that be properly understood as the recognitive interaction of life‑forms, does Hegelian theory exces‑ sively emphasize progress to the neglect of attention to regression, and does progress occur just in surpassing prior forms of life? These are all important questions. The focus of this chapter, however, has been more modest: to shed light on elements of Hegel’s thought that are often misun‑ derstood, misrepresented, or simply not appreciated. In doing so, my aim has been inter alia to contribute to the ever‑growing literature regarding the place occupied by the concept of recognition in his practical philoso‑ phy. More systematically, it has been to delineate elements of a Hegelian account of normativity, one that not only charts a course between the poles of universalism and contextualism but does so by accentuating the context‑transcending capacity of ground‑level social practices. Given that much of current practical philosophy remains gripped by these competing poles, further attention to the resources supplied by Hegel’s nuanced and mediated proposals still seems to possess merit. Notes 1 For a more extensive discussion of Habermas’ recent treatment of Hegel as re‑ gards the general relationship of reason, religion, and secularity, see B ­ uchwalter (2023). 2 The Philosophy of Mind is cited according to the 1971 Wallace/Miller translation. 3 The Philosophy of Right is cited according to the Nisbet translation. 4 The Phenomenology of Spirit is cited according to the 1977 Miller translation. 5 For a related view of social norms as rooted in a Hegelian account of reciprocal recognition, see Honneth (2014, 818–22), who presents the matter in terms of an account of individuals as both the authors and addressees of the norms that bind them. 6 The critique of the Hegelian public sphere that Habermas advances in his most recent writings mirrors what he said 60 years earlier in the 1962 Strukturwan‑ del der Öffentlichkeit (see Habermas 1989, 120).

146  Andrew Buchwalter 7 For a good discussion, see Vieweg (2012, 407–25). 8 The Lectures on the Philosophy of World History are cited according to the Brown/Hodgson translation. 9 See further Vieweg (2012, 446–448). 10 For a thoughtful discussion of Hegel’s account of history as a learning pro‑ cess devoted to resolving problems confronting historical lifeforms, see Jaeggi (2018, especially 290–313). Her treatment is especially instructive as it appeals to Hegel’s dialectical mediation of continuity and change, and how that relies on his general principle of determinate negation. The current discussion affirms elements of Jaeggi’s approach but in a way that appeals to Hegel’s account of reciprocal recognition. 11 Here I employ the Nisbet translation. 12 The Lectures on the History of Philosophy is cited according to the Haldane/ Simson translation. 13 For an instructive discussion of these issues, see Rózsa (2023). 14 Here I employ the Nisbet translation. 15 Some of the relevant issues are addressed in Buchwalter (2012 and 2020).

References Buchwalter, Andrew. 2012. “Hegel’s Conception of an International ‘We.’” In Dia‑ lectics, Politics, and the Contemporary Value of Hegel’s Practical Philosophy, 203–13. New York/London: Routledge. Buchwalter, Andrew. 2020. “Hegel and the Intercultural Conception of Universal Human Rights.” In Hegel and Contemporary Political Philosophy: Beyond Kan‑ tian Constructivism, edited by James Gledhill and Sebastian Stein, 348–75. New York and London: Routledge. Buchwalter, Andrew. 2023. “The Assimilation of Faith to Knowledge? On ­Habermas’ Assessment of Hegel’s Account of the Relationship of Reason, Religion, and Secularity.” History of Political Thought 44, no. 4 (Winter 2023):739–780. Dewey, John. 1971. Experience and Nature, 2nd edition. Lasalle, IL: Open Court Publishing. Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Translated by Thomas Burger, with assistance of Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2019. Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 2: V ­ ernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Habermas, Jürgen. 2021. “Once again: On the relationship between morality and ethical life.” European Journal of Philosophy 29, no. 3 (October): 543–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12716. Honneth, Axel. 2014. “The Normativity of Ethical Life.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 40, no. 8: 817–26. Jaeggi, Rahel. 2018. Critique of Forms of Life. Translated by Ciaran Cronin. ­Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rózsa, Erzsébet. 2024. “Die Beduetung der ‘Kommunikation’ von Völkern und Kulturen für die Geschichte in Hegels Europabild.” In Jahrbuch Politisches ­Denken (forthcoming). Vieweg, Klaus. 2012. Das Denken der Freiheit: Hegels “Grundlinien der Philoso‑ phie des Rechts.” Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.

9 Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht History and the Idea of the World in Hegel Angelica Nuzzo

The presentation of world‑history as the tribunal or court of justice of the world—the idea that Weltgeschichte is and should be thought of as the Weltgericht—is undoubtedly among the well‑known and much‑quoted im‑ ages of Hegel’s philosophy. And as it is usually the case with all of Hegel’s well‑known and much‑quoted images, the equation of Weltgeschichte and Weltgericht inevitably remains elusive as it always carries in itself some‑ thing that escapes our efforts at a thorough comprehension. And this is true despite the wealth of interpretations that Hegel’s dictum has produced and continues to produce up to these days. Thus, it turns out that although all those interpretations certainly fulfill an important and indeed indispen‑ sable function by tracking down historical sources and influences, by citing parallel passages in Hegel’s corpus, and by exploring the legacy of Hegel’s work in his aftermath, they nonetheless still come short of unlocking the full and essential meaning proper to those conceptual constellations. In other words, to repeat yet another famous Hegelian claim: the more those images are bekannt to us, the less they are truly erkannt, or the more they are familiar to us, the less we properly know their meaning (see PS, 27; W 3, 35).1 With this preamble, I do not mean to downplay the rich discus‑ sion that has taken place throughout the years on Hegel’s identification of world‑history with the world‑tribunal. I also want to point to the need to revisit my own work and my own reflections on such idea (Nuzzo 2012). Indeed, despite having thought a lot about that Hegelian image myself, there is something in it that still escapes me—something that still requires and inspires new reflections. The general question that I want to address is, yet again: why is Weltgeschichte presented as the Weltgericht, and what does this identification entail both in regard to Hegel’s theory of freedom and to his conception of history? What is history “judging,” and how is history, in turn, to be judged? There is, to be sure, an obvious presence in that formula—a presence that perhaps precisely because it is so obvious is generally and all‑too easily overlooked. Geschichte is Welt‑Geschichte; the Gericht herein at stake is the Welt‑Gericht. To which one should also DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-10

148  Angelica Nuzzo add that since history is the reality and the product of the activity that for Hegel is Geist or spirit itself, in this connection Geist is, in its turn, properly and truly Welt‑Geist—or “Geist der Welt,” as Hegel alternatively says (PR, §340).2 Whatever that formula is hinting at, then, the “world” is central to it: that image is framed by the world; that image concerns, most properly and directly, the world. Accordingly, I shall suggest quite gen‑ erally that the Hegelian dictum implies a new paradigm of cosmological thinking (after Kant’s critical transformation of metaphysical cosmology). More specifically, that image captures the paradigm of Hegel’s dialectical political cosmology. In the present reflections, I propose to draw that implicit presence, namely, the world, to the center and develop the connected suggestion that places Hegel’s theory of history within his dialectical transformation of cosmology. Accordingly, Welt offers the perspective within which I set out to discuss that Hegelian image (Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht) and to draw its systematic and historical implications. On a first, general approximation, Welt‑Geschichte indicates the universal or indeed “global” character of history (also indicated, in the usual terminology of the time, as Universal‑ geschichte) in contrast to its localized and particularized dimension. This latter, however, in its plurality (i.e., in the manifold of local histories), can‑ not itself be separated from the global framework that is the world. Local histories are placed within the world‑globe and are intelligible only within it. World‑history remains the backdrop of all its localized particulariza‑ tions. Even more strongly, in Hegel’s conception of history as the actuality of “the universal spirit” (PR, §340), the very notion of Weltgeschichte in‑ dicates that history (as res gestae) is somehow coextensive with the world. Just as history does not escape the world but is constitutively and necessar‑ ily “global,” so the world as a product of spirit’s activity is inescapably and necessarily historical. History is one with spirit’s world: Weltgeschichte is one term, one concept, one reality. In its prima facie consideration, on the other hand, the notion of ­Weltgericht—the court of justice or judgment—is inescapably bound with the biblical and theological representation of a supreme and divine “judge”—the highest authority of a Richter in whose hands the fate of the world, hence, ultimately, of history resides. And yet, the genitive that is seamlessly incorporated in the term Weltgericht can be read in two differ‑ ent ways. It can have both the meaning of an objective genitive, in which case the divine, supreme judge is the judge of the world, i.e., the judge to whom the world is subject, and the meaning of a subjective genitive, in which case it is the world itself that is taken as the supreme judging authority to which everything (everything in the world) responds (in‑ dividual human deeds as well as collective historical occurrences). This distinction corresponds to a relevant theoretical shift taking place with

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  149 Hegel’s appropriation of the expression. At stake in Hegel’s philosophy is the secularization of the ­biblical image whereby the transcendent judging authority (i.e., God or the divine) to which the world is subject is rendered immanent within history (and manifested as history), i.e., within the very process that is now endowed with the authority of judgment. In this way, the two genitives ultimately converge: the world in its historical dimen‑ sion is the world to which the judging authority belongs. Justice is now placed at the intersection of these claims. The world no longer responds to a transcendent justice; the world as a whole is self‑legislative in its claim of justice (or a court of justice). This is Hegelian freedom actualized in its historical dimension. In a broad historical perspective, this shift is crucial in its own right. But it is also central, first, to the understanding of Hegel’s notion of Geist as the subject and object of world‑history. And it is central, second, to the un‑ derstanding of the movement of history as the progressive actualization of freedom carried out according to the dialectic‑speculative method laid out at the end of Hegel’s Logic. It is, however, even more relevant as it leads us to the further claim pursued by my analysis. Judgment (and its justice) is possible only at the end—at the end of the process leading up to that which is finally objectively judged. The deed can be “judged” only when it is fully carried out in reality, not in its mere intention (herein ­Hegel differs signifi‑ cantly from Kant); a human life can be “judged” only in point of death, as it were (herein Aristotle leads the way); the world can be “judged” only when it has reached the threshold of its end (this is the legacy of the Apoca‑ lypse). Hegel’s very conception of the activity of p ­ hilosophy—conceived, importantly, as “thought of the world (Gedanke der Welt)”—hinges pre‑ cisely on this notion of a historical process approaching its conclusion: “as the thought of the world,” philosophy “appears only at a time when actuality has gone through its formative process and attained its completed state” (PR, Preface 23; W 7, 28). Having‑completed‑the‑­process‑to‑the‑end (or by bringing the process to the end)—Vollendung, as it were—is, objec‑ tively, the very condition of judgment and justice. On the other hand, how‑ ever, judgment also actively makes the end and is responsible for the end: judgment actively sanctions the end of a process; it makes the process end. In the theological sense, it is God as Weltrichter who not only creates the world but also apocalyptically annihilates it. In this perspective, the final judgment offers a conclusive and comprehensive account of the value of the world as a whole, but, at the same time, it also sanctions the end of the world. But how are we to interpret this same constellation, namely, in sum, the connection between (divine) judgment and justice, the world, and the (apocalyptic) end once we take it up within the secularized framework in which judgment is rendered immanent to the world‑historical movement that is being judged? What is the role that the end plays in the movement

150  Angelica Nuzzo of world‑history (hence as a non‑apocalyptic but rather intra‑historical termination)? And what is the role that the end plays in the justice of such a judgment as a judgment no longer pronounced by a transcendent divine authority but by the world itself in its progressive historical constitution? This is the problematic constellation that I set out to investigate in this essay. The first part of my argument looks at the immediate and explicit source of Hegel’s dictum, namely, Friedrich Schiller’s poem Resignation. Eine Phantasie (1786). While this source is often quoted by the interpret‑ ers, the poem itself is not generally examined. The consequence is that Schiller’s claim “Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht” and Hegel’s par‑ aphrase at the end of the Philosophy of Right (1820) are usually never contextualized. Furthermore, I shall presently set both Schiller’s poem and Hegel’s appropriation of its famous verse in relation to another text, rarely discussed in the scholarship, namely, Kant’s 1794 essay The End of All Things. In this late work, interrogating a connection that is in some re‑ gards similar to the one Schiller already addressed eight years earlier, Kant raises the problem of the “end of the world” (or the “end of all things”) at the intersection between superstitious common sense, religious representa‑ tion, cosmology, and historical and political teleology. In which ways does this trajectory through Schiller and the late Kant lead to Hegel? In the second part of my argument, I turn to Hegel’s dialectic‑speculative view of world‑history as Weltgericht. I examine the claim of the Philosophy of Right (PR, §340) in light of the constellation that connects Hegel’s idea of the world to the logical‑methodological moment of the end and to the act of ending a process, in this case, the historical process of freedom’s actualization. Finally, on this basis, I discuss the issue of the end when at stake is the world and the alleged end of world‑history. What does it mean, what can it mean, for Hegel, that the world and history, and, in one term, Weltgeschichte has reached the end—the end from which alone judgment and justice become possible but also the end actively brought about by the judgment and justice proper to the “spirit of the world”? These questions, I submit, go to the heart of what I call Hegel’s historical and dialectical model of political cosmology (see Nuzzo 2021). Justice and the End of the World: Divine Judgment and the Judgment of the World In the Philosophy of Right, at the end of the presentation of the second division of the State, “B. International Law (Das äussere Staatsrecht)” pre‑ paring the transition to “C. World‑History,” Hegel claims that in the con‑ tingent, often violent relations of the individual states on the international scene the “dialectic of the finitude” proper to the particular Volksgeister and their principles “makes its appearance.” “It is through this dialectic

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  151 that the universal spirit, the spirit of the world (der allgemeine Geist, der Geist der Welt) produces itself in its freedom from all limits, and it is this spirit which exercises its right—which is the highest right of all—over finite spirits in world history as the world’s court of judgment/justice (Weltger‑ icht)” (PR, §340). At this juncture, the “dialectic” of the individual particu‑ lar states in their limitation (or finitude) yields to the self‑producing activity of the universal “Geist der Welt.” The “spirit of the world” exercises its power and realizes its unlimited freedom “in der Weltgeschichte, als dem Weltgericht,” concludes Hegel at this point paraphrasing Schiller. At stake herein is the fundamental extension of both the principles of right and justice and of freedom in its actualization from the internal, self‑contained confines of the ethical wholes that are the particular states involved in the “dialectic of finitude” to the global, universal dimension of the world—of a Weltgericht that is now the theater of Weltgeschichte produced by the Weltgeist. I shall examine this passage extensively in the second part of the essay. But let me begin with Hegel’s pointed reference to Schiller in order to contextualize the crucial transition—and extension—of the “dialectic” of the finite states to the unlimited (yet still dialectical) freedom displayed in (and as) world‑history. This is the transition that brings the Philosophy of Right to its conclusion and, in the systematic of the Encyclopedia, leads on to the sphere of Absolute Spirit (see Nuzzo 2012, ch. 5). In 1786, Friedrich Schiller publishes in the journal Thalia the poem Res‑ ignation. Eine Phantasie (Schiller 1943). Appearing two years after Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent (1784) and just before the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Schiller’s poem stages the same open‑ ing scene as Kant’s late essay The End of All Things (1794). The individual (the I, moral conscience, the soul) stands suspended at the threshold of death—on the “darkened bridge” leading to eternity (strophe 3)—from which eternity itself, the “verhüllte Richterin” (str. 4) and “Vergelterin” (str. 4, 13, 15), is directly addressed.3 The poem is structured as a dialogue of the soul with eternity, although we only hear one part of the exchange, namely, the protestations of the soul for the unjust bargain or, rather, the “contract” on which its life has been led. From the outset, the set‑up of the scene is juridical (in the sense of Hegelian Abstract Right, to wit): the soul is placed in front of the ultimate court of judgment, laying out its laments to eternity, sending back to it the unfulfilled “contract for happiness” (str. 3). Thereby the individual, upon meeting its mortal fate, somehow “resigns” from the contractual obligation. But it is too late since its entire life has been con‑ ducted on the basis of such contract. The suffered injustice consists in the unfulfilled promise of happiness in this world: as time ends (in death), the promise remains inexorably unfulfilled, unless it is postponed—­infinitely and indefinitely postponed—into eternity (or, to another “world”).

152  Angelica Nuzzo In this framework, Resignation offers a meditation on the alternative that pitches the “justice” of a life lived bargaining for happiness in the ever‑deferred promise of another world, against the “justice” of a life that recognizes the (secular) “world” itself as the ultimate dimension in which all human deeds are inescapably inscribed in their finality. In the end, the poem rejects the transactional justice proper to the Christian tradition that proposes an exchange between renunciation to the “world” (in this life) and happiness (in the next). In contrast to this view, Schiller advocates a secularized, worldly version of the “renunciation” that can be found in the Kirchenrecht or canon law. In canon law, well into the twentieth century, “renunciation” is understood as the free giving away of the privilege of a beneficium with nothing in return (Laarmann 1992, 909). Thus, “resig‑ nation” is the free “renunciation” to the hope in a future, otherworldly happiness in favor of the actual enjoyment that consists in embracing the present, worldly dimension of life. Transactional justice is replaced by the idea of the free relinquishment—a sort of radical liberation of the self. Ultimately, on this view, the course of the world is no longer guided by a hidden, allegedly “just” providence or divine judge but by the intra‑worldly responsibility that ties the human will to its deeds. Justice is immanent in history. To history belongs the highest judgment. Embracing an idea of morality close to Kant’s duty done for duty’s sake and not for the utilitarian reward of happiness in the afterlife, dis‑ illusioned by the thought of Christian providence, in the poem Schiller attacks the hypocrisy of Christian theology and its retributive view of the last judgment—imparting terrors for the evildoers and ever‑lasting joy for the honest and truthful. Eternity is represented as “Richterin” and her “throne” as the “Gericht”—the court of justice and the tribunal in front of which the value of one’s life and even of the world as a whole is finally appraised: ­rewards are dispensed and punishments are imposed (str. 4). But what is the “justice” of the last judgment? It is the justice of a trade or exchange made not for the living but for the dead, which answers the “world” mockingly and laughing at the soul (str. 9). The promise, now reveals the “world,” was made by a “liar” who instead of “truth” gave to the soul only “shadows” (str. 9). For what the exchange promises, namely, happiness, is never actual in this life, never real and lived in this world but only hoped for in the illusory semblance of “another life” and another world (str. 7). The further question, then, concerns the reason why human beings are so terrorized by the “Wahn”—the illusion and delusion—of the last judgment (str. 10). Why do they look forward to “another life” (and to “immortality”) beyond this “world”? Why not accept the world; why not embrace death in its finality and be satisfied with one’s life for what it is, i.e., for what one has made of it (that is, taking responsibility for it)? Ultimately, Resignation makes it clear that the last judgment can only take

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  153 place at the end—at the end of life, at the end of time, and at the “end of all things.” But the last judgment cannot be placed beyond the world. It is, instead, one with the world. In the conclusion of the poem, against the theological view of the last judgment that leads us beyond this world into an alleged after‑life and into eternity, Schiller offers a secular, intra‑worldly, and ultimately his‑ torical conception of justice. For us humans, it all depends on a stark ­alternative that knows of no mediation and of no compromise. “Hoffnung und ­Genuss”—hope and pleasure—or rather, either hope or pleasure, im‑ manently determine what our life is (before the end). They are the two “­flowers” with which humanity (or the wise among the humans) has been gifted by a hidden “invisible” “Genius” (str. 16). But the two flowers ­cannot be had (or even desired) together: “Who plucked one of these ­flowers, ­desire/Not its other sister” (“Wer dieser Blumen eine brach, begehre / Die andre Schwester nicht”: str. 17). Thus, this is Schiller’s conclusion: “­Delight in pleasure, he who cannot believe. This teaching / Is eternal as the world. Who can believe, go without! / World‑history is the world t­ribunal” (“­Genieße, wer nicht glauben kann. Die Lehre / Ist ewig, wie die Welt. Wer glauben kann, entbehre! / Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht”: str. 17). Pleasure is for the one who cannot hope, while hope necessarily ­remains unfulfilled. Pleasure is the cypher of the present; hope is the projection into a future construed as eternity. This is the “teaching” of the world— a teaching as old as the world. It is not the unfulfilled promise—and truly the “lie”—of eternity. In this alternative, replacing divine justice and ­judgment, the “world” is the ultimate court of justice—the world or, rather, world‑history, Welt‑Geschichte. Having severed the connection to theology, cosmology now becomes fully historical. Eight years after the publication of Resignation, the old Kant offers his thoughts on the dying man’s anticipation of the “end of the world” and, even more radically, the “end of all things.”4 The 1794 essay The End of All Things begins by citing a “common expression” that captures the pre‑ dicament of human life coming to its end. In fact, the saying signals our human incapacity to accept the end, the illusion (reinforced by religion) whereby the thought of the end becomes the thought of (un‑ending) eter‑ nity. “It is a common expression,” Kant muses, “especially when speaking piously, for a dying man to say that he is passing from time to eternity.” In the saying, “er gehe aus der Zeit in die Ewigkeit” the end that death represents loses its finality by being construed as the transition “out of time into eternity” (Kant 1983, 93; AA 8, 327). This saying raises for Kant an immediate issue that concerns the meaning of that Ewigkeit so casually and carelessly connected to the end. For, Kant argues, that com‑ mon expression would be meaningless if by “eternity” one intended the infinite, unending quantitative progress in the time series (in the same time

154  Angelica Nuzzo series to which life belongs). In this case, the individual would never leave time. But Kant’s further question concerns why and how the approaching death of the individual leads to the much vaster thought of the “end of all things” and, ultimately, the “end of the world” (of which the apocalyptic end accompanied by terror and dread and the subversion of the natural and moral order is one version). From this starting point, Kant’s essay sketches out a progression in which the assumed equivalence of the end of time and eternity, moving away from the open‑ended infinite succession of the time series, leads first to the idea of the “end of all time,” then to the “end of all things” and to the “end of the world,” and finally culminates in the quite different idea of the “final end” or Endzweck of the world (Kant 1983, 93, 94, 97f.; AA 8, 327, 328, 333 respectively). While history, or rather Weltgeschichte, does not appear explicitly in Kant’s argument, poli‑ tics does as well as a pessimistic and certainly not providentially inspired view of his own historical present (and immediate future). Herein the old Kant shares common ground with Schiller’s early poem. While meaningless for speculative reason, the thought of the end gains its justification, for Kant, in the practical‑moral context. Indeed, the idea of “the end of all things,” he argues, has its “origin (Ursprung) not in the reflection (Vernünfteln) on the natural and physical order of the world but rather in the reflection on the moral course of things in the world” (Kant 1983, 94; AA 8, 328). Now the practical‑moral process of the world does not lead to the thought of history but is, instead, immediately connected to the religious or, rather, superstitious thought of a divine final judgment of the world. The end, argues Kant reflecting on another common say‑ ing of the German language, is the “last day”—literally, “the youngest day (der jüngste Tag)”—in which the final judgment of the divine “Wel‑ trichter” occurs (Kant 1983, 94; AA 8, 328). The end is “judgment day (Gerichtstag),” namely, the point in which “the settling of the accounts of men for their conduct during their lifetimes” takes place. To be sure, this is the religious version of the previously examined argument of speculative reason: “the judgment of forgiveness or damnation by the judge of the world is the true end of all things in time and, at the same time, the begin‑ ning of (a blessed or damned) eternity” (Kant 1983, 94; AA 8, 328—my emphasis). In this perspective, “the end of all things” becomes the “end of the world.” The “end of the world” is properly the very last thing—or among the last things—to occur (in the world or to the world). In its apocalyptic representation, the end of the world is the catastrophic and terrifying collapse of the natural and moral orders, to which their regen‑ eration in the shape of a new world (or new worlds) supposedly follows. Now, according to a long‑standing tradition, this eschatological construc‑ tion is the alternative to the narrative of secular history (as historia rerum gestarum) (Löwith 1953).

