(Studies in German Idealism 7) Joshua D. Goldstein (Auth.) - Hegel's Idea of The Good Life-Springer Netherlands (2006)

STUDIES IN GERMAN IDEALISM
HEGEL'S IDEA OF THE

GOOD LIFE
From Virtue to Freedom, Early Writings
and Mature Political Philosophy
by Joshua D. Goldstein
HEGEL'S IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
Studies in German Idealism
Series Editor:
Reinier Munk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Advisory Editorial Board:

Frederick Beiser, Syracuse University, U.S.A.
George di Giovanni, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Helmut Holzhey, University of Zrich, Switzerland
Detlev Ptzold, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Robert Solomon, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
VOLUME 7
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
HEGEL'S IDEA
OF THE GOOD LIFE
From Virtue to Freedom, Early Writings
and Mature Political Philosophy
by
JOSHUA D. GOLDSTEIN
McGill University and University of Toronto,
Canada
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
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To Maureen,
Hannah,
and Abby.
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XI
ABBREVIATIONS, WORKS, AND TRANSLATIONS XIII
INTRODUCTION XVII
PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE OF AN

ARISTOTELIAN IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE, 1793 TO 1800
1 THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND FOLK-RELIGION:

THE TBINGEN ESSAY OF 1793 3
I. A Purpose Apart from Religion 3

A. The Basic Categories of Religious Analysis 4
B. Subjective and Objective Religion 11
C. The Place of Folk-religion 15
II. The Human Spirit 18
A. A Natural Need of the Human Spirit 18
B. The Foundations of the Human Spirit 21
C. The Unity of the Human Spirit 28
III. The Folk-Religion Project 31
A. Religion and Natural Need 31
B. Folk-Religion and Natural Need 34
C. The Instability of the Folk-Religion Project 41
2 DISCOVERING THE COMMUNITY:

THE BERNE FRAGMENTS OF 1794 49
I. A Return to the Social World 49

A. From Socrates and Christ to Athens and Jerusalem 50
B. The Elements of a Theory of Historical Development 55
1. The Phenomenology of Change: Elements I and II 56
2. The Mechanism of Historical Development: Element III 57
3. Elaboration and Further Complications: Elements IV and V 58
vii
viii HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
4. The Nature of Degeneration: Element VI 59

5. The Mediation of the Estates: Element VII 60
C. A Theory of Historical Development 61
II. Community and the Human Spirit 64
A. Historical Development and the Concept
of the Community 64
B. A Social Critique of Christianity 67
C. Alienation and Community 72
III. Participation and Satisfaction 78
A. External Tension and Hope: the Possibility of Overlapping
Communities 78
B. Reason and Participation 80
3 THE END OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT:

THE LIFE OF JESUS OF 1795 85
I. The Volkserziehers Project 85

A. Kantian Appearances 86
B. A Successful Volkserzieher? 88
C. A Negative Conformity with the Volkserziehers Task 93
II. The Volkserziehers Solution to the Problem of Participation 95
A. An Audience of Believers in Reason 95
B. Reason: Rulership, Obedience, and Self-Legislation 96
C. Self-Legislation as a Model of the Human Spirit 103
III. The Collapse of Self-Legislation and the Human Spirit 104
A. Rulership and Self-Assertion: the Collapse of Phronsis 104
B. Obedience: the Collapse of Absolute Selbstttigkeit 108
C. A Transition to a New Basis of the Good Life 111
PART II: FREEDOM AND THE COMPLETION

OF ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE,1821
4 THE MATURE FOUNDATION OF THE GOOD LIFE:

SPIRIT AND FREEDOM 121
I. From the Human to the Spiritual Foundations of the Good Life 121
A. A Miseducation to the Nature of the Free Will 123
B. The Free Wills Nature and the Human Spirits Inadequacy 127
II. The Human Spirits New Experience and Activity within
the Good Life 135
III. The Condition of Freedom and the New Question of
the Good Life 139
A. Freedom and the Ancient Vision of the Good 140
B. Freedom and the Modern Vision of the Good 142
C. The New Question of the Good Life: Inquiring into the Living
Presence of the Good 144
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
5 THE LIVING FORM OF THE GOOD LIFE 147
I. The Institutional Form of the Good Life 147

A. Locating the Institutional Home of the Good 147
B. Ethical Institutions as Ethical Powers 154
C. The Ethical Powers 157
1. Internal Stability 158
2. Mutual Exclusivity 170
3. A Sphere of Life 172
II. The Experiential Form of the Good Life 175
A. Duty 176
B. Virtue and Rectitude 178
C. Custom and Habit 181
III. The Living Instances of the Good Life 183
A. The Inadequacy of Philosophy as the Good Life 184
B. The Customary Good Life: Patriotism 187
C. The Ethical Habits of the Good Life 189
6 THE IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE 197
I. The Shape of the Good Life 197

A. The Truth within the Description of Ethical Life 197
B. The Criticism within the Description of Ethical Life 201
C. The New Solution within the Description of Ethical Life 206
II. Enchantment and Banality 213
III. Vitality and the New Virtue of Freedom 218
A. Completing Ancient Ethical Virtue in Rectitude 220
B. Completing Ancient Phronsis in Ethical Habit 222
C. The Collective Determination in the New Phronsis
and the Playful Revolution 226
WORKS CITED 239
INDEX 247
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was a long time in coming; the debts that it has accumulated
are now many.
Begun as a doctoral dissertation in the Department of Political Science
at the University of Toronto, the book benetted immensely from my time
there. Alan Brudner, my former thesis supervisor, brought to the project
deep insights into the Hegelian texts, a ne sense for those places where
my arguments ran solid against the boundaries of good interpretation,
and a law professors eye for clarity. Ronnie Beiners interest in phronsis
and the ways in which the Greeks can speak to modernity contributed to
my own thinking about the place of virtue in Hegels thought. Ed Andrew
was nally able to win me over to the virtues of the short, declarative sen-
tencealthough I fear it remains more of a regulative ideal than a living
relation to my writing. More substantively, Eds keen historical sense made
me more attentive to this historical context in which ideas are expressed,
even if the dominant reex of this book is to turn to the structure of the
text itself. Gad Horowitzs relentless interpretative drive to take the idea of
social-individuality seriously provided the formative opportunity to reect
on the meaning and implications of what Hegel calls the I that is a We
and the We that is an I. The conclusions I draw in this book show a dif-
ferent understanding of the sociality of human freedom, but the project
would not have taken the course that it did without his inuence.
The seemingly endless task of revising the manuscript was made lighter
by the work and friendship of number of emerging scholars from The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Oded Lwenheim, Tal Dingott Alkopher,
and, in particular, Oren Soffer and Nahshon Perez whose love of political
theory stimulated innumerable long and challenging conversations over
various aspects of the ideas presented here. Roddy Loeppky, although not
from The Hebrew University, provided friendship and encouragement as
we each moved forward with our book projects. What little I know of the
political economy of human genomics, I owe to him.
The books nal revisions received stimulation, perhaps of a less direct
but no less valuable variety, from the 2004/5 Montral Political Theory
Workshop speakers and participants. While he was at McGill, I was par-
xi
xii HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
ticularly grateful for the opportunity to work with Alan Patten. His com-
ments and suggestions helped solidify and shape work that emerged from
this larger project.
Devin Crawley deployed his long experience and sharp editorial pen-
cil to make the manuscript that much more clear and presentable. It was
a pleasure to have such an old friend work on the book.
I would like to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research
Council of Canada for providing funding at the doctoral and post-doc-
toral level that made both the initial research and the revisions of the
manuscript possible. The Munk Centre for International Studies at the
University of Toronto has served as the home where much of the thinking
and writing occurred; the Department of Political Science at McGill was
my home away from home.
Over the years, a number of the arguments in this book have been pre-
sented at annual meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association,
a graduate student colloquium at the University of Toronto, and at the
Montreal Political Theory Workshop. Versions of some of the material
present here also appear in two articles, The Bees Problem in Hegels
Political Philosophy: Habit, Phronsis and Experience of the Good in
History of Political Thought, vol. 25 no. 3 (Autumn) 2004, pp. 127 and
Hegels Early Conception of Human Nature in the Tbingen Essay of
1793 in Clio: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, vol.
32 no. 4 (Summer) 2003, pp. 433456.
Of course, my preeminent debt is to my wife, Maureen Hiebert, who lis-
tened to my endless ruminations about Hegel supportively and with good
humour while nishing her own incomparably more important project.
My gratitude cannot be adequately expressed here. This book is also ded-
icated my daughters, Hannah and Abby, each of whom came along well
before the manuscript was complete and more than anyone put it in its
proper place.
A B B R E V I AT I O N S , W O R K S ,
A N D T R A N S L AT I O N S
References to works by G.W.F. Hegel follow the abbreviations listed below.

All citations are to the indicated translations except those marked trans.
which are my own. Unless otherwise indicated, all emphasis in quoted ma-
terial is in the original. Material inserted by the translators is indicated by
angled brackets ( < > ); my own modications to the material are indi-
cated by square brackets ( [ ] ). See Cited by for information on how
the material is cited.
BF Berne Fragments
German: Volksreligion und Christentum pp. 3072 in Hegels theol-
ogische Jugendschriften (ed. Herman Nohl) (Frankfurt/
Main: Minerva GmbH, 1966).
English: Berne Fragments pp. 59103 in Three Essays, 17931795:
The Tbingen Essay, Berne Fragments, and The Life of Jesus
(eds. and trans. Peter Fuss and John Dobbs) (University
of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
Except: The Berne Plan of 1794 pp. 508510 in Hegels Development:
Towards the Sunlight (17701801) (trans. H.S. Harris)(Oxford:
Oxford Clarendon Press, 1972).
Cited by: Page number to the Nohl edition (Nohl pagination is in-
cluded in the English editions).
EG The Encyclopaedia of Mind

German: Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse:
1830 Dritter Teil die Philosophie des Geistes mit den mndli-
chen Zustzen. Werke in zwanzig Bnden: Werke 10 (eds. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel) (Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).
English: Hegels Philosophy of Mind: Being Part Three of the Encyclopaedia
of the Philosophical Sciences (1830) (trans. William Wallace)
Together with the Zustze in Boumanns Text (1845)
(trans. A.V. Miller) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
Cited by: Section number.
xiii
xiv HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
EL The Encyclopaedia of Logic

German: Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse:
1830 Erster Teil die Wissenschaft der Logik mit den mndli-
chen Zustzen. Werke in zwanzig Bnden: Werke 8 (eds. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel) (Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1970).
English: The Encyclopaedia Logic, with the Zustze: Part I of
the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zustze
(trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris)
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1991).
Cited by: Section number.
LJ Life of Jesus
German: Das Leben Jesu pp. 75136 in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften
(ed. Herman Nohl) (Frankfurt/Main: Minerva GmbH,
1966 [1907]).
English: The Life of Jesus pp. 104165 in Three Essays, 1793
1795: The Tbingen Essay, Berne Fragments, and The Life
of Jesus (eds. and trans. Peter Fuss and John Dobbs)
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).
NdA Neufassung des Anfangs (New Version of the

Beginning)
German: Die Ueberarbeitung von 1800 pp. 139151 in Hegels theolo-
gische Jugendschriften (ed. Herman Nohl) (Frankfurt/Main:
Minerva GmbH, 1966 [1907]).
English: The Positivity of the Christian Religion, Part III. Revised
Form of Sections 1 4 of Part I pp. 167 181 in Early
Theological Writings (trans. T.M. Knox) (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971).
Cited by: Page number to the German followed by the English.
NR Natural Law
German: ber die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts,
seine Stelle in der praktischen Philosophie und sein Verhltnis
zu den positiven Rechtswissenschaften pp. 434530 in G.W.F.
Hegel Jenaer Schriften 18011807. Werke in zwanzig Bnden:
Werke 10 (eds. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel)
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).
ABBREVIATIONS xv
English: Natural Law: The Scientic Ways of Treating Natural Law, its Place
in Moral Philosophy, and its Relation to the Positive Sciences of
Law (trans. T.M. Knox) (USA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1982).
PhG The Phenomenology of Spirit

German: Phnomenologie des Geistes. Werke in zwanzig Bnden: Werke
3 (eds. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel)
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).
English: Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit (trans. A. V. Miller)
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1977).
Cited by: Page number to the German followed by paragraph
number to the English.
PR The Philosophy of Right

German: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und
Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse: Mit Hegels eigenhndi-
gen Notizen und den mndlichen Zustzen. Werke in zwanzig
Bnden: Werke 7 (eds. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus
Michel) (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).
English: Elements of the Philosophy of Right (ed. Allen W. Wood;
trans. H. B. Nisbet) (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
Cited by: Section number, sometimes followed by a Z indicating
material contained in his Zusatz (additions) or an A in-
dicating material contained in his Anmerkung (remarks).
For example:(PR 150 & A, Z, 153A, 154) refers to
sections 150 and its Anmerkung and its Zusatz; only the
Anmerkung to section 153; and only section 154.
TE Tbingen Essay
German: Volksreligion und Christentum pp. 129 in Hegels theologische
Jugendschriften (ed. Herman Nohl) (Frankfurt/Main:
Minerva GmbH, 1966).
English: The Tbingen Essay of 1793 pp. 481507 in Hegels
Development: Towards the Sunlight (1770-1801) (trans. H.S.
Harris)(Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1972).
xvi HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
TIG The Transcendental Idea of God

German: Entwrfe pp. 361362 in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften
(ed. Herman Nohl) (Frankfurt/Main: Minerva GmbH,
1966 [1907]).
English: G. W. F. Hegel The Transcendental Idea of God
(1795) (trans. Michael H. Hoffheimer) in Clio: A Journal
of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History, vol. 24
no. 4, 1995, pp. 424426.
INTRODUCTION
What is Hegels idea of the good life? This question guides the study of
the development and meaning of his social philosophy presented here.
The vitality of the question emerges from the apparent tension between
Hegels grand claim, on the one hand, that the modern political commu-
nity is the good made actual in the world and his description, on the other,
of the structure and life within that communitya life that seems substan-
tively empty of the aspirations that historically have dominated accounts
of human ourishing. Of course, one response to this tension, and one
answer to the question, is simply to indicate that this tension is a false
one because his grand claim is itself empty. Thomas Pangle captures this
view when he writes that
Hegels stress on the need for public, legal, institutional recognition in the
modern state and liberal society of what really matters only makes clearer the
neglect or eclipse, in his ethical and political philosophy, of those fundamental
aspects of human existence that matter so much that they can never be institu-
tionalized in the modern state and civil society. To see this vividly, one has only
to consider what Hegel says, or does not say, in his Philosophy of Right about hap-
piness, love, God, heroism, sainthood, friendship, philosophy, and what Hegel
admits is virtue in the strictest sense of the word; while bearing in mind the
status of these subjects in the chief political works of Plato and Aristotle.1
This answer is shared by thinkers from a number of otherwise antagonis-

tic traditions. Alexandre Kojve posits animalized man and Japanized
man as the two possibilities left to human beings with the actualization of
Hegels universal and homogenous State at the end of history.2 Friedrich
Nietzsche says of Hegelian philosophy:
And what a school of decorum it is to contemplate history in this way! To take

everything objectively, not to be angered by anything, to love nothing, to com-
1 Thomas Pangle 1992: 13.

2 Alexandre Kojve 1969: 15962, esp. n. 6.
xvii
xviii HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
prehend everything, how gentle and pliable this makes one; and even if some-
one raised in this school on occasion is publicly angry and frets, one is pleased
by this for one knows that it is only meant artistically.3
For Nietzsche, Hegel becomes the philosopher of and for the lifeless but
contented Ultimate men who populate contemporary Western society.4
If these readings of Hegel are correct, there is little sense in posing
the question of the good life to Hegels social and political thought. If
we are gripped by the question of the good life a better way forward would
seem to be marked out by Alasdair MacIntyre who suggests that our con-
temporary choice of ethical foundations comes down to Nietzsche
or Aristotle the will or virtue. 5 However to abandon Hegel to
Nietzsche or Aristotle would be a mistake. One of the purposes of
this study is to show how Hegels own attempt to pursue an inquiry
into the nature of the good life reveals the way in which the choice be-
tween will and virtue is no choice at all because the foundational logic
of the Aristotelian virtue ethic is that of the Nietzschean will. To step
outside of this ultimately false choice requires a rethinking of the na-
ture of human completion, while preserving the end of individual au-
tonomy articulated by the concept of the will and that of participation
in an externally existing structure of the good articulated by ancient
virtue. The institutional and experiential shape of this completion,
which Hegel gives the name freedom, is found in the Philosophy of
Right. To grasp the nature and robustness of freedom as an idea of the
good life requiresas the dismissive readings of Hegel we have men-
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, 8,

pp. 4748; pp. 4547. Perhaps Bertolt Brecht (1961: 108) had Nietzsches com-
ments in mind when he wrote the following dialogue (unpublished translation
by Charles Senger):
Ziffel: On humor, I always think of the philosopher Hegel, by whom I got a
few books out of the library, in order to get to your philosophic level.
Kalle: Tell me about it. Im not educated enough to read him myself.
Ziffel: He has the makings of one of the greatest humorists among the phi-
losophers, like only Socrates otherwise, who had a similar method. But he
apparently had hard luck and had to get a job in Prussia, so he sold him-
self to the state. But a twinkle in the eye, as far as I can see, was inborn in
him, like a congenital defect, and he had it until his death without becom-
ing conscious of it, he was always winking with his eyes, as another has an ir-
repressible St. Vitus dance.
4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue 3, 5.
5 Alasdair MacIntyre 1984: chs. 9, 18.
INTRODUCTION xix
tioned showbringing out the way it engages and constitutes an alterna-

tive to the dominant alternatives of will and virtue.
We cannot take McIntyres question Nietzsche or Aristotle? lit-
erally when searching for this engagement. In the case of Nietzsche,
the reasons are clear enough: almost thirteen years separate Hegels
death in 1831 from Nietzsches birth; forty years separate his death
from The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsches first major work, published
in 1871. Nonetheless, in Hegels only two mature books on social and
political life, he explicitly engages and claims to complete what amounts
to the logical kernel of Nietzsches will to power: the modern moral conscience.
Hegel expresses this moral conscience as the will that can say
You in fact honestly accept a law as existing in and for itself; I do so, too, but I
go further than you, for I am beyond this law and can do this or that as I please.
It is not the thing [Sache] which is excellent, it is I who am excellent and mas-
ter of both law and thing; I merely play with them as with my own caprice, and
in this ironic consciousness in which I let the highest things perish, I merely en-
joy myself . (PR 140 [p. 279/182])
In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the modern conscience is presented as the

last social world the contemporary reader must recollect before being
able to pass over into an appreciation of the a-historical comprehension
of that true foundation of human experience articulated by religion, art,
and philosophy. In the Philosophy of Right this moral world view (Moralitt)
is completed in the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) of the fully adequate political
community. Even if Hegels response to the proto-Nietzschean posi-
tion turns out to be inadequate, at least one is present.
More importantly, the same cannot be easily said of the ancient vision
of the good life. Where Hegel does touch upon it he seems to seriously
misapprehend or misinterpret its ethical possibilities, for he seems
only to return to the ancient concern for those virtues of character nec-
essary for the life of the political communitya return paradigmatically cap-
tured in his repetition of the saying: When a father asked him for advice
about the best way of educating his son in ethical matters, a Pythagorean
replied: Make him the citizen of a state with good laws (PR 153A). Why
has Hegel ignored the heart of the ancient account of the good life? To
put it in Aristotelian terms, why does he forsake a discussion of those in-
tellectual virtues or capacities of human excellence that make a hu-
man being good whether or not she is in conformity with the requirements of
her particular political community? Aware of this problem, Steven Smith
remarks that Hegels ethical theory needs to be supplemented by a return
xx HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
to the regenerative power of that architectonic Aristotelian intellectual vir-

tue, phronsis.6
In one sense Hegels quotation of a Pythagorean is indeed paradig-
matic; his idea of ethical life does attempt to preserve the goals of habitu-
ation to good citizenship. In another sense, though, the appearance
of such a straightforward appropriation of Greek ethical thought
is misleading because it causes us to look forand not ndits higher
goals such as the cultivation of phronsis, sophia (wisdom), and the other in-
tellectual virtues, in a specically Greek form. As we will see in the course
of this study, Hegel does preserve and indeed completes even the highest
Greek goals of the good life (taking Aristotles formulation of them to be
paradigmatic), but he does so in a radically different formthe form of a
system of free social relations, mutually binding the citizen and the mod-
ern political community. What Hegel abandons is a conception of the
good life consisting of particular sorts of individual activity (e.g., political
or philosophical) arising from particular sorts of capacities (e.g., phron-
sis or sophia).
To adequately reveal the full shape and detail of Hegels new form of
the good life it is necessary to grasp how his mature social philosophy
implicitly can set aside the Aristotelian answer in the same way that it ex-
plicitly claims to set aside an answer rooted in the power of the moral will.
As we have mentioned, the nature of Hegels mature thought does not make
this task easy. Nowhere does he engage with the Greek conception of the
good life on its own terms: the Phenomenology of Spirit only touches upon
the ancient experience of the pre-philosophic Greek polis; in the Philosophy
of Right virtue seems to be present only as the heroic virtues of character
(see PR 150 & A), an interpretation pregured by his remark that Platos
Republic is essentially the embodiment of nothing other than the nature
of Greek ethics (PR Preface p. 24/20).
Since beginning with Hegels mature works plays to the perception that
Hegel does not take the Greeks seriously on their own terms it is advanta-
geous to seek a starting point elsewhere. The solution adopted in this
study is to turn to Hegels three earliest substantial works: the Tbingen
essay (1793), the Berne fragments (1793/4), and the Life of Jesus (1795).
In these works we can observe his attempt to construct a viable account of
the good life grounded in Aristotelian phronsis. His ultimate failure to sus-
tain a coherent conception of the good life on this foundation provides a
unique context for exploring his mature account of the good life grounded in
spirit (Geist). It does so by allowing us to focus on reconstructing an alternative
trajectory of the good life, one that does notand, moreover, cannotartic-
ulate a good bound up with the exercise of human capacity.
6 Steven Smith 1989: 24546.

INTRODUCTION xxi
The reconstruction of Hegels answer to the question of the good life

offered here falls into two parts. The rst, Part I, analyzes the develop-
ment of Hegels idea of the good life from its youthful beginnings in
a conception of human nature grounded in ancient virtue until its col-
lapse when the logic of ancient virtue shows itself to be that of the mod-
ern moral conscience.
Chapter 1 begins with the so-called Tbingen essay of 1793. This
works most salient feature is an analysis of religion employing a complex
constellation of analytical categories. In disentangling the relationship be-
tween the categories, a problem emerges: folk-religion is Hegels central
normative category, yet its importance is incomprehensible if his animat-
ing concern is purely religious. This problem is solved only by showing
that animating his examination of religion is a concern for the satisfaction
of human naturewhat he calls the human spirit. While Hegel conceptu-
alizes the satisfaction of the human spirit in terms of the logic of ancient
virtue, with phronsis as its crowning excellence, he also adds to virtue a
concern that the human spirit be at home in the world. Folk-religion be-
comes the condition in which these two needs of the human spirit, virtue
and being at home, might be unied. And yet, at the end of the Tbingen
essay, Hegel is riven with doubt about the possibility of building a folk-re-
ligion. This search for the good life becomes torn between two projects:
one, a cultivation of virtue that removes the human spirit from its present
world; the other, a cultivation of being at home in the world that destroys
the possibility of human excellence.
Chapter 2 follows Hegels attempt in the Berne fragments of 1793/4
to reconcile the needs of virtue and the requirement to be at home in
the world through an implicit theory of social transformation. This the-
ory forms the basis for a social critique of Christianity in which a new un-
derstanding of the social world emerges in Hegels thought, one in which
the social world shifts from a mere instrument for the human spirits sat-
isfaction to an end in itself. In doing so, the incipient tension between vir-
tue and being at home is reconceptualized as a problem of participation,
where the forms of participation each requires are now seen to be incom-
mensurate, even in the best polis.
Chapter 3 shows how the internal problem of participation destroys the
viability of Hegels profoundly ancient conception of the human spirit.
The site of this destruction is his strange essay, the Life of Jesus of 1795.
The works appearance of being a Kantian retelling of the Gospels masks
its true purpose as an attempt to speak directly to those Enlightenment
hyper-rationalists for whom reason has become a faith. Hegel attempts
to force these believers in reason to participate in the animating spirit of
the West while ironically playing to their antagonistic assessment of that
world. His use of Kant is not purely propagandisticKantian self-legisla-
xxii HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
tion does form his new solution to the problem of participationbut

in the end this solution cannot be sustained. The unity of self-legislation
comes apart into two irreconcilable moments: rulership or the pure act
of self-creation and transcendence of limit; and obedience or the partic-
ipation in a good exterior to the self. Rulership and obedience form the
logic that impels Hegel to abandon the human spirit as the foundation of
the good life. But it is only ve years later, in the Neufassung des Anfangs of
1800, that Hegel explicitly acknowledges the logic animating the ancient
conception of virtue and the need to nd new foundations from which to
undertake his inquiry into the good life.
Setting aside the many false starts and dead ends that characterize
Hegels attempts to forestall his abandonment of ancient perfec-
tionism between 1795 and 1800 and those between 1800 and 1806 as he de-
veloped new foundations, Part II of this book begins with his fullest ma-
ture account of the good lifethat contained in the Philosophy of Right.
Chapter 4 examines the shift in the good lifes foundation from the hu-
man spirit to spirit. Freedom and the free will become Hegels terms for
the satisfaction of the human spirit. However, he transforms freedom from
an activity of the individual into a process that sustains the mutual recep-
tivity of the community and the human spirit. Freedom becomes the prov-
ince of spirit. In doing so, the nature of the human spirit is transformed so
that it only attains completion, or selfhood, in relation to the possibilities
already objectively existing in the world. The good comes to the human
spirit through its participation in the system of freedom. This new par-
ticipatory freedom necessitates a new question of the good life. No longer
can it ask what must be added to the individual life to make it good. The
question of the good life is now an inquiry into the way in which the good
is already present in the world such that the human spirit can participate
in it.
Chapter 5 explores how Hegels concept of freedom and selfhood re-
quires a reinterpretation of the developmental description of ethical life
that seems to comprise his answer to the question of the good life. To take
up that challenge results in a formal account of the good life as a stable sys-
tem in which the hierarchical appearance of the institutions of family, civil
society, and state can have no ethical basis because they only achieve their
proper ethicality as powers that sustain exclusive conceptions of selfhood
within distinct and equal spheres of human life. Through an analysis of
the movement from duty to habit, the everydayness of the institutions of
the good life is complemented by the everydayness of the experience of
the good in a multiplicity of ethical habits: love, honour, and service. In
these habits, the human spirit nds the possibility of concrete comple-
tion in selfhood, a participation in the overarching good of spirit.
INTRODUCTION xxiii
Chapter 6 completes the examination of the development and mean-

ing of Hegels idea of the good life by showing that his description of eth-
ical life has a three-fold function: to demonstrate its inward truth, to pro-
vide a critique of the way that truth is immaturely actualized, and to then
point to the resources within the modern political community that will al-
low for its full ethical maturation. The institutional renewal of society is
not itself the complete account of the good life, for there is an experien-
tial problem to be solved. Hegel indicates that life within the fully ethical
community will involve the enervation of life; the fully good life will show
itself to be a living death. This problem of the banality of life does not
force us back to the vitality of ancient virtue in order to invigorate Hegels
idea of the good life. Instead he completes the goals of ancient virtue in
new forms, most importantly opening up a space within the mature ethi-
cal community for the activity of phronsis. However, it is phronsis in a new
social form, one that removes the danger of the moral conscience and per-
mits the collective determinations of the conditions of ordinary life.
Hegels idea of the good life is not indifferent to either the allure of in-
dividual radical autonomy with its pure willing and radical self-creation. Nor
is it indifferent to the beauty of a life lived in conformity to an externally
existing good, be it the community or the divine. What Hegels idea of
the good life ultimately gives us is a way to see how the goals of radical au-
tonomy and the structure of radical conformity are actualizeable in a new
form of participatory freedom whose conditions of possibility are given by
the modern political community. The task Hegels idea of the good life
sets before us is that of both looking inward to the possibilities of the radi-
cal self-creation of relations to the world and in looking outward to the pos-
sibilities of giving those relations a concrete content through the common
endowment of our shared world.
PA R T I
T HE D E VELOPMENT AND DECLINE O F AN

A R I ST OT E LI A N IDEA O F TH E GO O D LIFE,
1793 TO 1800
1
CHAPTER ONE
T HE HU MA N SPIRIT AND FO LK-RELIGIO N:

T HE T BINGEN ESSAY O F 1793
I. A Purpose Apart from Religion
The so-called Tbingen fragment or Tbingen essay is the first step

in our project to grasp Hegels mature idea of the good life. Written in
1793, the year Hegel graduated from the theological college (Stift) at Tbingen
at the age of twenty-three, it is his rst philosophically important work.1
The language and themes of the essay show the inuence of the intellec-
tual, cultural, and religious context in which Hegel was cultivated. While
extensive work has been done to identify the specic threads of that in-
uence, this approach is not the one we will take. Instead, this chapter is
concerned with revealing Hegels animating Problemstellungthe way
he internally sets up and frames his central question. We will show that
underneath the language, categories, and ideas he employs is a project
that is Hegels own. Even here the Tbingen essay is dominated by sev-
eral themes: the need for religion to be active and lived, the importance
of folk-religion, the excellence of the Greek polis, and the inadequacy of
Christianityif not the whole nature or genius of the West. These themes
arise and gain their meaning from the works analysis of religion. For this
reason the analysis of religion seems to provide Tbingen essays overt
structure; religion itself seems to be its animating idea. Yet, when we try
to reconstruct the logic of Hegels obscure analysis of religion in terms
of religion alone, we will see that the works Problemstellung must lie
elsewhere.2
1 For a discussion of the manuscripts dating and the likely location of its
composition (Stuttgart) see H. S. Harris 1972: 119.
2 For a concise summary of the commentary up to the 1960s on Hegels
youthful writings, see Hans Kng 1987: 23 n. 2. Since then, H. S. Harris (1972)
preeminently, as well as Laurence Dickey (1987) and Stephen Crites (1998) have
revisited Hegels youthful work in a sustained way.
3
4 HEGELS IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE
A. The Basic Categories of Religious Analysis
Hegels analysis is characterized by the resolution of religious phenom-

ena into a complex constellation of eleven interconnected categories: re-
ligion, public religion, folk-religion, objective religion, subjective religion,
theology, superstition, positive religion, fetish faith, pure rational religion,
and private religion (in roughly that order of appearance). Religion is not
only the rst category; it is the one which sets the broad limits of Hegels
investigation. He tells us that religion
is not mere science of God, his attributes, of our relation and the relation of
the world to him and of the enduring survival of our soulsall of this might be
admitted by mere Reason, or known to us in some other waybut religion is
not merely historical or rational knowledge, it is a concern of the heart, it has
an inuence on our feelings and on the determination of our will(TE 5)
The essence of religion is to be an active force in the world. Religion is

something lived. In this sense, then, religion is something practical. This
quality allows Hegel to distinguish religion proper from the science of God,
what he calls theology. Theology may appear more properly religious
because it is unconnected to the mundane. Yet Hegel cuts religion con-
ceptually free from theology because the latter is only a matter of the un-
derstanding [Verstand] and memory (TE 9). Theology is without ability to
become actual in activity; it is non-practical. Hegels initial association of
the heart, feeling, and the will with the practical, and the corresponding
association of the understanding and memory with the non-practical will
prove to be too simple and, ultimately, untenable. Nonetheless, the dis-
tinction between the practical (religion) and the non-practical (theology)
establishes the central division within Hegels constellation of categories.3
As the most encompassing categories, religion and theology are also
empty of content. By themselves they provide no guidance to Hegel in
selecting objects for further investigation. For this reason he largely aban-
3 H. S. Harris notes the inuence of Johann Gottlieb Fichtes Attempt at a

Critique of All Revelation (1792) on Hegels distinction between religion and the-
ology (1972: 129). See also Adrien Peperzak who argues for the preponder-
ant inuence of Fichte rather than Kant on Hegels thought in the Tbingen es-
say (1960: 2842). Stephen Crites emphasizes the distinction between religion
and theology, but only as one of four pairs of concepts that he sees structuring
Hegels early thought (1998: 6872). However, Crites analysis of these concepts
occurs in isolation from a study of Hegels constellation of categories as a whole
and so is not able to show how this basic distinction structures the rest of Hegels
investigation.
HUMAN SPIRIT AND FOLK-RELIGION 5
dons these two categories and, without any foreshadowing, introduces what
will be two of the most prominent categories in his analysis: public religion
(ffentlicher Religion) and folk-religion (Volksreligion). Hegel does not tell us
how public religion and folk-religion stand in relation to one another. We
can see, however, that both stand within the category of religion because
they signal his attempt to delineate a more concrete, practical sphere of
investigation.
Where we speak of public religionwe mean to include in it the concepts of

God and immortality and all that goes with them, so far as they make up the
conviction of a people [Volk], so far as they inuence the actions and mode of
thought of that peopleand further there belongs to it also the means whereby
these Ideas are on the one hand taught to the people, and on the other hand
enabled to penetrate their hearts(TE 5)
Public religion highlights two objects for investigation: rst, beliefs and
convictions, not in the abstract, but only so far as they are concrete and
active in the faith of the people; second, the actually existing institutions
by which these beliefs are reproduced successfully (i.e., enabled to pen-
etrate their hearts). At rst, distinguishing the subject matter of folk-reli-
gion from that of public religion is difcult, for Hegel states [t]he whole
mass of religious principles, and of feelings that spring from them, and
particularly the degree to which they can inuence how men act, is the
main thing in a folk-religion (TE 6). The similar subject matter and the
off-hand way in which folk-religion is introduced both serve to obscure
the profoundly different orientation to the world he intends each cate-
gory to describe. Folk-religion does not mark out, as public religion does,
the convictions that are actually held. Instead folk-religion describes the
whole mass of religious principles underlying the constant histori-
cal waxing and waning of particular doctrines within a religion (TE 6).
In this way, the category of folk-religion immediately gets bound up with
possibility. It is the province of what could be or the degree to which they
[i.e., religious principles] can inuence how men act (emphasis added)
rather than what presently exists.4
4 H. S. Harris sees a three-fold inuence on Hegels denition of public re-

ligion: (1) a core composed of the Kantian-Fichtean ideal of religion within the
bounds of reason; (2) historical colourings provided by references to the Jewish
reception of the Decaloguea reception that proved insufcient to the Jews
who, in contrast to the Greek understanding that the proper founding of the law
should exclude tyrants, later demanded a king; and (3) the notion that rational
reection in the form of a philosophic exposition of religion is the completion
of folk-religion (1972: 12628).
At this point, we do not know why Hegel needs to distinguish between

folk-religion and public religion. We can begin to understand the rea-
son behind it by coming to terms with the next categories Hegel intro-
duces: objective religion (objektive Religion) and subjective religion (subjek-
tive Religion).
Objective religion is des quae creditur <the faith that is held>, the understanding
and the memory are the powers that are operative in it, they think it through
and preserve it or, if you like, believe it[ ]objective religion suffers itself
to be arranged in ones mind, organized into a system, set forth in a book, and
expounded to others in discourse. (TE 6)
While,
subjective religion expresses itself only in feelings and actionsif I say of a man
that he has religion, this does not mean that he has much knowledge about it,
but rather that he feels in his heart the deeds, the miracles, the nearness of the
Deity, his heart knows and sees God in its own nature, in the destinies of men,
He also arrives at the conclusion that folk-religion and public religion ap-
pear identical but really are distinct (ibid. 128). Harris comes to this conclusion
because he takes the inuence of Fichte and Kant to be more than linguistic at this
point (although Harris is quite careful in other places to distinguish when Hegel is
simply borrowing the language but not its conceptual underpinnings). The preem-
inence of rational religion in their thought translates here, for Harris, into the pre-
eminence of the category of folk-religion. Since folk-religion is indeed the most im-
portant category of religious phenomena within the Tbingen essay for Hegel, it is
natural for Harris to think of it not only as the most important category of analysis,
but also as the most important category methodologically. So, for Harris, folk-religion
rather than public religion becomes a more inclusive concept, ultimately indeed an
all-inclusive concept (ibid.). By understanding folk-religion as the completion of all
the categories of true religious phenomena, Harris must interpret public religion as
simply the way Hegel approaches folk-religion rather than, as we suggest, that folk-
religion describes a possibility of public religion and is a subset of, rather than includes,
the category of public religion. This point will become important when we try and de-
cipher the crucial relationship between folk-religion, pure rational religion, and pri-
vate religion.
The approach we adopt here is to allow the categories themselves to reveal
their internal order and therefore what truly animates that order. For this reason we
cannot allow ourselves to jump to conclusions based on the importation of the prior-
ities of Hegels philosophic inuences (e.g., the dominance of rational religion) or
verbal afnities (e.g., seeing the category of public religion primarily in terms of its
opposition to the category of private religion [see ibid.]).
that he casts himself down before God, gives praise and thanks to him in his
own deeds [ ] Subjective religion is alive, it is effective in the inwardness of
our being and active in our outward behaviour. Subjective religion is fully indi-
viduated, objective religion is abstraction [ ] (TE 67)
There are two senses in which Hegel uses the categories of objective and
subjective religion here. In the rst and most simple sense these catego-
ries describe the form that the content of a religion takes. In objective re-
ligion this content is arranged in ones mind, organized into a system, set
forth in a book, and expounded to others in discourse (TE 6); in a sub-
jective religion the content is not institutionalized.5 The second and most
important meaning is bound up with a problem: objective and subjective
religion appear merely to repeat the distinction between religion and the-
ology. That is, Hegel appears to simply equate objective content with a
dead or non-practical religion (the category of theology) and subjective
content with a live or practical one (the category of religion).
The apparent indistinguishability of both the objective and theology
and the subjective and religion arises because of a human capacity which
Hegel calls the understanding. He seems to suggest that the presence of
any objective form of religion automatically implicates the understand-
ing. The understanding, for Hegel, is that power whose operations, whose
doubts, are [ ] more apt to numb the heart than to warm it and whose
reckoning is too cold and hairsplitting to be effective in the moment of
action or in general to have inuence on our lives (TE 10). Thus while it
is never through the understanding that the principles [of a religion] are
rendered practical (TE 12), a subjective religion can enter into the web
of human feelings, become associated with human impulses to action, and
prove living and active (TE 8). Yet, we can distinguish a unique meaning
in Hegels use of the subjective and objective if we follow along as he at-
tempts to work through the understanding (TE 12).
Now, Hegel tells us that the understanding carries out two functions:
5 In this first sense, the categories of objective and subjective religion

share certain similarities with Jean-Jacques Rousseaus discussion of civil religion
in On the Social Contract (Bk. IV ch. 8). Subjective religion appears identical to
what Rousseau calls the religion of man, a religion without temples, altars, or
rituals, limited to a the purely internal cult of the supreme God and to the eternal
duties of morality. While the category of objective religion shares with the reli-
gion of the citizen the external cult, it does not describe the national character
of the religion in the way that Rousseaus denition does.
For a general discussion of the relationship of Rousseau to Hegels early
writing see Vincent McCarthy 1991: 11328.
rst, to clarify the principles, [and thereby] to set them forth in their pu-
rity and, second, to calculate or syllogize (TE 1112). The understand-
ings association with theology and the objective may lead us to view the
understanding and its operations unfavourably. However,
[t]he cultivation of the understanding and its application to the objects that
attract our attention to themselvesfor this enlightenment remains a great
advantage, as does clear knowledge of duties, enlightenment about practical
truths(TE 15)
By providing insight into the principle lying within the ux of historical

doctrines and convictions, this process of enlightenment through the cul-
tivation of the understanding deserves the eulogies which are continually
offered in its honour (TE 12). Yet, this insight is also the understandings
greatest disadvantage, for the understanding never leaves the orbit of
the doctrines on which it operates. While [i]t is one task of the enlighten-
ing understanding to sift objective religion [i.e., religions concrete con-
tent] (TE 16) the concepts and principles at which the understanding
arrives are only logical structures or relations. The understandings con-
clusions are always empty of content because they are abstractions from
content.
The understanding has no way to ll this abstractness with substantive
content. The understanding must begin from concepts with a math-
ematical method, and arrive at what it takes for truth through a string of
syllogisms; it can only syllogize about an action (TE 15, 11). The nature
of the understanding produces great difculties when it comes to prac-
tical activity, for the emptiness of its propositions provide no natural limit
or direction to the calculative process. Any limit or direction must come
from elsewhere, be it the opinions of others, various doctrines and beliefs
it nds around it, or even its own passions, feelings, and impulses. For this
reason Hegel says [t]he understanding is a courtier who adapts himself
complaisantly to the caprices of his lord (TE 12).
We can see that this lord is a double lord and thus the servitude of the
understanding is a double servitude. On one side, the lord consists of the
ends or purposes adopted by the understanding. To the extent that these
ends largely come from the individual, the understanding is especially a
servant to self-love although it equally knows how to scare up justifying
arguments for every passion and every undertaking. On the other side, the
lord is the set of doctrines, beliefs, and institutions from which the under-
standing distills its principles and concepts. In this way [t]he understand-
ing serves only objective religion [i.e., the religions concrete content]
(TE 12). Thus we might reword Jeremy Benthams famous statement on
human nature to read Nature has placed the understanding under the
governance of two sovereign masters, given ends and given principles.6
The double servitude of the understanding stands in contrast to
Hegels conception of true activity. For Hegel, a man must act for himself,
do his own work, make up his own mind, not let others act for himfor
then he is no more than a piece of machinery (TE 1213). Human be-
ings become a piece of machinery when they are dependent on ends
and means that are simply given to them. Unlike the man who can make
up his own mind, the understanding has no mind to make up. It must
simply take up and work through the ends or doctrines given to it. In
this situation of double dependency, all activity becomes the carrying out
of instructions: a mechanical performance (TE 26) and prudent clev-
erness (TE 12). Since, by its nature, the understanding is in this situa-
tion of double servitude, the fundamental problem of the understand-
ing is really the problem of mechanicalitynot the absence of practical
activity as it rst appeared. By grasping the problem of the understand-
ing in terms of mechanicality, we break the misleading link between the
objective and the non-practical because we have broken the necessary
link between the understanding and the non-practical. The understand-
ing is indeed capable of practical activity. However, that activity is always
mechanical.
Despite our interpretation, Hegel speaks of the understanding as if it
were incapable of practical activity. We can see, though, that he has in
mind only an understanding which attempts to be adequate to true activ-
ity by escaping its mechanical nature. Since the understanding is always in
a relation of double servitude it must get its principles from somewhere.
In an attempt to escape its servitude to its old lords, Hegel indicates that
6 See Benthams statement of the principle of utility in The Principles of

Morals and Legislation: Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we
ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the stan-
dard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fas-
tened to their throne (p. 1). Although Hegel had not read Bentham, the un-
derlying assumptions and logic of the utilitarian position were familiar to him.
Hegels Magisterexamen of 1790 involved the defence of the thesis On the limit of
human duties, immortality being set aside in which, as H. S. Harris writes, Hegel
proposes a man of nobility who has no belief in immortality will develop a utili-
tarian ethics (1972: 8586). He indicates that Hegels utilitarianism, as well, as
the thesis itself, came from A. F. Bk, the philosopher whose attitude and inter-
ests were closest to those of Hegel himself at this time, if only because both were
not much interested in purely theoretical questions, and not much affected by
the ferment aroused by the Critique of Pure Reason (ibid. 7879).
the understanding will often turn to some moral manual. In this way, an
individual who uses the understanding while consciously striving to make
up his own mind, [to] not let others act for him will nd himself unable
to act at all. On the one hand, the understanding will show a different
true path of action for every ickering aim or impulse, thus producing
such a tangled pattern of behaviour. On the other hand, the complete
receptivity of the understanding to any ends, even evil impulses, means
that this tangled pattern of behaviour will also be a pattern of perpetual
anxiety and inner conict. The moral individual will be forced to exam-
ine each action or every impulse that he had [in order] to see whether
it was ethical or whether it was permitted (TE 12). Only in this condi-
tion is the understandings reckoning [ ] too cold and hairsplitting to
have inuence on our lives (ibid.). However, were the individual to give
up the notion that the understanding can ever free itself from the dou-
ble servitude of its mechanical nature, then the anxiety, the tangled pat-
tern of behaviour, and, moreover, the paralyzing hairsplitting would
disappear.
So, when Hegel characterizes the activity of the understanding as ob-
jective, he is using objective in a distinct, second sense. Here, objective
refers to the mechanical form practical activity takes rather than the ab-
sence of practical activity altogether. Similarly, the subjective can no lon-
ger refer to the mere presence of practical activity. When a man acts
for himself his activity is subjective because he is not a piece of machin-
ery. We must be attentive to the presence of this second meaning and we
must distinguish it from the rst that describes whether or not a religion
has some determinate and externally recorded content. Hegel predomi-
nantly uses the categories subjective and objective in this second sense; un-
less otherwise stated, this is the meaning we intend as well.
By revealing and being attentive to the two distinct meanings carried
by these categories we have secured for ourselves the initial key to Hegels
analysis of religion and his Problemstellung.7
7 H. S. Harris arrives at the same insight we do: the categories of subjective

and objective religion have two meanings, one concerning practices and obser-
vances carried out mechanically and one the content of the faith (1972: 129
30). Like our own investigation, he implies that both of these meanings are nec-
essary to adequately distinguish subjective and objective religion from related
concepts. Harris does not exploit this insight, allowing the meaning of subjective
and objective religion to refer primarily [to] the content of the faith and con-
ning the second sense, the form of human activity, to a footnote. Now, because
he has already substantially decided in advance the relation of folk-religion to
the rest of the categories, he has no need to take the categories of subjective and
objective religion any further than this insight. To decide the relation of folk-reli-
B. Subjective and Objective Religion
Once we grasp the double meanings of subjective and objective religion,

their place changes within Hegels categories of religious analysis. As long
as the second meaning (mechanicality/non-mechanicality) dominates,
subjective and objective religion become ways of categorizing the other
categories. They become meta-categories. Because of the importance
Hegel places on these meta-categories we might easily interpret the sub-
jective as the summum bonum and the objective as the summum malum. Yet,
they are not, although they do contain a normative element that can act as
our guide to the real ends of the Tbingen essay.
To understand the source and nature of their normative element we
need to examine Hegels attitude to the extreme of subjective religion and
the extreme of objective religion. The objective extreme is found in the re-
ligious cultivation of children, a cultivation that involves being
taught to lisp our prayers to the divinity, shown how to place our hands to-
gether in order to raise them to the Supreme Being, and [having] our memo-
ries burdened with a heap of then still unintelligible formulas intended for
our future use and comfort in life. (TE 3)
For children, religious activity is a matter of rote and habituation. It is me-

chanical, consisting merely in putting the hands together, bending the
knees (TE 8). Hegel indicates the deciency of this situation, when he
notes [w]hat a cold and unnatural comment is the good Gellerts re-
mark somewherethat a small child today knows more of Godthan the
wisest pagan (TE 11). And yet Hegel is unconcerned by this extreme of
objectivity; he offers no corrective to the mechanical activity of the childs
religious expression or cultivation and even accepts it as necessary, as we
will see below.
On the side of subjective religion, Hegel mentions briey the wise pa-
gan and the outstanding men in every age [who] have arrived at and
have grasped with whole heart and cloven to with love the universal
truths (TE 14) underpinning all religions. Hegel does nothing to use the
gion within the constellation of categories is also to implicitly decide the substan-
tive nature of human activity. However, once the question of the relation of folk-
religion and the nature of human nature is left open, the true importance of the
mechanical dimension can show itself in the interpretative reconstruction of the
place of folk-religion and the nature of fully satisfactory human activity within the
Tbingen essay. For a similar, but much more general, discussion of subjective
and objective religion see Stephen Crites 1998: 7280.
subjective religion of these outstanding men as an ideal. Indeed, he does

just the opposite, stating that their wholly subjective doctrines are hardly
in any way t to be adopted as universal maxims (TE 21). Instead,
the pure principles must be made coarser, embedded in a sensible shell, [ ]and,
on the other hand, religious practices must be introduced, whose necessity or
utility is persuasively established by the sincerity of faith once more, or by ha-
bituation from youth upwards. (TE 14)
Why has Hegel refused to make these extremes of objective or subjective

religion into normative archetypes? The answer: these extremes fall be-
yond the horizon of his true concerns and purposes.
It is not my object to investigate what religious doctrines are most appealing

to the heart, <or> most apt to elevate and give comfort to the soulnot how
the doctrines of a religion should be constituted in order to make a people
better and happierbut rather to inquire what institutions are requisite in
order that the doctrines and the force of religion should enter into the web
of feelings, become associated with human impulses to action, and prove liv-
ing and active in themin order that religion should become wholly subjec-
tive(TE 8)
If we focus only on the nal phrase of Hegels statement then the wholly
subjective does appear to be the preeminent concern and to contradict
our statement that he is uninterested in such wholly subjective forms
as possessed by the outstanding men of every age. However, Hegels con-
cern with the subjective (as non-mechanicality) is qualied by his overall
purpose. Hegel is concerned about the subjective only in so far as it arises
from institutional forces. In this way, his concern is really about the rela-
tionship between the rst sense of subjective and objective religion and
its second sense. So, the infant and wise pagan are not archetypal because
the form of their religious activity results from something other than struc-
tural factors. Children must take up religion in a mechanical way because
their capacities have not fully developed. They cannot grasp the na-
ture of principles or ends so these must simply be given, memorized, and
reproduced according to the outward form taught to them. Conversely,
those few men [ ] [who] have proven themselves and forced their way
through to wisdom over long experience (TE 21) have done so from the
strength of fully developed capacity. Their achievement is preeminently
a personal project, not a structural result. It occurs regardless of the doc-
trines, beliefs, and institutions in which these men nd themselves. As
such, their example is unsuitable for the wider spiritual culture and stage
of morality that a people has reached (TE 21).
Hegels concern with the structural effects of religion on human activ-
ity propels the category of public religionnot folk-religiononto centre
stage. Public religion marks out that religious phenomenon which articu-
lates a relationship between structure (i.e., the convictions of the people,
the means whereby theses Ideas are on the one hand taught to the peo-
ple) and the form of activity (i.e., the extent to which this content is en-
abled to penetrate their hearts) (TE 5). In this way, the category of public
religion corresponds exactly to Hegels stated investigative goals. His un-
stated methodology is to sift public religion through the meta-categories
of the subjective and objective. When we understand Hegel to do so, more
order is brought to the constellation of categories. We can now see folk-re-
ligion, superstition (Aberglauben), and fetish faith (Fetisch-glauben) as spe-
cic forms of public religion. These latter categories, not subjective and
objective religion, are the Tbingen essays true normative archetypes.
When seen in light of the meta-categories of subjective and objective re-
ligion, folk-religion emerges as the subjective possibility of public religion.
Folk-religion is subjective in both senses. First, because it concerns the
whole mass of religious principles and not simply the actual conviction
of a people, folk-religion tends towards the consummate subjectivity
of content found in the pure principles and universal truths under-
lying all religions. Second, since the degree to which [these principles]
can inuence how men act, is the main thing in a folk-religion, it equally
tends towards the non-mechanical articulation of those principles in ac-
tivity. Folk-religion is that public form of religion which comes closest to
the purely individual and internal faith of those outstanding men
in every age.
Where a folk-religion properly takes up the subjective possibilities of
a public religion, fetish faith and superstition each fail to do so. Instead,
they become profoundly objective in both its senses. Unlike the benign
mechanicality of either a childs religious activity or the understandings
calculations, Hegel sees the mechanicality of fetish faith and superstition
as highly pernicious. For the latter, mechanicality is not restricted to a par-
ticular moment of life (childhood) or to a particular faculty (the under-
standing); it becomes institutionally operative throughout the whole of
the society.
Indeed, fetish faith and superstition each take up and institutionalize
one form of otherwise benign mechanicality. Hegel tells us that a
[r]eligion becomes mere superstition if one derives ones determining grounds

for action from it in situations where simple prudence ought to be ones guide,
or if fear of God causes one to do certain actions through which one believes
his displeasure can be averted. (TE 9)
In this way, superstition takes up the central characteristics of the religious

education of children: the unreective adoption of doctrine, its rote trans-
lation into action, and perhapsalthough Hegel does not explicitly men-
tion itthe fear of punishment. Superstition weds each of these characteris-
tics to the whole of life; it overruns those areas where simple prudence
ought to be ones guide rather than religion. The result: all activity be-
comes the empty, childlike performance of an outward act compelled by
habit or fear of God.
If the category of superstition marks out a religion where all judgement
is suppressed, a fetish faith marks out one where all judgement has be-
come calculative. It is a form of public religion in which the understand-
ing is embodied in all doctrines and institutions, for it is the fetish faith
that believes it can gain Gods love for itself through something <other>
than a will that is good in itself (TE 17). As with any proper religion, fe-
tish faith adopts Gods love or holiness as the ultimate apex of ethical con-
duct and the ultimate limit of all striving (TE 17). However, it attempts
to win its way to this end by instrumentally choosing an activity, ceremony,
or sacrice.
A fetish faith is therefore one where the concrete doctrines, in-
stitutions, beliefs of a public religion consist of atonement offerings, in-
dulgence fees, money payment, where physical or moral punishment
can be commuted, and a way of sneaking back into the lost good graces
can always be found through the performance of appropriate acts or other
things of such an utterly crass form (TE 2425). The perniciousness of
the fetish faith consists in the necessary invocation of the understand-
ing to calculate just what, where, and how the activity is to be performed
given the circumstance. Piety, Gods love, the restoration of the individu-
als place in Gods eyes after this or that sin all require the understanding
in a fetish faith.
We now have before us a more complete picture of the relationship be-
tween the main categories of Hegels analysis. We know now that fetish
faith and superstition stand at the same level of analysis as folk-religion.
We also know that fetish faith and superstition fail to successfully ne-
gotiate the transformation of the institution of religion into properly sub-
jective religious activity. The importance of mechanical/non-mechanical
human activity to the meaning of subjective and objective religion hints
that something other than purely religious ends are animating Hegels
thought. Nonetheless, without acting on this hint, we can comprehend
the failure of superstition and fetish faith and the importance of folk-reli-
gion in religious terms. Fetish faiths and superstitions mechanicality do
damage to holiness or Gods love. If they also insult the human spirit it is
only because the end of human nature, as homo religiosus, falls within the
divine spirit.8
C. The Place of Folk-religion
If Hegels analysis of religion went no further than the categories of folk-religion,

superstition, and fetish faith, then folk-religion would stand alone as the truly
living or subjective, public religion. Yet, he goes on to introduce three nal
categories: positive religion, pure rational religion, and private religion. Only
the latter two concern us here.9
Hegel intends the categories of pure rational religion, private religion, and
folk-religion to designate three distinct religious phenomena. Yet all three
categories appear to refer to a single phenomenon: those social conditions
8 Laurence Dickey provides a thorough discussion of the influence on

Hegel of the rise of a new Protestant conception of homo religiosus in German
Lutheranism which linked human activity (as civil activism) and salvation
(1987: 1012, 4076).
9 In the Tbingen essay the category of positive religion is mentioned only once.
The term positivity will come to be quite important for Hegel in an essay given the ti-
tle The Positivity of Christianity (1795). Underpinning Hegels later use of the term
positivity is a concern with the problem of foreignness and the nature of a satisfactory
relation between self and other. This concern, however, has its theoretical foun-
dations in the problem of the individual participation in the community that emerges
rst in the Berne fragments of 1794. At the stage in Hegels development we are
considering here, positivity does not, nor can it, have this foundational meaning, for
Hegels conception of the human spirit does not yet permit the question of the satis-
factory relation between self and other to arise as a fundamental, as opposed to merely
practical, problem.
In the Tbingen essay a postive religion is one which rests necessarily on
faith in the traditions through which it has been transmitted to usand so with its
religious practices, it is only on this same ground that we can be convinced of our
obligations to perform them, or have the faith that God requires them of us as
duties because they are pleasing to him (TE 14). In this way, the category of pos-
itive religion maximally refers to a type of religion that is objective with regard to
its content. Since a positive religion only describes the origin and foundation of a
religions content, superstition, fetish faith, and folk-religion could be each char-
acterized as a positive religion. The rst two would also be objective religions with
regard to activity, the latter a subjective religion with regard to activity. The ques-
tion which Hegel does not raise here is whether there is a minimal version of posi-
tivity: can a religion have an objective content while justifying itself on some other
grounds? He provides no answer and indeed drops the category all together.
which give rise to that fully religious, non-mechanical activity Hegel also calls
virtue. Indeed, pure rational religion, not folk-religion, is Hegels rst ex-
plicit solution to the problem of mechanical religious activity.
Given that the difference between pure rational religion, which worships God in
spirit and in truth, and makes his service consist only in virtueand the fetish faith
[]is so great that the latter is of absolutely no worth as against the former, the
two of them are of quite distinct species, and it is quite crucial for mankind, that
it be led up ever closer to rational religion and that fetish faith should be got rid
of. (TE 17)
Then, without warning, Hegel shifts the solution to folk-religion:
and since a universal Church of the spirit is only an ideal of reason, and it is
not really possible that a public religion should be established which removed
every possibility of reviving a fetish faith from it; the question arises as to how
a folk-religion has to be set up in order (a) negatively, to give as little occasion
as possible for cleaving to the letter of ceremonial observance, and (b) posi-
tivelythat people may be led to rational religion, and become receptive to
it. (TE 17)
Before we can deal with the relation of pure rational religion to folk-re-
ligion we must address private religion, the last category in his constella-
tion of categories.
Folk-religion is distinguished from private religion particularly in this respect,

that inasmuch as it powerfully affects the imagination and the heart, its aim in-
spires the whole soul with power and enthusiasmwith the spirit that is indis-
pensable for greatness and sublimity in virtue The development of the indi-
vidual in accord with his character, instruction about cases of conict of duties,
the particular means for the advancement of virtue, comfort, and support in
particular states of suffering and calamity these things must be left to private
religion for developmentthat they do not qualify as part of a public folk-reli-
gion is plain from the following considerations [ ] (TE 19)
Unfortunately, Hegels considerations only cloud things so that the dis-

tinction between private religion and folk-religion becomes even more dif-
cult to discern.10
10 For this reason H.S. Harris writes But by the time he has nished dealing with
them [i.e., the attributes of private religion], private religion has virtually disappeared
back into folk-religion. Further more, the distinction [between folk-religion and pri-
Twice over, Hegels own analysis leads us to see pure rational religion
and private religion as folk-religions doppelgngers. Twice over he asserts
that they are not. Indeed, he moves immediately to establish the preemi-
nence of folk-religion by asking the question that will occupy the remain-
ing quarter of his essay: How must folk-religion be constituted? (Folk-
religion is here taken objectively11) (TE 20). The response he literally
outlines provides no immediate remedy to our confusion:
I. Its doctrines must be grounded on universal Reason.

