Hegel and Citizenship: Notes for the Explicitness of a Concept (original) (raw)
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Hegel, Human Rights, and Political Membership
Hegel Bulletin, 2013
This paper examines Hegel's view of the relationship of human rights and political membership. Attention is accorded the concept of a right to have rights, one famously thematized by Hannah Arendt but articulated already earlier by Hegel. The discussion has five parts. Part One considers how for Hegel a notion of political membership is entailed by the concept of right itself. Part Two examines the place occupied by modern civil society in a realised account of human rights. Part Three considers the challenges posed to realised right by the phenomenon of modern poverty and the experience of ‘rightlessness’ it occasions. Part Four details how Hegel's conception of the corporation addresses the phenomenon of rightlessness, taking into account his uniquely reflexive understanding of a right to have rights and its contribution to the project of thePhilosophy of Right. The concluding section briefly compares Hegel's conception of membership rights to Arendt's.
The Basic Context and Structure of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, + Addendum.pdf
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right responds to two dichotomies. One is between the freedom of rational thought in its practical application and the givenness of natural impulses and desires. Against Kant Hegel argues that pure reason alone cannot determine the content of any maxim or principle of action. Thus Hegel must find a way in which the content of natural needs and impulses – the only source of content for maxims of action – can be transfigured into contents of rationally self-given principles and maxims. Hegel also responds to the dichotomy between the individual agent and the social whole within which agents act. Hegel argues that this dichotomy is specious because human beings are fundamentally social practitioners and because neither social practices nor individual agents have priority over the other. There are no social practices without social practitioners and there are no social practitioners without social practices. Hegel’s response to this second dichotomy allows him to respond to the first one as well. The elaboration and specialization of natural needs and desires through exchange relations and the social division of labor transfigures the contents of those needs and desires into collectively self-given ends. The social practices producing this transfiguration and meeting these ends form the contents of implicit principles of right. These implicit principles are collectively self-given because they result from the social practices collectively developed to meet these needs. Only acts that are executed and accepted by an agent are free acts. This strong condition requires that an agent’s intentions correspond to the actual nature and consequences of his or her act. Since the aims, the principles, and the means of action are fundamentally social, these strong constraints entail that free action is possible only within a community which makes known its structure and the role of its members within it and their contribution to it, so that its members can act on the basis of that knowledge. Hegel’s theory of the state is a theory of a communal structure that makes such explicit, free action possible. In briefest compass, Hegel holds that laws are legitimate only insofar as they codify those practices that have been developed in order to achieve human freedom, and laws are obligatory only insofar as they are necessary for achieving human freedom. Hegel’s government is designed to codify and promulgate such laws. Hegel’s legislature is designed to make known to the citizens at large, through their corporate representatives, that laws have such a basis and how individual roles and actions fit within the community as a whole.
The Crisis of Freedom: Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right after 200 Years
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right we would like to invite you to an international conference in Frankfurt am Main in January 2021. The conference will be structured essentially according to the sections of the Elements. For about half of the thematic blocks we plan to have a panel in addition to an individual lecture, and we would like to invite scholars from philosophy, law, sociology, political science, history and related disciplines to submit their contributions.
A Reading Essay on Hegel’s View of Right
Kaygı. Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi, 2014
In this study, Hegel's view of right shall be comprehensively taken in hand which Hegel had mentioned in his Philosophy of Right and the concept of the constitutional state idea shall be emphasized in reference to the present problems pursuant to Hegel's judgments. In this regard, to what extent the forming of a state which is subject to the constitution can provide opportunities for us to cope with the existing problems shall be tried to put forward. Primarily, the concept of universal put forth by Hegel shall be addressed and the importance of thinking upon the possibility of a universal right shall be emphasized. Later on, Hegel's approach towards right shall be explained, thus creating the framework of the concept of right. Lastly, an evaluation shall be carried out depending on Hegel's ideas and what meanings of Hegel's statements which may hold in today's world shall be tried to set forth.