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  155 Kant underscores a first difficulty in the thought of the end expressed by the notion of “the last things” to be reckoned with in the “day of judgment (Gerichtstag).” Simply put: on what side of the end (or of “the youngest day”) does “the end of the world” take place? The point, again, is that something is always expected to follow the “last” day (or to come after the end: “the last things that must come after the last day”). The end is not truly the end. The world does not end absolutely, only its “current form (ihre[r] itzige[n] Gestalt]” does—only one of its actual figures, namely, the one indexed to the present time. This, again, is the basic structure underlying the temporal progression of history, which the religious repre‑ sentation, however, thwarts (or to which it allegedly seeks to put an end, as it were) with the idea of a final judgment. Thus, the apocalyptic last judgment considers the “end of the world as it appears in its present form” to be followed by “the creation of a new heaven and a new earth as the place of the blessed, and of hell as one for the dammed.” Kant deems this thought problematic precisely because the last day would not be the last, “for there would still be other, different days to follow,” different (poten‑ tially infinite) worlds to be (Kant 1983, 94; AA 8, 328). Theoretically or speculatively, this is a thought that echoes the antithesis of the first cos‑ mological antinomy: a time after time is as impossible as it is a time before time if at stake is the idea of the world thought as totality. Ultimately, in this essay, Kant cannot solve the difficulty that joins the thought of the end to the idea of the world. In fact, the difficulty appears for him in the shape of an insoluble cosmological antinomy (Nuzzo 2022). At the same time, though, this is precisely the thought that leaving apocalyptic and religious time with its construction of eternity behind is eventually secularized in the philosophy of history summed up by Hegel in the Schillerian image that re‑ places the divine judge with Weltgeschichte as the Weltgericht. In this way, Kant’s blocked cosmological antinomy yields to Hegel’s dialectical view of world‑history. History advances on the same immanent plane that is occu‑ pied by the development of the world‑order (the cosmos, as it were). And this development does indeed present the form of Kant’s open‑ended finite Sollen (PR, §§330, 333). Ultimately, Hegel’s historicization of the thought of the end and, more precisely, its resolution into the immanent movement of the historical development of freedom overcomes Kant’s blocked antin‑ omy, i.e., the dead‑end of the idea of an “end of all things” (Nuzzo 2022). The question Kant raises at the beginning of the essay—a question at once anthropological and critical—echoes the question underlying ­Schiller’s poem: “But why do human beings expect an end of the world at all (Warum erwarten die Menschen überhaupt ein Ende der Welt)?” This question is followed by a second one, which addresses the fact that human beings usually think of “the end of the world” as terrible and ­terrifying, i.e., ultimately, in the religious framework of an apocalyptic annihilation

156  Angelica Nuzzo (Kant 1983, 96; AA 8, 330). The basis of the former expectation, Kant argues, is a fundamental confusion between the two very different concepts of Ende and Endzweck. Kant argues that reason tells the human being that “the duration of the world has worth only insofar as the final end (­Endzweck) of the existence of rational beings can be met within it; but if this final end should not be attained, creation itself would appear to them as purposeless (zwecklos): just as a play that has no upshot (Ausgang) whatsoever and no rational aim (Absicht)” (Kant 1983, 96; AA 8, 331), i.e., ultimately, as a story that having no conclusive resolution is not a story or fails as one. History as historia rerum gestarum surfaces here in Kant’s argument after all.5 Thereby, Kant offers no full‑fledged answer to the cen‑ tral question concerning the expectation of the world’s end. At most, he leaves us with the problematic outline of one. The argument consists in the following bifurcation, only the first side of which is articulated by Kant. (i) If the final end (of the rational being’s existence) is not attained in this world, then the world turns out to be like a play with no conclusion and no “exit,” hence meaningless. In this case, the “world” is no longer a moral cosmos. Although Kant does not mention the other side of the bifurcation, its argument would claim that (ii) if, by contrast, the Endzweck of man is indeed fulfilled within the world, then the world doesn’t end in the sense of collapsing as moral cosmos, but it does in fact end just as a concluded and meaningful play does. Moral striving and progress, in this case, must end as nothing more is required from us in order to perfect our moral state— the unity and congruence of virtue and happiness being finally achieved. As the meaning of the world is framed in terms of the unity of a story or play, the idea of the end as termination is replaced by the teleology of the final end and its possible achievement. Kant’s secular and moral correction of the religious argument that qualifies the common human expectation of the end in apocalyptic terms goes in the direction of a philosophy of his‑ tory and moral development. It starts out with the recognition that “it is not without cause that men feel the burden of their existence, even though they are themselves the cause of those burdens” (Kant 1983, 96; AA 8, 332). Kant submits that this outlook is due to the discrepancy between the “natural progress of the human race in the cultivation of talents, skills, and taste,” which is accompanied by the multiplication of needs, and the development of the moral capacity, which usually lags behind (Kant 1983, 96; AA 8, 332). On this basis, Kant replies to the second question by bal‑ ancing the corrupt nature of man with the Enlightenment confidence in the moral progress of humanity to the extent that this progress can be steered in the right direction by “a wise world ruler” (Kant 1983, 96; AA 8, 332). Significantly, the secular Weltregierer replaces here the divine Wel‑ trichter in whose hands lies the possible annihilation of the world. Herein ­Hegel follows in Kant’s aftermath. He does, however, replace Kant’s moral ­order (and moral teleology with the highest good as its Endzweck) with a

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  157 philosophy of history guided by the political idea of the state and by the intra‑worldly actualization of freedom as the highest reality of Geist. Hegel’s Dialectical Political Cosmology and World‑History Following both Schiller’s and Kant’s aftermath, Hegel pursues a philoso‑ phy of history that secularizes the theological idea of a final judgment in the hands of a divine judge of the world (Weltrichter) and instead ren‑ ders judgment immanent within the world but also somehow coextensive with the development of spirit’s world (see Assman 2001; Nuzzo 2012). This development is the objective process of freedom’s actualization. In this way, Weltgeschichte is now both the highest judge and that which, as a totality, is ultimately being judged—it is that which exercises the “power (Macht)” of the Weltgericht (PR, §342) and that which stands under the power of the Weltgericht. Unlike Schiller and Kant, however, Hegel considers the subject of world‑history to be the collective and in‑ stitutional whole of the political state, not the individual subject (not even the world‑historical individual). On this basis, cosmology becomes a political cosmology developed on the basis of the dialectic‑speculative method (see Nuzzo 2020). Given that the “last judgment” can occur only at the end of the process (be it the individual’s life, the constitution process of spirit’s objective world, or the world‑historical process), what role does the “end” play in Hegel’s appropriation of the image of Weltgeschichte as the Weltgericht? Is the apocalyptic end of the world replaced by the thought of the end of history? As the philosophical and conceptual account of the “world of spirit” (PR, §4), Hegel’s “science of right” (PR, §2) is the model of what I call a “political cosmology.” Set against a long‑standing tradition, in Hegel’s dialectic‑speculative philosophy metaphysical cosmology becomes a prac‑ tical, worldly science: it becomes the account of the ways in which spirit immanently constructs, produces, and comes to know its own world (see E, §6).6 The topic of the “Rechtswissenschaft,” Hegel maintains, is “das Rechtssystem”—the juridical system or the system of right. This latter is “the realm of the actualized freedom, the world of spirit produced by spirit itself as a second nature” (PR, §4). The ethical‑political cosmos grows out of the natural cosmos. It is second nature: still nature‑cosmos but this time constituted and owned by spirit. The ethical world is not the alternative to nature (as in Kant), but the more complex, spiritual figure that na‑ ture itself (the world as nature) assumes once freedom is detected at work within it. Now, the novelty of Hegel’s doctrine consists in proposing that the totality of the world—its cosmo‑political idea, as it were—is not an object but a process. The world is a historical process. On this basis, I take the Philosophy of Right as offering Hegel’s Weltbegriff of philosophy— that cosmopolitical concept of philosophy that Kant famously thematizes

158  Angelica Nuzzo in the Critique of Pure Reason by opposing it to philosophy’s scholastic concept (its Schulbegriff) (Critique of Pure Reason, B866f./A838f; Hinske 2013 and Nuzzo 2020).7 While the Weltbegriff of philosophy remains, for Kant, a mere ideal (hence something not of this world), Hegel presents such idea as immanent and necessary within the world as a form of actual‑ ized freedom. Hegel argues that as philosophical “Staatswissenschaft,” the “philoso‑ phy of right” is the conceptual comprehension and presentation of the state in its full actuality. Begreifen and Darstellen are the philosophical tasks at hand, and they can be jointly executed because the state is consid‑ ered “as an entity in itself rational.” Famously, the aim of the philosophy of right is neither to “construct a state how it ought to be,” i.e., a merely ideal state, nor to “instruct” the state on “how it ought to be.” Its task concerns how “the ethical universe (das sittliche Universum) ought to be cognized.” Indeed, the “ethical universe” is the touchstone of philosophy itself: “Hic Rhodus, hic saltus,” says Hegel concisely referring to Aesop’s fable. Herein (hic)—i.e., in the world or the universe in its rational, ethical, actual dimension—lies the test of philosophy’s capacity of rational com‑ prehension. Indeed, as suggested by the reference to Aesop, it is “here,” i.e., in the comprehension of the “ethical universe” that philosophy’s rela‑ tion to the actual world is tested. The world is the test and the criterion of philosophical truth. The world is the ultimate court of judgment. The task of philosophy is the conceptual comprehension of “what is” because “what is actual is reason” (PR, Preface 21; W 7, 26f.). Since the “world” (the cosmos‑universe) is the totality of what is, it encompasses the order of rationality. Philosophy and the world belong to the same order. This is a cosmo‑logical order. The world is actual as the “contemporary world.” Accordingly, “philos‑ ophy is its own time apprehended in thoughts” (PR, Preface 21; W 7, 26). I want to emphasize the connection between philosophy and the “world” over the customarily far more discussed connection between philosophy and time. The world is the totality in which philosophy is always and nec‑ essarily inscribed. There is no philosophizing (and no judging with regard to truth and justice) without, outside of, or beyond the world. Hegel’s Weltbegriff of philosophy is at stake herein: not the concept of the world produced by abstract philosophical speculation (Kant’s Schulbegriff) but the world in which philosophy practically operates as the conceptual com‑ prehension of its contents. Philosophy is in its own world and is in the present time because the present is a constitutive feature of the world. Phi‑ losophy is, more precisely, the immanent dimension of the rational (self‑) comprehension of that world and time. The “contemporary world,” then, includes its own philosophical comprehension. Reason is the common basis that conjoins the world and its philosophical comprehension. The world is

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  159 neither a construction of reason (is not a mere “ideal” lacking actuality) nor does it await instruction from reason as to what it “ought to be” (PR, Preface 21f.; W 7, 27). The world is the actuality of reason. To this extent, the world cannot be transcended just as the dimension of the present can‑ not be transcended. Hence judgment—and the “court of j­udgment”—can only be placed and take place within the world. The world is the ulti‑ mate test (the “judge,” as it were: Weltrichter as subjective genitive) of the power of rationality: it entails the intimation to actually perform, here and now, the winning “leap” of Aesop’s fable. Ultimately, in requiring practice or, rather, actual performance as the only sign of truth, the world is the very proof of truth (no other promises, witnesses, additional conditions, and aims are required). “Hic Rhodus, hic saltus.” Properly, however, no “leaping” beyond the world, just as no leaping beyond one’s time is pos‑ sible. Any such activity just as knowledge itself is possible only within the world and its presence. Hence, Hegel completes the thought elicited by ­Aesop thus: “It is just as foolish to imagine that any philosophy can tran‑ scend its contemporary world as that an individual can overleap its own time, or leap over Rhodes” (PR, Preface 21; W 7, 27). In fact, that philosophy cannot transcend the actual world is less intui‑ tively clear than the impossibility for the individual to overcome the time she lives in. Hasn’t Plato (along with most philosophers) attempted pre‑ cisely that to paint a world other than and in alternative to the actual? Is this not a possibility (perhaps even a desideratum) of philosophical think‑ ing: imagining worlds other (and indeed “better”) than the actual one? Why should philosophy be confined to the real world; why should it be placed under its condition and constraints—under its judgment? Hegel denies philosophy the privilege of being free from the constraints of the actual world—a privilege Plato granted to it in contrast, most no‑ tably, to technical knowledge8—on the ground, first, that philosophy exercises reason, not subjective opinion and feeling, and on the ground, second, that unlike mere opinion, reason is that which makes the world actual and present. If a philosophical “theory does indeed transcend [its] own time, if it builds itself a world as it ought to be, then it certainly has an existence, but only within [the individual’s] opinions—a pliant medium in which the imagination can construct anything it pleases” (PR, Preface 22; W 7, 26). An imagined, merely private world—the world made up by indi‑ vidual opinion and feeling—and also the new world eschatologically pro‑ jected beyond actuality is not properly a “world,” hence has no reality and no rationality; it is not the shared and public ethical world and it is not the historical world. It is not the world inhabited by philosophy. It is not a world on which rational judgment can be passed. There is only one world, and this is the actual and present world; it is the necessarily public, collec‑ tive world of spirit.

160  Angelica Nuzzo Heretofore I have insisted at several junctures on the fact that j­ udgment— be it the final judgment of the divine Weltrichter or the rational judgment of philosophy or world‑history itself (as Weltgericht)—can come only at the end, namely, only after a form of life has run its course and is com‑ pleted and concluded. There is no valid, meaningful judgment before this point. I  have also claimed that for Hegel the world is not a fixed entity (metaphysical, speculative) but rather a process. The world is the his‑ torical process of its own rational (self‑) constitution. It follows that the claim that identifies Weltgeschichte with Weltgericht must, in some im‑ portant respect, concern both the ongoing self‑constitution of world (and world‑history) and the moment in which the world‑process comes to its end. The point is that judgment, while coming at the end, is also the mov‑ ing force that propels the process forward, making it advance to its end. In other words, judgment is, dialectically, both ending and advancing the (world‑historical) process as process. Now, in Hegel philosophy, it is the Logic that offers the account of the immanent logical structure that determines the unfolding of all processes as processes—before their specific qualification as natural or spiritual, sub‑ jective or objective or historical processes (this specification is the task of the Realphilosophie). The method that guides the constitution of the logical process is thematized under the title of “absolute method” at the end of the Logic. Quite generally, three are the “moments” of the method, namely, beginning, advancement, and end (Nuzzo 2018). At stake in the present connection, i.e., in the case of the world‑process of Weltgeschichte, is the relation between advancement and end. Hegel’s account of the second moment of the method, i.e., the ad‑ vancement, offers an important insight into the connection between con‑ tradiction, judgment, and justice—the connection that appears in the claim that Weltgeschichte is Weltgericht. Being the result of the logical activity of judgment, the advancement not only discloses the “truth” of the beginning but also subverts it by mediating its simplicity and imme‑ diacy. As such, judgment is neither the starting point nor the conclusion of the process nor the absolute value positioned in an original moment before the beginning. Judgment—and the “justice” it serves—is, instead, the intermediary, critical moment of the advancement—a moment of fragmentation and split in which contradiction (not a unified ideal) is re‑ sponsible for orienting the overall movement. This is the crucial dynamic structure of the dialectical process of world‑history. Justice is the loss of the innocence of immediacy that advances the historical process. Viewed on this logical basis, the historical movement is carried on neither by an absolute origin nor by a ­final goal or Endzweck (the highest good, perpetual peace) placed beyond history (before or after it)9 but by the ca‑ pacity that the mediating force of contradiction has to produce difference

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  161 and thereby to discriminate or judge—to be both the crisis in the p ­ rocess and the critic thereof. Justice is precisely this intermediary critical mo‑ ment that immanently moves on the (logical and historical) process. Within world‑history this means that the advance is made as moments of crisis of the ethical whole are met, i.e., as the contradiction within the present institutions offers the opportunity for the ethical‑political whole to either renew itself (i.e., to make the transition to a new beginning) or to remain stuck under the weight of old, “positive” structures (see Nuzzo 2018, 238ff.). Indeed, there is a “judgment” at stake herein, not a subjective conscious decision to be made (by individuals) but rather a historical, objective, and collective act of embracing the contradiction of the present. At the same time, judgment comes at the end—and makes the end, i.e., brings the process to its completion. In its first systematic occurrence, the end is the action of bringing the Logic to conclusion thereby initiating an utterly new type of activity—the natural and spiritual activity whereby freedom is actualized in and as the world. At the end of the Logic, think‑ ing’s task is to close the first circle of the science. This, Hegel claims, is indeed a momentous “decision (Entschluss)” for logical thinking (SL, W 6, 573).10 Making the end is to embrace the hardest contradiction: at the height of the “absolute idea,” in the seemingly highest position of subjectivity, thinking must “let go” all it has achieved and indeed let go of itself in its absolute other, namely, nature (SL, 752; W 6, 573). The act of ending is the highest freedom. It is the discovery of the utterly new reality of the world of nature and spirit. The new world is possible only after the (logical) end. Thereby to end is to make a thoroughly new begin‑ ning. This logic underlies the epochal structure of world‑history, i.e., first and foremost, the periodization that articulates the historical narrative. Accordingly, the end in which judgment takes place is not the “end of history” tout court but the end of an era or of a world‑historical epoch, the caesura after which a new epoch follows (Nuzzo 2012, 131–5). This is precisely the thought to which Hegel already hints in the preface to the Phenomenology referring to the “new period” emerging from the ashes of the French Revolution to which the present world is seen as transitioning. In sum, as the political state becomes for Hegel the agent and subject of history the traditional idea of God’s final judgment is secularized in the idea of historical justice, which now becomes the principle respon‑ sible for the immanent generation and “partition” of the historical pro‑ cess, i.e., for the historical periodization that concludes the Philosophy of Right (PR, §§354–60). On the basis of the logical method, the immanent periodization of the process generates the process itself as the totality of history. Significantly, historical periodization does not presuppose history

162  Angelica Nuzzo but first establishes a temporal sequence as world‑history. The tribunal that judges the actions of the states on the world scene is no longer placed beyond history but is now history itself. Judgment is responsible both for the advancement of the historical process and for the discrete ends that mark the periods or epochs of world‑history. The Weltgericht of history neither reflects a divine providential order nor dictates ideal conditions of ethical or international justice (for the pursuit, for example, of perpetual peace, which for Hegel always remains an unreal Sollen). Its function is instead to indicate the conditions under which alone the historical pro‑ cess can advance as the immanent process of freedom’s realization (and is not stalled, for example, or pushed back to preceding stages or forced to sterile repetitions of the same errors). Because of its logical basis, history’s justice is neither theological nor moral but pragmatic worldly justice. Just is that stage of the process which allows for and actually accomplishes the historical advancement within the totality of Weltgeschichte. Justice does not consist in following immutable, a‑historical (or a priori) principles; it is rather the end‑result of the process in which contradictory possibilities have been tested in their real capacity to produce change, i.e., ultimately, to advance freedom. In other words, at stake in the historical ­advancement is the capacity of the political cosmos to face its internal contradictions and to re‑organize itself according to new ways of life. Justice is the “method” of advancement. Justice does not precede the historical event; just is the historical moment to which the process of advancement has led as its end‑result. Notes 1 The Phenomenology of Spirit is cited in the Pinkard translation. 2 The Philosophy of Right is cited in the Nisbet translation. 3 Translations are mine; see the English translation at: https://www.public‑­ domain‑poetry.com/friedrich‑schiller/resignation‑30693. 4 For an extensive analysis of this essay see Nuzzo (2022). Translation to be found in Kant (1983). 5 Kant appeals here to an image he already used in the 1793 Theory and Practice essay, this time with reference to the “play” or rather the “tragedy” of human virtue and its retribution, a tragedy that may have no end but be “eternally the same.” In Theory and Practice essay Kant is arguing against Moses Men‑ delssohn’s conception of history (see I. Kant 1983, 86; AA 8, 308). 6 See the A.V. Miller translation of the Encyclopedia. 7 See Kant (1998) for the English translation. 8 See, among all, Plato, Republic, X. 9 In this regard, Hegel’s position confirms the difficulties brought to light by Kant’s antinomic thought of the beginning but also the end of the world (see discussion above). 10 The Science of Logic is cited according to the Di Giovanni translation.

Weltgeschichte as Weltgericht  163 References Assman, Jens. 2002. “Recht und Gerechtigkeit als Generatoren von Geschichte.” In Die Weltgeschichte—das Weltgericht? edited by Rüdiger Bubner and Walter Mesch, 296–311. Stuttgart: Cotta. Hinske, Norbert. 2023. “Kants Verankerung der Kritik im Weltbegriff.” In Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitical Sense. Akten des XI Kant‑Kongress, edited by Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Margit Ruffing, 263–75. Berlin: DeGruyter. Kant, Immanuel. 1983. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Translated by Ted Humphrey. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Kant, Immanuel. 1910. Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by Der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: De Gruyter (=AA). Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laarmann, Matthias. 1992. “Resignation.” In Historisches Wörterbuch der ­Philosophie, edited by Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, Vol. 9, 909–16. ­Basel: Schwabe. Löwith, Karl. 1953. Weltgeschichte und Heilgeschehen. Die theologischen Voraus‑ setzungen der Geschichtsphilosophie. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Nuzzo, Angelica. 2002. “Thinking the End: Das Ende aller Dinge in Kant’s Phi‑ losophy” Studi kantiani 34: 99–114. Nuzzo, Angelica.  2012. Memory, History, Justice in Hegel. London and New York: MacMillan Palgrave. Nuzzo, Angelica. 2018. Approaching Hegel’s Logic, Obliquely. Melville, Molière, Beckett. Albany: State University of New York Press. Nuzzo, Angelica. 2021. “Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and the Idea of the World: Dialectic’s Political Cosmology.” Critical Review 33, no. 2: 332–58. https://www. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08913811.2021.2010339?utm_medium= email&utm_source=EmailStudio&utm_campaign=JOE09650_4170722 Schiller, Friedrich. 1943ff. Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe.  Weimar: ­Hermann Böhlaus, vol. 21, 401–3. Translated as Resignation: https://www.public‑­domain‑ poetry.com/friedrich‑schiller/resignation‑30693.

10 Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment The French Revolution as an Emblem of Modernity Espen Hammer Readers of Hegel will be familiar with the transformative moments in which certain key aspects of modernity appear in his philosophical inter‑ pretation of world‑history. With its rights‑based individualism of abstract personhood (from which, of course, the enslaved would be excluded), the Roman world fore‑shadowed modernity. Yet it is Descartes’s principle of free self‑reflection as the foundation of philosophical thought, Luther’s five Sola statements, the full articulation of Romanticism in music and poetry, Kant and the Enlightenment, and, more than anything else, the French Revolution that, for Hegel, signify the end of the old world and the onset of a new, modern world grounded in freedom and its self‑conscious expres‑ sion in all human norms, practices, and endeavors. From his earliest days of scholarship in Tübingen and Bern, Hegel was always especially fond of the French Revolution. As late as in July 1820, when the Restoration had been well underway for a number of years and showing support for Republicanism could be politically and even legally costly, Hegel gathered friends and compatriots in Dresden, insisting they should toast, drinking Champagne Sillery, the most distinguished cham‑ pagne of its day, for the storming of the Bastille. And in 1826, once again in the company of his students, Hegel told Varnhagen von Ense that he al‑ ways drank a toast to the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 (­Pinkard 2000, 451). Of course, the storming of the Bastille signifies the final obliteration of feudalism—on the one hand, the annihilation of aristocratic society, ab‑ solute monarchy, and the entire regime of seigneurial and ecclesiastical dues, and, on the other, the emergence of a modern society of individuals, equally protected by legally codified rights and united as free citizens un‑ der the banner of popular sovereignty. As the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a preamble to the coming Constitution which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on August 26, 1789, formulated it: “Men are born free and live free and with equal rights.” These rights would include the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-11

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  165 protection of liberty, property, safety, and resistance to oppression. All of this will have been celebrated when Hegel lifted his glass of Sillery. At the same time, however, Hegel viewed the revolution largely as a ­failure—failing not in some absolute sense but in what it had set itself to be doing, namely actualizing human freedom.1 While bringing the feudal order to an end (and in that sense being world‑historically effective and significant), it was, for Hegel, predominantly an event grounded in philo‑ sophical convictions, and considered as such, and with the inadequacies of its guiding ideas of freedom in mind, it set the modern world off on a track that he characterizes as nothing less than tyrannical, a form of tyr‑ anny of reason, whose abstract and fanatical execution culminated with the ­Terror, that is, with death and indiscriminate violence. That Hegel’s famous and influential philosophical interpretation would draw such con‑ clusions related, obviously, to his highly negative assessment of the Jacobin Republic (although “negative” is not quite the right word in a form of realist thinking that evidently seeks to abstain from making simple evalu‑ ative statements about historical events). It has led interpreters down a Burkean path, viewing Hegel as a conservative institutionalist who warns against abstract idealism in politics (Maliks 2021). However, it has also been taken to intimate—especially to interpreters on the far left—a kind of hard‑nosed endorsement of the historical and philosophical inevitability of loss and negativity, “the cross of the present,” as Hegel puts it in the celebrated Preface to Elements of the Philosophy of Right, that infuses his fundamentally progressive account of Geist with a tragic undertone (see Žižek 2007; PR, 22).2 In The Phenomenology of Spirit, after the treatment of the terror, Geist, in its incessant search for full self‑transparency and actualized freedom, conducts a tack towards Germany, where, helped in Hegel’s imagination by Napoleon’s constitutionally universalist conquest, the idea of freedom returns to philosophy, although now in the name of morality and espe‑ cially conscience. However, the anxieties that animate the interpretation of the French Revolution remain dormant and, as emblematic of modernity, do not go away simply because spirit has found new and, for the time be‑ ing, more authoritative configurations. On the contrary, the central con‑ tention of this chapter is that Hegel’s whole struggle with modernity as a viable form of life hinges on the problems raised by the French Revolution. In his celebrated essay “Hegel and the French Revolution,” Joachim Ritter saw Hegel’s whole philosophy as coming out of the approach to the French Revolution.3 Like Ritter I will emphasize the centrality of this event for his view of modernity. Unlike Ritter, however, I am going to claim that Hegel never fully found a way to reconcile his thinking with the implications of the French Revolution.