II. Fancy, heart, and sensibility must not thereby go empty away.
III. It must be so constituted that all the needs of lifethe public affairs of
the state are tied in with it. (TE 2021)
Since Hegels account of folk-religion seems to draw on pure rational re-

ligions emphasis on universal reason as well as private religions concern
with providing guidance throughout all situations of life, we must try and
grasp the relationship between the three categories of folk-religion, pure
rational religion, and private religion at the same time.
We cannot separate out folk-religion and pure rational religion by tak-
ing the former as the embodied standard and the latter as its regulative
ideal.12 Nor can we turn to the more obvious possibility and interpret folk-
religion as enveloping the whole of pure rational religion and private reli-
gion. These options are not open to us because folk-religion only incorpo-
rates elements of pure rational religion and private religion and, in doing
so, destroys the integrity of those categories. The reason of pure rational
religion may be present, but by the standard of pure rational religion, folk-
religion corrupts reason by placing it alongside the sensible. The satisfac-
tion of the imagination and heart of private religion also may be present,
but all the needs of lifethe public affairs of the state dominate rather
than [t]he development of the individual in accord with his character.
vate religion] is scarcely tenable in his vision of the ideal (1972: 144, 149). The same
comment might be made of Theodor Haerings complex attempt to distinguish vari-
ous multiple meanings, contradictions, and historical inuences that separate private
and folk-religion. At the end of his lengthy analysis, Haering does not seem to get be-
yond Hegels own initial statement of the difference (see 1963: 8490).
11 From the discussion which follows, Hegel means objective in both content
and activity.
12 H. S. Harris arrives at a position much like this one. He solves the difculty
in maintaining the distinction between folk-religion and pure rational religion by
seeing pure rational religion as the highest articulation of folk-religion (see 1972:
12728, 130 n. 3). For him, Hegels outline is an hierarchical ordering commenc-
ing with the ideal.
In this way, we are left with his assertion of one solution (folk-religion)
when there appears to be two others, each congruent with the full profun-
dity of religion and the social horizons of Hegels project.
Within the terms of religion alone our attempt to comprehend Hegels
analysis of religion, and the constellation of categories it engenders, meets
with failure. We cannot explain why Hegel focuses so exclusively on folk-
religion and abandons its equally subjective doppelgngers. We have
reached a stumbling point in our attempt to comprehend the most sa-
lient feature of Hegels analysis: the structure of the constellation of cate-
gories. Nonetheless, we have traveled signicant distance in two respects.
First, we have distinguished and established the order and connection of
theology, religion, public religion, superstition, fetish faith, positive re-
ligion, and subjective and objective religion. In doing so, we have estab-
lished a benchmark for the accuracy of the interpretive solutions which
follow. Whatever deeper foundation to Hegels project we uncover, it must
be capable of reproducing the order of the constellation of categories al-
ready laid bare. Second, by stumbling in our interpretive efforts, we are
forced to ask what calls forth folk-religion and gives importance to sub-
jective and objective religion. More fundamentally, though, we are forced
to ask what calls forth religion itself as the explicit topic of investigation
within the Tbingen essay.
II. The Human Spirit
Hegels analysis of religion leads us beyond religion. The dimension of

mechanicality in subjective and objective religion gives us a hint of what
this beyond might be, for the notion of mechanicality implies some
prior conception of activity appropriate to the human spirit. It opens up
the possibility that the human spirit is more than simply the means by
which religion is made living, but is instead religions foundation.
A. A Natural Need of the Human Spirit
The opening sentence of the Tbingen essay appears to answer the ques-
tion why religion? Religion, Hegel states, is one of the most impor-
tant concerns of our lives (TE 3). Religion begins as a social fact for us.
We hold religion to be important because we have been successfully accul-
turated to it, not because of any intrinsic importance religion may possess.
Hegel hints that even the acculturated importance of religion may be de-
rivative. If we hold religion to be important it is because in all the more
important events and activities of the life of man, those on which his per-
sonal happiness depends, such as birth, marriage, death, and burial, a re-
ligious element is mingled (TE 3).
Now, if merely being a social fact qualied a subject matter as worthy of
investigation, then we should expect Hegel to abandon religion in favour of
those practices (birth, marriage, death, and burial) or those mechanisms of
socialization that make religion into something important. However, he is
not merely describing but is also condemning the supercial grounds by
which religion is important to us. Other grounds can be found. Although
we never engage in it in our everyday lives, by reecting on religion we can
discover that it can
be grafted on to a natural need of the human spiritoften immediately, but

all too frequently alas, it is attached only by bonds of arbitrariness, and not in
the nature of the soul, or in the truths engendered and developed from the
concepts themselves. (TE 34)
Thus there is a ground for religions importance not rooted in the bonds
of arbitrariness forged by the contingency of our socialization or rooted
in the mere fact that religion is associated with those events and activities
of the life of man, [ ] on which his personal happiness depends. This
non-arbitrary ground is a natural need of the human spirit.
Hegel provides no explicit discussion of this natural need of the hu-
man spirit and if the Tbingen essay contained such a discussion it is lost
to us. Four pages are missing from the manuscript immediately after his
introduction of the natural need of the human spirit.13 Therefore, like our
engagement with the constellation of categories, our attempt to reveal its
nature will be necessarily reconstructive. The subject matter for our recon-
struction is found in the passage immediately following Hegels rst men-
tion of the notion of the human spirit.
The sublime demand that Reason imposes on mankind, whose legitimacy we

recognize with whole heart whenever our heart is filled with it, and the
alluring descriptions of the guiltless or wise men which a pure and a beautiful
fancy may producethese must never so far overpower us that we begin hop-
ing to nd many such men in the actual world, or believing we can see and
catch hold of this beauteous cloud picture as a solid reality here or somewhere
else; <then we shall be less subject to> dissatisfaction with what we do nd, and
ill humour will less often cloud our mindsHence, we shall not be shocked
when we are obliged to admit that sensibility is the principal factor in all the
action and striving of men; [ ] Just as <on the one hand> pure morality must
13 H. S. Harris 1972: 123, 481.

in the abstract be sharply distinguished from sensibility in a system of morals,

since sensibility is placed far below iteven so <on the other hand> in dealing
with human nature and human life in general we must take particular account
of mans sensibility, his dependence on external and internal nature, upon his
surroundings and the environment in which he lives, and upon sense impulses
and blind instinctthe nature of man is, as it were, only pregnant with the
Ideas of Reason[ ] the Ideas of Reason enliven the whole web of his <i.e.,
mans> feelings, even so as a result of their inuence his actions appear to him
in a special light, <> they themselves <[i.e.,] the Ideas> seldom reveal their
essence, but still their operation penetrates everything like a subtle matter and
gives a peculiar tinge to every inclination and impulse(TE 4)
For Hegel, a description of the human spirit appears complete with the
identication of a capacity for reason on the one hand and an ensemble
of non-rational capacities (heart and fancy, or sensibility in general) on
the other. Hegels innovation appears to come from his conception of the
relationship between reason and sensibility, where the too-high demand
of reason as an ordering principle is tempered by a more pragmatic ac-
count of the true motive powers in a mans life.14
14 H. S. Harris, for whom it is more important than for us, does a wonderful
job of weaving together the various threads of historical inuence at work here
and locating the origins of Hegels thought in terms of his philosophic predeces-
sors. For Harris, Hegels conception of human nature is primarily the result of
the strictly pragmatic attitude towards theoretical disputes in philosophy which
Hegel advocated consistently from the essay of 1787 onwards (1972: 124). (The
essay Harris refers to is ber die Religion der Griechen und Rmer; for an English
translation see Hegel 1979c.) Harris sees Hegel drawing upon Kants pure mo-
rality of reason but wedding to it a sort of hedonism of sensibility. However,
for Harris, Hegel is not really seeking to defend the rational eudaemonism
of [Christian von] Wolff [16791754] and of the many minor moralists of the
Enlightenment. Instead, the emphasis on the sensibility is not at the expense of
reason, but at the expense of the Cartesian strict separation of reason and sensi-
bility. Sensibility becomes merely the practical side of reason, whose calculations
produce results wholly congruent with truly moral reasoning (Harris 1972: 124
25). However, Harris interprets Hegel as bringing together reason and sensibil-
ity ultimately within reason. And so he can say that Hegel accepts the [ ] view
of reason as the terminus of a social process of education and development of
the human race as a whole which was prevalent in the later Enlightenment (ibid.
125). This interpretation stands in contrast both to our position as well as the
slightly different one of Theodor Haering who sees fewer, rather than different,
theoretical attachments at work. For Haering it is always and above all the prac-
tical politician [Politiker] and popular educator [Volkspdagoge] and the practical
optimist and realist Hegel who stands and struggles in the foreground (1963: 82, 63).
The difculty with Harris understanding of Hegels conception of the hu-
man spirit is that it ultimately collapses the human spirit into its rational cap-
From the jumble of needs and capacities present above we must now try
to assemble a picture of the unity of human spirit.
B. The Foundations of the Human Spirit
At rst we might simply equate the natural need of the human spirit with
the sum of the internal requirements of reason and sensibility. Yet, such
an interpretation is too simple for two reasons: rst, the foundation of hu-
man capacity is dened by its underlying unity rather than by its individual
faculties; second, the human spirit has another need which exists outside
the logic of human capacity.
Hegel points to this underlying unity of human capacity when, in the
long passage quoted above, he attempts to preserve sensibility in the face
of the overwhelming moral worth of reason. While Hegel upholds the
moral claims made by reason, he wants to show that feelings are preg-
nant with reason, that the empirical character of the fancy is analogous
to that of reason, and even that it is difcult to determine whether an act
is animated by rational or non-rational antecedents (TE 18). By speaking
of sensibility in this way, it does not become the poor cousin to reason.
Sensibility has a value independent of reason. In its unied expression,
sensibility appears as a love which can further the highest development
of man [das Beste der Menschen befrdern] (TE 18). The real signicance of
Hegels stress on sensibilitys immanent reasonableness consists in open-
ing up the possibility of a fundamentally unied expression of the whole
of human capacity. This unied expression is the virtue of the human
spirit in a way that the individual expression of human capacity is not.
At rst, virtue appears to be an activity only in accordance with rea-
son, or the Kantian will that is good in itself (TE 17). However, the key
to grasping the underlying unity of reason and sensibility is to see that the
exercise of reason is a human virtue because of its structure, not because it
is reason. This structure is two-fold: rst, its exercise is an end in itself; and,
acity. Instead, Hegels attempt to bring together reason and sensibility expresses
the unity of the human spirit as the ontological possibility of that unityi.e., that the
human spirit is not essentially riven by reason and sensibility. Harris has an insight
that Hegel may be animated by something other than his contemporary philosophic
discourse when he notes [t]he moral philosopher whom he [Hegel] really admires
is Aristotle [as opposed to the minor moralists of the Enlightenment] (1972:
124). As with the case of objective and subjective religion, Harris does not take as
full an advantage of his insight as he might.
Adrien Peperzak makes a similar point, but more generally, when he notes
that what Hegel means by morality and virtue is quite different than what Kant
means by it. Peperzak locates Hegels conception o virtue in the Greek ideal of
beauty (1960: 21).
second, it is autonomous because this exercise (i.e., moral virtue) arises

from a wholly internal impulse. In this way,
virtue is not a product of teaching and preaching, but a plant whichthough

it needs proper caredevelops in its own direction and under its own pow-
ertherefore the manifold arts which have supposedly been discovered for
producing virtue in a greenhouse where it virtually cannot fail, do more to cor-
rupt it in man, than if it were left to grow wild(TE 20)
When we turn to sensibility, its structure is not merely an analogue to reasons,

but is identical to it. Sensibility is both an end in itself and self-contained.
Now, Hegel rst tells us that sensibility is instantiated in specic non-
moral feelings. He identies these as benign tendencies consisting of
such things as compassion, benevolence, friendship, etc. or what he ear-
lier and more generally calls in the Tbingen essay the gay fullment of
human joysor [ ] the doing of high deeds and the exercise of the gen-
tler virtues of benevolence [Menschenliebe] (TE 18, 9). Critically, Hegel
calls these articulations of sensibility the longing of its activity and the
expression of human capacity (TE 9). That is: sensibility is its own end or
longing. At the same time, it is autonomous because its exercise is the ex-
pression of a wholly self-contained impulse. Outwardly, sensibilitys form is
non-moral; internally, its structure is that of reason and virtue itself.
Because of their single structure, reason and sensibility can give rise to
a community of human capacity: the community of human virtue. As a
species of virtue itself, sensibility (gentler virtues) and reason (moral vir-
tue) each participate in this community. In the human spirits relations to
the world outside of itself this means that love, as the singular expression
of sensibility, so to speak, lives, feels, and acts in others [just as] Reason
as the principle of universally valid laws knows itself again in every ratio-
nal being, recognizing itself as fellow citizens of an intelligible world (TE
18). More importantly, there is an internal community of virtue dened
by the genus virtue itself. But, unlike a biologists taxonomy or a Platonic
form, virtue itself has a concrete articulation in Hegels conception of
the human spirit. Its shape is the moment of judgement Hegel calls prac-
tical wisdom.
Wisdom is something different from enlightenment, from abstract argu-

ment But wisdom is not scienceit is elevation of the soul, which has raised
itself above dependence on opinions and upon the impression of sensibility
through experience conjoined with reection, and if it is practical wisdom
and not mere self-satisfaction or ostentation, it must necessarily be accompa-
nied by a quiet heat, a gentle re; it argues little, and it does not begin from
concepts with a mathematical method, and arrive at what it takes for truth
through a string of syllogisms like Barbara and Barocoit has not purchased
its convictions at the general market where they give out knowledge to every-
one who pays the fair price, nor would it know how to pay for it in the current
hard cash that gleams on the counterit speaks rather from the fullness of
heart. (TE 15)
Although Hegels discussion begins with wisdom, practical wisdom is the

latters completion. In practical wisdom we see a unication of sensibil-
ity and reason (experience conjoined with reection). Practical wisdom
rescues the human spirit not just from the heteronomous situation of de-
pendence on opinions and upon the impression of sensibility as wisdom
does, but any engagement with the general market of common opinion
altogether. Even so, practical wisdom still speaks [ ] from the fullness
of the heart and so preserves sensibility more thoroughly than the cool-
ness of wisdom.
Yet, practical wisdom is no compromise between the capacity of sensi-
bility and reason, for in it the heart is active and reason is too. Nor does
practical wisdom stand alongside sensibility and reason as simply another
human capacity. Rather, it is the completion of these capacities and the
unied actualization of human capacity itself. Practical wisdom does so by
providing that non-calculative insight necessary to generate activity that
encompasses, unies, and satises all human capacity. It prevents sensibil-
ity and reason from falling away from their individual natures.
On the side of the fancy, one must recognize the point at which gaiety
passes over into debauchery, and courage and resolution into aggression
against the rights of others (TE 9)i.e., the point at which the fancy fails
to express itself in accord with its nature. On the side of reason, one must
recognize the point where reason passes over from activity in accordance
with the real universality of its law to activity in accordance with the for-
mal universality of a mathematical methodi.e., the point at which rea-
son becomes the understanding.
As that way we make up our minds at the moment of action which is
not opposed to the resolution and strength that is requisite for virtue (TE
20), practical wisdom is a form of activity that is non-mechanical like rea-
son and yet, unlike reason, is directed towards activity in which the full-
ness of the heart can also participate. Here, the activity of Hegels practi-
cal wisdom points beyond mere Kantian practical reason and returns
to the architectonic synthesizing virtue of Aristotles practical wisdom or
phronsis.15
15 The question for us here is not whether Hegel entertains the unity of human
capacities, but whether it is plausible for us to express that unity as Aristotelian
phronsis. This question resolves into two discrete approaches. One is bio-biblio-
graphical: did Hegel actually read Aristotle? If not, then the possibility arises that
any similarity is coincidental and that the logic of Hegels conception of virtue is
best grasped in other terms. This leads us to the other approach, which is histori-
cal: is Hegels intellectual and religious tradition itself profoundly Aristotelian?
Now, the bio-bibliographical approach provides the most proximate expla-
nation. Fortunately, we also have some good evidence left to us. Harris has col-
lected together from Hegels earlier biographers what is known about his education
from his youth to the Stift at Tbingen. We know that Hegel made a Prparationen
for the Nicomachean Ethics in May 1787 (when he was almost 17) as well as catego-
rized excerpts concerning nature of justice and the virtues from Plato, Aristotle,
Tacitus, and Cicero probably a year earlier (Harris 1972: 47, 56, 51, 53). While sec-
ondhand reports exist of the fervor with which Hegel and Hlderlin read Plato to-
gether (ibid. 84), there is no mention of any direct engagement with Aristotle be-
yond Hegels general concern with the Greeks and with moral philosophy at the
Stift. Nonetheless, Harris is convinced that in the Tbingen essay, [t]he moral phi-
losopher whom he [Hegel] really admires and follows is Aristotle (ibid. 124) and
that it is Aristotles man of practical wisdom (although for Harris enlightened
by Kant) (ibid. 14445) whom Hegel is thinking of when it is necessary to turn
to the counsel of just and experienced men (TE 19) in order to resolve the con-
icts and indecision produced by the understanding. See Alfredo Ferrarin (2001:
40511) for a discussion of when Hegel read Aristotle, although the focus is pri-
marily on the period after 1804/5.
Within the historical approach, most commentators note the dominant
presence of the Hellenic ideal (e.g., J. Glenn Gray 1968: 2428; Harris 1972: 120,
122; Raymond Plant 1973: 32, 3738; Walter Kaufmann 1978: 15). In this way,
and at most, the presence of the Greek ideal provides the interest and the direc-
tion for Hegels appropriation of the Aristotelian structure of virtue. (Ferrarin de-
scribes the depiction of Aristotles philosophy in the 18th and early 19th Centuries
[2001:396405].) While we argue that this structure of virtue provides the telos
of the human spirits development, both Charles Taylor (1975) and Laurence
Dickey (1987) attempt to undercut the linkage between our view of Hegels pro-
foundly Aristotelian conception of virtue, his readings of Aristotle, and the histor-
ical presence of the Greek ideal. Taylors interpretation presents itself as a much
more severe challenge to our overall interpretation of Hegels conception of the
human spirit, and we will deal with it later in the chapter.
Dickeys view is initially quite promising. He attempts to show that there is
a convergence of homo religiosus and zon politikon in Hegels thought. Left here,
Dickeys approach has the potential to fruitfully illuminate the shape of Hegels
conception of virtue. It would provide an explanation of Hegels consistent use of
both Christian and Greek elements where the historical interpretation places the
Greek ideal alone at the forefront. However, Dickey goes further. He makes the
real telos of Hegels position that of the homo religiosus so that the logic of the zon
politikon effectively disappears. That is, the development of man, and therefore
his virtue, becomes an attempt to produce the inner essence of man in the world
through homoiosis: a Protestant assimilation to God rather than an Aristotelian
In the opening sentences of the passage containing what remains of

Hegels discussion of human spirit, he implies that reason and the fancy
run up against a limit that is not internal to reason or fancy but internal
to the human spirit itself. Once past this limit reason and fancy may satisfy
themselves individually as capacities but they also transgress the nature of
the human spirit and become pernicious to it. The nature of this perni-
ciousness points us to another aspect of Hegels conception of the under-
lying nature of the human spirit.
Hegel has told us that the full exercise of reason produces a sublime
demand while sensibility provides us with alluring descriptions of guilt-
less or wise men. Together, they paint for us a beauteous cloud picture
of the world. The danger to the human spirit does not lie in either the
sublime demand, these alluring descriptions, or this beauteous cloud pic-
ture. The danger is that these products of reason, heart, and fancy over-
power us. When overpowered, we hope that the world can be congruent
with the content painted by the unrestrained exercise of our capaci-
ties. The result is an experience of the world characterized by dissatisfac-
tion and ill humour. By implying that the world should not be something
disappointing to us, Hegel reveals a natural need of the human spirit
which goes beyond the exercise of human capacity and which limits the
latters exercise. He is telling us that the human spirit requires the world
not to be a foreign place.
This newly revealed requirement does not yet indicate what the human
assimilation to nature (1987: 14447). Dickeys demonstration is, however, un-

convincing for two reasons. First, he shifts the discussion to Hegels teleology of
history. Since Hegel has no account of historical development in the Tbingen essay
(although he will formulate an important account of regime change in the Berne
fragments), this comparison between a naturalistic Aristotelian account of the
development of man and the more voluntarist and less naturalist conception
of Hegel has no textual basiseven if it may be an accurate contrast with the
Protestant conception of how history has been unfolding since the Reformation
(ibid. 148). Second, because of this lack, Dickey is forced to support his claim
by turning to Hegels mature writings, particularly the Philosophy of History (see
ibid. 14749, 4856, 5861). This approach, though, would seem to contradict
Dickeys whole project: that of explaining Hegels mature position in light of the
broad historical context of his youth rather than the reverse.
For a critique of attempts to locate Hegels thought in his Swabian spiritual
ancestorse.g., Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Michael Hahn, Johann Albrecht
Bengel and Swabian pietism, Paracelsus, and Jakob Bhmesee Hans Kng
1987: 53. For a discussion of indications of Bhmes inuence on Hegels mature
thought see Tom Darby 1982: 12029.
spirit is, only what it ought not experience. A more helpful account is pos-
sible if we put Hegels brief remarks above together with what appears to
be a purely metaphoric passage:
It is a delight to the human understanding to look upon its worka great

high edice of divine knowledge and of the knowledge of human duties and
nature And, to be sure it has, itself, assembled the building materials and
equipment for this [edice]; it has made a building with them, and it goes
on ornamenting it all the time, and even making orid designs on it; but the
more extensive and the solider the building becomes, on which humanity as
a whole is working, the less it belongs to each single individual privately The
man who only copies this universal building, and simply gets material from
it for his own use, the man who does not build in and from his own person-
ality, a little house of his own to dwell in, so as to be at home within his own
walls and under his own roofwhere if he has not hewn every stone from the
rough himselfat least he has turned it over in his hands and laid it in
its proper placethis man <i.e., one who has not built for himself> is a man
of letters [Buchstabenmensch]he has not lived his own life and woven his own
character(TE 1617)
While the image of a building may be metaphoric, the idea of being at

home that it contains is not. This passage does not simply express the
need to think for oneself; it expresses the fundamental need of the human
spirit to be at home in the world.
To be at home requires none of the intellectual cleverness of the un-
derstanding that originated and elaborated upon the concrete set of tra-
ditions, institutions, and doctrines (i.e., that great high edice of divine
knowledge and of the knowledge of human duties and of nature) that
forms our world. Unlike the beauteous cloud picture provided by un-
restrained reason and sensibility, to build in and from his own personal-
ity requires no transformation of the world. For this reason, Hegels para-
mount example of being at home in the world is not someone who builds
at all, but someone who simply dwells.
The man who builds himself a palace on the model of the great houselives
in it like Louis XIV, in Versailles, he hardly knows all the rooms in his property,
and occupies only a very small sitting-roomwhereas the father of a family is
better informed in every way about his ancestral home, he knows every screw
and every tiny cupboard, and can explain its use and tell its storyLessings
NathanIn most cases I still can tell, how, where, and why I learned it <Act V,
Scene 6>. (TE 17)
The human spirit can be at home in the world given to it, for in Hegels
example, the ancestral home is not built by its current occupants. The cul-
tural edice in which the individual dwells is not the product of his own
creation or even elaboration. Yet he dwells in it in a way wholly congruent
with his own personality or character. This congruency allows us to draw
two initial conclusions about being at home in the world as an aspect of
the human spirit. First, that being at home in the world is not mere acqui-
escence to the world since, on the one hand, it demands that the individ-
ual relate to the world in a way that does not systemically give rise to dis-
content, and, on the other, the world itself must be constituted as a home.
Second, by emphasizing personality and character instead of reason or
sensibility Hegel implies that the requirements to be at home neither im-
plicates human capacity nor is reducible to it.16
16 H. S. Harris takes the references to the activity of building in the rst cited
paragraph and that of dwelling in the second to be an inconsistency on Hegels
part which reveals that [Hegel] is not clear in his own mind what point he wishes
to make (1972: 140 n. 2). The appearance of inconsistency, however, arises be-
cause Harris understands these passages only in terms of the activity of human
facultiesi.e., what sort of edice is created by what sort of capacity. Since the
second passage does not speak about the exercise of capacity (building) but
only abiding within what is already built (dwelling), it appears not only to be in-
consistent with the rst, but both passages also appear to be merely metaphori-
cal. Harris is forced to see [t]he rst metaphor [as] remaining within the con-
text of Hegels enlightenment heritage and [t]he second [as] more distinctly
Hegelian, since the contrast here is between membership in two types of community,
one that is constitutive of ones ethical substance (the family and the Volk) and
one that is not (the world of Verstand) (ibid. 141 n. 2). Our interpretation here al-
lows us to bring these two passages together by taking seriously what Harris iden-
ties as constitutive membership in the community. By taking the relationship to
the world as belonging to the human spirit, the rst passage becomes an illustra-
tion of the way in which the exercise of human capacity can build a beauteous
cloud picture that takes us away from the little house which we possess when hu-
man capacity is not used and personality becomes the operative force. The sec-
ond passage then show what it means to dwell in the world that involves neither
the gigantic, abstract edices created by overpowering exercise of human capac-
ity nor the exercise of human capacity itself.
There are two broad historical interpretations of what we have called the
requirement to be at home in the world. One is generally secular; the other, gen-
erally religious. The secular reading emphasizes the critique of the social frag-
mentation of the life of modern man found primarily in the thought of Rousseau,
Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, and in the reality of a Germany riven by
some 300 virtually sovereign territories. Because, among the Sturm und Drang
movement, modern social fragmentation was contrasted with the unity and har-
mony of social Greek life, Hegels turn to Greeks at the end of the Tbingen essay
ows naturally from this adopted concern. Versions of this view can be found in
J. Glenn Gray 1968: 1720; Theodor Haering 1963: 9698, 70; Walter Kaufmann
C. The Unity of the Human Spirit
In the Aristotelian virtue of phronsis and in the requirement to be at home

in the world, we have the complete structure of the human spirits needs.
1978: 231; Georg Lukcs 1975: 7; Raymond Plant 1973: 1632; and Charles
Taylor 1975: 1329.
The religious reading emphasizes the notion that the Kingdom of God is
to be realized on earth. The commitment to the ideal of social unity is a com-
mitment to bringing about the Kingdom of God within ones own social world.
Harris offers a weaker version of this interpretation. Weaker, only in the sense,
however, that it places Hegels commitment to this language in pragmatic terms.
Hegels (and his dear friend at the Stift, Hlderlins) inspiration [still] came
from classical Greece on the one hand, and from the rationalist enlightenment
on the other (1972: 105). Because Religion is the form which the unity of the
ideal society will take, the language it must be expressed in is the language of
the society that will be brought up to that ideal (ibid. 105106; see also 2426,
104, 11011). Laurence Dickey takes up Harris position but, in a way that seems
slightly at odds with Harris insights, by wedding the notion of building the
Kingdom of God on earth to the emergence of a particular form of Protestant
activism in Hegels Wrttemberg (Dickey 1987: 145; see 3376 for a detailed ac-
count of this emergence).
Such readings, however, suffer in two respects. First, the secular interpreta-
tion fails to see that Hegels attachment to the ideal of the unity of individual and
social life is simply his way of expressing his attachment to the principle that the
good should always be available to the human spirit. Being at home in the world
better captures Hegels intense commitment to the world here and now, rather
than to a world some time and some where else. Unlike an abstract commitment
to social unity itself, which could be lled up with any picture or blue print of a
unied society at hande.g., the Greeksbeing at home in the world can ac-
count for Hegels particularist commitments to Christianity and its revitalization.
Second, for this reason, the religious reading of the place of social life (as
an earthly Kingdom of God) in the human spirit comes much closer to the
truth we have tried to capture in the requirement to be at home in the world. For
the religious reading concretizes Hegels commitment by colouring it with de-
tails of his own world. Dickeys strong reading goes too far, by sinking the princi-
ple into its historical form: Hegels commitment becomes indistinguishable from
the project of pietist activism. So, Harris pragmatic account comes closest to our
own. The pragmatic commitment to the Kingdom of God on earth at once
frees the principle from its connes in a specic form, and yet maintains the com-
mitment to the world here and now. Harris expresses this principle as Lessings,
Hlderlins, and Hegels problem of the hen kai pan (the one and the many) (see
1973: 97105 for biographical details and its meaning within Hegels thought),
and this is certainly correct. However, the hen kai pan expresses the overall prob-
lem; being at home in the world expresses the specic logic of the problem with
regard to the relationship between human spirit and world.
In revealing Hegels conception of the human spirit we reveal the nature

of its satisfaction. Yet, before we can determine if the search for this satisfac-
tion of the human spirit is also the Problemstellung of the whole Tbingen
essay we must explore how the unity of the human spirit is to be achieved
both within virtue and between virtue and being at home in the world.
In the Tbingen essay, Hegel introduces no other human capacities
or needs which might lie behind virtue and being at home in the world.
For this reason, the problem of the human spirits unity is really the prob-
lem of the harmonization of these two fundamental aspects of the human
spirit. In turn, we can best grasp this problem of harmonization by looking
at the conditions that produce disharmony in the human spirit.
When Hegel rst set out the elements of his conception of human na-
ture (see TE 4), reason appeared as the source of disharmony because its
exercise tended to overpower both sensibility and being at home in the
world. The latter two are not without their problems too. Hegel notes that,
left alone, the adventurous rovings of the fancy are either apt to paint
for itself a fearful world or [fall] easily into childishness (TE 24) so that
we can no longer feel at home in the world. The need to be at home in
the world can also so overpower us that we take whatever the world offers,
including pains and tragedy, as something in which contentment and in-
sight must be found. In this situation, one might become so confused as
to the nature of satisfaction that it might well be a cause of grief to one
in the end that one does not lose ones father or mother or is not stricken
with blindness every week (TE 22).
In this way, the human spirit seems subject to perpetual conict or un-
happiness.17 While he presents the human spirit from the perspective of the
problem of disharmony, Hegel conceptualizes the human spirit in terms of
its fundamental unity. His intention is to show that disharmony is pres-
ent only when we act as if satisfaction were merely additive. But for Hegel
the total satisfaction of the human spirit is not the result of adding up the
number of individual capacities or needs that are themselves satised, as
if each capacity or need had an independent existence within the human
spirit. Only in isolation does one aspect of the human spirit produce con-
ditions incommensurate with the satisfaction of the others. So, the prob-
lem of harmonization requires a solution that is encompassing and inte-
grative: it must involve the simultaneous harmonization of reason, fancy,
heart, and being at home in the world. More specically, it must involve a
two-step harmonization: rst, reason and sensibility must be brought into
17 Raymond Plant provides an nice historical overview of idea of personal frag-

mentation as it arose in the thought of Adam Ferguson, Schiller, Goethe, Herder,
and Hlderlin (1973: 1723).
conformity as the virtue of phronsis; second, virtue must be brought into

conformity with the requirement to be at home in the world.18
Although Hegels conception of human capacity is animated by the
18 Our interpretation of the nature of the human spirit can be fruitfully con-
trasted with Charles Taylors. Taylor offers us three reference points for the
understanding of the early Hegel and his epoch. The rst two are the ideals of
radical freedom and integral expression (1975: 3536). He juxtaposes integral
expressivism explicitly with the Aristotelian teleological actualization of human
nature and therefore, implicitly, with the Aristotelian theory of virtue. Although
expressivism draws upon Aristotelianism, it is thoroughly modern because it in-
corporates the notion of subjectivity. What is actualized, for Taylor, is not xed
independently of the individual actualizer (e.g., in genus as it is for Aristotle);
it is internally created or shaped by each individual or each people. An expres-
sion which does not take into account the subjective formulation of the ends
to be achieved, leads to a life which is distorted or mutilated (ibid. 1316).
Expressivism has other dimensions. It implies an Aristotelian unity of body and
soul. And from this unity, a further communion with both man and nature that
overcomes the atomism of Enlightenment society (ibid. 2429). The ideal of rad-
ical freedom is the ideal of Kantian moral autonomy. As such it stands in opposi-
tion to expressivism. From this tension arises the third ideal and reference point:
the unity of freedom and expressivism (ibid. 2936).
Now, Taylor derives these reference points from a reading of the intellec-
tual tradition of the Sturm und Drang (primarily through Herder and Schiller) and
the philosophy of moral freedom (Kant). He then reads these reference points
into, rather than out of, Hegels earliest work. This is visible in the dispropor-
tionality of the space Taylor devotes to the development of the historical context
(forty-seven pages) compared to interpreting the Tbingen essay (three pages).
Taylors approach would be unproblematic for us if he were correct in his identi-
cation of Hegels Problemstellung. Whatever their historical accuracy, Taylors ref-
erence points more properly describe (and then only in the most general way)
the Problemstellung at which Hegel arrives in his maturity, and not one from which
he begins. Because Taylor misses the development of the early Problemstellung,
he takes away the real importance that these earliest writings, particularly the
Tbingen essay, have for grasping the full implications of Hegels mature idea of
the good life. Taylor has underestimated the degree to which Hegel constantly
harnesses the language of his intellectual, political, and religious context to the
logic of his own project. As a consequence the specic logic of that project is lost
to us in Taylors interpretations.
The difference between Taylors radical freedom and integral expressiv-
ism and our virtue and being at home in the world is not just a matter of labels.
It is a difference concerning Hegels whole Problemstellung. Taylor has grabbed
hold of the elements which comprise this Problemstellung with remarkable clar-
ity. Yet, their true import is lost to us without the necessary corrective we have in-
troduced here: the reconstruction of the Problemstellung from the examination of
Hegels own project on its own terms.
logic of the ancient conception of virtue he cannot take up that response

to the disharmony of the soul: the ordering of the soul in accordance with
the dictates of one of its aspects, e.g., reason. This harmonization through
hierarchy is not possible once Hegel abandons the notion that one aspect
of the human spirit can supply the conditions for the satisfaction of the
others.19 Thus, the only systemic answer available to him is to nd some
instrument external to the human spirit capable of producing the con-
ditions for its unity. We must say producing the conditions rather than
producing the unity because there can be no harmonization of capacity
unless they self-develop according to their individual natures. Reason, like
sensibility, can be affected by an external power only indirectlyit [i.e.,
the external power] is active negatively, so to speak, [ ]; even if it does not
operate directly here, still it has this subtler inuence, that at least it lets
the soul express itself freely and openly, and does not distort the longing
of its activity (TE 8). So, Hegels instrument must take the form of a ma-
trix that affects and nourishes all of the human spirit in its essential unity
and in the diversity of its particular needs.
III. The Folk-Religion Project
We now have before us two basic insights into the Tbingen essay. First, we
have a partial picture of the order within Hegels constellation of catego-
ries, even if the place of folk-religion and its relationship to pure rational
religion and private religion remains incomprehensible. Second, we know
the structure of the human spirits natural need as the unied satisfaction
of virtue and being at home in the world. We are now in a position where
we can link these two insights together to reveal the nature and fate of the
Tbingen essays Problemstellung.
A. Religion and Natural Need
If the human spirits satisfaction is the animating idea of the Tbingen es-
say, then Hegels overt concern for religion must be comprehensible as a
response to virtue, being at home in the world, and their unity. To be ad-
equate to the needs of virtue, religion must make reason accept the non-
moral beautiful images and the fair and lovely colours derived from
19 Because H. S. Harris continues to see a hierarchy of capacities, with reason

at the top, what we have shown to be a mutual coordination through harmoniza-
tion is for Harris subordination through harmonization: our impulses require to
be developed under rational control (1972: 143).
<mature> sensibility (TE 24). Reason must be made to give up the hope
that it can be pure reason. For Hegel, religion puts in place conditions
that allow reason to abandon this hope. Religion accomplishes this trans-
formation of reasons self-understanding by giving moralityi.e., reasons
enda new form, one that is as high as Kants universalization, but devoid
of its rational abstractness. This new form is the Idea of holiness [ ] as
the ultimate apex of ethical conduct and the ultimate limit of all striving
(TE 17).20 Since holiness demands to be actualized as conduct, as reasons
end, it neither permits reason to forestall activity because it fears that its
actions will be less than purely moral, nor does the Idea of holiness allow
reason to search for a world here or elsewhere that might be more wor-
thy of itself. To wait for another, better world in which to act does not pre-
serve the holiness of morality. It fails to achieve it. In this way, religion di-
rects reason to nd itself in the practical world, the world of the non-moral
motives of the sensibility.
Hegel agrees with those who claim just this much, that it is certainly
not probable, that anywhere on this earth, either mankind generally or
even any individual man could altogether dispense with non-moral mo-
tivesand in our nature itself this kind of feeling is woven (TE 18). Yet
through religion the non-moral motives lose their problematic character
for reason. For
men whose experience is all at the level of sense religion also is at that lev-
elthe religious motives to good action must be sensible in order that they
may work upon the senses; because of this, of course, they generally lose some
part of their proper worth as moral motivesbut they have thereby taken on
such a human aspect, they are so exactly adapted to our feelings that we are
led on by our hearts and beguiled by the beauty of fancy, and we frequently
and easily forget that a cool reason disapproves of picture images of this kind
and even forbids saying anything about them. (TE 5)
Although religion leads reason to the sensible world, it does not simply
abandon reason to that world. For here Hegel tells us that religions end of
holiness is neither given by sensibility nor is it a mere abstraction from the
sensual world such as the understanding would produce. Holiness comes
from the human aspect or the structure of human needs; religions holi-
20 H. S. Harris quite rightly sees that the inuence of Kants regulative ideal of
holiness plays a merely instrumental role and that Hegels dominate concern is
for a self-discipline that produces virtue [but] is distinct from the experience of
virtue itself (1972: 14243).
ness articulates the human spirits wholeness. Even if sensibility is inspired

by the beauty or fair and lovely colours of the sensible shell in which re-
ligion encases holiness, it is this same holiness that inspires reason. Being
able to speak to sensibility on its own terms, religion can curb the excesses
of the heart and fancy by furnish[ing] a new and a more solid barrier
against the might of the sensual impulses (TE 5). Religion prevents those
adventurous rovings (TE 24) of the fancy and heart which allow these ca-
pacities to too easily make their own way, or let themselves be led astray
(TE 19). Curbed of its excesses, sensibility loses its tendency to overpower
reason and ceases to be a source of disharmony in the human spirit. In
this way religion meets Hegels requirement that both [heart and fancy]
should be well directed (TE 19).
By being well directed, sensibility self-develops. Now, Hegel is not simi-
larly concerned about the self-development of reason, perhaps because
he identies the problem of disharmony mainly with its hyper-develop-
ment. Correspondingly, the role of religion in reasons well direction
is slight. Religion has done its job in this regard when it simply does not
distort reasons moral end but instead gives to morality and its motive pow-
ers a new and a more exalted light (TE 5): the Idea of holiness (TE 17
18). What curbs the excesses of reason and sensibility also simultaneously
unites them under one end and permits their free development. Religion
becomes the matrix for the full expression of human capacity.21
If religion is to be an adequate response to the human spirit, it must ad-
dress the requirement to be at home in the world. Hegels acknowledges
the latter when he writes, in a curiously phrased single-sentence para-
graph, Religion must help man build his own little house, a house which
he can call his own, how much can it help him in this? (TE 17) Now, the
answer that Hegel immediately supplies consists of the harmonization of
reason and sensibility. Then, confusingly, Hegel adds a discussion of pure
rational religion (that form of religion in which reason alone is virtue)
which then suddenly shifts to public religion and nally to folk-religion.
We do not need to sort through why Hegels solution shifts from harmoni-
zation to these three categories. The general implication of the answer is
clear enough: the problem of being at home in the world is derivative of
the problem of harmonization and satisfaction of human capacity. Being
at home in the world is satised by rst satisfying virtue.
This rst response to the satisfaction of being at home in the world will
21 Stephen Crites grasps a weaker version of this role of religion when he

states that [r]eligion at its best is a kind of mediation between reason and heart
(1998: 76).
prove inadequate. Nonetheless, by stating that [r]eligion must help man

build his own little house, Hegel makes religion the solution to being at
home in the world. Since religion is also the source of the harmonization
of virtue, religion now becomes the matrix for the whole of the human
spirit and its satisfaction. The structure of religion responds to the struc-
ture of the human spirit.
B. Folk-Religion and Natural Need
Once Hegel asks how the world can be a home for the human spirit, he
immediately opens up the possibility that conditions external to the hu-
man spirit affect its satisfaction. At the beginning of the Tbingen essay
Hegel mentions two sorts of external conditions: rst, the acculturation
and education of individuals; second, the caprice of individual character.
With regard to the former, Hegel tells us:
Nature has buried in every man a seed of the ner feelings that springs from morality, it
has placed in him a sense for what is moral, for ends that go beyond the range of mere
sense; to see that this seed of beauty is not choked, that a real receptivity for moral ideas
and feelings actually grows out of it, this is the task of education [Erziehung], of culture
[Bildung]religion is not the rst thing that can put down roots in the Gemt [charac-
ter],22 it must have a cultivated plot there before it can ourish. (TE 8)
22 H. S. Harris translates the Gemt throughout the Tbingen essay as mind.

We will translate Gemt as character or disposition because Hegel appears to
distinguish what is essential in the human spirit (i.e., reason, sensibility, and being
at home) from what is capricious (i.e., the sort of character, disposition, or incli-
nations we happen to have). Because our interpretation, unlike Harris, attempts
to show that the structure of religion rests on the structure of the human spirit, it
is critical for us to distinguish what fundamentally belongs to that spirit and what
does not.
Laurence Dickeys analysis of the concept of Gemt supports our interpretation
here when he says that an aspect of the meaning of Gemt is not reducible to any hu-
man capacity, be it mind or heart. He notes that the term achieved a particular im-
portance in late medieval theology where it was used to signify an active power that
embraced and penetrated the various faculties of the soul and directed them toward God
(1987: 163). For this reason Dickey indicates that Gemt is best understood as a spiri-
tual energy that orients mans faculties toward God and then leaves it to man to fulll
his destiny (ibid. 163). However, if his spiritual energy interpretation were correct,
it is unclear why Hegel states that religion requires non-spiritual preparation in order
to take root. In this way, Harris secularized reading is more true to the text itself and
to the logic of Hegels position that we have brought out. However, Dickey helpfully
identies Gemt as an orienting disposition standing apart from, but shaping or me-
diating, the faculties of the human spirit. In this way, our reading of Gemt as charac-
ter captures both the anthropological intention of Harris and the independence of
Clearly, culture and education are only preparatory to a religious solu-

tion to human satisfaction. Although Hegel does not indicate why, we can
infer that by themselves culture and education cannot harmonize reason
and sensibility because they cannot supply the appropriate ends towards
which these faculties must be directed. Culture and education belong to
the building materials and equipment for the great high edice of di-
vine knowledge and of the knowledge of human duties and of nature [ ]
on which humanity as a whole is working (TE 1617). As such, education
and acculturation are contingent, taking their content and shape from a
particular people and a particular time. Therefore in the Tbingen essay
the high edice to which culture and education belong is not an object for
reason but only a delight to the human understanding (TE 16).
Even when morality is humanized through religion as ethical con-
duct so that reason accepts sensibility, reason cannot accept ends that are
rooted in the contingent and historical. Even sensibility too can nd no
direct satisfaction through the processes of education and acculturation:
their abstract materials lack the beauty, the fair and lovely colours, re-
quired to forestall sensibilitys adventurous rovings. However, culture and
education shape and give content to the individuals character, thereby
addressing
the most important point at issue in subjective religion[, which] is whether,

and to what extent, the Gemt [character] is disposed to let itself be controlled
by religious motiveshow far it is susceptible to religion; and further what
kinds of images [Vorstellungen] make a special impression on the heartwhat
kinds of feelings have been most cultivated and are most easily produced in
the soul (TE 7)
By focusing on the role of these external processes, Hegel opens up his

project to a practical problem. Since religion depends on culture, educa-
tion, and character, it may lose its effectiveness if these externals do not
adequately prepare the way for religion. If any of these conditions are de-
cient, the larger religious project cannot get off the ground. Hegel im-
plicitly responds to this possibility by transforming the external problem
of culture, education, and character into a problem internal to religion.
He begins with the transformation of the problem of character when he
writes [u]pon this disposition [of individuals]upon this receptivity de-
pends the character that subjective religion takes on in each particular per-
son (emphasis added; TE 7). Here Hegel takes the notion of character
types and transforms it into types of religion. In other words, he abandons
Gemt in Dickeys interpretationeven if we must discard the latters emphasis on its

historical theological aspect (see ibid. 164).
the singularity of religion with which the Tbingen essay began and in-
stead introduces a radical diversity of types of religion. The category of re-
ligion itself is no longer itself a sufcient solution. Four paragraphs later
Hegel transforms the problem of acculturation and education.
It is not my object to investigate what religious doctrines are most appealing to

the heart, <or> most apt to elevate and give comfort to the soulnot how the
doctrines of a religion should be constituted in order to make a people bet-
ter and happierbut rather to inquire what institutions are requisite in order
that the doctrines and the force of religion should enter into the web of hu-
man feelings, become associated with human impulses to action, and prove
living and active in themin order that religion should become wholly sub-
jective(TE 8)
Even when the pre-religious institutions (i. e., of culture and ed-
ucation) permit receptivity to religion, religion itself is insufcient.
[R]eligion should become wholly subjective; it now must be internally
differentiated in order to respond to the historically given content culti-
vated by the preparatory institutions.
Although Hegel is impelled to begin turning away from the category of re-
ligion itself he wishes to go no further in this direction than he must. Hegel
rst xes on subjective religion because this differentiation of religion is as
close to the original category as is possible. Without rigidly codied or sys-
tematized content, a subjective religion is exible enough to respond to the
full variety of individual characters and cultural worlds. At the same time, the
non-mechanicality of subjective activity reects human capacities as ends in
themselves, free from any essential dependency on externals. For these rea-
sons, Hegel can say that the subjective form of religion seems wholly concor-
dant with its [i.e., the souls] own requirement (TE 9).
We already know from our analysis of Hegels constellation of catego-
ries that the immense exibility of a religion wholly subjective with re-
gard to content cannot be systemically sustained. Only those outstand-
ing men in every age [who] have arrived at and have grasped with whole
heart and cloven to with love the universal truths (TE 14) exist within
a world of fully subjective religion. Subjective religion is exible because
it is empty. If religion must speak to the character (Gemt) of the individ-
ual and to his or her cultural world, it must have concrete content recog-
nizable to them. If religion still is to be a systemic solution, it must take on
a specic institutional shape that nonetheless avoids sacricing the full
development of human capacity to the situatedness of the human spirit.
These latter requirements make folk-religion so important. Folk-religion
becomes that institutional shape of religion which can systemically satisfy

the human spirit.23
Nowhere is this correspondence between folk-religion and the hu-
man spirit more explicit than in Hegels answer to his self-posed question:
How must folk-religion be constituted? (Folk-religion is here taken objec-
tively.) This answer consists of the outline which we visited in our initial
analysis of Hegels constellation of categories:
I. Its doctrines must be grounded on universal Reason.

II. Fancy, heart, and sensibility must not thereby go empty away.
III. It must be so constituted that all the needs of lifethe public affairs of
the state are tied in with it. (TE 2021)
Each element of this outline articulates one of the fundamental moments

of the human spirit. In (I) and (II) we see the individual needs of reason,
fancy, and heart (or sensibility more generally) addressed. More impor-
tantly, these rst two elements taken together express the commensura-
bility of human capacity since the satisfaction of one capacity should not
thereby cause the other to go empty away (TE 20). Implicitly then, folk-
religion also provides the means whereby this commensurability can be-
come the actual unity of human capacity. In folk-religion this unity does
not need to be won against an external world of institutions which frac-
ture or hierarchicalize activity along the lines of the individual faculties,
since it provides the full range of those already integrated institutions nec-
essary for the actualization of human capacity. At the same time, this unity
does not need to be won against the internally conicting aims of reason
and sensibility. Already we know that any religion ensures this commensu-
rability through the imposition of the unied end of holiness on the hu-
man faculties. So, in this way, folk-religion provides the human spirit with
that matrix of development in which each individual might fashion that
pure and authentic practical moment (TE 21) Hegel structures on the
Aristotelian virtue of phronsis.
23 Hegels process of differentiating religious phenomena is not one of dis-

covery. He already has a sense that folk-religion is the answer when, at the begin-
ning of the Tbingen essay, Hegel introduces the category of folk-religion (and
public religion) almost immediately after indicating that the category of religion
is the solution to the initial formulation of the problem of the human spirit (TE
36). Hegel may realize that this introduction of folk-religion is premature or
unwarranted, for rather than investigate folk-religion he introduces the catego-
ries of objective and subjective religion (TE 67). Folk-religion is the solution
Hegel settles on, but it is not necessarily the solution he would prefer.
At this point we have only shown how folk-religion responds to the hu-
man spirits need for virtue. However, folk-religion also responds to the
need to be at home in the world and then the additional requirement that
it and virtue exist harmoniously. Hegel builds these responses into the -
nal element (III) of his outline in the form of three interrelated functions.
First, (III) indicates that folk-religion extends the end of holiness from
the full range of human capacities to the full range of human activities,
from the individual needs of life to the public affairs of the state. In this
way, folk-religion systematizes the possibility of human satisfaction, taking
it beyond the private possession of a few men who have proven them-
selves and forced their way through to wisdom over long experience (TE
21). Once folk-religion is everywhere the individual is, the problem of hu-
man situatednesssuch as the unequal distribution of cultural and educa-
tional resources or the idiosyncracies of characterloses its ability to pro-
duce unequal individual opportunities for human satisfaction.
Second, by making the full range of everyday life commensurate with
the highest ends of the human spirit, (III) shows that folk-religion directs
the human spirit to the world before it rather than some other world here
or elsewhere. Hegel later adds that a folk-religions doctrines must be
humane [menschlich] in the sense that they are appropriate to the spiritual
cultural stage of morality that a people has reached (TE 21). So, once di-
rected to the actual world, folk-religion ensures that there will be no sys-
temic dissonance between religiously cultivated expectations and the con-
crete situation. Folk-religion allows the human spirit to be at home.
Finally, when (III) is united with (I) and (II) we have a single set of
conditions for the satisfaction of virtue and being at home in the world.
Moreover, the movement from (I) to (III) constitutes a proto-Aufhebung
or sublation in which the previous element of the outline is integrated
into the next to form a new and ontologically superior unity: reason passes
over into a unity with the moments of sensibility; this unity then passes
over into another with being at home in the world; and the latter articu-
lates the universalized possibility of the whole of the human spirits satis-
faction. We can now express this satisfaction in terms of a singular natural
needthe need for folk-religion. Folk-religion, and not religion, now be-
comes the matrix in which the very unity of the human spirit grows and
out of which it emerges.
If the satisfaction of the human spirit is the animating idea of not just
folk-religion but all of the Tbingen essay, then we should be able to use
the idea of human satisfaction to reproduce what we already know of the
order within the constellation of categories, account for the deciencies
of superstition and fetish faith, and clear up the previously opaque re-
lationship between the categories of folk-religion, pure rational religion,
and private religion.
We have seen that the meta-categories of subjective and objective reli-

gion (especially in their second meaning of mechanical/non-mechanical
activity) are the lters through which Hegel does his initial ordering of
the constellation of categories. And we have shown that the subjective and
objective gain their normative force through their respective correspon-
dence/non-correspondence to a more primary conception of free human
activity. So, at rst, we only need to account for the movement from re-
ligion to public religion and then the latters specic instances: the me-
chanicality of superstition and fetish faith, and the non-mechanicality of
folk-religion. The direction of this movement is one of increasing institu-
tional specication. As such it corresponds to Hegels dawning realization
that the differential structure of human needs can only be met by a cate-
gory of religion which itself is internally differentiated.
Our next question is whether, like folk-religion, fetish faith and super-
stition can be understood in terms of the human spirit. That is, in what
ways might they be corruptions of the human spirits needs and not just
religions end? Now, fetish faiths activity was characterized by the sort of
prudent cleverness also found in the understandings mathematical
method (TE 12). As we know, fetish faiths calculative activity is opposed
to that of reason because reason cannot abide by the sort of servitude to
given ends and principles to which the understanding is chained. At the
same time, this calculative, prudent cleverness is opposed to the sensibil-
ity. For sensibility, in its highest form as love
does not do good actions, because it has calculated that <the> joys that arise
from its actions will be less mixed and longer lasting than those of sensibility
[i.e., the individual sensible capacities] or those that spring from the satisfac-
tion of any passionthus it is not the principle of rened self-love, where the
ego is in the end always the ultimate goal(TE 18)
In this way, the fundamental failure of fetish faith is a failure to respond

to those non-calculative needs of human capacity which dene the hu-
man spirit. In responding only to the understanding, fetish faith makes
us cleverer certainly, but not better (emphasis added; TE 12). Not better
because with our reconstruction of the concept of the human spirit as our
interpretative guide we now know that the development of reason and
sensibility toward their end as the virtue of phronsis is the good that reli-
gion must cultivate to make us truly better.
Despite fetish faiths deciencies, it cleaves to the proper boundaries of
religion in that it is operative in just those situations where it ought to be
(TE 2122). There are moments of everyday activity which do not concern
the exercise of practical wisdom and therefore do not require religions
guiding and developing powers. In those situations only simple prudence
ought to be ones guide (TE 9). Fetish faith leaves the domain of simple
prudence operative. Superstition, however, does not. And it does not be-
cause it unites the mechanical activity of fetish faith with a corruption of
folk-religions extension of religion throughout the whole of life. Where
folk-religion creates the institutional conditions in which virtuous activity
can self-develop, superstition focuses only on the activity itself. All activity
for it becomes bound up with the divine end of holiness. Since, like fetish
faith, this end is to be achieved through the direct, mechanical translation
of doctrine into action, superstition has the exact opposite result of a folk-
religion. Superstition everywhere denies the human spirit its satisfaction
of human capacity.
Before we can conrm the search for the satisfaction of virtue and be-
ing at home in the world as the Tbingen essays Problemstellung, we must
next ask whether the structure of the human spirit can illuminate the
opaque relationship between the categories of folk-religion, pure rational
religion, and private religion. From the standpoint of religion, we could
not distinguish between these three categories because each appeared to
be adequate to religions end. Now, from the standpoint of those human
needs which religion is to serve, the differences become clear. Pure ratio-
nal religion maybe the preeminent response to the needs of reason, but
it necessarily fails to be adequate to the whole of the human spirit. Unlike
fetish faith and superstition, however, pure rational religion articulates
something true about the human spirit. In this way, Hegels incorporation
of pure rational religion into folk-religion does not represent any concep-
tual confusion, but rather an attempt to preserve what is a moment of the
human spirits truth within the larger truth of folk-religion.
But why should folk-religion and not private religion be the institutional
shape of this truth? To recall, private religion was to be distinguished from
folk-religion by its objects: The development of the individual in accord
with his character, instruction about cases of conict of duties, the particu-
lar means for the advancement of virtue, comfort, and support in particu-
lar states of suffering and calamity (TE 19). From our analysis of the hu-
man spirit we can see that, while both focus on aspects of the human spirit,
private religion only concerns itself with the satisfaction of its contingent
elements while folk-religion seizes upon its universal requirements.
Nonetheless, the two are easily confused, because private religion im-
itates the outward effects of folk-religion. On the one hand, private reli-
gion takes up the virtue of practical wisdom, but instead of being the ma-
trix for the moment of decision, it supplies instruction about cases of
conict of duties, [and] the particular means for the advancement of vir-
tue (TE 19) that only can end up promoting the cleverness of the under-
standing. On the other hand, private religion imitates the conditions re-
quired to be at home in the world by providing comfort, and support in
particular states of suffering and calamity (TE 19). To be at home in the
world is to acknowledge both that expectations of the world ought not to
exceed the worlds given resources to meet the human spirits needs and
that we must neither go so far in our being at home as to equate every-
thing that occurs in the world with the requirement for happiness nor to
expect constant joy or happiness with the state of the world. To be at home
we must see that the cold conviction, deduced from particular cases, that
everything will turn out for the best [ ] can never be brought into real
life (TE 23). Misfortune must be taken as misfortune, sorrow must be
taken as sorrow, and the ow of natural necessity that produces these
things must be accepted (ibid.).
Private religion, however, tries to palliate the individuals existence by
providing comfort and support. Not only does such comfort try to alter
the natural relationship of the human spirit to its world, but this comfort
is based on the capricious needs of individual character and the idiosyn-
cratic disposition of sensibility rather than the universal requirement of
the human spirit to be at home. As a result, where character and culture
ought to be brought into union with the immediate needs of the human
spirit, private religion ends up further separating them by taking these
gateways to the human spirit to be the destination itself.24
We can call the plan of religious transformation arising from this ani-
mating idea Hegels folk-religion project. While the project rst seemed
to aim only at discovering the true and false forms of holiness, its true aim
consists in the delineation of conditions that promote or thwart the hu-
man spirits full satisfaction. Holiness remains as an end, but it is a holiness
inseparable from a virtue that is at home in the world.
C. The Instability of the Folk-Religion Project
With the category of folk-religion, Hegel seems to have brought his proj-
ect to completion. Folk-religion stands as the pivot between the total fail-
ure to respond to the human spirit found in fetish faith and superstition
on one side, and the failure to respond to the total human spirit found in
24 Stephen Crites rests the difference between folk-religion and private reli-
gion on the needs of the community. While the idea of the community will enter
Hegels thought (in the Berne Fragments), it is not yet present here. So, when
Crites sees folk-religion as nurtur[ing] a civilization, what is really being nur-
tured is the universal needs of the human spirit as opposed to the idiosyncratic
needs of private personality (1998: 8485).
pure rational religion and private religion on the other. He has found that
institutional shape capable of becoming living and active in men; he has
found that instrument capable of bringing them to their full life through
a virtue that is active in the world at the same time that they are at home
in it.
When the requirement to be at home in the world is satised through,
and subordinate to, virtue, the actual condition of the world does not
threaten the viability of the folk-religion project. However, Hegel aban-
dons this subordinate understanding of being at home in the world. His
conception of being at home began with the idea of simply avoiding dis-
satisfaction with what we do nd [in the world], [so that] ill humour will
less often cloud our minds (TE 4). It then consisted of man build[ing]
his own little house, a home which he can call his own (TE 17). Now, be-
ing at home requires much more.
As soon as there is a dividing wall between life and doctrineor even just a sev-
erance and long distance between the two of themthere arises the suspicion
that the form of religion is defectiveeither it is too much occupied with idle
word-games, or it demands a level of piety from men that is hypocritical be-
cause it is too highit is in conict with their natural needs, with the impulses
of a well-ordered sensibilityts sphrosuns25 [ ]If the joys, the gaiety of
men have to be ashamed before religionif one who makes merry at a public
festivalmust sneak into the temple unobtrusivelythen the form of religion
is too gloomy on its outward side to dare give any pledge that men would sur-
render the joys of life in response to its demands
It must abide in amity with all the emotions of lifenot want to force its
way inbut be everywhere welcome. If religion is to be able to work on the
people it must go along with them amicably everywherestand beside them
in their business and on the more serious occasions of life as well as at their fes-
tivals and rejoicings(TE 26)
Here, the home of the individual human spirit must accommodate
25 Among the German Hellenists (such as Goethe, Lessing, Schelling, and, at

least on this point, Hegel), J. Glenn Gray notes that Sophrosyne became a watch
word for personal ideal of the Greek character. It connoted both fullness and
harmony, [and to them it] seemed the basic characteristic of Greek life. The fa-
ther of neoclassicist movement in Germany, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, ex-
pressed this ideal as the phrase noble simplicity, serene greatness which Goethe
took up as the ideal of Rest in Movement and The permanent amid change
(1968: 3940).
the full breadth and amplitude of life: its daily business, festivals, rejoic-
ings, and the more serious occasions of life such as the social experi-
ences of birth, marriage, death and burial Hegel rst mentioned in the
Tbingen essay (see TE 3). For the human spirit to nd its systemic sat-
isfaction, a folk-religion must be found everywhere in life, and life must
be found everywhere in folk-religion. To ensure that folk-religion will go
along with them amicably everywhere Hegel forges a link between folk-
religion and this home of human activity when he demands that [t]he es-
sential practices of religion [ ] do not have to be more closely concor-
dant with it26 than they are with the spirit of the people, and it is from the
latter that they really ought to spring (TE 26).
This spirit of the people, or Volksgeist, is for Hegel the empirical con-
juncture of its history, its religion, the level of its political freedom (TE
27). In this way, Hegel intensies folk-religions original relationship to
the needs of life and the public affairs of the state (TE 21), submerging
these into the broader context of the human spirits entire external condi-
tion: historical, religious, and political. The result is that the success of his
folk-religion project also becomes profoundly dependent on the human
spirits external situation. A folk-religion must tend to the dictates of rea-
son, abide in amity with all the emotions of life, and go along with them
[i.e., men] amicably everywhere (TE 26) all the while taking its essential
practices from the spirit of the people. If the spirit of the people is inade-
quate then folk-religion is torn between the historical, empirical conjunc-
ture out of which it must arise and the task of tending to the innate needs
of the human spirit for which Hegel intends it.
On this basis, the folk-religion project becomes unstable, and Hegel
is gripped by doubt. This doubt structures the final quarter of the
Tbingen essay. Its initial expression masquerades as a two-fold critique of
Christianitys suitability as a folk-religion. First, through prayer the end of
holiness, or the complete resignation to Gods will, becomes an instru-
ment for the satisfaction of individual desire (TE 22) just as religious cer-
emony becomes an instrument for the avoidance of physical or moral
punishment [ ], or as a way of sneaking back into the lost good graces
of the overlord, the dispenser of rewards and punishments (TE 2425).
So, by only tending to the understanding, Christianity fails to be the ma-
trix for the development of reason. Second, Christianity neglects the re-
26 The it has an ambiguous referent but is likely the uncited, immediately

preceding discussion of the spirit of thankfulness and goodwill that character-
ized the religious practices of a milder climate. In any case, the exact referent is
not important for our purposes.
quirement to be at home in the world as well as sensibility because [a]t

our greatest public festival, [ ] which ought to be the feast of universal
brotherhoodmany a man is afraid he will catch from the common cup
the venereal infection of the one who drank before him, so that his mind is
not attentive, not occupied with holy feelings (TE 27). Where Christianity
ought to be a public religion with the resources to become a folk-religion,
its deciencies force it to assume the shape of a fetish faith, superstition,
or a private religion.
But, Christianity is an instance of the category of religion itself. As
such,
[t]he principal doctrines of the Christian religion have indeed remained the
same since the beginning, but, according to the circumstances of the time,
one doctrine would be pushed completely into the shadows while another
was specially emphasized, and placed in the limelight, and distorted at the ex-
pense of the eclipsed doctrine, being either stretched too far or restricted too
narrowly(TE 56)
These Christian principle doctrines lie behind all the specic instances
of Christianity, whether the public religions of Catholicism, Protestantism,
or the private religion of primitive Christianity.27 Hegel later adds that a
few fundamental propositions lie at the base of every religion; they are merely
modied or deformed to a greater or less extent in the different religions,
expressed more or less purelythey constitute the basis of all the faith
and all the hopes that religion offers us (TE 8). The principal doctrines
of the Christian religion constitute just such a set of these few fundamen-
tal propositions and so it is Christianity itself that is the basis of all faith
and hope for Hegel.
The importance of Hegels critique can now be seen. If Christianity con-
stitutes the resources from which a Christian folk-religion must draw, then
by criticizing Christianity (and not simply its specic instances) Hegel un-
dermines his very folk-religion project. Hegel must cleave to the assump-
tion that the power of religion is universally available, even when its spe-
cic articulations are defective in one way or another. Should a defect be
present at the level of religion itself, then any specic instance of it what-
soeverincluding a folk-religionwould also be defective. His project of
satisfying the human spirit would be impossible to carry out. In this way,
Hegels apparently incidental critique of Christianity becomes a moment
27 H. S. Harris 1972: 121.

expressing doubt about the most profound assumptions of the whole folk-
religion project.
Hegels doubt is implicitly animated by a concern that Christianitys fail-
ure might be shared by other, or perhaps all, religions. Keeping this con-
cern in mind allows us to make sense of Hegels ebullient (or as Peperzak
puts it un peu rococo)28 and unannounced embracing of the religion of the
ancient Greeks that characterizes the end of the Tbingen essay as a reac-
tion to his doubt. At least in the religion of the Greeks he nds one exam-
ple of a folk-religion project that was successful. For this reason, more than
any animating commitment to that Hellenic ideal itself, Hegel sees the ac-
tualization of the human spirit in the life activity of the Greeks.29
The brazen bond of his needs fetters him too to Mother Earth, but he
worked over it, rened it, beautied it with feeling and fancy, twining it with
roses by the aid of the Graces, so that he could delight in these fetters as his
own work, as a part of himself. His servants were joy, gaiety, and grace; his soul
lled with the consciousness of its power and its freedom, his more serious
companions at play <were> friendship and love [ ] (TE 28)
Here Hegel implicitly describes the process of the human spirits satisfac-
tion from the standpoint of isolated reason. Thus the requirement to be
at home in the world (the needs which fetter him to Mother Earth) ap-
pear as something opposed to the human spirits virtue. As the human
28 Adrien Peperzak 1960: 18.