Unravelling Hegel's Ethical Life in 'Philosophy of Right'
Unravelling Hegel's Ethical Life in 'Philosophy of Right', 2017
This paper attempts to deconstruct the idea of freedom and ethical life, and will look parts of the introduction and the first sixteen paragraphs (§ 142-157) of Part III of the Philosophy of Right. Guided by the following research question: to what extent does Hegel’s conception of ethical life (sittlichkeit) in his Philosophy of Right allow for subjective freedom?, this paper aims to analyse the extent to which ethical life leaves room for subjective freedom. In order to understand ethical life, we must first understand the concept of freedom in terms of positive and negative freedom, and objective and subjective will. This will be discussed in depth using the first and second part of Philosophy of Right, as well as how Part III is the dialectical synthesis of the former two parts and concretises the actuality of freedom in ethical life. Next, the paper will look into the influences of this concretisation of freedom, and how this contributes to an ethical life. Lastly, I will critically evaluate ethical life with the objective formulations of freedom as described by Hegel in order to see whether his normative project is idealistic.
Filozofia, 2019
Globalization and mass migration have raised anew the question of the nature and origin of human rights. There have been a number of works that seek inspiration on this issue from the philosophy of Hegel. Usually, the primary focus of these works has, naturally enough, been the main statement of Hegel's political philosophy, the Philosophy of Right. Scholars go to this work in search of a principle that can ground human rights in such a way that can be meaningfully used in a political and legal context. This body of literature is important in that it draws attention to this aspect of Hegel's thought and shows how it is relevant for a problem of some topicality today. However, this approach, I wish to argue, takes up the issue at a fairly advanced stage in Hegel's thinking and fails to see some much more fundamental elements in his way of understanding the concept of human rights, specifically, that the very idea of human rights presupposes a philosophical anthropology and a theory of history since human rights as a concept did not always exist. These aspects of Hegel's theory have been generally neglected in the secondary literature on the issue of human rights.
Hegel on Nation, Ethical Life, and the Modern State
Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 2022
This paper examines Hegel’s idea of nation and its significance for his theory of the modern state, namely, the role that ‘the national’ plays for his justification of right in the Philosophy of Right. It is argued that Hegel strikes a balance between historicism and a rational justification of state and law. He bases the state on a notion of Sittlichkeit (ethical life) that is both national and subjected to a world historical development toward rationality and universal right. Consequently, ‘nation,’ in the sense of a group of people invoking identity and rights based on a primordial common language, culture, and territory, does not cover what Hegel means by the modern nation state. ‘Ethical life’ is national, but it also constitutes a historically changeable community of values supported by citizens’ conscious participation in communal life (patriotism). Today, Hegel’s idea undermines the legitimacy of nationalistic invocations of primordial ethnic cultures within politics.
'Expression of Contempt' Hegel's Critique of Legal Freedom (Law & Critique 2015)
Law & Critique, 2015
In this paper, I argue for the existence of pathologies of juridicism. I attempt to show that the Western regime of right tends to colonize our intersubjective relations, resulting in the formation of affective and habitual dispositions that actually hinder participation in social life. Speaking of pathologies of juridicism is to claim that the legal form fundamentally contaminates the way in which we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world, resulting in an ethically deformed, distorted or deficient form of (inter-) subjectivity. To support my thesis I consult a philosopher, whose work still provides a powerful analysis and critique of juridicism, namely, Hegel. Hegel provides an historic and a systematic theory of the pathologies of juridicism. His historical theory locates the origin of the abstract subjectivity of right in Roman antiquity. His systematic theory understands the negative effects of an absolutization of the legal domain as a persistent threat to social integration and an individual’s pursuit of the good life. I clarify these argumentative dimensions in two steps, beginning with Hegel’s historical analysis of right in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History. I then reconstruct Hegel’s critique of the subjectivity of right in the short chapter on the ‘Condition of Right’ in his Phenomenology of Spirit. In conclusion, I argue that, although Hegel’s diagnosis is correct, his prescribed therapy must fail: instead of radically altering abstract right in terms of content and form, it only recommends its complementation through other ethical spheres.
Critique of Hegel's `Philosophy of Right
The American Historical Review, 1972
respect but gratitude. It may well represent a milestone in the study of Hegel's political philosophy and the end of an era of irresponsibility. The picture of Hegel that emerges here bears little resemblance to the bogeyman presented to us by his detractors. Nor does the book revive the Hegel image of the British Idealists. The new portrait is much more accurate. But it does not capture the distinctive and often bizarre boldness of this unique thinker.