166  Espen Hammer The Young Hegel’s Call for Social Change In order to understand and appreciate the full implications of the mature Hegel’s approach to the French Revolution, it is necessary to consider, if not in detail, then at least in some general outline, the early Hegel’s un‑ derstanding of it. This is the case not just because his vision of what had empirically taken place in France was shaped in the early 1790s when the trio of Hölderlin, Schelling, and Hegel erected their “freedom tree” near Tübingen (around which they danced and sang the Marseillaise in Schelling’s German translation) but because the reading of the revolution became emblematic of the expectations that the young seminarist had to modernity itself. While the events themselves no doubt carried world‑­ historical significance, it was the ideals that truly mattered, and the ideals, Hegel imagined, would soon be transplanted to a German context, liberat‑ ing the German as well as the French people.4 Since, in the eyes of these young intellectuals, they invited such intense fervor and were viewed as constitutive of what the German people could become (and should aspire to), it seems justified to view these ideals as offering a kind of myth—a myth or narrative of the founding of modernity and of its path toward full and unrestricted realization. (Of course, as the 1796/97 manuscript “The ­Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism” makes clear, the project of formulating a new mythology, a poetic narrative that, invoking the idea of beauty, could help reunite the fragmented state of post‑Enlightenment Europe, was, ­regardless of whether Hegel, Schelling, or Hölderlin origi‑ nally conceived it, explicitly on these thinkers’ minds during the early and mid‑1790s [Ferrer 2021]). The early Hegel seems never to have harbored any doubt that the French Revolution was borne out of the theoretical and practical struggles for freedom that defined the Enlightenment. The revolution set sharp and well‑­ defined limits to seigneurial and clerical power; it introduced an exten‑ sive charter of bourgeois freedoms, including the right to free speech and congregation; and it provided the French political system with a national assembly and constitutional monarchy largely grounded in ­Rousseau’s ac‑ count of the general will. Yet the revolutionary ideals coming out of the Lumière were for Hegel during this period at best necessary but far from sufficient to deserve full and unrestricted support in a German context. What Hegel and his friends seem to have hoped for was not only legal and political change (though important) but a pervasive transformation of the complete moral and spiritual (geistige) life of the German people. The revolutionary ideals should pave the way for a completely new form of col‑ lective existence, a new way of co‑existing as, and being, subjects. In this sense the (hoped for) revolution in Germany should be more totalizing and more radical than that of France: it should introduce a new and infinitely more satisfactory form of life, a life of actualized freedom, than that which

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  167 could be found in the more or less liberal principalities of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. So, what were those ideals to which the early Hegel found himself “spir‑ itually” attracted but did not fit in with the standard enlightenment ideals animating (in their interpretation) the French Revolution? While the com‑ plexities of this material quickly pile up, judging from the Tübingen and Berne writings and from his correspondence during this period, the form they took can be traced to an amalgamation of several distinct sets of com‑ mitments: the desire for a political and cultural unification of the German nation; the call for spiritual and ethical transformation of both culture and the self associated with the Reformation and especially its Pietist exten‑ sion; a republican yet also highly romantic infatuation with the Greek polis (and especially its unification of politics and religion in a Volksreligion); a Spinozistic intuition of how items that seem fragmentary are in fact just at‑ tributes of a deeper, more authentic unity (the Hen kai Pan idea which es‑ pecially Schelling, but also Hegel, endorsed); the primacy of practice over principles in grounding rights; and, finally, an effort to both appropriate and correct Kant’s formulation of the Moral Law. To fully unpack and analyze these intuitions would require a book‑length essay. However, the Tübingen Essay, written in 1793, in which the young Hegel (1984) poses as a kind of Volkserzieher, offers a number of indi‑ cations of how they fit together.5 The essay is permeated by a sense of crisis—morally, politically, religiously, and existentially—and a call for renewal. Contemporary culture, Hegel argues, is in thrall to a concep‑ tion of reason that for moral and political reasons is empty and “cold.” Reason can provide rationalizations of every passion, every venture; it is fundamentally calculative, in service to self‑love or self‑interest. Generat‑ ing abstractions, it supports an essentially transactional or perhaps even commodified conception of intersubjective relations. For Hegel, it is a ca‑ pacity tailored to a time of crisis in which the capacity for cooperation has lost its spontaneous bearings and, to a significant degree, become a mat‑ ter of establishing formal, contractual relations. While Kant’s Moral Law purports to present a principle that is supposed to be valid independently of self‑interest (and the hypothetical and assertoric maxims formed on its basis) and in this sense—as able to identify categorically binding ends— escapes instrumentalism, it lacks the motivational force that on a regular and secure basis brings people to act and be virtuous. Although by intro‑ ducing his account of the postulates of pure reason Kant admits that his moral theory suffers from a motivational deficit, it is “the heart,” Hegel argues, or what Hume would call the passions, that ultimately ­motivates people to act. As an antidote to the crisis, Hegel calls for the establishment of what he views as a “folk religion” (Volksreligion)—a religion that, akin to the

168  Espen Hammer ­ agan religion of the ancient Greeks and deliberately employing ­ceremonies p and myth, is supposed to unite its citizens under the banners of love and patriotism. One may of course be skeptical of such a vision, viewing it as a ­romantic fantasy nurtured by young Christian theologians worried about the accelerating process of secularization following in the wake of the Ref‑ ormation and the Enlightenment. Yet what Hegel seems to be grappling with in this very early fragment is nothing less than a conception of free‑ dom that, unlike the abstract conception characterizing the French Revolu‑ tion, could provide a collective—and its individual members—with a sense of meaning and purpose. The folk religion would provide a c­ommunity with its conscience social, to borrow a term from Durkheim, a common under­standing of the world and its guiding ideals, as well as a common moral bond. Hegel’s distinction between subjective and objective religion speaks to this effort. Surely, while the distinction, which is far from original, com‑ ing out of the Protestant and especially Pietist tradition, does not exhaust Hegel’s concern with meaning, it indicates the direction it takes. Objective religion, Hegel stipulates, “is fides quae creditur; understanding and mem‑ ory are the powers that do the work, investigating facts, thinking them through, retaining and even believing them” (Hegel 1984, 33). Relating to religion in its external form (and clearly anticipating the view of positiv‑ ity and alienation that emerges a few years later in “The Positivity of the Christian Religion” and “The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate”), it is the domain of reason. It is abstract, formulated in such a way as to be neu‑ tral with regard to the sense‑making capacities that help individuals qua subjects orient themselves in the world. By contrast, subjective religion ex‑ presses itself only in feelings and actions. Inhabiting and animating the in‑ dividual, it offers a form of lived engagement with the world in which one’s attention to the divine, rather than calling for some form of transcendence of the sensible realm, perhaps via abstractions, is directed towards nature which, in this light, appears beautiful and attractive. “Subjective religion is thus alive, having an efficacy that, while abiding within one’s being, is actively directed outward” (Hegel 1984, 34). Prefiguring no doubt the later concept of Geist, subjective religion unites individuals, creating a sensuously presented unity made manifest and articulated in myth and ritual. As opposed to Kant, who derives duty from the abstraction inherent in the formal law of pure morality yet is left with a motivational challenge, Hegel ties virtue to the affectively laden participation in shared religious practice. The dispositions necessary for the formation of a good moral character spring not from a sense of duty alone but from love, the patriotism that individuals integrated in a form of life centered on a form of united mindedness feel in their “hearts.” Thus, religion and politics become united in the organic and spontaneous self‑­ understanding of the people.

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  169 One might think of such a community, in which individuals receive their self‑understanding and practical identity exclusively from participation in socially sanctioned practices that obtain their authority from a shared sense of the sacred, as offering meaning and purpose at the expense of ­freedom. Yet Hegel is adamant that a folk religion “goes hand in hand with  ­freedom” (Hegel 1984, 56). Unlike the Enlightenment, which un‑ derstands freedom in terms of responsiveness (whether individually or collectively) to a formal, unconditional principle, the freedom of the Volk‑ sreligion depends on the degree to which a community and its members have overcome alienation and secured a form of reconciliation in which there are no longer any oppositions between subject and object, mind and nature, and between individuals, but in which a deep‑seated sense of unity of its parts integrate everyone in a meaningful whole. To be free is to be able to act meaningfully within this totality. It is to be able to respond adequately to a demand that issues from, and is authorized by, the com‑ munity insofar as it is successfully represented as divinely sanctioned. Abstract Freedom Despite its aspiration to provide a vision for social, political, and religious transformation in Germanic nations in the aftermath of the French Revolu‑ tion, and thus to bring freedom to these nations in a way suited to their na‑ ture and without the abstractions that he already sees as being operative in the French events, the early Hegel’s vision in The Tübingen Essay of folk re‑ ligion is deeply retrograde, making the ancient Greek city‑state its ultimate normative model. In The Phenomenology of Spirit, conceived and written almost 15 years later, Hegel thus situates his own ideals from 1793 more resolutely in a bygone era while offering a more hands‑on ­analysis of the French Revolution, which now is subjected to a rigorous critique. The new reading seeks from an observation and philosophical com‑ prehension of the French Revolution to determine the ideals a German community may find valid. Unlike the early conception, Hegel now dis‑ tinguishes more sharply between politics and religion. While he views the Greek polis as suffering from a lack of mediation, understanding freedom simply as participation in conventional social forms (and therefore, as in his reading of Sophocles’ Antigone, being deeply vulnerable to the reper‑ cussions of deep value‑conflicts), modern social life, he will argue, should be grounded in an understanding of what reason demands. However, the conception of reason at work in the French Revolution suffers from many of the shortcomings that the early Hegel had already claimed to locate in the Enlightenment; thus, the reading of the French ­ isplay a Revolution in The Phenomenology of Spirit should be expected to d similar sense of pervasive cultural and existential malaise, exceeding in scope what one would normally associate with politics and political turbulence.

170  Espen Hammer Indeed, since the advent of the revolution signifies the ­ culmination of the attempt, started as early as in the Roman world and with the rise of Christianity, to purify spirit of all natural, pre‑given ingredients, it intro‑ duces a form of pure modernity that Hegel cannot but see as a failure. The ­modernity brought about and emblematized by the revolution, while progressive, ­suffers from a one‑sided rationalization; it is limited, abstract, and ultimately evil. “Absolute Freedom and Terror,” the section in the chapter on spirit in The Phenomenology of Spirit that deals with the revolution, is usually read as a critique of Jean‑Jacques Rousseau’s conception of the general will (assuming that its animating philosophical impulse came out of The Social Contract), the revolutionary years from July 1789 until the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte in the late 1790s, and in particular the slide into despotism associated with Robespierre and the Jacobin republic (1791–95). Of course, the accounting of these events, which for Hegel would count as realgeschichtliche (real or empirically historical), takes place within the framework of his understanding of spirit and its dialectical h ­ istory—that is, the interpretation he offers of the kind of authoritative and collective mind‑ edness that self‑reflectively determines intelligible acts of self‑­interpretation and meaning‑making in any given portion of history. Indeed, Hegel never mentions the revolution directly. Nor does he distinguish between its vari‑ ous phases or identify (at least by name) its dominant factions, parties, or names. Not even Robespierre, apparently the main culprit of his criticism, is mentioned. While also cursory, in The Philosophy of History and to some extent The Elements of the Philosophy of Right, he makes up for this deficit, providing a number of details the ultimate structure of which matches in large part the outline given in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Yet in this latter work it is exclusively the geistige configuration and its dialectic that matters. Insofar as philosophy becomes defined as the sys‑ tematic study of spirit, which ultimately is restricted by a priori elements of pure reason, though also always embodied in actual practices and ways of thinking, it purports to qualify as a philosophical interpretation of the revolution. The absolute freedom of the French Revolution emerges out of the En‑ lightenment and in particular of its appeal to utility. For Hegel, utility be‑ comes a norm when, in the endless quest for self‑authorizing justification, all conceptions of objectivity have faltered. Instead of asking whether I can know an object, which because of the regress argument and the exclusive emphasis on the act of criticism invites skepticism, the proponent of En‑ lightenment “pure insight” starts asking what use the object may have. However, utility is an unstable determination. While it seeks to determine the object, it can only do so by placing it in a relation to someone: the ob‑ ject is desirable to that someone. At the same time, however, for that agent

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  171 the object can only count as good insofar as the object can be shown to be a means for some further end. With utility being the fundamental norm, no object can count as in itself good; it must always be useful for something else down the line. In this version of Enlightenment thinking, which many Marxist critics have read as a thinly disguised critique of capitalism and commodification, the world is presented as radically disenchanted, calling for utility maximization in the absence of any objective conception of the good (Lukács 1973, 770–1). The dialectical step towards absolute freedom emerges out of the reali‑ zation that value must be grounded not in the endless relativities of utility, in what this or that person happens to desire, and in what instrumen‑ tal purpose an object may be shown to have, but in universal will. The ­Kantian and Rousseauean slant is of course that, for a will to count as universal, as binding on all agents, it must be rational and thus able to posit ends independently of empirical desire or interest. If the will is finite, determined by conditions that simply are given, it can never posit ends that as such, and by virtue of rational insight exclusively, are authoritative. Kant’s categorical imperative, the law of a pure will, is necessarily, and in an a priori fashion, binding on all rational agents for the simple reason that it is essential to rational agency—an agency grounded in freedom or autonomy, the capacity of being the author of the laws that bind it. Hegel associates a number of achievements with the attainment of the ideal of absolute freedom. In the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, he sees absolute freedom as a modern‑day avatar of Anaxagoras’ impetus towards pure thinking; thus, more than anything else and insofar as it can be said to be governed by an ideal of absolute freedom, the French Revolution was a philosophical revolution, the attempt to relate to the world of action and practice from the vantage point of pure theory (PH, 446–7). In the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, he considers absolute freedom in conjunction with the first of three moments of free will, that of “pure indeterminacy,” the “I’s pure reflection into itself” (PR, §5). The argument here, on which his entire social philosophy in this work is predi‑ cated, is that a will can only count as free insofar as the acting subject of the will can intuit itself in that which is actually produced by its actions. While the purely abstract self of mere universality is able to negate, it is only when the will seizes on a particular and identifies with it that it actu‑ alizes itself as an individual will. Thus, to be free means not merely to act on the basis of abstract principles but also to will the conditions of one’s own freedom—those that, rational or not, become integrated into one’s projects such that they complete one’s action as expressions of who one truly is. As Hegel puts it, “Freedom is to will something determinate, yet to be with oneself [bei sich] in this determinacy and to return once more to the universal” (PR, §7).

172  Espen Hammer In the spiritual configuration of absolute freedom, self‑consciousness, rather than relating to itself in terms of empirical contingencies (a pur‑ ported sense of identity, norms that have been foisted upon one as the result of one’s membership in a particular community), relates to itself in terms of absolute and unrestricted universality—laws that it as a pur‑ portedly rational lawgiver gives itself. Its will is therefore taken to be the universal will, and the world, as Hegel puts it, “is quite simply its will” (PS, 340).6 A self‑conscious agent of this kind can only relate negatively to pre‑given social orders. To the extent that institutions in the absence of rational ac‑ ceptance bind one’s will and make it conform, one experiences heteronomy and, in the name of universality, one would call for their discontinuation. (The institutions of the early Volksreligion would definitely have to be elimi‑ nated; the freedom they promise is from this point of view false; it precludes the formation of truly free selves and a truly free community, both of which require conformity to strictly rational principles.) In this sense, Hegel’s pro‑ ponent of absolute freedom comes across as a fanatic, someone who would rather accept total destruction than any form of compromise with its own principles.7 However, not only does absolute freedom involve an unmedi‑ ated relation between universal and particular, but it also sets the singular will up against all other singular wills. The reason for this lies in the politi‑ cally inevitable need for representation. As it acts, the singular will takes itself to be or represent the universal. It speaks and decides in the name of the universal. Yet in this movement, it never manages to cancel its own sin‑ gularity. It thereby becomes a faction, claiming to be speaking in the name of the universal and being at war with all other such factions. The politics, in other words, of these purely rational wills can contain no element of mutual reconciliation. It becomes a battle without any possible end. The impossible goal of this battle is to eliminate the singular will. At this point in the dialectic, terror becomes inevitable. The cold‑hearted readiness for violence that Hegel characterizes in The Phenomenology of Spirit is no doubt that of Robespierre and his principled understanding of virtue. It is the guillotine that Hegel refers to here. In fact, on account of its own abstraction, it actually divides itself into equally abstract extremes, into the simple, unbending cold universality and into the discrete, absolute and hard headstrongness and the ob‑ stinate isolation of self‑consciousness. After it has finished eliminating the real organization and is now stably existing for itself, this is its sole object  –  an object that no longer has any other content, possession, existence, and external extension but is rather this knowing of itself as an absolutely pure and free singular self. This object can be grasped solely in its abstract existence as such. – Since both of these are indivis‑ ibly absolutely for themselves and thus cannot call on any part to serve

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  173 as a mediating middle to connect them, the relation is that of wholly ­unmediated pure negation, namely, it is that of the negation of the sin‑ gular individual as an existent within the universal. The sole work and deed of universal freedom is in fact death, namely, a death which has no inner extent and no inner fulfillment, for what is negated is the un‑ fulfilled empty dot of the absolutely free self. It is therefore the coldest, emptiest death of all, having no more meaning than chopping off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water. (PS, 343) As a reading of Rousseau’s conception of the general will, Hegel’s account may seem dubious. Indeed, since what Rousseau means by the volonté gé‑ nérale is a will that is categorically untainted by particular interest—a will that is expressive of the interest of all, of that which may count as good for all such that laws springing from this stipulation will be just for everyone considered as free and equal—an individual adequately associating with this will would ipso facto not be particular or singular, and hence, it would not be acting in violation of the demands of justice. It is only by ignoring the distinction between the general will and the volonté de tous, the will of all considered as an aggregate of individual wills, that Hegel can interpret Rousseau as being committed to a view that collapses the general will into a struggle between individual wills to obtain hegemony with regard to the preferred articulation of universal political will‑formation. However, as already indicated, Hegel’s intentions in the dialectic of ab‑ solute freedom in The Phenomenology of Spirit vastly exceed that of being a mere critical reading of Rousseau. The reference to death when combined with the famous image of chopping off a head of cabbage—anticipating, as it were, Stalin’s supposed statement that “the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of one million is a statistic”—alludes to the work of the guillotine. Death has become a number to be achieved, a social necessity that is grounded in nothing else than a mere abstraction, the principles that supposedly express the general will and legitimize power. Yet if death has no more meaning (Bedeutung) than the Durchhauen eines Kohlhaupts or swallowing a mouthful of water, then the crisis that Hegel aims to char‑ acterize is just as much existential as it is political. It implies that human action can have no meaning. As any trace of motivation that links the individual to his or her embodiment, to institutionalized practices and tra‑ ditions, to language and emotion, to others and the recognition they may provide is sought extirpated, an ethical neutralization and disenchantment emerges, one in which the ways in which decisions and judgments come to matter get radically thinned out. To be sure, the mature Hegel’s response to this crisis takes largely a political form: it consists in distinguishing between the valuable and the destructive aspects of the French Revolution, between, on the one hand,

174  Espen Hammer the anti‑feudal, constitutional monarchism of 1789 and, on the other, the violent excesses of the Jacobin reign, and in articulating the structure of a rationally satisfactory state‑formation, one that adequately mediates be‑ tween the individual’s right to personal freedom and the comprehensive and contextual conditions of freedom that Hegel calls ethical life (and which includes family, civil society, and the state). On this view, the articu‑ lation of which makes up the bulk of Elements of the Philosophy of Right, to be free is to be able to actualize oneself as a rational being within the frameworks that make such self‑actualization possible. Hegel endorses the traditional liberal freedoms: the equally distributed freedoms—enshrined in rights—to speak publicly, to associate, to conduct transactions in a free market, to have one’s life and property protected, etc. However, freedom as rational self‑determination exceeds these essentially negative freedoms, referring the will to the collective and recognitive processes of ethical life. It is as a family member, as a participant in commercially oriented or‑ ganizations, or as a bureaucrat in a well‑organized state‑apparatus tai‑ lored towards securing freedom equally for all citizens that individuals find themselves “at home” in their societies. In this position, they are “recon‑ ciled” with their societies, though in a rationally transparent manner. While this response to the crisis associated with the French Revolution leads down the path of politics, calling for the establishment of a political order capable of balancing a liberal respect for the negative freedoms of individuals with a robust commitment, conservative in its basic orienta‑ tion, to institution‑building commensurate with the demand for pre‑given sources of practical identity and ethical identity formation, able to shape one’s sense of direction in life and provide determinacy to one’s end‑setting reasoning, it is worth considering the possibility that what Hegel has in mind when analyzing the failure of the revolution is a more general crisis of meaning‑making as such, one that he associates not just with the pa‑ thologies of the French Revolution but with modernity understood more comprehensively. One reason why such a reading is to be recommended consists in the fact that Hegel’s interest in the French Revolution seems never to have been ex‑ clusively that of the philosophical historian of this event as such. From the earliest writings that touched on or alluded to the revolution to his latest analyses, including the 1831 remarks on the English Reform Bill, the aim was always to delineate and understand the implications of the event for Germany and its future. While France makes the transition from feudalism to liberal constitutionalism in one massive and passionate leap, Germany is already at this early moment verspätet, a nation anticipating the implemen‑ tation of the ideals of the French Revolution via force (through ­Napoleonic expansion in 1806) or, as Hegel outlines in the chapter on morality in The Phenomenology of Spirit, as the object of pure thinking. Since Hegel

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  175 ultimately has the fate of Germany in mind, it stands to reason that he will consider the revolution in terms of how its ideals might be implemented in a German context. However, such a consideration, which obviously will have to involve an assessment of those ideals in a German context, must be broader than the merely political: it must, as we have seen in his early work, engage in reflections on what those ideals mean in a broad sense that includes questions of meaning and rationality. It must take Germany’s project of modernization into mind. The French Enlightenment, Hegel in‑ timates, has produced a vision of freedom that, as eminently dialectical, contains both progressive and regressive elements. A serious German as‑ sessment must take its lead from precisely this dialectic of enlightenment. However, it must do so from the vantage point of its own spiritual needs. To be sure, “modernity” is not a Hegelian term. He would rather refer to “die neue Zeit,” “the Enlightenment,” or simply “the German World.” That said, the watchword for this modernity without a name of its own is of course freedom. Modernity, for Hegel, designates any social order in which freedom has become the highest good, the aspiration and priority that trump all others, and in which the full self‑actualization of individuals and communities entail their own freedom. However, modernity is also the site of disputes about the nature of freedom. As such, these disputes are supposed to follow a dialectical trajectory from immediacy to media‑ tion and individuated reconciliation. The French Revolution exemplifies freedom in its abstract, pure form. As such, the revolution figures as the emblem for a project of modernity that is radical, uncompromising, and rationally ambitious. The account, in short, of the French Revolution gives us Hegel’s view of pure, though also one‑sided, modernity, the commitments that suppos‑ edly underpin a life‑form tailored exclusively towards the achievement of unrestricted freedom. Should, Hegel asks, this aspiration be transposed to Germany? If not, then how can Germany become a modern nation? In a politically important sense, Germany did, as mentioned, inherit the ideals of the French Revolution via Napoleonic expansion. The “­fiction” of the Holy Roman Empire ended on August 6, 1806, when Francis II, pressured by Napoleon who had been proclaimed the “protector” of the newly established Confederation of the Rhine, abdicated, leaving in its wake a plethora of sovereign states, each having abolished many feudal privileges and each recognizing the freedom of property and personhood, including a more accountable and organized sphere of law. Public posi‑ tions became universally available on meritocratic principles, and the monarch’s will was subjected to constitutional regulation and representa‑ tive will. The (protestant) church was conclusively separated from poli‑ tics and the relationship between states regulated by a generally accepted law of nations.8 Although French hegemony in Germany persisted for

176  Espen Hammer almost a decade, the German bourgeoisie came to awareness of itself as a ­historical force to be reckoned with. As this bourgeoisie sought cultural and ­political independence, the Napoleonic reign brought not only liberal‑ ism but—unsurprisingly—nationalism. However, the German drive towards modernization took a wider form and was articulated along several axes, all of which, Hegel argues, can be theorized in terms of an aspiration towards freedom. As if to emphasize the wealth of expressions that aspirations towards freedom can accommo‑ date, the chapter on spirit in The Phenomenology of Spirit follows spirit’s dialectically progressive alienation from all forms of givenness. It starts with ancient Greek ethical life in which the individual is a function solely of unreflective social expectations (and finds recognition as such), then traces spirit’s odyssey from the Roman system of formal, rights‑based sub‑ jectivities via the various configurations of self‑alienation in feudalism and absolutism before getting to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in which the alienation—spirit’s purported independence from every form of givenness—has become total and unrestricted. “The sole work and deed of universal freedom is in fact death,” Hegel writes in the long passage I just cited, a cold, empty, death without fulfill‑ ment. While referring no doubt to the guillotine, the claim may be read as reaching much wider, pointing to a social order in which a demand, expressive of freedom, always involves a misrecognition of its object, a failure to take into account the conditions in which it can be brought about such as to actualize the intentions of its issuer. The revolution was sup‑ posed to liberate people from an oppressive social order and to a consider‑ able extent it succeeded in doing so. Yet by one‑sidedly cultivating its claim to absoluteness, it reverted into pure violence and thus to the givenness from which it was meant to escape. There are several ways in which Hegel’s account can be fleshed out in the direction of becoming notes not only on the revolution but on modernity more generally. One is to think about “universal freedom” in terms of temporality. In ancient Greek ethical life, spirit is the substance and the universal self‑equal, lasting essence—it is the unshakable and undissolved ground and point of origin for the doing of each and all—it is their purpose and goal as the conceptualized in‑itself of all self‑consciousness. (PS, 254) The emphasis here is on duration and unshakableness and hence on the un‑ mitigated authority of past practice over the future. As Reinhart Koselleck would have put it, the space of experience (Erfahrungsraum) enjoyed prior‑ ity over the horizon of expectation (Erwartungshorizont) (Koselleck 2004,

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  177 267–88). Traditions remained unchallenged, and agents valued goals that allowed them to continue past practice.9 The norm of universal freedom involves a radical shift in the tempo‑ ral economy of decision‑making and meaning‑making. While past prac‑ tice and its associated values are to be negated, agents see themselves as exclusively oriented towards the future, which now appears as an open horizon. The French Republican calendar, which was intended to replace the ­Gregorian calendar and remove all religious and royalist influences, ex‑ emplifies this stance. The calendar, starting on the day of liberation and lib‑ erty (unsurprisingly, the revolutionaries disagreed about exactly which day this was, but July 14, 1789, was the initial date), effectively encouraged a view of the past as being pre‑historical while presenting citizens with a future to be seized upon in accordance with the abstract constraints of au‑ tonomously chosen principles.10 Calculating the effects of various possible actions in a field marked by uncertainty, the management of risk became central. While traditional social arrangements encounter risk, in modernity the calculation of risk becomes subjected to procedural thinking, statistics, and systematic planning. The modernity of Hegel’s reading of the French Revolution anticipates Lenin and Le Corbusier, but also the bureaucrati‑ cally organized welfare state. I have already hinted at the ethical consequences of Hegel’s concep‑ tion of hyper‑modernity. If death has no meaning in the age of the guil‑ lotine, then it is not just because the politics behind it has run amok but because the violence inflicted upon bodies (even that of Louis XVI), and indeed all forms of ethical infringement, will ultimately have to be characterized in terms of the need to respect abstract norms; it is the price paid for the culmination of Enlightenment thinking, first in utility maximization, then in abstract universalism. Hegel’s (French) modernity strips away as illegitimate the appeal to love, fidelity, and solidarity that we found was central to his account of ethical life in the early Tübingen Essay. Ethical orientation becomes exclusively a matter of principle, of subsumption under a universal precept. A cold intellectualism replaces the immediacy with which agents would act ethically in the vision out‑ lined in the early work. Hegel’s reading of the revolution can thus be viewed in terms of what Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (2007) more than a 100 years later would refer to as a dialectic of enlightenment and see as the primary complex responsible for the one‑sided rationalization they argued charac‑ terized modernity. Enlightenment reason is meant to liberate agents from heteronomy and guarantee progress. However, since reason in pursuit of autonomy seeks to maximize abstraction and instrumental control, it har‑ bors regressive and even destructive elements. The French Revolution em‑ blematizes that chiasmatic process.

178  Espen Hammer Conclusion Hegel’s interpretation of the French Revolution is more than an exercise in political philosophy. As even a cursory look at his early writings related to the revolution indicates, his understanding of the revolution has impli‑ cations for the future of Germany and in particular for how Germany is supposed to achieve a successful modernization. I have thus argued that Hegel’s critique of the revolution has repercussions for his understanding of modernity in general—or at least of a certain tendency that he saw as threatening the project of modernity in general. Hegel never let go of this worry about modernity. The Phenomenology of Spirit continues on from the French Revolution, taking into account as‑ pects of the partial Napoleonic Restoration as “a return to order.” It views German moral philosophy in its Kantian and Fichtean forms, culminating with a need for recognition that turns him to religion, as a failed attempt to achieve in theory what the French had attempted in practice.11 In the Ele‑ ments of the Philosophy of Right he draws up his theory of objective reason, the embodiment of claims to reason in the family, ethical life, and the state. Yet none of these “solutions” seem entirely able to ease the concerns raised by the French Revolution. The solution in the Phenomenology paves the way for a recognition of spirit as absolute. The solution in the philosophy of right, while far from utopian, is stated mainly in ideal terms. It remains unclear how any of them sufficiently addresses the nihilism of the Jacobean moment. On the other hand, the romantically republican vision of the early work, while insisting on the need for an ethically minded overcoming of the dialectic of enlightenment, had long since been regarded as reactionary, incapable of responding adequately to the actual challenges of modernity, in particular that of designing a social order that can accommodate rea‑ son’s demands without sacrificing meaning. Yes, Hegel would toast for the French Revolution. However, its failures would leave visible a wound in his whole theoretical edifice as it strove to make sense of modernity. Notes 1 As such, the reading of the French Revolution has eerily seemed to anticipate more recent revolutionary ruptures, in particular the Russian revolution whose high‑minded call for a liberation of peasants and workers from all feudal ties and hierarchies, and establish universal justice and equality, would soon be subverted into Stalinist terror. 2 Elements of the Philosophy of Right is quoted according to Wood and Nisbet’s translation. 3 “For Hegel, the French revolution is that event around which all the determina‑ tions of philosophy in relation to its time are clustered, with philosophy mark‑ ing out the problem through attacks and defenses of the Revolution” (Ritter 1984, 43).