29 The Hellenic ideal came to prominence in Germany with Winckelmanns
studies of Greece and Greek art (Winckelmanns inuence is mentioned by vir-
tually all commentators, but J. Glenn Gray gives a concise overview of the details
as they relate to Hegel [Gray 1968: 18, 3841]). This interest was then taken up
by all the thinkers (from Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, to Hlderlin) who
then formed the most propinquitous context of Hegels own development. For
this reason it is not surprising to see Hegel also invoke the Greek ideal. However,
his general enthusiasm for it must not be confused with the animating idea of
his thought. (For a contrasting position and a detailed index of all the adjectives
Hegel uses to describe the Greeks, see Adrien Peperzak 1960: 1519, 25.) At most,
the Greek ideal is an exemplication of one shape of the Kingdom of God on
earth. That Hegel has to turn to it, even though it contradicts the requirement to
be at home in the world, is not properly an indication of an enthusiasm for his
Greek ideal [which] overows all bounds and puts him for a moment into that
posture of yearning that we associate rather with Hlderlin (H. S. Harris 1972:
149). Rather, the force of Hegels description of the Greeks is borne out of doubt
and despair.
spirit acts in the world through the aid of religion (the Graces) and in a
way that accords with the full development of human capacity (the work,
rening, and beautifying), the fetter of being at home falls away. The
world is recognized as his own work, as part of himself without diminish-
ing the power and freedom of virtue.
Hegels presentation of Greek religion may serve to diminish his fear that
any solution to the human spirits satisfaction through folk-religion is im-
possible. But it cannot change folk-religions dependence on the resources
contained in the spirit of a people. Hegel himself underlines this condition
of dependency when he describes the origins of the Greek genius or hu-
man spirit: The father of this Genius is Time on which he remains depen-
dent in a way all his life (the circumstances of the time)his mother the
politeia, the Constitutionhis midwife, his wet-nurse, Religion (TE 27).30
At once, Hegel tries to conceptually save his religious solution by isolating
religion from its tight integration in the Volksgeist. Only history (Time) and
human spirit. But at once he also shows that religion cannot be a friend
(TE 28) to the Greek human spirit prior to the contingent conjoining of
history and politics.
Hegel is aware that the Hellenic ideal is an irretrievable solution. We
may gaze on in love and wonder in surviving copies of his form but he
is own from the earth (TE 29). Even if the Greek human spirit had not
own, the Greek Volksgeist would not be our spirit and their world would
not be our world. While the Greek ideal shows what has been, it must
nonetheless always be trumped by the possibilities for the emergence of
a folk-religion inherent in Hegels own world. His critique of religion al-
ready shows that he does not think this potential is great within his own
time. In light of his re-description of the relationship of history and poli-
tics to religion that critique is not itself fatal to his folk-religion project. If
Hegel had stopped here, he would have left an opening for the union of
history and politics to produce a new child with a wet-nurse other than
Christianity. In his despair, Hegel closes this opening. He returns to a com-
30 H. S. Harris 1972: 149. The quoted material is the initial sentence of a para-
graph that was cancelled by Hegel some time after he had written it (ibid. 149
50). Nonetheless, it concisely captures both the unity of the spirit of the Greek
people and the relation of religion to it more succinctly than the succeeding un-
cancelled text. Harris refers to the uncancelled passage as the simpler version
of his allegory lacking the rst passages imagery which he sees as more strik-
ingly reminiscent of Plato (and Hlderlin) (ibid. 150 n. 1). Harris, with his usual
acuity, traces out the various allusions present here from Jean-Jacques Rousseaus
mile to Periclean Athens to a recasting of Immanuel Kants conception of the
Enlightenment as a coming of age, an outgrowing of the need for a nurse or
tutor (ibid. 150).
ment rst made at the beginning of the Tbingen essay that [r]eligious
Ideas can make but little impression upon an oppressed spirit which has
lost its youthful vigour under the burden of its chains and is beginning to
grow old (TE 6). Now, the spirit of a people is not simply beginning to
grow old, it is aged:
A different Genius of the nations has the West hatchedhis form is agedbeau-
tiful he never wasbut some slight touches of manliness remain still faintly trace-
able in himhis father is bowed <with age>he dares not stand up straight
either to look round gaily at the world nor from a sense of his own digni-
tyhe is short-sighted and can see only little things at a time<>without
courage, without condence in his own strength, he hazards no bold throw, iron
fetters raw and <here the manuscript ends>. (TE 29)
This Genius of the West lacks the possibilities for the satisfaction of the
human spirit. It possesses neither the strength to be at home in the world
(the need to look round gaily at the world) nor a sense of his own
dignity whose only source is the full and unied expression of human
capacity.
The collapse of the folk-religion project at the end of the Tbingen es-
say at rst suggests that its source is the contingent fact of human situat-
edness. However, this collapse could not have been avoided. Even Hegel
had not expanded the nature of human situatedness from the individual-
ized effects of the Gemt, culture, education to the social effects of religion
and then the Volksgeist. Human situatedness is only a symptom of a tension
present in Hegels conception of the human spirit. When he breaks off
the manuscript in mid-sentence and then cancels its nal paragraph, he
merely replicates the logic behind his original turn to the Greeksi.e., he
turns away from the difculties confronting his folk-religion project.31
31 For the editorial status of the manuscript see H. S. Harris 1972: 152. He at-
tributes the manuscripts abrupt conclusion to Hegels realization that his initially
stated goal of having examined those institutional arrangements necessary for re-
ligion to have an affect on the human spirit (see TE 8) has been successfully com-
pleted (ibid. 15253). For Harris, an investigation of the transformation of the
spirit of youth into the aging spirit would require a whole other analysis, one
which would fall beyond the scope Hegel sets for himself. Harris is quite right in
this regard, but our investigation allows us to see that the success of the folk-re-
ligion project also highlights its failure. Having found the institutional shape that
will systemically satisfy the human spirit, Hegel ends up bringing to the surface
conditions on which his project depends but about which he can do nothing.
Hegel must bring the essay to a close now, not because it is complete, but because
its radical incompleteness has been internally revealed. Because Harris grasps the
This unresolved problem within Hegels conception of the human

spirit is how to show the necessary unity of the human spirits need for
virtue and being at home in the world. In this way, the folk-religion proj-
ect is philosophically insufcient. It cannot specify how the universal, a-
historical requirements of ancient virtue animating Hegels conception
of human capacity can ontologically implicate the equiprimordial human
need to have the good actualized in the existing world. The pursuit of the
human spirits satisfaction that forms the Tbingen essays Problemstellung
now requires an investigation into the more fundamental question of the
nature of the human spirit itself. To the folk-religion project, Hegel must
add what we might call the human-spirit project.
problem as a methodological one (i.e., the aging of the Western spirit must be in-
vestigated before any conclusions can be drawn) instead of as a problem internal
to Hegels conception of the human spirit, he misses the very engine which will
propel the rest of Hegels early investigations into the satisfaction of the human
spirit.
CHAPTER TWO
D I SC OVE R ING TH E CO MMUNITY:

T HE BER NE FRAGMENTS O F 1794
I. A Return to the Social World
In the Berne fragments1 Hegels pragmatic concern for the human

spirits satisfaction through folk-religion gives way to a philosophic engage-
ment with the internal relationship between its natural needs, which we
identied in the previous chapter as being at home in the world and vir-
tue. This supplanting of the folk-religion project by the human-spirit proj-
ect carries with it more than a change of emphasis. It marks the introduc-
tion into his thought, rst, of the community as an end in itself equal to
human satisfaction and, then, of the communalization of human needs.
In this way, the Berne fragments mark the transformation of Hegels origi-
nal Problemstellung from one dominated by the logic of virtue or self-devel-
opment to one centred on the logic of being at home in the world or par-
ticipating in a community.
1 Herman Nohl rst published the text comprising the Tbingen essay and
Berne fragments under the single title Fragments Concerning Folk-religion and
Christianity. However, H. S. Harris and other commentators distinguish two sets
of distinct fragments. The so-called Berne fragments are from Hegels initial
time in Switzerland (generally written late 1793 to 1794). They are fragmentary in
a way unlike the Tbingen essay. While the Tbingen essay forms a single work,
the Berne fragments consists of a diversity of material whose dating and ordering
has been subject to debate. Our own project does not require that we enter into
this debate. The argument presented in this chapter requires only that the gener-
ally agreed upon relationship between groups of fragments (and not the individ-
ual fragments themselves) is correct. In doing so we follow Harris own approach
to these fragments (1972: 16263). For Harris ordering, dating, sourcing, and
classifying (e.g., draft, excerpt, outline, etc.) of the fragments composing the
Berne fragments see his Chronological Index (ibid. 51920). This chapter treats
nos. 5051, 5358, and 6163 in that index; the omitted fragments are either ex-
cerpts or notes. For details concerning the order of specic fragments see ibid.
163 n. 2, 166 n. 1, 174 nn. 12, 183. For a slightly different chronology see Gisela
Schler 1963: esp. 12733.
49
A. From Socrates and Christ to Athens and Jerusalem
The opening fragments of the Berne fragments do not immediately show

this transformation of Problemstellung. Instead, the rst fragment, Auer dem
mndlichen Unterricht (BF 3032),2 begins with a practical set of concerns
about pedagogy.
Aside from oral instruction, the inuence of which is generally rather limited,
extending only to those with whom we have close natural ties, the only way of
achieving a large-scale effect is through writing. Here the educator [Belehrer]
stands on an invisible dias before the entire public; his invisibility provides him
with the opportunity to depict as vividly as he can the moral corruption of the
public heart, which he addresses in a tone more unsparing than he would ever
think to use toward even the most despicable individual. [ ] As generally the
sort of instruction must always conform to the genius and tone with which one
can be successful with a people, so we also nd here [that] the manner [in
which a people can be instructed] differ. (modied; BF 30)
Hegel does not mention the purpose of this instruction because it is pre-
supposed from the Tbingen essay: the satisfaction of the natural needs of
the human spirit through the setting up of a folk-religion. In the Tbingen
essay, he never got as far as discussing how the folk-religion solution might
be concretely implemented in his own society. Hegels doubts over the via-
bility of that solution overtook him rst. Now, he seems to set those doubts
aside, for this opening fragment answers two questions implicit in the
Tbingen essays folk-religion project: What instrument should be used to
make a people receptive to a folk-religion, and how should this instrument
be employed? To the rst, Hegel replies that the instrument to be used is
writing. To the second, it should be employed according to the genius and
tone appropriate to the people.3
Yet, the concrete application of the folk-religion project requires more
2 Following H. S. Harris convention each fragment will be identied by its in-

cipit where Hegel supplied no title.
3 H. S. Harris takes this specic problem of the Volkserzieher (educator of a
people), which is set out in these rst fragments, to structure the rest of Hegels
reections in the Berne fragments (1972: 162). In doing so, he seems to interpret
the Berne fragments as a whole not so much in light of the relationship within the
Berne fragments but rather the anticipated need to bridge the gap between the
Tbingen essays emphasis on folk-religion and Hegels the Life of Jesus (1795),
which emphasizes the work and teaching of Jesus. However, by reading the Berne
fragments mainly in terms of the Volkserzieher, Harris is not able to appreciate the
way in which this old Problemstellung, rooted in the folk-religion project and the
latters practical implementation, is displaced as the Berne fragments goes on.
DISCOVERING THE COMMUNITY 51
than these general answers. Rather than formulating his own pedagogy for
this educator of the people or Volkserzieher, Hegel draws on the Tbingen
essays concern with ancient Greece and the West to select two historical
exemplars, Christ and Socrates. Like the other Volkserziehers Hegel men-
tionsPlato, Xenophon, Spinoza, Shaftesbury, Rousseau, and Kantthe
content of their teaching consists only of maxims of pure morality (BF
59, 51). But, unlike these others, Socrates and Christ stand at the begin-
ning of an attempted moral transformation in their respective societies.
Where they differ, for Hegel, is their pedagogical approach, so that each
marks out one pole of instruction. Socrates instructed in the most natu-
ral way imaginableand without didactic tone, without the appearance of
wanting to enlighten (BF 30, 34). Christ did not speak as would a Greek
he had to work within a tradition that had accustomed their [his peoples,
the Jews] ears to direct instruction and moral sermonizing (BF 30).4
Hegels position is a difcult one. On the one hand, for the sake of be-
ing at home in the world and pedagogical success, Hegel must acknowl-
edge the affect of the respective Volksgeist on Socrates and Christs in-
struction. On the other hand, Hegel must avoid making this Volksgeist into
an irremediable fate as he had done at the end of the Tbingen essay.
The approach Hegel initially adopts is to locate the educational success
of Socrates, and the failure of Christ, in anything other than the Volksgeist.
For this reason, the problem with Christ becomes
that his followers misunderstood his command: Go all over the world, etc.
and baptize them, at least in so far as they deemed baptism, this outward sign,
to be universally necessary. This misunderstanding is all the more pernicious
since discrimination by means of outward signs brings in its wake sectarianism
and estrangement from others. (BF 32)
By blaming Christs followers, Hegel individualizes the source of the

problem in contrast to the social form he gave it at the end of the
Tbingen essay. Nonetheless, the effects of this error do not remain at
the level of the individual. Instead they promote the disintegration of the
old social world through a new sectarianism and estrangement from oth-
ers. This social concern gives an importance to Hegels otherwise trite
contrasting of Christ and Socrates on the issue of disciples. Christ had
twelve apostles, and this number stayed the same despite the fact that the
number of his disciples was far larger while Socrates had disciples of all
4 H. S. Harris argues that Hegel was rst thinking of his professor from the
Tbingen Stift, G.C. Storr (whose own compendium, Doctrine Christianae pars theo-
retica e sacris litteris repetita, was published in 1793) and that the now more impor-
tant comparison between Christ and Socrates was added later (1972: 162).
sortsor rather none at all (the 13th, 14th, and so on, was as welcome as
the preceding) (BF 3233) This xity of disciples becomes a symptom of
the disintegration of a unied social world in which, in the language of the
Tbingen essay, Christs doctrine sets up a dividing wall between its fullest
adherents and their old way of life (see TE 26). Christs pedagogy tore men
from the old social under and attached them to himself while Socratess
did not.5 Hegel elevates Socrates above Christ because Socrates le[d]
man only to himself (trans; BF 35) by develop[ing] concepts out of the
soul of man which lay in there and [so] needed nothing further than a mid-
wife (trans.; BF 34). As we would expect if Hegel retained his conception
of being at home in the world as integral to the human spirit, this self to
which Socrates leads men is one that cannot be specified apart from
the Volksgeist in which it is found, for, of those who entered into discourse
with Socrates, no one was ever to abandon house and home (trans.; BF
34). [E]ach remained what he was just as Socrates himself maintained,
without either repugnance or damage to his wisdom, his status as husband
and father (BF 33, 34). Socrates is the preeminent Volkserzieher, not only
because of his wide ranging inuence, but because he also aimed at the
preservation of the existing associational unity of the Volk. Socratess teach-
ing produced Socratics, [but] there was never a Socratic guild such as the
Masons, recognizable by their hammer and trowel (BF 33).6
If Hegel could maintain that pedagogical style alone was the problem,
his folk-religion project could be saved. But he cannot. Hegel is drawn back
to the notion that the Volkserziehers salutary or pernicious social affects are
ultimately rooted in the nature of the particular social world itself.
It was not enough for Christ, having disciples like Nathaniel, Joseph of
Arimathia, Nikodemus, and the like, that is having had [an] exchange of
ideas [Gedankenkorrespondenzen] with men of spirit and excellent hearts, having
thrown for instance some new ideas, some sparks in their souls, which, if the
5 In a way that anticipates Hegels confrontation with the real social problem
underpinning the teaching of Christ, H.S. Harris notes that Christs isolated group
had to know themselves as the Twelve, the chosen from the Chosen People
(Harris 1972: 163).
6 Hans Kng has noted that the tradition of elevating Socrates above Jesus as
the rst great moral teacher goes back to the Italian humanists, the beginning of
the scholastic period before that, and can be found even earlier in the works of
Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian and others. Apart from this elevation, the venera-
tion of Socrates was well-nigh universal, reaching from the early Christian apol-
ogists and many Church Fathers, through scholasticism, the Italian Renaissance
and Erasmus, right up to the Enlightenment, Rousseau, and Hegel (1987: 63).
material, where they fall, is not good, <does not> itself contain fuel, are lost
without each other, such men, happy and content evenings in the bosom
of their family and usefully active in their sphere of activity, familiar with the
world and its prejudices, therefore tolerant towards it, although strict towards
themselves, would not be receptive to the request to become a kind of adven-
turer. (trans.; BF 32)
Here, Hegel ignores the issue of pedagogy. Christs message is now unme-
diated and correctly understood. The problem, however, is that the teach-
ings fall to good men who are nonetheless thoroughly at home in a world
unreceptive to these new ideas. These men must become a kind of ad-
venturer. In order to take up Christs teaching they must leave their fa-
miliar world, the evenings in the bosom of their family, the productive
satisfaction of the needs of life. Now, the disciplines merely manifest the
deciency of their world. The men Christ requires are those unshaped by
their own world.
With Christs pedagogy appropriate to his people and his teaching ap-
propriately universal, Hegel is left with only one option to account for his
failure. Again he is forced to confront the possibility that some worlds are
incompatible with the emergence of a folk-religion. Carrying his folk-re-
ligion project forward now cannot be as simple as selecting and applying
a pedagogical instrument and style from a catalogue of historical choices.
Instead Hegel must engage the idea of human situatedness present in
the idea of the spirit of a people. He requires a framework that can tell
him why some human situations are sufcient and others are decient.
This framework must also tell him what to do about any deciency. The
Tbingen essay investigations left Hegel wholly unequipped for such anal-
ysis. A social counterpart to his analysis of religion might have provided
such a framework. One was not present in the Tbingen essay because of
his initial faith in the universal availability of the folk-religion solution. Yet,
in the Berne fragments opening fragments we can nd embryonic ele-
ments of a social analysis as Hegel attempts to determine the social condi-
tions on which the actualization of human capacity depends.
Hegel begins with an exploration of the idea that the complexity of so-
cial relations is the precondition for the development of virtue when he
writes: as relationships become more complex [mannigfaltiger], so do the
duties; and the simpler [einfacher] the former, all the more simpler also
the latter (modied; BF 31). If the human spirit is to act satisfactorily in
the midst of this perplexing collision of duties, then it ought to engage in
that moment of Aristotelian phronsiswhat he previously called that way
we make up our minds at the moment of action not opposed to the res-
olution and strength that is requisite for virtue (TE 20). There is no rea-
son, however, that ought should be realized. As Hegel acknowledges, the
human spirit could equally respond to this social complexity by plac[ing]
himself outside of these relationships entirely, so as to spare himself such
perplexities and not have to do violence to his heart (BF 31). Now, Hegel
does not give up on the idea of social complexity. Instead, at the end of
the fragment Auer dem mndlichen Unterricht, he searches for the struc-
tural rather than idiosyncratic implications of this complexity. He focuses
on how, historically, social responses to complexity produce social condi-
tions for virtue. Hegel applies this category of complexity to Rome and im-
plicitly to Athens and Jerusalem.
The Romans removed the possibility of a disjuncture between the good
man of virtue and the good citizen who is at home in the world. They did
so by profoundly restricting the range of activity any given situation ought
to provoke. For this reason, throughout the era of Romes vitality, when
only one virtue was in force [galt], no Roman could ever have been at a
loss regarding what he had to do (modied; BF 31). But, as a result, in-
stead of a vital human spirit [t]here were only Romans in Rome, no hu-
mans [Menschen] (BF 31). The Romans became
a people for whom the line demarcating perfection has thus been securely
set down, for whom virtue is attached to something objective (in the service
of which even raw passions can become virtues), it is generally rather easy
to judge which kinds of action approach this line and which fall short of
it. (BF 32)
The cost of removing complexity is a limited and, Hegel implies, ar-

ticial virtue in which any human characteristic (even raw passions)
might be elevated to a socially required excellence. It is also the removal of
those conditions in which any Volkserzieher might arise (see BF 31). Hegel
does not tell us why Rome responded in this way,7 but because Athens
7 H. S. Harris insightfully links this discussion of Rome to ones found in the

Tbingen essay and to Hegels mature conception of the Roman empire as a so-
ciety of pure legal right and authority (1972: 164). Yet, because Harris only un-
derstands Hegel to have proved [the proposition], the mode of instruction must
always be directed in accordance with the Spirit [Genie] and tone that is estab-
lished among the people (ibid. 165) he misses the way that Hegels discussion
of Rome begins to introduce a new problem not only centred around explaining
the emergence of social corruption (which Harris sees) but also the concept of
society as an end in itself apart from the satisfaction of the human spirit (which
Harris under-emphasizes).
and Jerusalem each gave rise to a Volkserzieher (Socrates and Christ respec-
tively), their social responses to complexity must have been different from
Rome. What allowed Athens to produce a Socrates allowed Jerusalem to
produce a Jesus. Each must have systemically remained a people who
sense the urgency of a higher interesteven if the Greeks alone prized
the study of human sensibilities, human inclinations and renements
(BF 32).
This analysis of Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem constitutes Hegels rst
attempt to directly address the problem human situatedness poses for the
folk-religion project. Borrowing his approach from the Tbingen essay,
Hegel arrives at a typology of societies (Rome, Athens, Jerusalem) just as
he had a typology of religious phenomena.8 Yet a typology is wholly inade-
quate to Hegels self-appointed task of transforming Christianity into a folk-
religion. It cannot speak to why each society responded to complexity in
the way that it did. It cannot explain why, despite Athens and Jerusalems
similar social response to complexity, one Volkserzieher s activities led to the
creation of a separate community and the others to the deepening of the
existing community. Hegels typology implies that the response of Rome,
Athens and Jerusalem is rooted in some irreducible nature. Athens was
successful in the satisfaction of the human spirit because they were Greeks;
Rome and Jerusalem were not because they were Romans and Jews.
B. The Elements of a Theory of Historical Development
Without any meaningful account of how these natures or Volksgeists come

to be, Hegel has no theory to tell him what must be done to avoid the er-
rors of Rome and Jerusalem or even if those errors can be avoided. The
following fragment, Die Staatsverfassungen (BF 3639), begins to correct
this deciency by taking seriously his Tbingen essay insight that the spirit
of a people is dened, in part, by its history (TE 27) and therefore has a
development that can be traced. Ultimately, we can reconstruct a coher-
ent theory of historical development from this fragment. To do so rst re-
quires that we isolate the elements of that theory.9
8 I.e., the eleven categories that comprised his religious analysis discussed in
chapter 1, sec. I.
9 To facilitate the discussion and reconstructive effort each element will be
numbered based on the order in which it appears in the text. The exception to
this rule is Element V. These labels are wholly our own and do not appear in the
fragment.
1. The Phenomenology of Change: Elements I and II. In the Tbingen essay

we could not say whether history was constitutive of a people or merely a
set of external constraints on the human spirit. The opening sentences
of Die Staatsverfassungen now show that Hegels thought is guided by a
constitutive conception of history.10
[Element I: ] The constitutions, legislation [Gesetzgebungen] and religions

of the [various] peoples [Vlker] still long carry traces of their original child-
like spirit in themselves, even if this [childlike spirit] has already vanished a
long time ago. The power [Gewalt] is still long in the hands of a single [per-
son], of whom a family, with [a] childish sense [Kindessinn], allows the exercise
of it [power] as of its [the familys] fatherwhen the people a long time ago
had stopped being a family, and the prince, a father. (trans.; BF 36)
The spirit of a people is like a body whose development is not external

to itself as a set of constraints, but is both an internal force of motion as
well as that motions end. This motion brings about social complexity: the
original simplicity of a childlike spirit gives way to constitutions, legisla-
tion, and religions leaving only traces of the original undifferentiated
unity. Because Hegel uses the metaphor of human development, we can
speak of the logic or pattern to this historic movement of the Volksgeist as
that of maturation. Once Hegel imputes a logic to historic development,
a theory of social transformation to explain the particularities of the pro-
cess becomes possible.
Since Element I tells us that maturation leaves its traces on [t]he con-
stitutions, legislation, and religions of the [various] peoples, we know that
the original childlike state characterizes the whole of institutional life. The
structure of the family is the rst structure of the Volksgeist. Hegel adopts
the Aristotelian insight that the polis is the end behind all other forms of
collective human organization but without replicating the idea that the
polis develops out of them in a movement from family to village to politi-
cal community. The sentences immediately following Element I, gives us a
picture of this original childlike state.
[Element II: ] In view of the constitution and legislation the peoples soon felt,
once they had expanded a bit, that their childlike trust was abused, and [they
therefore] restricted through particular laws the evil or good wills of their rul-
ers [Machthaber]. The childlike spirit has remained longer in religions, and the
latter still carries traces of the same in it, when for a long time already no more
benets are thought possible [zugetraut] in countries [Staaten] than what he [a
citizen of the state] is authorized or ordered to do. (trans.; BF 36)
10 For a discussion of constitutive history see Emile Fackenheim 1961.

Hegel denes the nature of childlike in terms of a consciousness: trust.

Combining Elements I and II, the process of historical change becomes
a change of consciousness and a change in the institutional structure of
the social world driven by the interaction of these two. When a disjuncture
develops between the peoples consciousness and the world itself (i.e.,
their childlike trust was abused and known to be so), then the world is
altered (i.e., particular laws are set up to restrict the evil or good wills of
their rulers). Element II makes it clear that this relationship between con-
sciousness and the world does not proceed evenly across the political and
religious spheres. The process of maturation is slower in religion and reli-
gious institutions compared to constitutional and legislative ones.
With Elements I and II, Hegel has moved decisively beyond a typology.
However, he does not yet have a theory of historical development, only the
features which such a theory must explain: the change of consciousness
from trust to wariness, reactive (rather than proactive or immanent) insti-
tutional change, the importance of political and religious rulership in this
process, and the persistence of outdated relations.
2. The Mechanism of Historical Development: Element III. The beginnings

of a theory come with Element III, where Hegel details the process at work
within the maturation of a people.
[Element III: ] The childlike sense has provided the origin for religious insti-
tutions and practices and representations (particularly sacriceprayer and
expiation) which reason [nds] often bizarre and ridiculous, often of detest-
able worthand most of all when it sees that the domineering [Herrschsucht]
deceive the good hearts of men in the process. (trans.; BF 37)
First, Hegel clarifies the causal relationship between consciousness

and the religious world. Consciousness provide[s] the origin for these
institutional arrangements. These origins apply to the political sphere as
well since Elements I and II had stressed the traces left by the child-
like consciousness on its institutions. In this way, Element III shows that
consciousness originates all spheres of the social world. Second, Hegels
juxtaposition of the childlike sense with reason shows the latter to
be both the engine and end of consciousness development. Where,
in Element II, Hegel spoke of consciousness changing after a people had
expanded a bit, now we can specify the meaning of expansion as the nat-
ural or immanent development of reasons critical engagement with
the world. Reason becomes the mechanism animating his theory of histor-
ical development because reason is the hidden and inherent mechanism
of maturation.
In light of Elements I through III, an account based on reasons devel-
opment yields the following theory of historical development. As reason

develops, and leads to the maturation of a peoples consciousness, the still
relatively immature social world is seen to be wholly inadequate; the solu-
tion to this inadequacy is the transformation of those social institutions.
3. Elaboration and Further Complications: Elements IV and V. By focusing

exclusively on the rational engine of a peoples development such a the-
ory cannot account for two parts of Hegels empirical description. First,
if reason is the mechanism animating the transformation of conscious-
ness, should not all spheres of the social world show the same degree of
change? Yet, Hegel mentioned that institutional change has gone farthest
in the political realm even when the religious one is the most inadequate,
bizarre and ridiculous. Second, if reason is the only causal factor Hegel
gives us, and it affects the people as a whole, what is the source of their
abuse?
Moreover, in the course of elaborating the process of social transforma-
tion, Hegel introduces two additional obstacles.
[Element IV: ] [The practices and institutions of the social world] are sancti-
ed and perpetuated through tradition; the interests of many men realized, as
well as manifoldly so, therein, that the greatest degeneration on the one hand,
and the advance of reason on the other hand is called for in order to exile
[, and then only] under violent convulsions, such a system which is woven into
universal custom. (trans.; BF 37)
In the original social world, the individuals consciousness of childlike

trust is sanctied and perpetuated by the traditions of the world itself. At
the same time, these same traditions permit the satisfaction of individual
interests. As a result, from the outset the social body is stable. The process
of historical development must undo this internal stability and must do so
in a way that involves degeneration and violent convulsion.
Now in Element IV, Hegel distinguishes the greatest degeneration on
the one hand, and the advance of reason on the other, and so appears to
introduce another mechanism of historical development, one that paral-
lels reasons expansion. However, he then implies that reasons develop-
ment is the sole engine of change.
[Element V: ] With the advance of reason goes inexorably the loss of many feel-
ings, many otherwise stirring associations of the power of imagination become
weaker, which we call ethical simplicity [Einfalt der Sitten] and whose portrayal
delights us, stirs us [Hegel adds in a footnote here: the lucus [sacred wood] be-
comes a wood heap and the temple a mass of stone like any other.], whose loss
we often not wrongly regret. (trans.; BF 37)
The sacred woods transformation into a mere wood heap and the temples
into a mere mass of stones is both a change of consciousness, a change in
the peoples relationship to the world, and a literal change in the structure
of the world. As we encounter them now, the temple and the lucus really
are heaps. These physical and relational transformations might constitute
the degeneration of the world mentioned in Element IVif Hegel did
not then tell us that the subjective transformation of consciousness brings
no objective loss of the worlds ethical nature.
Such tendencies are those which make for us, e.g., the scenes from the Age of
Chivalry so compelling aside from their courage and devotion,it is the disap-
pearance of such associations which the age takes for the disappearance of the
ethical itself and <which> induces its complaint. (trans.; BF 38)
Consciousness transformation is no actual degeneration. If it is expe-

rienced as a loss, the source is merely a lament that our imagination is no
longer delighted.
4. The Nature of Degeneration: Element VI. If this degeneration in Element

IV is not animated by the expansion of reason, then by what? If this de-
generation does not consist in the loss of feeling associated with that
expansion, then in what? Before we can answer these questions we need
to sketch out some affinities between the degeneration of Element
IV and the abuse and deception of Elements II and III. Hegel associ-
ates abuse, deception, and degeneration with institutional change.
In this way, abuse and deception are linked to degeneration, but not in
any clear way at this moment. Hegel has told us in the Tbingen essay
that such evil disposition[s] themselves arise from institutional degener-
ation (TE 9) and so abuse and deception cannot be the source of degen-
eration because their impetus comes from the evil [. . . ] wills of their rul-
ers (Element II), the quality of being domineering (Element III), and
later, the lust for power manifested by the clergy (BF 40, 44). This same
understanding is at work in the Berne fragments when Hegel says that
only institutional modication will prevent our vices and vicious tenden-
cies from forming a seamless web with the doctrines that have come to
nourish, justify, and exculpate them (BF 52).
Abuse and deception certainly could be the result of degeneration
if the latter involves some sort of institutional failure. The next element
indicates as much.
[Element VI: ] The more, on the one hand, the spirit vanishes which orig-
inally breathed in these institutions and the holy practices and exercises then
become a burden which the pious previously did not feel, and on the other
hand reason wins more ground, the nearer are those practices to certain over-
throw [Sturz]. (trans.; BF 37)
The vanishing of the animating spirit of institutional life is the true

nature of degeneration, because it supplies the conditions of institutional
transformation that abuse and deception require. Unlike the institutional
transformations that reasons advance brings, the one associated with the
vanishing of the animating spirit is ethically unsalutary (it makes the high-
est form of activity a burden), involves a population (the pious) that is
abused, and implicitly involves a group that does the abusing. If the van-
ishing institutional spirit is the source of abuse, what is the source of this
vanishing spirit?
5. The Mediation of the Estates: Element VII. Element VI reinforces reasons

advance as a process parallel to the vanishing of the animating institu-
tional spirit. Nonetheless, the two produce similar results. Through each,
enchantment passes away: the lucus is turned into an initially subjec-
tive wood heap for reason, the holy practices into an objective burden for
the other. Since reason is its own source of movement, once we have said
reason, no further explanation is required to account for the existence
of its social affects. Hegel provides no explanation how the vanishing of
spirit is set in motion. This absence of explanation combined with the
broad similarities of these two processes forces us to ask whether reason, as
the only internal source of development, could set both in motion.
If reason is the single engine behind the parallel processes of ethical
degeneration (Elements IV and VI) and the maintenance of ethical con-
ditions despite a sense of loss (Element V), then we need some way to ex-
plain how the same motion produces two different results. The answer
comes in the next element.
[Element VII: ] But when an estate [Stand], the governing or priestly es-
tate or both at the same time loses [verlieren] this spirit of simplicity which es-
tablished and until now gave soul to their laws and rules [Ordnungen], then it
[i.e., simplicity] is not only irretrievable, but rather the oppression, the degra-
dation, and disparagement of the people is then certain (therefore the separa-
tion into estates is already dangerous for freedom because it can produce an
esprit de corps which soon becomes contrary to the spirit of the whole). (trans.;
BF 38)
Reasons expansion occurs not in the people as an undifferentiated whole,

but rather is mediated through the social differentiation of the people.
What rst appeared as parallel processes of transformation, each with its
own source of motion now can be grasped as one engine of transforma-

tion whose social results cannot be separated from the particular institu-
tional arrangements through which it moves. Whether reason becomes a
source of degeneration or ethical preservation depends on the existence
of estates and their nature within the community.
C. A Theory of Historical Development
We have before us the phenomenology of historical development (the de-

cline of childlike trust, abuse, the vanishing of the animating spirit),
its mechanism (reasons advance), and its institutional effects (increased
institutional complexity, the separation of the estates, and violent up-
heaval). We need only assemble these elements to reconstruct Hegels rst
full theory of historical development.
Our reconstruction must begin with the estates, since the advance of
reason cannot be studied apart from the mediation of these social struc-
tures. The estates mediate because they produce a particular consciousness
in their members, what Hegel calls an esprit de corps. This consciousness
shapes how the members of that estate react to the revaluation of the so-
cial world (the loss of enchantment) that reasons advance brings. Because
this esprit de corps [. . . ] soon becomes contrary to the spirit of the whole
(Element VII), the estates cease to be different means to the same end,
but become means to their own exclusive end.
Our rst step is to identify the mechanism that creates solidarity within
the estates but also destroys the wider solidarity within the spirit of the
whole. To do so, we only need look to Elements III and V. There tradi-
tion and interest are the mechanisms that reproduce the social body as a
whole: tradition sancties and perpetuates the social order; the satisfaction of
interest binds individuals to the social body. Reasons advance corrodes
the power of tradition (see Element III and V), thus removing tradition as
a source of social solidarity. Interest then becomes the sole link between
the social body and an individual. Interests themselves do not fade in the
face of reason, because they do not originate in the consciousness of indi-
viduals but in the objective operations of those institutions. For example,
Hegel mentions the priestly estates interests are formed through institu-
tions that provide the priests with reverence and material benets de-
rived from their collection but also the safekeeping or appropriation of
the gifts offered to the deity (BF 39). The interests in reverence and ma-
terial accumulation are structural. They persist beyond the life of any indi-
vidual priest; their form is given to the priests by the institutions.
As the traditional basis for broader social solidarity fades, so too do the
constraints on the satisfaction of interest. The larger end into which
interests and institutions were once tted is no longer present. With this
invidious esprit de corps, the individual commitment to the institution per-
sists but the nature of that commitment is refocused on the perpetuation
of the particular institutions themselves. Institutions then stand as ends in
themselves whose logic and interests stand against those of other social in-
stitutions. In this way, the solidarity of each estate soon becomes contrary
to the spirit of the whole (Element VII). The breakdown of any unifying
solidarity does not necessarily produce the abuse which Hegel has said in-
stigates institutional change (see Elements II and III). The princes and
priests could become like the magician, who elicits wonderment from a
gaping crowd without himself nding anything remarkable, but also with-
out any pretense of sharing their amazement (BF 38). In other words,
the institutions would then remain salutary for the people or the pious even
if they are empty of enchantment for the princes and priests. Like the ma-
gician, the priests and princes would need to sustain their commitment to
the satisfaction of the gaping crowd.
However, with the loss of tradition no systemic basis for such an altru-
istic commitment exists. Indeed, reasons advance creates conditions that
promote its opposite. As the maintenance of the social well-being is trans-
formed into the maintenance of institutional well-being, the logic of the
maximal pursuit of institutional interests comes to dominate. The latter nec-
essarily involves two moments. First, each estate attempts to maintain a
show of normalcy by their [i.e., the priests and princes] demeanor, their
appearance, and their words so that the general population will continue
to participate in the social institutions without arousing feelings of abuse
or deception (BF 38). Second, each estate attempts to transform their in-
stitution to maximize the satisfaction of its structural interests. This trans-
formation signals the most profound degeneration. Now the previous loss
of enchantment becomes the full inward degeneration of the social body
as a community.
If no more sacrices, no more atonements are put on for the people as it pre-
viously was accustomed, then the whole together never is a community which
communally, that is to say in the sense of unanimity steps before the altars of
their gods, but rather a heap from which its leaders draw out holy sensations
and at the same time do not themselves also feel [mitfhlen]. (trans.; BF 38)
The inward degeneration of the social body occurs when the institutions
cease to fulll the original, wider social purposes to which the people are
accustomed and instead become mere instruments of deception. The out-
ward destruction only occurs when this deception fails. Then the inward
death of the social body appears to the people as systemic abuse, oppres-
sion, degradation, and disparagement. Then the people can exile the institu-
tions of social life in a moment of violent convulsions (Element IV).
This awareness of inward degeneration can only take hold of the peo-
ple after they have separated themselves from any traditional attachment
to their institutions as the priests and princes did before them. Unlike the
vanishing of the spirit experienced by the estates, this vanishing among
the population is benecial. Unmediated by the estates and their institu-
tional interests, reasons advance in the general population does not pro-
duce any pathological transformation of social interests. In this way, rea-
sons socially mediated result can be the greatest degeneration on the
one hand and its unmediated result simply the advance of reason on the
other hand (Element IV). These different results produce a conict be-
cause the interests that each engender are incommensurate. The princely
and priestly estates demand the continual existence of the ethically lifeless
institutions; the people demand their overthrow in order that a new ethi-
cal life emerge. The tension between these two demands can only be re-
solved through violent convulsions which only cease when civil legislation
of necessity modies the rules of conduct in some respects in order for so-
ciety to survive (BF 52). At this point where the institutional order of the
society has been modied in order for society to survive Hegels theory
of historical development ends. Further development can only recapitu-
late the logic of development played out previously.
The logic of Hegels theory blurs the distinction between a natural-
istic and universal account implied by the rational maturation of the child-
like consciousness and a exogenous and particular account implied by
conicting social interests. The natural development of a people cannot
be studied outside of the actual system of social relations and interests that
constitute a peoples life. Even where reasons advance is socially un-
mediated, its consequences emerge only within this concrete system of re-
lations. By providing a general theory that nonetheless is attentive to the
specicity of the people to be studied, Hegels theory of historical devel-
opment holds the promise of being able to account for the successful de-
velopment of Greece, the less successful development of Jerusalem, and
the unsuccessful development of Rome in terms of meeting the needs of
the human spirit.
Yet, the signicance of Hegels theory does not consist in its ability to
aid him in the practical application of his folk-religion project. Instead it
lies in the way the theory ignores the whole Problemstellung animating his
folk-religion project by introducing an end that seems to stand quite apart
from the human spirits natural needs. This end is the preservation of the
community as a community. Now we have in Hegels thought a conception
of social life as more than a harmony of individuals. We have a conception
of an organic unity whose life supervenes the interests and ends of the in-
dividuals that compose it.11
II. Community and the Human Spirit
Hegel began the Berne fragments trying to ignore the problem of human
situatedness for the sake of the human spirit. He then engaged the spirit
of a people for the sake of the human spirit. Now, Hegel seems to point
beyond the human spirit to the community.
A. Historical Development and the Concept of the Community
Hegel describes the individual experience of the community as unanimity.

We must not confuse this unanimity with a contingent agreement among all
individuals. Only with the death of the social body, when it becomes a
heap, does unanimity become a matter of mere aggregation or mechan-
ical unity. Instead his unanimity intends to capture the social body as
whole or a fundamental unity. It articulates the living presence of the so-
11 H. S. Harris provides a concise summary of the main features of what

we have called Hegels theory of historical development. However, he omits the
logic and the details of Hegels theory and for this reason himself goes slightly
wrong when he states that Thus the establishment of the priesthood as a pub-
lic authority is the point at which things go wrong and corruption sets in (1972:
16566). The real problem is not the establishment of the estates themselves, but
the process that causes the estates to act against the universal social interest. In
any case, the real importance here is the destruction of this unity of social inter-
est or the community. So, we cannot agree with Harris when, at the conclusion
of Hegels theory, he says Thus Hegel arrives again at the problem from which
he started: the contrast between moral education in fth-Century Athens and eigh-
teenth-Century Germany (ibid. 167). Rather, as we will see below, Hegel begins
his theory with this aim in mind but concludes with an end that is initially quite
other than the satisfaction of the human spirit (Harris moral education). The
fundamental problem with Christianity that Hegels theory will expose is not that
it is only a preparation for life in another world (ibid. 167) and so leaves the hu-
man spirit not at home in this one. Rather it is that Christianity cannot sustain a
community and that the moments of the human spirit we think of as independent
of the community (e.g., reason) might be constituted, or at least mediated, by the
community.
Similarly, after detailing Hegels theory of historical development we can-
not agree with Raymond Plant that it was a year or two later, after composing the
Life of Jesus in 1795, that Hegel begin[s] to take more seriously the implication of
his comment in Tbingen that: [ ] the religion of the people as well as the po-
litical circumstances forms the spirit of the people (1973: 43, 47; see TE 28).
cial bodys principles in the activity of its members. What is unanimous is

the end towards which this individual activity is ultimately directed: the so-
cial body itself.
This non-instrumental wholeness distinguishes the new concept of the
community from the idea of the Volksgeist. For Hegel, the Volksgeist was
an empirical conjuncture of history, politics, and religion. The in-
dividual human spirit was situated within it so as to be at home in that
situatedness. Nonetheless, the Volksgeist never went so far as to shape the
actual structure of the human spirits satisfaction. It never existed as an
end apart from its natural needs. Similarly, the idea of the community we
nd in the Berne fragments is different in kind from the category of folk-
religion. Folk-religion also has a unity. We know it must go along with
them [i.e., a people] amicably [ ] in their business and on the more se-
rious occasions of life as well as at their festivals and rejoicings (TE
26). We know the the public affairs of the state are [to be] tied in with it
as well (TE 2021). Yet, Hegel is concerned that a folk-religions guid-
ance extend across the full range of human activity and the full breadth of
the population only because his goal is the systemic satisfaction of the en-
tire heap of individuals. Folk-religions unity is empirical. In the Tbingen
essay, folk-religion islike the Volksgeistnot conceptualized as constitu-
tive of social life. Indeed, we can understand folk-religion as nothing more
than the ideal organization of that situatedness. It remains an instru-
ment to be used for a good outside of itself: the satisfaction of the human
spirit.
In this way, Hegels theory of the historical development introduces the
concept of a community into his thought. Although community is sustained
through consciousness, it is not originated by consciousness. Hegels con-
cept of community can stands above intersubjectivitywhether as liberal
social contract or Rousseaus general willbecause he grasps the com-
munity as something given. Moreover, the priority which this given-
ness has for Hegel limits the recasting of the communitys fundamental
principles or bases for unanimity. So, Hegel is able to write Usually the
will of the nation [Nation] has declared [erklrt] a particular religion for
itself already for a long time before governments could set it as an aim
(trans.; BF 61). The universal content of consciousness (the will of the na-
tion) is prior to individual intentionality (governments); the community
itself, declares its self-understanding and only the propagation, the
maintenance, the perpetual renewal of the knowledge of [that world]
can a government make as its aim (trans.; BF 61).
In light of the emergence of the concept of the community, Hegels
theory of historical development becomes more than an attempt to ex-
plain how different worlds were able to produce the conditions for a
Volkserzieher. It becomes an attempt to identify and explain the failure of
the community to propagate, maintain, and perpetually renew the knowl-

edge of itself as a community. The factors that contribute to historical de-
velopment are those that work against the organic unity of the social body:
the loss of childlike trust is the loss of the original givenness of the com-
munity; the formation of estates introduces the possibility of exclusionary
social interests; and abuse, oppression, and degradation show the pres-
ence of these exclusionary interests. Re-interpreted, Hegels theory does
not aim at the human spirits satisfaction as we rst thought, but places the
end of the maintenance and reproduction of the community ahead of it.
In introducing the good of the community, the needs of the hu-
man spirit are not wholly excluded. The communitys maintenance and
reproduction does require the maintenance and reproduction of the
human spirits participation in the animating spirit of the social body.12
Nonetheless, only the human spirits requirement to be at home in the
world seems implicated in the end of the community. The moment of vir-
tue, with its emphasis on a-historical human capacity and the activity of the
isolated individual, appears to fall outside of this new end. The communi-
tys partial inclusion of the human spirits satisfaction points to some rela-
tionship between the old good of the human spirits satisfaction and the
new one of the communitys. However, Hegel himself appears unsure as
to the relationship between these two goods or even the achievability of
having subordinated the human spirits satisfaction. For his rst act in the
fragment is to invert the priority of the two and reassert the Tbingen es-
says original Problemstellung.
Thus a people who wants to arrange its public worship [Gottesdienst] so

that sense and fancy and the heart are stirredwithout reason thereby go-
ing empty away, that their worship [Andacht] rises out of an unied activity
and elevation of all powers of the soul, the representation of strict duty is glad-
dened and made accessible through beauty and joy,such a people will, in or-
der to not give through its sensibility the control of their dependency into the
hands of a class [Klasse] of men, arrange its feasts itself, utilize its donations it-
self, and if through indigenous institutions its sense becomes active, its power
of imagination astonished (amazed) [etonniert (frappiert)], its heart stirred and
12 H. S. Harris, as he did in his interpretation of the Tbingen essay, holds

that reason alone is the ideal for Hegel (although he takes reason to be the fac-
ulty which integrates all other elements of the human spirit). So, he understands
Hegels theory of historical development to show Hegels belief that [m]ature men
can be guided by reason, even though no one, not even a perfectly reasonable
man, can escape the contagion of his society (1972: 16970). In this way, Harris
sees Hegels introduction of the concept of community, but misinterprets this new
social constitution of the human spirit as something essentially corrupting of the
human spirit: a contagion that ought to be avoided.
its reason satised, then will its spirit feel no need, or rather it would not have
done enough to lend its ears every seven days to phrases and pictures which
were only comprehensible and had a place several thousand years ago in Syria.
(trans.; BF 39)
The goal returns to the unied activity and elevation of all powers of the
soul (virtue) exercised in the context of indigenous institutions (being
at home in the world). Now, knowledge of the nature of community pro-
duces nothing more than the advice that social life (feasts and dona-
tions) must be communalized and estates avoided.
B. A Social Critique of Christianity
Hegels suppression of the concept of the community is only an interlude.

In the above passage he implies that the collectivization of the social world
is possible for all peoples. Hegel assumes that the resources to be stirred,
astonish[ed], satisf[ied], and then human capacity to be unied and
elevated can always be won through indigenous institutions. Yet, Hegel
came to question this very assumption at the end of the Tbingen essay.
His discussion of Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem showed that he carried this
doubt with him into the Berne fragments.
Hegel corrects himself in the immediately succeeding fragment, Wie
wenig die objektive Religion (BF 3942). This correction neither involves a re-
turn to the supremacy of the community nor the Tbingen essays con-
cluding despair. Striking a middle path, he brings together the Tbingen
essays analysis of religion and the Berne fragmentss theory of historical
development so that the effect of each is mediated through the other.
How little objective religion has accomplished on its own, without correspond-
ing national and governmental institutions, is shown by its history since the
rise of Christianity. How little has it been able to overcome the corruption of
all classes, the barbarity of the times, or the crude prejudices of the common
people. (BF 39)
And later:
When placed in the balance, how light is the whole regimen of salvation, even
when articulated in the fullest and most scholarly fashion! So what is the point
of having all this crammed into ones head? when opposite it we drop onto the
balance the weight of all the passions, the pressures of circumstance, educa-
tion, example, and government, it will be ung high into the air. (BF 40)
Hegel returns to his doubt concerning the absolute power of any public
religion. All public religions require corresponding national and gov-

ernmental institutions to have a social effect. Even then the religion must
struggle against the weight of the whole complex of the human situation.
Yet, by downplaying the power of public religion, and therefore folk-
religion, he actually places his folk-religion project in an advantageous posi-
tion. He preserves the religion of his own people from complete responsi-
bility for the long chain of royal corruption and wholesale national decay
in which the Christian religion has played such an outstanding role (BF
39). And Christianity must be preserved because a folk-religion cannot be
created ex nihilo; it must be fashioned from a peoples own world. While
Christianity retains some responsibility, an analysis of its deciencies can-
not occur in the abstract (as happened with religion in the Tbingen
essay) or focus exclusively on the political sphere (as Hegel does at the
conclusion of Die Staatsverfassungen). Any analysis must now take account
of the full complexity of the human spirits situatedness. That is, it must
take account of the needs of the community.
This attempt to unite the original Problemstellung with his new respect
for the community forms the context of Hegels return to a critique of
Christianity. The critique begins:
many of Christs precepts are contrary to the rst foundations of legislation

in civil society, to the principles of the rights of property, to self-defence and
so on. A state which would today introduce the precepts of Christonly out-
wardly [uerlichen] could it [the state] do it because the spirit does not allow
itself to be commanded, would soon break itself up. (trans.; BF 41)
Two paragraphs later he continues:
What all this means is that the teachings of Jesus, his rules of conduct, were re-
ally suited only for the cultivation of singular individuals, and were oriented ac-
cordingly. Consider for example the young man who asks him: Master, what
shall I do to attain perfection? and is told to sell all he owns and give the pro-
ceeds to the poor. When we imagine this being put into effect as a rule of con-
duct for even a small community or a humble village, it yields consequences
so absurd that we cannot conceive its extension to a larger populace. Suppose
that a community like that of the rst Christians banded together in the midst
of another people under such a law of communal property. The spirit of such
a law would vanish in the very instant of its establishment. A kind of pressure
would well up generating an atmosphere of concealment (as happened to
Ananias). And the charitableness associated with this sort of resignation would
tend to focus on fellow members, on those who have likewise adopted these
customs and bear the marks of membershipa situation inimical to the spirit
of charity, which pours its blessings upon circumcised and uncircumcised, bap-
tized and unbaptized alike. (BF 4142)
In these passages Hegel struggles to decide which approach his criticism of

Christianity should take. On the one hand, we see him fall back into his old
constellation of categories and the conception of the human spirit that
underpins it. Christianitys primordial doctrines are suited only for a pri-
vate religion. Hegel is concerned that they are only capable of speaking
to a small community or a humble village and cannot be exten[ded] to
a larger populace. From the standpoint of his original conception of the
human spirit, the problem of private religion is its inability to be empiri-
cally universalized and to become a systematic solution to the satisfaction
of the human spirit.
Yet, on the other hand, this criticism signals a new approach. Hegel
simultaneously phrases the problem of a private religion in a way that
acknowledges the primacy of the concept of the community making
Christianity problematic, not because of its empirical consequences for in-
dividual satisfaction, but because its principles are incommensurate with
the foundation of the modern political community, the state. The founda-
tions of Christian doctrine stand opposed to the rst foundations of leg-
islation in civil society, to the principles of the rights of property, to self-
defence and so on. Moreover, these foundational principles must remain
within forms of collective life that are held together by individual action
and belief as they cannot be institutionalized as a living community. For
were such a group [of individuals] to expand into a state in its own right,
it could never retain its principles in their universality (BF 44). To try to
do so is to have [t]he spirit of such a law [ . . . ] vanish in the very instant of
its establishment (BF 41). The law will not live within the individual, and
the maintenance of the state will become a matter of compulsion. From
the standpoint of the community as a good alongside that of the human
spirit, Christianity remains a private religion.13
13 Stephen Crites correctly grasps the importance of this critique. However, be-
cause he anticipated the Berne fragments idea of the community in his interpre-
tation of folk-religion in the Tbingen essay, Crites obscures the transformation that
has occurred in Hegels thought, even as he sees the direction of that transforma-
tion. For this reason, Crites interprets Hegels social critique as owing from his
Tbingen essay critique of private religionalthough the problem with private
religion concerns the satisfaction of the human spirits contingent needs and has
nothing to do with community. At the same time, he conates Hegels new social
We can call this new line of criticism Hegels social critique of Christianity
to distinguish it from the critique at the end of the Tbingen essay that
centred on the human spirits satisfaction. This social critique focuses on the
consequences that emerge when the Christian community comes into ex-
istence with a spirit that dies in the rst movements of its communal life.
Although dead, it contains all the attributes of a living community. It has its
institutions, practices, representations, as well as that class of men whose
purpose it is to ensure the maintenance and reproduction of these things.
The rst Christian world exists between the outward signs of a living
community and the inward spirit that has vanished. The result is that the
dead institutions try to create an inward communal life. They presum[e]
to push [their] way into the sanctum of the heart, where only the friend is
voluntarily admitted (trans.; BF 42).14 Yet these institutions are not a
friend. The human spirit does not participate in their living princi-
ples because they have none. The human spirit is born into them as into a
situation of purely external objects. In response to this failure, Christianity
moves to an explanation of [human] intentions which, in the circum-
stances, becomes altogether articial (trans.; BF 42). Christianity invents
a human nature that then requires Christian institutions to take on the
role of such a friend.
Individual states of spirit had to be dissected and the inner play of feelings tam-
pered with; they had to be put on display as though they were so palpable and
perceptible that one could know their genesis and presence as easily as one
can look at a clock to see if it is twelve. Made out as though they were the same
in everybody, these states were meticulously described in portrayals devoid of
any real knowledge of the human heart, pieced together articially from as-
sorted theological prejudices alleging the innate depravity of human nature,
and arranged in accordance with an exegesis laughably bereft of psychological
insight. (BF 43)
Care of the human spirit can now pass over to that class of men, the priests,
who have discerned and delineated its proper workings. Individual varia-
tion in spiritual expression rooted in natural idiosyncracies and in-
dividual temperament gives way to enforced homogeneity (see BF 43). For
critique with his doctrinal critique(1998: 8595) and therefore misses the way in
which Hegel tries to bring his old conception of the human spirit and his new con-
ception of the community together.
14 Some of the original manuscript, including the beginning of this sentence,
is missing. Thus we do not possess its exact context. However, the remainder of
the fragment supports interpretation given here.
Hegel, this dependency on a priestly estate endures in Christianity even

through Luthers Reformation because [a]lthough he [Luther] did strip
the clergy of their power to rule by force and to control the purse, he still
wanted to retain control over mens thoughts (BF 42).
Through these arrogant practice of prying into a persons innards, of
judging and punishing his conscience (ibid.), the dead institutions pro-
mote their own transformation into the most shocking profusion of re-
pressive institutions and ways of deluding mankind: oral confession, excom-
munication, penances, and a whole array of disgraceful monuments to
human self-abasement (ibid.). Under the assault of these repressive insti-
tutions the peoples consciousness is turned inwards, becoming insensate
to any distinction between essential and inessential articulations of the hu-
man spirit. Instead of a preoccupation with virtue or being at home in the
world, the people become xated with the most proximate internal sensa-
tions: every wind that presses on their innards, every sneeze and clearing
of the throat and to each other they at most present their herbal reme-
dies [Tisanen] and recommend him to the care of God (trans; BF 43).
The structure of Hegels social critique of Christianity is given by
his theory of historical development. We see in it the vanishing of institu-
tional spirit, the role of estates, the splintering of universal interest, and
the emergence of abuse. We can continue to interpret the intensication
of Hegels criticism in these same terms. The internal death of the social
order ought to give rise to a new animating spirit; a new community ought
to be born out of the old. The precondition for this rebirth is the peoples
consciousness of this death. Hegel implies that once individuals are pre-
occupied with nobody else more than themselves (trans; ibid.), the sys-
temic emergence of this consciousness is impossible. The imposition of
both an articial psychology of human needs and a repressive apparatus
to ensure the formers application equally ensures that the Christian com-
munity remains lifeless.
At the same time that Hegels critique of Christianity is comprehensible
in terms of the community as the highest good, it also falls within his old
concern that the mature human spirit avoid all mechanical activity.
The reliance upon priests, the existence of repressive institutions, and the
wholly articial understanding of the human spirit animating them, all re-
duce the peoples activities to the mechanical reproduction of doctrine.
For their part, the princes and priests activities are reduced to, what we
have called previously the double servitude of the understandingi.e., a
dependence on given ends and principles rather than the autonomously
determined ones of phronsis. The emptiness, oppression, degrada-
tion, and disparagement that is bound up with activity in the world extir-
pates the possibility of that world being a home. From the standpoint of
the old Problemstellung, the communitys destruction is only an instrument

in the human spirits dissatisfaction, not an end in itself.
The presence of both the new concern for the community and the old
concern for the human spirit in Hegels critique of Christianity is our rst
signal that these two goods, previously only ambiguously related are
becoming more tightly bound in his thought.15
C. Alienation and Community
The concept of the community has not emerged in a linear way in Hegels
thought. Rather it emerged, was submerged, and emerged again in
a slightly different and more extensive form. The unication of the con-
cepts of the human spirit and the community proceeds in the same man-
ner, for the next fragment we encounter, the so-called Berne Plan of
1794 or Unter Objektiver Religion, 16 consists of an outline for a larger
project whose animating concern seems to return us to the Tbingen
essays Problemstellung. The Berne Plan begins with (and is dominated
by) denitions of subjective and objective religion, it states that religion
actualizes the human spirit or makes man moral (BF 48) in Hegels partic-
ular appropriation of Kantian language that we witnessed in the Tbingen
essay,17 and it adopts the latters goal of investigating a religions teach-
ings, ceremonies, other commands concerning the way of life (BF 49
50).18 Because the Berne Plan forms the framework for the last four frag-
ments of the Berne fragments and it adopts the categories out of which
the satisfaction of the human spirit emerged, the concept of the commu-
nity again seems to disappear. Nonetheless, the Berne Plan is not simply
15 Because H. S. Harris takes this critique primarily as a commentary on the

history of Christianity in Germany and the rational grounds and ends of religion
itself that Lessing, Mendelssohn, Kant, and Fichte had rediscovered, he does
not fully appreciate the innovation in Hegels thinking here (1972: 172). For a
discussion of the structure of the Berne Plan and speculation as to its relationship
to other fragments see ibid.
16 H. S. Harris 1972: 508. All translations from the Berne Plan are by Harris
(1972) unless otherwise noted.
17 However, Adrien Peperzak understands this fragment and the follow-
ing one (to be discussed below) as marking Hegels Kantian phasealthough he
admits that some non-Kantian themes from Tbingen [ . . . ] return (1960: 50
51, 4450). Stephen Crites position (1998: 98100) is substantially the same as
Peperzaks.
18 For a discussion of the similarities and differences in language and inten-
tion from Moses Mendelssohns Jerusalem see H. S. Harris 1972: 170, 171. Because
Harris concentrates only on the continuity of the Berne fragments with the
Tbingen essay, he does not need to account for the Berne Plans return to the
language of that rst essay.
identical with the Tbingen essay. In particular, it narrows that essays fo-
cus of investigation. Now Hegel is concerned to answer one specic ques-
tion: How far is the Christian religion qualied for this purpose [of being
a folk-religion]? (BF 49).
As preparation to an answer, Hegel species the Christianity he will
study. It will be constituted by the line generally taken on the pulpit and
in the schools, and is in any case the system by which the entire genera-
tion what has now come of age has been educated and instructed (BF
61).19 Hegel concludes that Christianity in the form of this public religion
is unsuitable because it is incommensurate with the human spirits natu-
ral needs. This incommensurability originates in the doctrine that Christ
is the source of salvation. Compared with this oor in the building of
Christian beliefs the other doctrines are to be adopted as only so many
supporting buttresses (trans.; BF 68). This floor of Christian doc-
trine shifts the human spirits satisfaction from virtue to belief, i.e., from
activity that is its own end to passive waiting for salvation in another world.
So, both virtue and being at home in the world cannot be supported by
this oor and indeed [t]he real end of morality had already been lost
sight of when salvation replaced it as the ultimate purpose of such teach-
ings (BF 59).
Because this oor is unnatural, the human spirits spontaneous activity can-
not give rise to the actually existing building of Christian beliefs.
Instead, this doctrinal edice requires supporting buttresses to sustain
itself. Hegel identies and criticizes four of them. First, to believe in Christ
is to believe in the historical person of Christ. The a-historical good asso-
ciated with the autonomous exercise of human capacity becomes an exter-
nal good whose dissemination is contingent upon circumstances and it is
a source not accessible to all (BF 64). Furthermore, the second buttress,
which concerns Christianitys mystical elements, forces the individual fac-
ulties of reason and imagination to suspend operation and put up with
a temporary cessation of their activity (BF 51; see also 49, 5152, 5455).
Together these rst two buttresses form a practical barrier to the human
spirits acquisition of the good as virtue or any internal good.
The third buttress asserts its theoretical impossibility by insist[ing] on the
worthlessness of mankind and on its inability to ever attain any worth in a
natural way (BF 6869). Such insistence was so necessary to Christianity
because all roads to the spontaneous achievement of a natural good had
to be blocked. If not, the imposition of the wholly articial conception of
human spirits nature could not be sustained. Even here, Christianity re-
19 H. S. Harris notes that [i]n spite of his insistence that he has tried to dis-
till the essence of Christian tradition [. . . ], Hegels image of orthodox doctrine
probably derives largely from the compendium of Sartorius (1972: 177 n. 1).
quires one last buttress, an array of repressive institutions. These institu-

tions transform the human spirits activity into often complacent, life-
less acceptancememorization, lip service, idle sentimentswith no real
concern about good character or virtuous action (BF 5960). Its excel-
lence becomes [v]irtue which mechanically repeats what others dovir-
tue learned by rote[and it] is clumsy and awkward, cannot stand rm as
one gains experience and knowledge of the world, and turns out to have
neither value nor merit (BF 58).20
In sketching Hegels criticism of Christianitys doctrinal oor and but-
tresses we see the Tbingen essays Problemstellung of the human spirits sat-
isfaction. The dominance of the doctrinal critique in the last half of the
Berne fragments and the absence of the concept of the community
there, could lead us to conclude that the community as an end in itself
was simply a failed experiment. However, the doctrinal criticism obscures
a real transformation in his formulation of the central problem so that
the nature of the human spirit is reconceptualized to include the commu-
nity. The presence of this reconceptualization is signaled by a new way of
characterizing the human spirit in terms of the concept of the foreign or
alien (Fremd).21
In Hegels rst usage, foreignness means difference. It describes a con-
dition in which individual or social circumstances are other than their cur-
rent state. We have already encountered examples from the beginning
of the Berne fragments, e.g., when Hegel praises Socrates over Christ be-
cause the former was able to sustain his own social role and that of others
(see BF 33), and in his praise of Greek religion over Christianity for main-
taining indigenous institutions (see BF 39). These concerns are rooted
in the human spirits original requirement to be at home in the world.
Hegels use of the foreign does not transform that requirement. At rst,
the foreign negatively species the conditions for being at home in the
world with regard to social roles and social institutions. To avoid foreign-
ness is not to abandon house and home (BF 34) and not to have legends
which originated in a foreign land, under foreign customs, in [a] foreign
language (trans.; BF 65).
We nd out what makes these conditions into positive moments of be-
ing at home in the world in the obscure sentence that concludes the frag-
ment (Christus hatte zwlf Apostel) comparing Socrates and Christ.
20 For a similar discussion of this critique see H. S. Harris 1972: 17880.