Hegel’s Dialectic of Enlightenment: The French Revolution  179 4 For a fictional yet historically faithful representation of the burdens placed on German intellectuals who later supported Napoleon’s conquests in Germany, see Mann (1990). 5 For a lucid account of the Volksreligion‑motif in the early Hegel, see Lewis (2011, 25–43). 6 The Phenomenology of Spirit is quoted according to Pinkard and Baur’s translation. 7 PR, §5A: “For fanaticism wills only what is abstract, not what is articulated, so that whenever differences emerge, it finds them incompatible with its own indeterminacy and cancels them [hebt sie auf]. This is why the people, during the French Revolution, destroyed once more the institutions they had them‑ selves created, because all institutions are incompatible with the abstract self‑­ consciousness of equality.” Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. This saying, attributed to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–64) is quoted with approval by Kant in “Perpetual Peace” (Kant 1970, 123). In Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §130, Hegel curtly writes that “fiat justitia should not have pereat mundus as its consequence.” Right is not good without welfare. 8 Hegel sums up these achievements in PH, 456. 9 The conflict between Antigone and Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone, which Hegel sees as opening a deep and ultimately irresolvable conflict in the Greek polis, demonstrates the stakes associated with any challenge to the authority of past practice. 10 I discuss this topic in Hammer (2011). 11 For a study that examines Hegel’s treatment of the revolution in light of the theme of guilt and confession at the end of the chapter on spirit in The Phe‑ nomenology of Spirit, see Comay (2010).

References Comay, Rebecca.  2010. Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel. 2021. Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism: Trans‑ lation and Notes. Verden: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Hammer, Espen. 2011. Philosophy and Temporality from Kant to Critical Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hegel, G. W. F. 1984. Three Essays, 1793–1795: The Tübingen Essay, Berne Fragments, and the Life of Jesus. Edited and translated by Peter Fuss and John ­Dobbins. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. 2007. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1970. “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.” In Kant’s ­Political Writings, translated by H. B. Nisbet, 93–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koselleck, Reinhart. 2004. Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time. Translated by Keith Tribe. New York: Columbia University Press. Lewis, Thomas A. 2011. Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

180  Espen Hammer Lukács, Georg. 1973. Der junge Hegel, Bd. 2. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Maliks, Reidar. 2021. “Echoes of Revolution: Hegel’s Debt to the German Burkeans.” In Practical Philosophy from Kant to Hegel: Freedom, Right, and Revolution, edited by James A. Clarke and Gabriel Gottlieb, 213–28. Cam‑ bridge: Cambridge University Press. Mann, Thomas. 1990. Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns. Translated by H. T. Lowe‑Porter. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pinkard, Terry. 2000. Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Ritter, Joachim. 1984. Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on the Philosophy of Right. Translated by Richard Dien Winfield. Cambridge: MIT Press. Žižek, Slavoj. 2007. Introduction to Virtue and Terror, by Maximilien Robespierre, edited by Jean Ducange, translated by John Howe, vii–l. London and New York: Verso.

11 Hegel’s Externalization of Justice From the Rabble to True Personhood Paolo Diego Bubbio

Introduction In this chapter, I initially posit that Hegel’s conception of justice is firmly rooted in the idea of identity as intersubjectively constituted. This fun‑ damental perspective holds significant implications, uniquely positioning Hegel’s theory of justice to engage with aspects of political life often over‑ looked by dominant paradigms in political philosophy, such as Kantian constructivism. Expanding on this, I contend that Hegel’s logic of justice finds expression in his conception of property in relation to the dynamics of externalization (Entäußerung). I then investigate the relationship be‑ tween the notion of Entäußerung and the notion of Vermögen (“resource” but also “capacity”) in Hegel’s philosophy, particularly within his analysis of “The family’s resources” (§§170–2 of the Philosophy of Right). Explor‑ ing both notions and their interplay is crucial for appreciating Hegel’s ac‑ count of justice in its active aspect. I then explore Hegel’s analysis of the phenomenon of the “rabble” (Pöbel), arguing that it can be considered a prototypical case of systemic injustice. Hegel’s insights, I contend, effec‑ tively contribute to understanding and addressing the surge in populism observed in recent years. I conclude by arguing that the full realization of freedom in true personhood, as Hegel envisions it, offers a pathway to‑ wards the overcoming of systemic injustice, with Hegel’s utilization of the notion of Vermögen integral to this interpretation. Intersubjective Recognition and the Transformative Power of Freedom The exploration of justice and its requisites has been a focal point in contem‑ porary political philosophy, with Rawls’s influential work, A Theory of Jus‑ tice (1971), marking a significant milestone. Rawls proposed a conception of justice as fairness, synthetizing principles of freedom and equality, and drew upon Kant’s practical philosophy to formulate a systematic approach DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-12

182  Paolo Diego Bubbio to justice. This approach, often referred to as Kantian c­ onstructivism, has since become one of the dominant paradigms in political philosophy. Kan‑ tian constructivism views objectivity in morality as a practical challenge and suggests that moral disputes about freedom and justice can be ad‑ dressed through reasoned deliberation. However, Kantian constructivism confronts a fundamental challenge: it relies on a notion of cooperation grounded in preexisting individual “monadic” selves viewed in isolation, assuming a conception of the good that is already given before it enters into social exchanges. Hegel’s account of justice provides an alternative framework that over‑ comes these challenges by being rooted in a conception of identity as in‑ tersubjectively constituted. According to Hegel, human agents cannot be considered to exist independently of the social practices that involve their recognition. The framework of rational self‑legislation in Hegel’s philoso‑ phy is based on normative criteria derived from structures of intersubjective relationships. Individual minds are unintelligible without such structures. This normative orientation, although still grounded in principles of free‑ dom and autonomy, fundamentally redefines those principles. In Hegel’s view, cooperation is not based on the interactions between preexisting in‑ dividuals. Instead, the self itself is first constituted through practices of reciprocal recognition. Reciprocal recognition is not merely a means to advance the goals of already constituted subjects; it is the very context in which identity is first formed. This implies that theoretical questions of identity are inseparable from practical considerations concerning the establishment of conditions for the realization of such identity. Essentially, Hegel conceives of the self not as an isolated entity but as the outcome of intersubjectivity. This perspective has significant implications for his un‑ derstanding of justice. First and foremost, it is important to clarify that justice, as conceived by Hegel, has nothing to do with nature. As Hegel asserts in the Philosophy of Right, “We may not speak of the injustice of nature in the unequal dis‑ tribution of possessions and resources [Vermögens], since nature is not free and therefore is neither just nor unjust” (PR, §49R).1 Justice is the realiza‑ tion of the freedom inherent in true personhood, and this freedom—Hegel clarifies in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History—“does not exist as original and natural” since the state of nature is “predominantly that of injustice and violence, of untamed natural impulses, of inhuman deeds and feelings”; rather, it must be “sought out and won; and that by an incal‑ culable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers” (PH, 56). Therefore, the domain of justice is the mediated and cultural world, where it can be effectively “sought out and won” according to the logic of recog‑ nition. For this very reason, the concrete application of justice stands as a central feature of the theory of justice itself.

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  183 Hegel’s entire Rechtsphilosophie can be seen as an inquiry into the ­ ecessary conditions for the institutional realization of a conception of n justice that involves the actualization of the freedom of true personhood through intersubjectivity. Hegel conceives of freedom as self‑realization, wherein the self can truly actualize itself only within the concrete condi‑ tions of its existence, a state he refers to as “selfhood in otherness.” This notion of selfhood in otherness is fundamentally intersubjective, meaning that the subject can fully affirm its freedom only in recognition by other subjects, and likewise, the freedom of others depends on recognition as well. Through analyses of actual relationships between individuals and in‑ stitutions, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right displays the concrete application of justice as an integral aspect of justice itself. In this framework, justice and freedom are inherently intertwined: freedom can only be realized within a society normatively committed to reciprocal recognition, and it is through this commitment to reciprocal recognition that justice is established. Like‑ wise, a just society is one that upholds and strengthens the conditions nec‑ essary for intersubjective freedom for all its members. In line with the conception of justice and freedom as interconnected, a passage from the Philosophy of Right sheds light on the limitations of a viewpoint on freedom grounded in the understanding (or intellect) rather than reason: The understanding goes no further than mere being‑in‑itself and con‑ sequently calls the freedom which accords with this being‑in‑itself a “­capacity” [Vermögen], because such freedom is indeed mere possibil‑ ity. But the understanding regards this determination as absolute and perennial; and it takes the relation of freedom to what it wills, or in gen‑ eral to the object in which it is realized, as merely a matter of its applica‑ tion to a given material, not belonging to the essence of freedom itself. Thus it has to do with the abstract only, not with its Idea and its truth. (PR, §10R) Hegel introduces the concept of the will “in itself” as a faculty or ­potentiality, referred to as Vermögen. This term can be rendered in English as “ability,” “power,” and also “resource.” Hegel employs Vermögen in various con‑ texts, for instance, when it challenges the idea of the mind as a collection of faculties (see Inwood 1992, 191). In the Philosophy of Right, Vermögen is used both as “resource” and as “capacity.” The understanding falls short in acknowledging the crucial connec‑ tion between freedom and the object of the will, dismissing it as a mat‑ ter of mere application to a given material. Contrarily, Hegel emphasizes that actualizing freedom requires a dynamic engagement with the object of the will. It is through this dialectical process that freedom unfolds its

184  Paolo Diego Bubbio true potential, surpassing the abstract and attaining its Idea and truth. ­Therefore, the notion of Vermögen encapsulates the transformative power of freedom in the active pursuit of its object. This viewpoint lays the foun‑ dation for comprehending the role of right as the embodiment of freedom. Right (Recht) is defined by Hegel as “any existence at all which is the existence of the free will” (PR, §29). In this context, right is “freedom ob‑ jectified” (Wood 1990, 72). By characterizing right as “freedom as Idea,” Hegel underscores the profound connection between freedom and its ma‑ terial realization in the social and political sphere. The concept of Vermö‑ gen gains further significance here. Vermögen captures the active capacity of the free will to engage with the objects of its volition, thereby shaping the concrete manifestations of right. Since, as we have seen, realizing free‑ dom requires a specific relation of freedom to the object of the will, the object—the “thing”—should not be regarded merely as a possession but as a resource (Vermögen). As Hegel writes, “The fact that it is such a resource depends on the particular way in which the thing is put to external use, a way distinct and separable from the use to which the thing is immediately destined” (PR, §69R). This highlights the dynamic nature of the object, emphasizing that its value lies not only in its immediate purpose but also in its potential for external use. Hegel suggests that the actualization of freedom involves actively engaging with the object, considering its specific application and the distinct role it can play in external circumstances. The dynamic engagement with the object finds concrete expression in Hegel’s concept of the alienation of property. The term used by Hegel is “Entäußerung,” which can be translated as not only “alienation” and “relinquishment” but also “externalization,” depending on the context. Alienation, Hegel contends, “is an expression of my will, of my will no longer to regard the thing as mine” (PR, §65A). This act of Entäußerung functions as a true mode of taking possession of the thing. It signifies a transformative process wherein the individual’s relationship to property surpasses mere possession, moving towards a realization of its potential as a resource for external use. The act of Entäußerung aligns with the dialec‑ tical nature of freedom and the dynamic interplay between the subject and the object. By willingly detaching oneself from the exclusive ownership of the property, the individual establishes a connection to the broader social fabric, allowing the object to fulfill its purpose in enhancing intersubjec‑ tive freedom. Hegel’s further examination of property sheds light on the transformative power of Entäußerung: the concept compels me to alienate [entäußern] it [the external thing] qua property in order that thereby my will may become objective [ge‑ genständlich] to me as determinately existent [daseiend]. In this situ‑ ation, however, my will as alienated [entäußerter] is at the same time another’s will. Consequently this situation wherein this necessity of the

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  185 concept is realized is the unity of different wills and so a unity in which both surrender their difference and their own special character. Yet this identity of their wills implies also (at this stage) that each will still is and remains not identical with the other but retains from its own point of view a special character of its own. (PR, §73) Hegel contends that through the divestment or relinquishment of property, an individual’s will becomes objectified, attaining determinate existence. This realization necessitates the unity of different wills, wherein individu‑ als relinquish their differences and unique characteristics while preserving their distinct identities. Thus, the act of Entäußerung facilitates a trans‑ formative exchange, wherein unity with others is achieved without los‑ ing one’s identity. Instead, it undergoes a transformation, along with the identity of the other. This logic is first applied in the context of the family (§§170–2), where the notion of property assumes particular significance. Hegel writes: “The family, as person, has its external reality in property; and only when this property takes the form of resources [Vermögen] does it become the exist‑ ence of the substantial personality of the family” (PR, §169). Within the family unit, the self‑centeredness of individual desire undergoes a profound transformation “into something ethical, into care and acquisition for a com‑ mon purpose” (PR, §170). Hegel further clarifies that the family’s property is “common property so that, while no member of the family has property of his own, each has his right in the common stock” (PR, §171). This ar‑ rangement is “based on ethical love” (§172), forging a bond that surpasses individualistic pursuits. Importantly, it is in the section on the family where Hegel introduces the dimension of modern economic life referred to as das Vermögen, that is, economic resources in general. Hegel states: When people are thus dependent on one another and reciprocally re‑ lated to one another in their work and the satisfaction of their needs, subjective self‑seeking turns into a contribution to the satisfaction of the needs of everyone else. That is to say, by a dialectical advance, subjec‑ tive self‑seeking turns into the mediation of the particular through the universal, with the result that each person in earning, producing, and enjoying on his own account is eo ipso producing and earning for the enjoyment of everyone else. (PR, §199) This realization underscores the transformative potential of Entäußerung within the family unit and its broader implications for economic relation‑ ships in society. The concept of Vermögen, as both capacity and resource,

186  Paolo Diego Bubbio becomes essential in realizing freedom and establishing just relations. In the pursuit of freedom, individuals must not only possess the capacity to act but also have access to the necessary resources to manifest their inten‑ tions in the external world. It is the integration of capacity and resource, encapsulated in the concept of Vermögen, that is crucial in achieving genu‑ ine freedom. Acknowledging such integration emphasizes that true free‑ dom requires not only the liberation of individual potential but also the establishment of equitable structures that enable the unfettered expression of that potential. The Actualization of Freedom: Injustice and Institutions At a political level, the concept of right “provides a normative standard against which the justice of institutions can be measured”; as Brownlee (2013, 85) remarks, “the content of this normative standard is derived from consideration of the objective conditions necessary for the realization of freedom.” Thus, the principle of Entäußerung, explored in the con‑ text of property and the family, extends beyond its immediate applica‑ tions and provides a framework for evaluating and shaping just structures and institutions within society. Within the family structure, the principle of Entäußerung guides individuals in their roles and responsibilities, em‑ phasizing that family members must transform their personal desires and work to contribute to the well‑being of the family unit. Similarly, within the broader social structure, the principle of Entäußerung recognizes that individual ownership is not an isolated right but carries responsibilities towards society. It acknowledges that the possession and use of property should not only serve individual interests but also contribute to the com‑ mon good. Therefore, a just institutional order must both preserve and enhance the conditions of freedom for all its members. In such a system, individuals can pursue their goals in ways that are mutually supportive rather than mutually undermining. In this context, it is pertinent to recall Hegel’s definition of justice in the Phenomenology: the ethical whole is in‑ tended to be a “peaceful equilibrium of all the parts” (PS, §461),2 wherein each part derives satisfaction from this equilibrium with the whole. H ­ egel further asserts that this equilibrium “can only be a living equilibrium be‑ cause of an inequality that arises within it, an inequality which is then brought back to equality by justice” (PS, §461). If society creates a pool of resources that can be augmented, an indi‑ vidual’s acquisition of resources still depends on their initial capital and the utilization of their skills (Knowles 2002, 270). There are circumstances that lead to significant inequalities “of skill and resources, and even to one of moral and intellectual education” (PR, §200R). It is evident that fami‑ lies with greater resources can invest more in their children’s education,

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  187 enabling them to accumulate greater economic resources (Knowles 2002, 270). Hegel argues that to abstractly demand equality without consider‑ ing these factors “is a folly of the empty understanding which takes as real and rational its abstract equality and its ‘ought‑to‑be’” (PR, §200R). Of course, the state can intervene to regulate and alleviate distress; but according to some commentators (cf. Knowles 2002), Hegel believed the state’s interference should be subordinate to the rules of the free market. Knowles (2002, 270) goes so far as to claim that Hegel would find agree‑ ment with what Hayek (1960) would later write in the second half of the twentieth century, advocating for free‑market capitalism and against gov‑ ernment intervention in economic affairs. However, in my view, making such a claim overlooks the Hegelian conception of justice (Gerechtigkeit) as the agency that restores equilibrium and brings about equality when it is disrupted by individuals or social groups (PS, §461). While some may argue that Hegel is addressing retributive justice here, I contend that re‑ tributive justice is just one of the possible applications of Hegel’s broader theory of justice, which encompasses the basic level of property as well as social and redistributive justice. Justice, in essence, serves as the measure for achieving equilibrium within a community across all its aspects. What does a disturbance of the equilibrium amount to? Unrecht, that is, any injustice or wrongdoing, (including crime) is the negation of right. Since right is objectified freedom, a negation of right fundamentally ne‑ gates freedom itself, involving “coercion of some kind, which amounts to a refusal to recognize others as rights bearing individuals like ourselves” (Magee 2010, 181). Anything that hinders the full actualization of person‑ hood in freedom constitutes a form of injustice that must be rectified. In this respect, it is appropriate to emphasize that the Philosophy of Right concludes with the notion of world history “as the world’s court of judge‑ ment” (PR, §340). This claim should be considered in conjunction with the famous (or perhaps infamous) statement in the “Preface” that “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational” (PR, 14) and correctly interpreted not as a justification of the historical process and as a procla‑ mation of the absolute power of the state but rather as an affirmation of what is “rational and real in that process, viz., the development of free‑ dom” (Forbes 1975, xxix). Hegel “is not seeking the rational justification of given contingent social conditions” (Jolyon 2015, 1104); instead, he is arguing that anything that stands in the way of Geist as the development of freedom “is not wirklich, not ‘real’, not alive in the world” (Forbes 1975, xxix). Of course, as Hegel acknowledges, history features many in‑ stances in which individuals “pursue their particular ends in defiance of the universal justice [das allgemeine Recht]”; however, this “does not de‑ stroy the common ground, the underlying substance, the system of right” (LPWH, 72).3 The point is that “the concept of freedom is such that justice

188  Paolo Diego Bubbio and ethical life are inseparable from it” (LPWH, 72). Yet, a situation can occur (and indeed, often it does occur) whereby ethical life comes into con‑ flict with world history; in such cases, the existing order—Marx would call it “the present state of things”—is “merely a formal kind of justice [ein formelles], abandoned by the living spirit and by God” (LPWH 141; see Alznauer 2015, 122). “Formell” implies that the form is not consistent with the content: for example, an unjust law may have the form of right (Recht) but may be, in fact, an injustice (Unrecht). Freedom itself can be merely formal: only what is rational is actual, wirklich; therefore, individu‑ als may have formal freedom to choose among alternatives, but if these contradict reason, individuals are not truly free (HW, 86). In such cases, “Justice becomes something indeterminate that falls victim to arbitrari‑ ness” (VR‑ILT 4, 288). It is crucial to appreciate this point to fully understand Hegel’s perspec‑ tive on justice. While Hegel is not a socialist thinker, he is very skeptical of certain aspects of classical liberalism. He recognizes that the actual‑ ization of freedom, which necessitates social interdependence, cannot be achieved solely through reliance on the free market and individual pur‑ suit of private wealth. Civil society may have the appearance [Schein] of rationality (PR, §189), but it ultimately signifies “the loss of ethical life [den Verlust der Sittlichkeit]” itself (PR, §181). Such a society is incapable of ensuring genuine freedom for all and, therefore, cannot be considered just. A true realization of freedom requires a political community founded on intersubjective relationships. To achieve true freedom, it is necessary to transition towards a specific type of social connections offered by a polity or a political community. As Thompson (2018, 43) remarks, “What char‑ acterizes such ­community is precisely that social interdependence is now itself construed as an explicit object of the conscious and volitional agency of social members. In a genuine polity, Hegel contends, individuals know that their identity is properly achieved only in establishing and maintain‑ ing relations with others.” Furthermore, Hegel is skeptical of liberalism’s inclination to view the various spheres of public life (politics, religion, eco‑ nomics) and normative domains (sacred and profane, useful and useless) as separate and irreducible to one another. As Pippin (2008, 8 n7) highlights, Hegel perceives all such spheres and domains as “manifestations of the actualization of freedom” since only in this way it is possible to realize “a justice freed from subjective interest and a subjective form and no longer contingent on power” (PR, §103). Failure to recognize this interconnect‑ edness inevitably leads, in Hegel’s view, to prioritizing the particular over the universal. For instance, when “one group begins to believe that its own interests are the true interests of the whole,” then “only power prevails, even when that power can lay claim to some kind of lesser legitimacy based only on the stability it offers” (Pinkard 2011, 183).

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  189 A case in point is represented by the poor. Justice, Hegel maintains, “is often made very difficult” for the poor: uneducated, deprived of decent healthcare, often even excluded by the institutional Church from the con‑ solation of religion (although “Christ said that the Gospel is preached for the poor”), they are forced into a condition where “freedom has no exist‑ ence.” This situation “necessarily gives rise to an inner indignation” (VR 1819–20, 194) and represents the presupposition for the emergence of that phenomenon that Hegel calls “rabble” (Pöbel; PR, §§244–5; see Ruda 2011). Since the poor lack the wealth, skills, and education to protect their rights in the political system, they end up suffering a spiritual (geistige) separation from civil society: the rabble does not feel recognized. In other words, poverty is the pre‑condition of the existence of the rabble, but the poor become rabble only as a result of alienation (see Lynch 2019, 40), that is, of a failed Entäußerung. The modern impoverished exhibit a rab‑ ble mentality in the “discrepancy” between their formal rights and what is genuinely accessible to them (VR 1819–20, 195; see Buchwalter 2013, 107). Deprived of the moment of externalization, the indignation result‑ ing from this systematic exclusion and marginalization leads to rebellion against the rich, against the government, and against the society in general. The rabble mentality is evidence that a society fails to live up to and actual‑ ize the principles of mutual recognition upon which it should be based. Its promise of equal freedom remains purely formal and is not embodied in a system of social institutions. The rationality of the system and the exist‑ ence of any genuine rights are called into question. If we consider the phenomenon of the rabble in light of the rising pop‑ ulism that has characterized the last decade, Hegel’s insights appear re‑ markably prescient. His acute analysis of the limitations of the unfettered market holds even greater relevance today, given the extreme concentra‑ tion of wealth in the global economy. Hegel argues that these limitations not only impede people’s ability to secure happiness or meet their needs, but also hinder the exercise of freedom itself. However, Hegel appears hesi‑ tant in drawing the full conclusions of his reasoning as he seems to suggest the inevitability of poverty: “despite an excess of wealth civil society is not rich enough, i.e. its own resources are insufficient, to check excessive poverty” (PR, §245). It can be argued, as Lynch (2019, 40) contends, that this “rushed conclusion” arises from Hegel’s acceptance of capitalism as an immutable given. In this case, one could argue that Hegel falls short of being truly “Hegelian” as he fails to fully apply the principle of the conflict of norms with themselves that drives his entire philosophy of history. In fact, if the norm of justice is freedom considered as expressive of modes of reciprocal recognition, then such norm is constantly in contra‑ diction with itself because, on the one hand, it requires the restoration of a disrupted equilibrium and, on the other hand, any change in those

190  Paolo Diego Bubbio modes of recognition also requires a renegotiation of our identity (“what we choose to be”), and vice versa. In other words, freedom is constantly re‑modeled, being both the product of the recognition of a community of self‑conscious individuals and, at the same time, the producing, that is, the drive for achieving a higher equilibrium, consisting of a higher level of self‑consciousness and freedom.4 Further, the ongoing conflict of the norm with itself is, in Hegel’s view, integral to the establishment of identity, and therefore, the conception of justice plays an important role in maintaining the conditions for identity’s constitutive processes of reciprocal recogni‑ tion, that is, the full actualization of personhood. However, this actualiza‑ tion cannot be achieved once and for all; it must be continually enacted throughout history. It is in the philosophy of history, therefore, that we should turn our attention. In exploring the historical elaboration of the concern for justice, Hegel’s philosophy of history, as Hoff (2014) suggests,5 uncovers the teleological nature of the full actualization of personhood in freedom. In this con‑ text, the state is not merely a mechanism of control; rather, it is meant to serve as an agency of emancipation, in the sense that it provides the condi‑ tions and framework for individuals to actualize their potential freedoms. Emancipation, in this context, entails more than the absence of external constraints; it encompasses the active realization of individual potential within the ethical life of the community, thus harmonizing individual and collective interests. This perspective does not undermine individuals’ claims to freedom; on the contrary, it reinforces them. The state is not the source of people’s freedom; its role is to create the necessary conditions for individuals to exercise their freedoms. In this light, Hegel’s state is not merely a neutral place that accommodates a diversity of moral views, as suggested by Engelhardt (1994, 221), but an institution that enables the conditions necessary for the practices of freedom, providing a supportive framework for individuals to turn the potentiality of freedom into actual‑ ity, and, in doing so, contributes to its own ethical development as well. In the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, we read: that which exists only in itself is a possibility or potentiality (Vermögen) which has not yet emerged into existence. A second moment is neces‑ sary before it can attain actuality—that of actuation or realization; and its principle is the will, the activity of mankind in the world at large. It is only by means of this activity that the original concepts or implicit determinations [an sich seiende] are realized and actualized. (LPWH, 69–70) Potentiality requires a second moment of actualization, driven by the will and activity of humanity in the world at large. This raises the crucial