21 Adrien Peperzak also remarks that here in the Berne fragments for the
rst time we see the appearance of the idea of alienation. However, he restricts
his analysis to a few, very brief and general observations and therefore misses
the way in which the idea of alienation transforms Hegels Problemstellung (1960:
5455).
[Socrates] knocked right away at the right gate, without mediator, lead-
ing man only into himself, where he should prepare lodgings not for a wild for-
eign [wildfremden] guest, a spirit which had arrived from a distant land, but rather
he should only make better light and space for his old landlord [Hausherrn],
whom a mob of ddlers and pipers had forced to withdraw to <an> old gar-
ret. (trans.; BF 35)
Socrates allowed the human spirit to be at home because he led man

only into himself. But here the distinction between being with oneself
and being at home in the world is blurred. The idea of the self that we nd
here is new in Hegels thought. It is not the one associated with the origi-
nal Problemstellung, consisting only of its needs, capacities, and roles. Now
when the human spirit is led to itself, it is led beyond these individual at-
tributes to its old landlord. The historical and a-historical attributes
which Hegel previously understood to be the individual human spir-
its own are instead owned (i.e., grounded) by the original spirit or ani-
mating principles of the individuals world. The nature of the satisfaction
of being at home changes. It moves beyond dwelling in given roles and in-
stitutions to the establishment of a relationship between the human spir-
its need and the ground of that need in an external, animating spirit.
This animating spirit is what holds together, as a unity, the concrete con-
uence of history, religion, and political life that Hegel calls the Volksgeist.
Participation becomes the practical relation between the human spirit
and its ground. Participation bridges the natural need to be at home in
the world found in the individual human spirit and the objective condi-
tions for its satisfaction.
The participative unity of community and human spirit is easily accom-
plished from the side of being at home in the world. This participative
unity develops being at home in the worlds incipient idea that the human
spirit is constituted by goods that are exterior to the individual without be-
ing extrinsic to him or her. However, Hegels understanding of virtue is
difcult to incorporate into this new idea of participation because of the
ancient model of human excellence he has adopted. Virtue is the self-sup-
porting self-development of human capacity in accordance with its a-his-
torical structure. The idea of participation is implicit here, but it is of an
internal sort, since, as his doctrinal critique of Christianity showed, the his-
torical community may make demands incommensurate with the nature
of virtue. To develop properly virtue must perceive this nature so that the
human spirit knows the nature of each of its capacities as well as the irre-
ducible nature of virtue itself (phronsis) in which all are integrated. This
inward knowing makes virtues participation different from that of being
at home in the world. Those outstanding men in every age (TE 14) re-
quire no wider participation than with themselves.
In order to properly wed the structure of the community to the human

spirit, Hegel must create an external relationship of participation out of
virtues internal one. His rst attempt at communalizing virtue is signaled
by a new usage of foreignness. The context is Christianitys degradation of
the human spirit.
Why does not the example of men for us sufce to strengthen us in the struggle
of virtue, to feel the divine spark in us, the power which lies in us, to become
the master over sensibility? Why do we not recognize in the virtuous men that
they <are> not only esh of our esh, bone of our bone, but rather feel also
the moral sympathy that this is spirit of our spirit, power of our power? Alas,
one has persuaded us that these capacities belong to someone foreign [fremd-
artig], that men [belong to] the order of natural beings, in fact corrupt ones,
one has wholly isolated the idea of holiness and alone ascribed it to a distant
being, treated as incompatible it[s] [i.e., the idea of holiness] restriction un-
der a sensible nature. (trans.; BF 67)
What was before the wholly self-contained and inward is here transformed
into something outward. Virtue is no longer an internal condition that
only exists in the world when it exists in the individual herself. Now virtue
is present in the world as long as it is present somewhere in the life of that
world. It is not necessary that I am virtuous, but only that my world has
given rise to virtuous men. These living articulations of virtue are not just
examples that we might follow in our own personal struggle toward vir-
tue. These virtuous men are not someone foreign. Hegel signals that the
same sort of participation can occur at the level of human excellence, for
the virtue these men posses is spirit of our spirit, power of our power.
Just as we all participate in the same physical nature, we can recognize an-
other human spirit as esh of our esh, bone of our bone. Hegel can
only speak of virtue in this way if its structure has been communalized.
That is, that virtue exists as a concrete good in the world, independent of
any one individual, yet in which all can participate. Virtue has been trans-
formed from individual capacity to a community of excellence.
For Hegel, Christianity has alienated the human spirit from its own ca-
pacity. It has ascribed it to a distant being. But Christianitys error does
not consist in this alienation. Indeed, this alienation amounts to
the reconceptualization of virtue in terms of the community, i.e., the pro-
jection of internal capacity onto something beyond the individual.
Rather, Christianitys error is not to reconceptualize the nature of partici-
pation. Participation remains an activity which cannot take the individ-
ual beyond himself. In the language we have been using, Christianity con-
ates the foreign as difference with the foreign as alienation. The other
remains innitely and irremediably distant. The inability of the human
spirit to bridge the distance between its projected nature and its correct
condition can only be overcome
when after centuries humanity becomes again capable of ideas, the interest in
the individual disappears, the experience of the depravity of man indeed re-
mains, but the doctrine of the degeneracy of man declines and the one which
made the individual interesting to us itself little by little emerged as the idea in
its beauty, thought by us, becomes our property, <when we> joyfully recognize
the beauty of human nature, which we have put into the foreign individual, in
which we retain from it only all [that is] disgusting of which it is capable, again
as our own work, acquiring it for us and through it learn to feel self-respect
for ourselves, where before we believed ourselves [to be] only particularly that
which can be only [an] object of contempt. (trans.; BF 71)
Hegels solution to the problem of alienation is not the destruction

of the foreign individual, but the emergence of a capacity for ideas.
Through thought, the perception of the radical self-subsistence and dis-
creteness of individuals can disappear. As this interest in the individual
disappears, it is replaced by a new one: the idea of a nature not bound
to individuals. The presence of the idea in its beauty can be our nature.
It becomes our property. Such a nature continues to exist in the for-
eign individual but it is no longer recognized as an exclusive possession.
Natures full development in this foreign individual now can be as our
own work and the source of our feel[ing] of self-respect. Foreignness as
difference (the foreign individual) gives way to foreignness as alienation
(the foreign individual as our property). Participation is communalized mak-
ing the recognition of our property in the foreign individual possible.
By participating in the fully developed nature of another (which means
here recognizing that virtue in others) Hegel tells us the human spirit
comes to possess that virtue. This possession is quite different from the
pre-communalized conception of the human spirit. Then, possession and
participation were restricted to the actual development of each individual
human spirit. Now, possession and participation preserve foreignness
as difference but remove the innite distance of the others nature.22
22 H. S. Harris provides a ne analysis of Hegels idea of Jesus as a personi-

ed ideal, but he interprets that discussion largely as a continuation of Hegels
critique of Christianity: the nature of Christianity is now such that Jesus, unlike
Socrates, can only be worshiped as a distant being. However, Harris does note
that the people of this world would only nally be redeemed by faith in him,
when they recognized the alien power as their own, the life and joy of the other
world as the proper expression of mans social nature in this world (1972: 181
83). Harris does not seem to see that this social nature is fundamentally differ-
III. Participation and Satisfaction
In reconceptualizing the human spirit in terms of the structure of the com-

munity Hegel has also transformed his original Problemstellung into one de-
ned by the problem of participation. The practical obstacle to human
satisfaction which Hegel had at rst located in the concrete characteristics
of the Volksgeist can fall away as a concern. Now Hegels focus can shift to
more theoretical questions, particularly the commensurability of his con-
ception of the human spiritwith its discrete capacities and needsand
the idea of participation itself.
A. External Tension and Hope: the Possibility of Overlapping Communities
In Hegels original conception of the human spirit the unity of virtue and
being at home in the world could not be guaranteed. Virtue stood in sys-
temic tension with being at home in the world whenever the spirit of
a people was insufcient to its own a-historic requirements. Such a guar-
antee still escapes Hegel in the Berne fragments. Nonetheless, his recon-
ceptualization of the human spirit gives virtue and being at home in the
world the same ground: participation in a community. Moreover, in com-
munalizing the nature of virtue Hegel allows its full actualization to have a
concrete social form as those virtuous men. In this way, the concrete com-
munity required by being at home in the world can overlap with that re-
quired by virtue.
If Hegel has truly integrated participation into virtue, these virtu-
ous men will not be the Tbingen essays outstanding men in every age.
These virtuous men must be such that they are dened by the possibil-
ity of communalized participation. Their virtue must be radically open to
recognition by others. In this way virtuous men such as Jesus and Socrates
cease to be men at all. As exemplars of virtue they are not historically ex-
isting individuals, knowledge of whom is limited to those in a particu-
lar time and place, but the story of Jesus and of Socrates (BF 5657). As a
story, Jesus is not just a virtuous man but Virtue itself (BF 57), a true su-
perhuman ideal which is not foreign to the human soul (trans.; BF 57).
While with a mere virtuous man we are always inclined to assume hidden
shadows, signs of struggles past (if only, as in the case of Socrates, on physi-
ent from the Tbingen essays call for communal life because now it has an onto-
logical basis in the concept of alienation rather than an empirical one based
on private and public. That Harris does not appreciate the innovation in Hegels
thought is shown in Harris concluding summary of the Berne fragments in which
he repeats that the works central contribution is the contrast between the public
teacher, Socrates, and the essentially private one, Jesus (1972: 18586).
ognomic grounds). Whereas here faith is in the presence of a virtue that is

awless yet not disembodied (BF 57). So, if the story of Jesus or Socrates
is not only esh of our esh, bone of our bone, but rather [. . . ] spirit
of our spirit, power of our power (trans.; BF 67), then the community
to which the story belongs becomes esh of our esh and power of our
power. Virtue has achieved a form that is fully social and is fully open to a
communalized participation.
As the unity of virtue within the individual human spirit, phronsis takes
on a wider role than articulating human capacity in the moment of action.
Phronsis becomes a moment of participation and therefore the moment
of recognition of virtue in the world. The highest act of virtue now occu-
pies the same social space or occurs within the same story, as the previ-
ously distinct need to be at home in the world. Phronsis is no longer one of
two fundamental human needs, but can be the preeminent human need.
Nonetheless, the unied satisfaction of the human spirit requires that
the story of virtue meet the a-historical needs of reason and sensibility.
Since this story is drawn from the historical nexus dening the spirit of a
people, a gap remains between the logic of participation that unites virtue
and being at home in the world and the actual nature of the ideational
community in which they both ought to participate. Hegel cannot guar-
antee that the logical possibility of unity will translate itself into an actual
unity of content among the two communities required.
When a tension arose in the Tbingen essay between the nature of the
human spirit and the spirit of a people, Hegel abandoned his folk-religion
project. Now, he has other options. These options exist for two reasons.
First, the movement from the Tbingen essay to the Berne fragments in-
volved a practical turn as Hegel moved from a reection on the general
nature of the human spirits satisfaction to securing its actual satisfaction
within his own people. So, he can abandon the problem of proving the uni-
versal possibility of establishing a folk-religion; he no longer needs to show
that Jerusalem and Rome contain the same resources for a folk-religion as
did ancient Greece. Second, the idea of the community gives Hegel a con-
ceptual tool to identify salutary resources (e.g., the story of Jesus) within
the peoples larger situation of corruption (e.g., the Christian religion). His
theory of historical development provides a way of explaining how this sit-
uation occurred as well as how these resources came into actuality.
For the above reasons we nd Hegel expressing an optimism at the end
of the Berne fragments23 not present in the Tbingen essay. [A]fter cen-
23 Herman Nohl places the fragment containing the following quoted mate-
rial at what is considered the end of the Berne fragments. H. S. Harris places it as
the penultimate fragment, and Wenn man von der christlichen Religion as the ulti-
mate one (1972: 520, 183 n. 1).
turies humanity becomes again capable of ideas and has come out from
under the shadow of the doctrines of degeneracy of man (trans.; BF 71).
[N]ow moral ideas can play a role in the lives of human beings (ibid.).
Indeed, the whole
articial system of drives and means of consolation [ ] is becoming more

and more superuous. Hence now the system of religious truth, which here-
tofore has always taken on the color of the time and its political con-
stitutionsreckoning humility, i.e., consciousness of impotence, to be the high-
est virtue and looking to sources outside ourselves for everything (including
to some extent evil itself)can begin to attain a true and independent worth
of its own. (Ibid.)
For Hegel, the external situation of the human spirit is changing. The
articial system of drives and means of consolation that he describes in
both his social and doctrinal critiques of Christianity is falling away. What
had been historical (i.e., taken on the color of the time and its politi-
cal constitutions) begins to accord with virtues a-historical requirements
(a true and independent worth of its own). Although we will no longer
need to loo[k] to sources outside of ourselves for everything, the reason
is not the old self-subsistence of the human spirit. Rather, the situation of
estrangement is ending. A private existence concerned with lifes com-
forts and adornments and a social world that can guarantee life and
property is declining (ibid.). The good man of virtue demands the same
communal structure of participation as the good citizen who is at home
in the world.
B. Reason and Participation
Hegels optimism is justiable only in so far as the problem of the human

spirits unied satisfaction exists out in the world as the problem of over-
lapping communities. In particular, it occurred with the re-emergence of
humanitys capacity for ideas (BF 71). Hegels theory of historical devel-
opment explains this re-emergence in terms of reasons advance. By al-
tering the peoples consciousness, reason creates the conditions for over-
turning the external impediments to the human spirits satisfaction. With
the coming of the capacity for ideas, the beauty of what the human spirit
is capable becomes our property (ibid.). Although reason brings the
beauty of human nature to the fore, the beautiful itself consists in more
than reason. For the divine spark in us is not restricted by or incompat-
ible with the fact of our sensible nature (BF 67), although it may previ-
ously have been a matter of contempt. Even so, Hegels optimism alone
depends on reasons ability to grasp the human spirits full dignity. Reason
must participate in the community of virtue as a whole.
Hegels communalization of reason was intended to allow the recognition
of the beauty of human nature articulated in the socially existing commu-
nity of virtue (e.g., the story of Christ, the story of Socrates). Nonetheless,
Hegels reconceptualization does not proceed deep enough to the roots
of his original conception of reason as a-historic, self-supporting activity.
Reasons self-subsistence exhibits itself as a critical stance towards the world in
a way that makes it antagonistic to the activity of participation. Nowhere is
this antagonism more present than in reasons relationship to the concret-
ized principles of religion. Reasons assaults against religion make it quite
possible that some unripe fruit may be knocked off, crushed and smoth-
ered (BF 50). Its natural attitude denies it the participative moment in which
it recognizes the community of virtue not only esh of our esh, bone of
our bone, but rather [. . . ] spirit of our spirit, power of our power (trans.;
BF 67). In this way, the problem facing the human spirits satisfaction is not
just an external one concerning the overlapping of the community of ex-
cellence and the wider community. Rather it is now internal to the human
spirit itself.
By mentioning reasons destruction of some unripe fruit Hegel al-
ready indicates a misgiving about reasons self-certainty and activity. This
misgiving intensies as he recognizes that reasons self-certainty can itself
become a faith. The individual can become [c]onvinced that reason in its
very essence is identical with their faith in rationalism (BF 51). Yet, Hegel
is willing to embrace reasons quarrelsomeness because he needs it in or-
der to drive the historical development of his people out of its articial
system of existence (BF 71). This quarrelsomeness is rooted in reasons
ability to generate principles of evaluation out of itself. Because of this self-
subsistence reason will be able to repudiate those
principles which literally pervert morality at the same time that they debase both
humanity and divinitynot the sort of principles that are debated by the ef-
fete in studies and lecture halls, where without perceptible harm to the public
welfare one professor espouses happiness and another some other empirical
commonplace as the basis of morality or natural right. These are not simply
given out in public instruction, but, more effectively communicated than any
lecture, they are insinuated throughout the entire complex of a nations ac-
tivity. (BF 53)
Reasons saving power can reach into the entire complex of a nations
activity, but only by denying the foundations of community itselfi.e., those
independently existing principles through which participation is pos-
sible. Reasons standard remains resolutely internal. It believes only in the

immediate exercise of a power arising out of its narrowly conceived self.
Reason will neither accept nor believe what it will not plausibly encounter
or be able to apply anywhere in its endeavours (BF 54).
Through an analogy, Hegel illustrates the dangers of reasons criti-
cal comportment. The situation with reason is as if, after all shipping
attempts no Northwest passage through America was discovered, the ge-
ographer [die Geographie] audaciously claims there is none (trans.; BF 53
54). Just as the geographer denies the very ground of his professional life
when he refuses to participate in the actual world, reason denies the true
ground of its activity when consumed by a belief in its radical autonomy.
Turned into a faith, reason ceases to discern between good and pernicious
doctrines because it is incapable of participatory relations necessary
for such discernment.
The heart of the problem is neither that reason will turn into a faith,
nor that it will knock off, crush, and smother some unripe fruit. Rather,
it is that this form of rationality will never know when a fruit is ripe. Such
knowledge requires acknowledgment of a standard outside of itself. Yet,
the principles of each individuals reasoning are theirs alone: they are nei-
ther shared, nor do they admit of sharing. Even so, reasons principles are
not necessarily idiosyncratic or indecipherable. This conception of rea-
son permits common texts, common conceptions of the world, and so on.
While reason can recognize the rationality of another and so nd itself in
another (see BF 64), this recognition is not participation because it is inca-
pable of alienation. The foreignness it overcomes is that of difference, not
estrangement. What is recognized as common is merely an aggregation of
similar products of individual reasoning. With reason, no actual commu-
nity is present because no independently common set of principles exist
to be validated.
A faith in reason is not a contingent pathology. It is the natural conse-
quence of taking reason to be the self-generator of principles. Hegel con-
demns this faith in reason because his reconceptualization of the human
spirit demands that reason go beyond its sense of self-subsistence to its
true ground in participation, the structure of the community. In the face
of these contradictory demands Hegel can only reassert the conditions
that rst fostered his optimism: the external satisfaction of the human
spirit through the possibility of overlapping historical and virtuous com-
munities. In an one-sentence paragraph appearing immediately after he
repeats reasons quarrelsome relationship with historical faith, he writes:
Faith in Christ is faith in a personied ideal (see BF 6667). Here Hegel
projects his belief that reason can be participatory as much as he projects
his belief that the story of Christ can constitute an adequate community of
virtue. His solution to the human spirits satisfaction must remain as mere
hope in so far as critical reason is necessary and yet is unable to distinguish
between unripe, pervert[ed], and ripe doctrines.
Hegels hope is not rm, for he immediately follows this assertion with
a question: Why does not the example of men for us sufce to strengthen
us in the struggle of virtue, to feel the divine spark in us, the power which
lies in us, to become the master over sensibility? When we rst encoun-
tered this question above, it stood for us as a clear articulation of Hegels
reconceptualization of virtue, of the beginning of his attempt to bring vir-
tue in-line with the broader conditions for the human spirits satisfaction.
Now, Hegels question takes on a plaintive tone. He is forced to ask the
question because he sees that reason is the highest judge of its beliefs.
It understands itself as the ground of all solutions (BF 64). Reason cannot
see its way to feel the divine spark in us because reason takes itself to be
that very divine spark.
Behind the hope that the satisfaction of the human spirit might be
achieved lies the despair that the concept of the human spirit which is to
be satised may itself contain an insurmountable contradiction between
reason and participation.
CHAPTER THREE
T HE END OF TH E H UMAN SP IRIT:

T HE L IFE O F JESUS O F 1795
I. The Volkserziehers Project
The Life of Jesus (1795)1 is a strange work, standing apart from Hegels pre-
vious writings both in style and content. The investigative rigor of his pre-
vious thought appears now to give way to little more than a forced at-
tempt to depict Jesus as a teacher of what is in substance Kants ethics.2
For us, the Life of Jesus is more than odd. It is an obstacle. The apparent
teaching of the Life of Jesus stands in tension with the interpretation of
Hegels Problemstellung we developed over the last two chapters. On the
1 By Hegels own dating, the Life of Jesus was begun May 9 and nished July
24, 1795 (H. S. Harris 1972: 194). However, between the Berne fragments and the
Life of Jesus lie three fragments: the rst, The Transcendental Idea of God, con-
sists of an outline (we shall touch on this fragment briey); the second, Urkunde
der Geschichte, contains excepts and outlines; and the third, Im Anbeginn war die
Weisheit, excerpts alone (ibid. 520).
2 T.M. Knox 1971: v. Theodor Haering arrives at a similar conclusion,
but from different premises. Because he thinks that Hegel does not believe Jesus
teachings are wholly reducible to Kantian morality, Haering interprets the Life of
Jesus as merely a failed experiment in reading the moral aspects of Jesuss thought
through Kant (see 1963: 18396). Similarly, Laurence Dickey points out that [i]t
is somewhat misleading [ ] to treat Hegels Life of Jesuss as simply a Kantian
philosophical tract. However, the non-Kantian elements Dickey discerns (al-
though he admits that it cannot be substantiated) are those arising from the uses
to which Kant was being put by Swiss Protestants during the 1780s and 1790s.
These uses were to give Protestantism an activist and reformist face (1987:
17475). Whether Dickey is correct or not on this point, he does not reveal the
philosophic import of the Life of Jesus any more than Knox or Haering do. Like
Knox, the editors of one of the most widely available collected works omit the es-
say on the grounds that while the Life of Jesus is the single wholly complete work
of the Berne period and therefore important however scarcely for Hegels phil-
osophic development (see Hegel 1986: 622). Although Hegel left the work unti-
tled, H. S. Harris provides convincing arguments that the work is indeed complete
(see 1972: 194 n. 1, 196 n. 4) despite the lacunae in the Life of Jesus indicated by
its rst editor, Paul Roques.
85
face of it, our project would be expedited by doing as others have and ig-
nore the essay. But, because the Life of Jesus stands in tension with our in-
terpretation we must confront it. In doing so, we will see that the conclu-
sion to the problem of participation, and that of the search for the good
life grounded in the human spirit, is contained within it.
A. Kantian Appearances
As the title given to the work suggests, the Life of Jesus consists in the tell-
ing of the story of Jesus life from his birth until his death. Hegel draws
the events and details explicitly and frequently from the Gospels.3 Yet the
story he tells is not a paraphrase, for he transforms these accounts by mak-
ing them wholly worldly in two ways. First, Hegel locates the stories details
in the context of Jesus time and place. Here we nd Hegel breaking his
narrative to remark that: the ears of corn from which Jesus and his disci-
ples ate may have been a species of oriental beans (LJ 89), the practice
of riding on an ass is quite common in the Orient (LJ 117), the crown of
thorns Jesus wore was hogweed, heracleum (LJ 133), Jesus hands were
nailed to [the cross], but his feet were probably only tied on4 (LJ 135),
and the water which owed from Jesus side when stuck with a spear was
lymphatic uid (LJ 136). Second, Hegel extirpates all the miracle sto-
ries, either by ignoring them or, with the miracles of healing, transform-
ing them into events that place humanitys needs above the restrictions of
tradition. So we see Jesus restoration of vitality to the invalid during the
Sabbath (John 5)5 become an act of kindness for a poor and sick person
(LJ 88), the curing of a withered hand (Matt.12: 912) becomes a discus-
sion about the permissibility of tending to those who are injured on the
Sabbath (LJ 90),6 Jesus human parentage is stressed (Jesus was born to
Mary and to Joseph) (LJ 75) as is his human death:
3 H. S. Harris notes that Hegel does not really try to construct a historical se-
quence out of the fragmentary accounts of Jesuss ministry but is content to follow
for long stretches the order of topics as he found it in Luke or Matthew(1972:
197). On Hegels selective use of the Gospels, Harris speculates that Hegel held
Mark to be the positive Gospel, Luke to be the rational Gospel, Matthew to be
the Gospel of life, and implicitly John to be the religious Gospel (ibid. 197 n.
1, 367 n. 1).
4 In a footnote, Hegel adds a reference to Pauline Memorabilia 1793. pp. 3664
An ancient problem regarding the nailing up of the feet among the crucied.
5 Hegel provides all references to the Gospels himself.
6 For a detailed and insightful analysis of the ways in which Hegel transforms
the miracle stories into worldly events, see H. S. Harris 1972: 199203.
END OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT 87
Nicodemus, another friend, Joseph [of Arimathia] took the dead one down
from the cross, anointed him with myrrh and aloe, wrapped him in linen, and
buried him in his familys tomb, which had been hewn into a rock in his gar-
den. It being near the place of execution, they were able to nish these ser-
vices that much sooner, before the beginning of the feast, during which it
would not have been permitted to deal with the dead. (LJ 136)
With no mention of the resurrection, here Hegel concludes the Life of

Jesus.
However, the Life of Jesus does more than make Jesus mundane. It
makes him into a spokesperson for Kantian morality. While Hegels Jesus
states the appropriate object of reverence is God, he adds
those who truly revere their God will worship the universal father in the true
spirit of religion. These alone are pleasing to him; their worship of God is au-
thentic, being animated solely by the spirit of reason and its ower, the moral
law. (LJ 81; see also 75, 87, 89)
To be animated solely by the spirit of reason is
[t]o act according to one such maxim, which you can will, that is in force
[gelte] as a universal law amongst men, even against yourselves this is the fun-
damental law of morality the content of all legislation, and the sacred books
of all peoples. Enter the temple of virtue through this gate of righteousness.
(Trans.; LJ 87)
Hegel later writes that such a will can determine its own just deserts,
[and] is capable of governing itself (LJ 89) because it derive[s] the law
from within itself, [ ] believe[s] in it and subject[s] itself to it freely
(LJ 106; see also 79, 85, 87, 112, 114, 119, 126). Unlike the Kantian lan-
guage we encountered in Hegels earlier essays, these words appear to
be wedded to Kantian meanings. Even the narrative through which Jesus
comes to be a teacher of Kantian morality has been made congruent with
the requirements of that teaching. No miracle remains to oppose the au-
thority of reasons self-legislation; no detail of the story is left capable of
attaining a signicance reaching beyond its cultural, geographical, or bo-
tanical context. While religious practice still actualizes the human
spirit through the cultivation of the spark of divinity allotted to them (LJ
75), here that spirit is exhausted by reason alone.
Hegels apparently Kantian transformation of the good challenges
our previous interpretation of his Problemstellung. No longer does the hu-
man spirits satisfaction appear to involve the unity and equality of reason,
fancy, heart, and the requirement to be at home in the world. Instead,
all human capacity must be subordinated to a reason that does not con-
demn the natural impulses, but governs and renes them (LJ 80). For
just as one cannot serve two masters with equal fervor, so likewise is the
service of God and reason incompatible with devotion to the senses. The
one excludes the other or else there ensues a wretched and pathetic vac-
illation between them (LJ 8586). Moreover, by making Kantian critical
reason the shape of the human spirits satisfaction, the Life of Jesus seems to
exacerbate the problem of participation that dened Hegels transformed
Problemstellung and communalized human spirit.
B. A Successful Volkserzieher?
After struggling towards a broad conception of the human spirits satis-

faction, why would Hegel turn against it in the Life of Jesus?7 Hegel himself
provides us with no explicit answer. The work contains no introductory re-
marks and no such remarks are missing. To begin to grasp the works in-
tention we must look outside the work itself to the project that occupied
Hegels efforts from the Tbingen essay to the Berne fragments i.e., the
attempt to satisfy the human spirits needs through the establishment of a
folk-religion.8 The Berne fragments began with the implicit promise that
7 Those very elements that make the Life of Jesus so incongruous for ourselves
and other students of Hegels early thought for H. S. Harris make Hegels writing
of The Life of Jesus [ ] a perfectly comprehensible undertaking, and its charac-
ter largely predictable and not at all surprising (1972: 195). Because Harris has
consistently emphasized the reasons place as the integrative moment of human
life and a pure rational religion as the goal of Hegels religious investigations, the
Life of Jesus becomes the expected and restorative next step once the Berne frag-
ments concern with identifying the corruption of Christianity has been accom-
plished (ibid. 195). For him, the Life of Jesus thus sets out the rational content of
Christianity by undoing a certain falsication of the record which is inherent
in its existence as a historical record at all (ibid.). In doing so, Harris sees that
Hegel seeks with quite dedicated intentness to give the most literal account of what
Jesus meant(ibid. 196). Because we have systematically tried to show that Hegel
does not elevate reason or rational religion in the way that Harris thinks, we can-
not take his interpretative route to explain the Life of Jesus. However, as we will see
in the course of this chapter, Harris is quite right that the Life of Jesus is an instru-
ment. Its purpose will be discernable, not in what Hegel writes, but in the effect
that the work is designed to produce on a very specic audience in light of the
particular problem of participation.
8 Raymond Plant makes a similar observation but goes further by directly
connecting the Life of Jesus to Hegels project: Das Leben Jesu is an attempt to
interpret the life and teaching of Jesus in such a way that all transcendental, au-
this folk-religion project could be directly carried out. Although Hegel

soon had to abandon it for his confrontation with the deeper problem
of human situatedness, he nonetheless had time to set out three charac-
teristics that the project must possess in order to successfully move from
a programme of analysis to one of actual social transformation: rst, the
contemporary educator of a people (the Volkserzieher) will only be able to
achieve a large-scale effect [] through writing (BF 30); second, the proj-
ect must aim to instruct a people (ibid.) in a particular way; and third,
generally the sort of instruction must always conform to the genius and
tone with which one can be successful with a people [bei einem Volk ankom-
men] (trans.; ibid.).9
Now, the Life of Jesus satises the rst characteristic not only because
the work is written but because of the way it is written. The essay is distin-
guished from Hegels earlier and later works by the clarity of its language
and the accessibility of its message. The work requires little philosophic back-
ground; it makes use of a story whose general contours would be known
by any Christianized people. And, unlike a work designed for oral elab-
oration e.g., Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics or Hegels own Philosophy
thoritarian elements in it would disappear in the hope that out of this demythol-
ogized, humanized teaching a folk or civic religion might grow (1973: 4143).
Plants interpretation is problematic because he assumes the works Kantian lan-
guage continues to have non-Kantian meanings. That presupposition is difcult
to justify in the Life of Jesus. As we will argue, the intention of the Life of Jesus is best
understood within the context of the folk-religion project, as Plant rightly sees,
but it is not designed to carry out that project in its entirety. Walter Kaufmanns
position is the same as Plants but without any elaboration (Kaufmann 1978: 35).
Stephen Crites makes a similar argument, but he accepts that Hegel is being
a (more or less) orthodox Kantian here. However, for this reason, Crites claim
that this puried Christian doctrine could then constitute a salutary public re-
ligion for a whole civilization in a way congruent with the demands of the ear-
lier fragments (1998: 104) cannot be correct. As we have seen in chapter 1, and
as Crites himself noted in his interpretation of those fragments, the demands of a
folk-religion go well beyond satisfying orthodox Kantian morality. The arguments
by Plant and Crites are really specications of Adrien Peperzaks more general
claim regarding the connection between the Life of Jesus and the Berne fragments,
although Peperzak is more attentive to the tension between the needs of the hu-
man spirit and what the Life of Jesus provides (see 1960: 6465, 69, 71).
9 H. S. Harris quite rightly sees that Hegel takes on the role of a public
teacher rather than as a scholar. For him, if Hegel had written as a scholar he
would simply have presented another version of Kants Religion within the Bounds of
Reason Alone (Harris 1972: 198). However, Harris does not fully take advantage of
his insight into Hegels role to then draw out his true intent as an educator, per-
haps because Harris does not draw on Hegels own clues to his purpose that are
set out in the Berne fragments.
of Right the Life of Jesus does not condense its ideas into a difcult phil-
osophic shorthand. Furthermore, the Life of Jesus carries with it all the ap-
paratus, citations, and footnotes of a work whose purpose is to be read by,
rather than read to, an audience.
The Life of Jesus does not seem to conform to the second characteristic.
To be successful the Volkserzieher must instruct so to depict as vividly as he
can the moral corruption of the public heart [with] a tone more unspar-
ing than he would ever think to use toward even the most despicable in-
dividual (BF 30). We nd no vivid depiction of the moral corruption
that Hegel attributed to Christianity in the Berne fragments in both his
social and doctrinal critiques.10 Indeed, the story he tells appears wholly
unsuited to instruct a people who have been accustomed to the most
shocking profusion of repressive institutions and ways of deluding mankind
(BF 42).
Hegels third characteristic consists of genius and tone about which
the Volkserzieher must be concerned. By listing them together they appear
of equal weight. This appearance is false. The Volkserzieher cannot set the
right tone apart from a prior consideration of genius. Hegels own discussion
in the Berne fragments of the pedagogy of Jesus and Socrates points to
this conclusion.11 Jesus spoke to a people whose synagogues had accus-
tomed their ears to direct instruction and moral sermonizing;
Socrates could instruct without didactic tone, without the appearance
of wanting to enlighten, [and using only] ordinary conversation (BF 30)
because the Greek nature was not so shaped. So, if the Life of Jesus is an ex-
ample of the Volkserziehers work, the particular tone which the essay adopts
reects the genius of its intended audience.
We must not confuse the Volksgeist or spirit of the people with its genius. As
we know, the concrete situation of a people, the Volksgeist, is dened by the
conjuncture of its history, political life, and religion (TE 27). This conjunc-
ture is the context in which the peoples character shows itself and through
which it receives its transitory content. However, the peoples enduring na-
ture is given by its religion. These principles are the true home in which the
human spirit ultimately participates and achieves satisfaction. Therefore,
the genius of Hegels people must be dened by Christianity and his audi-
ence becomes the West, for only the genius of the West stands in contrast
to both the beautiful youth of the Greek spirit (TE 29) and the forefa-
thers of the Christians, the Jews of the (Middle) East (BF 32, 39).
At the conclusion of the Tbingen essay, Hegel told us about the genius
of the West: his form is aged; beautiful he never was; slight touches
of manliness remain still faintly traceable in him; he is short-sighted and
10 See chapter 2, secs. II. B and C.

11 See chapter 2, sec. I. A.
can see only little things at a time (TE 29). This list merely gives us cer-
tain attributes. It tells us nothing about the genius of the Wests substan-
tive nature. To know this substantive nature we need to know the nature
of Christianity. In the Berne fragments, Hegel provides us with two differ-
ent accounts of the foundation of the genius of the West. The clearest ac-
count occurs in Hegels doctrinal critique of Christianity.
To write about the Christian religion is to risk being accused of erroneously

portraying its aim and essence; and to go so far as to be critical toward some
aspect of what one has portrayed is to invite the rejoinder that this is not really
pertinent to Christianity but only to some caricature of it. [ ] Accordingly,
[ ] anything [in Hegels own investigation] considered as belonging to the
Christian religion is either drawn directly out of the New Testament or pres-
ently constitutes [ ] a systematized version of the popular doctrine ofcially
recognized by the Church Councils and their committees. (BF 6061)
The foundation of the genius of the West Hegel chooses is odd since it
places contemporary systematizations of doctrine recognized by
Church Councils and their committees on the same level as the New
Testament. He makes no mention of the word or teaching of Jesus as
the foundation back to which any orthodox doctrine must be traced.
However, Hegels social critique in the Berne fragments does take up this
forsaken element. There, only the precepts of Christ, the teachings of
Jesus, or at least those precepts which Christ gave his disciples and hear-
ers (BF 41) are essentially Christian.
Although we are faced with two foundations for the genius of the West,
our previous analysis of the Berne fragments provides a way out of this
difculty. Hegels accounts arise not just from two different critiques of
Christianity but from his analysis of Christianity at two different historical
periods. The social critique, with its emphasis on the teachings of Jesus,
concerned itself only with the rst Christian community. The doctrinal
critique, with its emphasis on the New Testament and pronouncements of
the Church Councils, concerned itself with Christianity in its presently ex-
isting institutional form. In light of Hegels theory of historical develop-
ment, the chronological relation of these two foundations also shows itself
as a logical relation. The appearance of the second foundation arises out
of the rst and excludes its recovery.
Now, the rst Christian community collapsed because its foundations
contradicted the requirements of community itself. It vanish[ed] in the
very instant of its [concrete] establishment (BF 41), and the ge-
nius of the rst Christian people with it. These original principles of the
West were not recoverable. The result of the collapse of the rst commu-
nity was the creation of a new and wholly articial model of human na-
ture (the articial system of drives and means of consolation [BF 71])
to t the lifeless institutions that remained. This new model of the hu-
man spirit gave rise to the new principles of the West: the oor (belief
in Christ as the source of salvation) and buttresses (belief in the
historical person of Christ, mysticism, the worthlessness of human be-
ings, and a mechanical virtue) of the modern Christian edice.12 These
principles constitute the genus of the West. Because this new genius of the
West rests on institutional requirements, its foundation becomes the most
fundamental of those institutions: the traditionally codied words of, and
stories about, Christ (the New Testament) and their contemporary coun-
terpart (the systematized version of the popular doctrine ofcially rec-
ognized by the Church Councils and their committees). Since each of
these institutions aims at the reproduction of the community in its present
form, Hegel does not need to distinguish between them on the basis of -
delity to Jesus original teachings.
If the Life of Jesus is an example of the Volkserzieher at work it must
conform to the foundation of the genius of the West given by the New
Testament and the Church Councils. Moreover, it must conform to the
doctrinal floor and buttresses arising from that foundation because
they form the concrete character of the Christian community. In order to
fully grasp the nature of the Life of Jesus we must introduce a distinction
within the concept of conformity.
The Volkserzieher must conform his work to the peoples genius in two
ways: psychologically and ontologically. What we call psychological confor-
mity aims at securing the acceptance of an end. Ontological conformity
aims at securing the true nature of the human spirit. Without psychologi-
cal conformity any possibility of gaining an amenable audience will be
lost. Without ontological conformity, the human spirits participative good
will be missing and the Volkserzieher would then aim at the sort of articial
model of the human spirit that the West already possesses. The Volkserzieher
must write in a way that is familiar but will still lead the people through
the moral corruption of their world to the human spirits true nature.
With Hegels communalization of the human spirit, the latters nature can
no longer be thought of as radically apart from the substantive nature of
a peoples genius. Psychological and ontological conformity will implicate
each other in a successful Volkserziehers project.
When we examine the Life of Jesus in light of the requirements of con-
formity, the results are mixed. We can nd important moments of onto-
logical conformity and of psychological conformity, but we can also nd
signicant moments of non-conformity. From the standpoint of ontologi-
cal conformity, the Life of Jesus utilizes the text that denes one element of
12 See chapter 2, sec. II. C.

the foundation of the genius of the West. By utilizing the New Testament,
Hegel secures the community in which the Western human spirit must
participate i.e., the community dened by the story of Jesus. At the same
time, his narrative ignores the Church Councils and their systematiza-
tions, the other foundational element. From the standpoint of psycho-
logical conformity the work adopts the individuals and events of the tradi-
tional story of Jesus, but then uses these familiar individuals and events in
very unfamiliar ways and so fails to conform in a psychologically appropri-
ate way to the genius of the West.
This partial ontological and psychological conformity produces an
ambiguity. The Life of Jesus suggests that it is comprehensible as the ef-
forts of the Volkserzieher (and therefore falls within Hegels Problemstellung),
yet only ambiguously. This ambiguity becomes impossibility in light of
the only instructional goal the work seems to provide: to educate its audi-
ence to Kantian morality as the divine essence of the New Testament.
Ontologically, then, Kantian morality would become the nature of the
Western human spirit. To do so negates the foundation of the West by re-
placing the texts and institutions of Christianity with reasons universal-
ity, aims at the overthrow of the givenness of the community necessary for
true participation, and destroys the multiplex nature of the human spirit.
In sum, the Life of Jesus would, if this were so, destroy that nature which the
Volkserzieher ought to cultivate.
C. A Negative Conformity with the Volkserziehers Task
Yet, in this destruction we can see an inverted conformity. The Life of Jesus
is able to be so destructive of the genius of the West because the essay im-
plicitly responds to its essential features. While the essay does not vividly
and unsparingly depict that edice, or even depict it at all, the Kantian
teaching of the Life of Jesus are a perfect, cancelling t with its oor and
buttresses.
As we know Hegels Jesus preaches a doctrine that makes the good
available to all, requires no dependency on another, and demands an ac-
tive human spirit rather than one that is passive or mechanical. These at-
tributes ow from the central doctrine of that Kantian teaching: the good
has its source in the individual who lives the law of his own (e.g., LJ 112).
This teaching destroys what Hegel has called the oor of Christian be-
lief that Christ is the source of salvation or the good. Once it is activity,
the good is severed from the passivity of belief; once the good is self-leg-
islation, it is severed from exclusive possession by another. With the col-
lapse of this oor in the edice, two of the main buttresses also fall. The
buttress concerning the worthlessness of the human spirit is knocked
down by locating the human spirits worth in his capacity to derive from
his own self (LJ 89) what is highest. As a consequence, the buttress stat-
ing that a faith in Christ is a faith in the historical person of Jesus becomes
irrelevant. Jesus cannot be the historical source of the good because the
law of reason is not a good that exists in time. Nor can Jesus even be con-
sidered the historical discoverer of individual self-legislation as the high-
est good, for Hegel notes that both Abraham and John the Baptist prop-
agated the same teaching as Jesus even if more credit is due to Christ
(LJ 11112, 75).
In destroying these rst two buttresses, the Life of Jesus knocks down
the doctrinal conditions for the moral corruption of the public heart. From
Hegels theory of historical development we know that moral corruption
has practical conditions that allow these doctrines to live.13 These practi-
cal conditions are the nal two buttresses: repressive institutions that co-
erce a mechanical virtue and orthodoxy; and the mystical elements of
Christianity that provide external and unveriable validity to the whole
edice. Now, because these last two buttresses are practical rather than
doctrinal in nature they cannot be knocked down directly. Instead, the
Kantian teaching of Hegels Jesus permits these institutions to appear to
the human spirit as repressive because they try to control the self-activity
constituting morality. The teaching also permits these mystical elements to
show themselves as instruments of delusion that deny the power of reason.
In this way, the teaching of Hegels Jesus does not ignore the genius of the
West as it rst seemed, but responds to it.
The Life of Jesus now at least partially conforms to all three characteris-
tics of a successful Volkserzieher, and the initial impossibility of our interpre-
tation of the Life of Jesus returns to ambiguity again. The previously missing
depiction of moral corruption is indeed present, but not in a way we ex-
pected. As well, the ontological foundations of the genius are at least par-
tially preserved if we see the destructive power of the teaching only to aim
at the edice (its oor and buttresses) and not the latters foundations in
the New Testament and Church Councils.14
Together, this negative conformity to the genius of the West and the posi-
tive conformity returns us to the problem of determining the works audi-
ence. While adhering to the structural features of the genius of the West,
it ignores the psychological features of the larger population. Without the
latter, the central educative element is lost and the Life of Jesus could not be
13 See chapter 2, sec. I. C.

14 Raymond Plant makes a similar, although much more general, claim that
Das Leben Jesu therefore is not an attempt to change the meaning of the
Christian message for epistemological or metaphysical purposes but rather to
change peoples perception of their religious experience and thus alter its so-
cial effects (1973: 44). As we will see in the following section, the people whom
Hegel is addressing are not the Volk as a whole as Plant thinks.
an instance of the Volkserzieher at work. If the Life of Jesus can yet be grasped
in terms of the Problemstellung of the communalized human spirit, we must
ask who is its intended audience?15
II. The Volkserziehers Solution to the Problem of Participation
The inward conformity of the Life of Jesus to the moral corruption of

Christianity showed that this work is not intended to speak to the peo-
ple of the West as a whole. When combined with our knowledge of the
Volkserziehers project, this inward conformity allows us to deduce three
characteristics that the intended audience must possess. First, the au-
diences deepest experiences must be formed by the community of the
New Testament and Church Councils that denes the genius of the West.
If the audience did not belong to the West, the Life of Jesus would not aim
at the education of a people, but rather the creation of a people or the
conversion of one. Second, this audience must also share in the genius
of the West in its lived practices and doctrines: the oor and buttresses
of Christianity. But unlike the general population, this audience must al-
ready be aware of the moral corruption of the edice in which it dwells.
Only this pre-existing awareness can explain the inward conformity of the
Life of Jesus and its failure to depict as vividly as he can the moral corrup-
tion of the public heart (BF 30). Third, the audience must nevertheless
have no solution to this corruption. If the audience had a solution, the Life
of Jesus would have no pedagogical function to fulll.
A. An Audience of Believers in Reason
Our analysis of the Berne fragments provides us with a candidate for this
audience: those for whom critical reasons independence and power has
become their faith. These believers in reason take a critical view
of Christianitys doctrines. But this experience of separation from the com-
munity is not ontological separation. Hegels theory of historical develop-
ment saw reason emerge out of a situation of a childlike state of trust in
15 Hans Kng comes close to this problem, and to the proper identication
of the purpose of the Life of Jesus when he takes the starting-point in solving the
riddle [i.e., of the meaning of the work] [to be the observation that] Jesus life
and teaching are not to be used for folk religion, but they are to be used for pri-
vate religion, for the development of individual men(1987: 8990). That is, the
Life of Jesus is not designed to solve the whole problem of the folk-religion project,
but only one part of it. However, because Kng does not ask who these individual
men might be, he misses the real question which the Life of Jesus is directed to
solving.
which a people had an immediate relationship with the community. While

reasons emergence separated the people from that experience, by the
time reason has advanced far enough to make a faith in reason possible,
the peoples genius already had been set. Believers in reason are formed
by that genius as much as those who have not adopted a faith in reason.
In this way, the believers in reason meet the rst characteristic of the Life
of Jesus possible audience.
Although these believers in reason share in the genius of the West,
their relationship is quite different from the non-believers. The advance
of reason makes the relationship between critical reason and the world
increasingly quarrelsome. By the time a faith in reason becomes possi-
ble, the believers in reason are well versed in the worlds moral corrup-
tion. As an audience, they do not need this corruption depicted, let alone
in a vivid and unsparing manner. Here, this audience satises the second
characteristic.
The human spirits relationship to critical reason is apt to turn into a
faith because critical reason never ceases to rely only on itself or to draw
its strength from that feeling of self-reliance. Where critical reason ought
only to prepare the worldly conditions for participatory reason, it dwells
instead on the impossibility of participation in light of the worlds moral
corruption. In comparison to critical reasons self-containment, the world
appears as a procession of contingent facts, whose deepest principles are
merely an historical faith no different than any other human work
(trans.; BF 6667). Reasons disdain becomes aggression when confronted
by the historical faiths own assertion of validity. It is provoked into attack-
ing that historical faith on the latters own terms e.g., by bringing to
light how the historical faiths various accounts cannot be squared with
one another, where they are based on folk beliefs, that they have been al-
tered, and so on (see BF 6667). This aggressive faith in reason opens up
the need for an education to reasons participatory form. It is this need
which constitutes the satisfaction of the third characteristic of the audi-
ence towards whom the Volkserzieher directs his work.
B. Reason: Rulership, Obedience, and Self-Legislation
If the believers in reason are the Life of Jesus audience then we can con-
tinue to interpret the essay as an instance of the Volkserziehers project. But
just as the essays audience is a subset of the wider Volk, so is the task which
it sets out to accomplish. Hegel is not most concerned about the setting
up of a folk-religion or even the satisfaction of the whole of the human
spirit through its participation in overlapping communities of virtue and
of social life. Rather, the Life of Jesus is Hegels practical attempt to solve
the most difcult part of the problem of participation. It is his attempt to

educate reason.
The problem of participation is multiplex. It involves the actual corrup-
tion of the world, the perception of corruption on the part of believers in
reason, and the necessary quarrelsomeness that belongs to the structure
of reason itself. Now the Volkserzieher cannot directly solve the actual cor-
ruption of the world. The most he can do is educate the people to see it
and then allow the violent convulsions that follow to carry the corruption
away. We saw that Hegel had hope that the actual conditions of corruption
were beginning to pass away.16 Even when the actual conditions of corrup-
tion are not present, the problems of perception and structure remain
and it is these that the Life of Jesus attempts to solve in turn.
We were unsuccessful when we rst tried to nd evidence of the Life of
Jesus psychological conformity to the genius of the West. Both the instruc-
tional manner appeared inappropriate and the narrative seemed incon-
gruent with the need to win the peoples trust. Now that an audience other
than the people as a whole has emerged, we only need to explore the Life
of Jesus conformity with that audiences ordinary prejudices of which we
have already encountered the two main ones: believers in reason take ev-
ery faith to be an historical faith whose incoherence can be shown by at-
tacking it in its historical details; and they feel reason to be utterly power-
ful and self-contained.
The Life of Jesus speaks to this audiences rst prejudice through the
cultural, historical, and paleobotanical asides that periodically break the
works narrative. On their own, these asides preserve the narrative of Jesus
life against critical reasons historical attack. We say preserve because
these asides cannot convince believers in reason of the absolute truth of
the story of Jesus. Critical reason is convinced only by its own internally
generated principles. So, these asides show how the story of Jesus could be
historically true for those that will only see it as an historical faith. At the
same time, Hegel plays to the necessarily estranged relationship this audi-
ence has to the external world. By breaking the narrative ow with these
historical asides Hegel has his own narrative replicate reasons detached
commentary and failure to participate in the community. The believers in
reason nd their critical attitude in a narrative that they simultaneously take
to be beneath themselves. In playing to the audiences disdain of the tradi-
tional story of the life of Jesus, Hegel coaxes them into participation in the
Life of Jesus own narrative. Through this now visible moment of psycholog-
ical conformity, the Life of Jesus attempts to overcome the problem of par-
16 See chapter 2, sec. II. C.

ticipation by causing critical reason unwittingly to nd itself participating

in the foundation of the genius of the West.
However, Hegels attempt to win this audiences trust and participation
requires the Kantian content of the teaching of his Jesus. Critical reason
requires more than a truth vouchsafed by the archeologist, historian, or
botanist. The audience must see its own rational nature in the world. By
placing undiluted Kantian teachings in the mouth of Jesus, Hegel further
replicates the audiences self-assessment of critical reasons capacities and
foundation. The Volkserzieher s intent is not found in the teachings of this
Kantian Jesus, but in placing it within the narrative that actually founds the
genius of the West. The work as a whole shows how the audience might
nd itself in the foundation of the West. The ironic effect we encountered
in the historical asides expands to the entire narrative. Hegels Jesus pur-
ports to provide a new, purely rational foundation for the West, but only
for the purpose of making the peoples foundational narrative acceptable
and securing some form of participation.
This psychological participation constitutes the education of the believ-
ers in reason. It does not address the structure of a reason that must be
both critical and participatory and so only touches the surface of the prob-
lem. Between the Berne fragments that introduced the tension between
critical and participatory reason and the Life of Jesus that now looks like
it ought to provide a solution lies a fragment called the Transcendental
Idea of God.17 In this short manuscript which contains an outline that
absorb[s], assimilat[es], and recapitulat[es] material from Kant, Fichte,
and Schelling18 Hegel delineates the possibilities of participation within
the structure of reason. These possibilities are the different ways that rea-
son shows its freedom.
C.
Freedom of will determining itself into obedience or disobedience of the law
by absolute independence [Selbstttigkeit, self-activity] into two contradic-
torily counterposed ways of acting; or is freedom only cancellation [Aufhebung] of the
determination of the non-ego (Fichte called such freedom the freedom of
arbitrary choice), determining itself into satisfaction or non-satisfaction of
a demand of the faculty of desire? (Modied to original punctuation; TIG
361/425)
Hegel takes reasons fundamental structure, regardless of its ways of
17 This fragment was probably written between February 4 and April 16, 1795
(Michael Hoffheimer 1995: 421). The Life of Jesus was begun three weeks later.
18 Michael Hoffheimer 1995: 423.
acting, to be absolutely independent self-activity or to use the German

that captures both meanings, absolute Selbstttigkeit. In the passage he
initially sets up a quasi-Kantian19 conception of the will as one modality
of absolute Selbstttigkeit. In this modality, the highest activity of reason in-
volves willing to be shaped by what is external to that activity. Hegel speaks
indifferently of this condition as obedience or disobedience. Although the
decision to obey or disobey is a decision to take up a relationship to the
condition of being shaped, this relation is epiphenomenal, for the condi-
tion of being shaped is logically prior to that relation, making the wills
obedience or disobedience possible. Even the wills disobedience includes
a more fundamental obedience to the need to react to externality. For this
reason we will call this entire quasi-Kantian condition of being shaped,
obedience simply.
Obedience stands opposed to the Fichtean modality of reasons abso-
lute Selbstttigkeit. In the latter, reason takes up no relation to externality
(the non-ego). Instead, the will is indifferent to it so that it chooses out of
itself and in relation to nothing other than itself. Reasons freedom be-
comes arbitrary choice (TIG 361/425). Compared with obedience, we
can call this Fichtean mode rulership.20
In the Transcendental Idea of God, Hegel has expressed the prob-
lem of reasons participation as a purely abstract movement. As absolute
Selbstttigkeit, reason can either perceive what is outside of itself (obedi-
ence) or it can be indifferent to externality and create out of itself choices
(rulership). By setting the problem down in its logical form, he establishes
a new framework for thinking about reasons participation.
19 H. S. Harris notes that this [is a] Kantian formula which he [Hegel] has
modied to suit himself (1972: 191).
20 H. S. Harris sees the strong inuence of Schellings interpretation of Fichte
and traces out the roots of this inuence through a prior series of correspon-
dence between Hegel and Schelling. Harris understands the relationship be-
tween the Kantian formulation and the Fichtean one as an act of translation
from the Kantian language he knows to the strange world of Ego and non-Ego
that he was just learning (1972: 191, 18690). So this whole section C. becomes,
for Harris, Hegels attempt to satisf[y] himself, so to speak, that he knows the
translation rules for his basic terms (ibid. 191). As we will see, Hegel thinks that
these two positions can be brought together, however we will argue that he does
not think they are equivalent and indeed maintains them as two distinct, logical
formulations of the human spirit. In any case, Harris is quite right to emphasize
that Hegels real concern here is practical, not metaphysical; strictly philosophical
concerns make themselves present only as foundations from which the practical
concerns can then be addressed (ibid. 19091). For a discussion of the remaining
sections of the Transcendental Idea of God see ibid. 19194.
The problem of participation now exists between the modalities of rul-

ership and obedience without being coextensive with either. By them-
selves, each pole of reason fails to capture the full dialectic of partic-
ipation. Each articulates only one moment of it. Rulership captures the
moment of spontaneous activity; obedience, the moment of perception and
acquiescence to something other than the individuals immediate ac-
tivity. Within the framework of rulership and obedience the solution to the
problem of participation would appear to require only the bringing to-
gether of these two poles. Critical reason then could be preserved as rul-
ership and tempered by the receptivity of obedience. He need only nd a
conception of reason that can unite these two modalities.
Hegel begins the Life of Jesus by conceptualizing reasons activity as rul-
ership: [p]ure reason, transcending all limits, is divinity itself whereby
and in accordance with which the very plan of the world is ordered (John
1) (LJ 75). Here obedience falls outside of reason because reasons activ-
ity founds the very possibility of obedience. The world must obey rea-
sons plan, but the plan itself is reasons limitless activity and arbitrary
choice (see TIG 361/425). Hegels Jesus considers, in his youth and dur-
ing an hour of solitary reection (Luke 4; Matt. 4), that he might live
in the world according to rulerships principle of arbitrary creation. He
might transform base matter into a more precious substance, into some-
thing more immediately useful to man, e.g., converting stones into bread.
Or perhaps he might establish his own independence of nature altogether
while hurtling down from a high place (LJ 77).
Yet Hegels Jesus dismisses the concrete adoption of rulership. To win
his way to it would necessitate an initial dependence: nature would have
to be studied to learn its secrets and he might even require the help of
higher spirits (see ibid.). So,
as he reected on the limits nature has placed on mans power over her, he re-
jected such notions, realizing that it is beneath mans dignity to strive for this
sort of power when he already has within himself a sublime power transcend-
ing nature altogether, one whose cultivation and enhancement in his true
lifes calling. (Ibid.)
In maintaining the purity of rulership, Hegels Jesus also acknowl-

edges the impossibility of this purity in the world. The sublime power
transcending nature that man already has within himself does not con-
cretely transcend nature at all, for nature has placed [limits] on mans
powers over her. This ruling power is forced into obedience.21 We now
21 Roger Harrison reads this section as Hegels attempt to point out the importance of
the nite to spiritual development by avoiding the temptation of self-sufciency from the
see Jesus is [d]etermined to remain forever true to what was indelibly

written in his heart, i.e., the eternal law of morality, [and therefore] he re-
vered only him whose sacred will can be swayed by nothing but this law
(LJ 78). Now to act in accordance with the nature of reason, is to be ani-
mated by a limit that is already and unalterably there: the eternal and in-
delible law of morality.
With the two modalities of reason set out, Hegel now commences
a series of reconceptualizations of reason that oscillate between ruler-
ship and obedience. With each oscillation he moves to integrate one
modality into the other hoping to come to a conception of reason that
can meet the demands of participation. This process begins with a return
to reason as rulership: reason guides [leitet] and renes [veredelt] as well
as command[s] [gegebietet] (trans.; LJ 80). While the activity of pure rul-
ership is divinity itself (LJ 75), Hegel also separates the divine from rea-
sons activity: reason is only a spark of the divine essence and its activity is
the reected splendor of th[at] divine essence (LJ 79, 80). Reason must
guide, rene, and command, and simultaneously be obedient to the di-
vine that is outside of itself.
Yet, Hegel does not know how to conceptualize reasons living re-
lationship to the divine once reason is only a spark of the divine and the
reected splendor of the divine essence. He is forced to think of this re-
lationship as dead for as a rational being he [man] has received as his in-
heritance a spark of the divine essence (LJ 79). But the relationship ought
not to be dead. Reason should always be attentive to the divine and spon-
taneously active. The life of the human spirit must enter into the service
of both the divine voice and the higher demands of reason (LJ 7980)
or what he later calls the service of God and reason (emphasis added;
LJ 85).
In trying to maintain reasons rulership and its living obedience to the
external good of the divine, Hegel only manages to return once more to
reason as obedience: Heaven and earth may pass away, but not the de-
mands of the moral law nor the obligation to obey them (LJ 83). Thus a
prayerful spirit might be articulated something like this: Father of mankind,

to whom all of heaven is subject, you, who alone are all holy, be for us the im-
age that we strive to approximate, so that some day your kingdom will come, a
kingdom in which all rational beings will make nothing but the law their rule
of conduct. To this idea all inclinations, even the cry of nature itself, will even-
tually be subjected. (LJ 85)
world (1979: 5557). While Harrison is quite correct about the direction in which Hegels
thought is heading, he overlooks the tension, present at the beginning of the Life of Jesus, be-
tween the idea of the human spirits absolute Selbstttigkeit and the need for participation.
The goal of holding together rulership and obedience is achieved for

the rst time in the essay in Jesus pronouncement that
[t]o act according to one such maxim, which you can will, that is in force
[gelte] as a universal law amongst men, even against yourselves this is the
fundamental law of morality the content of all legislation and of the sacred
books of all peoples. (trans.; LJ 87)
We encountered this concept of reason and its activity when we rst pro-
vided an overview of the Life of Jesus outward meaning. At that time we did
not know it to be a reconceptualization of reason. We had not yet identi-
ed the works intended audience or its educational aims and so we took
this statement as evidence that the work was little more than a forced at-
tempt to depict Jesus as a teacher of what is in substance Kants ethics.22
The Kantian element of the work is not a ruse, yet Hegels Jesus is not at-
tempting to educate a people to Kants ethics.
We can properly interpret this restatement of the categorical impera-
tive as Hegels attempt to reconceptualize the structure of reason itself to
allow participation. As opposed to the quasi-Kantian language of simple
obedience to the moral law, in the properly Kantian language of self-legis-
lation Hegel nds a conception of reason that seems able to bring to-
gether rulership and obedience. In doing so, the problem of participa-
tion appears to be formally resolved.23 By willing the good into existence
as the moral law, reason engages in that founding activity that constitutes
rulership. As an act of rulership, reason does not need to be told that its
activity should be a universal law amongst men which shapes without itself
being shaped. Reason as rulership already knows this condition as its na-
ture. Nothing stands above reason itself; nothing compels its activity into
obedience. Yet, Hegel also nds within self-legislation that separation of
the good from reason which denes the structure of obedience. As a uni-
versal law, reasons activity compels obedience from all. While the law can
emerge out of a transcendent founding, it invokes an obedience indepen-
dent of that act it is valid not just for others but is valid even against
yoursel[f]. Hegels Jesus must remind reason as rulership of the simulta-
neous existence of the structure of obedience.
This formal solution is the nal conrmation that the Life of Jesus pur-
22 T.M. Knox 1971: v.