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  191 question of the economic transformations needed to restore the legitimacy of the political order and enable the state, along with its democratic insti‑ tutions, to truly facilitate individual freedom rather than hinder it. Only through such transformations can systemic injustice be overcome. Overcoming Systemic Injustice In the preceding sections, we have delved into Hegel’s insights on justice and freedom, as well as the manifestation of injustice within institutional structures. Building upon these discussions, I now contend that the full realization of freedom in true personhood, as conceived by Hegel, re‑ quires a transformative path towards rectifying and transcending systemic injustices. As we have seen, in the Philosophy of Right, the term Vermögen ­carries a dual meaning, encompassing both its external manifestation as a resource and its internal aspect as a capacity. The notion of Vermögen as “­capacity” refers to the inherent potential or ability within individuals to act and ex‑ ert their will in the world, to engage with external objects, and to shape them according to one’s purposes. On the other hand, Vermögen as “re‑ source” refers to the external manifestation or deployment of capacity; it signifies the specific ways in which individuals utilize external objects and resources as means to achieve their goals. In the latter sense, Vermögen be‑ comes something separable from the immediate purpose of the object and takes on an instrumental character. While Vermögen as capacity represents the inherent potential within individuals, Vermögen as resource signifies the external means and instruments through which individuals actualize their capacities. Individuals possess Vermögen as an inherent capacity, but the realization of that capacity relies on external resources and engagement with the world. External resources become the means through which indi‑ viduals exercise their capacities and transform the world according to their intentions. Thus, the co‑existence of Vermögen as capacity and Vermögen as resource underscores the interplay between the individual agency and the external world, highlighting the reciprocal influence and the transform‑ ative power that emerges from this interaction. This co‑existence aligns with Hegel’s broader understanding of freedom and the actualization of true personhood, insofar as this understanding of Vermögen emphasizes the collective capacity to become active participants in the social and his‑ torical context. But there is more. In the context of ownership, Hegel emphasizes that true possession of resources requires their relinquishment (Entäußerung), as to authentically own and engage with resources, one must be willing to let go. A similar process of relinquishing and reclaiming can be ar‑ gued to apply to the capacity for transformations as well. As Hegel notes,

192  Paolo Diego Bubbio “The history of spirit is its own act” (PR, §343): the history of humanity is not only a history of emancipation but also the history of the failed at‑ tempts at achieving emancipation. Memories of past failures in the pursuit of emancipation can evoke frustration and contribute to the emergence of the phenomenon of the rabble (Pöbel).6 The rabble represents the embodi‑ ment of societal failures and the consequences of systemic injustice.7 When individuals or communities have experienced repeated setbacks in their struggles for liberation, the accumulated weight of these failures can en‑ gender a sense of disillusionment, powerlessness, and resentment. Memo‑ ries of past thwarted aspirations, unfulfilled promises, and dashed hopes become embedded in collective consciousness, fueling deep‑seated frustra‑ tion that can manifest as the rabble—a disaffected and disenfranchised segment of society. The rabble arises from the accumulated frustrations of individuals who feel marginalized, excluded, and unheard within the exist‑ ing structures of power that have denied them meaningful participation. The emergence of the rabble, as a distorted expression of the collective will, is closely tied to the dangers of populism, where the nuanced under‑ standing of freedom is reduced to simplistic slogans and divisive rhetoric. Importantly, the phenomenon of the rabble should not be dismissed as mere irrationality. Instead, it is a response born out of a collective sense of injustice. The frustration and anger within the rabble reflect, often un‑ consciously, a desire for genuine change and a longing for a more just and inclusive society. To effectively address the further growth of the rabble, it becomes cru‑ cial to engage with these memories of failed attempts at emancipation. Memories serve as a repository of past experiences, failures, and successes, providing individuals with a reservoir of knowledge and insight. A critical examination of the structural and systemic factors that perpetuate inequal‑ ity is necessary, but it is not enough. Just as one must surrender ownership to truly possess resources, one must also relinquish the memories of past failures in emancipatory attempts, which are incapsulated into predeter‑ mined narratives. An action of relinquishment (Entäußerung) should be performed on these memories. It is necessary to relinquish the memories of these failed attempts, in order to reclaim them. This process of relinquish‑ ment can be understood as subjecting the capacity for transformation to a process that we might term Verwindung. Verwindung is a technical term of Heidegger’s philosophy. Variously translated as “appropriation,” “incorporation,” or “getting over,” it un‑ derscores the process of grappling with and transcending historical and philosophical frameworks. While the explicit use of Verwindung is ab‑ sent in Hegel’s philosophy, its core idea resonates with Hegel’s concept of Aufhebung, which involves the simultaneous preservation, negation, and elevation of historical moments, particularly in its aspect of Erinnerung,

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  193 a recollection intertwined with an internalizing transformation.8 Here I propose using Verwindung to denote a dynamic process where the con‑ tradictions and limitations of past experiences and emancipatory endeav‑ ors are both acknowledged and transcended. Verwindung, as understood in the context of Hegel’s philosophy, in‑ volves a dialectical movement that integrates the past into the present and the present into the future. It represents a transformative process of engaging with historical memories and acknowledging past failures. The process requires a readiness to relinquish fixed notions, habitual patterns, and preconceived limitations and instead actively participate in the on‑ going process of transformation. It involves a critical reflection on exist‑ ing social structures and institutions, bringing attention to their flaws and limitations. It prompts a collective reevaluation of the societal conditions, prevailing norms, and values that contribute to systemic injustice, urging proactive efforts toward change. Moreover, Verwindung, as I see it, entails not just the acknowledg‑ ment but the active reclaiming of memories of past injustice and historical failures in emancipative attempts by the marginalized and oppressed. To effectively dismantle inequalities, memories should not be approached pas‑ sively and nostalgically as fixed representations of the past. Instead, they should be engaged through a transformative process that acknowledges the failures and shortcomings of previous emancipatory attempts while harnessing the insights gained from them. This approach embraces the un‑ certainties and possibilities inherent in the transformative journey, rather than seeking to rigidly control or possess it. By actively grappling with the past, individuals and communities confront its challenges and limitations, gaining the tools to transcend them and envision alternative futures to challenge the oppressive systems that perpetuate inequality. In the context of rising populism, the transformative process of engag‑ ing with historical memories and past failures offers a means to address the underlying grievances and inequalities that fuel such movements. This approach encourages active dialogue with disaffected sections of society, addressing their legitimate concerns while guiding them away from the pitfalls of exclusionary and divisive ideologies. Of course, such dialogue presupposes a minimal commitment to a shared public sphere, and this too has been significantly undermined and thereby increasingly questioned by those who feel marginalized and excluded. Nevertheless, by developing ra‑ tional capacities and striving to resist the pull of base instincts, individuals can work towards rising above the irrationality and violence characteris‑ tic of the rabble mentality. Through Verwindung, individuals can chan‑ nel their frustrations and aspirations into a transformative process that aims at building a more just and inclusive society. To break the cycle of frustration and disillusionment, it becomes imperative to forge a collective

194  Paolo Diego Bubbio commitment to justice and actively engage in the ongoing struggle for emancipation. Although dialogue might not be immediately feasible with everyone, society can harness the transformative potential of memories to learn from past failures and work towards the development of more inclu‑ sive and egalitarian structures. The dialectical interplay between past and present challenges the status quo and potentially opens up new possibilities for societal transforma‑ tion. The poor and marginalized can confront the historical failures in emancipatory attempts, incorporating them into their collective memory, and emerge as agents of change, transforming their lived experiences into catalysts for social progress and justice. They can reclaim their agency and engage in collective action to dismantle oppressive structures. In summary, actively engaging with memories and embracing this transformative pro‑ cess serve as crucial catalyst for the revolutionary changes necessary to create a more just and equitable society. If Hegel were alive today, and setting aside his historical preference for estate representation over national representation, he would probably be an advocate of the “underlying common ethos”9 that many contemporary progressive movements strive to embody, at least insofar as these move‑ ments are dedicated to advancing the cause of greater emancipation and the full realization of personhood. However, this ethos is just what He‑ gel would call “that which exists only in itself as a possibility or poten‑ tiality”—that is, Vermögen. Addressing the problem of rising populism requires a more radical approach that goes beyond mere reforms within existing systems. To actualize justice and transform the potentiality (Ver‑ mögen) of justice into a realized (wirklich) form, it is crucial to recognize marginalized individuals and groups as the authentic subjects of history, action, and resistance. By acknowledging their agency and incorporating their voices, the potentiality of justice can be actualized. Within this framework of transformative potentiality, Hegel’s philoso‑ phy also acknowledges the importance of radical societal change in cer‑ tain circumstances. While he emphasizes the importance of the state and gradual social progress, he also recognizes instances where the existing social and political order becomes stagnant and corrupt or fails to fulfil its essential functions. In such situations, the misalignment between the institutional framework and the needs and aspirations of the people can give rise to the need to think in terms of a revolutionary change. In Hegel’s time, this change was represented by the French Revolution. Throughout his entire life, Hegel remained a staunch supporter of the 1789 Revolution (LE, 295).10 He asserts: “The beginning of the French Revolution must be considered as the struggle of the rational right of the state against the mass of positive rights and privileges which had oppressed it” (HW, 65). He‑ gel acknowledges that the Revolution eventually descended into “tyranny,

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  195 pure frightening domination.” Nevertheless, he affirms that the Revolution was “necessary and just, insofar as it constitutes and sustains the state as this actual individual” (JPS, 155). According to Hegel, revolutions become historically necessary when the prevailing social and political order reaches a state of irreconcilable conflict and imbalance. This occurs when existing institutions fail to provide the necessary conditions for the self‑realization, freedom, and the development of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). In such cases, revolutions serve as transformative moments that disrupt the existing order and create space for establishing a new and more just social and political structure. Revolution is a malady, but sometimes it is a necessary malady. Revolution is the movement by which one form of legal and ethical life is destroyed and another is reinstated in its place. That said, it is important to clarify the meaning of “revolution.” Hegel cautions against unbridled revolutionary fervor: revolution is not aimless upheaval or a mere act of rebellion. He recognizes its inherent risks and potential for violence and chaos. Furthermore, Hegel clearly condemns the abstract, meaningless degeneration of the French “Terror” and “the coldest, emptiest death of all, having no more meaning that chopping off a head of cabbage or wallowing a mouthful of water” (PS, §590).11 Nev‑ ertheless, the thought of revolution becomes essential in actively engaging with the inherent contradictions and injustices that populism seeks to ex‑ ploit. By embracing the transformative spirit of revolution and harnessing the dialectical process of Aufhebung, societies can confront and dismantle the structures and ideologies that fuel rising populism. Hegel’s perspective on revolution should also be distinguished from Marx’s.12 Firstly, Hegel places great emphasis on addressing contradictions through reforms, particularly through a “right of resistance” which seeks to reconcile “the contradiction [Widerspruch] between what [individuals] can demand and the condition in which they find themselves” (VR‑ILT 4, 477). In this sense, Hegel’s right of resistance “is more reformative than in‑ surrectionary” (Buchwalter 2013, 108):13 it primarily calls for civil society to align with its own principles of right and justice. In contrast, Marx chal‑ lenges these very principles, focusing on economic determinism and class struggle. And yet, precisely this focus could be regarded as a limitation in Marx’s approach, one that Hegel surpasses. In fact, when reformative resistance fails, “the poor have the right to revolt [Recht zum Aufstand] against the order that denies the realization of their freedom” (VR 1819– 20, 20)14, and for Hegel, revolution is not limited to a materialist struggle for economic emancipation but signifies a comprehensive transformation of the entire social fabric. He recognizes that revolution encompasses not only changes in economic structures but also shifts in cultural, ethical, and political dimensions. A real, actual revolution involves the reconfiguration of collective consciousness, norms, and values, leading to the emergence

196  Paolo Diego Bubbio of a more inclusive and harmonious society. In McGowan’s (2019, 234) reading, this makes Hegel’s philosophy even more radical than Marx’s, who “substantializes freedom in the form of a future to be realized” and in doing so “falls victim to the precise trap that Hegel works to avoid throughout his philosophical system,” that is, to point “toward an un‑ known future in which things will be better.” For Hegel, revolution has its beginning and origin in thought. In the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, he states: The purpose and consequences of revolution and war in modern times have been to change governments through force from below. A revolu‑ tion of this sort has its beginning and origin in thought; for thought de‑ velops by now taking hold firmly, by erecting universal representations as ultimate, and by comparing them to what was the case. Thought rebels when it finds the status quo to be in contradiction with that pur‑ pose. The most sublime characteristic that thought can hit upon in this setting is that of the freedom of will. All other principles regarding the happiness and well‑being of the state are more or less indeterminate. Freedom of the will, however, is determinate in and for itself because it is nothing other than self‑determination. Thought has now grasped that the characteristic of the freedom of the will is in actuality what is highest. […] Freedom of the will is freedom of the spirit in action, in its orientation to what is actual. […] Revolutions, then, have proceeded from thought. This thought has had to do with actuality and has turned forcibly against the established order; it has become a force against the existing order and this force is in fact revolution. (LPWH, 519–20)15 Hegel’s quote sheds light on the pivotal role of thought in the process of revolution, emphasizing its connection to the pursuit of freedom and the overthrowing of existing orders. According to Hegel, revolution is not a spontaneous or random occurrence; rather, it arises from a thoughtful ex‑ amination of the contradictions between the present state of affairs and the purpose of freedom. Hegel’s emphasis on the freedom of the will under‑ scores the striving for self‑determination and the actualization of individ‑ ual agency. This perspective aligns with the understanding that revolution is a purposive and transformative endeavor, seeking to replace inadequate institutions and systems with more just and advanced forms of social or‑ ganization. Revolution, as it is conceived by Hegel, is deeply rooted in the pursuit of freedom. It signifies a radical and purposeful transformation of society, driven by the dialectical interplay between existing conditions and the inherent yearning for greater liberty. Revolution, in this context, represents the deliberate and resolute endeavor to overcome limitations

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  197 and establish a higher ethical and political order. It is an ongoing process of transcending the constraints of the status quo and ushering in a more just and equitable society. If revolution “received its first impulse from Philosophy,” Hegel none‑ theless acknowledges that “this philosophy is in the first instance only abstract Thought, not the concrete comprehension of absolute Truth—­ intellectual positions between which there is an immeasurable chasm” (PH, 465). This distinction between abstract thought and the concrete compre‑ hension of absolute truth emphasizes the significance of grounding ideas in the context of real‑world conditions.16 In the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel claims that philosophy truly takes flight, akin to the owl of Minerva, when historical events near their consummation. However, he recognizes the limitation of philosophy in subjectively validating objective truths for non‑philosophers, conceding its constraints in single‑handedly shaping society and realizing universal truths. Nevertheless, philosophy can play a pivotal role in connecting past emancipatory failures to the po‑ tential for revolutionary change. It is in this light, I suggest, that Hegel’s tepid and critical attitude toward the French “July Revolution” of 1830 gains significance. To his students and friends, who envisioned a “romantic replay of storming the Bastille,” Hegel reminded that no new “epoch” was at hand: the ‘liberalism’ on which the July monarchy was based, he argued, sim‑ ply repeated one of the key errors of the 1789 Revolution (which he had criticized more than twenty years earlier in the Phenomenology of Spirit), namely, the inability of mere collections or aggregates of indi‑ viduals to form a ‘universal point of view’ that could carry any political or ethical authority and the consequent degeneration of ‘government’ based on such ‘aggregates’ into ‘factions.’ (Pinkard 2000, 638). A process of Verwindung, involving reflection on past failures, the relin‑ quishment of abstract categories, and the consideration of concrete changes that align with new historical circumstances, was necessary then—and per‑ haps it is even more relevant now in the twenty‑first century. When guided by rationality and an ethical framework, this process can set the stage for realizing true personhood and overcoming systemic injustice. Engaging in a transformative process that embraces historical memories, challenges prevailing norms, and reshapes institutions becomes paramount in forging a more just and equitable society. The thought of revolution, in this sense, involves the collective assertion of autonomy and the transcendence of root causes that perpetuate inequal‑ ity and oppression, as well as the establishment of new social and political

198  Paolo Diego Bubbio frameworks based on principles of justice and equality. It is through this lens that we can grasp the path toward the full realization of freedom in true personhood as envisioned by Hegel and its potential to overcome s­ ystemic injustice. Notes 1 The Outlines of the Philosophy of Right is quoted according to T.M. Knox’s translation, revised by Stephen Houlgate. 2 The Phenomenology of Spirt is quoted according to Terry Pinkard’s translation. 3 The Lectures on the Philosophy of World History are cited according to the Nisbet translation. 4 See Bubbio (2017). de Boer (2010, 366) suggests something similar: “Hegel holds that world history from its very beginning contains the principle of free‑ dom, but in such a way that the actual, one‑sided determinations of this princi‑ ple, achieved by the subsequent cultural epochs, contradict the very essence of freedom until the epoch of modernity has been reached.” 5 Hoff (2014, 3) continues: “[Hegel] identifies the ways in which this concern has been exercised institutionally, culturally, socially, legally, and morally, pointing out the successes and failures of these ways as well as the tensions among them.” 6 Hegel does not explicitly use the concept of memory (Erinnerung) when dis‑ cussing the collective consciousness of the rabble. However, he does allude to a similar dynamic of recollection when he refers to the spirit “apprehending itself in its interpretation of itself [sich für sich selbst auslegend zu erfassen]” (PR, §343). For instance, as pointed out by Buchwalter (2009, 94), a people can as‑ sert the status of a Volksgeist “only to the degree that it routinely reassesses the relationship between norms, practices, and institutions that shapes and define its identity.” 7 According to Buchwalter (2013) Hegel’s attention is above all focused on pov‑ erty as a psychological phenomenon: the rabble does not feel recognized and, in turn, withdraws its own recognition of society: “Given Hegel’s intersubjec‑ tive account of self‑identity, the poor increasingly internalize such attitudes, participating thereby in their own disenfranchisement” (107). 8 Grondin (1987, 105) writes: “At the risk of shocking some people, let us em‑ phasize the fact that Verwindung, in its complexity, structure, execution and patience, often resembles Hegel’s Aufhebung.” Quoted in Raffoul (1998, 292 n37). 9 “If Hegel were alive today I have no doubt that he would therefore be a keen theological advocate of the underlying common ethos uniting the more thoughtful adherents of such movements: greens, feminists, human rights and anti‑racist campaigners, peace movement activists and so forth” (Shanks 2002, 32). 10 It is reported that Hegel had a tradition of raising a toast to commemorate the storming of the Bastille every year on July 14, and he continued this practice as late as 1826 (Pinkard 2000, 451). Hegel’s relation to the French Revolution has sparked numerous reflections and debates. While I cannot delve extensively into this matter here, my focus lies on Hegel’s belief that, under certain circum‑ stances, revolutionary change becomes inevitable. 11 For a thorough and original analysis of this passage, see Duque (2018, 55–92). 12 For a comparison between Hegel and Marx, see MacGregor (1984). 13 On resistance, see Vieweg (2012, 328–31). Buchwalter (2013, 117 n17) re‑ marks, rightly in my view, that “Vieweg’s language of ‘reacquisition,’ ‘restitu‑ tion,’ or ‘reestablishment’ may not do full justice to the corrective or reformative dimension of a right to resistance.”

Hegel’s Externalization of Justice  199 14 As noted by Tunick (1998, 534 n41), for the sake of exegetical exactitude, “Recht zum Aufstand” is Henrich’s term, and does not appear in Hegel’s own lecture notes. 15 Here I employ the Brown/Hodgson translation. 16 Habermas (1973, 121, 128, 138) famously contended that Hegel sought to legitimize the French Revolution without, however, legitimizing revolutionary activity itself. As Alznauer (2012, 611) puts it, “The more careful way to put this point, though, is that even if the philosopher of history can fully transcend his or her particular historical context, the authority of what reason deter‑ mines, its actual claim on us, is still something that requires a nonphilosophic kind of discernment that takes our actual historical context into account.” In the preceding paragraphs, this is precisely what I attempted to accomplish.

References Alznauer, Mark. 2012. “Ethics and History in Hegel’s Practical Philosophy.” The Review of Metaphysics 65, no. 3: 581–611. Alznauer, Mark. 2015. Hegel’s Theory of Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brownlee, Timothy. 2013. “Hegel’s Defense of Toleration.” In Hegel on Religion and Politics, edited by Angelica Nuzzo, 79–98. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bubbio, Paolo Diego. 2017. “The I and World History in Hegel.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25, no. 4: 706–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608 788.2016.1268997. Buchwalter, Andrew. 2009. “Is Hegel’s Philosophy of History Eurocentric?” In Hegel and History, edited by Will Dudley, 87–110. Albany: State University of New York Press. Buchwalter, Andrew. 2013. “Hegel, Human Rights, and Political Membership.” Hegel Bulletin 34, no. 1: 98–119. de Boer, Karin. 2010. “Hegel’s Account of Contradiction in the Science of Logic Reconsidered.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48, no. 3: 345–73. Duque, Félix. 2018. Remnants of Hegel: Remains of Ontology, Religion, and Community. Translated by Nicholas Walker. Albany: State University of New York Press. Engelhardt Jr., H. Tristram. 1994. “Sittlichkeit and Post‑Modernity: An Hegelian Reconsideration of the State.” In Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the Authoritarian State, edited by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Terry Pinkard, 187–224. Dordrecht: Springer. Forbes, Duncan. 1975. “Introduction.” In Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, by G.W.F. Hegel, vii–xxxv. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grondin, Jean. 1987. Le tournant dans la pensée de Martin Heidegger. Paris: PUF. Habermas, Jürgen. Theory and Practice. Translated by John Viertel. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Hayek, Friedrich A. 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ­ lbany: Hoff, Shannon. 2014. The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice. A State University of New York Press. Inwood, Michael. 1992. The Hegel Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

200  Paolo Diego Bubbio Jolyon, Agar. 2015. “Hegel’s Political Theology: ‘True Infinity’, Dialectical ­Panentheism and Social Criticism.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 41, no. 10: 1093–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453714567737. Knowles, Dudley. 2002. Hegel and the Philosophy of Right. London: Routledge. Lynch, Thomas. 2019. Apocalyptic Political Theology: Hegel, Taubes and ­Malabou. London: Bloomsbury. MacGregor, David. 1984. The Communist Ideal in Hegel and Marx. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Magee, Gleen Alexander. 2010. The Hegel Dictionary. London: Bloomsbury. McGowan, Todd.  2019. Emancipation after Hegel: Achieving a Contradictory Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press. Pinkard, Terry. 2000. Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinkard, Terry. 2011. Hegel’s Naturalism: Mind, Nature, and the Final Ends of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pippin, Robert R. 2008. Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Kantian Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raffoul, François. 1998. Heidegger and the Subject. Translated by David Pettigrew and Gregory Recco. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press; second revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Ruda, Frank. 2011. Hegel’s Rabble: An Investigation into Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. London: Continuum. Shanks, Andrew. 2002. “Hegel and the Meaning of the Present Moment.” Hegel Bulletin 23, nos. 1–2: 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263523200007886. Thompson, Michael J. 2018. Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics. London: Routledge. Tunick, Mark. 1998. “Hegel on Justified Disobedience.” Political Theory 26, no. 4: 514–35. Vieweg, Klaus. 2012. Das Denken der Freiheit. Hegels ‘Grundlinien der Philoso‑ phie des Rechts’. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Wood, Allen W. 1990. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

12 Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice Kimberly Hutchings

Introduction This chapter will focus on how Hegel’s delineation of contemporary ­ethical life (family, civil society, state) in his Philosophy of Right1 relies on and reproduces a philosophical history of circumstances of justice. In contrast to the tradition of social contract thinking, Hegel’s philosophical commit‑ ments mean that the circumstances of justice are not fixed or ahistorical, they are historically produced and immanently connected to his account of how justice can be understood and instantiated as freedom in ethical life. I will argue that if we understand Hegel’s argument in this way then the Philosophy of Right is more helpful for diagnosing injustice than for theorizing justice. In its explicit emphasis on the centrality of the temporal and spatial conditions of white, bourgeois, masculine justice as freedom and in the silences and contradictions in its phenomenological exploration of those conditions, the Philosophy of Right makes evident the complicity of modern states with exclusionary and hierarchical domestic and interna‑ tional political relations. Indirectly, however, in both exposing and histori‑ cizing the underpinnings of a modernist political imagination of freedom and justice, the Philosophy of Right also provides resources for thinking differently. This argument builds on a considerable body of feminist and creolizing scholarship on Hegel’s work, which is profoundly, immanently critical but also finds valuable resources for thought within his philoso‑ phy (Hutchings 2003; Hutchings and Pulkkinen 2010; Monahan 2017; Gray and Johnson 2023). Interpreting Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Hegel’s philosophy is seemingly open to an infinite array of interpretations. Different readings of his political philosophy have placed him as a nation‑ alist, racist, eurocentric proto totalitarian, as a cosmopolitan d ­ efender of ­universal human emancipation, and as just about anything in between DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-13

202  Kimberly Hutchings (Winfield 1988; Popper 2002; Tibebu 2011; Buchwalter 2012). His ­analyses of legality and morality and of the nature and relation between family, civil society, state, and inter‑state relations in the Philosophy of Right has provided food for a vast array of scholarship focused on his meaning and also on the normative assessment of his arguments. Some commentators identify Hegel’s Philosophy of Right as putting forward a theory of jus‑ tice in the sense of a normative ideal (e.g. Honneth 2000), whereas others argue that Hegel is more concerned to explain than to justify the kinds of institutions and constitutional arrangements that he associates with a political community able to understand itself, and in which its members understand themselves, in terms of self‑determination (e.g. Brooks 2007). Within this chapter, I align more with the second interpretive approach, al‑ though I would also agree that Hegel is normatively invested in his account of how spirit, objectively and subjectively, can grasp and realize itself as free, in part because he saw this account as rescuing Germany, the home of protestant modernity, from its failure to develop economically and politi‑ cally along the lines of Britain and France (Shilliam 2009; Comay 2011). According to Axel Honneth, the Philosophy of Right outlines: – a normative theory of social justice which attempts, in the form of a reconstruction of the necessary conditions of individual autonomy, to establish which social spheres a modern society has to encompass or to provide for in order to guarantee that all its members have chances to actualize their own self‑determination. (Honneth 2000, 30–1) Honneth’s argument in many ways typifies readings of Hegel that read the Philosophy of Right as a corrective to abstract and individualist ac‑ counts of right and morality in liberal contractualism. Such accounts, in Honneth’s view, fail to grasp the centrality of relations of intersubjective recognition to the possibility of individual freedom and the ways in which these need to be nurtured in and through communicative practices of free‑ dom in the contexts of being a family member, an economic actor, and a citizen. On this reconstruction of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, it provides a coherent account of the nature of modern society in which family, civil society, and the state are all spheres of communicative relation which are necessary for fostering individual self‑realization. Although Honneth is clearly reading Hegel through his (Honneth’s) own theory of recognitive ethics, his argument resonates with Hegel’s own account of what he is doing in the Philosophy of Right, which is spell‑ ing out the conditions of possibility of the realization of individual self‑­ determination as a form of ethical life. However, in order to read Hegel as a corrective to liberal theories of justice and the account of modern society

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  203 on which they rely, Honneth and other interpreters who make ­similar claims are obliged to skate over two things. First, they have to sideline certain aspects of the temporal and spatial conditions of possibility for the realization of individual self‑determination within Hegel’s account of the ethical life, in particular in relation to race and sexual difference. Second, they have to sideline the unevenness, fragility, and contradictions embed‑ ded in Hegel’s account of those conditions of possibility. In relation to the first, “skating over” maneuver, many of Hegel’s claims about history, pov‑ erty, women, nationality, and non‑white races have to be seen as errors, dismissed as peripheral/contingent or, alternatively, as capable of being overcome in Hegel’s own terms. In relation to the second, an account of Hegel as a corrective to liberal theories of justice requires that he be read “smoothly”—that is to say as providing a synchronous, coherent, univocal account of the historical‑philosophical conditions of possibility of justice as self‑determination. In what follows, I will argue that Hegel’s account of the imbrication of sexual difference and race with contemporary circumstances of justice and the idea of ethical life that those circumstances imply cannot be identified as mistakes or as peripheral/contingent to his account, neither can they be straightforwardly overcome within his own terms. Instead, by focus‑ ing on sexual difference and race we find how the progress of world spirit towards justice as freedom is tripped up by its inability to render stable its own spatial and temporal conditions. As other scholars have pointed out, Hegel understood his experience of his own time and space in early nineteenth‑century Germany in the context of its spatial and temporal dif‑ ference from Britain and France (Shilliam 2009; Comay 2011). In contrast to how his work is sometimes portrayed, his account of justice as self‑­ determination in the Philosophy of Right was put together out of a jarring consciousness of backwardness and anachronism. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that his political philosophy, whether intentionally or not, is scored through by spatial and temporal fault lines on which it nevertheless depends. In acknowledging this, we may open up a route to a different imagination of the space and time of justice and what this means for how justice is thought and practiced. Classical accounts of the circumstances of justice, from the seventeenth‑­ century social contract theorists to the thinkers of the Scottish enlight‑ enment to Rawls’s much more recent, Hume inspired, treatment, detach those circumstances from any specific historical context. Instead, the circumstances of justice are explained as the very basic, transhistorical (or pre‑historical) aspects of the human condition that require a theory of justice—that is to say the articulation of principles to adjudicate the ­legitimate distribution of goods, including rights and freedoms. Thus, for example, Rawls argues that there are objective and subjective aspects to

204  Kimberly Hutchings the circumstances of justice. Objective aspects include that individuals co‑exist in a defined territory, that they have roughly equal natural powers and vulnerabilities as well as collective vulnerabilities to each other and to external threats, and that there is a moderate scarcity of goods. Subjective aspects are to do with individuals having different life‑plans, values and beliefs and mutual disinterest in furthering the life plans, and values and beliefs of others. Thus, one can say, in brief, that the circumstances of justice obtain when‑ ever mutually disinterested persons put forward conflicting claims to the division of social advantages under conditions of moderate scarcity. (Rawls 1971, 128) It is immediately obvious that the way in which Rawls describes the cir‑ cumstances of justice is immanently connected not only to the theory of justice he goes on to develop but also to the philosophical anthropology that is part of the contractualist tradition of political thought with which he identifies. In other words, there is already a great deal of content built into what is claimed to be a highly abstract, minimalist, and uncontrover‑ sial account of why a theory of justice is required. From Hegel’s point of view, as explained in his critical engagement with abstract right in the first section of the Philosophy of Right, the contractualist mode of identifying the circumstances, and therefore also the requirements, of justice presents itself as a transhistorical abstraction but is actually a reflection of historical shifts that carry a profound philosophical meaning: “As far as the indi‑ vidual is concerned, each individual is in any case a child of his time, thus philosophy, too, is its own time comprehended in thoughts” (PR, 21). Ac‑ counts of the circumstances of justice are no exception to this, and in the case of the contractualist tradition of political thought, they embody an understanding of spirit as self‑determination which is, on Hegel’s account, distinctively contemporary in its self‑conscious embrace of the significance of individual freedom. From Hegel’s point of view, it is only a partial un‑ derstanding as opposed to a thorough comprehension precisely because such theorizing does not get to grips with its own historical conditions and their philosophical meaning but rather, as he famously claims, confines its thinking about justice and its circumstances to the “errors of a one‑sided and empty ratiocination” (PR, 20). When Hegel condemns contemporaries for “one‑sided and empty rati‑ ocination,” he is not simply dismissing the value of utopian or prescriptive political thought. Rather, he is making the point that the world beyond inscribed in various accounts of what ought to be is never actually a world beyond. What appears as the most radical challenge to the status quo pro‑ duced by the heroic philosopher king is always conditioned and shaped by

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  205 available socially produced and enacted meaning. At some level, therefore, what ought to be is always inscribed in what is. The political philosopher, as author, is authoritative only in the response of an audience able to rec‑ ognize (re‑cognize, re‑think) the thought with which they are presented as something that is already thought, explicitly or implicitly, in available legal, institutional, representational, or logical vocabularies. What does it mean to conceptualize the circumstances, and therefore the requirements, of justice within Hegel’s own time? For Hegel it re‑ quires the philosopher to grasp the dynamic of self‑determination at the core of spirit. This dynamic is philosophically demonstrated through in‑ terpretation of the historical self‑understanding of spirit, which accord‑ ing to Hegel becomes more adequate to spirit as self‑determination across time, as reflected in different temporally and spatially located forms and institutionalizations of ethical life, aesthetic practice, religious belief, and philosophical argument. Hegel is clear that his argument is not a simple historicism, he sees himself as having identified the “inner pulse” of spirit: “For what matters is to recognize in the semblance of the temporal and transient the substance which is immanent and the eternal which is pre‑ sent” (PR, 20). For Hegel then, the circumstances of justice with which he is concerned are those of his own time and place, one in which, on his account, the self‑understanding of spirit on the part of individuals, citizens, and philosophers has come to be increasingly adequate to its “inner pulse” of self‑determination. This makes his time and place novel in relation to others and necessitates spelling out an account of the idea of ethical life that is adequate to new circumstances of justice in which the principle of self‑determination has become explicitly embedded in contrast to alterna‑ tives that reflect different times and places, for example, in slave societies or in the one‑sided embrace of justice as self‑determination exemplified in the revolutionary Terror in France (PR, §57; §57R; §57A; §5R). Geography and Genealogy: Circumstances of Justice as Freedom Hegel is clear that his argument in the Philosophy of Right needs to be understood in the light of his philosophical system. The text is written us‑ ing his philosophical terminology and makes reference to his logic and his philosophies of nature and spirit, including to his phenomenology of spirit. This is important because claims from these other aspects of his philoso‑ phy are worked into his account of, but also silences about, contemporary circumstances and concomitant requirements of justice. As I  interpret it, the Philosophy of Right offers answers to the questions: what set of ­legal and political institutions and arrangements are adequate to the circum‑ stances in which subjects understand themselves as self‑determining as individuals, persons, and citizens? How is it possible to experience and

206  Kimberly Hutchings identify one’s individual freedom with one’s immersion in a form of ethical life? But, on investigation, it becomes clear that the answers offered in the Philosophy of Right are premised on the basis that not everyone quali‑ fies fully as a free individual in the first place. The circumstances of jus‑ tice are differentiated. Specifically, white women and non‑white men and women (though the latter are rarely specifically mentioned) do not qualify as self‑determining individuals in the fullest sense. They occupy a liminal, external, and asynchronous position in the contemporary time and space of justice, both necessary to and outside of the institutional, regulative, and recognitive structures that Hegel argues do justice to the idea of spirit as self‑determination. There have now been several decades of scholarship that have unpacked the sexed/gendered and racialized dimensions of Hegel’s philosophical sys‑ tem. This has provoked a lot of arguments about whether or not Hegel is fundamentally racist and sexist in this thinking and also about whether, if he is, this undermines his argument about the meaning of justice as freedom or whether those elements of his work can be either dismissed as peripheral or overcome by the terms of his own dialectic (McCarney and Bernasconi 2003; James and Knappick 2023). Without wishing to rehearse all these ar‑ guments here, given the textual evidence it would be hard to justify the idea that Hegel was simply a child of his time, with no way of thinking outside the box of prevalent views about race and sexual difference in his day, in particular given that both of these concepts were in the process of forma‑ tion at the time he was writing (Lacqueur 1992; Bernasconi and McCarney 2003; Stone 2010). As Benhabib has noted with respect to sexual difference and Bernasconi with respect to race, Hegel did have access to alternative ways of thinking (Benhabib 1992; Bernasconi 1998, see also: Purtschert 2010; Tibebu 2011; Zambrana 2021; Mascat 2022). Instead, he chose to endorse a particularly derogatory reading of the capacities of women and Africans. The important question for Hegel scholars, then, is whether we can see his views on race and sexual difference as peripheral to his over‑ arching argument and/or be able to overcome within Hegel’s own terms. This is essentially the question of whether the inferiority (backwardness) of white and non‑white women and of non‑white men play a necessary part in the circumstances and therefore also the requirements of justice. By engaging with the issues of kinship and the family, with disputes over racial diversity as well as with scientific debates about life, repro‑ duction and the meaning of sexual difference, Hegel contributed to a philosophical re‑articulation of genealogical relations, or to the shap‑ ing of a new vocabulary through which political, social, cultural and epistemic transformations were rendered intelligible in distinctive ways. (Lettow 2019, 257)

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  207 Susanne Lettow usefully brings issues of race and sexual difference ­together in her discussion of how genealogical arguments surrounding the mean‑ ings of race and sexual difference are transformed in spatial as well as temporal terms in Hegel’s thought. What is interesting is that although Hegel’s conceptualizations of race and sexual difference were not the same, in both cases we find similar argumentative moves in which temporal and spatial relativisation work in tandem to confirm the ambivalent position of women (who are treated by Hegel as a non‑differentiated category) and non‑whites as self‑determining. In relation to race, Hegel rejected a purely genealogical account and was dismissive of the terms of ongoing debates between proponents of monogenesis and polygenesis positions in explaining the origins of humanity (Lettow 2019). Instead, he argued for an environmental, civilizational account, in which different characteris‑ tics were associated with different climates and regions of the world. In ­Hegel’s philosophy of history, notoriously, the characteristics associated with Amerindian and African civilization, and therefore with Amerindi‑ ans and Africans, were those of passivity, stupidity, and weakness (LPH1, 193–7). These were peoples whom history passed by except through ex‑ ternal intervention by representatives of other more dynamic civilizations. At best they were childlike and in need of adult discipline, which histori‑ cally took the form of killing, colonization, and enslavement, as Hegel explicitly identified (LPH1, 193–7; Hoffheimer 2001; Buck-Morss 2009; Tibebu 2011). Those associated with oriental civilization were somewhat more generously treated in Hegel’s account. Chinese, Indian, and Islamic civilizations and peoples were acknowledged to be genuine instantiations of spirit but as stalled by their incapacity to recognize and institutional‑ ize the principle of individual self‑determination (LPH1, 206). In Hegel’s summary of the different shapes of world‑historical spirit at the end of the Philosophy of Right, it is noticeable that, in keeping with claims made in his philosophy of history, Africa and the Americas are absent from the story of the development of spirit, the oriental realm figures as the first genuinely historical form of spirit (PR, §356). However, it is when the oriental realm is superseded by the Greek and the theater of history moves to Europe that history takes on a progressive developmental dynamic. Having rejected genealogical accounts of racial distinction stemming from polygenesis, Hegel reintroduces diachrony into a spatialized account of racial distinction by mapping the more or less ethically backward charac‑ teristics of different, geographically located civilizations onto a story about the historical progress of spirit, with Caucasians (whites) as the true bear‑ ers of world‑history (PR, §356–8). The idea of the Germanic realm as the instantiation of spirit, whether Hegel understands it as the culmination of historical progress or not, only makes sense in terms of its supersession of other forms of spirit and requires either their exclusion or defeat.

208  Kimberly Hutchings Hegel also spatialized and temporalized accounts of kinship and the f­ amily, contrasting contemporary (Caucasian) forms of bourgeois marriage and family with kinship relations characteristic of ancient societies (Rome) and contemporary backward civilizations (India). In his account of the bourgeois family as an element of ethical life necessary to the realization of justice as freedom, Hegel argues that natural sexual difference is produced at the level of social organization as a new kind of complementary differ‑ ence by the relation of marriage (PR, §166). Hegel goes on to explain that the husband lives a dual private and public existence, with the private very much subordinate to, and supportive of, the demands of the public. The wife, in contrast, has her vocation within the family, her work is there, and she is unfit for the demands of public existence. In contrast to men, women (all women) are unable to appreciate the universal, for them everything is understood in terms of immediate, contingent relations, which makes them dependent on inclination and opinion rather than truth and renders them untrustworthy of any kind of public office (PR, §166A). A key feature of the bourgeois family for Hegel is that property is now essentially connected to marriage rather than to “the wider circle of their blood relations” as in societies based on kinship either in the ancient world or in contemporary Asia (PR, §172A). Property continues to be a signifi‑ cant theme as Hegel moves on to discuss the place of children within the bourgeois family, and what he calls its “dissolution.” In contrast to ancient modes of family organization, oriented towards the survival of a kinship, where children remained in perpetual nonage, the child of the family is a free individual and must be made to be able to live as a free individual (PR, §§177–80). For Hegel, the bourgeois family is the context in which property‑owning individuals can be produced and sustained—it is thus both a condition and an outcome of justice as freedom. After his discussion of the family, Hegel goes on to delineate the dynamics of modern civil society as the sphere of the interaction of “persons” in production and exchange and, in turn, to explain the characteristics of the state needed to sustain both civil society and family. Unsurprisingly, women and the sexual division of labor set out in the discussion of “family” scarcely figure as this discussion devel‑ ops. The introduction of woman as an instantiation of freedom, in Hegel’s insistence on the necessity of her free consent to marriage, simultaneously excludes her from domains of social interaction outside of the family, such as paid work or citizenship, in which men understand themselves as free. Hegel’s discussion of civil society and then of the state, the public realms of ethical life occupied by the sons that the family has produced, reinforces the importance within the Philosophy of Right’s narrative of a series of positions that operate either outside or only partially within the terms of justice as freedom. Either these positions are entangled with an alternative time/space, as in the case of women and the agricultural class, or they are

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  209 fundamentally distinguishable from the time/space of justice as freedom, as in contemporary India and Egypt, the ancient societies of Greece and Rome, or the worlds that are open to the colonization through which ten‑ sions inherent in contemporary modes and relations of production and exchange may be addressed (PR, §162A; §§163–4; §167; §180R; §248; §248A). As already noted, Hegel scholars have tended to focus on the question of whether these positionalities are fixed in Hegel’s argument or open to being overcome by the “inner pulse” of spirit. Is it possible for everyone to become an individual, a person, and a citizen and to participate fully in the time and space of justice as freedom? There is some evidence in Hegel’s texts that he did not see such positions as fixed and that prod‑ ucts of any civilization were open to education in the meaning of spirit and therefore to self‑understanding in terms of freedom. For example, in keeping with his environmental explanation of racial difference, he sug‑ gests that when exposed to modern conditions of justice as freedom, it is possible, for example, for Jews to assimilate to contemporary ethical life (PR, §270Note). And he asserts that individuals in the modern state are recognized as individuals rather than as embodying particular religious or ethnic identities (McCarney 2003). However, this possibility is paradoxi‑ cal within the terms of Hegel’s own argument, in particular when applied to Amerindians, Africans, and women of all races. This is because these categories of people are depicted as fundamentally ineducable in Hegel’s work, and they play a necessary role in being uneducable. Their stalled position in the context of spirit as self‑determination provides either the conditions for the nurture of persons and citizens or the fields in which self‑determination is exercised in practices of colonization and war. The possibility of freedom for women and non‑whites remains paradoxical if the circumstances of justice that have enabled the education of spirit still apply. If Hegel’s account of those circumstances is to be respected, hi‑ erarchical raced and sexed/gendered positionalities support and maintain the sons who go forth into civil society and identify their individual self‑­ determination with that of the state. Justice as freedom is mired in relation with what is not justice as freedom. Moreover, the ways in which those sons are able to realize their freedom depend on raced and sexed/gendered patterns of recognition that are embedded in being an individual (husband/ son), a person (property owner/worker), and a citizen (patriot) within con‑ temporary ethical life. The Sexual/Racial Contract and the Possibility of Justice The integration of raced and sexed differentiation into Hegel’s account of the circumstances of justice in the Philosophy of Right is most obvious in his discussion of the family as a sphere of ethical life but can also be seen

210  Kimberly Hutchings in his discussions of slavery, the agricultural class, colonization, and world history, along with the persistent way in which he explains his vision of an ethical life adequate to self‑determination by comparison with historically and geographically located alternatives. This is an account that, as Lettow points out, renders intelligible the novel requirements of justice in Hegel’s time through a particular specification of the time and space of that justice. Throughout the text, Hegel draws attention to the ways in which the pre‑ sent here is conditioned by the past there. In line with ­Lettow’s account of how genealogy (time) is rendered geographically (space) in ­Hegel’s thought, however, this is a non‑contemporaneous contemporaneity. In other words, the past there is simultaneous with the present here in the work done by women and non‑whites that sustains justice as self‑­determination. This tells us something important about the amount of work that cannot be captured in terms of self‑determination that is needed to sustain an ethical life explicitly structured in those terms, but it also tells us about how the very conditions of such an ethical life continually threaten the coherence of its self‑understanding and the institutions on which it rests (Hutchings 2012, 2017). As noted at the beginning of this chapter, readings of Hegel such as ­Honneth’s require that Hegel’s account of contemporary ethical life is un‑ derstood holistically and as elaborating a coherent analytical and norma‑ tive position in its account of what justice might mean in modern societies. Readers who reject and condemn Hegel’s account of ethical life, such as Tibebu, on the grounds of its profound racism and sexism, also address Hegel’s account of modern ethical life as offering a coherent analytical and normative story (Tibebu 2011). In both cases, Hegel’s philosophy of history is read linearly and the account of “now” and “here” (Hegel’s “now” and “here”) is taken to be a singular, geographically located pre‑ sent. There is textual evidence to support this view and Hegel’s authorial voice often seems to endorse this way of reading, whether one approves of Hegel’s idea of contemporary ethical life or not. However, investigat‑ ing the role of sexual difference and of race in Hegel’s philosophy of right suggests an alternative line of interpretation, one which foregrounds the gaps and contradictions in Hegel’s account of the space and time of mo‑ dernity. ­Approaching the text in this way enables us to think about how self‑deception is intrinsic to every aspect of spirit as instantiated in modern ethical life and in particular to the positionality of the white, bourgeois “son” who understands himself as free both because and in spite of his hierarchical distinction from women and non‑white others. It also suggests that when this self‑deception is questioned, the circumstances of justice and vision of freedom as justice that emerges from them may be threatened by the perspective of those who are unable to identify with the positional‑ ity of the white, bourgeois son.

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  211 This is made most explicit by Hegel in the Philosophy of Right in his insistence on the dangers posed by women and the “rabble” to an ethical life that enables white, bourgeois sons to understand themselves as free. Women undermine government, if given public office they will corrupt the work of freedom in the light of their private ends and incapacity to grasp the principles of public life in the market and state (PR §166A). Rocio Zambrana, discussing Hegel’s account of habit as a crucial element in how individual and collective self‑determination is rendered compatible, points to how the “rabble” shares women’s construction as a danger to the terms of ethical life (Zambrana 2021). The category of the dispossessed created by the operation of free individuality in market relations is a direct threat to the maintenance of those relations and has to be managed and contained in a variety of ways (Zambrana 2021, 9–13). The rabble does not embody or embrace the social norm, it is profoundly other. Like sexed/gendered and racialized positionalities in general, the rabble interrupts and contradicts the circumstances of justice and threatens to stall spirit’s realization of itself as self‑determination. Hegel speaks of the importance of habit to the ways in which individuals, persons, and citizens are able to walk the streets at night in safety as one example of how individual and collective self‑­determination comes together in the modern state. This is possible, he  argues, because of the way in which citizens are able to take for granted the hard work of the police. The question he does not address is how women, non‑whites, the homeless, and dispossessed would be able to develop this habit and take the work of the police for granted as benign (§268A). Habits are assessed in the light of norms with ontological weight, re‑ producing a specific view of humanity and personhood that is not only Western but more specifically white, bourgeois, with a diamorphic and heterosexual view of sex/gender. (Zambrana 2021, 7) Women, rabble, non‑whites not only enable but also mediate the white bourgeois son’s capacity to understand himself as individually and col‑ lectively self‑determining. They do this in sustaining his difference through the provision of care, enabling his capacity to own property and his op‑ portunities to go forth and colonize. They are central to his capacity to identify external as well as internal enemies to freedom, which in turn enables the exercise of self‑determination in patriotism (ultimately war) as well as in policing (PR, §268R; §268A). In this respect Hegel’s analysis is extraordinarily resonant with contemporary experiences of freedom (and unfreedom) within the state. Carole Pateman and Charles Mills have famously tried to capture the raced and sexed/gendered relations of domination and subordination

212  Kimberly Hutchings characteristics of the modern state in the ideas of the sexual and racial ­contracts, respectively (Mills 1997; Pateman 1988; Pateman and Mills 2007). If we take Hegel’s account of the historically produced, spatial and temporal circumstances of justice as a testament not to history’s progress but to the broken and contradictory conditions of modern freedom, then it could be argued that Hegel exposes the sexual and racial contracts as conditioning each other as well as conditioning the ways in which justice has been instantiated in the terms of self‑determination within the modern state. Both Pateman and Mills argue for the epistemic significance of stand‑ point in accounts of justice. When Hegel embraces the imagined viewpoint of the white, bourgeois son, then he also embraces the positionalities of his others, women, non‑whites, poor as somehow necessary and effectively buries his dependence on their subordination. Pateman and Mills would argue that this exemplifies either unconscious or willful ignorance, in con‑ trast to the epistemic possibilities of thinking about justice as freedom from the spatio‑temporal standpoint of the oppressed. At the same time, in lay‑ ing out the complex conditions and meaning of justice as freedom, it could be argued that Hegel is also providing us with resources for this thinking. Recent work in the history of late twentieth‑century liberal political thought has drawn attention to the ways Rawls’s approach to theorizing justice, based on a high level of abstraction and detachment of thought from context, displaced an existing set of philosophical debates in the US about the justice of reparations for slavery (Hogan 2017; Forrester 2019). This reparative, diachronic approach to thinking about justice has been revived in debates influenced by the work of Mills and others and by the ongoing critique of “ideal theory” in addressing questions of justice (Lu 2017; Mills 2019). Debates about justice have begun again to take seriously the impor‑ tance of how circumstances of justice are historically produced rather than transhistorically given but are also mired in practices of self‑deception in which what are actually privileges and relations of subordination are identi‑ fied as rights and the exercise of self‑determination, whether in the owner‑ ship of property or the capacity to move safely across borders or on streets (Mills 1997; Bell 2019). The relevance of Hegel as a theorist of justice in this context is precisely in his exposure of the ways in which in the modern state, made up of commitments to particular forms of family, market and political relations, subordination and domination are not relics of the past that could be overcome within the present, but simultaneously condition and produce here and now, whichever geographical region we inhabit. Conclusion Hegel’s account of justice as self‑determination is important for thinking about justice and injustice in contemporary ethical life, but its relevance is

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  213 not to do with Hegel’s success or failure in elaborating a theory of justice. Rather, I have argued, it gives us fundamental insights into the sexual and racial contracts that underpin the idea of the modern state. In doing so, it also draws attention to how women, non‑whites, and those dispossessed by market relations may operate as subversive powers, challenging accounts of the realization of self‑determination as individual, person, and citizen in the modern state. What happens to ideas of justice and freedom if they are de‑ tached from a narrative in which the defeat and enslavement of populations is part of a historical story of the triumph of freedom as self‑determination? What happens to ideas of justice and freedom if they are detached from a narrative in which location in relations of love and care incapacitates you for citizenship? What happens to ideas of justice and freedom when they are detached from the idea that all women are white and all non‑whites are men? The provocation of Hegel’s thought for feminist and decolonial thinkers lies not in the appeal of his theory of justice as such, or in any promise that the ideal of self‑determination will eventually be delivered to everyone, but in his account of the time and space of justice. This draws attention to the dangers of a form of ethical life constructed on the privileg‑ ing of a particular account of the meaning of self‑determination and also puts into question the validity of this account, given its contamination by multiple dependencies on what does not count as self‑determining being. Regardless of what may have been Hegel’s intention, his account of the time and space of justice as self‑determination is not “smooth,” it is fragile and contradictory and works against, even as it sustains, a linear narrative about the direction of history and the meanings of justice and freedom. Note 1 Elements of the Philosophy of Right is cited according to the version edited by Allen W. Wood, translated by H. B. Nisbet.

References Bell, Duncan. 2019. Empire, Race and Global Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‑ versity Press. Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. “On Hegel, Women and Irony.” In Id., Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics, 242–59. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bernasconi, Robert. 1998. “Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti.” In Hegel After Derrida, edited by Stuart Barnett, 41–63. London: Routledge. Brooks, Thom. 2007. Hegel’s Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Buchwalter, Andrew. 2012. Hegel and Global Justice. New York and London: Springer.

214  Kimberly Hutchings Buck-Morss, Susan. 2009. Hegel, Haiti and Universal History. Pittsburgh: Pitts‑ burgh University Press. Comay, Rebecca.  2011. Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Forrester, Katrina. 2019. “Reparations, History and the Origins of Global Justice.” In Empire, Race and Global Justice, edited by Duncan Bell, 22–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gray, Biko Mandela, and Ryan J. Johnson. 2023. Phenomenology of Black Spirit. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hoffheimer, Michael H. 2001. “Hegel, Race and Genocide.” Southern Journal of Philosophy (Supplement) 39: 35–62. Hogan, Brandon. 2017. “Ideal Theory and Racial Justice: Some Hegelian Consid‑ erations.” In Creolizing Hegel, edited by Michael Monahan, 225–42. London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Honneth, Axel. 2000. Suffering from Indeterminacy: An Attempt at the Reactualiza‑ tion of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right.” Translated by Jack Ben‑Levi. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum. Hutchings, Kimberly. 2003. Hegel and Feminist Philosophy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hutchings, Kimberly. 2012. “Hard Work: Hegel and the Meaning of the State in his Philosophy of Right.” In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Essays on Ethics, Poli‑ tics and Law, edited by Thom Brooks, 124–42. Oxford: Blackwell. Hutchings, Kimberly. 2017. “Living the Contradictions: Wives, Husbands and Children in Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right.” In Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right: A Critical Guide, edited by David James, 97–115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutchings, Kimberly, and Tuija Pulkkinen, eds. 2010. Hegel’s Philosophy and Feminist Thought: Beyond Antigone? New York: Palgrave Macmillan. James, Daniel, and Franz Knappick. 2023. “Exploring the Metaphysics of Hegel’s Racism: The Teleology of the ‘Concept’ and the Taxonomy of Races.” Hegel Bulletin 44, no. 1: 99–126. Laqueur, Thomas. 1992. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Lettow, Susanne. 2019. “Re‑articulating Genealogy: Hegel on Kinship, Race and Reproduction.” Hegel Bulletin 42, no. 2: 256–76. Lu, Catherine. 2017. Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarney, Joseph and Robert Bernasconi. 2003. “Hegel’s Racism.” Radical Phi‑ losophy 119: 32–7. Mascat, Jamila. 2022. “Race, Feminism and Critical Race Theories: What’s Hegel Got to do With It?” In The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Femi‑ nist Philosophy, edited by Susanne Lettow and Tuija Pulkkinen, 329–51. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mills, Charles W. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mills, Charles W. 2017. “Race and Global Justice.” In Empire, Race and Global Justice, edited by Duncan Bell, 94–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Monahan, Michael, ed. 2017. Creolizing Hegel. London and New York: Roman and Littlefield.