23 Stephen Crites assumes a similar stance when he writes the uniting of the
subjective and the objective, the universal and the individual in reason is what has
attracted Hegel to Kants idea of practical reason (1998: 101). However, Crites
locates this unity right at the beginning of Johns Prologue instead of seeing it as
a moment of rulership only.
pose is to be grasped as an instance of a particular sort of Volkserziehers

project, for the satisfaction of the psychological needs of believers in rea-
son which is necessary to win their acceptance of the foundation of the
West is now paired with that reconceptualization of the nature of reason
necessary to ontologically permit participation.
C. Self-Legislation as a Model of the Human Spirit
The signicance of the Life of Jesus goes beyond being comprehensible

in terms of Hegels original search for the human spirits satisfaction. In
providing a framework for the reconceptualization of reason, he initially
stumbles into a framework that expresses the whole of his concept of the
human spirit in its logically pure form.
The concept of absolute Selbstttigkeit animates Hegels treatment of
reason because it describes reasons absolute independence from the
world, its self-containedness, and the absolute self-creativity of its activity.
Although reason is the preeminent example of absolute Selbstttigkeit, this
same structure lies behind Hegels concept of the human spirit in general.
By speaking of the human spirit as a collection of capacities and needs, he
describes a human spirit whose criteria for satisfaction are internal to it-
self. This self-containedness persists even with the communalization of the
human spirit. The content of the good must be given by the community but
its structure is still given by the human spirits capacities and needs. The hu-
man spirit cannot validly determine whether the story of Socrates or Jesus
will be better for it. But the human spirits capacities do determine that the
community must satisfy reason, fancy, and the heart in a unied way.
Now, virtue and being at home in the world seem too complex to be
reduced to their respective logical moments of rulership and obedience.
They seem too complex therefore to nd their unied truth as self-legis-
lation. An attentive analysis shows these differences to be merely outward.
The ancient theory of virtue on which we have argued Hegel draws de-
mands that human capacity actualize itself always in reference to its own na-
ture. Virtue must perceive its possibilities and move to achieve them out of
itself. Here rulership logically articulates the moment of actualization out
of itself, and the missing moment of perception instead falls to obedience,
for obedience is the logical structure of the act of perceiving whether by
judgement or intuition or some other act and conforming to a standard
outside of the immediate activity itself. Obedience captures the idea, com-
mon to both virtue and being at home in the world, that the good is a gift
that must be received.
So, rulership and obedience each articulate one irreducible, logical
moment of the absolute Selbstttigkeit underpinning the description of the
human spirits multiplex nature. As a result, we must rethink the nature
of the human spirits unitary satisfaction. Phronsis was its original shape in
the Tbingen essay and Berne fragments but once rulership and obedi-
ence are the logical moments of a self-contained human spirit, unity no
longer is the integration of different capacities and needs but the collecting
together of the constitutive moments of rulership and obedience. The es-
sence of phronsis becomes self-legislation.24
III. The Collapse of Self-Legislation and the Human Spirit
Self-legislation, which started out as the solution to the problem of reason, is

the logical or formal model for the whole of the human spirit. As long as
Hegels conception of the human spirit contains the element of self-con-
tainedness and self-activity (e.g., human capacities), self-legislation will
describe the logic of its satisfaction. In this way, we can use the fate of
self-legislation in the Life of Jesus to reveal the logical possibilities of his
broader search for the good life. What happens to the concept of self-
legislation redounds upon Hegels concept of the human spirit.
A. Rulership and Self-Assertion: the Collapse of Phronsis
Although self-legislation is Hegels solution to the problem of partic-

ipation, within six paragraphs of introducing it he begins to question its
ability to hold together their logical moments i.e., to hold together
rulership and obedience. This questioning takes the form of reformula-
tions of the concept of self-legislation from the standpoint of rulership
and from obedience. For now, though, we will follow these reformulations
from the standpoint of rulership.
The rst reformulation is found in Jesus response to the offense caused
24 At the end of his analysis of the Life of Jesus, H. S. Harris indicates the exis-
tence of some relationship between phronsis and self-legislation: Hegel was not
unconscious of a conict between his Greek ideal and the moral rigorism of Kant.
He strove to reconcile the Platonic-Aristotelian conception of phronsis with the
Kantian Vernunft; and wherever he encountered arguments tending to show that
by the standards of Kantian morality the virtues of the ancients were really only
splendid vices, he rejected the conclusion quite decisively, even though he did not
explicitly renounce any of the premises (1972: 206). However, Harris does not see
that Hegel has discovered the basis for this reconciliation in the idea of the hu-
man spirits absolute Selbstttigkeit. Phronsis and Vernunft are now reconcilable be-
cause the latter (at least expressed as self-legislation) is the logical form of the for-
mers self-actualization.
by his perform[ance of] an act of kindness for a poor and sick person on
the Sabbath (LJ 88).25
When you regard your ecclesiastical statutes and positive precepts as the high-
est law given to mankind, you fail to recognize mans dignity and his capacity
to derive from his own self the concept of divinity and the comprehension of
the divine will. Whoever does not honor this capacity within himself does not
revere the Deity. That which a human being is able to call his self, that which
transcends death and destruction and will determine its own just desserts, is
capable of governing [richten] itself. It makes itself known as reason; when it
legislates, it does not depend on anything beyond itself; nor can it delegate a
different standard of judgement to any other authority in heaven or on earth.
(LJ 89)
In the passage, Hegel begins with the problem of the misidenti-

fication of an authentic standard of the good. The highest law is con-
fused with ecclesiastical statutes and positive precepts. Since the highest
law is given to mankind just as are these ecclesiastical statutes and positive
precepts, the initial problem is not the givenness of the law. The prob-
lem is how to reconcile this givenness with rulerships need to create out
of itself the highest law. His immediate solution is to assert reasons own ac-
tivity as what is highest. The divine now has no existence apart from
that which is derive[d] from his own self and is indistinguishable from
the individual activity of reason. The comprehension of the divine will
that properly belongs to obedience must give way to a reason that does
not depend on anything beyond itself; nor can it delegate a different stan-
dard of judgement to any other authority in heaven or on earth. From
the standpoint of rulership, self-legislation begins to show itself as unsta-
ble. It ought to preserve obedience in the force of rulerships demands,
but seems unable.
Hegel wishes to preserve his solution but not at the cost of attenuating
the modality of rulership. The result of these mutual desires shows itself in
the remainder of Jesus response.
I do not pass off what I teach as some notion of my own, as something that be-
longs to me. I do not demand that anyone should accept it on my authority,
for I am not seeking glory. I submit it only to the judgment of universal rea-
son, that it might determine each individual to belief or nonbelief. But how
could you allow reason to count as the highest criterion of knowledge and be-
25 Hegel states that the incident is from John 5.

lief, since you have never heard the divine voice, have never heeded the reso-
nance of this voice in your hearts, and so now refuse to pay attention to some-
one who strikes this chord? (LJ 89)
By having Jesus disavow the idiosyncracy of his teaching (see also LJ 96),
Hegel tries to recover some of self-legislations lost stability. This disavowal
is the assertion that rulership can exist and have a ground outside of it-
self. Jesus founds his teaching out of himself, but the teaching is then
submitted to the judgement of universal reason. Unlike that moment of
founding, the later moment of judgement lies outside of the individual
and therefore outside the possibility of idiosyncracy. This judgement com-
mands obedience from individual reason as the divine voice that must be
heard, heeded, and determine each individual. In accepting the ab-
solute validity of the reasons universal ground, Jesus does not give up on
the moment of self-contained activity. Instead, he has attempted to refash-
ion self-legislation within the logic of rulership.
This refashioning shows two signs of failure. First, Hegel cannot nd
a way to make obedience work within the logic of rulership. The univer-
sal reason of the divine ought to speak to the reason of the individual. Yet,
he cannot see how the faculty of reason can be simultaneously divided
within itself into an universal reason that rules and an individual reason
that obeys. As a result, Hegel shifts the act of obedience from reason to
human sensibility. The act of obedience becomes an act of faith and not
the act of reason demanded by self-legislation for the judgement of uni-
versal reason [ ] might determine each individual to belief or non-be-
lief (LJ 89).
Second, Hegels new reformulation of self-legislation abandons all
hope for the simultaneity of rulership and obedience. Instead of obedience,
we see different forms of rulership: individual and universal. Later in the
Life of Jesus he expresses this absence of obedience as the idea of Gods
kingdom purely as a realm of goodness, one in which reason and law alone
govern [gebieten] (emphasis added; LJ 99). The governance of reason and
the law points to the impossibility of the foundational equality of reasons
rulership and obedience demanded by the concept of self-legislation. By
speaking only of the govern[ing] of reason and law Hegel implies that
rulership is the truth of reason, the law, and absolute Selbstttigkeit itself.
Obedience disappears as an equal moment because rulership shows itself
to be prior in time and being. Obedience requires an act that invokes it;
obedience requires a relation to an already founded limit and rulership
supplies both.
Hegel makes two attempts to ignore the collapse of self-legislation into
rulership. He states that rulership, as the right to derive the law from
within itself or as given [by] the law of his own reason (LJ 106, 112),
ought to exist alongside voluntary subjection so that reason subject[s]

itself to it freely (LJ 112, 106). However, once obedience has conceptually
disappeared as an independent possibility of absolute Selbstttigkeit, these
statements can only be assertions. Hegel is forced to admit that the mo-
ment of perception on which obedience rests has no power against rul-
ership. The concept of self-legislation which promised to unite rulership
and obedience now betrays his hope that the problem of participation
might be solved. Hegel acknowledges his own conceptual betrayal through
the telling of Jesus betrayal:
Up to now I have been your teacher, and my presence has guided your actions.
But now that I depart from you, I am not leaving you behind as though you
were orphans; I leave you with a guide within yourselves. The seed of goodness
that reason has sown inside you I have awakened in each of you [ ] You have
become men able at last to trust in yourselves without having need of external
restraints. Once I am no longer with you, your developed moral sense shall be
your guide. [ ] The holy spirit of virtue will keep you from stumbling; it will
instruct you further in matters to which you have thus far not been receptive,
and will recall to your memory and give meaning to much that you have not
yet understood. I leave you my blessing not a meaningless salute, but a salu-
tations rich in the fruits of goodness. My departure is to your advantage, be-
cause only through your own experience and practice will you achieve inde-
pendence and learn to govern [fhren] yourselves. My leaving you should
ll you not with sorrow but with gladness, for I embark on a higher course in
better worlds, where the spirit soars more uninhibitedly toward the fountain-
head of all goodness and enters into its homeland, the realm of the innite.
(LJ 12526)
The relationship of Jesus to his disciples mirrors that of rulership to

obedience. The disciples must obey Jesus and his independent activity
only until they are able at last to trust in [themselves] without having
the need of external restraints. The foundational place of obedience as a
mode of absolute Selbstttigkeit is gone. At most it is a temporary condition
existing between the initial act of external rulership and the later develop-
ment of an internal capacity for rulership.
Hegel then oscillates between the ontological preeminence of rul-
ership and of obedience. On the one hand, the preeminence of ruler-
ship is demonstrated when the good belongs to individual reason in form
of the seed it has sown; when instruction is described as self-creation or
the recalling of what is already inwardly present in the individual so that
the concept of obedience becomes meaningless; and, when the ultimate
goal of the human spirit is posited to be self-governance. On the other
hand, Hegel indicates that the structure of obedience remains as a devel-
oped and autonomous moral sense that guide[s] and, as a holy spirit
of virtue, that instruct[s] (LJ 12526). At the speechs conclusion Hegel
brings this confusion to a close by acknowledging the dominance of ruler-
ships logic. He returns the good to that founding activity with which the
Life of Jesus begins. The good is a world without limits and therefore with-
out the possibility of obedience or disobedience.
Hegels discussion shows that from the standpoint of rulership, self-leg-
islation fails. Because self-legislation is the logical model of the human
spirit as a whole, self-legislations failure also changes the nature of the hu-
man spirits satisfaction. The loss of obedience is the loss of the possibility
of participation. Once the possibility of perception of an external limit as
ones own is lost the human spirits satisfying activity can no longer be con-
ceptualized as actualization according to its nature. Actualization becomes
self-assertion and therefore the ancient ideal of human virtue, including
its highest moment as phronsis, shows itself as rulership only.26
B. Obedience: the Collapse of Absolute Selbstttigkeit
The collapse into rulership is just one of the logical threads played
out within Hegels conception of self-legislation. He also engages in a
parallel examination of obedience as a foundational modality of abso-
lute Selbstttigkeit. Hegel adopted the logical model of self-legislation be-
cause it implied that ruling and being ruled could belong to the same es-
sence. Rulership met absolute Selbstttigkeits demand by counting as
26 What we have called rulership Hegel will come to call the conscience,
in the Phenomenology of Spirit (ch. VI. C. c). There, in a way pregured here in
his earliest writing, he will detail the inability of the conscience to validate its as-
sertion that it has apprehended the good. Hans-George Gadamer makes an in-
triguing comment about the relationship between phronsis and conscience in the
thought of Martin Heidegger. Speaking about Heideggers seminar on Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics in 1923, Gadamer writes: Then he [Heidegger] began to dis-
cuss the difference that distinguishes all such knowledge [i.e., techne], and espe-
cially mere doxa from phronsis: lth ts men toiauts exes estin, phronses de ouk es-
tin. We were unsure of this sentence and completely unfamiliar with the Greek
concepts; as we groped for an interpretation, he declared brusquely: That is the
conscience! (1977: 201). Now, Gadamer calls Heideggers interpretation a vio-
lent rending of the Aristotelian text, and indicates that Heidegger is reading the
nature of conscience as phronsis (ibid. 202; see also Heidegger 1962: 5458)
rather than, as we are arguing Hegel does, reading the nature of phronsis as con-
science. Nonetheless, Gadamers recollection points to the existence of a connec-
tion that both Hegel and Heidegger have seen even as they interpreted it quite
differently.
its own only those moments of its own self-creation. However, obedience
cannot remove the distance between the good and itself in the same way
and so the unity of obedience and absolute Selbstttigkeit presents him with
a much more profound theoretical challenge.
As with rulership, Hegel grapples with the problem of commensurabil-
ity through a series of reformulations of self-legislation. The rst appears
in a retelling of Luke 8: 19.
Once [ ] when some of his relatives came to visit him [i.e., Jesus], they found
that they couldnt get very close to him because of the crowd of people around
him. When Jesus was informed of this, he replied: My true brothers and kins-
men are those who heed the voice of God and obey it. (LJ 94)
This reformulation ignores the possibility of rulership by speaking

only of an obedience to God with no attempt to locate this divin-
ity in reasons own activity. Hegel implies that obedience belongs fully
to the nature of the human spirit: obedience makes one a true brother
and kinsman. The effect is to alter the nature of absolute Selbstttigkeit to
reflect the structure of obedience: that nature is communalized; the
good is no longer an individual possession. The absolute Selbstttigkeit that
led to the problem of idiosyncracy from the standpoint of rulership now
invokes brotherhood from the standpoint of obedience. Obedience
demands and Hegels Jesus articulates a conception of possession that
incorporates the givenness of the good while excluding the equation of
possession with self-creation.
As for myself, I cling only to the untainted voice of my heart and conscience
[instead of the positive precepts of this one corner of the world]; whoever lis-
tens to these honestly receives the light of truth. And all I ask of my disciples is
that they heed this voice too. This inner law is a law of freedom to which a per-
son submits voluntarily, as though he had imposed it on himself. It is eternal,
and in it lies the intimation of immortality. (LJ 98)
The law is an inner law but it is not self-created. It exists as though he

had imposed it on himself. Hegel underlines this new possession by de-
liberately choosing the heart and conscience to illustrate it, for they are
heteronomous in a way that reason as rulership is not. Yet here they can
be called untainted because they capture the good as brotherhood i.e.,
the good as a situation in which the human spirit finds itself rather
than creates. While the structure of rulership is not explicitly present in
the above reformulations of self-legislation, its imprint subtly remains in
an inner law that is mine versus a law imposed [ ] from without that
enslaves (LJ 98). This language of interiority and exteriority is Hegels at-
tempt to make the communalization of the good palatable to rulership, to
inch his way back from pure obedience to that unity of obedience and rul-
ership promised by self-legislation.
Yet, just as the promise of self-legislation failed from the standpoint of
rulership, it fails from the standpoint of obedience too. This failure comes
when Hegel tries to bind rulerships language of interiority to obediences
language of brotherhood. To his disciples Jesus says,
[t]hese people are mistaken in supposing that my ambition is to proclaim my-

self a messiah of the kind they are waiting for in believing that I personally
demand their service, or that I am in any way impressed by this opportunity to
swell the ranks of my followers. If they but obey the sacred law of their reason,
then we are brothers members of one and the same society. (LJ 119)
Later, his speech concludes:
But do I demand special respect for my person? Do I demand that you believe
in me? Do I seek to impose on you some standard devised by me for apprais-
ing and judging the value of men? No. Respect for yourselves, belief in the sa-
cred law of your own reason, and attentiveness to the judge residing within
your own heart your conscience, the very standard that is the criterion of di-
vinity this is what I have sought to awaken in you. (Ibid.)
As he had previously, Hegel speaks of the law being interior to each. This
interiority is the sort of possession reason demands: they are to obey
their reason, you are to obey your own reason (LJ 98). Obedience
disappears into the more primary act of you creating your reason and they
creating theirs. This interiority is the source of the laws commanding
power, for the human spirits inner voice does not receive the divine but is
the very standard that is the criterion of divinity. As a result, what I have
sought to awaken in you only becomes comprehensible as rulerships act
of self-creation, not obediences act of receptivity.
Nonetheless, within the context of obedience Hegel has tried to force-
fully return to idea of rulership. Obedience to your own reason
transports the individual to the realm of community. When obedient,
he is a brother, a membe[r] of [ ] society. By combining inte-
riority and brotherhood he signals that the attentiveness to the judge
residing within your own heart means an attentiveness to a communal-
ized judge. This judge goes beyond the activities of an individual capacity
and yet begins with the individual capacity. What is innermost simul-
taneously becomes what is outermost. Indeed, the distinction between
them collapses. Membership in a community and obedience to reason
become interchangeable expressions. But the logic underpinning each is

not. Obedience still remains something after the fact and epiphenomenal.
Mere attentiveness to the very criterion of divinity is obediences most
profound articulation in the face of reasons rulership.
If obedience is truly to belong to the concept of self-legislation, it cannot
be epiphenomenal. Self-legislation requires more than attentiveness as
the companion to the act of self-creation. It requires that the givenness
of the good be recognized without any concern for the ultimate origins of
the good. The equality of obedience requires the active suppression
of the exclusively interior self so that a community of the good becomes
possible. In this way, obedience fails to be commensurate with self-legislation
because obedience cannot abide by the priority of the act of legisla-
tion itself. This failure of obedience to be commensurate with self-legisla-
tion signals a deeper failure, that of obedience to belong to the absolute
Selbstttigkeit of the human spirit. Put more strongly, obedience breaks
down Hegels conception of the human spirit as absolute Selbstttigkeit.
With obedience we do not just maintain the moment of perception from
phronsis and abandon its moment of decision. We also abandon the very
basis of phronsis as a capacity or instance of absolute Selbstttigkeit.
Hegels conception of the human spirit was built around the actualiza-
tion of human capacity in a way demanded by ancient virtue. It required
an inner development that was both absolutely self-contained (rulership)
and yet perceptive of absolutely independent truth towards which it was
moving (obedience). Once obedience is incommensurate with rul-
ership i.e., once the concept of self-legislation breaks down the basis
of the human spirit has to be rethought. To retain obedience is to then
have absolute Selbstttigkeit resides outside of human capacity and be un-
structured by it. Obedience requires that the human spirits nature is trans-
formed into one wholly demarcated by a receptivity to the good and activ-
ity which arises from that receptivity.
C. A Transition to a New Basis of the Good Life
The failure of self-legislation to meet the needs of either rulership or obe-

dience shapes Hegels pursuit of the good life. Instead of unifying the
logic of the human spirit, the Life of Jesus establishes two paths along which
Hegels further inquiry into the nature of the good life might travel: ruler-
ship, which preserves the human spirit as the foundation of the good
life, or obedience, which subordinates the human spirit to a good exter-
nal to it. The movement of his conception of the human spirit from the
Tbingen essay through the Berne fragments to the logic of the Life of
Jesus provides the context in which he makes this choice. Moreover, it es-
tablishes the necessity of making it. However, Hegel does not commit him-
self to choosing between these logics of the good life until 1800, ve years
after the completion of the Life of Jesus.
In that half-decade between 1795 and 1800, Hegel struggled to wed rul-
erships absolute Selbstttigkeit to the demands of participation. Outwardly
this struggle took many forms: positivity or authority and the liberal
state in the rst drafts of The Positivity of the Christian Religion (summer
fall 1795; April 1796; springsummer 1796); myth in the Earliest System
Programme (summer 1796); rights, love and the nature of unity in Two
Fragments on Love (mid-1797 to JulyAugust 1797); belief in Faith and
Being (early 1798); and love, life, and then fate in The Spirit of Christianity
and Its Fate (late-1798 to early-1799; summer 1799).27 To bring to light the
relationship between, and meaning within, only the most signicant of
these fragments and drafts is an immense task. Had he provided no ex-
plicit record of his decision on which logic of the good life would pre-
vail, this textual reconstruction would be required. Fortunately, Hegel
makes it unnecessary. On September 24, 1800, he begins rewriting the in-
troduction to the Positivity essay written ve years earlier. The result is the
so-called Neufassung des Anfangs (the New Version of the Beginning).28
There he acknowledges that the search for the satisfaction of the human
spirit through absolute Selbstttigkeit has failed. The choice between the
logic of rulership and obedience laid bare in the Life of Jesus is now made
in favour of obedience. In the Neufassung, his decision is signaled by a cri-
tique of any xed set of concepts and characteristics [that dene] hu-
manity as a whole (NdA 140).
From the Tbingen essay to the Life of Jesus, the human spirits nature
determined what would be satisfactory and what would be corrupting.
Now Hegel abandons the idea that [t]he general concept of human na-
ture reveals what is positive or pathological. Indeed, the general concept
of human nature must be replaced by the concrete pathologies it previ-
ously identied: what for the concept is a bare modication, a pure acci-
dent, a superuity becomes a necessity, something living, perhaps the
only thing which is natural and beautiful (NdA 141). The modications
of life must now replace the abstract capacities and needs in the ontology
of the human spirit.29
27 Our chronology relies on H. S. Harris extensive A Chronological Index to

Hegels Early Works as Cited in this Book (1972: 51927). The works mentioned
here correspond to nos. 69, 7476, 8385, 89, 93, 98, and 107(a) to (q) in that
Index. Harris indicates pre-existing English translations. Since then an English trans-
lation of nos. 8385 (Positiv wird ein Glauben genannt; Religion, eine Religion stiften; and
so wie sie mehrere Gattungen) now exists, see Hegel 1979a.
28 The work by incipit: Der Begriff der Positivitt (no. 112 in H. S. Harris
Chronological Index; see Harris 1972: 51927).
29 Raymond Plant raises an important question that applies both to his inter-
This substitution is necessary because the general concept of hu-

man nature cannot, for Hegel, unite the empirical specicity necessary to
evaluate human activity with the empirical universality necessary to assure
that those standards belong to the human spirit itself. Additionally, with-
out concrete content universal concepts of human nature are too empty
to afford a criterion for the special and necessarily multiplex needs of re-
ligious feeling (NdA 141). As we saw in the Tbingen essay and Berne
fragments, religious feeling gives direction to the unied actualization
of human capacities. So, the inability of the concept to give rise to the
appropriate feelings becomes Hegels way of stating that the concept of
human nature contradicts the end of the human spirit. Instead of the con-
cept of human nature helping to actualize the human spirit, we only
nd that the living nature of man is always other than the concept of the
same (NdA 141).
Any concept that takes human nature to mirror or participate in the
good must then conceptualize human nature in terms of capacity to be ac-
tualized. Human capacity becomes the concrete form of the concept itself.
But, having no existence by virtue of being only the potentiality for a par-
ticular kind of existence, capacity mirrors the abstractness of the concept.
A human nature conceived in terms of a set of faculties is a way for the
human being to possess what ought to be its own-most nature. However,
as an end whose full existence always lies in some beyond, this nature is
known only abstractly. Because of the way that the concept of human na-
ture forces the human spirit simultaneously to possess its own nature and
to know that it does not posses it, the concept makes the human spirit
pretation and to our own: if the purpose of the Life of Jesus is to change attitudes
then surely publication, wide spread dissemination and universal acceptance
were the very preconditions of achieving the implicit aim of the work (1973:
44). All of Hegels early writings, including the Life of Jesus, were never published
in his life time (the one exception was Hegels anonymously published German
translation and commentary on J.J. Carts Condential letters on the former constitu-
tional relationship of the Pays de Vaud to the City of Bern. A complete exposure of the previ-
ous oligarchy of the State of Bern in 1798 (see Hans Kng 1987: 61 and Hegel 1979b).
Plant explains this tension between the works unpublished state and its public
purpose by understanding the purely religious aims of the Life of Jesus to be imme-
diately supplanted by Hegels attempt to unite religious with social and political
solutions in Hegels Positivity of the Christian Religion (1973: 4445). Stephen Crites
takes a similar view (1998: 103105). As we have already pointed out, Plant over-
looks Hegels adoption of just these concerns in the Berne fragments. So the real
solution to this tension is to be found in Hegels realization that it is not the Life of
Jesus which was outmoded almost as soon as it was written (Plant 1973: 45), but
rather the whole Problemstellung which animates the Life of Jesus and which the Life
of Jesus tries to save i.e., the satisfaction of the human spirit through the actual-
ization of its self-contained nature.
into a moment of absolute Selbstttigkeit: the human spirits satisfaction

depends on the actualization of its inner resources and towards the end
which it possesses. Since the concept is supposed to be universal, but the
act of perceiving it is wholly individual, the afrmation of our shared na-
ture through virtuous activity becomes the self-assertion that my virtue is
virtue itself or at least the correct path on the way to it. Any general con-
cept of human nature embodies the logic of rulership, even as it strives for
the universality and participation of obedience.30
Hegels awareness of the relationship between the general concept of
human nature and the problem of rulership is present in his statement
that
the general concept of human nature is no longer adequate; the freedom of

the will is a one-sided standard, because human manners and characteristics
[Sitten und Charaktere der Menschen] together with the accompanying religion
cannot be determined by concepts at all (modied; NdA 141).
In switching from the language of the general concept of human na-
30 Adrien Peperzak sees that the concept of a concrete and historic nature
is new, but he disagrees that Hegel has given up on an ideal of human nature
(1960: 202203). So, he would disagree with our interpretation (as he does with
Theodor Haerings [1963: 362]) that the idea of positivity loses its negative con-
notations. For Peperzak, Hegel remains loyal to his original idea that positivity
(authority which produces mechanical human action) is harmful. He rests his
claim on what he takes to be the continuation of the original ground of that ideal
in Hegels thought: the idea of a God that is eternal and immutable (Peperzak
1960: 200206). What Peperzak does not see is that the very goal of participation
in this idea of God cannot be actualized if this ideal remains as a beyond that is
apprehended by some equally transcendent human capacity.
For a more recent, although unacknowledged, version of Peperzaks argu-
ment see Timothy Huson 1998: 52931. Huson, however, reads the Neufassung
des Anfangs in light of Hegels mature system of logic and as a result interprets
Hegels approach [ ] [as] an integration of the partial truths of each of these
positions [i.e., the concept of an abstract, universal human nature and a con-
crete, historical human nature] combined into a concrete conception of the re-
lation between positivity and freedom with positive [i.e., historical] religion be-
coming a necessary prior stage to the full, rational freedom of human nature
(ibid. 528). While he nicely captures the way in which the Neufassung is the deci-
sive step into Hegels mature position, by reading it in terms of what Hegels posi-
tion will be, he misses its more important meaning as a response to Hegels origi-
nal Problemstellung. Read more in light of the latter, the ideal of freedom based on
the exercise of some autonomous rational capacity becomes unsustainable, be-
cause autonomous human capacity is incommensurate with the goal of participa-
tion in any abstract ideal whatsoever.
ture to that of the freedom of the will Hegel sums up the movement from
the Tbingen essay to the Life of Jesus. The xed characteristics of the
human spirit introduced in the Tbingen essay (reason, heart, fancy, ph-
ronsis, even being at home in the world) show themselves to be noth-
ing other than representations of the logics given by the freedom of the
will i.e., rulership and obedience. This switch in language acknowl-
edges that the search for the good life founded on the ancient theory of
virtue has been a failure. The absolute Selbstttigkeit of the human spirit
cannot be wedded to participation; the full amplitude of rulership and obedi-
ence cannot be each sustained in the act of self-legislation.31
In the Neufassung des Anfangs, Hegel comes to see that the only escape is
to abandon the human spirit as the basis of the good life and take up the
possibility of obedience as the human spirits truth.
To shudder before an unknown Being; to renounce ones will in ones con-

duct; to subject ones self throughout like a machine to given rules; to aban-
don intellect altogether in action or renunciation, in speech or silence; and to
lull ones self into a brief or a lifelong insensibility all this may be natural,32
31 Although H. S. Harris provides a similar analysis of the problem associated

with a general concept of human nature, he reads it as a continuation and sum-
ming up of Hegels previous concerns, not as a break from them. For Harris, the
object of Hegels criticism is much narrower than it is for us: his [Hegels] crit-
icism is now directed principally against the enlightenment religion of Lessing,
Mendelssohn, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling and against the triumph of reason
over that life in which fantasy and heart are fully and equally integrated into hu-
man activity. In this interpretation, Hegels concerns return to those he enunci-
ated in the Tbingen essay when he set out the elements of a folk-religion (chap-
ter 1, sec. III. B.). However, the problem which Hegel is trying to identify here is
not as Harris says, just that [s]omething more than freedom of the will the
standard which Fichte used to dene mans Bestimmung is needed to make
a man (1972: 399401, 406407). Rather the problem is with any concept of hu-
man nature, whether it is conceived as the fully integrated life of human faculties
or the exclusive life of reason. Harris can avoid the wider, and more signicant
implications of Hegels claim here because he does not fully grasp that the rela-
tionship he has discerned between Hegels ancient Greek ideal of phronsis and
Kantian reason (or the Fichtean free will) is one of the representation of virtue
to the logical structure of that representation. That is, he does not appreciate the
way that Hegels critique of reason redounds upon the entire concept of human
nature regardless of its content.
32 T.M. Knoxs English translation places quotation marks around natural;
they do not appear in the German. As we have encountered before, and as we will
see in Hegels next sentence, when he overturns an established position he can-
not bring himself to immediately abandon the old one. (This feature is only an
idiosyncratic character of Hegels thought at this point. At most it is an intuition
of the philosophic importance that the preserving negation will have in his ma-
and a religion which breathes this spirit would not on that account be posi-
tive [i.e., pathological], because it would accord with the nature of its time.
A nature demanded by such a religion would doubtless be a deplorable one;
but the religion would have fullled its purpose by giving this nature the only
higher Being in which it found satisfaction and with which it was compatible.
When another mood awakens, when this nature begins to have a sense of it-
self and thereby to demand freedom in and for itself instead of placing it in its
supreme Being, then and only then can its former religion begin to appear a
positive one. (NdA 141)
Thus Hegel can proclaim
there is no doctrine which might not be true in certain circumstances, no pre-

cept which might not impose a duty in certain circumstances, since what may
hold good universally as truth unalloyed requires some qualication, because
of its universality, in the particular circumstances of its application; i.e., it is not
unconditionally true in all circumstances. (NdA 143)
With the replacement of the general concept of human nature with the
modalities of life, Hegel sinks the nature of the human spirit into the na-
ture of the community. To know the human spirit is to look at its circum-
stances. These circumstances are not an empty universal but rather the
concretely articulated nature of its time. From the Tbingen essay un-
til this moment, mechanicality in various guises has been the standard for
pathological human activity. No longer is it so. Now, the question Hegel must
ask is whether the activity of the human spirit accords with its constitutive
circumstances. The question is answered by an examination of the re-
lationship between the human spirit and its concrete possibilities, not
by nding that xed characteristic permitting absolute independence and
self-creativity.33 Once human nature is constituted by the modications of
ture thought.) For this reason we could mistakenly interpret Hegels use of na-
ture as sarcastic or ironic. However, once we recognize that the old standard of na-
ture rooted in the absolute Selbstttigkeit of the human spirit has been abandoned,
then the appearance of sarcasm or irony is transformed into trepidation. The ad-
dition of the quotation marks necessary for the former interpretation then can be
abandoned also.
33 H. S. Harris, again, comes to the edge of this implication but goes no fur-
ther. He recognizes that not Jesus or Socrates, but the Kingdom of God or the
City is the ideal of human nature (1972: 401). However, even these latter ide-
als have to become more concrete for Hegel: we have shown that the ideal of the
Kingdom of God is already concretized in the ideal of the City(what we
have called the concept of the community and participation). Even the ideal
of the city, too, must be concretized into the actual relations of an actual his-
life, Hegel can begin a new way forward, one rooted in the logic of obedi-
ence or participation. Seven years after he introduces it, Hegel begins to
take the idea of being at home in the world seriously. No longer is it an in-
essential aspect standing alongside the more primary, xed characteristics
of the human spirit. Being at home in the world becomes ontologically
prior to any xed characteristic. In the guise of the modications of life,
being at home in the world reappears as an intuition of a new foundation
of the human spirit and a new way of formulating the good life.34
torical society. This latter move, shows even the Tbingen essays ideal of the in-
tegrity of life to be too abstract.
34 For Walter Kaufmann, with the Neufassung des Anfangs Hegel is not so
much changing his mind as his point of view (1978: 40). His position rests on
reading Hegels work only as a critique of Christianity and the point of view that
is then changed is the need to go from a critique of Christianity to identifying
Christianitys truth. Kaufmann is correct about the latter, but only because Hegel
has chang[ed] his mind concerning the foundation for evaluating Christianity.
Stephen Crites properly grasps the Neufassung des Anfangs as the point at
which Hegels youthful project is abandoned for the development of his mature
one. And Crites even puts the problem of Hegels youthful conception in terms
of an abstract reason that could not grasp such [historicized or contextualized]
reasons and therefore treated with contempt the historical (i.e., human) shapes
of life that did not meet its own criteria. However, Hegel abandons more than
just one form of reason for another capable of grasping the historically con-
crete forms of life in their inner development (1998: 13234). Crites himself im-
plies this when he calls this new form of reason that Hegel is seeking the life of
reason (ibid. 134). That is, Crites implies the fully integrated life of the isolated
human spirit will no longer provide the standard, but rather the supra-human life
of reason in which these human lives exist.
Charles Taylor articulates this implication in its clearest and most Hegelian
form when he calls the transition from Hegels early position to his mature one
a shift from a man-centred view of human regeneration to one that centres on
the notion of the absolute as Geist (1975: 7172). For Taylor this development
in Hegels thought cannot be seen as powered simply by these logical connections
between his intellectual goals. It is likely that it was also inuenced by the train of
events in his time (ibid. 73, 75). We have shown how the development of Hegels
search for the satisfaction of the human spirit comes to an end in a way that is in-
deed comprehensible by these logical connections. Only after Hegel has been
driven out of his original Problemstellung is he on the road to properly and retro-
spectively grasping how his personal intellectual development recapitulated the
historic development (or experience of the development) of the world.
PA R T I I
F R E ED OM AND TH E CO MP LETIO N
OF A R I STO TELIAN VIRTUE,
1821
119
CHAPTER FOUR
THE MATURE FOUNDATION OF THE GOOD LIFE:

SPIRIT AND FREEDOM
I. From the Human to the Spiritual Foundations

of the Good Life
In the trajectory that ran from the Tbingen essay through the Berne frag-
ments to its conclusion in the Life of Jesus and repudiation in the Neufassung
des Anfangs, we witnessed the death of an idea of the good life rooted in the
logic of absolute self-creation or Selbstttigkeit. In Hegels mature philoso-
phy, we witness the birth of a new one rooted in spirit or Geist. The idea of
spirit is the logical conclusion to his youthful insight into the preeminent
place of participation. The beginning of the path to spirit is marked, as we
have seen, by the radicalization and hypostasization of the insight rst ex-
pressed in his youth as the need to be at home in the world. While the de-
velopment of the idea of spirit and its mature elaboration is a story unto
itself, it is not one in which we need engage if we are interested in explor-
ing Hegels idea of the good life. Of his mature works, only the Philosophy
of Right (1821) need receive our full attention.
The Philosophy of Right returns Hegel to his youthful role as a Volkserzieher,
for the book is intended to bring to not only his lecture audience but also
the wider public a knowledge of the good life (PR Preface p. 11/9). Like the
Phenomenology of Spirit (1806), the Philosophy of Right begins with our ordi-
nary experience and aims to locate its true foundation in spirit. However,
the experience presupposed in the Philosophy of Right is not the vari-
ous epistemological, individual, and social experiences of histor-
ical human existence. Rather it presupposes the experience of life within
a recognizably modern political community. For the philosophically un-
happy consciousness,1 the Phenomenology provides that account of the ne-
cessity behind the historic emergence of our modern experience. That
book provides the philosopher with a ladder to the standpoint from which
an investigation of freedom becomes possible (PhG 29/14)without it-
self providing that investigation. It is the Philosophy of Right that educates us
to the concrete details of the goods living nature.
1 H. S. Harris 1995: 178.
121
The Philosophy of Right also contains elements of the purely abstract and
self-grounding account of spirit contained in the Science of Logic (vol. 1,
1812; vol.2, 1816) and, in a more condensed form, in the Encyclopaedia
of Logic (Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences, 1817). Here the
Philosophy of Right attempts to move behind the intersubjective experience
of the good life to a logical account of its structure. Although Hegel states
that I have presupposed a familiarity with [the] scientic method de-
veloped in his Science of Logic (PR Preface p. 12/10), we should not be led
astray into thinking that an account of the good life can be generated out
of those logical foundations or that these works have a higher status.
At most, Hegels logical works provide us with the structure of the good,
not the living shape of the good life. The latter is present only as the life
and experience of a community and can only be revealed through their
analysis. It can never be specied beforehand. Only the Philosophy of Mind
(Part III of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences, 1817) and then the
Philosophy of Right 2 tell us how the good concretely lives in the modern po-
litical community. However, since Hegel calls the Philosophy of Right a more
extensive, and in particular more systematic, exposition of the same basic
concepts [ . . . found in] my Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (PR
Preface p. 11/9), we can restrict our analysis to the Philosophy of Right.
Hegel describes the Philosophy of Rights purpose as the philosophic treat-
ment of right (Recht), not an education to the nature of the good life. Yet,
his study of right encompasses more than the study of rights as we or-
dinary think of the word, for he means by right a study of the concrete in-
stances of the highest good (see PR 29). The subject matter of right is the
subject matter of the good life.3
2 Hegel revised and expanded the rst edition of the Encyclopaedia in 1827
(the second edition) and then again, to a lesser degree, in 1830 (the third edi-
tion). He had begun revisions on the Science of Logic and the Phenomenology in
1831, but fell ill and died without having completed either. For a poignant de-
scription of Hegels last days of life and speculation as to the cause of his death,
likely some sort of upper gastrointestinal disease rather than cholera, see Terry
Pinkard 2000: 65260. The Philosophy of Right was thus the last new work Hegel saw
published.
3 For a comparison of Hegels technical use of right with our ordinary usage
of the word see Allen Wood 1990: 7173. For an attempt to read Hegels concep-
tion of rights within the modern social contract tradition see Steven Smith
1989: ch. 4. Smiths reading requires that he take the foundation of right to be
the moral subject, not freedom. Having established the atomistic individual as the
basis of right, Smith turns to a reading of Hegel that follows Alexandre Kojves
emphasis on the master-slave struggle for recognition in the Phenomenology (Smith
MATURE FOUNDATIONS 123
Hegel expresses the foundation of the highest good in the language of

our ordinary experience of it: freedom as the activity of the free will; free-
dom as the ground of right or the good life. We feel freedom to be the
highest human value; we feel ourselves to be self-contained agents, creat-
ing out of, and acting on, our own will. Yet, he also identies the ultimate
ground (Boden) of right in a way that falls outside of our ordinary experi-
ence. The basis [Boden] of right is the realm of spirit in general (PR 4).
As a philosophical study of the good life, Hegel intends to lead our ordi-
nary experience of freedom and our ordinary understanding of the insti-
tutional life of the community to their proper foundation in the realm of
spirit . Once we are so educated, we will see not only what is true about our
individual and social experience of life, but that this life within the mod-
ern political community is adequate to the nature of the good itself.
In this chapter, we will explore the Introduction to the Philosophy of
Right ( 133). It provides the rst and most foundational moment of
Hegels overall education to the good life: the structure of freedom of the
will. We will see that the Introduction attempts to educate three elements
of our ordinary experience of the good life: rst, the meaning of the self
as the free wills foundation; second, the nature of the activity congruent
with the good life; and third, the way we inquire into the concrete shape
of the good life. Together this education forms a propaedeutic to Hegels
idea of the good life.
A. A Miseducation to the Nature of the Free Will
In 1821, when Hegel published his Philosophy of Right, all the conditions to
be a successful Volkserzieher where in his possession. As Chair of Philosophy
1989: 116118). Doing so perhaps allows Smith to t Hegel more comfortably

into the account of the emergence of the modern theory of rights given by Leo
Strauss (1968). For Strauss own proposal for a project on Hegel with Kojve see
Strauss 1963: 5758.
H. S. Harris provides a succinct criticism of the Kojveian emphasis on the
master-slave relation: When Hegel speaks (in the Preface [to the Phenomenology]
of pure self-cognition in absolute otherness, he is referring to the nite/innite
relation, or to our relation with God or Nature as Spirit. [ ] Among the pio-
neering French interpreters it was Jean Wahl who grasped this point, not Kojve.
Kojves own (essentially Enlightened) ontology forced him to regard Absolute
Spirit as ideology (i.e., as what Hegel calls Vorstellung). He did not understand
that Self-Consciousness is never immediately singular. So his whole interpretation
(in spite of its many insights) is radically distorted (1995: 42). For an elaboration
of what is essentially the same critique, see Robert Williams 1997: 1013.
at the University of Berlin he commanded enormous respect and attracted

students in large numbers. Yet, his attempted education to the very foun-
dation of the good lifethe nature of freedomsignals his failure as a
Volkserzieher. This failure takes the form of an unintentional miseducation
to freedom through a miseducation to the nature of the free will. The con-
ception of freedom as free will he wishes to instill is not the conception to-
wards which his account educates.
Without preamble, Hegel sets out the meaning of the free will in two
parallel accounts. The rst, PR 49, provides the wills purely logical
structure; the second, PR 2228, provides an abstract account of the
life activity of the truly free will. Taking these two accounts together, a
broad-stroke summary of his conception of the free will is not difcult to
achieve: the basis of the concrete good or right is the realm of spirit in
general(PR 4, 29); the will is spirits precise location and point of de-
parture (PR 4); the wills activity is thought and it consists of two mo-
ments (PR 4Z & A, 28), one of universalization, subjectivity, or form it-
self (PR 5, 24), the other of determination, objectivity, or content (PR
6, 25); nally, the free will is the conscious and concrete unity of its two
moments (PR 7, 2223, 25, 27).
Hegel does not intend for us to simply accept his account. Instead, we
are to be led up to it. Our ordinary self-awareness is to be the vehicle for
this journey.
And as for those elements [Momente] of the concept of the will which are men-
tioned in this and the following paragraphs of the Introduction and which re-
sult from the premise referred to above [i.e., that spirit is the ground of the
will and produces itself as the will], it is possible to form an idea [Vorstellen] of
them by consulting the self-consciousness of any individual. In the rst place,
anyone can discover in himself an ability to abstract from anything whatsoever,
and likewise to determine himself, to posit any content in himself by his own
agency; and he will likewise have examples of the further determinations [of
the will] within his self-consciousness. (PR 4A)
By examining our ordinary representation of the interior sources of our

activity, we may indeed come to agree with Hegel that these sources are
reducible to the two basic operations of abstraction and determina-
tion. Yet, if this reduction exhausts the education we receive then he has
failed. Hegel will only have provoked a supercial change in how we grasp
the foundation of freedom and the nature of the human spirit, for with
these two moments of the will he seems only to have provided a new set
of xed characteristics that dene a human nature.4 If so, these seemingly
4 See chapter 3, sec. III. C.

logical operations of the individual will cannot take us beyond the failed
starting point of Hegels youth in which the highest human activity took
the logical form we called rulership.
Previously we used rulership to describe a human act whose logical
structure was such that the activity had no foundation outside of itself, re-
gardless of how the act was represented or self-understood. Rulership is an
act of absolute Selbstttigkeit, the moment of pure self-activity or self-asser-
tion. Hegels call to interpretation, to interrogate ones own self-conscious-
ness, is an effective way to produce supercial agreement with the shape
of the free will as he describes it. In the absolute self-subsistence of ruler-
ship we can nd the moment of total abstraction from anything whatso-
ever as well as the moment of posit[ing] any content in himself by his
own agency (PR 4A).
Hegels call for introspection only demands that, at some point in the
process of interior self-consultation, the outer shell of the idiosyncratic ex-
perience of willing give way, leaving some core common to all introspec-
tors. Yet, because this self-interrogation is inward, the core each encounters
also has the overriding appearance of being something exclusively the in-
dividuals own. The education we seem to receive from Hegels suggested
interrogation is that my will is grounded in my absolute Selbstttigkeit. By
itself, his pedagogical invocation of introspection does not challenge the
old understanding of a self-subsistent human nature. It does not take us
from the human spirithis own agency (PR 4A)to spirit itself.
Hegel perpetuated this unintentional miseducation in his lectures,
which he used to expand upon the written material. These lectures have
been preserved for us and incorporated into posthumous editions as
Additions (Zustze).5 In the Zustze associated with Hegels initial dis-
cussion of the operations of the will, he employs the commonplace un-
derstanding of the I (PR 4Z, 5Z, 6Z). Thus, the operations of the
will, and of introspection, are reinforced as operations internal and ex-
clusive to each I that wills. The will appears as a human capacity; its exer-
cise, as freedom.
The trajectory of this individualistic reading seems to nd its terminus
in his discussion of the natural will (PR 1121). There Hegel explicitly
engages in the interrogation of the ordinary experience of willing that he
requested we do ourselves. His starting point is the most primitive of our
ordinary experiences: nding our activity governed by drives, desires, and
5 These lectures have come down to us from the notes compiled by Hegels
pupil Eduard Gans who in turn derived them from two students who attended
Hegels lectures, H. G. Hotho and K. G. von Griesheim (Allen Wood 1991: xxxv
xxxvi). For a discussion of Hegels relationship with Gans see Terry Pinkard 2000:
53046, 65556.
inclinations that appear in us as naturally determined (PR 11). The re-

sult is a will submerged in a system of conicting objects and directions of
desire (PR 17 & Z). The freedom and unity of the human spirit (PR
14) are wrested from this confusion through the act of choosing amongst
the wills given content (PR 1213, 1517). The initial interrogative ex-
perience is of freedom as arbitrariness (PR 15).
From the standpoint of the natural will, freedom is secured by an indi-
vidual will that abstracts from the particular conicts between desires in
order to produce a harmonious system of inclinations. This abstractness is
the demand for the purication of the drives in which the will imposes its
own content in place of the conicting system initially given to it. Natural
drives are replaced by the will and conict is transformed into the ratio-
nal system of the wills determination (PR 19). Freedom takes the shape
of reection upon these drives: representing them, estimating them, and
comparing them with one another and them with the means they employ,
their consequences etc., and with a sum total of satisfactioni.e., with hap-
piness (PR 20).6
While Hegel hints in a Zustze that this individualized conception of the
free will is riven by a conceptual tension between the universality of happi-
ness and the particularity of the individual who experiences it (PR 20Z),
the thrust of the remaining discussion in the Introduction is seemingly
undeected by it. He speaks of these activities of universalization (pu-
rication and reection) as the way in which the will has itself as its in-
nite form, as its content, object [Gegenstand], and end; only then is [the
6 For a further discussion of the problem of actualizing happiness as a system

of drives and for a historical comparison of ancient and modern uses of happiness
see Allen Wood 1990: 5371. Wood requires such an extensive discussion of hap-
piness because he takes this ordinary experience of the self as a system of drives to
be the true experience of the self. Although Wood can see that happiness points
beyond itself to freedom (ibid. 6971), he does not see that Hegels discussion
of happiness and the problem of its actualization is a critique of the ordinary un-
derstanding of the ground of the self. For this reason, for Wood, freedom is the
way that this ordinary ground is satised rather than a new ground. For a more
general discussion of the natural will and happiness see also Paul Franco 1998:
16268.
Alan Patten does a good job of distinguishing the natural will into the natu-
ral will per se (which he calls natural freedom) and the reective will or reective
freedom where the human being reects on its natural drives in what Hegel calls
happiness (1999: 5051). However, when Patten presents natural and reective
freedom as two models of freedom, like Wood, he seems to lose sight of Hegels
purpose: to demonstrate the stages through which the proper education of our
rst experience of the will progresses and to provide us with that model of free-
dom that preserves and completes our ordinary experience of freedom in a new
form.
will] free not only in itself but also for itselfit is the Idea in its truth (PR
21). This condition of self-possession recalls the goal of unity and har-
mony within human capacity rst encountered in Hegels original, youth-
ful Problemstellung. Indeed his interrogation of the natural will seems to
yield the same youthful movement from the disunity of the human spirit
as a system of competing faculties, through their practical unity in phron-
sis, to their logical expression as self-legislation. Only here, in his maturity,
the movement is presented as one from the naturally given and conicted
drives, desires, and inclinations, through their unity in a rationalized sys-
tem, to the logical expression of the will as the moments of universaliza-
tion and determination.
B. The Free Wills Nature and the Human Spirits Inadequacy
The highest act of the free will still appears to originate from the human
spirit itself. Hegels claim to have grounded the free will in the realm
of spirit seems empty.7 To arrive at his true aim, we must invert the les-
son learned in his miseducation to freedom and from it reconstruct how
spirit might indeed constitute the true ground of freedom and the hu-
man spirit.
The wills universality is the rst moment considered in Hegels ac-
count of the free will. He illustrates it using the powers of the individual
human spirit: any individual has the ability to free [him]self from every-
thing, to renounce all ends, and to abstract from everything [ ] even his
7 Z. A. Pelczynski writes that in [the Philosophy of Rights] long introduction,

Hegel starts with the conception of the individual will (as Rousseau required that
we should) in order to show that the normative order can be proved in some
deep philosophical sense the creation of the individual will. In this way Pelczynski in-
terprets Hegel to follow Thomas Hobbes, who, in The Leviathan also starts from
the abstract individual and deduces the necessity of authority of the state from
the will of the multitude of such individuals (1984: 60). In one sense Pelczynski
is correct: Hegel does begin with our ordinary conception of the will as the indi-
vidual will. But Pelczynski misses how Hegel also follows Jean-Jacques Rousseau
in trying to educate us out of this ordinary conception and starting point. In the
Second Discourse, Rousseau effects this education by starting with the isolated in-
dividual in the state of nature but then shows how this starting point only proves
that the individual is made into a human being with an individual will by so-
cial conditions that exist prior to that individuality. In Rousseaus Social Contract,
the individual will with which Rousseau begins is then transformed (al-
though Hegel says unsuccessfully [see PR 258A]) into its truth as the general
will. As we will see, the community must be receptive to the individual will (subjec-
tivity), but the community is, for Hegel, the product of the realm of spirit and its
development is not in some deep philosophical sense the creation of the individ-
ual will.
own life: he can commit suicide (PR 5Z; see also 7A). Again, the will
appears as an instance of the individual human spirit; universality is the
individuals universalizing. However, Hegels description of the nature of
universality is quite different. Instead of the act of abstraction, universal-
ity is the I s pure reection into itself or the pure thinking of oneself
apart from all content (PR 5). Abstraction is not only an instrument but
also a stable end: the self-subsistence of the will that never loses this self-
subsistence. The truth of universality is that the will is always with itself re-
gardless of the particular and transitory content that adheres to it.
However, as an illustration of universality, suicide is in tension with the
nature of universality. Indeed it shows that this absolute endurance is al-
ways beyond the reach of the individual human spirit. Suicide is not the in-
nite moment of self-subsistence but the very negation of self-subsistence.
In death the limitless innity of absolute abstraction or universality (PR
5) that Hegel says belongs to the wills present condition cannot belong
to itin so far as this will and its universality are conceptualized as be-
longing to the human spirit as some capacity to be actualized or goal that
each individual self-sustains.8 Of course, the human spirit can think of it-
self as something universal. We can formally abstract ourselves from all
our determinate features such as height, shape, skin colour, location in
the world, cultural traditions, and so on. Yet, such abstraction in thought
does not alter the persistence of these determinations. The human spirit
cannot absolve itself of the sin of nitude through its solitary actions. Out
of our self-contained resources, we cannot achieve absolute abstraction or
universality. Even our suicide only removes the awareness of this nitude
without removing the nitude itself.
The same foundational problem exists in the wills moment of determi-
nacy (Bestimmtheit). He calls this moment differentiation, determination, and
the positing of a determinacy as a content and object. [A]s something de-
terminate, I steps into existence in generalthe absolute moment of the
nitude or particularization of the I (PR 6). Hegel provides no accom-
panying illustration of this moment other than to say [t]his second mo-
ment of determination is just as much negativity and cancellation [Aufheben]
8 Mark Tunick rightly sees that suicide has key signicance in our coming to
terms with Hegels conception of freedom (1992: 39, 41, 46). However, Tunick
misses its full implication for locating the free will in spirit instead of the human
spirit. He does so, even though he begins his discussion of freedom by noting that
[f]or Hegel, the agent is will; freedom is its property. Of course for us the agent
is usually a person having a will. Hegel speaks of a disembodied will because he
wants to give an account of the logical structure of the will (ibid. 38). Because he
does not link the latter insight to Hegels mention of suicide, it only shows abstrac-
tion to be one-side of freedom that is by itself meaningless. At most, suicide is
only a harsh reminde[r] of negative freedom taken in the extreme (ibid. 46).
as the rst because the particular is in general contained within the uni-
versal [ ] and is merely a positing of what the rst is in itself (PR 6A).
All we know is that I do not merely willI will something (PR 6Z). We
do not know how the I is absolved of all universality and so endures as the
unchanging particularity of its content.
Because this moment of the will to something is both just as much neg-
ativity and cancellation as the will to nothing, we ourselves can illustrate it
in the same manner as the rst, for as with suicide, the I makes itself in-
capable of abstraction and enters a condition of being only its substantial
content. And just as with the previous case, this human willing fails to be
equal to the absoluteness Hegel attributes to the will itself. Instead of the
absolute endurance of the will in its nitude, this nitude is eeting. True,
in death the I is transformed into substance, but this victory is eeting
since the body decays and disappears.
The human spirit can only endure by living, but when it lives it is not
the absolute moment of nitude. When I will something , instead of one,
absolute content, I am confronted by several contents: the I that I posit
myself to be; the I that rst posited and on which the content depends;
and, the possible Is that could be, if other content had been cho-
sen. The miseducation that Hegel accidently provokes, surprisingly can be
corrected by a turn to the pedagogical lessons found in any childs book
that encourages imaginative play. In one such book we honestly confront
the possibilities for radical determination of content, e.g., I can play
Im anything/Thats anything/Thats MY way.9 The child is both shown
all that they might be but also that these possibilities are conned to the
imaginary. The book communicates what Hegel has difculty telling us: that
the individual human spirit can only play at being anything.10
If the human spirit were the foundation of the free will then the human
spirit should be able to endure as absolute universality and as absolute ni-
tude. That the human spirit appears instead inadequate to the free willde-
spite Hegels use of the I to illuminate its activitiescould be put down
to a problem in the presentation of his ideas given here, for importantly,
9 Ruth Krauss 1979.

10 Merold Westphal makes the same point, although in the context of Puff
the Magic Dragon (1980: 112). Mark Tunick reads the moment of determination
in a more phenomenological way as the experience of human commitment to
something, e.g., a sports team, a job, a spouse, a country, and so on (1992: 47
50). However, in doing so he does not see that the experience of commitment is
inadequate to the actual process of absolute determination. For as we have tried
to show, at most, the human experience of commitment is a participation in the
absolute commitment that spirit has to its determinations. But spirit is not just
committed to its determinations; it is its determinations (including its determina-
tions as subjectivity).
he remarks that we must acknowledge the dualism of innity and nitude

(PR 6A) and so far we have discussed these moments in isolation. To try
to conceptualize each of these moments as if each existed in isolation, he
insists, is to end up with its opposite. Absolute universality, taken by itself,
becomes an abstraction whose very abstractness transforms the universal
into a determinacy a something differentiated from other some-
things by its emptiness only (PR 6A). Absolute nitude, taken by itself,
becomes something radically unique in its content. Since this content
can share nothing, not even existence, with others it is transformed into
the emptiness of absolute universality.
The ceaseless conceptual betrayal of the innite by the nite and the -
nite by the innite can only be stopped by grasping their mutual relation.
The will is the medium that provides for the unity of both of these mo-
mentsparticularity reected into itself and thereby restored to univer-
sality. Yet, Hegel again speaks of the will as the will of the human spirit:
this unity is individuality, the self-determination of the I ; the I deter-
mines itself in so far as it is the self-reference of negativity. So the I
seems to unify these moments in a process of giving itself particular con-
tent all the while holding this limitation to be a mere possibility by which
it is not restricted but in which it nds itself merely because it posits itself
in it. He concludes his denition by calling this activity and knowledge
the freedom of the will, which constitutes the concept or substantiality
of the will, its gravity, just as gravity constitutes the substantiality of a body
(PR 7).
Hegels concept of freedom returns him to the model of self-legis-
lation that we would expect if the I were the site of the will. At the same
time, that nal sentence of his denition of freedom prepares us to see
the free will as something other than the highest articulation of human
Selbstttigkeit. When freedom constitutes the concept or substantiality of
the will freedom can no longer be seen as a product of human activity.
Nor can we see freedom in Aristotelian terms in which it is prior in being
but not in time to the human will. Freedom is the substantiality of the
will and just as on the Earth no body can exist without having weight, no
will can exist without freedom being substantially presenti.e., pres-
ent both in time and in being.
A movement from the human spirit to spirit as the foundation of the
will is at once implied in the failure of the individual I to achieve the mo-
ments of absolute universality and particularity that dene the will, and is
obscured by Hegels illustration of this new foundation. By bringing the
possibility of misdirection to the fore we are able to be more attentive and
receptive to two innocuous warnings he provides against confusing the
will with the human spirit. First, after setting out the full logical structure
of the unied free will Hegel remarks that the will
is individuality [Einzelheit], but not in the immediacy as a single unitas in our

common idea [Vorstellung] of individualitybut rather in accordance with the
concept of individuality [ ]; in other words, this individuality is in fact none
other than the concept itself. (PR 7A)
The human spirit takes itself to be an individual or whole because it is

physically a single unit and experiences itself to be so. The experience
of wholeness of the single unit is one of being self-contained and self-suf-
cient. From the standpoint of the single unit as individual, this wholeness
is internal and therefore constantly under siege from a world of external
things and thought that stand over us threatening to inuence, persuade,
coerce, or destroy.11 True wholeness resides in the unity or concept of the
moments of wholeness: absolute universality and absolute determinacy.
Since we know the human spirit is inadequate to both these moments
of the will, Hegels warning conrms that when spirit becomes the wills
foundation, the concept of individuality expands, bursting through the
distinctions between an interior, true self and an exterior world of objects
and forces. We are required to rethink the nature of the self and its willful
activity once neither can be contained in a single unit.
Hegels nal warning sketches the consequences of this new, expanded
self for our understanding of the will.
The only thing which remains to be noted here is that, when we say that the
will is universal and that the will determines itself, we speak as if the will were
already assumed to be a subject or substratum. But the will is not complete and
universal until it is determined, and until this determination is superseded and
idealized; it does not become will until it is this self-mediating activity and this
return into itself. (PR 7A)
To speak of the moments of the will as operations that are performed by

the I is to play to our ordinary experience as a single unit. We then think
of the will as the agent (subject) of the actions and, at the same time, the
will as that singular foundation (substratum) that persists behind those
actions. Hegel warns us here that this reduction of the will to the human
spirit is an assumption we cannot make. The will consists rst as a pro-
cess, a self-mediating activity in which each moment persists and nds its
completion in its other. It does not consist rst in the moments of deter-
11 For an example of the persistence of this understanding see Alan Patten