Hegel on Race, Gender, and the Time and Space of Justice  215 Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pateman, Carole and Charles W. Mills. 2007. Contract and Domination. ­Cambridge: Polity Press. Popper, Karl. 2002 [1945]. The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume II. London: Routledge. Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Purtschert, Patricia. 2010. “On the Limit of Spirit: Hegel’s Racism Revisited.” Phi‑ losophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 9: 1039–51. Shilliam, Robbie. 2009. “Hegel’s Revolution in Philosophy.” Chapter Four in ­German Thought and International Relations: The Rise and Fall of a Liberal Project, 88–117. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stone, Alison. 2010. “Matter and Form: Hegel, Organicism, and the Difference between Women and Men.” In Hegel’s Philosophy and Feminist Thought: ­ ­Beyond Antigone? edited by Kimberly Hutchings and Tuija Pulkkinen, 211–32. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tibebu, Teshale. 2011. Hegel and the Third World: The Making of Eurocentrism in World History. New York: Syracuse University Press. Winfield, Richard Dien. 1988. Reason and Justice. Albany: State University of New York Press. Zambrana, Rocío. 2021. “Bad Habits: Habit, Idleness and Race in Hegel.” Hegel Bulletin 42, no. 1: 1–18.

13 Hegel on Justice and Nature Elaine P. Miller

Introduction In the introduction to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel contrasts the n ­ ecessity of nature with that of the state ironically, indicating that the popular view of his time conceives nature to be inherently rational due to the “eternal harmony” of its laws, but the ethical world of the state to be “left to the mercy of chance and caprice” because it is dependent on reason as it ac‑ tualizes itself in self‑consciousness (PR, 6).1 One aim of Hegel’s work is to prove the falsity of this view and to demonstrate that justice and the state are inherently rational in their harmony with nature. Indeed, the very dis‑ tinction between nature and the state which gives rise to the apprehension of nature as “real world” in its distinction from human caprice presupposes and is conditioned by the actualization of human endeavors. “Nature” can‑ not ultimately be conceptualized as a primal raw material upon which spirit acts. Instead, the commonsense conception of nature as “prior” depends upon its already having been taken up by spirit (EPM, 14). In the introduc‑ tion to the Encyclopedia Philosophy of Nature, Hegel writes that mind (or spirit) liberates nature, which is always already implicitly reason, but can only be actualized as such through spirit (EPN, 13). The aim of the philoso‑ phy of nature is that spirit should find in nature its own essence. Estranged from this unity, nature is only a “corpse of the understanding,” and it is this corpse that superficial physics and other empirical sciences study in an abstract and formal way. To do justice to nature is to understand it as an integral part of the ideal unity of nature and spirit. Hegel writes, “Spirit cannot remain at this stage of thinking in terms of detached, unrelated concepts (Verstandesreflexion)” (EPN, 11). Hegel equally proscribes think‑ ing of justice in this way in his essays “Natural Law”2 and “The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate” (ETW). The detached, unrelated concepts of the understanding are linked in these works to a conception of justice as abstract and mostly retributive, whereas the true activity of reason brings justice and nature back together, manifesting their inherent unity. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362531-14

Hegel on Justice and Nature  217 Scholars who read Hegel’s work in relation to environmental q ­ uestions have not paid attention to his essay “The Scientific Ways of Treating Natu‑ ral Law,” which appeared in two parts of the Kritisches Journal der Phi‑ losophie, edited by Hegel and Schelling, in December 1802 and May 1803. Instead, they primarily focus on Hegel’s 1812 Science of Logic (SL), the 1821 Philosophy of Right (PR), or even the 1809 Phenomenology of Spirit (PS).3 Hegel’s original title for the Philosophy of Right was “Natural Law and Political Science in Outline.” Natural law, as outlined in the early text, is, if not a synonym for right, very closely related to it. It is impor‑ tant to recall how Hegel distinguished his own conception of natural law from others popular at the time, and the early essay is the place where he makes these differences most explicitly. Although on the surface natural law seems to have little to do with organic nature, I will argue that nature is central to, and indeed inseparable from, Hegel’s conception of justice, and thus, a theory of environmental justice, arising out of an ethical com‑ munity which exists in and through nature, can be drawn from it. Hegel’s early conception of natural law can shed light on his view of nature’s role in a theory of justice and, by extension, on a theory of en‑ vironmental justice. By “natural law” Hegel means not scientific laws of nature, nor divinely ordained rules of the universe. Both of these, he ar‑ gues, are one‑sided and depend for their coherence on a stark dichotomy drawn between nature, on the one hand, and law, on the other. Instead, he envisions natural law as the alternative to either empirically and thus con‑ tingently derived principles of human order or formal and universal prin‑ ciples grounded in human supersensible nature. Natural law (Naturrecht), which Hegel renames Recht, or “right” in the Philosophy of Right, refers to principles that reflect a reconciliation of nature and spirit in ethical life. We can see the development of this relation between nature and spirit best by looking to moments in which it is violated, that is, in Hegel’s dis‑ cussions of crime, punishment, and reconciliation. Crime is the antithesis that is generated in reaction to the internally contradictory nature of each stage of the development of ethical life. With the reconciliation of these contradictions through an increasingly complex system of justice, nature is neither jettisoned nor overlooked. Instead, nature is retroactively consti‑ tuted as the condition for, and thus an essential part of, ethical life. I will begin by looking to the early essay on natural law, in order to identify and explain the two types of natural law that Hegel criticizes, the empirical and the formal. I will briefly defend the view that Recht can be equally understood as justice and as right. Finally, I will look in depth at how nature appears as an underlying and essential ground throughout the Philosophy of Right, one which is disguised in its importance by the fact that in this context it is always a part of human social endeavors. I will argue that, as in the natural law essay, the human relation to nature can

218  Elaine P. Miller be understood as tragic but not sacrificial in nature. Although nature’s ­presence gradually diminishes as an explicit concept through the course of the Philosophy of Right, it remains as the underlying foundation of justice. The Natural Law Essay In natural law theory, a theory of the logical priority of the idea of jus‑ tice over that of law maintains that the concept of justice can be defined independently of any particular law or set of laws and that, as Aristotle writes, what is just by nature is not always the same as what is just by law (See Burns 1996, 12–14). Hegel consistently contrasts “positive” or con‑ ventional law with genuinely ethical, or natural, law, although he believes that the two should ultimately coincide. In pre‑modern philosophy, phi‑ losophers such as Aquinas equated natural law with the natural order of being, or the rational structure of the cosmos, and often with teleological conceptions of nature and/or the will of god. However, modern concep‑ tions of natural law justified the “naturalness” of the law by grounding it in human reason and in structures immanent to human institutions rather than in any external natural order. This grounding of law in human reason equated human nature with reason and argued that natural law can be discovered through the proper use of reason. Hegel’s essay “The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law” considers and critiques two competing historical strains in modern natural law theory: the first, which Hegel names the “empirical” version, can be found in social contract theories of the state, for example in Hobbes and Locke. Such empiricism, according to Hegel, illegitimately conjectures de‑ terminate natural characteristics of human beings in “states of nature,” characteristics so far in the distant past that we cannot know them, by abstracting from contingent features of modern human beings, civil socie‑ ties, or states of law and then claiming that they are independent of or prior to any particular empirical state of affairs. Hegel compares the theory of a state of nature from which civil society emerges to a scientific theory that posits the emergence of the organized physical world from a state of chaos. Hegel calls such theories arbitrary “content without form” (Hegel 1975, 63). Hegel argues that the natural is the origin of the ethical in con‑ trast to the empirical theory of natural right, which decisively severs the ethical from the natural. In conceiving the state of nature as something to be “sacrificed” for the sake of civil society, this form of natural law theory does not properly represent nature as the origin of ethical life. For Hegel, “the absolute Idea of ethical life…contains both majesty and the state of nature as simply identical, since the former is nothing but absolute ethical nature” (Hegel 1975, 66). Empirical theories of natural law posit a strict

Hegel on Justice and Nature  219 divide between nature and justice and conceptualize nature negatively as that which is untouched by human society. The second form of natural law theory, called the “formalist” version, is grounded on the ideal of natural secular right, which can be traced to the eighteenth‑century ethical and legal theories of Kant and Fichte. The natural right of a person, according to this view, is the a priori absolute right from which every theory of right or law should be constituted, in relation to which any malformed law should be evaluated and modified. Hegel criticizes this conception of natural law as “form without content” because it does not seek to show how the purely formal principle of natural right relates to specific rights, duties, or obligations, much less the laws and institutions of a specific state. The rationality of ethical life, according to Hegel, is not manifested merely in the logical consistency of practical maxims of action (as in Kant) but in the unity of human life. Ethical life cannot be considered merely at the level of the individual but must take as its point of departure the entire ethical community. Despite having previ‑ ously dismissed the empirical theory of natural law, Hegel holds it to be superior to the formal theory for having at least engaged with “the specific character of the content entangled and bound up with other specific char‑ acters.” This specific content “is essentially an organic and living whole,” even if empiricism itself does not conceive it in this way. Abstract or formal philosophizing “dismembers” the living natural whole out of which ethics springs and turns it into a lifeless corpse or skeleton (Hegel 1975, 69, see also PS, §51). Empiricism, despite its engagement with nature, “merely brushes” with the Concept and remains a finite multiplicity rather than an infinity (Hegel 1975, 70). This infinity, which Hegel counterposes to empiricism (having already rejected formalism), is the absolute Concept in its natural form, which is characterized by “multiple metamorphoses,” the “principle of movement and change” whose “essence is nothing but to be the unmediated opposite of itself” (Hegel 1975, 70). In other words, nature is an essential part of the conceptual unity. Even stronger, “nature” can only be abstracted as a concept retrospectively as the necessary condition for the justice which it constitutes. Hegel proposes a third definition of natural law, one that has been char‑ acterized as an “organic,” encompassing both form and content (Burns 1996, 52; Hyppolite 1996, 38f), reflecting its dynamic, generative na‑ ture. Unlike the other, modern, versions, this natural law theory is not grounded in the rational individual, although it does leave room for and value s­ ubjective freedom. This ideal is a living and organized state, trace‑ able in its origin to the ethical life of Greek antiquity but incorporating the rise of liberal individuality as a necessary step in the historical development of right.4

220  Elaine P. Miller Hegel maintains a balance between the empirical and the formal ideas of natural law by excluding at the outset the philosophical strategy of con‑ trasting ethical life to a theoretical or imaginary state of nature. He argues in the natural law essay that absolute spirit is present in every spirit of a particular people but that there will always be a discrepancy between the two. This residue, also called “fate,” can be thought of in a purely negative sense as external or “inorganic” nature. “Fate” is the element of necessity with which the individual and the community must, but often cannot be, reconciled. Hegel characterizes the history of natural law as “tragic”: there is nothing else but the performance, on the ethical plane, of the tragedy which the Absolute eternally enacts with itself, by eternally giv‑ ing birth to itself into objectivity, submitting in this objective form to suffering and death, and rising from its ashes into glory. The Divine in its form and objectivity is immediately double‑natured, and its life is the absolute unity of these natures. (Hegel 1975, 104) Hegel’s language of double spiritual and objective nature recalls the Chris‑ tian Trinity, in which the Divine actualizes itself in a material body, but he characterizes this incorporation as tragic, emphasizing the irreducibly earthly nature of the Absolute. Hegel evokes Aeschylus’ Oresteia, at the conclusion of which the people of Athens vote to create a court of law with a mandate to settle human conflicts that otherwise would lead to an infinite chain of revenge and ret‑ ribution. Athena herself casts the deciding vote and thereby brings about a reconciliation of “savage nature” with human justice. Tragedy, Hegel says, is the process by which “ethical nature segregates its inorganic nature” in order to avoid becoming embroiled in it. By first placing external na‑ ture outside of itself, acknowledging the necessary initial struggle against it, ethical life is ultimately reconciled as the unity of freedom and nature (­Hegel 1975, 105). Recht as “Right” and as “Justice” Hegel uses the word Recht, most often translated into English as “right” rather than “justice.” In German, Recht can be translated as either “right” or “law,” but both of these translations, although accurate in ordinary usage, are abstract and one‑sided in a Hegelian sense. The concept of a “right,” as in a human right, is intangible and fully subjective in Hege‑ lian terms, whereas a “law” is overly positive and formal and stands over and against the subject as something they must obey. Both concepts are extensions of the definition of free will in its relation to material nature.

Hegel on Justice and Nature  221 Hegel writes: “If the free will is not to remain abstract, it must in the first place give itself an existence.” Good “should not simply remain in my inner life; it should realize itself.” At the same time, however, “the sheer immediacy of existence is not adequate to freedom” (PR, §33Z). Nature understood as a mere backdrop to or means for human projects would fall under this unsatisfactory description of “sheer immediacy of existence.” Through the stages of the philosophy of right the human being comes to understand the insufficiency of a metaphysical conception of human exist‑ ence placed over and against nature as its other. Recht, then, is broader than either a right or a law or even a collection or system of either. Hegel defines right as “freedom as Idea” and specifies that in speaking of right he means not merely civil law “but also morality, ethi‑ cal life, and world history…because the concept brings thoughts together into a true system” (PR, §33Z). Hegel’s indication that Recht includes all of ethical life and world history adds weight to the idea that by Recht he is referring in briefer form to (his own conception of) Naturrecht. Nature in the Philosophy of Right What would it mean to read the Philosophy of Right as a treatise on natural law in the tragic sense? In Hegel’s account of the movement in “­Abstract Right” from property to wrong to morality and ethical life, Hegel reiterates the “tragic” story of the Oresteia in terms more understandable to his con‑ temporary readers, namely, in an account of the development of criminal justice. Here, nature is what is “killed” and transmuted rather than “resur‑ rected,” in order to move from a stance in which it is merely an external surface against which particular persons assert their violent and “natural” right to an inherent part of a community of mutually recognizing subjects. We can see the presence of nature in every part of the Philosophy of Right but in particular in the beginning of the work. In the introduction to the Philosophy of Right, Hegel discusses the will that is only implicitly free, namely, the natural will. This will is implicitly rational but still imme‑ diate, so it is finite and “lacks the form of rationality” (PR, §11). Natural will consists of desires, inclinations, and impulses, but they are indetermi‑ nate in two ways: first, because desires such as hunger do not “belong” determinately to anyone specifically and second, because they could be satisfied by any number of determinate things (PR, §12). The “Empirical Version” of Natural Law in the Philosophy of Right In “Abstract Right,” Hegel discusses the natural existence of a person and the natural world itself as the concept in its immediacy, as things which just are (PR, §43, §146). Here the external natural world seems to directly

222  Elaine P. Miller confront the subject as something other (PR, §34). But this quality of b ­ eing “immediate spirit” does not mean that natural existence is not divine, in Hegel’s sense of the word. Nature at this juncture is “spirit asleep” (PR, §258Z), but it is spirit nonetheless. Every stage of the Philosophy of Right arguably concerns the relationship between the human being and nature in its development toward justice; just as spirit develops, so too does the conception of nature. Hegel repeatedly compares the nature of the state to an organic whole (PR, §258Z; §168Z). The conception of nature is consti‑ tuted retroactively, from external “other,” in Abstract Right, to an “evil” part of the individual inner subject that it wants to shed, in Morality, to the fully integrated natural Ethical Life of the community.5 Hegel starts in “Abstract Right” at the level of the person, which he calls an abstraction, since no person actually exists independent of connections to others. For the “person,” nature does stand over and against itself, but this is precisely the kind of stance that Hegel criticizes as one‑sided.6 From the beginning nature and spirit are intertwined and mutually interdepend‑ ent, but this relationship is not yet known to the “person,” for whom natural things other than humans seem to be externally pure and simple (PR §42). Hegel begins the section on property with the statement “A per‑ son must translate his freedom into an external sphere in order to exist as Idea” (PR, §41). His first example of property is not, like Locke, natural resources mixed with labor, however, but rather human natural attributes such as “mental aptitudes” or “artistic skill.” Nonetheless, an important part of a person’s natural existence also lies in their relation to the world (PR, §43), and Hegel’s discussion of property moves from bodily qualities and capacities to entities in the external world. To go beyond the most ab‑ stract level of absolute will, a human must (a) translate their freedom into an external sphere and (b) extend outward in relation to mutual recogni‑ tion with other humans. The first stage of translating one’s freedom into an external sphere consists in taking possession of one’s own (natural) body. The human’s immediate existence is natural and seemingly external to its concept or its potentiality. This externality is a misapprehension, however, for in recognizing oneself as free through the development of body and spirit, one “translates into actuality” what one is “according to one’s concept” (PR, §57).7 Let us look at an example of this process in which the human body, the part of nature with which we are most intimately familiar, has to be appropriated and made mine by cultivating aptitudes and talents that are already latent within it. In a sense one can say that I first come into pos‑ session of my aptitude to play the piano only when I began to exercise the repetitions necessary to begin to play. One might say that in doing so I take what was “external” to me, my body, specifically my newly dexter‑ ous fingers and my ear for tone, and make it into an integrated part of me,

Hegel on Justice and Nature  223 through practice. But the body is not “outside” me except as the object of abstracting thought, which can separate my aptitude from my actual bod‑ ily skill. One side is purely potential and disembodied, while the other is fully embodied. I can divide these two into “body” and “spirit” retrospec‑ tively, but they are and always have been unified. To recognize the unity of body and spirit in concrete practice is to understand at a rudimentary level a truth that repeats throughout the book, namely, that nature was never fully external to the human being. In every stage of the Philosophy of Right, this process is repeated, and “nature” is constituted retroactively as spirit becomes more and more complex. From property in one’s own body, Hegel moves to property as posses‑ sion, use, and alienation of nature and finally to contract, all of which imply a relation to nature and a relation between people. Property is an extension of the concept of personhood, a translation of this abstract free‑ dom into an external sphere (PR, §41). This property, in order to be fully instantiated, must be recognized by others (PR, §51). Property as recog‑ nized “contains the moment of a will,” not only of the owner but also of “the will of a second person” (PR, §72). However, this “principle of rightness” is something that is “merely posited” at the rudimentary stage of contract. In other words, prior to the violation of a contract, there is nothing more guaranteeing it than the “arbitrariness and particular will of the parties” involved (PR, §82). Any violation of the contract will expose it as a “nullity,” and in order for Recht to be reasserted, actualized, and validated, the negation would have to be negated by addressing and right‑ ing the wrong. Thus, Hegel introduces the concept of justice through the almost imme‑ diate tension that occurs when a rudimentary contract is broken. Because this wrong is situated at the border between nature and the social order, it can be understood in analogy to the piano student who makes mistakes and corrects them, appropriating their nature as their own. In the same way, through the development of a response to criminality, persons are re‑ minded that nature, with its self‑correcting dynamic, remains an essential part of the concept of justice throughout. In Natural Law, Hegel uses the account, in Aeschylus’ tragic trilogy Oresteia, of the movement from retributive justice to the establishment of a court of law which can mediate crimes. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel’s example of reneging on the terms of a contract ultimately exposes the first rudimentary political alliance of human beings as an “appear‑ ance of right,” which is exposed as a mere “show” and nullified with the occurrence of wrong. Contract appears to be a correspondence between the particular will and Recht “in its essential embodiment,” but it cannot withstand the contradiction that occurs when the particular will asserts itself against the whole.

224  Elaine P. Miller The notion of retribution as a solution to crime is inherent to the “state of nature,” and contract is predicated upon the definition of an individ‑ ual person as a holder of abstract rights. A single person at this point, in ­Hegel’s view, lacks a supportive social structure that would allow it to view itself as free in an embodied sense. Rather, the “person,” whose “concept is abstract,” sees itself as completely determined in every way by “caprice, impulse, and desire,” yet nonetheless knows itself as something “infinite, universal, and free” (PR, §34). A transition thus begins between a purely “natural” and a “spiritual” identity. A stark opposition still remains at this stage between consciousness, which knows itself implicitly to be an abso‑ lutely free will, and the external world which directly confronts it (§34). Here we see Hegel actively working through the limitations that emerge from the first, “empirical” conception of natural law. Hegel writes that, just as in the natural law essay, the annulling of crime at this abstract stage is principally carried out through revenge (PR, §104). But revenge, because it is also the act of a particular will, “becomes a new transgression” and thereby would lead to an infinite chain of wrongs if not in turn sublated. This account remains one‑sided because there is no refer‑ ence whatsoever to inner life. It is only in addressing wrong, or crime, that Recht can “reassert itself by negating this negation of itself” and thereby make itself “actual and valid” (PR, §82). The establishment of a justice “freed from subjective interest” effects the transition into morality, for an impartial judge who can decide the terms of wrong and punishment is a moral agent (PR, §103). With the transition to Morality, personality becomes subjectivity, which takes itself explicitly as its own object, deter‑ mined as “self‑related negativity” (PR, §104). The “Formal Version” of Natural Law in the Philosophy of Right As pure self‑related negativity, subjectivity is purely inwardly turned, and nature becomes, in the moral standpoint, something which must be sup‑ pressed and overcome. In contrast to Abstract Right, where nature is an external other to be mined and owned and worked in order to be liberated from necessity, in Morality, nature is deemed to be internal to the human and nothing more than an impediment to freedom or purely subjective right. For the subjective will, universal moral imperatives are founded on a merely formal ought, the “self‑will of its own particularity,” without social structures to support it (PR, §139). Here, nature is reduced to the “natural will,” namely, desires, impulses, and inclinations.8 But this view of nature is morality’s shortcoming, for it is also one‑sided and abstract. Within the context of morality, Hegel’s discussion of crime solely con‑ cerns motive. This makes sense because the perspective of morality only takes into consideration the interiority of the mind. Hegel’s notes indicate

Hegel on Justice and Nature  225 dissatisfaction with diminishing or canceling culpability for a crime due to “natural impulses” such as mental illness, immaturity, or heat of passion. Such a practice fails to treat the criminal universally, “in accordance with the right and honour [sic] due to him as a man,” and instead considers him as a natural particular. Hegel associates this practice with a return to the state of nature where a man would be an “isolated hot feeling of revenge” or an “animal which would have to be knocked on the head as dangerous” (PR, §132). Here we see Hegel working through the second, “formal” mis‑ conception of natural law. Morality limits nature to the inclinations of the natural soul, and freedom to the freedom of the will. The “Organic Version” of Natural Law in the Philosophy of Right As noted earlier, freedom and morality must be translated into the concrete world in order to be fully actualized. Ethical life is “the concept of freedom developed into the existing world” (PR, §142). In ethical life, nature is so fully integrated into the social order that it is only mentioned briefly and without much elaboration. Hegel illustrates the intertwining of the natural and the ethical at every step. In marriage (part of ethical life), in contrast to the stance of morality, physical passion is not to be understood as a “pure negative,” not to be separated from the mental in a “monastic” way (PR, §163). Marriage’s physicality is one of its essential dimensions, yet it is pri‑ marily an ethical relation. Likewise, the family has a “natural dissolution” at the death of the parents (PR, §178), yet through inheritance its essential ethical dimension is preserved. Here, unlike in the discussion of morality, nature is not in an oppositional relation to freedom. In fact, Hegel directly relates the familial relationship, as a substantial whole that provides all the needs of its members, to the external “inorganic nature” from which the individual makes a livelihood (PR, §238). The condition of family life is “dependence on the earth,” while civil society’s natural element is the sea, “animating its outward movement” (PR, §247). Beyond this principle, nature makes an appearance in the discussion of civil society primarily in what Hegel calls the “system of needs.” It is here, along with the sections on public authority and corporations, that any dis‑ cussion of environmental justice, in the sense of access to clean water and air, or protection from environmental hazards, might arise. In civil society the “livelihood, welfare, and rightful existence of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, welfare, and rights of all,” form‑ ing a complete system of interdependence even as each burgher pursues their own selfish ends (PR, §183). Needs comprise basic “natural” goods such as food, water, and shelter but nonetheless are distinguished in civil society by departing almost completely from “animal” necessity. Hegel sees this departure as a good thing, not because it intensifies the selfishness

226  Elaine P. Miller and particularity of individual humans but precisely because, against their intention, it effects and brings to attention the essential interdependence of humans in society. Without realizing it, in pursuing their private ends, humans enter into a public and eventually explicitly political realm. Unlike an animal, whose needs and means of satisfying them are re‑ stricted in scope, humans’ needs multiply infinitely and transcend necessity in a way that manifests human “universality” and therefore the truth of civil society, according to Hegel. Not only does each individual depend on others to produce the things that would satisfy their needs, but the pro‑ duction of the goods itself is characterized by differentiation of labor that requires humans to work together (PR, §190). This power, generated when the pursuit of selfish need is given completely free rein, is both the engine and the destruction of particularity.9 In terms of criminal justice, the situation becomes much more complex in civil society due to the overriding emphasis on personal gain and the pursuit of ever more efficient means of attaining it. In civil society, prop‑ erty and personality now have legal recognition through a court of jus‑ tice, and so, Hegel writes, wrongdoing becomes an infringement of the universal, increasing its magnitude (PR, §218). At the same time, public institutions must secure the safety and well‑being of every person, and the livelihood and welfare of every individual must be “actualized as a right” (PR, §230). The public authority oversees matters of commerce, such that goods and services are offered not to particular individuals so much as to a “universal purchaser,” but also operates the “public care,” which is “most of all necessary in the case of the larger branches of industry” (PR, §236). By “discovering the general causes of penury and general means of its re‑ lief” and organizing relief efforts in response to them, society struggles to foreclose the need for individual subjective aid to those who are suffering (PR, §242). The need for universal access to unpolluted air, clean water, nourishing food, and land to grow it on and overall safe environmental conditions in general falls into the system of needs, although Hegel does not directly mention these particular rights. Likewise, the public institutions that guard against criminal wrongdoing in individual cases might equally prohibit the generation of toxic waste that pollutes the air and water and the overex‑ pansion of the industry that creates it. Hegel sees nothing internal to the engine of civil society that would impede its simultaneously creative and destructive force, but he does insist that the conditions for tempering it eventually unfold immanently out of its very nature and the problems that it engenders.10 He refers to these as “ethical principles” which “circle back and appear in civil society as a factor immanent in it” (PR, §249). This process first happens with the constitution of an institutional form of justice to address individual injury arising out of the system of needs

Hegel on Justice and Nature  227 and then the creation of public works to ensure that everyone has access to certain fundamental goods and services. The court of law is established so that the universal nature of the wrongdoing, as opposed to the par‑ ticular person, can be addressed. Hegel calls this the “reconciliation of right with itself” as the crime is annulled through punishment (PR, §220). Secondly, the public works (“police”) construct roads, drains, streetlights, and bridges due to the interconnection of daily needs (PR, §235). Thus, the welfare of all is assured, so that each person can be free to pursue their own good. In itself, however, this system remains within the sphere of in‑ dividual pursuit geared toward infinite expansion. Hegel clearly thinks that civil society is still unequipped to fully address the problem of poverty, given the tendency of “a specific civil society” to want to push its problems and its poor outward towards “other mar‑ kets in other lands” and solve economic problems through colonization (PR, §246). But the formation of the “corporation” as an ethical principle within civil society points to ways in which environmental injustice might be addressed within an Hegelian account of right.11 The extension of uni‑ versality to the particular comes through the establishment of a system of justice. The public authority actualizes this unity of particular and univer‑ sal formally, but it is the corporation which fully actualizes the unity and makes it concrete (PR, §229). Hegel calls civil society a second, “universal” family, one which su‑ pervises the education of youth among other things. Unlike the natural family, which is tied to the “external inorganic resources of nature,” civil society provides a new kind of soil for the individual to grow in, one which is characterized by contingency and change (PR, §238). Nonethe‑ less, certain occupations ally themselves more closely to the natural and to family life, in particular the agricultural class, which “has directly within itself the concrete universal in which it lives.” Here the “concrete uni‑ versal” seems to refer to the substantiality of agriculture’s relation to the natural world, the ties that bind the farmer to the central focus of the land and to the other people (often family members) who together work it while each retaining their specific role. It is easy to see the unity of the whole and the manner in which the members do not sharply distinguish themselves from the community, while also recognizing the distinctness of its individual members. Hegel also remarks that the class of civil serv‑ ants, which exists to serve universal interests, “has the universal explicitly as its ground and as the aim of its activity.” Although there is less of a sense of community among civil servants, they are united in their service of the universal. By contrast, the class of businesspeople has no clear con‑ crete universal holding all its members together. The corporation, or guild, which brings together workers of a common trade, is constituted to serve this end (PR, §250).