1999: 64.
mination or universalization that themselves require something which de-

termines or universalizes. Just as the human spirit is inadequate to each
moment in isolation, our ordinary assumption that the will is subject or
substratum is inadequate to their unity.
The human spirit is neither the whole of the will, but nor is it ines-
sential to it. The completion of the human spiritselfhoodrequires t-
ting the human spirit into its proper conceptual place within the process
of the will. So tted, the human spirit becomes the moment of subjectiv-
ity. From the standpoint of the single unit, the will is assumed to be sub-
ject or substratum because the ordinary experience takes the two concepts
to be equivalent. I act and am my own foundation for acting in the world.
From the standpoint of spirit as the wills foundation the or is disjunc-
tive: subject and substratum are each dening properties of one of the
moments of the will. To universality belongs subject; to determination
belongs substratum. The will here is split, not into abstract moments
of universalizing in thought and determining in thought (moments that
are containable in the head of the single unit) but into two concrete mo-
ments: that which is, but is capable of being conscious of itself as otherwise
(the subject) and that which simply is (substratum). When we are properly
educated to the nature of the will, its moments are human spirit and the
world. Its freedom is the process in which these two sundered moments
are unied.
The standpoint of the single unitwhat Hegel calls self-conscious-
ness (PR 8)is the lowest form of the wills existence. As self-conscious-
ness the will nds an external world outside of itself and thereby creates
a formal opposition between the subjective on the one hand and the objec-
tive as external immediate existence on the other (PR 8). The problem
of self-consciousness is where his youthful formulation of the good life
ended. the world always stood as a potential threat to the actualization of
the inner capacity for virtue or autonomy. Despite a pedagogical approach
that tends to lead us badly astray, Hegels pedagogical goal was to shift the
foundation of the will so that this previous end point can now serve as the
starting point for a reconciliation of human spirit and world unachievable
when the self and the will were taken to be coextensive with the single
unit. We no longer need to look inside the human spirit to understand its
possibilities; the will as spirit is now the new foundation of the self.12
12 Charles Taylor provides perhaps the best summary of our interpretation of

spirit. To understand reality aright is to understand it as actuality (translating
Wirklichkeit), that is, as what has been actualized. This is the crucial prerequisite of
the nal stage, which comes when we see that the agent of this activity is not for-
eign to us, but that we are identical to (in our non-identity with) spirit. The high-
est categories of the Logic, those which provide the entry into the absolute Idea,
are thus those linked with agency and activity. We move from teleology into the
categories of life, and then from knowledge to the good (1985a: 83). Although
he perfectly captures Hegels conception of spirit, Taylor states that his ontology
of Geist is close to incredible (1979: 69). For this reason he runs into the same
problems in justifying Hegels ethical theory that other commentators do who
abandon Hegels metaphysics.
First among these commentators is Allen Wood, who develops a similar ac-
count of freedom as a certain self or identity to be exercised or actualized,
to be embodied and expressed in action (Wood 1990: 31). He calls Hegels ethi-
cal theory one of self-actualization since it is neither a Kantian deontological the-
ory where the good comes from obedience to some law or principle nor a clas-
sical Greek teleological theory in which the good resides in the achievement of
some end (ibid. 3031). As with our own interpretation, Wood sees that Hegels
conception of the self is an attempt to escape from the Fichtean ego, or what we
have called rulership. However, while Wood tries to extend the boundaries of the
Hegelian self beyond the persons body and psychic states, he nonetheless in-
terprets this concept in a fundamentally Fichtean way, in so far as the will remains
a capacity of the human spirit (ibid. 47, 44). For this reason, spirit is a model
of human agency (ibid. 46), not its ground or the true condition of autonomy.
Without Hegels metaphysics the good becomes merely self-expression and self-
interpretation (e.g., ibid.) and he cannot supply any account why one system of
self-expression and self-interpretation should be accepted over another.
In this separation of Hegels metaphysics and politics, Wood follows
Z. A. Pelczynski who sees, like Hobbes political theorizing, that Hegel could
have kept his political theory quite distinct from his general philosophy because
the metaphysical elements are only an after-the-fact underpinning (1964:
136). Klaus Hartmann provides the most sympathetic non-metaphysical read-
ing of Hegel, in part because he does not see that any of Hegels system thereby
has to be compromised or discarded. Instead, a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel
involves the reinterpretation of, preeminently, the Logic as an hermeneutic of
categories that are internally coherent, interconnected, and ordered but
without any metaphysical presuppositions (1972: 104 12, 25). Hegels Real
philosophy (the philosophy of nature and spirit) should then be read as the ap-
plication of these categories to the existing world (ibid. 11321).
Michael Hardimon provides a bridge between these non-metaphysical
and a metaphysical reading. On the one hand Hardimon develops a non-meta-
physical account very much like Woods. On the other, he indicates that there
is a metaphysical sense to Hegels political philosophy that goes along with
it. In this, metaphysical account (which Hardimon deliberately only adum-
brates)(1994: 15459) Hegels political philosophy reveals those things which
are structurally necessary for the human spirit to be spirit.
We nd H. S. Harris and Steven Smith providing two attempts to preserve
Hegels metaphysics while privileging the human experience of the good. Smith
takes the metaphysical approach because he sees that without these metaphysical
foundations Hegels Philosophy of Right becomes a piece of polemical literature indis-
tinguishable from the work of a political partisan or hack (1989: 135). Harris,
even as he adopts a metaphysical approach, comes close to agreeing with this neg-
ative assessment of the Philosophy of Right, but only because he sees in Hegels Real
philosophy the forgetting of the only eternally valid metaphysics: Hegels logic of
experience contained in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1995: 98103). (For the coun-
ter argument to Woods dismissal of the place of the Phenomenology of Spirit [1990:
45], see Harris 1995: 9899.) For Harris, the Philosophy of Right must be done
over and over again as times change (ibid. 103). However, it can be done over
and over again in a scientic way (in a way that Woods interpretation makes dif-
cult but which Hartmanns explicitly demands) because the community has an
ideally permanent logical structure[:] [ ] [t]he rational structure of selfhood,
the paradoxical union of singularity and universality in community membership,
the identity of the We that is I and the I that is We (ibid.). So, for Harris, the
metaphysics that must be preserved are not those associated with the comprehen-
sion of eternity (the Logic) or with Hegels own time (the Real philosophy) but
with the universal comprehension of time as such provided by the Phenomenology
of Spirit (ibid. 100). Without this permanent logical structure to human expe-
rience, the human experience that Wood wishes to save and sees Hegel illuminat-
ing loses its true power to illuminate our lives as anything other than descriptively
true at the point at which the words (Woods or Hegels) were written. For a simi-
lar observation, see Raymond Plant 1973: 135 and Robert Williams 1997: 47; for
attempts to read the Philosophy of Right in terms of Hegels logical categories see
Hugh Reyburn 1970, Hartmann 1984, and David Kolb 1986.
Smiths approach to saving Hegels metaphysics and human experience is
to turn to the model of Aristotelian practical philosophy. Like Harris privileging
of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Smith draws from Aristotle the uniqueness of the hu-
man realm: the logic of eternal things do not apply to it simply. In this way Smith
can set aside Hegels logic (and the difculty in discerning its relationship the Real
philosophy [see Harris 1995: 102]) because [t]his area of conduct, to which be-
long questions of the constitutional forms of government, as well as those regard-
ing political education and the human good, follows a logic of its own, best han-
dled by the practioners of practical philosophy (Smith 1989: 137). Because of
Smiths strong Aristotlean reading of the Philosophy of Right, this logic of the com-
munity becomes effectively indistinguishable from the logic of a xed human na-
ture. Although we may all share and be shaped by the normative structures and
conceptions, the horizon of the world in which we have been brought up this
practical knowledge [is limited] to those who have been well brought up and
thus predisposed to receive it (ibid. 138). By rooting the logic of experience in
the logic of human nature, Smith also returns the foundation of Hegels political
science to the Problemstellung of his youth.
Our brief survey of contemporary interpretations of freedom and spirit can
now begin to shift to those that come progressively closer to our own: one that un-
derstands spirit as Taylor does, but takes its metaphysical underpinnings seriously.
Here, the rst position we encounter is Paul Franco. For through his discussion
of Hegels critique of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Franco comes close to seeing that
Hegels rational will is not to be confused with the individual will(1999: 17578).
Although he argues for a metaphysical reading of Hegel (ibid. 186, 140), he does
II. The Human Spirits New Experience and Activity

within the Good Life
When the relation of consciousness constitutes no more than the aspect of

the wills appearance (PR 8), the object of our investigation must shift to
the mediation of its [the wills] activity as it translates the subjective into
objectivity (PR 9)i.e., the reconciliation of subject and object.
The process of reconciliation in Hegels second account of freedom
(PR 2228) provides the rationality, not the actuality, of freedom. This
rationality consists in a generic or formal process of unication. Here the
logical categories of universality and determination we rst encountered
(e.g., PR 57) are concretized, for if the will is not to be just a possi-
bility, predisposition, or capacity (potentia), but the innite in actuality (in-
nitium actu) (PR 22), then they must take on a form that can live as a
self-mediating process. The logical categories do not move themselves;
they need to be set in motion.
The rst concretization is the transformation of the wills universal-
ity into subjectivity or the interior life of self-consciousness (PR 25).
Subjectivity holds together the moments of abstraction and determina-
tion through its certainty that they are itself. Subjectivity understands itself
to be totally inward and abstractly dependent upon [nothing but] itself,
the I = I (PR 25), the universal which extends beyond its object, which
permeates its determination and is identical with itself in this determination
(PR 24A). However, in so far as this subjective unity, determination, and
permeation are only adequate to their object when they remain internal
to self-consciousnessi.e., when unity is totally inward, the abstraction
is abstraction in thought, and determination is but an unaccomplished
end (PR 25). The will as true determinationi.e., determination as an
actual, externally independent force in the worldstands opposed to it.
Where universality is concretized as subjectivity, determinacy takes the
not develop what it then means of the individual to be an instance of the ra-
tional will.
Robert Williams conception of the self also closely parallels our own. He
sees that recognition (i.e., what we have been calling the process of freedom) de-
centers the modern concept of the subject found in Descartes and Kant, not by
displacing it as in structuralism, but by transforming and expanding it into inter-
subjectivity. In short, subjectivity is transformed (aufgehoben), expanded, and ele-
vated into intersubjectivity (1997: 2, 11617). Williams locates the basis of inter-
subjectivity primarily in the relations between individuals. The correction to this
obscuring of the full supra-individual reality of spirit is found in Alan Brudner,
who properly shifts the focus away from intersubjectivity, to what he terms the di-
alogic community of mutually constituting relations between institutions and the
atomistic individual (1995: 17).
shape of the objective world (PR 26). So, the actual will that is only im-
manently free consists in two moments: rst, subjectivity that lives, but is
nonetheless an unaccomplished end (PR 25); second, objectivity that
does not live but has nonetheless external existence (PR 26). Freedom is
the process of overcoming the concrete alienation of these two moments.
Animating this process is the absolute determination or, if one prefers,
the absolute drive, of the free spirit [ ] to make its freedom into its ob-
ject [Gegenstand] so that [t]he abstract concept of the Idea of the will is
in general the free will which wills the free will (PR 27). Freedom has as its
goal the unity of the moments of freedom. The result of this process of
unication is both the rational system of spirit itselfi.e., the knowabil-
ity of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivityand the im-
mediate actuality of this system as the living medium in which both mo-
ments nd themselves (ibid.).
The form taken by this process is no different than that taken by the self-
consciousness of the single unit, except that the spiritual process is trans-
lated into the wider world that has both subject and object as its objects:
The activity of the will consists in canceling [aufzuheben] the contradiction be-
tween subjectivity and objectivity and in translating its ends from their subjec-
tive determinations into an objective one, while at the same time remaining
with itself in this objectivity. (PR 28)
Hegels language is carefully chosen. The subject does not translate his or
her ends into externally existing ones; the will accomplishes this transla-
tion for subjectivity.
We already have seen why we cannot think of this actualization of ac-
complished ends as we ordinarily do as the self-originating activity of the
single unit. To take the human spirit as the ground of the will and the ex-
clusive source of its activity is to remove the possibility of rationality from
the world. This rationality consists in the immanent union of subjective
ends and the objective world such that each moment provides a means
of evaluating whether the union is the mutual accomplishment of each, or
the subordination or destruction of one. As the ground of the will, the sin-
gle unit can only cancel the contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity
by destroying, and not remaining with itself in this objectivity. Once the
subject is privileged then so too is its absolute certainty of the truth of its
subjective ends. The subject must labour away against the intransigence of
a world of hostile objects that never in themselves can furnish any criteria
of satisfaction. In the absence of any immanent union between each side,
the relation between subject and object is dened by the strength of one
side or the resistence of the other.
To grasp the nature of the will as spirit means seeing beyond Hegels ac-
cidental miseducation to freedom to the way in which a subjective end is
already concretely present in the external world and the way an externally
existing object corresponds to an already existing subjective end. We must
grasp the activity of the free will as a process that brings about this condi-
tion of immanent unityi.e., rationalityby working on both its mo-
ments simultaneously. To do so, we must avoid the error of simply transfer-
ring the will from the human single unit to a divine one. The will and its
activity are not some third force standing outside of objectivity and subjec-
tivity. The wills activity instead is the essential development of the substantial
content of the Idea (PR 28). The will is the very developmental process
in which subjectivity and objectivity come to stand before one another in
the historical shape that they do. Standing behind and as these moments,
the will is only properly grasped as the totality of its system. This total-
ity, 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 (ibid.).
As the substantial element of the totality of its system, the will is the
empirical totality of those things (both subjective and objective) that are
concrete moments of the will. As a system, this totality is also those rela-
tions that immanently connect subjectivity to objectivity so that the will is
also the same in both these forms. In his Encyclopaedia, Hegel called this
relational aspect of the will the concrete identity of the relationship be-
tween subjectivity and objectivity (EL 136A). So, a freedom that resides
with the totality of the system consists, ultimately, in the processes of that
system: the development of the shape of the system itself (its objects and
relations) throughout history and, within that development, the mainte-
nance and reproduction of that historic stage of the system.13
Freedom, although a quality only of the system, is not indifferent to
the ordinary experience of freedom as the isolated activity of the individ-
ual human spirit. Not only is freedoms systemic activity the development,
maintenance, and reproduction of the condition for any rational subjec-
tive end to nd its accomplishment, but these very processes can only en-
dure if the human spirit (or what now becomes subjectivity within the
system) is made by the system into a potentially active member of this pro-
cess. In this way, the development of the system of freedom is at once the
cultivation or education of the single unit to its nature as a living instance
of freedom.
This education of subjectivity to freedom means it must be made
receptive to the nature of freedom. Subjectivity must be cultivated to
13 For a similar position see Frederick Neuhouser 2000: 11819, 122ff.

nd its goals already immanently realized for it in the world. At the same
time, these objectively realized ends must be made receptive to their actu-
alization through subjectivity. The life of freedom is inseparable from the
education of subjectivity and the accommodation of its fundamental ends
within the system. Indeed, from the standpoint of subjectivity, the life of
freedom consists of nothing other than these two processes.
Even here, from the side of the subject, the process of freedom serves
ends larger than those of subjective satisfaction. It serves those of the
will, i.e., the accomplishment of the unity of its moments. The process by
which the subject experiences freedom is but an instance of the founda-
tional, generic condition of the system at home with itself as a living world.
Only in this freedom is the will completely with itself [bei sich], because it
has reference to nothing but itself (PR 23). The intuition that being at
home in the world is constitutive of the good life is a structuring feature
of Hegels early thought.14 In the idea of freedom, this intuition receives a
philosophic form that takes it beyond a need of the human spirit to a need
of the world in which the human spirit is situated.
While the notions of human capacity and individual virtue that sus-
tained Hegels youthful idea of the good life are no longer foundationally
exhaustive when the good shifts to freedom or the life of the totality of the
system, the good life is not thereby denied to the human spirit. Within the
process of freedom, subjectivity is the truth of the human spirit as single
unit. The wholeness or selfhood that our ordinary experience (as well as
the ancient theory of virtue) attributes to the human spirit now nds its
truth in the totality of spirits system. The human spirits old self is com-
pleted by the new spiritual self.
From the standpoint of the old self, the new self to which Hegel at-
tempts to lead us appears fractured. On one side, the old aspect of intrin-
sic capacity remains since subjectivity is still attached to the human spirit.
On the other side, the self now includes the moment of an externally ex-
isting objectivity, unconnected to the human spirit by the usual instrumen-
tality of the single units labour. This appearance of the fractured self is
rooted in the real alienation of subjectivity and objectivity. Yet, for Hegel,
the conditions for the mending of the self are always immanently present
as the systemic process of freedom for which the alienated moments exist.
The wholeness that the subject has traditionally sought through its own ef-
forts exists prior to those individual efforts.
Now, the human spirit can only take possession of selfhood by both
participating in its objective possibilities and by simultaneously being al-
lowed to participate. Through participation the human spirit becomes
a livingrather than immanentinstance of this totality of freedoms
14 See chapters 1 and 2.

system. Participation mends the fractured state that has the human spirit
on one side and its objective nature on the other.15
In the idea of participation, we have the living, but generic, process of
freedom as system and self before us. With this knowledge, Hegels pro-
paedeutic to his idea of the good life is complete. We know that we can-
not look for the living foundation of the good life in the willful activity of
the human spirits immediacy as a single uniteven if his attempt to edu-
cate us out of this standpoint tends to miseducate us to it more often than
not. Instead we must look for that foundation in the systemic activity of
spirit. The human possession of the good will reside in the possibilities of
participation in the condition of freedom that the system allows.16 Here,
unlike in his youthful formulation in the Berne fragments, once shorn of
any element of internal actualization, participation becomes pure. When
the human spirit is subjectivity, it has no xed characteristics to develop.
Yet, without knowing the concrete shape of the totality of the system, we
cannot say any more here about the shape that participation takes. We
cannot say anything more concrete about the meaning of the good life,
other than the activity is one of becoming cultivated to, and taking up the
possibilities of, the objective moments of the good.
III. The Condition of Freedom and the New Question

of the Good Life
When Hegel shifts the wills ground from the human spirit to spirit he
solves the problems associated with what we previously called rulership
15 Both Alan Patten (1999: 1724) and Michael Hardimon (1994: 4752) pro-
vide clear overviews of how spirit might be the site of freedom and yet allow the
human spirit to participate in it. As Pattens civic humanist (1999: 3442 and
ch. 6) and Hardimons primarily non-metaphysical justication of individual-social
membership indicate (1994: ch. 5), they are, nonetheless, not convinced by this
account. Frederick Neuhouser conceives of the relationship between spirit and
the human spirit in a way similar to our notion of participation. However, because
Neuhouser preserves the Kantian autonomy of the Hegelian subject more than
we do, our participation becomes for him a replication in an approximate and
miniature way, of the qualities that dene a spiritual being (2000: 13031).
16 Donald Maletz (1989: 33) nicely captures Hegels purpose here: The PR
is therefore as much an investigation of the possible ways in which the free will-
ing subject could be accommodate in practical institutions as it is an exploration
of the psychology of willing on its own terms. Although we have argued that the
Philosophy of Right is most fundamentally such an investigation and that the psy-
chology of willing is merely (poor) pedagogy (see secs. I. A. and B. above), we are
nonetheless wholly in accord with Maletzs (1989: 3435) project to show that the
primacy of the will remains the foundation for the entire structure of the PR .
or the logic of absolutely autonomous self-creation. Instead of the feeling

of self-containedness, Hegel situates the human spirit within a process
that is itself truly whole. Yet this triumph of the spiritual will seems hollow.
On one side, he seems to shut out the rich inquiry into the good life that
characterizes ancient thought, one in which human character and ac-
tivities are interrogated and held up to the cosmic order or that order per-
mitted men. On the other side, the emphasis on securing the single unit
against its destructive power seems to place Hegel rmly within that mod-
ern political tradition begun by Machiavelli and continued by Hobbes in
which the maintenance of order is stressed above the development of
the human spirit. In this way, those more liberating strands of the mod-
ern project developed by Locke in the commercial and political sphere
and then radicalized by Rousseau and Marx appear incommensurate
with a good life consisting of the maintenance and reproduction of the
totality of freedoms system.
Both the ancient inquiry into the nature of human excellence and the
modern inquiry into human individuality and freedom appear foreign to
Hegels idea of the good life. This appearance is deceiving. As a propae-
deutic to his idea of the good life, the spiritualized free will integrates the
highest ideals of the ancient and modern conceptions of the good. Yet it
is exhausted by neither, for Hegels concept of the free will forces us to in-
quire into the good life in a different manner. By bringing this new inquiry
to light, we set the stage fully for an investigation of the concrete shape
and meaning of freedom.
A. Freedom and the Ancient Vision of the Good
What we have called rulership is the logic of ancient virtue, although

the ancients neither understood nor represented their vision of the good
in this way. The nal paragraph of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences
best captures Hegels theoretical completion and integration of this vision
into his concept of freedom. There he attempts to complete the circle of
philosophic inquiry that began with Aristotles own broad ranging meta-
physical, physical, and social investigations by describing spirit when it has
come fully to itself as [t]he eternal Idea, in full fruition of its essence,
[that] eternally sets itself to work, engenders and enjoys itself as absolute
Mind (EG 577). Hegel then connects this logic of freedom as being at
home in the world to the ancients when, in quoting from the Metaphysics,
he famously allows Aristotle to conclude his own philosophic system. In
that passage, Aristotle tells us that mind and the intelligible are the same
because mind is active in so far as it has the intelligible as its possession.
This possession of knowledge rather than the capacity for knowledge is
the divine aspect of mind and
it is the activity of intellectual vision that is most pleasant and best. If the di-
vine, then, is always in that good state in which we are at times, this is wonder-
ful; and if it is in a still better state, this is ground for still more wonder. Now,
it is in this better state that the divine has its being and its life. For the activity
of mind is also its life, and the divine is that activity. The self-sufcient activity
of the divine is life at its eternal best. We maintain, therefore, that the divine
is the eternal best living being, so that the divine is life unending, continuous,
and eternal.17
Hegels own conception of the free life of spirit incorporates the divine
life of Aristotles unmoved mover: that self-sufcient activity of innitely
coming to, and grasping itself. For Aristotle and Hegel, such movement is
an unending, continuous, and eternal life which is that good state, if it
is not an even still better state. Yet, Hegel does not cite Aristotle merely
to close the circle by returning to the language and speaker of the then-
preeminent philosopher of spirit.18 His purpose is the rather less mag-
nanimous one of showing that Aristotles thought has been completed.
Although Aristotles good is unending, continuous, and eternal, unlike
Hegel, he cannot see how it could constitute all of concrete, living reality.
Divine life may be always in that good state, but we are [only] at
times there and cannot sustain ourselves in it.19 And so Aristotle is forced
to deal with a contradiction between the theoretical inclusiveness and the
empirical deciency of the ancient formulation of the good. Now, he tries
to resolve this contradiction by asserting divine life as the whole of actual-
ity and simultaneously reducing the divine life to the eternal best living
being. The result is that he merely preserves the contradiction, e.g., the
divine life is the whole of the world and yet can only be as a being in that
world; all beings participate in the good which is exclusively theirs, yet this
good preeminently belongs to the life activity of the supreme good.
In his account of spirit Hegel preserves the ancient vision of the high-
est good as the innite self-thinking, and eternally self-subsistent activity
of the totality. He is able to do so without introducing the Aristotelian
contradiction between the goods inward, theoretically innite nature and
its empirically nite bounds by grasping the life of the good as a process
that belongs to a system of relations instead of discrete beings. As a result,
Hegel alters the very nature of participation between the innite and -
17 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. XII ch. 7, 1072b1830.

18 Cf. H. S. Harris 1995a: 315.
19 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. XII ch. 7, 1072b2530, b1020.
nite so that it occurs for the discrete being, the single unit, by virtue of its
very situatedness in a system of relations and not its inward potential. In
this way, he more thoroughly preserves the ancient vision of the innite,
self-comprehending life of the good than the ancients themselves, while
abandoning the ancient path to the good that marched through the ca-
pacities and virtues of the single unit.20
B. Freedom and the Modern Vision of the Good
The language of freedom belongs to the modern vision of the good. While
the meaning of freedom within this tradition is subject to considerable
variation for our purposes we can reduce it to two poles, one exempli-
ed by Thomas Hobbes, the other by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Freedom for
Hobbes consists in any physically unrestricted activity that does not trans-
gress the requirements for the maintenance of bodily life.21 It captures our
everyday, non-metaphysical minimum expectations of freedom as a free-
dom of movement when the power is ours to move.22 For Rousseau it is
self-legislation or an obedience to the law one has prescribed to one-
self [that] is freedom.23 Restriction becomes a condition of freedom.
If we concentrate on the element of determinacy in freedomwhether
as material barrier or as lawthen these two representations of freedom
stand in tension with one another. Hegel himself develops the implication
of these two different relationships in what he calls the worlds of abstract
right and morality in Parts I and II respectively of the Philosophy of Right.
The world of abstract right tries to preserve the individual human spirit
against external limitations by conceptualizing the human spirit as a con-
tentless essence: a human being, a person. This contentlessness is actual-
ized as a system of rights that protect the unimpeded exchange of property,
20 Allen Wood makes this same general point when he notes that ancient con-
ception of the good (or what he calls happiness) differs from the modern in two
main ways: rst, the ancient objectivity of the good, i.e., that the good is not de-
pendent on what the individual thinks or believes about it; and, second, the
ancient idea of egoism in which the good adhered to the isolated human spirit
but nonetheless [m]y good is simply my share in the good (1990: 53, 57). In
relation to Hegels preservation of the ancient vision of the good, Robert Williams
notes that Hegels concept of recognition (which we call here the structure of
freedom) makes possible Hegels retrieval of the anti-relativist classical social po-
litical theories of Plato and Aristotle and their transformation into shapes of in-
tersubjective freedom (1997: 3).
21 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Pt. I ch. 14, p. 64/189.
22 Ibid. Pt. II ch. 21, p. 108/262.
23 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. I ch. 8.
the freedoms of movement, belief, and so on. The person is recognized in

the social world as nothing but the potential to remove itself from all de-
terminacy. The world of morality inverts this conceptualization of the hu-
man spirit, making the potential for individual self-determination its de-
ning essence. The good that forms the basis of social recognition now
must have not only a concrete content so that it can serve as a basis for ac-
tion, but it must also be one in which all individuals have participated.
In both cases, however, the exclusion or adoption of determinacy ob-
scures the way in which determinacy remains a threat to the human spirit.
This exclusion or adoption are only different ways of addressing a more
fundamental, and unifying problemi.e., how to maintain the absolute
integrity of the single unit (expressed in Hobbes as the uncompromisabil-
ity of the individual human spirits simple existence and in Rousseau as
the primacy of the particular will in the formulation of the general will).
Abstract right does so by excluding determinacy as inessential to the iso-
lated human spirit; morality, by making it a product of the isolated human
spirit.24
In the struggle against determinacy, the modern vision of the good is
forced to negotiate between incommensurate ends. On one hand the ab-
solute elevation of each single unit as the source of the good and, on the
other, the idea that the good for one is to be compatible with the good for
all. This negotiation fails. To maintain the compatibility of the good,
the absolute elevation of the individual becomes merely formal: there is
no good to which individuals have an absolute right, only an evil to which
they have a right not to be subject (Hobbes).25 Or, the absolute right to par-
ticipate in the creation of the good does not translate into the substan-
24 In our reading of the modern vision of the good we acknowledge the ba-
sis of Isaiah Berlins distinction between positive and negative freedom, but ulti-
mately set aside this distinction as one that is less important to the modern vision
of the good than its unity. This unity arises from the equation of the self with the
isolated human spirit. For an extensive overview of Berlins position and its appli-
cation to Hegel see Paul Franco 1999: 17982, 23. Alan Patten provides an over-
view of Berlins critique of positive freedom, but because of his own understand-
ing of the Hegelian self as essentially Kantian, he must agree with Berlins central
point that positive freedom (and Hegel) involve a distinction between true and
false selves or parts of selves, even if the central issue is what kind of criterion
or justifying consideration the self can appeal to in its practical deliberations and
reection (1999: 7577). Nonetheless, the self for Patten (and Berlin) is still a self
that adheres to the atomistic individual and therefore is opposed to authority sim-
ply and not just foreign authority.
25 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Pt. I chs. 11, 13.
tive content of that good that then results (Rousseau).26 Both exemplars recog-
nize that to maintain the absolute elevation of the individual is to risk the
whole community in which the universality of the good is sustainedin
each case the foundational status of the individual gives way to the prac-
tical dominion of this Man, or to this Assembly of men (Hobbes) or to
the judgement of the general will (Rousseau).27 In the language of Hegels
own presentation of these two poles, this tension within the modern vision
of the good shows itself as the state punishment of crime(abstract right;
see PR 139ff.) or as evil when the individual takes seriously its source
as the law and so treats existing law ironically (morality; see PR 258A,
140 [p. 279/182]).
By abandoning the subjective start and end points of the modern
vision of the good, Hegel has not abandoned its underlying goal. The I
that is self-determining no longer is the I of ordinary experience (PR
7), the single unit, but the end result is nonetheless that every relation-
ship of dependence on something other than itself is thereby eliminated (PR
23). Hegels concept of freedom overcomes, theoretically, the modern
tension between individual autonomy and its situatedness by positing this
otherness not as other, but as the concrete actualization of a new spiritu-
alized self. Unlike the modern vision of the good, the human spirit is not
forced into a subordinate or antagonistic relation with the world based on
whether it is denied or permitted the exercise of its autonomous powers.
Rather, in freedom, the role of the isolated human spirit shifts to subjec-
tively chosen participation.
The idea of freedom as participation actualizes the previously empty el-
evation of the subject above the world, because now this preeminence can
exist in the world as subjective activity and not just as rights. At the same
time, this subjective activity no longer stands against the world because it
transforms its nature from idiosyncratic self-creation to a form of engage-
ment with the preexisting world. In this way, the empty abstractness of the
modern vision of the good becomes concrete and contentful (as activity)
and the dangerous content becomes truly universalized as relational pos-
sibilities linking subject and world.
C. The New Question of the Good Life:

Inquiring into the Living Presence of the Good
Hegel can adopt neither the ancient inquiry into which sorts of human ac-
tivities are congruent with the good, nor the modern inquiry into how the
26 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. I ch. 8; Bk. II ch. 2.

27 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, Pt. II ch. 17, p. 87/227; Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Social Contract, Bk. I ch. 7.
isolated human spirit might pursue the good on its own. These questions
stand in the way of a direct uncovering of the nature of the good life. For
while each question aims to respect the good, each begins with a premise
that shows contempt for the good: the good is locked up in human capac-
ity or subjective desire and is present in the world, at most, as the assertion
of natural law or natural right or fate. And where there is a concrete force
in the world to which human actions are subject, the community, it is
reduced to an instrument for the development or satisfaction of the single
unit. For example, the subordination of conventionally cultivated ethi-
cal virtue to non-conventional intellectual virtue places an emphasis
on individual spontaneity even among theorists who strive for a socially
constructed self.28 The ways of inquiring into the good that led to the an-
cient politics of perfection and the modern politics of liberation cannot
adequately capture the totality of spiritualized free will, the foundation to
which Hegel has shifted the discussion of what is highest.29 To give content
to the logic of the will and the generic process of freedom, he needs a new
way of inquiring into the good life.
Hegels new question of the good life inverts the premise of the ancient
and modern inquiries by asking how the good lives in the world. Since
the good does not live as a being but as a relation the question is two-fold:
rst, it asks how the world both receives and educates the human spirit
so to provide the immanent, but concrete, conditions for the unity of the
will; and, second, how the human spirit opens itself to, and acts in, the
world so to sustain the actual, living unity of the will. Although the compo-
nents of this new question of the good life inquire into the human spirit,
we have left the human spirit behind as a foundation of the good life and
entered into its true foundation in the realm of spirit.
What concerns the new question of the good life is the systemic main-
tenance of the relationship between the human spirit and community. It
asks simultaneously how the good is already presentas the immanent
possibility of this unityand how the human spirit comes to take posses-
sion of the good life through participation in these conditions of freedom.
In this way, Hegels new question of the good life is not about the human
spirit at all, but about the movement from the single unit to the self.
To this new self, both the ancient and modern questions of the good
life no longer apply. By inquiring into the mutual receptivity of subject and
substance, this new question of the good life captures the essence of the
ancient concern that the human good exists only in the conformity of
28 E.g., Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. IV ch.1; Karl Marx, Economic
and Philosophic Manuscripts, pp. 8889.
29 For a similar observation about the one-sidedness of ancient and modern
visions of the good and community see Robert Williams 1997: 118.
human actions to the distant nature of the ultimate good. Like the an-
cients, Hegels question of the good life permits the identication of radi-
cally unequal forms of human life. However, the key question is not con-
formity but whether the forms of human life contribute to participation
in the process of freedom. Only relationships congruent with the goods
structure of mutual receptivity can allow the good to live in the world. In
contrast, the moderns are concerned about the radical equality of ways of
life, an equality rooted in a purely subjective conception of the substantive
good. Hegels question of the good life also preserves the essence of
this concern. Once the good becomes the process of freedoma system
of relations and not a single relation and not a thingparticipation any-
where in that system is nonetheless participation in the good. A radical
equality, rather than hierarchy, of the good exists to be taken up by the
subject. Moreover, since it is the relationship that matters, and not the
concrete content characterizing the way it is lived, the subject is liberated
to give to its life its own character.
Hegels new inquiry into the good completes the propaedeutic to the
good life that began with his attempted education to freedom. The con-
cept of the will provides us with the logic of the goods presence as uni-
versality and determinacy, the generic process of freedom actualizes that
logic as the living system of subjectivity and objectivity, and, the question of
the good life provides us with the means to move beyond the merely logi-
cal and generic presentation of the life of freedom to the ways that the mu-
tual receptivity of the human spirit and the world is concretely sustained.
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE LI VI NG FO RM O F TH E GO O D LIFE
I. The Institutional Form of the Good Life
In the movement from the human spirit to spirit, Hegel transformed the
nature of freedom and the self and with them the question of the good
life. When freedom is the process of cultivating the mutual receptivity of
subjective goals and their externally existing objects, it lies outside of the
achievement of the isolated human spirit, for freedom is a condition in
which the human spirit already nds itself and in which it comes to partic-
ipate. The question of the good life becomes an inquiry into the existing
world as a totality of relationships. We now ask what system of relationships
binds the human spirit to its political community in a participatory way.
The answer that we will give in this chapter contributes the living form of
the good life, rst as objective institutions, then as subjective disposition,
and nally, in their unity.
A. Locating the Institutional Home of the Good
For Hegel, the three great institutions of the modern world are family, civil
society, and the state. Nonetheless, his account of the good life must not
be conated with the outward description of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) that
comprises Part III (and the last-half) of the Philosophy of Right. That de-
scription only forms the material for such an account which then must
be tted within the generic or logical structure of freedom set out in
the Introduction to that work. Of course, Hegel claims
ethical life is the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and
volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action.
Similarly, it is in ethical being that self-consciousness has its motivating end
and a foundation which has being in and for itself. Ethical life is accordingly
the concept of freedom which has become the existing [vorhandenen] world and the na-
ture of self-consciousness. (PR 142)
In the sphere of the Idea of freedom, the world of the living good con-
147
fronts us as two concrete moments: the xed contentof concrete institu-

tions and laws whose existence is exalted above subjective opinions and
preferences (PR 145, 146); and, the self-aware activity of the individual
citizen (PR 146, 147). From the standpoint of the new question of the
good life we must show how these institutions form a circle of necessity
whose moments are the ethical powers which govern the lives of individuals
(PR 145). We must do so while also showing that the subject bears spiri-
tual witness to them as to its own essence, in which it has its self-awareness and
lives as in its element which is not distinct from itself (PR 147). In this
way, the question of the good life demands that we show the living good
as a 0stable system of mutual receptivity and cultivation. These demands
made on us by the new question of the good life are not entirely coexten-
sive with Hegels analysis of ethical life.
That description and analysis is governed by the imperative of any phi-
losophy of right: to develop the Idea [ ] out of the concept; or what
comes to the same thing, [ ] [to] observe the proper immanent devel-
opment of the thing itself [although] the concept of right, so far as its com-
ing into being is concerned, falls outside the science of right (PR 2). So,
the goal and structure of the Philosophy of Right is to demonstrate the log-
ical parade of forms that culminate in the complete ethical system (PR
157). Missing, though, is a crucial nal step: an account of how the mo-
ments that make up the development of ethical life then form a stable,
non-developmental system. For this reason, Hegels true idea of the good
life is only implicit in the Philosophy of Right. The full account must be as-
sembled out of the moments provided.
We fall into error if we conate Hegels developmental account of the
ethical system with a stable account of that system. This error consists in a
failure to appreciate the way the good lives in all the moments of the sys-
tem equally, without a hierarchy of institutions or activities. Now, such a hi-
erarchy is necessarily present in his developmental account. That account
must begin with the form least adequate to spirit and then draw out pro-
gressively more adequate ones. From the standpoint of the systems com-
ing to be, the movement from family to civil society to state appears to us
only as stages in spirits self-awakening.
The family appears as immediate or natural ethical spirit and the im-
mediate substantiality of spirit (PR 157, 158). While spirits active princi-
ple and source of self-knowledge is the subject, here the subject does not
yet exist as a self-consciously separate moment. The family is spirit asleep
within itself, unaware that its true nature consists of a relationship between
distinct moments. This slumber concretely lives as those particular individ-
uals who are present in [the family] not as an independent person but
as a member (PR 158), submerged within their given role as mother,
father, brother, sister, and so on. When the familys substantiality passes
LIVING FORM OF THE GOOD LIFE 149
over into loss of unity, division, and the point of view of relativity (PR
157), Hegels developmental presentation then implies that the awaken-
ing of spirit is the effective disappearance of the ultimate ethical impor-
tance of the family.
Civil society as the moment into which the family passes becomes that
ethical world in which spirits active principle, subjectivity, attains self-con-
sciousness. Here subjectivity takes itself to constitute all of reality. Not only
is the particular person taken to be his own end within civil society, but
even the shared substantiveness of social and political relations becomes
nothing more than the relation of one particular person [ ] to other
similar particulars for their mutual satisfaction (PR 182). Although the
subjectivist understanding dominates the particular persons self-understand-
ing, spirit itself wakes up as civil society to nd its possibilities as both sub-
ject and substance disjoined. It is not awake to those possibilities as its own
nature. These possibilities appear to it as, on the one hand, particular self-
seeking subjectivity and, on the other, an external order (PR 157) that at-
tempts to contain this self-seeking and assert the power of the totality over
against it. At most, the relationship between the two moments is experi-
enced only as instrumental reciprocity or the balancing of particular self-
seeking and communal selessness.
Within Hegels developmental presentation, the full awakening of spirit to
itself occurs when [t]his external state [ ] withdraws and comes to a focus
in the end and actuality of the substantial universal and of the public life
which is dedicated to thisi.e., in the constitution of the state (PR 157).
In this way, the state appears as the ethical culmination of spirit, what he
famously calls the actuality of the ethical Idea (PR 257). The universal
nds its full articulation as a concrete community. It becomes alive in self-
conscious subjective activity as that public life dedicated to this substan-
tial end (see PR 25758).
Hegels developmental presentation of ethical life leaves us with the over-
whelming impression of a hierarchical ordering of ethical institutions. This
impression receives further support through its correspondence with the
world-historical movement from one ethical epoch to another that ends
the Philosophy of Right and is present in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The ethi-
cal world of pre-philosophic Greek polis persists as the family; the develop-
ment from the Roman empire to French Revolution abides in civil society;
and the state itself nally comes into its truth as the post-French Revolution,
North European state.
From the standpoint of Hegels developmental presentation, the mod-
ern state internalizes, stabilizes, and completes the historical process of spirit
coming to itself. In this way, the maintenance and reproduction of the mod-
ern ethical system seems to involve the perpetual passing away of the fam-
ily into civil society and civil society into the state. Subjective ontogeny re-
peats spiritual phylogeny:1 we are born as ethically impoverished member

of a family but ought eventually to die as ethically complete members of
the state apparatus.
This requirement that we traverse the institutional stations of the ethi-
cal cross can leave us with the impression that the stable shape of the
good life is constituted objectively by a public life in the state and subjec-
tively by a philosophic consciousness capable of knowingly and willingly
acknowledg[ing] this universal interest even as their own substantial spirit,
and actively pursu[ing] it as their ultimate end (PR 157, 260). If we went
no further, then his idea of the good life becomes a variant of Platos, with
philosopher bureaucrat substituted for the philosopher king.2
This impression of Hegels idea of the good life is false. It results from
having taken as the answer to the good life what is only a preparation for
answering the question. To pose the new question of the good life is to put
away the question of how spirit comes to be as the modern state. Instead,
it is to engage in a move methodologically analogous to his own at the be-
ginning of the Philosophy of Right. Just as he presupposed the coming to be
of the concept of right, the question of the good life presupposes the com-
ing to be of the family, civil society, and the state. To answer the question of
the good life is to attend to the role each institution plays within the ethi-
cal system after that system has unfolded.
By calling the state the actuality of concrete freedom, Hegel obscures
the need to even pose the question of the good life, for the answer ap-
pears already given as the state. The other moments appear as vanishing
ones. Yet, this conclusion seems to stand in tension with his initial state-
ment that the good lives in the determinations constituting the ethical sys-
tem (see PR 14247). Resolving this tension thus becomes our rst task.
It involves distinguishing two ethical substances marked out by the term
state. First, we can take the state as the concrete articulation of the ethi-
cal system itself. The state then is the totality of ethical relations. Second,
we can take the state also as a moment of that system. The state is one re-
1 This way of representing the relationship between the development of

spirit and the development of the individual human spirit was suggested to me in
conversation with Ben Livant.
2 For a more subtle version of this characterization, because it recognizes
that the family and civil society do not, of course, exist simply as rungs on the
ladder of ethical life, to be cast away once we reached the goal of the state see
Paul Franco 1999: 235. Frederick Neuhouser also grasps this point, however he
concentrates only on the developmental necessity of Sittlichkeit and therefore
takes the moments of Sittlichkeit only to be moments of the concept in the pro-
gression from immediate unity, difference, to mediated unity (2000: 14142, 133,
135).
lation within the totality of relations.3 We need to recognize that the state
is simultaneously both in a way analogous to our current biological under-
standing of the brains relationship to the body: we think of the brain as an
organ of the body; we also think of the brain as the organ that coordinates
all the moments of the body (including itself) into a living system aware of
itself as living system.
Now, with regard to the state, the truth of these two senses is only pro-
visionally given here. We have not yet proved it. However, the distinction
does no damage to Hegels conception of the state and indeed has the ad-
vantage of removing the tension between the equality of ethical institu-
tions Hegel initially implies and their hierarchical presentation. Keeping
in view these two senses of the state, the meaning of Hegels statement
that [t]he state is the actuality of concrete freedom is better read as the
state as system is the actuality of concrete freedom. The dominance of
the state as system over its moments does not translate into the domi-
nance of the state as moment over the family and civil society.
Once the moment of the state no longer unambiguously surmounts an
ethical hierarchy, there no longer is an easy answer to the question of the
good life. We have the space to pose the question of the good life anew. We
can now ask how the living good of the stable system articulates itself non-
hierarchically as the moments of the family, civil society, and state. Because
of the hierarchical appearance of his developmental presentation of ethi-
cal life, we cannot rely on Hegel to show that the good lives equally in each
of its institutional moments. We must do it ourselves.
To be ethically equal, the family, civil society, and the state must each
be non-instrumentally necessary for the stable process of freedom. Now, as
we have seen in chapter 4, that freedom is the process of maintaining and
reproducing the immanent mutual receptivity of unaccomplished subjec-
tive ends and their already externally existing accomplishment. So, these
institutions are ethically equal if they each equally participate in the crite-
rion of complete receptivity.4
We can distinguish three dimensions to complete receptivity.
First, each institution must correspond to a subjective end that is foun-
dational. A foundational subjective end is one that corresponds to the
truth of the subject as merely one-side of selfhood. The accomplishment
3 Allen Wood (1990: 29) and Z. A. Pelczynski (1984: 5556) also make this
distinction. For a further discussions of Hegels use of the concept of the state and
its relationship to other conceptions of political community within the history of
political thought see Pelczynski (ibid. 5559).
4 Frederick Neuhouser makes a similar observation but without the language
of receptivity (2000: 147).
of such an end would mean the actualization of selfhood. In this way,

a foundational subjective end is not dened by its content or subject mat-
ter but by the relationship to the community that it demands. The subjec-
tive act of choosing such an end becomes the fullest act of self-creation
because it is choosing a completing relationship to the community. If this
rst dimension is not met the institution would stand outside the structure
of freedom by being indifferent to subjectivity.
Second, one institution must correspond exclusively to one founda-
tional subjective end. Should more than one institution be receptive to the
same such end, that institution would cease to be necessary to freedom.
Third, when taken together these institutions must constitute the exter-
nally existing presence of the full range of foundational subjective ends. If
not, then Hegel will have failed to provide the materials necessary to give
a full account of the good life.
Because the self is relational, the full possibilities of selfhood are the
logically exhaustive forms that this receptivity can assume. There are only
three such forms of receptivity because there are only three relations to
the community that the subject can take up.
First, the subject can resolve to relinquish its subjective determination
of ends. In the situation of perfect ethicality, the concrete accomplish-
ment of this relation means the submergence of the subject into the ends,
roles, and identities given to it by the existing community. The subject re-
solves to actualize its receptivity to the concrete world without demanding
the same of the world.
Second, the subject can resolve to assert its subjective determination of
ends over the givenness of the world. Here, the subject demands the com-
plete receptivity of the world while resisting any reciprocal demand.
Third, the subject can resolve to abandon the sort of particularistic con-
tent associated with the rst two possibilities of the self. In the latter pos-
sibilities, whether this content is to reject subjective desire (the rst possi-
bility) or assert it (the second one), the ends that are taken up adhere to
the subjectivity rejecting or asserting. However, in the third form of re-
solve, the subjects relationship to the community is given by the sys-
tem itself. The subject no longer rejects or asserts particular ends at all.
Rather, subjectivity resolves to enter into the system where specific
ends will be portioned out to it. So, the end that this subject asserts is a
universal onethe requirements for maintaining and reproducing the to-
tality of the relations. This relationship is without a xed content that can
be specied in advance for any one individual.
These three relations constitute all the logically possible ways for the
subject to bind itself to the world: the experiential dominance of sub-
stance, of subject, or of system. Each constitutes a particular way of be-
ing free that the subject might choose. Yet, in choosing, the subject does
not create freedom. In the ethically complete system, freedom is the sit-
uation in which the subject always nd itself. To choose a relationship to
the world is to participate in freedom. It is to bring the subjects externally
existing potential for selfhood into actuality as an objective and self-con-
scious instance of spirit.
Of course, freedom may not always be adequately present. Historically,
the totality of relations between subject and community may not be pres-
ent as real possibilities. Even where the system of all relations is present, it
may be overlaid with discrimination, slavery, or inequality. In either situa-
tion the subject cannot resolve to be free. At most the subject can assert it-
self against the community that denies it the full possibilities of the self. In
the act of assertion, new possibilities may be opened up for the communi-
tys receptivity to the subject. Even then, the subject does not win its indi-
vidual freedombecause freedom is not a quality of the human spirit but
a quality of the system in which the subject lives. It is a quality of spirit.
In order for the world to be concretely receptive to all foundational
subjective ends, it cannot be one world at all, for logically each possibility
of the self excludes the others. A world wholly organized around the re-
ceptivity to one form of subjective relationship is one that denies the
other relations. For example, a world that gives all roles and interests to
the subject can neither recognize substantive ends nor systemic ones. So,
freedom can only live as a world that is internally differentiated into dis-
crete spheres of life corresponding to the logical possibilities of the self.
The good fully and concretely lives only as a system of three ethically equal
little worlds.
Hegels developmental presentation of the family, civil society, and the
state masks their ethical equality. Yet we can quickly and provisionally dis-
cern that such equality is logically present within his account by examin-
ing how the three dimensions of ethical receptivity delineated above are
satised by each institution. First, each fundamental subjective end corre-
sponds to an institution in Hegels description: the family articulates the
receptivity to substantive ends; civil society, articulates the receptivity to
the radical pursuit of subjective ends; and the moment of the state corre-
sponds to the receptivity to purely universalistic goals. Second, the devel-
opmental presentation shows, albeit in a misleading manner, the exclusiv-
ity of this correspondence. That the family must pass over to civil society
and civil society to the moment of the state articulates the impossibility of
one institutional moment expanding to include more than one form of
receptivity. Third, when Hegel indicates that the development of spirit cul-
minates in the systemic integration of all previous moments he implies the
logical completeness of the system.5
5 Our interpretation of ethical institutions as logical possibilities of selfhood

The logical possibility of the ethical equality among the institutions

means that Hegels developmental description of each institution hints at
its ability to furnish us with enough information to describe a stable, non-
developmental, ethical nature. So, with some expectation of being able to
deliver an answer, we can now ask how the good stabily lives in each of its
moments.6
B. Ethical Institutions as Ethical Powers
In order for Hegels description of ethical life to be the living good (PR
142), its moments [must be] the ethical powers which govern the lives of
individuals (PR 145). From our analysis of freedom, we know that an
ethical power must govern the life of the individual human spirit in a par-
ticular way. On one hand, it must maintain and reproduce the institution
as a moment of the totality of the system of receptive institutions. On the
other, it must maintain and reproduce the subjects receptivity to it so that
they are secured in their chosen nature. Despite the rst-glance logi-
cal adequacy of the family, civil society, and the moment of the state, the
real ethical power seems instead to reside in those mechanisms of state au-
thority that overtly administer and regulate the lives of the individual hu-
man spirit in a way familiar to us. As a whole, Hegel calls this element of
differs from those non-metaphysical readings of Hegel in which the ethical insti-
tutions become a series of self-images that we happen to hold as members of
the modern political community (for such a reading see Allen Wood 1990: 18
19, 27, 21314). Michael Hardimon discusses the family, civil society, and state as
central social roles (1994: 15358) in a way that, in essence, is an elaboration
of Woods position. However, Hardimon does note that these central social roles
have a metaphysical foundation in that they are roles that modern people must
exercise in order to realize themselves as Geistbut he deliberately does not
elaborate on this meaning (ibid. 15859). Robert Williams provides an approach
similar to our own, except that it emphasizes the idea of recognition and spirit
as intersubjectivity (1997: 205 206). Frederick Neuhouser provides an ac-
count in which the concepts objective moments also provide the social roles nec-
essary for a complete life, however these roles are not mutually exclusive for him
(2000: 14044).
6 Ludwig Siep understands the structure of self-recognition, or what we
have called selfhood, to be the organizing principle behind the teleological sys-
tematization of the institutions of the modern political community running from
the family (least adequate) to the state (most adequate) (Sieps position is summa-
rized in Robert Williams 1997: 1922). In so far as we look at the ethical commu-
nity in its development, Siep is correct. But, in so far as we are concerned about
the stable form of the community, the structure of recognition shows each of the
family, civil society, and the moment of the state to be ethically equal because they
each equally contribute to a fundamental and exclusive form of recognition.
the state the universal power [Macht] or more benignly and commonly,
the public authority (PR 23132, 235).
For Hegel, the public authority governs the lives of individuals in two
spheres. It governs the actions of individuals when their actions are crimi-
nal. This aspect Hegel calls the administration of justice (see PR 209
29). It also governs individuals in so far as their rightful actions contain
the possibility of (non-criminal) harm to other individuals, as well as other
public arrangements designed to further a common end (PR 23233).
The latter governance takes the form of overseeing the broad complex of
consequences that ow from individual interactions. This prevention of harm
falls to that aspect of the public authority called the police (Polizei) (PR
23134).
Hegel is aware that the notion of harm can have no xed meaning so
that its more precise determinations will depend on custom, the spirit
of the rest of the constitution, prevailing conditions, current emergen-
cies, etc. (PR 234). While the exact activities of the police cannot be
specied in advance, in general they secure the population against harm
by maintaining the possibility for individuals to share in the universal re-
sources of the social order (PR 237). These universal resources range
from the needs of daily life to all the advantages of society, such as the
ability to acquire skills and education in general, as well as of the adminis-
tration of justice, health care, and often even the consolation of religion
(PR 241). The scope of the public authoritys oversight is immense: the
entire complex system of individual interdependence in which needs are
generated and satised (see PR 18999) falls within its power to regu-
late or provision (PR 235, 236 & Z, 241) as does the continued imple-
mentation and upholding of earlier decisions, existing laws, institutions,
and arrangements to promote common ends, etc. (PR 287).
For the above reasons, the public authority could seem to epitomize the
nature of an ethical power since its function is to concretely secure the mu-
tual receptivity of subject and community. Yet, the vast power of the public au-
thority is on the one hand, primarily limited to the sphere of contingencies,
and on the other, it remains an external order (PR 231). It can deal only
with the arbitrary evil (PR 232) arising from the fact of personal inter-
dependence. The public authority presupposes an existing ethical order
over which it exercises its power. In this way, the public authority is not a
power that is logically necessary to the process of freedom, even as it is a
necessary response to the contingencies which arise within that system.7
7 Bernard Cullen provides an overview of the public authority that connects

it to Hegels Jenaer Realphilosophie II (1979: 83 85, 90). There, Hegel takes
the term Polizei from the Greek term for politeia, meaning civil life and govern-
ment, the activities of the whole of it (quoted in ibid. 83). While Hegel notes
Hegel himself captures the ethical epiphenomenalism of the public au-

thority in the very nature of the tasks that rst give it prominence. By locat-
ing the discussion of the public authority within civil societythat sphere
of life that begins with the unaccomplished ends of subjective self-seek-
inghe shows that the proper concern of the public authority is the ge-
neric process of life, those universal resources without which participation
in the community would not be possible, but which by themselves do not
provide life activity with any concrete shape.
To focus on the public authority is to confuse the sort of governance
that simply perpetuates any social order in its earlier decisions, existing
laws, institutions, and arrangements to promote common ends, etc. with
governance that is ethical. The true question of the good life is not be-
ing asked. That question is: how does the good live as a system of institu-
tions that allows the human spirit to participate in it? We cannot locate
the ethicality that supervenes the public authority by returning to the an-
cient study of political life with its typologies of correct and deviant re-
gimes (modes of public authority) and political justice and justice
simply (ways of carrying out that authority) because the ancient political
science does not move us beyond an analytical focus on some governing
body. For example, Aristotle recognizes that the city is comprised of many
parts but the question of how the good preeminently lives in the com-
munity revolves only around those parts governing the political partner-
ship. We are not led to see how the good lives in the community in its unity
and differentiation but how the good ows from one part: The regime is
an arrangement of a city with respect to its ofces, particularly the one that
has authority over all <matters>. For what has authority in the city is every-
where the governing body, and the governing body is the regime.8
In our search for the actual power of the good life, the public authority
can only be of secondary importance. We must look for that ethical power
that is truly internal to the process of the good. Since that process con-
cretely lives only as moments differentiated according to the possibilities
of the self, ethical power must be similarly differentiated.
However, we cannot simply take the family, civil society, or the moment
of the state as these powers, for each institution governs to some degree
the lives of those individuals who nd themselves within it without thereby
contributing to that self-conscious actualization of fundamental subjective
ends which denes the individual experience of freedom. For example, as
a child, a customer, and a citizen, the individual human spirit simply nds
that the modern meaning has been restricted to issues of public security, we
have brought out the way his institution of the public authority preserves this an-
cient emphasis on the life process of the community as a whole.
8 Aristotle, Politics, Bk. III ch. 6, 1278b515; ch. 7, 1279a2530.
itself in the family, civil society, and the moment of the state respectively. In
each of these cases, the institution regulates the actions of the child, cus-
tomer, or citizen but without the institution being a power that necessarily
contributes to the selfhood of each. In so far as they simply nd themselves
in that institution, there is no ethical relationship of mutual receptivity
for them, only one of instrumentality. Each requires something (e.g., nur-
turing, a product, a service) and each may receive it according to the de-
mands of the institutionsbut this interaction has no necessary connec-
tion to the fundamental needs of each subject for selfhood.
While family, civil society, and the moment of the state belong to the
systemic process of freedom, each institution as a whole cannot be an ethi-
cal power because, as a whole, each does not necessarily contribute to self-
hood. So, we must look for that aspect of each ethical institution that can
be an ethical power. And this means looking for that moment within each
ethical institution whose governing power is activated by the subjects re-
solve to take up a fundamental relationship to the community. Hegels de-
scription of each ethical institution furnishes such a moment. Within the
family we nd the institution of marriage, for its origin is the free con-
sent of the person concerned (PR 162). Within civil society we nd
what Hegel calls the corporation [Korporation]. The corporations gover-
nance is no wider in scope than the end inherent in the trade which is the
corporations proper business and interest (PR 251). Since the trade is
something chosen by the individual human spirit (see PR 25152), the
corporations authority is not external to both the form and the content
of the subjects fundamental end. Finally, within the moment of the state
we nd the civil service, for [i]ndividuals are not destined by birth or per-
sonal nature to hold a particular ofce (PR 291). Instead volition com-
bined with knowledge and proof of ability [ ] guarantees every citizen
the possibility of joining the universal estate [i.e., the civil service] (PR
291).
At this point we have not conrmed that marriage, the corporation,
and the civil service are ethical powers. Rather they appear to us here
as promising starting points for an analysis of the institutional life of the
good.
C. The Ethical Powers
In order to know whether marriage, the corporation, and the civil ser-
vice are ethical powers, we must have some standard by which to measure
them. Previously we used the three dimensions of mutual receptivityi.e.,
that institutions of an ethical community correspond to a fundamental
end, do so exclusively, and, when taken together, form a logically complete
set of ethical possibilitiesto show the ethical equality of the family, civil
society, and the moment of the state. Then we were concerned only about
the logical possibility of ethical equality. Now, we are concerned about the
concrete institutional life of the good. For this concern, these dimensions
are not sufcient. These dimensions of mutual receptivity must be set in
motion, transformed from logical requirements to living requirements.
As a living requirement, the original rst dimension is transformed into
internal stability. An ethical power must not just correspond to a possibil-
ity of the self, it must internally maintain this correspondence. Since the
nature of the good is always to abide, the ethical power must permit every
instant of the good to abide also. The original second dimension remains
unchanged. The actual operations of maintaining and reproducing each
possibility of the self must fall exclusively within the compass of one ethi-
cal power. From the latter it follows that each institutional instance of the
good also must be a whole sphere of life. In this way the original third di-
mension takes on an additional quality. Taken together, the institutions
must still form a logically exhaustive system of possibilities, but now an
ethical power must produce an institution encompassing the full scope of
human life-activity.
In what ways do each of our provisionally selected ethical powers corre-
spond to each of the three living dimensions?
1. Internal Stability. Hegels developmental presentation of the good

shows the family and civil society as internally unstable. In order to be
instances of Hegels idea of the good life, they must be re-presented as
internally stable.
In the Philosophy of Right, the family is the rst ethical institution. Its
instability appears as a two-fold dissolution, what Hegel calls the ethical
dissolution of the family through the childs natural emergence into the
subjecthood of adulthood, and a natural dissolution [ ] through
the death of the parents (PR 17778). Left here, the nature of the
family itself seems to resist all possibility of internal stability. However,
within Hegels own philosophical system these sources of instability point
to something prior to the ethicality of the family as a whole: they point to
marriage.
The family must rst abide before it can pass away9 and it cannot inter-
nally abide if marriage itself does not. Marriage is that power which inter-
nally holds together the family. Indeed he treats divorce rst among the
ways in which the family dissolves (PR 176) because it is the fundamental
dissolution of the commitment to selfhood that makes the family an ethi-
9 Jean-Jacques Rousseaus account of family life in the pure state of nature

nicely articulates the logic of this position (Second Discourse, Pt. I, p. 48).
cal institution. Marriage gives the family its ethical being. From the stand-
point of marriage, the natural processes of growth and death are mere ex-
ternalities that happen to the family from outside of the relational logic
of selfhood. Only from the standpoint of Hegels developmental presenta-
tion does this ethical or natural dissolution appear as an internal process.
But each is not a process internal to marriage or the family as an ethical
unity. They are not internal to the larger process of spiritsi.e., the sys-
temsethical development.
Once Hegels philosophical exposition of spirit has unfolded we can
turn to the question of the good life, replacing his inquiry into how the
good passes through a parade of forms with the question of how the good
lives as those forms. Then, the ethical nature of marriage is demonstrated
only in its ability to overcome sources of instability arising from the logic
of the relationship itself. The question is not whether marriage can con-
quer human biology, but whether marriage can conquer its own possibili-
ties destructive of selfhood.10
Generically, the possibilities of the self are actualized in a relation-
ship between a subject and externally existing institution. In the fam-
ily, though, the substantive possibility of the self is actualized as a rela-
tionship between two subjects: the marriage partners. Of all the other
possibilities of selfhood, marriage is unique in mediating the relationship
between subject and its selfhood through another. Now, Hegel writes, of
course, that this marriage partner must be of a certain sort, a man if I am a
woman, a woman if I am a man. However, we must write two subjects and
marriage partners instead of man and woman and husband and wife
because the ethical foundations of the marriage relation, no less than the
other ethical relations, stands wholly outside of natural differentiation of
the human spirit. As we have seen, for Hegel, the marriage relation can
be called ethical only because it is an articulation of freedom. The human
spirit makes itself free by taking up one of its possibilities of selfhood. Of
all the qualities each human spirit may possess, the only one of ethical sig-
nicance is subjectivity, which we can understand here as the concrete
possibility of choosing to become a self. In the case of the family, to deny
two subjects their possibility of selfhood on the basis of their sexual differ-
entiation is to deny the human spirit freedom.
10 Paul Franco serves as a good example of the standard reading of Hegels

conception of the family and its dissolution (1999: 23649). For an elaboration
of such a reading, but structured by Hegels logic, see Toula Nicolacopoulos and
George Vassilacopoulos 1999: 15556. They correctly identify the instability of
the family in Hegels description, but locate its necessity in the maturation of the
children.
An objection might be raised: Is not the desire to specify the sex of

ones marriage partner an example of the dominance of subjective ends
in what ought to be a substantive relation? Should not the individual de-
sirous of a same-sex marriage partner surrender this personality (PR
167), abandoning it for his or her choice of the ethically greater end of
marriage? This argument has initial plausibility because it focuses on the
one condition for this substantive selfi.e., that it is a life in which subjec-
tivity chooses to submerge itself. Nonetheless, the argument fails because
it does not adequately respect the ultimate right of subjectivity to its free
determination of an ethical end.
We neither need to enter into debates surrounding the naturalness of
homosexuality, nor determine whether homosexuality is something given
or something cultivated. Instead, we need to know only whether a sexual
preference (of whatever variety) is an enduring orientation in that subjec-
tivity. As an enduring orientation, it does not stand in contradiction with
the essence of substantive selfhood. Unlike, for example, an enduring and
overriding desire for honour, sexual orientation is compatible with any of
the possibilities of selfhood since it does not, in itself, order the relation-
ship between subject and world. On the one hand, this orientation is in-
different to selfhood. On the other, if it is taken to be vital to the integrity
of the subject, then respect for subjectivity requires that the commu-
nity could no more have the subject violate that integrity by giving up his
or her leg for the sake of marriage than it could have the subject give up
his or her enduring sexual orientation. A world that makes such a demand
by denying subjectivity its right of selfhood is a world in which the good
does not fully live.11
11 Robert Williams makes a similar argument concerning the ethical irrel-

evance of sexual differentiation, however it is based on the anti-sexist signif-
icance of Hegels ontology of recognition. He also provides a summary of femi-
nist critiques of Hegels thought by Patricia Jagentowicz Mills and Heidi Ravven.
He notes that they do not attend to Hegels own demand for mutual recognition.
Or, to put it in the terms we use here: these critiques do not attend to Hegels own
demand for the equality of all subjects in the logic of freedom (1997: 21926).
Allen Wood nicely brings out three principles at work in Hegels concep-
tion of women: (1) that the substantive principle needs to be satised; (2) that
subjectivity needs to be cultivated; and (3) that all individuals are equally persons
and subjects (1990: 245). Because Wood abandons Hegels metaphysical under-
pinnings, he associates (3) with Christianity and accepts the gendered nature of
(1). Without a conception of the spiritualized self, Wood can only see an irrec-
oncilable tension between these principles (ibid. 24546) . The reading of Hegel
presented here, though, shows the commensurability of the three principles be-
cause it understands subjectivity to nd its completion in a relation to the com-
munity, be that relation substantive, subjective, or universal. In this way (2) can be
satised through (1) and requires (3). Michael Hardimon takes a similar position
The Hegelian opening to the ethicality of same-sex marriage also opens

the door to a second objection. If respect for the integrity of the subject
and the right to freedom through selfhood stands above natural sex-
ual differentiation, then can anything that is merely given serve to set the
boundaries of marriage, most importantly the incest taboo? Now, Hegels
own defense of the incest taboo rests on the necessity of a free surrender of
the innitely unique personality of the marriage partners (PR 168). If
a marriage is concluded within the naturally identical circle of people who
are acquainted and familiar with each other in every detail [ ] [then]
the individuals do not have a distinct personality of their own in relation
to one another (PR 168). In other words, these individuals already ex-
ist in a substantive relationship and so cannot engage in that choice neces-
sary to move from subjectivity to substantive selfhood.
The difculty with Hegels account of the incest taboo is that it requires
a level of knowledge that might not be possessed. His prohibition of in-
cest may make the revival of the ancient Egyptian practice of brother-sis-
ter marriages unethical, but it also removes the tragedy of the union
of Oedipus and Jocasta, for they were neither acquainted nor familiar
with one another. So, a more secure and authentically Hegelian basis for
the incest taboo is required, one rooted in the logic of the marriage rela-
tion and not the empirically contingent elements of familiarity with per-
sonality and even the observation that reproduction within a family of an-
imals produces more feeble offspring (PR 168Z).12
Although unused by his own justication, Hegel provides us with a basis
for this new justication of the incest taboo in the very nature of substan-
tive selfhood. Substantive selfhood requires that relations to the commu-
to Wood and for that reason says that Hegel would reject the idea of what the po-
litical theorist Susan Okin has called a genderless societya society in which, as
she puts it, ones sex would have no more relevance than ones eye colour or the
length of ones toes (Okin 1989: 184, 171 in Hardimon 1994: 186). This theme
is developed in the work of Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos
who provide a summary of those feminist critiques of Hegels conception of the
family that interpret it as a male dominated heterosexual union but argue that
these interpretations can be addressed if we see that Hegel himself mistakenly
sexualizes difference in marriage in order to have this difference overcome in the
unity of the partners. They conclude that difference is necessary, but that this dif-
ference need not be sexualized (1999: 16165). As a result they see that multiple
sexualities provide a multiplicity of loving forms so that neither homosexual nor
heterosexual relations can justiably be universalized (ibid. 16870). For a cri-
tique of the valorisation of homosexuality and of women-identied lesbian-
ism from this Hegelian perspective see ibid. 17075.
12 Mark Tunick gives a similar critique of biological, and even socio-biological,
grounds to explain the unethical nature of incest in, for example, societies with
reliable contraception (1992: 52 n. 75).
nity be governed by given roles. Preeminent among these roles are that of
mother and father, son and daughter. Within the logic of substantive self-
hood, motherhood and fatherhood carry with them duties that cannot be
trumped by subjective considerations without destroying substantive self-
hood itself. Whether Jocasta knows Oedipus is her son, whether she and
Oedipus are acquainted and familiar with each other in every detail, can
be now of no ethical consequence. In marrying Oedipus, Jocasta corrupts
what ought to be her inviolate substantive relation as mother to child.13
The burden of unethicality particularly falls to Jocasta because the sub-
stantive relation belongs to her selfhood in a way it does not for Oedipus.
This disproportionality of blame is rooted in the substantive nature of the
child. A child matures out of substantive existence and into subjectivity (or
what subjectivity is permitted in the pre-philosophic Greek polis). In this
way Oedipus approaches the marriage with nature itself having put aside
the absolute dominance of his identity as son. Nature has not done so with
the identity of motherhood. On discovering the naturally substantive rela-
tionship that existed between them, their responses show an intuition of
this disproportionate burden and the not yet emerged rights of subjectiv-
ity. Jocasta kills herself, making concrete the ethical annihilation that oc-
curred with the incestuous marriage. Oedipus merely blinds himself, thus
punishing himself for the ethical violation of the marriage relation, but
preserving the intuition of a subjectivity that never was constituted by the
lial relation.
The logic of Hegels account of freedom allows us to seein a way that
his description of marriage does notthat discrimination based on the natu-
ralness of sexual difference, but not on propinquity, is a sign of an ethically
immature understanding of marriage. Yet even his developmental presen-
tation hints that the shape of marriage as a sexually differentiated relation
between two individuals is a product of its ethical immaturity:14
13 Mark Tunick understands the law against incest to be grounded in the hu-
man practice of marriage, not the logic of marriage. For him, the law against in-
cest is a second nature; it is customary. To violate this second nature is to violate
our own nature: we are then unfree (1992: 5253). Tunicks explanation may tell
us why something is wrong within the universe of a communitys particular cultural
practices but it does not ground that ethical universe itself.
14 See Robert Williams for a discussion of Hegels concept of marriage in re-
lation to natural law theory, civil contract, and as a feeling of love exemplied in
Friedrich von Schlegels Lucide (1997: 21417). See Toula Nicolacopoulos and
George Vassilacopoulos for an extensive discussion of the meaning of Hegels
concept of marriage in relation to various contemporary theories and critics of
the marriage relation as well as to various forms of family life (non-sexual exclu-
sivity, plural marriages, and communal living arrangements) (1999: 13246).
Marriage is still only the immediate ethical Idea and thus has its objective actu-
ality in the inwardness of subjective disposition and feeling. This accounts for
the basic contingency of its existence. Just as there can be no compulsion to
marry, so also can there be no merely legal or positive bond which could keep
the partners together once their dispositions and actions have become antag-
onistic and hostile. (PR 176)
Just as respect for subjectivity can be used as the basis for ground-
ing the ethicality and boundaries of the family, so too does the nature of
the ethical bond as the inwardness of subjective disposition give rise to
the possibility of an internal moment of dissolution. In so far as the ethi-
cal relationship is dependent on mutual and subjective dispositions, the
relationship becomes by its nature contingent. The moment of absolute
Selbstttigkeit belongs to the very structure of subjectivity in a way that is
more foundational than any enduring orientation. Divorce is the concrete
articulation of this immanent possibility of instability in marriage.15
The failure of marriage to be an ethical power is not evinced in Hegels
statement that divorce must be allowed (see also PR 176Z). To remove
the possibility of divorce is to destroy the respect for subjectivity that
makes marriage into an ethical institution. Marriage is not thereby power-
less. Instead it is an ethical power precisely because it honours subjectivity
while altering the marriage partners relationship to subjectivity so to per-
mit selfhood. Prior to the resolve to take up a possibility of selfhood, all
subjective ends are radically equal. Marriage removes this equality by sub-
stituting a substantial end for subjectively given ones (PR 16263). In
doing so, the marriage power makes subjectivity appear as something for-
eign or unnatural to the new, substantive self (PR 16263; 176Z). The pos-
sibility of divorce becomes the haunting presence of subjectivity in marriage.
However, when we are properly cultivated by the marriage power, it is an
external haunting. Subjectivity becomes not our own self that we sense, but
some other, thereby making divorce something foreign to this living pos-
sibility of selfhood.16
The internal stability of the marriage power is evinced in the need for
what Hegel calls [a] third ethical authority (sittliche Autoritt) which will
15 See also Michael Hardimon 1994: 228.