228  Elaine P. Miller Hegel calls the corporation, after the family, “the second ethical root of the state” (PR, §255). While the substantial unity of the family is natural, that of civil society is one in which the moments of the particularity of need and its satisfaction (the natural), on the one hand, and the universal‑ ity of abstract rights, on the other, is brought together in order to provide protection and representation for its members. The corporation stands in on the part of the business class for the substantive core of the family or the farm. With a clear vision of the development of these ethical roots, the state is ultimately shown to be the ground that made them, as well as nature itself, all possible, with the root of the family (substantive universality) and civil society (infinite differentiation) as its two moments. Thereby spirit is made “objective and actual to itself as an organic totality” in laws and institu‑ tions (PR, §256Z).12 Over the course of the Philosophy of Right, nature moves from being characterized as the overwhelming context of human life to a single sym‑ bolic representation. Nature makes only one appearance in Hegel’s account of the state. The natural character of the monarch, who is of necessity a single person, and therefore, as Hegel writes, an “immediate singularity” (unmittelbare Einzelheit), is “implied in its very conception” (PR, §280, translation modified). This individual is born in an “immediate, natural way” (auf unmittelbare naturliche Weise) but becomes the monarch in a manner, unlike any other profession, through an “immediate conversion,” that is, without the mediation of any particular content. Hegel writes that this transition happens in the same way in which, in the ontological proof of the existence of God, the absolute concept is converted into existence (PR, §280 R). The conversion of child to monarch is unlike any other conversion or transition in the Philosophy of Right, for it is precisely through the media‑ tion of particular content that a child becomes an adult, a person becomes a subject, or a student becomes a member of a particular class of society. Nature’s role in ethical life is inevitable, for natural‑born humans, not fully formed subjects, are those who take on symbolic or professional roles. Here we see Hegel working through the “tragic” reconciliation of the two one‑sided views. Why tragic? Because there always will be the leftover, the “fate,” which is nature. But what is “tragic” for humans (because perfec‑ tion is always elusive and the state will never be complete) accentuates the necessity of nature as the life‑blood of spirit. Humans could not have ar‑ rived at the end of the state without working through the various moments and contradictions. The error of both one‑sided views is that they assume the state to be fully formed either through the consumption of nature or through the rational moral self of the human being, as if it had no natu‑ ral history. Hegel’s third view of natural right shows the history of spirit

Hegel on Justice and Nature  229 working through nature as its necessary condition, even if we can only see this necessity in looking backward. This interpenetration of concept and objective reality stretches from the smallest living cell to the organization of the state. Hegel writes that “con‑ cept and objective existence are two sides of the same thing” and gives the example of seeds, which “have the tree implicit within them” (PR, §1Z). He writes, “Much the same thing as this ideality of the moments in the state occurs with life in the organic body. Life is present in every cell…. Separated from that life, every point dies. This is also the ideality of all individual estates, powers, and corporations, however much they have the impulse to subsist and be independent” (PR, §276Z). Likewise, humans must reckon with their own biological existence as part of a complex ecosystem encompassing the entirety of nature in a man‑ ner that is analogous to the relationship between the individual and the state, where the principles at the basis of rights are inherent in the institu‑ tions of the state rather than grounded in the individual. Reading the Phi‑ losophy of Right as a text on natural law draws our attention to the role of nature in this most political of texts. Whether it is the “purely substantial” role of sexed bodily life and procreation in the family, the preoccupation with “fixed reality, possession and property” in civil society (Hegel 1975, 114), or the monarch’s right through “birth in the course of nature” (PR, §280), nature is intertwined with and nourishes ethical life. Ultimately, Hegel’s concern is for nature and humans as a whole, not for individual animals or plants, or even for humans. Living nature is neces‑ sary for the self‑actualization of spirit. We may not like the human‑centric and metaphysical nature of this view, but it does make nature an integral part of the whole of which we are a part, and therefore something that must be respected, preserved, and shared. Notes 1 Outlines of the Philosophy of Right is quoted according to Knox’s translation as revised by Houlgate. 2 G.W.F. Hegel, Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law, trans. T.M. Knox. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975. Cited within the text as Hegel (1975), with page number. 3 See, for example, Lumsden (2021), Mowad (2012), and Kissner (2008). 4 Burns attributes Hegel’s view to Aristotle’s doctrine that the polis is by nature prior to the individual (Burns 1996, 53), and calls Hegel’s theory of natural law a modified and modernized version of Aristotelian natural law (Burns 1996, 59). 5 Lumsden argues persuasively that in the Philosophy of Right nature is reduced to nothing more than an instrumentalized resource for individual and collec‑ tive human will to operate on, form into objects of use, and consume (Lums‑ den 2021, 11–12). It is true that in Hegel’s account nature does not have any

230  Elaine P. Miller value or agency in or from itself, but I argue that this character of nature is the ­acknowledgement of a perspectival, not an ontological claim, which in turn stems from its retroactive constitution from the perspective of spirit. What na‑ ture is outside of human projects is unintelligible from a Hegelian point of view, but this does not mean that nature has no other such mode of being. Even our own immediate bodily being, insofar as it is part of an intersubjec‑ tive world, is inaccessible to us except through the medium of universalizing language (see PS, 60). 6 Mowad criticizes the interpretation of Hegel as a nature/culture dualist in pointing to the conclusion of “Abstract Right,” where Hegel refers to the hu‑ man relation to nature in personhood/property as “abstract,” as opposed to morality/subjectivity, which is one of “self‑relation” (PR, §104). See Mowad (2012, 48–9). 7 For an extended examination of the continuity, in the Philosophy of Right, be‑ tween owning one’s own body and the gradual development of more and more complex ways of interacting with the world (including the natural world), see Nuzzo (2001) and Ciavatta (2005). See also Ritter (1982). 8 In the introduction to PR, Hegel writes that the will as natural is the “imme‑ diately existing content,” namely the “impulses, desires, inclinations, whereby the will finds itself determined in the course of nature” (PR, §11), which is ir‑ rational and finite. 9 Hegel describes the agricultural or farming class, who form the substantial basis of the system of needs, as the “immediate” class whose lives are closest to the “natural products of the soil” (PR, §203). In this way, the agricultural class is to the objective nature of the system of needs what marriage is to the subjective structure of society. Hegel writes that the introduction of agriculture and the institution of marriage are the “real beginning and original foundation of states” (PR, §203R). 10 Stone writes that in Hegel’s account: “the way that human minds arise from nature’s final, organic, stage constrains them to develop in a direction that pre‑ cludes their acquiring duties to respect nature. Instead, minds are conditioned to acquire a duty to transform natural things” (Stone 2002, 254). She further states that “nowhere in the Philosophy of Right does he draw the parallel in‑ ference that the duty to modify nature should become limited by an additional duty to preserve nature’s ontological hierarchy” (Stone 2002, 258). 11 For more on Hegel on poverty see Houlgate (2022). 12 I am pushing back on Stone’s brief account of the role of nature in the Philoso‑ phy of Right, which emphasizes only Hegel’s discussion of property and crime in Abstract Right, and the recourse to morality as a means of addressing it. She mentions ethical life and its supersession of the (Kantian) moral standpoint, but relies on a quotation from Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy to sum up his viewpoint regarding nature (Stone 2017, 166–8).

References Burns, Tony. 1996. Natural Law and Political Ideology in the Philosophy of Hegel. Aldershot, Hants, England: Avebury. Ciavatta, David. 2005. “Hegel on Owning One’s Own Body.” The Southern Jour‑ nal of Philosophy 43, no. 1: 1–23.

Hegel on Justice and Nature  231 Hegel, G.W.F. 1975. Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law. Translated by T.M. Knox. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Houlgate, Stephen. 2022. “Civil Society and its Discontents: Hegel and the Prob‑ lem of Poverty.” In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, edited by Dean Moyar, Kate Padgett Walsh, and Sebastian Rand, 269–88. London: Routledge. Hyppolite, Jean. 1996. Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of History. Translated by Bond Harris and Jacqueline P. Spurlock. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Kissner, Wendell. 2008. “A Species‑Based Environmental Ethic in Hegel’s Logic of Life.” The Owl of Minerva 40, no. 1: 1–68. Lumsden, Simon. 2021. “The Problem of Nature in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” Hegel Bulletin 42, no. 1: 96–113. Mowad, Nicholas. 2012. “The Natural World of Spirit: Hegel on the Value of Nature.” Environmental Philosophy 9, no. 2: 47–66. Nuzzo, Angelica.  2001. “Freedom in the Body: The Body as Subject of Rights and Object of Property in Hegel’s ‘Abstract Right.’” In Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism: Studies in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, edited by Robert R. Williams, 111–23. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ritter, Joachim. 1982. “Person and Property: On Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Paragraphs 34–81.” In Hegel and the French Revolution. Translated by Richard Dien Winfield, 124–42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stone, Alison. 2002. “Ethical Implications of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature.” Brit‑ ish Journal for the History of Philosophy 10, no. 2: 243–60. Stone, Alison. 2017. “Hegel, Nature, and Ethics.” In Nature, Ethics, and Gender in German Romanticism and Idealism, edited by Alison Stone, 159–69. London: Rowman and Littlefield.

Index

abstract law 46, 48, 52, 101–2, 105–7 abstract right 11, 22, 45, 49, 75–6, 82–3, 87, 102, 151, 204, 221–2, 224, 228 action: poetic 58, 166; political 17, 57, 66; practical 58; social 58–9, 67, 69, 71; theory of 6, 48, 50, 58, 71, 75–6 Adorno, T.W. 177 Aeschylus 220, 223 agency: historical 143; human 134; social 59 alienation 8, 82, 144, 168–9, 176, 184, 189, 223 Anaxagoras 171 Anerkennung 61–2, 65, 69; see also recognition Anscombe, E. 78–80, 86–7 arbitrariness 29, 32–3, 38, 43, 51, 77, 223 Aristotle 5–6, 56–63, 65, 67–72, 78, 80, 96–7, 101, 149, 218 ascriptivism 40–1, 48–9, 53 Aufhebung 105, 192, 195 autonomy 2, 13, 19, 97, 98, 107, 118, 129–30, 133, 141, 171, 177, 182, 197, 202 Beccaria, C. 104 Benhabib, S. 206 Bentham, J. 12–14 Berlin, I. 12, 30–1 Bernasconi, R. 206 Bonaparte, N. see Napoleon Brandom, R. 118 Brownlee, T. 186

capitalism 90, 171, 187, 189 choice 6, 15, 17, 33–4, 51–2, 57–8, 76–8, 83, 87, 89, 100, 122 Christian: providence 152; theology 152; tradition 52 Christianity 138, 168, 170, 216 civil society 18–19, 22–3, 36–7, 65–6, 70, 88–90, 94–5, 97, 99, 106–7, 123, 125, 137, 174, 188–9, 195, 202, 208–9, 218, 225–9 civilization 207–9 colonization 207, 209–10, 227 community: political 60–1, 64, 67–8, 70, 130–2, 136–8, 188, 202; social 63, 69 constitution 3, 7, 44, 47, 52, 56, 60–2, 64, 71, 94, 129, 136, 157, 160, 164, 226 contextualism 38, 145 contract 36, 49, 83, 89, 95, 202–3, 209, 218, 223–4 contractualism 80, 202 contradiction 100, 160–1, 195–6, 223 Cooper, J. 59 corporation 22, 65, 90, 225, 227–9 cosmology: metaphysical 7, 148, 157; political 7, 148, 150, 157 crime 4–5, 29, 35–7, 94, 102, 104–5, 217, 224–5, 227 death penalty 36 democracy: deliberative 118–19 deontology 133 Descartes, R. 164 desire 13, 33, 167, 171, 185, 192, 224 determinism 52, 75, 195 Dewey, J. 144

234 Index difference: racial 209; sexual 8, 203, 206–8, 210 disposition: for action 72, 124; affective 56, 61, 64, 72; ethical 60, 64–5, 70; habitual 64, 67, 72; intersubjective 65–6; recognitive 70, 72; to justice 70 domination 11–12, 17–23, 32, 38, 71, 195, 211–12 Durkheim, É. 168 economy 90, 99, 114, 177, 189 education 31, 37, 57, 59, 90, 104, 136, 186, 189, 209, 227 emancipation 190, 192, 194–5, 201 empiricism 218–19 end: of all things 150–1, 153–5; final 87, 143, 156; of history 157, 161; of the world 143, 149–50, 153–5, 157 Engelhardt Jr., H.T. 183, 191 English Reform Bill 174 enlightenment: dialectic of 8, 175, 177 Entäußerung: as alienation 8, 184; as externalization 181, 184; as relinquishment 191–2 equality 1, 30, 36–7, 50, 60, 62, 68, 83, 95, 105, 112, 181, 186–7, 198 ethical life 3–5, 7–8, 10–11, 18, 38, 46–7, 49, 51, 62–3, 69–70, 72, 78, 81, 83–6, 90, 94–6, 125–7, 129, 141, 167, 169–71, 181–2, 187, 192–5, 197, 201–2, 204, 208–12, 219, 221 ethicality 96–7, 129, 131, 138, 144; see also ethical life expressive logic 76 externalization 181, 184, 189; see also Entäußerung fairness 1, 30, 181 family 47, 65, 88–9, 100, 174, 185–6, 208–9, 225, 227–8 fate 9, 96, 99–100, 148, 151, 175 Ferrarin, A. 70 Feuerbach, A. 103–4 Fichte, J. G. 83, 94–5, 104, 219 finality 7, 131, 143, 145, 152–3 folk‑religion 167–9 Forst, R. 2, 4, 6–7, 110–11, 115–20, 125 Foucault, M. 104–5

freedom: absolute 170–2; agential 24; communicative 69; concrete 6, 111, 120, 122–7, 130; ethical 51; exercise concept of 16; metaphysical concept of 43; negative 4, 11–12, 14, 29–31, 37, 113–14, 174; opportunity concept of 15–16; political 99; positive 4, 12–14, 18, 29–32, 37; republican 21, 29, 37; reflective 11–12, 14, 18, 121; reflexive 113–14; recognitive 5; relational 21, 23–4 friendship 56, 58–61, 63, 67–9, 71–2, 77, 123–4 Gadamer, H.‑G. 119 Geist 61, 139, 148–9, 151, 157, 165, 187; see also spirit gender theory 2 Gesinnung 6, 63–72; see also disposition goodness 60, 76, 79–80, 82, 86–7 Green, T. H. 13, 30–1 Habermas, J. 129–30, 132–3, 135–8, 143–4 habit 52, 57, 63–4, 211 happiness 124–5, 151–2, 156, 189, 196 Hayek, F. 187 historicism 95, 110, 205 history: end of 157, 161; world 141–4, 151, 171, 187–8, 190, 196, 210, 221 Hobbes, T. 12, 14, 95, 111, 113, 218 Hölderlin, F. 96, 166 Honneth, A. 1–2, 4, 6–7, 14, 16, 18, 68, 69, 72, 110–21, 123–8, 135, 202–3, 210 Horkheimer, M. 177 Hugo, G. 95, 105 Hume, D. 167, 203 individualism 3, 89, 164 individuality 43–5, 47, 50–1, 76–7, 97–8, 113, 211, 219 inference 6, 75–80, 85, 87 injustice: systemic 8–9, 181, 191–3, 197–8 institution 87–8, 94, 106, 190 instrumentalism 167 interaction: economic 70; recognitive 69, 72, 134–5, 137, 142, 145; social 64, 72, 130, 134, 208

Index  235 judgment: court of 151, 158–9; day of 155; final 149, 154–5, 157, 160–1 justice: commutative 49; corrective 101; court of 7, 147–9, 52–3; criminal 106, 221, 226; distributive 50, 187; divine 153; duty of 126; environmental 2, 4, 8–9, 217, 225; formal 72; fundamental 116; global 4; historical 161; maximal 116; material 48–9; retributive 4, 6, 50, 187, 223; social 3, 125, 202; theory of 1–4, 7–9, 68–9, 75, 88, 110–12, 114–15, 181–2, 187, 203–4, 213, 217; transactional 152 justification 50, 65, 115, 117, 119–20, 187; discourses of 111, 115 Kant, I. 13–14, 96–7, 104, 113, 116, 130–1, 150, 153–7, 164, 167, 219 Kantian constructivism 4, 8, 182–3 Kervégan, J‑F. 6, 65 Klein, E.F. 103–4 Kojève, A. 62 Koselleck, R. 176 labor: social division of 50 law 7, 13, 32, 34, 40, 48, 52, 94–6, 98–107, 130–3, 135, 150, 167–8, 171, 175, 188, 217–21, 227, 229 Le Corbusier 177 learning process 139–40 Lenin, V. 177 Lettow, S. 206–7, 210 liberalism 75, 89, 176, 188, 197 liberty: negative 11–15, 19; positive 13–16; third concept of 12, 16, 19–20; see also freedom Locke, J. 102, 111, 117, 218, 222 Louis XVI 96, 177 love 56, 59–63, 66, 71–2, 97, 116, 123–4, 167–8, 213 Luther, M. 164 Lynch, T. 189 MacCallum, G. 14 market 22, 85, 89, 114, 174, 187–9, 211–13 marriage 89–90, 208, 225 Marx, K. 13, 111, 171, 188, 195–6 McGowan, T. 196 memory 168, 194 Mills, C. W. 2, 211–12

modernity 7–8, 89, 97, 106, 113–14, 164–6, 170, 174–9, 202 monarchy 71, 136, 164, 166, 197 morality 11, 45, 47–8, 50, 52, 87, 90, 94, 97–9, 129–30, 152, 165, 168, 174, 182, 202, 221, 224–5 myth 166, 168 Napoleon 96, 165, 170, 174–6 nationalism 176 natural law: organic version of 225; rational 95, 129–30, 144 nature: human 57, 218; second 52, 157 negativity 71, 77, 165, 224 normativity: practical 129, 131, 133, 135, 138, 144; recognitive 131, 135 Nussbaum, N. 59, 71–2 Öffentlichkeit 7, 131, 135; see also public sphere passion 13, 33, 167, 174, 225 Pateman, C. 2, 211–12 patriotism 66–7, 168, 211 personal identity 3 personhood 8, 45, 84, 87, 164, 175, 181–3, 190–1, 194, 197–8, 211, 223 pietism 167–8 Pettit, P. 20–1, 31 philia 5–6, 56–72; see also friendship Pinkard, T. 1, 118, 164, 188, 197 Pippin, R. 1, 118, 188 Plato 67, 79, 96, 98, 159 Pöbel 8, 181, 189, 192; see also rabble polis 57, 60, 96–100, 167, 169 polity 100, 132, 136, 188 populism 1–2, 4, 8, 181, 189, 192–5 poverty 17, 189, 203, 227 progress 7, 131, 135, 137–40, 142, 145, 153, 156, 194, 203, 207 property 6, 34, 49, 76, 80, 82–5, 87, 101–2, 174–5, 181, 184–7, 208, 211–12, 221–3 public sphere 6–7, 131, 135–7, 144–6, 193 punishment 5, 35–8, 50, 83, 95, 101, 103–7, 224, 227 rabble 8, 181, 189, 192–3, 211 race: theory 2 Rawls, J. 1, 4, 182, 203–4, 212

236 Index reason 13, 33, 42, 46, 59, 62, 68, 70, 83, 95, 98, 111, 120–1, 130, 133, 137, 151–2, 156, 158–9, 167, 169, 171–2, 174–5, 177–8, 216, 218 Recht 1, 152, 195, 217, 220–1, 223–4; see also right Rechtschaffenheit 66, 70; see also rectitude recognition: horizontal 119; mutual 2, 22, 29, 32, 34–5, 37–8, 45, 47–8, 50, 61–2, 80, 81, 83, 88–9, 123, 133, 189; reciprocal 3, 5, 7, 47, 62, 129–31, 133, 135, 138, 140, 144–6, 182–3, 189; struggle for 62, 111, 112–24, 121; theory of 3, 63, 65, 69, 144; vertical 119, 122 recollection 141, 193 rectitude 65–6, 70 reformation 167–8 rehabilitation 95, 104 relativism 3, 110 republicanism: as conception 5, 20; ideal 20; see also freedom (republican) resistance 120, 165, 194–5 retributivism 36, 105 revenge 101, 105–7, 220, 224–5 revolution: French 7, 77, 96, 98, 161, 164–7, 169–71, 173–80, 194; July 197 Ricoeur, P. 61 Riedel, M. 95 right: abstract 11, 22, 45, 49, 75–6, 82–3, 87, 102, 151, 204, 221–2, 224, 228; human 220 Ritter, J. 65, 95, 165 Robespierre, M. 170, 172 Rosenkranz, K. 97 romanticism 96, 164 Rousseau, J.‑J. 13–14, 31, 90, 111, 137, 166, 170, 173 Sanchez, M.M. 70 Savigny, F.C. 95–6 Schelling, F.W. J. 96, 166–7, 217 Schiller, F. 7, 150–5, 157 Schmitt, C. 94 self‑consciousness 4, 22, 33, 42, 47, 61–2, 64, 66, 88, 98, 132, 137, 139, 143, 172, 176, 190, 216 self‑determination 49–50, 65, 77, 129, 133, 174, 196, 202–7, 209–13; see also freedom selfhood 133, 138, 141–3, 183

Sittlichkeit 3, 5, 11, 16, 18, 22, 47, 49, 63, 95, 97–9, 101, 106, 129, 188, 195; see also ethical life Skinner, Q. 20–1 slavery 18–22, 31, 210, 212 social: change 166; determinism 52, 75, 195; pathology 111; philosophy 20, 23, 112, 114, 171; practice/s 5, 7, 40–3, 46, 48–50, 52–3, 131, 134, 145, 182; theory 1, 22, 63, 111 sociality 34, 138 Sophocles 96, 169 spirit: absolute 129, 131, 138, 151, 220; objective 40, 42–3, 48, 80–1, 95, 101, 111, 119, 124, 126, 129, 131, 137–8; philosophy of 121; subjective 41, 81; universal 148, 151; of the world 150–1 Stalin, J. 173 state 4, 6, 8–9, 12–13, 18–19, 21–3, 31–2, 35–7, 42–3, 48, 50, 61, 64, 66–7, 69–70, 78–9, 84, 86–90, 94–5, 97, 99–100, 105–7, 115, 122, 125–6, 132, 137–8, 143, 149–51, 156–8, 161–6, 173–5, 177–8, 182–3, 185, 187–8, 190–1, 194–6, 201–2, 208–9, 211–16, 218–20, 222, 225, 228 struggle: class 195; for recognition 62, 111–14, 121 subjectivity 44, 48, 61, 65, 70, 77, 81, 84, 86, 97–9, 102, 129, 132, 161, 182–3, 224 syllogism 76, 86, 89 Taylor, C. 11, 13–15 teleology: moral 87, 133, 150, 156 Terror 8, 96, 152, 154, 165, 170, 172, 195, 205 Thompson, M. J. 188 Tibebu, T. 202, 206–7, 210 tragic 9, 165, 218, 220–1, 223, 228 universal 33–5, 47, 50, 61, 65, 71, 76–8, 80–4, 86–9, 90, 97–8, 101–2, 113–14, 123, 129, 130, 136–7, 144, 148, 151, 171–3, 176–8, 187–8, 196–7, 201, 208, 217, 224, 226–8 value 8, 12–14, 16–17, 19 Vlastos, G. 59, 71 Vermögen: as capacity 183–5, 190; as potentiality 190, 194; as resource 8, 181–2, 184–5, 190

Index  237 Verwindung 192–3, 197 virtue: civic 65, 70; moral 71 volonté de tous 137, 173; see also will (will of all) volonté générale 137, 173; see also will (general) Weber, M. 94 welfare 84–8, 177, 225–7 will: of all 173; free 5–6, 14, 29, 32–5, 38, 40–3, 45, 47–9, 50–2, 75–7,

80–1, 84–5, 86, 102, 171, 184, 220, 224; general 97, 166, 170, 173; in‑and‑for‑itself 5; subjective 43, 46–7, 76, 81, 84, 86, 105, 132, 224 Williams, R. 1, 60–3, 71, 124 Willkür 14, 16, 19, 21, 43, 76, 83; see also arbitrariness Wirklichkeit 6 Wright, G.H. von 78 Zambrana, R. 206, 211