16 Michael Hardimon also uses the language of haunting (1994: 228). His
account is also similar to our own in that he recognizes subjectivity as the founda-
tion with which marriage cannot do away (ibid. 241). However, he emphasizes the
affective dimension of marriage simply, and not the way that the affective dimen-
sion of marriage is different from other feelings because it is properly ethical. For
this reason Hardimons haunting is not external, but internal. Nonetheless, he pro-
vides an excellent discussion of divorce and of the family in general (see ibid. 228
30, 17589).
uphold the right of marriagei.e., of ethical substantialityagainst the

mere opinion that a hostile disposition is present, and against the con-
tingency of merely transient moods, etc., to distinguish these from
total estrangement, and to make sure that the partners are totally es-
tranged before divorce is granted (PR 176). If marriage could not ex-
ternalize subjectivity then it would be internally unstable, negated the
instant a hostile disposition arose. But since it has power, marriage is
simply threatened by divorce as by an external force, as it is by the natu-
ral process of aging and death. As such, another body must deal with the
contingencies of subjectivity should those contingencies try to push their
way through back into marriage. Just as the generic process of life requires
a public authority for its maintenance and reproduction in the realm of
contingencies, so too does the ethical power of marriage. Although Hegel
calls this third authority ethical, its ethicality derives from its relation to
that which is fundamentally ethical: marriage itself.
In Hegels developmental account, the sphere of civil society emerges
out of the destruction of the family. The radical subjectivity of children
as they attain adulthood has no place within the family. The former re-
quires an institution of its own. Civil society is that institution, that re-
lational space where subjective ends are formulated and pursued through
the cultivation of a skilled trade. Hegels insight is that this radical sub-
jectivity does not remain isolated but rather forms itself into a complex
network of mutual dependence and interaction with other subjects. The
logic of this complex of activity he calls the inner dialectic of [civil] soci-
ety (PR 246). Left by itself, this inner dialectic produces excessive wealth
and excessive poverty. And it is here, in these ever widening extremes (see
PR 24345), that subjectivity threatens the stability of this sphere just as
it had done in the family through the internal logic of divorce.
Initially, we suggested that the corporation satises the criterion for be-
ing an ethical power because it is a voluntary association binding the hu-
man spirit to the community according to the formers fundamental end.
If the corporation is truly civil societys ethical power, it will rst show itself
by being able to internally overcome this inner dialectic.
For Hegel, the instability of civil society has its ultimate root in two con-
tradictory aspects of the actualization of the subjects resolve to elevate subjec-
tive ends above all and thus enter into subjective selfhood. On one hand,
the resolve is satised by engaging in the subjects chosen trade. This sat-
isfaction consists of the recognition that one is somebody (PR 253). On
the other hand, the selsh aspect of his trade (PR 253A) is also pres-
ent: the pursuit of the trade within the market also produces private
wealth. When the complex interdependence of civil society is maintained
and reproduced through the subjective pursuit of goals alone, the scope
of the subjects activity is unrestricted. The result is that these two
aspects of unrestricted subjective selfhood i. e., recognition and

wealth become conated for the subject (PR 243, 253A).
To grasp why, we must understand unrestricted activity to mean disorga-
nized activity (see PR 255A). When civil society is governed by the for-
mulation and pursuit of subjective ends alone, each subject is to the other
only a means to its own end. Each subject becomes to the other something
abstract and interchangeablean anybody rather than as a somebody. In
this disorganized system of instrumental reciprocity, the only point of ex-
periential commonality is the selsh aspect of [their] trade. That is, the
other ceases to be capable of providing recognition of the inherent value
of my tradefor the other is a mere instrumentbut he is capable of be-
ing used to produce wealth for me, and me for him. The pursuit of recog-
nition of my subjectivity becomes sunk into the recognition of my wealth
or abstract value. In this situation each will accordingly try to gain recogni-
tion through the external manifestations of success in his trade, and these
are without limit (PR 253A).
In this account of the unfettered market, Hegel shows how the merely
psychological element of recognition becomes implicated in a material logic
of the unrestricted and disorganized pursuit of wealth. What begins as the
logic of recognition ends up as the logic of the maximization of wealth.
This latter logic makes two demands. First, the widest possible market of
needs must be created. As a consequence, civil society is driven to form
a global market as well as to colonization (PR 246, 248). Second, the
means to satisfy these homogenized and globalized needs must be mass
produced through industrialization and its attendant mechanization of la-
bour (PR 243). In this process, those trades originally associated with the
satisfaction of needs nd the scope of their labour radically reduced or
eliminated (see PR 253A). As the production of wealth is further inten-
sied, more and more tradespeople succumb to poverty, leading to the
creation of a rabble, which in turn makes it much easier for disproportion-
ate wealth to be concentrated in a few hands (PR 244). In so far as civil
society is disorganized, extremes of wealth will always exist alongside ex-
tremes of poverty (see PR 185, 245).17
17 Frederick Neuhousers interpretation of Bildung in civil society goes astray

because he fastens only on the education present in these abstract relations of disor-
ganized civil society. For Neuhouser, civil society only cultivates when all relations
have been reduced to a universal system of exchange or when the exchange
value of commodities absolutely dominates so that members of civil society do
not relate to one another as concrete, particular individuals but only as abstract
buyers and sellers who are identical in all relevant respects to other buyers and
sellers (2000: 16365). In this way, he mistakes Hegels presentation of the prob-
lem (i.e., the atomistic individuals in a set of abstract relations that perpetuate this
Unlike Marxs own insight into capitalisms dialectic of destruction, the

destruction of civil society that Hegel is most concerned about is not its
physical overthrow, but rather the destruction of the logical possibility of
selfhood that denes civil societys ethical nature. This destructiveness is
already present in the extremes of wealth and poverty. When these condi-
tions and inner dialectic dominate, the human spirit can no longer relate
to the community according to the formulation and pursuit of subjective
ends. With poverty th[e] feeling of right, integrity, and honour which
comes from supporting oneself by ones own activity and work is lost
(PR 244). With wealth, the disposition that life should involve labour is
lost.18 In either case the human spirit ceases to be concerned that it be-
comes somebody. Disorganized civil society becomes inadequate to its
own goals.
To be recognized as a self-created somebody is the experience of free-
dom within civil society. Although the desire for this experience has the
consequence of destabilizing civil societys ethical nature, it is also the
atomism) for the solution (i.e., the cultivation of the atomistic individual out of
his or her atomism). While Neuhouser is quite correct that the Bildung of civil so-
ciety occurs through socially productive labour (ibid. 15859), he does not see
that this labour can be only truly socially productive in the fullest sense (i.e., re-
produce the human spirit as a member of society) if it occurs in the context of ad-
equate social relations and these relations are not those of abstract buyers and
sellers but rather of the corporation.
Allen Wood properly grasps that this abstract condition is indeed a prob-
lem for Hegel, but in specifying the mechanism through which it becomes such
he omits any discussion of the moment of recognition that goes unsatised in dis-
organized civil society. Instead he focuses on the psychological consequences of
poverty connected with the creation of a penurious rabble and the way that dis-
organized civil society makes me into a freelance hustler of whatever resources,
skills, or other commodities I may have for sale [so that] [m]y destiny is simply to
sell myself, and my only aspiration is to do so and at the highest price and on the
most favourable terms(1990: 24748, 25054, 24142). As a result, Wood agrees
with Shlomo Avineri that poverty is simply a problem to which the system offers
no solution [and Hegels description of it is] a victory of Hegels farsightedness
and honesty as a social analyst over his zeal and ingenuity as a speculative system
builder and theodicist(Avineri 1972: 154; Wood 1990: 248, 250). For an overview
of debates with Wood on the corporation see the symposium on Woods book in
the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, no. 25 (Spring/Summer 1992), pp.
150; and Robert Williams 1997: 25152.
For David MacGregor, only Eduard Gans, Hegels student and eventual col-
league, radicalized (under the inuence of the Saint-Simonian idea of workers
associations) the idea of the corporation sufciently to provide a solution to the
problem of poverty about which Hegel fell silent (1998: 106107).
18 From Hegels lectures on the philosophy of right of 18191820. Quoted in
Hegel 1991: 45354 n. 1 to PR 244Z.
foundational condition for the solution to civil societys instability. This de-
sire makes possible the organization of civil societys instrumental interde-
pendence through what Hegel calls the corporation. The corporation res-
cues what should be the locus of recognition of subjective selfhoodthe
individuals self-chosen skilled tradefrom its subsumption into the self-
ish aspect of his trade. The corporation provides the recognition of worth
of the subjectively determined content of a stable life. It is the condition
for the actualization of being somebody because, in the corporation, the
need to seek recognition through wealth can be put aside. As Hegel states,
the member of a corporation has no need to demonstrate his compe-
tence and his regular income and means of supporti.e., the fact that he
is somebodyby any further external evidence (PR 253). By securing the
subjects desired experience, the corporation thereby secures the material
system of relations through which the trade is pursued.19
Like marriage, the corporation secures the particular individual against
the contingency of feeling. The corporation becomes the concrete artic-
ulation of all legitimate skills and knowledges associated with the particu-
lar somebody the subject resolves to be. In this way, through the corpo-
ration the [practicing of] ones skill [ ] is freed from personal opinion
and contingency, from its danger to oneself and others, and is recognized,
guaranteed, and at the same time raised to a conscious activity for a com-
mon end (PR 254). Here, the corporation shows itself to be a power in-
ternal to civil society capable of securing and reproducing the subjective
possibility of the self. The corporation shows itself to meet the rst dimen-
sion of an ethical power.
We have suggested that the move from civil society to state is the move-
ment from corporation to civil service as an ethical power. In order to be-
gin to show that the civil service might be that ethical power of the mo-
ment of the state, it is rst necessary to set out the ways in which, as an ethical
institution, the civil service shapes the subject into a self. We can initially put
its contribution in terms of the preceding two moments. Like the family,
19 Frederick Neuhouser comes close to this conclusion, but sees that the po-
lice, and not the corporation, is the solution to the problem of poverty (2000:
172). However, he arrives at this conclusion without engaging in any analysis of
the logic of poverty. Poverty remains for him something contingent and therefore
its solution can fall to the police whose purpose is to deal with contingency.
Allen Wood provides a critique of the inability of the police to deal with
poverty, and notes that Hegel ends his discussion of poverty with the corporation,
and correctly identies the various functions of the corporation connected with
recognition and well-being (1990: 248, 249). Nonetheless, Wood still does not see
how the corporation is tted as a solution to the problem of poverty, perhaps be-
cause he has not fully explicated the psychological element in the dialectic of pov-
erty (see ibid. 249, 23941).
the civil service contains pre-determined roles. Yet, unlike the family, these
roles or, more properly, tasks are given by the systems own logical needs
and not by immediate nature (see PR 291). In this way, the civil service
constitutes a form of substantial life, for the civil servants goals and proj-
ects do not adhere to the one occupying the ofce, but to the ofce it-
self. In the family, given ends adhere to the individual human spirit: the
brother remains a brother even as he becomes a father; a father remains
a father as he becomes a grandfather, and so on. But as with the corpora-
tion, the civil service links individual skills to institutional tasks (see PR
292). To occupy an ofce within the civil service is to be a somebody. It is
to become a civil servant provided with all the analogous support that the
corporation furnishes to its members, since as a consequence of this sub-
stantial position his appointment provides him with resources, guaran-
tees the satisfaction of his particularity [ ], and frees his external situa-
tion and official activity from other kinds of subjective dependence
and inuence (PR 294). As with the members of the corporation, the
civil servant does not need external signs or extraordinary actions to win
recognition. Yet the civil servants ofce and her task are foundationally
unconnected with the goal of being somebody.
In this way, the civil service, with its form of selfhood, is unthreatened
by the instability of something analogous to divorce: the civil servant
may leave his or her ofce without destroying the civil service itself. At the
same time, the civil service is also unthreatened by any instability arising
from the pursuit of the tasks of an ofce. The tasks are already systemically
organized, their limits are already prescribed, and moreover, recognition
comes from the civil service as whole, for what is being recognized is the
universality of the task and not its particularity. Yet the moment of the state
is threatened with instability. Both Hegels youthful discussion of the ethi-
cal perversion caused by princes and priests and Rousseaus discussion of
the corporate will anticipate the form of instability:20 that the end [of gov-
ernment] may also encounter obstacles in the shape of the common inter-
est of the ofcials in maintaining solidarity amongst themselves in opposi-
tion to their subordinates and superiors (PR 295A).
Although Hegel does not use it, Rousseaus term corporate will
is quite felicitous. It unwittingly names the inner nature of those obsta-
cles aficting the moment of the state. By speaking of the common in-
terest of the officials in maintaining solidarity amongst themselves
Hegel implies an Hegelian institutional corporatization whose result is
that Rousseauvian corporate will pernicious to the civil services
universal ends. Just as civil society is properly organized on a commonal-
ity of trade, the civil service too can become dominated within itself by a
20 See BF 38 and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. III chs. 2, 10.
commonality of ofce. On the one hand, this intra-institutional solidarity

shows itself inter-institutionally when the civil service as a whole adopt[s]
the isolated position of an aristocracy and [ ] us[es] its education and
skill as arbitrary means of domination and as an instrument of prot
(PR 297 & A). On the other, it implies a foundational shift in the animat-
ing sources of the civil service and the internal deepening of this solidarity
of ofcials amongst themselves.
As we saw, in civil societys salutary corporatization, recognition through
the empty universality of wealth is replaced by recognition through par-
ticipation in a particular trade. In the civil services pathological corpora-
tization, an analogue to these corporate ends comes to dominate. Although
prot is what Hegel mentions, wealth is not the empty or false universal
that replaces the true universality of the civil servants specic task. Instead,
for this instability to be properly internal to the institution itself in a way
that shows delity to the logic of Hegels analysis of civil society, this false
universality must be constituted instead by the civil servants ofce. What
is ethical in the corporation is a perversion in the civil service. Through
this perversion, the misuse of power in the civil service becomes a systemic
possibility as the civil service is animated by as many particularistic ends as
there are ranks or ofces within it. When the universal end as a basis of
recognition disappearsi.e., that one is recognized for ones service
in general, not the particular tasksso too does the possibility of the uni-
versal self and, thus, the civil services ethicality.
The corporatization of the civil service constitutes its immanent insta-
bility. This instability is not essentially rooted in the corruption or poor
character of civil servants, but where the institution in question may
still be relatively imperfect in other respects also (PR 295A). The pri-
mary imperfection is internal solidarity; the other imperfections
arise from the ethical requirement that the business of the civil service
shall be divided into abstract branches and dealt with by distinct bodies
(PR 290)i.e., ministries whose ranks and ofces are directed towards
common questions, not common tasks.21
Hegel writes that the prevention of the societal abuses that ow from
the civil services internal solidarity are, on the one hand, the direct re-
sponsibility of their own hierarchy (PR 295). Since it is the organization
of the civil service into a hierarchy of ministries which is the possibility
of this corporate will, the civil service nds itself in a situation that par-
allels the marriage powers relationship to subjective desire and the cor-
21 Allen Wood remarks on the historical congruence between Hegels descrip-

tion of the ethicality of the ministerial system and the reform of the old cabinet-
based system proposed by Karl Sigmund Franz Freiherr vom Stein zu Altenstein
(17701840) (Hegel 1991: 467 editorial notes to PR 288 and 289).
porations relationship to wealth. The civil service must self-alienate that

aspect bound up with its very condition for ethicality. Because of this mo-
ment of self-alienation, the potential for this pernicious solidarity is always
presentjust as divorce and wealth-seeking are for the other moments. So,
on the other hand, the prevention of any pathologies within the civil ser-
vice also falls to external institutions: those communities and corporations
whose own ethical interests and legal entitlement resist, from below, inap-
propriate actions on the part of the civil service; and, the institutions of
the executive and sovereign who can intervene from above (see PR 295
& A, 297).22
Despite these external constraints, the power of the civil service to
maintain itself according to the universal possibility of selfhood resides in
the internal structure of the civil service. Along with the corporation and
marriage, it shares the status of satisfying the rst dimension of an eth-
ical power.
2. Mutual Exclusivity. Selfhood requires not only an institution capable

of internally stabilizing the chosen relation between subject and world,
but also one that excludes anything ethically foreign to it. Each possibil-
ity of the self must live exclusively within its own compass and so each
ethical power must be capable of excluding the other relationships of
selfhood.
Here we are speaking only of logical relations, not the activities through
which they concretely articulate themselves. For example: the universal
relation that denes the selfhood of the civil servant only ought to ex-
clude the simultaneous denition of that civil servant in terms of subjec-
tive and substantive relations. It does not exclude his or her avocational
participation in activities associated with these other principles. The civil
servant may, of course, marry; the civil servant may, of course, operate a
business on the weekends or evenings. But the civil service shows itself to
be an ethical institution only when it can exclude these logical relations
from being constitutive of what it is to be a civil servant.
In what way do we nd this logical exclusivity in Hegels account of mar-
riage, the corporation, and the civil service?
Marriage makes the substantive possibility of selfhood the exclusive re-
lationship between the married subject and community. On the side of
22 Carl Shaw identies the problem of an excessive division of labour within

the bureaucracy along with what he calls the problem of accountability (i.e.,
the problem of excessive solidarity) (1992: 382). Because Shaw wants to conceive
Hegels account of bureaucracy in terms compatible with liberalism, he is forced
to interpret the place of the bureaucracy only in terms of its outward function
within the state (i.e., applying the states universal norms to concrete situations
[e.g., ibid. 367]) rather than in terms of freedom and selfhood (ibid. 381).
the relation between marriage partners, this exclusivity articulates

itself as the ethicality of monogamy or what Hegel calls the mutual and
undivided surrender of atomic individuality (PR 167). The ab-
sence of monogamy has the same structure of divorce: the reassertion of
a subjectivity that ought to have surrender[ed] itself to this relationship
(PR 167). In this way, divorce becomes the truth of marital indelity.
On the side of the relation between the marriage partner and the world,
this self-limitation articulates itself as the necessary exclusion of the ethi-
cal relations and dispositions demanded by the corporation and the civil
service. The mutual exclusivity of these institutions of selfhood are best
brought to light through their different conceptions of common purpose
animating them. Property provides the initial key to these differences.
Marriage modies the requirement that property be both private and
a commodity, endlessly exchangeablesomething that arose with sub-
jectivitys ascendency as a principle in the world (see PR 6567, 90).23
In marriage property is transformed, along with the selshness of desire,
into care and acquisition for a communal purpose, i.e., into an ethical quality
(PR 170). The corporation also communalizes purpose, but only in so
far this communalization is a condition for the recognition of the subject
and the content of its ends. The familial boundaries of communal pur-
pose exclude corporatized relations but not the material objects on which
those relations operate.
At the same time, the marriage power also excludes the communal
purposes of the civil service because the marriage power cannot allow its
own common purpose to include the totality of the system as the civil
service must. To introduce the civil services universal perspective into the
marriage relation widens its roles. The substantive self would no longer
have a given set of obligations in which to live because its concerns would no
longer arise from the role of, e.g., a husband and father, but from the to-
tality of the system itself. Unlike a civil servant whose tasks are given by his
particular location within the civil service, the cosmopolitan husband and
father has nothing to x his duties. They would vary as his thought varies,
and so he would nd himself like a subjective self, pursuing whatever ends
he happens to hold at the moment.
We know already that the corporate common purpose destroys the uni-
versality of the civil service through intra-group solidarity. By implication,
we know that familial obligations narrow the role of the civil servant so that
a universal selfhood becomes impossible. Indeed, Hegel says that the life
of the civil servant is only possible when liberated from the particularistic
concerns of both civil society and familythe burden of family ties and
23 For an extensive discussion of the role, meaning, and necessity of family prop-
erty per se, see Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos 1989: 14854.
other private commitments (PR 296)can the civil service stand forth
in its exclusive principle and mode of freedom. Conversely, a call for true
universality in the corporation would undercut that particularistic con-
cern for the welfare of each trade and the subject who has chosen it. No
less than as we saw with substantive ends, the primacy of subjective ends
cannot be reconciled with their denial demanded by a universal perspec-
tive. The stable organization of the corporate relation would be returned
to its disorganized condition. The tradesperson would be forced back to
the pathological universality of wealth-seeking.
Despite Hegels developmental description of the family, civil soci-
ety, and the state, the mutual exclusivity of the marriage, corporate, and
civil service power shows that each is a logically independent moment.
Not only does each contain a possibility of selfhood not found in the oth-
ers, each ethical power secures its possibility of selfhood only by remaining
within its own internal boundaries. Even where their integration within
the totality of the system involves mutual interaction, these ethical powers
do not interpenetrate or balance one another. The totality of the system
only secures each moment from falling away from its nature. Systemic inte-
gration prevents each ethical power from intruding into ones not its own.
3. A Sphere of Life. As internally stabilizing and mutually exclusive ethical

powers, marriage, the corporation, and the civil service each help to cre-
ate the conditions necessary to secure one possibility of selfhood. Yet, in
order for the good to truly live within each possibility of selfhood, each self
cannot be limited to a particular activity. Each ethical power must expand
within its bounds to be a whole way of life. Each ethical relation between
the human spirit and community must be receptive to the full amplitude
of action that comprises ordinary human life.
The marriage powers internal stability and exclusivity not only secure
the substantive selfs concrete life in the marriage relation, it also brings
into being a whole system of relations: the family. The family becomes that
way of relating to property, to larger institutions, and to others that is con-
gruent with the substantive self. This familial way of life is not simply a for-
mal or abstract objectication. Its world is not merely one in thought (see
PR 178).
For Hegel, the marriage power engenders a world when the marriage
produces a child. Once present, the relation between marriage partners
becomes, in the children[,] an existence which has being for itself, and
an object which they love as their love and their substantial existence (PR
173). Now, Hegel speaks only of the birth of the child but there is no
need to restrict the childs ethical signicance by specifying how he or she
comes into the family. Adoption is ethically equal to birth. This point must
be made explicit because of the naturalness that clings to the family in his
developmental presentation. The ethicality of marriage is not determined

by the natural sexual differentiation of marriage partners, but in a funda-
mental subjective resolve. Therefore a natural inability to conceive a child
can in no way ethically prevents substantive selfhood from becoming a fully
concrete system of relations. To deny the adoption of a child into a mar-
riage relation is to attenuate the full life of the good by denying this selfs
full institutional life.
With a child, the marriage partners enter into a new relation; they be-
come parents. This relation is more concrete than marriage, for it does
not admit of divorce. The child sustains parents in a substantive relation-
ship even when they do become divorced. Moreover, the presence of the
child forces a substantive relation to property, requiring that the resources
of the family, which ought to be communal, are communal since the child
must be brought up and supported by them (PR 174). The presence of
the child forces the parents to relate to other institutionsschools, hos-
pitals, bureaucracy, and so onnot for the pursuit of subjective ends, but
from those substantive requirements give by father- and motherhood. And
the child, of course, transforms relations to others so that, as a self-chosen sub-
stantive self, the requirements of ones role as parent trumps or colours
non-substantive relations of friendship, business associates, and larger
public obligations. In this way, the marriage power engenders a sphere of
life for the substantive self, one that is, however, underinstitutionalized in
comparison to the corporation and civil service.
Unlike the marriage relation, both the corporation and the civil service
are inescapably social relations from the beginning. The tradespersons trade
and the civil servants task are not exhausted by the performance of the
activity itself. Rather the activity is but one element only of a wider rela-
tionship to the whole of the world. Hegel implicitly uses this condition of
being enmeshed in a wider set of relations to distinguish between a voca-
tion, which cultivates selfhood, and an avocation, which does not. He jux-
taposes the modern tradesperson and the day labourer, on the one hand,
and the modern civil servant and the knight errant, on the other. The day
labourer and the knight errant are agents whose services are discretion-
ary and arbitrary and who [are] prepared to perform an occasional con-
tingent service (PR 294A, 252A).
In contrast, [t]he civil servant is not employed, like an agent, to per-
form a single contingent task, but makes this relationship [to his perpetual
task, the task which animates his ofce] the main interest of his spiritual
and particular existence. Similarly, the trades person is a member of an
association not for occasional contingent gain, but for the whole range and
universality of his particular livelihood (PR 294A, 252A). In the civil
servant and the tradesperson the social nature of their relationship ows
from the institutionalized form of commitment to their task and trade.
These institutions constitute a system of relationships to property

and wealth, to the schedule of what is valued, and to the nature of individ-
ual interaction. In this way, the corporation engenders a little world, the
sphere of life Hegel calls civil society, and the civil service, that sphere of
life we have called the moment of the state.
Hegel comes close to explicitly acknowledging these three spheres
of life as the nature of ethical life. He notes that the civil service secures
for its members the satisfaction of substantiality and particularity (PR
294). He then refers the reader to his discussion (at PR 264) of how the
family and the corporation each do likewise. The result is to suggest that
the civil service stands alongside of the family and the corporation as the
fundamental, little worlds within the system of ethical life. Furthermore,
Hegel distinguishes between the organism of the state and the political
state, dening the former as the political state proper and its constitu-
tion (PR 267). In the three previous paragraphs this constitution [ ]
in the realm of particularity is nothing other than the institutions of the
family and civil society (PR 265, 263, 262). Combining these points,
Hegel implicitly tells us that the organism of the state equals the political
state plus the family plus civil society. In doing so, he provides support for
the argument presented here that the good articulates itself into three
stable and exclusive spheres of life: family, civil society, and the moment
of the state.
Hegel immediately begins to obscure this insight by speaking of the state
(as a system) as the ethical power. Nonetheless his concept of freedom as self-
hood has allowed us to see that marriage, the corporation, and the civil
service can be fully adequate to the nature of an ethical power by inter-
nally stabilizing, exclusively securing, and concretely articulating one in-
stitutional moment of the selfs logical possibilities. What is more, we have
shown how the relationship between the ethical institutions of family, civil
society, and the moment of the state can be grasped in a non-hierarchi-
cal way.
Yet, simply because each ethical power is stable, exclusive, and encom-
passing in its common purpose it is not thereby absolutely sovereign.
If each relation is a concrete moment of the life of the good then it must
secure the subjects fundamental end to its externally existing accomplish-
ment. Any harm to the subject is a harm to the good. As the concrete life
of the system, the state must ensure that subjectivity is secure by ensuring
that the subject is protected from harm. Harm in its most fundamental
sense means anything that denies the subject the possibility of selfhood,
including denying the possibility of claiming or reclaiming the moment
of subjectivity.
By applying this notion of harm to the sort of self secured by each ethi-
cal power we arrive at a very wide range of ethically impossible situations:
the denial of divorce, the existence of bonded labour, or slavery; the de-
nial of education to children; the use of any xed or nearly xed charac-
teristic (e.g., sexual orientation, sexual differentiation, ethnicity, religion,
and so on) to deny the possibility of marriage, a trade, or entry into public
service; and the iniction of psychological or physical damage such that
the individual human spirit cannot form those relationships to the com-
munity necessary for the process of freedom to live in his or her actions.
Violence and oppression within the marriage relation, corporation, or the
civil service are not to be condoned, because they occur within the privacy
of that power.
By itself, this emphasis on the institutional preservation and support of
the subjects in their search for selfhood provides an incomplete account
of Hegels idea of the good life. We have so far provided an account only
of how the world must concretely be in order to exist in a condition of in-
nite receptivity to subjectivitys fundamental ends. Selfhood is also a pro-
cess of subjective receptivity that takes the shape of a subjects experiential
education to a life as a self.
II. The Experiential Form of the Good Life
Although the Phenomenology of Spirit of 1806 is Hegels science of experi-

ence (PhG 38/ 36),24 it does not include an account of the modern
experience of the good. Rather, it is the ladder by which the philosoph-
ically unhappy consciousness25 can come to see how that modern experi-
ence should be properly grasped (PhG 29/ 26). What Hegel takes to be his
denitive account of the modern experience of ethical life is contained in
his Philosophy of Right of 1821 (PR Preface p. 11/9). In that work, the logical
structure of the experience of the good is set out in his initial account of
the free will (PR 410 and 2228). Yet, we arrive at the properly human
experiences of the good only in the nal part of the work, with Hegels in-
troduction to Ethical Life. There, he describes three groupings of experi-
ence: duty (PR 14849), virtue and rectitude (PR 150), and custom
and habit (PR 151). Following the pattern of all of his mature philoso-
phy, his implicit purpose is to show that these forms of self-consciousness
24 Between the Preface and the Introduction, the Phenomenology originally car-
ried the part-title Science of the Experience of Consciousness. Only after the
Preface was written did Hegel change it to Science of the Phenomenology of
Spirit. For a discussion of the reasons behind this change and why the original
part-title should have been retained along with the new, see H. S. Harris 1997: 11,
16365.
25 H. S. Harris 1997: 178.
are moments in the development of the experience of the good from its
least adequate form (in duty) to its most adequate (in habit).
A. Duty
Hegel tells us that when the good fully lives, ethical institutions are
not something alien to the subject. On the contrary, the subject bears spiritual
witness to them as to its own essence, in which it has its self-awareness and lives as
in its element which is not distinct from itselfa relationship which is imme-
diate and closer to identity than even faith or trust. (PR 147)
In the fullest experience of the living good, the experience of a relation-

ship itself disappears. Selfhood becomes rather [ ] that relationless
identity [ ] in which the ethical is the actual living principle of self-con-
sciousness (PR 147A). Yet, this relationless selfhood is not our rst self-
conscious experience of life within the community.26
Hegel begins his analysis of the experiential forms of the good by stat-
ing [a]ll these substantial determinations [i.e., the ethical institu-
tions] are duties which are binding on the will of the individual (PR
148). Unlike faith or trust, duty alone brings the structural needs of the
political community to the individual in the way demanded by selfhood.
Faith and trust may produce a feeling of being at home in the world, but
they do so by projecting the hope that the absolute power of the subject
and that of the community will articulate themselves in mutually bene-
cial ways. The absolute self-containedness, and therefore separation, of
subject and community remains. The experience of faith and trust can-
not liberate the individual from the condition of alienation in the way that
[t]he individual [ ] nds his liberation [Befreiung] in duty (PR 149).
On the one hand, he is liberated from his dependence on mere natural drives,
and from the burden he labours under as a particular subject in his moral re-
ections on obligation and desire; and on the other hand, he is liberated from
that indeterminate subjectivity which does not attain existence or the objective
determinacy of action, but remains within itself and has no actuality. In duty,
the individual liberates himself so as to attain substantial freedom. (PR 149)
26 Frederick Neuhousers otherwise solid analysis of the subjective side of free-

dom fails in the details because he interprets Hegels claim here to be that trust
is the shape of the subjective experience of the good. For that reason, he ignores
Hegels real account given by duty, virtue and rectitude, and custom and habit.
As a result, Neuhouser cannot provide any concrete content to the dispo-
sition of subjective freedomeven as he correctly sees that this attitude must be
something practical (2000: 10513).
In this passage, Hegel provides us with four examples of liberation.

Duty liberates us from dependence on natural drives and moral reection,
as well as indeterminate subjectivity. It also liberates us to substantial free-
dom, not in the sense of substantive selfhood secured by the marriage
power, but in a more generic sense of freedom that is not subjective and
merely inward.27 We can collapse these multiple senses of liberation into
just two.
The rst sense emerges out of the three examples of liberation em-
ployed above. Although Hegel divides the examples up (On the one
hand ; and on the other hand ), they are merely two modes of the
same liberation. Modes because in all three examples, duty liberates the
human spirit from a single condition: its tendency to see itself in terms of
absolute Selbstttigkeit and therefore as ontologically separate from the com-
munity. His examples merely show the various consequences of the inade-
quacy of subjectivity to the good. When the subject takes itself to be absolutely
self-originating and self-creating, it is left with nothing but a dependence
on natural drives, the burden of moral reection, and the fundamental in-
determinacy of a subjects life.
The second sense of liberation concludes the above cited paragraph: the
individual liberates himself so as to attain substantial freedom. We are al-
ready familiar with this sense from our analysis of Hegels early writings
and mature concept of freedom. By itself, the individual human spirit is
inadequate to the structure of the good. The empty, subjective assertion of
good only becomes something accomplished in relation to an externally
existing community. Obedience to the objective necessity of ethical insti-
tutions becomes a liberation to the freedom of selfhood. In this way duty is
the demand for the acquisition of afrmative freedom (PR 149Z).28
Obedience to duty aims to liberate the subject from its separation from
the community and to actualize the immanent unity of the self. Yet,
in so far as the good is experienced as duty, this separation has not
been overcome, the actualization has not occurred, and selfhood ap-
pears as an external system of compulsion. Neither apprehension
of the ethical nature of duty nor conscious obedience to it removes this
27 Allen Wood provides a good summary of the various ways that Hegel uses
the term substance: (1) to indicate that ethical life is rm and unshakeable;
(2) as a contrast with subjectivity, personality, or reective thought; and (3) as
a social substance to the accidents of those individuals who occupy places
within that substance (1990: 19697). Because of Woods separation of the meta-
physics of freedom from the experience of selfhood, he cannot see the substan-
tive self as a logical category rooted in the objective possibilities of selfhood.
28 This afrmative freedom is the freedom Jean-Jacques Rousseau is strug-
gling to grasp when he speaks of being forced to be free (see Social Contract,
Bk. I, ch. 7).
separation. At most, the conscious act of doing ones duty cancels the out-
ward struggle against freedom. Obedience to duty merely returns the sub-
ject to a condition in which freedomi.e., selfhoodis a real possibility
at hand. When, through duty, the subject no longer outwardly struggles
against freedom, the opportunity to be cultivated by objective institutions
exists. However, to fully take up that possibility of freedom made present
in duty, the condition of dutiful obedience must cease. The experience of
duty points beyond itself to a new practical orientation. Duty requires its
own cancellation.
B. Virtue and Rectitude
Hegel describes this new practical orientation in his immediately succeed-

ing account of virtue (Tugend) and rectitude (Rechtschaffenheit) (PR 150).
The experience of virtue introduces the moment of reciprocal recog-
nition missing from duty. As [t]he ethical, in so far as it is reected in the
naturally determined character of the individual as such (PR 150), vir-
tue becomes nothing but the individuals experience of being suit-
ableand being recognized as suchto the requirements of one of the
ethical powers. Virtue is how the immanent possibility of the unity of sub-
jectivity and objectivity makes itself present in the isolated human spirit.
It is the real receptivity of this subject to that object, the existing suitabil-
ity of this particular individual human spirit to the possibility of selfhood.
Where duty was the destruction of the natural experience that equates
the good with pure internal impulse, virtue, then, is its recovery and ed-
ucation. Unlike the attitude of the natural will of the isolated individual
(PR 1121), the attitude of virtue will not accept just any natural im-
pulse that occurs. Rather, the virtuous individual cultivates and selects only
those impulses that his insight deems naturally congruent with the ethical
demands of the community.
Because virtue is the mere natural suitability of the human spirit to self-
hood in general, the experience of virtue is something formal. On the
one hand, the alienation of subject and substance still remains. The sub-
ject may now be equal to the demands of the community, but not in such a
way that the latter becomes the end towards which the virtuous individual
strives. That end remains internal to the individual. On the other hand,
this mutual suitability of subject and substance is empty. In virtue the re-
ected ethical is made real in the world only through the individuals
own capacities. Virtue is merely the potential success of selfhoods actual-
ization in the life of this or that human spirit. Therefore there can be no
guarantee that the results of virtuous activity will be adequate to that good
demanded by the ethical community. If virtue is not to show accidently
that it is something harmful to the community, it must then remain a mere

suitability, a capacity never actualized. As an experience of the good, virtue
becomes the province of the beautiful soul (see PhG 491/ 668).29
Within the modern political community, the emptiness of virtue is
preparatory to a more complete experience of the good. Hegel supplies
this experience by appending to his denition of virtue the concept of
rectitude: and in so far as virtue represents [zeigt] nothing more than
the simple adequacy of the individual to the duties of the circumstances
[Verhltnisse] to which he belongs, it is rectitude (PR 150). Despite the
appearance that rectitude is the culminating virtue within Hegels po-
litical philosophy,30 it does nothing more than correct the problem of
virtues emptiness without overcoming its alienating core. The emptiness
of his notion of virtue helps us understand its relation to the experience
of rectitude.
As virtues proximate corrective, rectitude transforms the individu-
als inward suitability into the condition of being outwardly equal to the
ethical demands of his practical activity. Rectitude is the universal quality
which may be required of him partly by right and partly by custom31 [sitt-
lich], but it is a universal quality that is neither abstract nor empty.32
29 Andrew Buchwalter attempts to show how Hegel reconstructs the Greek

concept [of virtue] so as to accommodate the realities of modern social life
(1992: 549). And he clearly brings out the way in which Hegels understanding of
virtue attempts to resuscitate the ancient notion that is coincident with norms
and duties (ibid. 55152). Because Buchwalter does not attend to the place of
virtue within the moments of the experience of the good that run from duty to
habit, he can then simply reject Hegels discussion of virtue as inadequate to
the modern experience. He is quite right that Hegels denition of virtue is inad-
equate, not because it requires some ancient immediate identity of individual and
community, but because this immediate identity (now properly grasped as the
properly ethically subjective experience of natural suitability) is only one moment
in the development of the modern individuals fully adequate subjective experi-
ence of unity with the community.
30 E.g., Adriaan Peperzak 2001: 39596.
31 H. B. Nisbet (Hegel 1991) translates sittlich as ethics here; T.M. Knox
(Hegel 1967) translates it as custom, and the latter is more accurate. The pair-
ing of right and custom is a pairing of form (the abstract conditions of free-
dom) and content (the particular and contingent way these conditions have
received their concrete content), whereas right and ethics seems to overly
stress the abstractness of the demand for particular conformity involved in recti-
tude. For a brief discussion of the problem of translating Sitte and Sittlichkeit, espe-
cially in contrast to Moralitt, see Allen Wood 1990: 19596.
32 As Merold Westphal points out, English loses etymological linkages which
are visible and audible in German between universality (Allgemeinheit) [and] com-
Individuals cannot be equal to the duties of [their] circumstances unless

they prove themselves so by acting on them. As the actualization of the ex-
perience of virtue, rectitudes ethical demands become the concrete de-
tails of those circumstances. When one of the possibilities of the self
is taken up, the subject takes up a particular form of relationship to the
community, one governed by an ethical power. But for the latter truly to
be the power of our power and spirit of our spirit that relation must be
even further particularized. The human spirit is not governed just by the
ethical power but by the specic place that falls to him or her within the
institution that power engenders. Selfhood only fully lives in its particular
role, trade, or task. Rectitude is the specic and mutual suitability of this
individual human spirit to the role, trade, or task in which his or her life
is actually lived. As a result virtue becomes, in rectitude, the virtuesi.e.,
[t]he different aspects of rectitude (PR 150A).33 Where the experience of
virtue leaves the human spirit at home with the good only as the possibil-
ity of an ethical life, with the experience of rectitude, the human spirit is
at home with the good as an actual life.34
Nonetheless, the modern experience of virtue, rectitude, and the vir-
tues are only properties of the individual [Individuum] human spirit.
For this reason, just as with duty and virtue, rectitude points beyond it-
self. Whereas duty pointed to the need to make the good something natu-
ral to the individual, and virtue to the need for a concrete guarantee that
this naturalness is good, rectitude points to the need to transform the
subjects ethical nature itself. Up until rectitude this nature involved the
positing of a particular content then tted to the ethical circumstances. Now
it must be transformed so that it has an ethical form prior to any particular
content. In other words, to be a self, the subject must be educated not just
munity (Gemeinschaft). Since Hegel takes these linkages very seriously, true univer-
sality never signies for him abstract similarity but always concrete participation
in some totality (1984: 287 n. 19).
33 E.g., the qualities of dispassionateness, integrity, and polite behaviour ap-
propriate to rectitude in the civil servant (PR 296).
34 Andrew Buchwalters discussion of rectitude suffers from the same defect
as his discussion of virtue: he correctly identies rectitude as an inadequate can-
didate for the civic virtue (his term for the living unity of individual and com-
munity), but does not see that this inadequacy really marks one moment of the
education of the human spirit to selfhood (or one moment of the actualization
of civic virtue). He implicitly points to this condition when he notes that recti-
tude remains rst and foremost an ethic of external obligation; it need not pres-
ent public sentiment as personal disposition (1992: 55859). However, because
Buchwalter then confuses habit and custom with rectitude (see the equation of
Standesehre and rectitude, ibid. 560) he misses how Hegel truly meets the goal of
allowing individuals to nd themselves in the community through a personal dis-
position that nonetheless respects the modern fact of individualism.
to the role, trade, or task, but to an ethical disposition (PR 257) that an-
imates those activities. Rectitude is not this disposition itself, only the pos-
sibility of its attainment.
C. Custom and Habit
Hegel provides this completing experience of the good in his immedi-

ately succeeding, and exceedingly brief, discussion of custom (Sitte) and
habit (Gewohnheit) (PR 151 & Z). Indeed, his account is restricted to a
single sentence:
But if it is simply identical with the actuality of individuals, the ethical, as their
general mode of behaviour, appears as custom; and the habit of the ethical ap-
pears as a second nature which takes the place of the original and purely natu-
ral will and is the all pervading soul, signicance, and actuality of individual
existence. (PR 151)
In the above passage and its following three paragraphs, Hegel spares little
expense conveying that here alone exists the full experience of the good.
He tells us that with these experiences the ethical is simply identical with
the actuality of individuals (PR 151); the self-will of the individual, and
his own conscience in its attempt to exist for itself and in opposition to
the ethical substantiality, have disappeared (PR 152). This relationless
identity exists in such a way that the ethical character knows that the end
which moves it is contained in the political community (PR 153); and
the right of individuals to both their subjective determination to freedom and
their particularity is fullled (PR 154). In other words, Hegel makes
it clear that the movement of the experiential forms of the good comes to
rest in custom and habit.35
What he fails to tell us explicitly is how the experience of custom and
habit are adequate to ethical life. Read in isolation, his denition of each
is insufcient to answer the question. However, read in light of the move-
ment from duty through rectitude, custom and habit show themselves to
recollect and integrate the otherwise inadequate qualities of the previous
experiences of the good.
As a general mode of behaviour, the modern experience of custom rec-
ollects and integrates both dutys denaturalized, universal subject (a
subject who is inconsequential to the good) and virtues subject (whose
35 Adriaan Peperzak rightly interprets custom and habit as the nature of vir-
tue and rectitude (2001: 398). But he does not see that this nature is only inwardly
possessed by the latter, and so does not see that the former are in fact two distinct
experiential forms of the good.
particular character is immediately suitable to the good). Custom does so

in two ways. First, an individuals cultivation to customs immediate exis-
tence is his cultivation out of an immediate existence in nature (see PR
257). Because custom exists only as a general orientation to the world,
this customary nature does not stand opposed to the subjects given par-
ticularity. In custom, the subject simply stands forth as something univer-
salized: a member of a community. Custom has taken dutys universality
and made it actual or concrete as a set of common resources and abil-
itiese.g., a shared language, set of social behaviours, stock of symbols,
and so on. Second, in this way custom preserves virtues suitability of the
subject to the good, but no longer as something merely inward, for cus-
toms concrete universality secures for the human spirit a living receptiv-
ity to the totality of the system. The beautiful souls unactualized asser-
tionthat the internal resources to be at home with the good are present
within itis transformed by custom into the actually existing linguis-
tic, behavioural, and cultural forms in which action and thought occur.
For Hegel, the experience of custom is the proof of the suitability of these
resources to the good, because they are already in the form the commu-
nity requires.
Custom becomes the living structure of the self prior to subjective self-
determination. But as the universal form of life activity, custom is not yet a
second nature. Like the experiences of the good before it, custom re-
quires completionnot, however, through a transformation in its form,
but through the acquisition of a living content. This completing acqui-
sition occurs when customs immediate existence of the possibility of
being at home with the good becomes habits mediate existence in the
self-consciousness of the individual (PR 257). This habitual form of self-
consciousness is present in the individuals knowledge and activity as a
disposition and the state [as a system] as its essence, its end, and the
product of its activity (PR 257).36
Habit transforms custom into something fully living by recollecting
from the previous experiences of the good what custom could not. Habit
recovers dutys unfullled goal: that knowledge of the good ought not
only be available everywhere, but also lived everywhere as practical activ-
ity. And it does so by taking customs abstract actualization of dutys knowl-
edge and binding it to rectitudes immediate adequacy of individuals
to the demands of their self-chosen way of life. The result: in habit, custom
is given particular content and the experience of rectitude is transformed.
The contingent correspondence of the individuals natural characteristics
to specic circumstances is replaced by a relationship fully grounded in
a knowing disposition. Unlike rectitude, this habitual knowledge is wider
36 Cf. Andrew Buchwalters reading of habit as unreective (1992: 569).

than the particular circumstances without ceasing to acknowledge the eth-

ical demands found there. What habit grasps is the inner logic animating
the ethical circumstances in their particularity. As a second nature, habit
is the political communitys enduring ethical principles present as the in-
dividuals enduring orientation. The deepest needs or impulses of a life
lived in the habitual experience of the good are necessarily identical with
the deepest ethical impulses of the world.
Although this habitual experience of the good outwardly recalls
Hegels account of the immediate identication with the ethical commu-
nity in the pre-philosophic Greek polis (see PhG 32742/ 44463), here
it has a uniquely modern form. His concept of ethical habit may return
to the Greek and especially Platonic ideal of the immediate unity of indi-
vidual and community,37 but only by recollecting the form of knowledge
present in modern duty and the dignity of the subject present in modern
rectitude. In this way, habit in the Philosophy of Right is a much more ro-
bust experience of the good than either habits common meaning or its
ancient afnities rst imply. As a form of practical knowledge freely cul-
tivated and spontaneously proved within the modern ethical community,
the experience of habit leaves us at home with the good. It also demands
that we accept the political communitys conventional shape as the hori-
zon of the full experience of the good. As a way of knowing, habit involves
an awareness that ones animating end is grounded in the system of free-
dom. In ethical habit, this animating end is not the undifferentiated or im-
mediate spirit as it is in custom but spirit in its particular ethical articula-
tion. Habit actualizes the particular suitability to a role, trade, or task that
rectitude carries with it. Habit becomes that specic enduring disposition
that unies the human spirit within its chosen role, trade, or task.38
III. The Living Instances of the Good Life
We have followed Hegels account of the subjective side of freedom from

the oppositional form of duty to the potentiality of freedom in virtue
and rectitude to the living form of the human spirits freedom in custom
and the ethical disposition of habit. Yet we do not know habits content.
Without knowing how habit appears as the knowledge, activity, and end of
37 Adriaan Peperzak 2001: 395, 399402.

38 While Frederick Neuhouser understands trust, and not habit, as the dispo-
sition through which freedom lives, he does see that freedom is always practical
freedom and that this practical freedom rests on practical identities (what we
have called the possibilities of selfhood) that are derived from particular
roles they occupy within them in a way that is more than mere socialization
(2000: 11011, 106109, 9394, 9697).
the individual human spirit the exact meaning of Hegels idea of the good
life remains obscure. Since nowhere does he explicitly state the shape of
the habitual experience of the good, it is necessary to reconstruct the liv-
ing shape of the good. First, however, two alternativesphilosophy and patri-
otismsuggested by Hegels texts will be considered.
A. The Inadequacy of Philosophy as the Good Life
The entirety of Hegels mature work aims to show that philosophy alone
provides the actual cognition of what truly is (PhG 68/ 73). In what is
perhaps the most famous sentence in Hegel,39 he tells us [t]he True is
the whole (PhG 24/ 20), and this whole is spirit. While art and religion
provide alternative ways of grasping and representing the whole, only the
philosophic concept can truly nd the inner pulse [of the world], and
detect its continued beat even within the external shapes (PR Preface p.
25/21). The comprehension of spirit requires a rigour that only philoso-
phy can supply.
Because knowledge of the good is inseparably a condition of being at
home with it, philosophy indeed suggests itself as ethical habits concrete
shape. As something practical, the individuals ethically habitual ac-
tion would then be required to ow directly from philosophic contempla-
tion and systemic exposition. Yet exactly at this point philosophy is inade-
quate to the living union of individual and community. As the inner pulse
is nothing other than a system of relations in its necessity, philosophy itself
produces no concrete content from which an individuals plans and proj-
ects might be formed. Philosophy itself cannot tell the individual how to
concretely live and still remain philosophyas Hegels critique of Plato and
Fichte reveals (PR Preface p. 25/21).40 Philosophys logical dance can
never determine our commitment to action.41
39 H. S. Harris 1997: 58.

40 For an insightful discussion of the bounds of philosophic instruction, see
H. S. Harris 1995a: 319.
41 H. S. Harris rightly draws our attention to a difference between the instruc-
tion given by Plato and that given by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Harris says that, of
Hegels critique of Plato, if we are good Hegelians we ought not to agree with
him because Platos instructions deal with what the philosopher must be prop-
erly concerned about: that the child be cultivated in a way that allows the ideal of
the community to be actualized. Fichte, however, is concerned only about a
strictly empirical problem (fraud) which presupposes that the ideal to be actu-
alized is already adequately dened (1995a: 319). Harris identies this commu-
nity with the family as a natural community of love, but this concern for
the cultivation of subjectivity applies to more than just the family (as Harris him-
In alone demonstrating the necessity of the system of practical rela-

tions and roles, philosophy reveals that the fullest experience of the good
is present as that actual union of world and human action which Hegel
calls modern ethical habit. While philosophy cannot be a way of life in
the way classically conceived at least within the modern state it
does point the way back, beyond itself, to the ways of life found in the po-
litical community. The modern philosopher must do what the ancients
themselves intuited in order to live the good that he perceives. He must
enter into the community and take up some role within its institutional
life.42 Philosophys ultimate practical service is to lead the way back to the
self sees [ibid. 31314]) since this cultivation is one-side of the very process of the
good itself and the good articulates itself equally in all fully ethical institutions.
42 E.g., in Plato, see Socrates insistence that the philosopher return to the
cave (Republic 519a521c) and his choice to die in his city rather than escape to
a different customary life (Crito 50a54e). Even were Socrates to escape, his task
would be to found a city within which philosophy would be safe (Laws, Bks. X
XII; Thomas Pangle 1988: 503510). Steven Smith adopts this ancient intuition of
unity with the good, but without adopting its modern completion in habit when
he says While Hegels belief in the esoteric function of philosophy prevented
him from thinking that his words would ever become popular, he could reason-
ably expect that they might prepare for the kind of world where both philoso-
phers and laymen could live in mutual peace and respect (1989: 140).
Michael Hardimon and, to a lesser extent, Alan Patten adopt a similar po-
sition to Smith in that only philosophy has a privileged place in unifying the hu-
man spirit with the good. However, Hardimon also sees that different forms of
this unity are possible for the unreective through the central institutions of
ethical life (1994: 12931, 136). Although he implies that philosophy allows one
to take guidance from the institutions of the ethical world, and that those insti-
tutions are necessary for social individuality, he does not fully follow the implica-
tion of these insights (see ibid. 13233, 14041, 155). Patten emphasizes both the
need for a rationally reective consciousness and the ambiguity of this conscious-
ness being a specically philosophic one. In this regard, he quite rightly points
out the unifying power of both art and religion (1999: 5758, 6062, 39). Unlike
Hardimon, Patten sees this reective need to exist within social roles. Here Patten
is correct, but we will see below that this reectiveness is not an abstract capacity
that is then applied to the social role but rather develops out of habit and the so-
cial position itself. Alexandre Kojve provides perhaps the strongest account of the
place of philosophic contemplationor more properly, philosophy attained: wis-
domas the good life. However, he can only give this absolutely privileged place
to philosophy by, on the one hand, radically separating the good from the human
spirit (so that it something that can be contemplated and does not need more than
housekeeping to maintain [see Tom Darby 1990: 165 for use and origins of this
phrase]) and, on the other hand, by making the good essentially identical with
the Wise-mans subjective apprehension of it so that one only needs recognition
conventional life or dance of our political community by revealing the

rational rose in the cross of the present. In this reconciliation with ac-
tuality we will come to delight in, rather than attempt to overleap, the
world in which we nd ourselves (PR Preface pp. 2527/2122).43
In order to live the good that he or she perceives, the philosopher must
take up one possibility of the self. She must concretely relate to the world
and act within it and so take up a role, trade, or task. It is this role, trade,
or task that provides the proximate community of ends through which the
philosopher participates in freedom. In securing the necessity of these
non-philosophic ends, philosophy points beyond itself. Philosophy shows
that the good concretely lives in other than in philosophy.
Once the philosopher conducts his logical dance and is brought to the
actual dance of ethically habitual life, philosophy no longer has a neces-
sary role to play in the experience of the good, even as a companion to or-
dinary life.44 In his youth, Hegel had sought such a companion that could
go along with them amicably everywhere (TE 26), permitting each to be
like Socrates, who maintained, without either repugnance or damage to
his wisdom, his status as husband and father (modied; BF 3334). Within
his mature thought, Hegels political philosophy makes the metaphysical
from other isolated human spirits for conrmation of the truth, not activity in the
world (Kojve 1969: ch. 4).
Frederick Neuhousers position comes closest to our own when he notes that
not all members of the community need be philosophers in order for practical
freedom to nd its full expression (2000: 246). In Aristotle, see his famous state-
ment that a man, with no polis through nature, is either a mean sort or supe-
rior to mani.e., such a man either must have no need to be sustained within
the concrete good or he must be incapable of it (Politics, Bk. I ch. 2, 1253a15; see
also Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. X ch. 8, 1178b510).
43 On Hegels transformation of Here is Rhodes, jump here to Here is the
rose, dance here see H. S. Harris 1995a: 313.
44 Stephen Houlgate captures this role for philosophic consciousness:
Furthermore, its theoretical understanding does not just stand over and con-
trol its practical activity; it informs practical activity itself as the habit of mind ex-
pressed in practical activity (1995: 85981). So, theoretical activity belongs to that
practical activity that allows for the fully developed human spirit (ibid. 861) even
as that practical activity (habit) then has a qualitatively different character.
For variations on this insight see Michael Hardimon 1994: 32 33, 140 41,
155, and Alan Patten 1999: 39, 5758, 6062.
Will Dudley provides perhaps the strongest account of why philosophy
alone is sufcient for freedom so that [w]hat is needed here, then, is not yet an-
other interpretation of the Philosophy of Right, but, rather, a reminder and an ex-
planation of the fact that the Philosophy of Right is only one third of Hegels philos-
ophy of spirit, and of Hegels claim that art, religion, and especially philosophy,
are themselves liberating (2000: 69396, 697).
claim that in the modern political community the good can be universally
open to subjective recognition. When philosophy becomes the necessary
companion to the habitual nature of self-consciousness, it contradicts this
claim, for philosophy is only for those who have received the inner call to
comprehend (PR Preface p. 27/22). The bar is set too high to allow all
members of the political community capable of subjectivity to pass over of
their own accord into the interest of the universal (PR 360). Philosophy
remains the ultimate cognitive guarantee of the ethicality of hab-
its dance with the good. But, if we have not received this innerand
therefore arbitrarycall to philosophic comprehension, our second na-
ture is not lost to us. Philosophy is neither the only way by which we come
to be at home with the good nor the only shape of self-consciousness that
keeps us there. Hegel provides other, more practical, avenues to the expe-
rience of the good than philosophy or even religion or art.45
B. The Customary Good Life: Patriotism
If philosophy only points the way back to the practical nature of freedom,
then what Hegel calls [t]he political disposition, i.e., patriotism in general
(PR 268) seems to provide everything the full experience of the good re-
quires. Through the practical interaction of individual and institution, pa-
triotism cultivates a volition which has become habitual [Gewohnheit] (PR
268). Patriotisms habitual volition consists of the consciousness that my
substantial and particular interest is preserved and contained in the in-
terest and end of another (in this case, the state), and in the latters rela-
tion to me as an individual. As a result, this other immediately ceases to be
an other for me, and in my consciousness of this, I am free (PR 268).
As with philosophy, patriotism is knowledge of the whole or spirit. But,
unlike philosophys logical dance, patriotism contains this knowledge in
the shape of the experience that takes the entirety of our particular polit-
ical communitys content (the state) to be what is most mine.46 By remov-
ing the need to grasp the logical kernel behind the contingent shape of
our world, patriotism lowers the demands of knowledge. It requires no in-
ner call. For this reason, patriotism can be every citizens enduring orien-
tation to his political communityi.e., that disposition which, in the nor-
mal [gewhnlichen] conditions and circumstances of life, habitually knows
[zu wissen gewohnt ist] that the community is the substantial basis and end
45 See also Michael Hardimon 1994: 129 31, 136; Frederick Neuhouser
2000: 246.
46 The relationship between philosophy and patriotism, or philosophy and
the political community in general, recalls Platos introduction of philosophy in
the Republic through the image of the guard dog (Bk. II, 375d376c).
(PR 268A). As such, patriotism consists in a practical wisdom47 avail-

able to all in a way according with the absolute right of subjectivity to enter
into the experience of the good.
Again, as with philosophy, patriotism demands nothing more than
spirit know itself as spirit (PR 274). But it also suffers from philosophys
defect: patriotism is not practical enough. Patriotism may be tried and
tested in all circumstances of ordinary life (PR 268A), but it still does
not tell us how to fashion an individual way of life. Patriotism is too gen-
eral or universal. First, it is formally universal: patriotism is the lived knowl-
edge of spirits rationality; it is the experience of the systems coordina-
tion and integration of all the determinate spheres of life. However, this
experience is empty of content and cannot demand any specic action,
let alone extraordinary sacrices and actions (PR 268A). Without con-
tent, this end means nothing more than our recognition that the system
is objectively present as the law which permeates all relations within it and
also the customs and consciousness of the individuals who belong to it.
Second, patriotism is empirically universal by being capable of being ev-
ery citizens enduring orientation to all circumstances of ordinary
life (PR 268A). Now, the totality of the circumstances of ordinary life
can be nothing other than the institutional spheres of ethical life. There,
the true trying and testing of patriotism consists in the maintenance of the
human spirits substantial basis in the system in the face of the satisfaction
of its particular interest.
Patriotism simply preserves the individual (philosopher or not) in the
whole of the normal conditions and circumstances of life. For this rea-
son, the practical universality (Allgemeinheit) of patriotism reminds us
more strongly of the general [allgemeine] mode of behaviour uniquely de-
ning custom, than it does of habit. If we set aside the linguistic afnities
between the ordinary (Gewhnlich) and habit (Gewohnt) that Hegel wishes
to emphasize here, and instead concentrate on the conceptual afnities,
then patriotism is better seen as the shape of custom.48 Nonetheless, these
47 See Andrew Buchwalter 1992: 563.

48 Andrew Buchwalter similarly understands patriotism to fulll the goals
of unifying the individual and the community. Patriotism, for him, completely
exhausts this living unity: patriotism is the content of civic virtue (1992: 563).
However, Buchwalter does not make it clear how patriotism can be the whole of
civic virtue. On the one hand, he correctly sees that the specicity of Hegels
concept of civic virtue can be appreciated by contrasting it to rectitude (ibid.
563). On the other hand, he also correctly notes that individuals [must] work to
establish and maintain the viability of such institutions as make up the fully ethi-
cal state (ibid. 562). In other words, Buchwalter himself demands an even greater
specicity to civic virtue than patriotism can supply.
Alexander Kaufman provides a very good analysis of how patriotism, taken
linguistic afnities also indicate something true. As the shape of custom,

patriotism should then nd its completion in habit. Hegel implies just
such a completion by stating that this political disposition take[s] its par-
ticularly determined content from the various aspects of the organism of
the state (PR 269; see also 268). When patriotism does take its content
from the system of ethical institutions patriotism is transformed into ethi-
cal habit, or, more accurately, patriotism remains as the customary context
in which this newly acquired ethical habit can now live.
The movement from the custom of patriotism to its completion through
a particularly determined content shows that the search for a single habit
in which the experience of the good lives must be replaced by a search
for the multiplicity of habits corresponding to this multiplicity of ethical
institutions.49
C. The Ethical Habits of the Good Life
The good life requires a concrete relationship between subject and com-
munity that neither philosophy nor patriotism can furnish. Freedom takes
its concrete shape from the subjects resolve to be cultivated by the world.
It is present only in the circumstances of ordinary life understood as the
little ethical worlds and their corresponding habits engendered and main-
as trust, fullls Hegels requirement that individuals identify with the community
in a reective way that nonetheless permits individuals to pursue their own ra-
tional interests. In identifying patriotism as an instance of weak identication
(i.e., identication with the ethical substance of the community in terms of its
fundamental principles, not the community as a whole [see 1997: 807]), he sup-
ports our interpretation of patriotism as the content of custom. Like Buchwalter,
Kaufman foreshadows the need to further concretize this customary identi-
cation with the community when he notes that [i]f individuals are to trust their
institutions in this fashion [i.e., patriotisms weak identication], then some me-
diation is necessary to integrate the states universalistic standpoint and the peo-
ple and their division into different spheres (PR, sec. 302, 342) (ibid. 816).
For a similar account of the reective aspect of patriotism see Rupert Gordon
2000: 301305. Gordons account differs from Kaufmans and Buchwalters by link-
ing this reectiveness to Aristotelian phronsis. For a slightly more detailed ac-
count of the basis for such a link (in the context of Hegels concept of bureau-
cratic activity) see Carl Shaw 1992.
49 Both Andrew Buchwalter and Alexander Kaufman foreshadow this partic-
ularization of the experience of the good when they note the need for individu-
als to reproduce their particular institutional circumstances. See Buchwalter
1992: 562, 563 and Kaufman 1997: 816. But cf. Robert Williams, who correctly
identies the animating principle of Hegels ethical thought as unity with an
other (what we call here being at home in the world), but understands that its
experience is contained solely in love (Williams 1997: 129).
tained by the ethical powers of marriage, the corporation, and the civil ser-
vice. To reveal the shape of each ethical habit is to examine the process of
cultivation effected by each of the ethical powers.
Of the cultivations of subject to self brought about by the ethical pow-
ers, the one that occurs within marriage is both easiest to identify and the
most transformative. The moment of cultivation begins with the act of
marriage in which substance (the institution of marriage) and subject (the
decision to marry) are united. Unlike the other spheres of life, this deci-
sion to become a self is not mediated through aptitude, skill, or other ob-
jective measures of individual suitability to substantive selfhood. When ob-
jective measures are applied they concern the objective characteristics of
one partner in relation to the other: age, propinquity, and sex (see PR
168, A, & Z). If these characteristics are unsuitable, marriage is still possi-
ble, although it requires a new marriage partner. So, the marriage power
begins with the absolutely uncultivated subjective desire to marry. It must
transform this desirewhether the resolve is rooted in well-intentioned
parents at one extreme or the mutual inclination of the two persons at
the other (PR 162A)through the mediation of the institution of mar-
riage in order to remake what is by nature contingent into something ethi-
cally necessary: substantive selfhood.
Hegel describes the results of this cultivated transformation as one in
which, in self-consciousness, the union of the natural sexes, which was
merely inward (or had being only in itself) and whose existence was for
this very reason merely external, is transformed into a spiritual union, into
self-conscious love (PR 161). Thus self-conscious love is the habit of
marriage.
Hegel mentions the union of the natural sexes and this qualication
would seem to limit the applicability of the marriage habit. However, we
have already seen that Hegels concept of freedom does not ethically per-
mit the moment of self-cultivation to be limited by any enduring nat-
ural limitation. Natural sexual differentiation stands outside of subjectiv-
ity. Therefore it can only impinge in a purely external way on the subjects
right to selfhood. The cultivation of a subject to the habit of love cannot
be restricted. It must be available to all. In this way, the habit of love is con-
gruent with the goods demand for receptivity.
Feelings, orientations, or other affective dimensions can colour the re-
lationship between the subject and its world. Like the habit of love, these
colourings may emerge in the subject through its interaction with an in-
stitution. But unlike the habit of love, these colourings do not educate and
transform subjective caprice. Only the habitual disposition of love can
stand out as indissoluble in itself and exalted above the contingency of
the passions and of particular transient caprice (PR 163) because this
self-conscious love ows not from subjective feeling, from the caprice of
emotion, but from the necessary requirements of sustaining the substan-

tive relation of the self to the world. In this way, for Hegel, a serious error
is made when we equate marriage with love; for love, as a feeling, is open
in all respects to contingency, and this is a shape which the ethical may not
assume. Marriage should therefore be dened more precisely as rightfully
ethical love, so that the transient, capricious, and purely subjective aspects
of love are excluded from it (PR 161Z).
[R]ightfully ethical love shows itself to be the complete nature of the
substantive self because it is that disposition which endures through and
sustains all familial roles. Through it the family itself can be maintained
in spite of the natural transformation of roles that occurs, e.g., as son be-
comes father and father becomes grandfather. When love exalts the sub-
stantial factor [ ] above the contingency of the passions and of particu-
lar transient caprice (PR 163) it removes the basis for the acceptance or
rejection of any given role. From the standpoint of rightly ethical love, it is
not possible to say I reject being a father because my decision was only to
be a husband or I reject being a grandfather because my decision was only
to be a father. In this way, rightfully ethical love is the living, practical unity
of subject and substance, the moment of the good life in its substantive ar-
ticulation as a stable, abiding self.50
The process of cultivation dominates Hegels discussion of civil soci-
ety. There the economic pursuit of subjective endswith its free play
of caprice in all its range and in all directions (see PR 18485)must
be transformed by concrete institutions (see PR 182). In Hegels words,
[t]he selsh end in its actualization, [must be] conditioned [ ] by the
universal (PR 183). The proper universal is the corporation whose
ultimate ethical task is to educate capricious desire to a desire that can
sustain subjective selfhood. Even without the corporation, i.e., in disor-
ganized civil society, some level of education occurs simply as a product
of the individual act of pursuing subjective ends. Through their uncoor-
dinated actions, individuals will establis[h] a system of all-round interde-
pendence that forces them to make themselves links in the chain of this
continuum (PR 183, 187 & A, 199). However, in organized or cor-
poratized civil society cultivation can be explicitly rational and the merely
formal freedom and formal universality of knowledge and volition (PR 187)
can take on that concrete content which transforms it into a fully ethical
disposition or habit.
Now, Hegels own account of the nature of this habit is problematic for
50 See Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos for an account of the

place of love within the family that is similar to our own with the exception that theirs
is grounded in Hegels Science of Logic and the categorical form of the syllogism
instead of the practical requirements of the concept of freedom (1999: 12122).
the interpretation offered here, which is centred on the corporation as

the ethical moment of civil society.
The ethical disposition within this system [of needs or interdependence]

is therefore that of rectitude and the honour of ones estate, so that each individ-
ual, 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
himself in this capacity; and only through this mediation with the universal
does he simultaneously provide for himself and gain recognition in his own eyes
and in the eyes of others. (PR 207)
By calling the ethical habit of subjective selfhood rectitude and the honour
of ones estate he inverts our claim that habit is the truth of rectitude. Also,
by dening this habit in terms of the estates Hegel forces us to engage this
institutional moment that we avoided when setting out the ethical powers
comprising the system of freedom.
If the corporation is the ethical power of civil society then the con-
tent of ethical habit should correspond to the requirements of a trade.
It should not correspond to what Hegel calls the particular spheres
of need (PR 207), for these spheres of need are concretized in the sub-
stantial, formal, and universal differentiation of civil society into es-
tates. As such, these spheres of need appear to reproduce within civil so-
ciety those very spheres of life (the familial and the civil service) that we
have argued do not ethically belong to civil society. Moreover, to honour
ones estate is to exclude honouring the other estates because each estate
logically excludes the others in a way directly analogous to the exclusivity
of the ethical powers. Since this habit exclusively commits the member of
civil society to one estate, it cannot preserve civil society as the system of
these estates in the way that, for example, in the marriage power, the habit
of love can preserve and reproduce the family out of rightly ethical love.
Now, we might try to preserve civil societys habit and the estates by un-
derstanding the content of the honour of ones estate to refer to some-
thing other than the substantive, formal, or universal principle present in
each (and therefore inappropriately present in civil society). We would
need to nd that ground which animates all the estates and yet is not de-
ned by any one of themjust as rightly ethical love is compatible with all
familial roles and patriotism with all the habits. For Hegel, there is a com-
mon ground in the system of needs.
The principle of this system of needs, as that of the personal particularity of

knowledge and volition, contains within itself that universality which has be-
ing in and for itself, i.e. the universality of freedom, but only abstractly and hence
as the right of property. Here, however, this right is present no longer merely in it-
self, but in its valid actuality as the protection of property through the administra-
tion of justice. (PR 208)
In order to save the relationship between habit and the estates, hon-
our of ones estate would have to mean honour of property. The foun-
dational activity arising from such a habit would then involve the protec-
tion of property since the maintenance and reproduction of property rights
would be the maintenance and reproduction of the shared ground of the
estates. To do so is a phyrric victory because we then have a habit of civil so-
ciety incommensurate with civil society as a fully ethical institution. Once
civil societys habit is reduced to an honour in property, the possibility of
actualizing the subjective self is lost. To act according to the end of prop-
erty relations does cultivate the member of civil society, but only partially
by raising the human spirit to the level of formal universality. Instead of a
self, the subject becomes the person of abstract right. Subjective ends go
objectively unlled, and the true relation of freedom disappears.
By pairing rectitude with the honour of ones estate, Hegel implic-
itly acknowledges the problem of this abstractness of the subjective self.
Rectitude provides a concrete content necessary to bring this empty hon-
our of ones estate closer to an approximation of habit. Nonetheless, even
with this corrective, the honour of ones estate neither can be made con-
gruent with the ethical nature of habit or civil society. Fortunately, by the
end of his analysis of civil society he has pointed to the solution when he
writes [i]f the individual is not a member of a legally recognized corpora-
tion (and it is only through legal recognition that a community becomes a
corporation) he is without the honour of belonging to an estate (PR 253A;
see also 253). Although Hegel has not yet abandoned the language of
the estates in the way he phrases the habit of civil societyfor reasons that
will be discussed in the next chapterhe has emptied out its initial con-
tent. Once the corporation becomes the ground of both rectitude and the
estates, the latter become an ethically inessential moment, one that he -
nally acknowledges in the penultimate paragraph of his analysis of civil
society.
The family is the rst ethical root of the state [as system]; the corporation is the
second, and it is based [gegrndete] in civil society. The former contains the mo-
ments of subjective particularity and objective universality in substantial unity;
but, in the latter, these moments, which in civil society are at rst divided into
the internally reected particularity of need and satisfaction and abstract le-
gal universality, are inwardly united in such a way that particular welfare is
present as a right and is actualized within this union. (PR 255)
The estates have disappeared as an ethical root. The unity of subjective

particularity and objective universality is inwardly united in the mar-

ket with its recognition of property rights and those of exchange, but the
unity is actualized in the corporation (see also PR 289A). It is the corpo-
ration, as we know, that explicitly organizes the system of needs, replacing
propertys abstract universality of personhood and wealth with the con-
crete universality of a self recognized for its particular interesti.e., the
knowledge and volition required for a specic trade (see PR 254).
The corporation is the ethical root of civil society, not only because
it is the material organization of the market but because it also supplies
its habitual disposition. First, [w]ithin the corporation [ ] rectitude
[ ] receives the true recognition and honour which are due to it (PR
253A), thus implying that rectitudes completion (i.e., habit) occurs, at
least within civil society, in the corporation. Second, [t]he sanctity of mar-
riage and the honour attaching to the corporation are the two moments
round which the disorganization of civil society revolves (PR 255A; see
also 264) by which Hegel means marriage and the corporation are the
organization that allows the disorganization of civil society to persist and
not destroy itself. Marriage and the corporation each stabilize and cul-
tivate subjectivity so that the subjective pursuit of ends, the selsh as-
pect of the trade, is unable to displace fundamental subjective ends on
which freedom depends. While sanctity is not the shape of marriages
habit, the honour attaching to the corporation is the ethical habit of the
corporation.
This honour attaching to the corporation puries Hegels rst speci-
cation of the habit of civil society. The disposition of honour remains but
not the institution of the estates. Because the difference between each es-
tate is rooted in the mutually exclusive logically possible relations be-
tween the human spirit and the community, once the estates are removed,
honour now can be compatible with the whole of civil society. For Hegel,
the difference between one corporation and another is rooted in arbitrary
distinctions within the division of labour that allocates one activity to this
trade and another that trade. In this way the habit of honour in ones cor-
poration contains the universalizeable moment of honour in a trade. Out
of this disposition any particular trade can ow, not as rectitudes mere
suitability but now as the lived union of the subjective end and its objective
accomplishment in a trade.
If honour in ones corporation is the habit of civil society, it could be
thought that a similar disposition would characterize the habit of the civil
service since Hegel calls the latter the universal estate (PR 202, 205).
The problem here is not with the idea of the civil service as an estate,
rather with the idea of honour. Honour is a disposition that has at its core
the recognition of the subject for his commitment to and acquisition of a
specic set of qualities. The universal self which gives the civil service its
ethical nature is instead dened by the abandonment of all ends that ad-
here to the subject, whether they are the substantive roles of famil-
ial relations or the educated ones of a subjectively chosen trade. As with
the member of the corporation, the civil servant is a somebody, but it is a
subjectively seless somebody. As with the member of the family, the civil
servant is sunk (untergehen; see PR 296) into a substantive life but not
thereby dissolved into his role. The civil servant may seek promotions, may
be reassigned tasks, and so on, whereas a father may balance household -
nances at one moment and change a diaper the next without the change
of activity changing his role and identity. And, of course, the fathers suc-
cess or failure at these task warrants neither promotion nor demotion.
Unlike the substantive self or the subjective one, the qualities of love
and honour are epiphenomenal to the shape of the civil services habit.
Even the qualities that we most associate with the ideal of the civil servant
are not those that dene his ethical habit, for Hegel writes that
[w]hether or not dispassionateness, integrity, and polite behaviour become

customar y [Sitte] will depend in part on direct education in ethics and in thought
[sittlichen und Gegankenbildung], for this provides a spiritual counterweight
to the mechanical exercises and the like which are inherent in learning the so-
called sciences appropriate to these <administrative> spheres, in the required
business training, [and] in the actual work itself, etc. (PR 296)
Foundational to the ethical disposition of the civil servant is a direct edu-

cation in ethics and thought and the practical experience of being occu-
pied with the larger interests of a major state, for they produce the habit
of dealing with universal interests, views, and functions (modied; PR
296).51 Once the civil servant is opened up by this direct education and the
practical experience, the civil services own disposition can emerge as a
habit in which these universal interests, views, and functions become the
main interest of his spiritual and particular existence (PR 294A).
What is the shape of such a habit? At one point Hegel speaks of the
civil service as that institution which devotes itself to the service [Dienst] of
the government (PR 303). This statement provides the answer: it is a ser-
vice to government. When cultivated to the universal selfhood of the civil
servant, the human spirit is habitually disposed to serve the universal in-
terests, i.e., the systemic possibilities of freedom. The universal selfs un-
51 H. B. Nisbets translation runs for they become accustomed to dealing

with universal[erzeugt sich die Gewohnheit allgemeiner] (Hegel 1991). This trans-
lation obscures the crucial importance of habit [Gewohnheit]. In this case, T.M.
Knoxs translation is more true to the original: and the habit is generated of
adopting universal (Hegel 1967). We have taken our lead from the latter.
accomplished resolve nds its actual accomplishment through the institu-

tion of the civil service. It proves itself to be this selfs living unity as such
because it is capable of sustaining all possible tasks generated by the uni-
versal interests of the civil service. In the ethical habit of service to govern-
ment, particular tasks can be performed without jeopardizing the princi-
ple of selfhood that has the universal interest as the main interest of his
spiritual and particular existence.
We have completed our exploration of the plurality of ethical hab-
its that bring each logical possibility of selfhood to life. Combined with
our institutional analysis of the ethical powers, we now have before us the
content of Hegels idea of the good life. As a completing relation between
human spirit and world, whose possibilities are given by the ethical pow-
ers of marriage, corporation, and civil service, and whose lived experience
is given by love, honour, or service, his idea of the good life moves in the
orbit of ordinary life. The ancients struggle to secure the good through
virtueno less than the modern struggle to secure the good through the
absolute autonomy of the human spiritsimply overturns the life of the
good. Indeed, an ethically habitual ordinary life achieves what philosophy
cannot: living participation in the life of the good.52
52 Of course there are attempts to recover ancient conceptions of the good

life within modernity. For example, among Hegel commentators Carl Shaw char-
acterizes the task of the civil service as phronsis because he interprets the bureau-
cratic role of subsumption (PR 22528) as articulating features which also be-
long to phronsis: it is activity based on knowledge, it mediates between universal legal
norms and individual cases, and its objective is to t norms into concrete situations
so that right can be ascertained (1992: 384, 385). Now, putting aside the ques-
tion of whether this separation and then tting together of the universal and par-
ticular accurately captures the unity of Aristotelian practical wisdom, the presen-
tation given here of the concrete instances of ethical habit show why this phronsis
cannot belong exclusively to the civil servant. Doubtless Shaw is correct that the
judiciary and the bureaucracy may bring to the fore the particular problem of re-
integrating or applying universal requirements to concrete situations. However,
all possibilities of selfhood require this same practical activity. The human spirit
must maintain itself in the institution that gives it its selfhood. So, Shaws empha-
sis on phronsis in the civil service actually points to the obscured truth of his posi-
tion: that the good only lives in particular living relations between the community
and the human spirit, and not particular activities. Because the activity of phron-
sis then becomes ubiquitous in all properly ethical action, phronsis loses its status
as a unique and rare capacity which rst gave it political import for Shaw and all
those who wish to reclaim it. The work attributed to phronsis is lived in the ethical
habits.
CHAPTER SIX
T HE I D EA O F TH E GO O D LIFE
I. The Shape of the Good Life
In the Philosophy of Rights developmental presentation of the good, the

community as a whole shows itself to be ethical because it is properly in-
stitutionally differentiated. Similarly, the ethicality of each institution de-
pends on its own appropriate differentiation, at least in so far as each cor-
responds to one radical possibility of self-determination or selfhood and
excludes the others. Although the account set out in the previous chapter
corresponds to the logical requirements of selfhood demanded by Hegels
concept of freedom, the spheres of life laid out there lacked the concrete
differentiation contained in his own description.
Hegels description of the ethical state contains the three-fold structure
of sovereign, executive, and legislature; our account locates its ethicality
in the civil service alone. His description of civil society contains three es-
tates: agricultural, business, and civil service; ours reduces these to just the
corporate aspect of the business estate. Finally, Hegel provides us with a
picture of the ethical family based on rigid sexual differentiation; we have
argued that the ethical nature of marriage is indifferent to all such natu-
ral determinations.
These discrepancies are awkward. On the one hand, if our account is
correct it implies that Hegels description of the living good is wrong in
certain signicant respectseven as we also claim that he has rightly re-
vealed the structure of the good. On the other hand, if Hegels description
is correct, then we have committed some error of interpretation. Neither
are palatable options. However we will be forced to accept one of them if
we cannot reconcile the difference between what we have said his concept
of freedom demands and what his account overtly describes.
A. The Truth within the Description of Ethical Life
In the previous chapter we showed the ethical truth of the family, civil so-
ciety, and the state to be rooted in the possibilities of selfhood. The result
was the transformation of Hegels entire presentation of ethical life from a
197
hierarchy of interdependent and inadequate institutions to ones that were

each equal, exclusive, and stable. In doing so, some of Hegels descriptive
differentiation within each ethical institutionsexual differentiation, the
estates, the inner constitution of the statewas lost. Now we must re-
turn to those ignored moments as a rst step in reconciling our account
of Hegels idea of the good life with the one he descriptively provides. Why
has he included these institutional differentiations even though they fall
outside of the fully ethical structures of the community?
Hegels description of ethical life aims to show how individual institu-
tions conceptually bring out of themselves a fully integrated totality of in-
stitutions or a system of freedom. Since the development of each ethical
institution is the development of a new principle in its institutional ar-
ticulation, we need to know something about how these new principles
emerge out of the old.
For Hegel, foundational principles alter when they show themselves
to be internally contradictory. He calls this process of movement through
contradiction the dialectic (see PR 31A). We saw this dialectic at work
while exploring the inadequacy of the individual human spirit to the free
will in chapter 4: the attempt to think that the principle of universal-
ity alone resulted in thinking determinacy, and the attempt to think that
the principle of determinacy resulted in thinking universality. Stability was
only achieved in the third movement in which universality was thought
in relation to determinacy. The logical playing out of this triadic move-
ment Hegel calls the concept. When the concept is made concrete in
the world as the idea the dialectic appears as a contradiction between,
not two moments of thought, but what the world is in principle and how it
has concretely produced itself. Since the world only knows itself through
its concrete articulations, Hegel expresses this internal contradiction
as one between being in-itself and being for-itself. We can speak of this
contradiction as a burdening. When the principle is not adequately ar-
ticulated in the world (being for-itself), its nature (being in-itself) is ob-
scured. The principle is concretely burdened by things that it is not. Since
the world only knows itself through the thought of those that live in and
through it, when the world has not adequately articulated itself, the knowl-
edge of the world will also be inadequate. The world will be burdened with
a nature that it cannot full.
In Hegels account of the development of spirit, each aspect of spirit
rst emerges into the world as the whole of the world. Contradiction con-
sequently appears not as a localized phenomenon, restricted to this or
that aspect of life. Rather it appears as a contradiction across the whole
of life or, more accurately, across the whole of the conceptual underpin-
nings of life. The world is unable to sustain itself as the whole of the world.
Any attempt to make the emergent principle into the animating force of
IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE 199
all relations only shows that the principle is overburdened by the task. The
emergence of a new principle out of this failure does not destroy the pre-
vious one, it only removes the burden that clung to the old one, giving it
a new shape, reduced in scope, that allows it to exist according to its orig-
inal principle. In this way, history is the process of both an ever increas-
ing differentiation of principles and an ever increasing differentiation of
the world as each fundamental principle nds its true place in the world.1
Spirit becomes nothing other than the absolution of the burden carried
by all such principles through their full systemic integration as a living
world. Each fundamental principle then exists exclusively within its own
scope as the ground to its exclusive possibility of selfhood, without having
to ground all possibilities of selfhood.
We can see this logic of unburdening at work in Hegels developmental
presentation of the movement from the family to civil society to the state
as system in the Philosophy of Right. The family (taken as the principle of
all substantive relations) is freed from animating all possible relations as it
did in the pre-philosophic, beautiful unity of the Greek polis. Now, within
the modern political community only familial relations fall to the substan-
tive principle of the family. Similarly, civil society need not regulate the en-
tire universe of public goods as it did, or at least aimed at, in classical lib-
eralism. With the regulation of the market by the national state, only the
subjective good need now concern civil society. Finally, the state need not
demonstrate its absolute Selbstttigkeit by imposing itself on all aspects of
life as it did during the Terror of the French Revolution. The state itself is
liberated to merely integrate and coordinate the autonomous spheres that
compose it. As a result, Hegel can see in the modern political community
a life that absolves the world of the burden of the tragic Greek polis experi-
enced by Sophocles Antigone, the impoverishment and cycle of vengeance
of the unordered free market as the liberal state of nature, and the terror
of the state striving for the moral purity and conformity of its citizens.
If Hegel has provided us with a picture of fully absolved institutions in
his description of ethical life, then all of the institutional differentiations
found therei.e., the sexual differentiation of the marriage partners, the
estates of civil society, and the internal constitution of the statewould
be necessary for freedom or, what is the same thing, selfhood. Now, these
internal differentiations do preserve and even anticipate each possibility
of selfhood, but do so in institutions that ought to be foreign to them.
Within Hegels description of the family, sexual differentiation preserves
the pre-ethical nature of the self: a selfhood that exists prior to both sub-
jectivitys historical emergence and the possibility of self-determination
1 Michael Hardimon provides a similar account of this process, but using

Charles Taylors (1985) concept of self-interpreting spirit (Hardimon 1994: 44).
which denes modernity. Within his description of civil society we nd the

preservation of the family in the agricultural estate, the securing of civil so-
cietys own power in the business estate, and the anticipation of the power
of the moment of the state in the estate of civil servants. Finally, Hegels
description of the state secures itself as the totality of the system in the sov-
ereignty of the monarchy; it secures itself as the moment of the state
in the executive; and it preserves the family and society in the upper and
lower chambers of the legislative assembly respectively.
Developmentally, this intra-institutional differentiation constitutes the
process of Aufhebung (sublation) in which the removal of contradiction si-
multaneously cancels, preserves, and raises to a more complete shape its
original organization. Once the development is complete and the institu-
tions exist as a stable system, these differentiations contravene the appro-
priate articulation of a fully ethical institution. Hegel implicitly underlines
the foreignness of the developmental system of institutions by having each
unabsolved differentiation participate in the original ethical power from
which it arose, not the ethical power in which it nds itself. For example,
although the estates exist within civil society, they exclude one another
on the basis of their different animating principles: substantive, subjec-
tive, and universal for the agricultural, business, and universal estates re-
spectively. Similarly, although the institutions within the state might all be
thought to participate in the principle of universality, the upper and lower
houses of the legislature exclude one another by their substantive and
subjective principles respectivelyhowever modied or educated (PR
306307, 309, 310 & A, 311 & A). Together the upper and lower houses
are excluded by the universal principle of the executive branch, since
the latter is a subset of the civil service (see PR 289, 29597). The inter-
nal stability of each of these intra-institutional moments is guaranteed by
mechanisms arising from their respective principlesthe agricultural es-
tate by hereditary restrictions on commodication of property (PR
203A, 306), the business estate through the corporation, and so on.
By dispersing little institutional islands of substantive, subjective,
and universal principles through the larger spheres of civil society and
the state, Hegel seems to be ensuring that these ethical powers permit
the full range of human activity within their possibility of selfhood. The
intra-institutional differentiations show that each ethical power ought
to expand to the whole of life, as our interpretation demanded. Yet,
this nearly full range of activity occurs within the concrete institutions
of selfhood to which they do not rightly belong, e.g., the substantive es-
tate within the subjective selfhood of civil society; the subjective princi-
ple of the lower house within the universal selfhood of the state.
Why does Hegel provide a descriptive shape of ethical life that only
obscurely points to its truth as institutionally absolved spheres of life ca-
pable of accommodating the full range of human activity within each of

their bounds? The answer is his imperative to show respect for the good
by never taking it to exist beyond the concrete situation and real possibili-
ties of an historically present world: it is just as foolish to imagine that any
philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as that an individual can
overleap his own time or leap over Rhodes (PR Preface p. 25/2122).
To provide a true philosophy of right is to describe the shape of the good
found present at hand as the world (see PR 142). For Hegel, this require-
ment means a description of the development and shape that the ethical
community is forced to take given the institutional resources of early-nine-
teenth century Europe.
B. The Criticism within the Description of Ethical Life
We have said that each ethical power should extend to the full breadth
and depth of human activity. Nonetheless, the intra-institutional differen-
tiations show instead that each ethical power remains trapped within the
activity rst associated with it, conning each possibility of selfhood to the
narrow reaches of the household, the direct labour of the trade, or the
specic function of the member of the government. Self and activity be-
come conated so that any activity outside these connes becomes a trans-
gression of selfs nature.
While this conation may be the rst, and historical, shape of modern
ethical life, Hegels description of it is, as we will see, as much an internal
critique of the family, civil society, and the state as it is a statement of their
truth.2
2 The impulse behind this interpretation of Hegels description of ethical

life as a critique was rst stimulated by Asher Horowitz and Gad Horowitzs in-
terpretation of Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Social Contract, where Rousseaus failure
to describe a society capable of sustaining the general will becomes a critique of
men as they are and the bourgeois social order that made them that way (1988:
4849).
Klaus Hartmann uses a similar interpretative strategy, although he sees no
element of intentionality. Rather, Hartmanns approach is to read Hegels po-
litical philosophy in terms of the system of logical (although not metaphysical)
categories: the fault of Hegels may be not so much that his is categori-
cal thought, but that he makes concessions to existential considerations (1972:
118119). Now, Hartmann further goes on to locate the problem in the develop-
mental presentation of the Philosophy of Right (what he calls the linearity of expo-
sition in plural realms) which seems to require that [o]nce Hegel moves to the
next category, the previous one has been left behind (ibid. 120, 119). The analy-
sis presented here provides the shape of the fully ethical society that solves both
the problem of the existential conditions and the linearity of exposition.
John McCumber argues that Hegel engages in a covert criticism of
In an ethical marriage, the marriage power lives as the partners mu-

tual consciousness of this union as a substantial end, and hence in love,
trust, and the sharing of the whole of individual existence (PR 163,
168). By saying that within marriage the two sexes acquir[e] an intellec-
tual and ethical signicance (PR 165), Hegel indicates the power of this
habit to refashion the whole of the marriage partners lives. By itself, natu-
ral sexual differentiation is not the ethical foundation of marriage but be-
comes an aspect of that sphere of ethicality which involves the sharing of
the whole of individual existence. Hegel does not distribute this intellec-
tual and ethical signicance evenly. Instead, he portions out the possibil-
ities of selfhood on the basis of natural sexual differentiation. He tell us
that the woman alone has her substantial vocation in the family, and her
ethical disposition consists in this <family> piety while the [m]an [ ]
has his actual substantial life in the state, in learning, etc., and otherwise
in work and struggle with the external world and with himself, so that it is
only through his division that he ghts his way to self-sufcient unity with
himself (PR 166). The result is that through marriage our sexual differ-
entiated bodies take on the appearance of being the ethical foundation of
marriage. The ontological contentlessness of pure subjectivity is replaced
with the naturally determined content of our sex.
This shift in ethical foundations from subject to sex cannot be taken at
face value. If sexual differentiation is important for the attainment of sub-
stantial selfhood then it is only because this is the shape permitted to it by
the historical community. When the marriage power can only achieve its
actuality in the housewife, she becomes the only concrete proof of the va-
lidity of the philosophic account of the life of the marriage power. At the
same time, Hegels description shows that she is a living criticism of this
actualization. In the housewife, the marriage power shows itself as ethi-
cally immature because it is able to live only by truncating human life, cir-
cumscribing the good of substantive selfhood to the limited activities and
the state in his published version of the Philosophy of Right (1821) out of fear of
censorship (1986: 38689; see also Alan Brudner 1978: 4546). McCumber con-
centrates on Hegels criticism of poverty and his attempt to describe a non-dem-
ocratic political state as the clues to this covert intent. While his is a promising
idea, McCumber takes Hegels thoughts on these points to be labored, confused,
and contradictory (ibid. 386). The latter interpretation prevents McCumberas
much as he says it does Hegel himselffrom developing the nature of this co-
vert criticism. For having determined, nearly a priori, that Hegels criticism la-
bours under these defects, McCumber abstains from any sustained analysis of
these topics. Nonetheless, McCumber points in the direction we have taken here
when he says that the defects of the state cause the state to become oppressive by
offering its inhabitants increasingly-cramped quarters (ibid. 388).
quarters of the household.3 This ethical immaturity within the description

of the family is further underlined by the husbands ethical destiny which
is to leave the family daily for work and struggle with the external world.
The man must leave, not because he is a man as it rst appeared, but be-
cause it is necessary to secure the familial sphere of life. The present shape
of ethical life does not allow the marriage power to generate its own re-
sources. These must be secured through the pursuit of subjective ends in
civil societys market. In leaving the family the husband also prevents the
foreign principle of subjectivity from entering and destroying it. The cost
is the destruction of his own possibility of substantive selfhood.
By describing the limited and contradictory ways in which the marriage
power is forced to show itself within the institutional and normative pos-
sibilities available to it, Hegels account of the family serves the purpose
of undermining the enduring ethical signicance of the traditional gen-
dered division of labour and institutional organization of the substantive
self.
When compared to the family, civil society is less ethically immature,
for through the estates it has acquired the full range of life activity: famil-
ial (substantive estate), business (formal estate), and political (univer-
sal estate). Nonetheless, like the family, the estates distort the nature of life
itself by conating the possibility of selfhood with the activity in which that
possibility rst appeared. Civil society has contracted the whole range of
life to economic activity. Instead of familial life there is agricultural activ-
ity; instead of political life there is the work of the civil servant. The estates
foreshadow what the subjective self might be, even as they cut it off from
the full range of human activity.
This immaturity of civil society is especially visible in the relation be-
tween familial activity and civil society. For Hegel, as it is with us today, fa-
3 Paul Franco comes close to identifying Hegels description of the family

as a critique when he raises the question of whether Hegels conception of ethi-
cal life demands that a person, such as the housewife, be limited to the domes-
tic sphere (1999: 245). Because he does not want to go down this path, Franco
does not see that this demand has a philosophic basis within Hegels system, but
only considers that the concrete shape of the demand (and that of the family) is
limited by the simply conventional view of women at the time (ibid. 246). In the
end, Franco accepts the limited sphere of substantive life and only rejects that
it should necessarily belong to women alone (ibid. 24647). Michael Hardimon
makes a similar point. However, he correctly grasps that, although women cannot
be fully at home in the world that Hegel describes in the Philosophy of Right, the
family is necessary if women are to be at home in a substantive way. Hardimon
does not take advantage of this insight to then explore the way in which the par-
ticular shape of this substantive way of life might be inadequate in light of the de-
mands of freedom (1994: 18589).
milial activity is left to the interstices of market life, usually at the end of
the day when the parents return home. Even here this attempt to conjoin
familial activity and the fullness of subjective selfhood produces a tension
between it and the substantive self that the returning parent also is re-
quired to be. In contemporary society, this tension is often characterized
as a balancing of work and family. This way of speaking captures the truth
of the matter. In so far as the family and civil society are each exclusive pos-
sibilities of selfhood and exclusive forms of activity, they can be balanced
only, never integrated. From the standpoint of civil society, to return home
to the family requires the abandonment of a self-determined nature. To
maintain subjective selfhood, civil society demands that familial activity be
an avocationi.e., something standing apart from the serious life. Even
when civil society is successful in peripheralizing familial activity, civil so-
ciety cannot sustain its members at the end of the work day. It still re-
quires its self-abandonment: the subjective self must leave daily the world
in which it demonstrates its freedom and return to the foreign world of
the family in which that selfhood and freedom rightly have no place.
Since the problem is not an empirical one rooted in the arbitrary di-
vision of labour but a logical one rooted in the structure of selfhood, it is
also present in the relation between subjective selfhood and political activ-
ity. The latter relationship is made more complex when he tells us that the
estates have a two-fold political signicance, thereby implying that the life
activity of subjective selfhood is commensurate with political life. First, es-
tates mediate between the actual political activity of the state and the lives
of civil societys members, moving the particular interests of the members
up and the organized power of the executive down, thus preventing the
interests of one from appearing as selsh, and the power of the other as
domination (PR 301 & A, 302). Second, and more importantly
for the discussion here, each estate has a unique political capacity (PR
304). However, to actualize this political capacity the estates must
move beyond the realm of economic life and assume a new form. The
universal estate becomes the executive (or executive civil service), the sub-
stantial estate, the political institution of the upper house of a legislative
assembly (PR 304, 305, 312), and the formal estate becomes the lower
house (PR 30811).
In a way that parallels Rousseaus self-mediation of subject and
citizen4 the mediation between government and civil society is re-
ally between the estates political capacity and what we might call
its civil capacity. And it is this civil capacity that belongs to the na-
ture of the subjective self. The political capacity requires an educative
transformationacquired through the actual conduct of business in
4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. I ch. 6.

positions of authority or political ofce(PR 310) out of that self such

that one can deliberate and decide on matters of universal concern with-
out subordinat[ing] the universal interest to the particular interest of the
community or corporation (PR 309). The actualization of the political
capacity is also the transportation of the subjective self from civil society
to the state. If the subjective self is to endure, the political capacity can-
not belong to the seriousness of life but only be an avocation. The politi-
cal moment can only be something to which subjective selfhood might be
absconded or do some the weekend before returning to that institutional
activity which truly permits this self its self-chosen freedom.
In its immaturity, civil society has not adapted the familial and po-
litical spheres of life to the requirements of subjective selfhood. It has
merely gathered to itself the economic aspects of those spheres. Although
more mature than the family, civil society no more escapes beyond these
economic bounds than the family did its domestic ones. The descriptive
shape of the family denies that the substantive self can be free in anything
other than domestic labour; that of civil society denies that the subjec-
tive self can demonstrate its freedom in anything other than economic
labour.5 Nonetheless, Hegels description of the estates political signicance
as executive, upper and lower legislative houses points to a truth: politi-
cal activity belongs to each possibility of selfhood.
This truth remains unactualized. Political activity shows itself in-
stead as a third moment standing over the family and civil society as a dis-
tinct sphere and set of institutional arrangements. Moreover, Hegels de-
scription of the state evokes the same set of implicit self-criticisms as we
found in the family and civil society. The state cuts off the life of the uni-
versal self from the full range of human activity. As before, selfhood falls to
one activity alone. For this self to participate in familial and economic ac-
tivity demands either the abandonment of its self-chosen universal nature
or that these activities which do belong to the seriousness of life be treated
without seriousness.
Taken together, the features our account ignored in Hegels descrip-
tion of ethical lifenatural sexual differentiation, the estates, and the in-
ner constitution of the stateshow only that the system of ethical life that
5 We have restricted ourselves to the inability of Hegels description of civil

society to maintain its members in the full range of their chosen possibility of
selfhood. Bernard Cullen provides a compatible critique of civil society from the
standpoint of the inability of Hegels description of the estates (particularly the
three-fold division within the business estate) and corporation to integrate
the working classeven as Hegel expresses concern about the (unemployed)
poor (1979: ch. 6). However, any solution to his accurate criticism must rst re-
solve civil societys ethical immaturity: the way it confuses its possibility of selfhood
with economic activity.
ought to evince innite receptivity to the demand for selfhood has not ma-
tured sufciently to meet those demands. The ethical powers in which the
good ought to live instead cannot sustain the human spirits participation
in the good throughout the length and breadth of a human life.
C. The New Solution within the Description of Ethical Life
These sexually, economically, and politically differentiated institutions in

Hegels description of ethical life are not simply damaging to its validity as
a concrete system of freedom. Because they point beyond their immature
articulation to what they ought to be, these institutions are also construc-
tive of a new, mature description of the system of freedom.
To provide an ethically mature redescription of the concrete system
of freedom requires showing how each possibility of the self might be at
home in the full range of human activity. Nowhere is this problem more
urgent than locating those institutions that might simultaneously push
back civil societys empire over all forms of economic activity and, having
done that, then establish a form of modern economic life for the substan-
tive (familial) and universal (state) possibilities of selfhood.
Now, in light of our discussion of the inessentiality of the estates, Hegels
account of civil society becomes a repository for a solution. We can begin
with the transformation of the familial into the agricultural estate. Once
this estate is descriptively present, we need only sever it from its ground in
civil society and integrate it into its true actuality in the familyi.e., the
world and power of the substantive self. Doing so gives us a picture of the
family as a set of relations no longer restricted to the domestic sphere. The
family achieves a form of security that civil societys material wealth can-
not provide, for the marriage partners are now economically secured in
their self-determined nature. The necessity of either abandoning this na-
ture to make a life in civil society or remaining within the home to pre-
serve it is gone.
In our re-description, familial economic activity will not be a revital-
ization of the feudal relations of production, even if the feudal rem-
nants, the Junker, provided Hegel with a concrete instance of this aspect
of the marriage power. The agricultural estate that Hegel describes car-
ries the marks of having been an entire, self-subsistent world. As a world,
these relations secured themselves against the encroachment of for-
eign principles through the mechanisms of the right of primogeniture
and restrictions on the alienation of property. Once this world loses its sta-
tus as a world and becomes but a moment in a fully ethical system of re-
lations, these world-securing mechanisms are no longer meaningful and
indeed distort the possibilities of selfhood. In so far as these feudal institu-
tions of familial economic activity have all but disappeared from the con-
temporary world we are spared the effort of further distinguishing the

necessary from the contingent within their historically given shape. Feudal
agricultural production is not our substantive blueprint. The agricultural
estate points out one direction, but the family is conceptually liberated to
give its own shape to economic activity.
The result of this severing and integration is the transformation of the
shape of not only economic activity but the family itself in a number
of ways. First, the forces of dissolution that previously plagued substan-
tive selfhood as the divorce, or death, of a marriage partner and the matu-
ration of their children are here attenuated. The economic expansion of
the marriage power brings about an institution more solid than either the
marriage relation or the appearance of the child within it. Now the sub-
stantive possibility of the self can be articulated in something other than a
relation with another subject. Second, the natural basis of the family that
clung to the whole of its ethically immature articulation can fade to vanish-
ing within a wider and more concrete set of substantive relations. The stu-
pidity of nature need no longer hold total sway over this possibility of self-
hood. The door out of the household is broken down; the option to step
through it to another mode of family life is open. In this increased stability
and breadth the marriage power achieves a greater dignity.
As we know, in the universal estate we nd that institutional form re-
quired by the universal possibility of selfhood. To preserve its possibil-
ity of selfhood requires that the universal estate be removed from civil
society. Unlike the substantive estate, which had a concretely existing eth-
ical power to which to return (the family), the universal estate does not.
Therefore in order to be ethically mature, this institution must be liber-
ated to become the concrete foundation for an exclusive sphere of life.
Only then does the resolve of the universal selfto abandon ends that ad-
here to the subjecthave a concrete correlate. The universal self is then
absolved of the subjective selfhood that surrounds it. Freed in this way, en-
try into the moment of the state will no longer depend on the raried cri-
teria of membership in either the upper or lower houses of the legislature
or in the executive civil service and the higher consultative bodies (PR
289, 307, 30910). The civil services arbitrary division into tasks means
that [t]here is necessarily an indeterminate number of candidates for pub-
lic ofce, because their objective qualication does not consist in genius
(as it does in art, for example), and their relative merits cannot be deter-
mined with absolute certainty (PR 292). The civil service as an ethical
power evinces innite receptivity to universal selfhood that Hegels de-
scribed state does not.
So, the estates, which initially stood in tension with our account of the
ethical system demanded by the logic of selfhood, now no longer do so.
Once the estates are seen as pointing beyond their own ethical immatu-
rity, we are free to re-describe their place within that system. The result is
that the family and the state each gain economic institutions which extend
the breadth of their spheres of life and which leave civil society reduced
to its logically and ethically pure shape as the corporation. Nonetheless,
even with this re-description, each sphere of life remains cut off from po-
litical activity.
We have already seen how Hegel links the upper house to the family,
the lower house to civil society, and the executive to the civil service. For
this reason, to re-describe the place of this political activity does not re-
quire the severing that occurred with the estates. All that is required is to
more fully integrate these state powers into the possibilities of selfhood
that ground them. When so dispersed, these state powers are puried to
become the universal and systemically integrative moment in the range of
human activity found within their respective sphere of life.
By integrating these state powers into their implicit ethical powers, the
state as a system ceases to articulate a way of life that stands apart from its
moments. With the executive and legislative institutions now attached to
their true ethical foundations, the state as a body shrinks from the vast ad-
ministrative complex standing over economic and familial life to a single
human spirit: the monarch. While, for Hegel, the monarch is the concrete
articulation of the unity and the life of the system, the maintenance and
reproduction of the mutual receptivity of community and human spirit is
returned to the moments of the system itself (marriage, corporation, and
civil service). The system assumes its proper shape as the totality of rela-
tions between institutions.
Although the monarch is the life of the good concentrated into one
point, the life of the monarch does not thereby become the good life.
Instead, the life activity of the monarch articulates the full logical range
of the will (PR 275). The monarch can pardon criminals (PR 282)
thereby making the absolute Selbstttigkeit of the system a living ac-
tuality through an act utterly indifferent to limit. In appointing specic
individuals to specic posts (PR 283), the monarch articulates that mo-
ment of subjective determination found in subjective selfhood. Through
the monarchs moral conscience, the abstractness of the universal in
and for itself (PR 285) lives in a way that articulates the universal selfs
abandonment of subjective ends. Finally, through the inheritance of the
role (PR 280 & A, 281 & A), the monarch also possesses the qualities
found in substantive selfhood.
The monarch is adequate to the will in a way that the isolated human
spirit itself is not. This adequacy does not arise through some superhu-
man characteristic: the monarch need not be the ancients man of super-
lative virtue. Rather, it resides in what Hegel calls the majesty of the mon-
arch. This majesty is the unity of the ultimate ungrounded self of the
will [i.e., the spiritual system itself and its existence [i.e., the monarch]
which is consequently also ungrounded (and which belongs by denition
to nature) (PR 281). This formal ungroundedness is not absolute power.
The system that gives the majesty to the monarch is only a system because
of the moments. These momentsthe institutions of family, civil society,
and stateexist in a mutual relation of recognition with the moments of
the system itself. In Hegels words, this majesty receives its
objective guarantee [ ] in the fact that, just as this sphere has its own actu-
ality distinct from that of other rationally determined moments, so also do
these other moments have their own distinct rights and duties in accordance
with their determination. Each member, in maintaining itself independently,
thereby also maintains the others in their own distinct character within the ra-
tional organism. (PR 286)
The honour and dignity accorded to the monarch is due only because
the monarch is the absolute apex of an organically developed state (PR
286Z). He is adequate to the free will by being set within, and securing,
the context of the constitutional institution of the monarchy.
The monarch is the living articulation of the possibility of freedom and
of selfhood. All the possibilities of the will are his powers. Yet, the monarch
is denied making any one of them into his enduring nature. The monarch
cannot take up a fundamental relationship to the community because the
monarch must be the whole community. As a result, he is reduced to a dil-
ettantism. Flitting from one moment of sovereign power to the next, he
plays at one possibility of selfhood and then another. This dilettantism is
a symptom of the necessary emptiness of the monarchs nature and why
Hegel can say the institution of the monarch requires only the subjective
I will , someone to say yes and to dot the i (PR 280Z). The human
spirit, as monarch, deserves honour as the concrete life of the system; the
monarch, as human spirit, is contemptible because he exists in the perma-
nent youth of playing at selfhood. This fate is a necessary one for the mon-
arch, but it is not that of the human spirit itself. When integrated into the
ethical powers, as we have done here, political activity can sustain the hu-
man spirit in its chosen nature. Political life becomes one venue for the
ethical habit of love, honour, or service.
At this point we have exhausted all the institutions described by Hegel.
Nothing remains to be re-described: sexual differentiation is gone, the es-
tates have disappeared, and the inner constitution of the state has been
sunk back into its respective ethical powers. Yet the shape of the good life
that results is still inadequate to freedom. Only the marriage power has
been re-described as a complete sphere of life, encompassing the whole
range of human activity in a way congruent with its possibility of selfhood.
While the ethical powers of the corporation and the civil service now have
economic and political activity within their spheres of life, they have no
corresponding family life. Hegels description of the family contains no in-
tra-institutional differentiations to be dispersed and reintegrated into the
institutional possibilities of subjective and universal selfhood.
Fortunately the contemporary political community limns these missing
familial institutions. These institutions consist in state recognized and reg-
ulated child care, for they conform to the reorganization of the contempo-
rary family around activity within the market and civil service. As well, we
can include here the less developed and only sporadically implemented
phenomenon of the reorganization of the school yearwhich originally
moved to the rhythms of agricultural lifeto correspond with the rhythms
of the market and governmental services. These new familial institutions
are only intimations of the shape of the family within the subjective and
universal spheres of life, for they respond more to the requirements of
the outward activity of the subjective and universal ethical powers rather
than the possibilities of selfhood articulated in them. Nonetheless, these new
modes of familial activity hint at the institutional transformation necessary
when family life is not exclusively bound to the ethical habit of loveno
matter how much the feeling of love remains between family members. If
the conditions were not descriptively present at Hegels time for the good
to nd its proper range of familial activity, they appear to be now.
To extend the subjective and universal powers into familial activity is to
have a complete and concrete picture of Hegels institutional idea of the
good life. The ethical powers now encompass the full seriousness of hu-
man activity in a way that permits the good to live across the ordinariness
of life so that political, economic, and domestic activity are not be locked
up within the state, civil society, and the family respectively.6
6 Our attempt to show that Hegels own account of the institutional struc-
ture of the contemporary world can meet the demands of selfhood also addresses
Charles Taylors most signicant criticism of Hegels account of the modern state.
Taylor correctly sees that the appropriate differentiation of modern society is nec-
essary if the horrors of a society of universal and total participation revealed in
the Terror of the French Revolution are not to be revisited (1979: 116, 114116).
However he also understands that such a recovery of meaningful differentiation
[ ] is closed for modern society because of its commitment to ideologies which
constantly press it towards greater homogeneity (ibid. 116). Because our account
does away with the estates, it also does away with the feudal air of a natural hierar-
chy of stations in a way that is more compatible with modern homogenizing ideol-
ogies. The particularistic and mediated attachment to the state through the ethi-
cal powers does not supplant those ethnic or national differences about which
Hegel gave little importance (ibid. 117). Rather, as the relationship between
ethical custom and the ethical habits indicates, national attachments are compat-
To illustrate how this re-described ethical system, built from the blue-
print of Hegels concept of freedom and the resources of his description
of ethical life, is able to preserve the individual in his selfhood across the
whole of the life we need to do as he does and provide a developmental
description of it. Unlike Hegels, ours does not need to be phylogenetic.
We are not concerned with how the community of the good comes to be
but only with how it exists as the stable system of the good. For that pur-
pose, our developmental description only needs to be ontogenetic. We
only need to follow the movement of the isolated human spirit through
the life of the re-described ethically matured system.
Human life begins in the given world. When that world has assumed
the mature shape of the good, the child nds itself in the world of famil-
ial activitythat given sphere of life and that spheres animating ethical
power which allows a child to be at home in the world. This sphere of life
is not only for the child. It is for selfhood. So, the nature of freedoms mu-
tual receptivity demands three modes of familial activity, one for each pos-
sibility of the self. Of these three modes, only one is ontologically the life
of the family, the other two modes of family we might call the civil service
family and the corporate family in order to indicate the transformation
and integration of family life into these ethical powers.
As with Hegels description of ethical life, the childs development into
adulthood is his cultivation to the demands of subjectivity in which
the merely given world can be cast off. Subjectivity appears to the youth-
ful human spirit as that moment of absolute Selbstttigkeit and the cor-
responding need to prove its independence through self-determination.
The subject must resolve upon its own nature. Within Hegels description
of ethical life this choice is of a class of occupation, i.e., an estate. Now with
the true shape of the good life before us the empirical possibilities of the
subjects nature are widened. When these are no longer locked up within
a single form of activity, self-determination no longer means choosing ag-
ricultural, business, or public service work.
Of course the experience of self-determination may initially take the
form of choosing this or that occupation, of being attracted to one sort
of life over another, of wanting to bring about this or that changes in the
ible with the particular ways in which individuals are organized within their ordi-
nary lives. Since national attachments do not provide any concrete direction to
ordinary life, they must be supplemented by a set of concrete practices, interrela-
tionships, and attachments at a sub-national level. Indeed, since such a concrete
system of practical relations has a logical structure, it is indifferent to (i.e., com-
patible with) whatever colourations the national attachments may bring. So, we
can agree with Taylor that the dilemma requiring meaningful differentiation re-
mains in modern society, while disagreeing that [w]e cannot accept Hegels solu-
tion today (ibid. 118).
world associated with the efforts of a particular profession, and so on. Yet
the truth of the chosen role, trade, or task resides in the way that it en-
meshes the subject in an ethical power. The truth of the choice is the re-
solve to be cultivated up to the ethical habit grounding the specic role,
trade, or task. Once the ethical power lives as a habit, the human spirit is
opened up to the whole range of serious human activity in a way that ac-
cords with his self-determined nature. In the situation of the fully living
good, no ethical trajectory exists and the type of activity ceases to mat-
ter. When the ethical signicance resides in the political community as a
whole, whether the human spirit gravitates towards political or economic
or familial activity can make no ethical difference. The movement of life
activity is liberated to become a matter of inclination and character.
Within Hegels idea of the good life the difference between serious and
avocational activity or between work and play loses its rigidity. What gives a
role, trade, or task its seriousness gives any activity within the sphere of life
its seriousness also. Because ethical habit emerges through cultivation, the
good life cannot be the one Marx provides of life activity in communism.
A jumble of roles, tasks, and trades (of being a critic after dinner and a
sher during the afternoon, and so on)7 sustains the individual in the dil-
ettantism of the monarch or youth. Hegels ideal of the constancy of a par-
ticular role, trade, or task in which selfhood rst appears is now wedded to
a radical openness to pursue that universal, subjective, or substantive self
through different activities. For example, when substantive selfhood is no
longer restricted to domestic activity, it can live its life through the politi-
cal and economic realmsor remain within the domestic onewithout
compromising the nature of the chosen self.
In Hegels fully ethical community the good life loses the ancient ele-
ment of a tragic conict between incommensurate demands of equally se-
rious moments of life. The possibility of Antigones conict between the
seriousness of political and familial obligation is not present here. Nor is
the conict between the good man of philosophy and the good citizen of
statesmanship. When selfhood is severed from an exclusive activity, the
choice between activities does not entail the choice between equally con-
stitutive identities. Where Antigone had to choose between sister and
citizen, Hegels idea of the good life shows us that sister and citizen
can now be merely ways of acting in the world animated by the same pos-
sibility of selfhood and the same ethical habitwhether that self is univer-
sal, subjective, or substantial. In the fully ethical community, the only pro-
foundly ethical choice is the choice to become a self.
At the same time, Hegels idea of the good life removes the mod-
ern burden of moral reection. The good no longer must be maintained
7 See Karl Marx, The German Ideology, p. 169.

out of the strength of the human spirits power or purity of conscience.

The idea of ethical habit replaces the moral conscience as the way the hu-
man spirit participates in the good. What the human spirit most fun-
damentally needs (selfhood) and what it is most fundamentally required
to do (role, trade, or task) neither stand in conict nor depend on it to
uncover the universalizeable relationship between the two. The human
spirit is not forced into the paralysis of moral vacillation or of a retreat
from all engagement with the world. Rather, habit allows the human spirit
to participate in the good by acting decisively in the world. The content
for this decisive action comes from the institutional context that produces
the habit; its direction, from the comportment that an ethical habit brings
to the human spirit.
In his Preface, Hegel is clear that philosophy has no place in instructing
the world. The purpose of inquiry into the good
shall be nothing other than an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an
inherently rational entity. As a philosophical composition, it must distance itself
as far as possible from the obligation to construct a state as it ought to be; such
instruction as it may contain cannot be aimed at instructing the state on how
it ought to be, but rather at showing how the state, as the ethical universe,
should be recognized. (PR Preface p. 26/21)
Hegel does show how the state, as the ethical universe, should be rec-
ognized. In so far as freedom as selfhood is the foundation on which
this recognition rests, he also shows us what is ethically immature in the
world and how the institutions point beyond themselves. What our re-
description of the system of ethical institutions has done is not provide a
set of revolutionary instructions to the world, but show us what it means
to treat the good seriously in the context of these institutions. To honour
selfhood is not to permit the segmentation of life activity in political, eco-
nomic, domestic activity to stand as adequate to freedom.
II. Enchantment and Banality
Hegels idea of the good life provides us with an account of the insti-
tutional and dispositional conditions to be at home in the world as a
self. In showing how the political community constitutes the ethical uni-
verse his philosophic description helps prepare the ground for the expe-
rience of the good.
To recognize reason as the rose in the cross of the present and thereby delight
in the presentthis rational insight is the reconciliation with actuality which phi-
losophy grants to whose who have received the inner call to comprehend, to pre-
serve their subjective freedom in the realm of the substantial, and at the same
time to stand with their subjective freedom not in a particular and contingent
situation, but in what has being in and for itself. (PR Preface pp. 2627/22)
Hegel associates philosophy with reconciliation with the world. Although

in this regard philosophy does stand above ethical habit, ethical habit is
the living shape of freedom. Hegels philosophic description secures the
experience of the good by showing us that we must delight in the pres-
ent and cease to struggle against our ground in spirit. Delighting in the
world presupposes taking the world seriously by seeing in the world what is
highest. It is to re-enchant the world. Hegels youthful hope that the tem-
ple will not confront us as a mass of stones and the lucus as a heap of wood
(BF 37) remains into his maturity. However, the new temple and lucus are
not folk-religion but the system of freedom: the state as ethical universe.
When confronted with the world in its differentiations we are forced to
ask: How is it that I might delight in them?
As Hegel knew from his youthful engagement with the ancient theory
of virtue and the problem of participation, to engage in an overt criticism
of the world destroys the possibility of reconciliation and, with it, the ex-
perience of being at home in the world necessary for freedom and true
participation. To be enchanted by the world, to live within a delighted rec-
onciliation with actuality, is not to be duped. Enchantment is not a mode
of false consciousness. Reconciliation requires a knowledge of the world
articulated in our activity. So, the activity that ows from ethical habit be-
comes a way of revealing both the truth of the world (with which we ought
to be reconciled) and the deciency of the world (with which we ought
not).
To illustrate how the delightful reconciliation of habit brings forth
the worlds deciencies we can turn to the example of the gourmet. The
gourmet is cultivated in the intricacies of food. Such cultivation allows the
gourmet to delight in the ordinariness of the act of eating. Yet the gour-
met does not simply delight in eating. In knowing the nature of food, the
act of eating becomes the moment in which the meal shows itself as well or
poorly done. In this way, the gourmet is capable of achieving heights of de-
light in the world that others cannot experience. At the same time, the de-
lightful reconciliation with the nature of food, means that the act of eating
is capable of revealing a depth of deciency that is also denied others.
In so far as the gourmet lives in a world without proper ethical institu-
tions, her life activity will be merely epiphenomenal. Her activity may con-
stitute her character or virtue in the proper sense (PR 150A), but it cannot
constitute her self. Even only as an analogue to ethical habit, the gourmet
conrms that truth and deciency do not make themselves present only
in the philosophic study of life. Philosophic inquiry is one way to allow

the world to self-consciously educate us. But, we will be cultivated by the
world regardless of how or what we think about it. Philosophy does not se-
cure for us a different education, it merely secures the same education in a
more robust way by demonstrating the rationality of the cultivations con-
tent. Philosophy cannot fully secure a world that is ethically immature. For
Hegel, such a world will always point beyond itself. In this way there is no
contradiction between his call to delight in this world and the call for the
transformation of the world that we have argued is the critical moment of
his description of ethical life. Hegel provides no esoteric message of revo-
lution within the exoteric call for reconciliation with the world.8
Hegels idea of the good life as reconciliation is problematic. He him-
self implies that when we are most at home in the world, the enchanted
life of the good is only a passing moment. It is replaced by what we can call
a fatal banality.
With his entry now into practical life, the man may well be vexed and morose
about the state of the world and lose hope of any improvement in it; but in
spite of this he nds his place in the world of objective relationship and be-
comes habituated to it and to his work. The objects [Gegenstnde] with which
he has to concern himself are, it is true, particular and mutable, and in their
peculiarity are more or less new. But at the same time, these particulars con-
tain a universal, a rule, something conformable to law; and the longer the
8 H. S. Harris provides a critique of those reactionaries and [ ] revolution-

aries [who] are the enemies of philosophy because they live their real lives in an-
other world than this one, so that they do not care if this one is destroyed for the
sake of their fantasies (1995a: 314). Here, by attempting to recognize the rose
in the cross of the present, our own account tries to avoid a similar charge be-
ing laid against us. Our account does not try to do more than carry out the logi-
cal dance by which this rose comes to be present for us and through which we
appreciate it; we try and avoid what the Left Hegelians and Marxists do: pluck
the rose so that a new one may bloom (see ibid. 31214). In this way, our proj-
ect is profoundly conservative, because we have tried to show how [o]ur world is
(in an ultimate logical sense) as it ought to be (ibid. 314). Nonetheless, it goes
further than Harris because in that logical dance we see how the world is in prin-
ciple and therefore how this principle demands to be actualized or unburdened
from its immature articulation.
Alan Brudner captures the way in which the conservatism of Hegels owl
image of philosophy [ ] [is] a carefully constructed half-truth. For it conrms a
proposition crucial to Hegels dialectical conception of history: that the thought
which grasps the essence of the old world has already formulated the potential-
ities of the new; and that this thought, while it doubtless cannot rejuvenate the
moribund, can certainly preside over a new birth (1978: 4445).
man is active in his work, the more does this universal rise into prominence
out of the welter of particulars. In this way he gets to be completely at home
in his profession and grows thoroughly accustomed to his lot. The substantial
element in all those things with which he deals is then quite familiar to him
and only the particular, unessential can occasionally present him with some-
thing new. The very fact, however, that his activity has become so conformed to
his work, that his activity no longer meets with any resistance from its objects
[Objekten], this complete facility of execution, brings in its train the extinction
of its vitality; for with the disappearance of the opposition between subject and
object there also disappears the interest of the former in the latter. Thus the
habit of mental life, equally with the dulling of the functions of his physical
organism, changes the man into an old man. (EG 396Z [pp. 8586/6364])
Enchantment emerges out of the human spirits discovery of that uni-

versal, [or] rule, [or] something conformable to law present in his cul-
tivated activity and resides in the way he gets to be completely at home
in his profession and grows thoroughly accustomed to his lot from a po-
sition of being initially vexed and morose about the state of the world.
While this delightful reconciliation allows the human spirit to enter into
that relationless identity [ ] in which the ethical is the actual living prin-
ciple of self-consciousness (PR 147A), this Hegelian culmination of the
human spirit brings about the extinction of [ ] vitality. The human
spirits participation in freedom, its life as the living good, is a banality in
which the extinction of mental life will parallel the gradual extinction of
physical life. In overturning the outward activity of the old understanding
of the good life Hegel seems to break the equation of vitality and the high-
est form of human life. For Socrates, philosophy may have been prepara-
tion for death. For Hegel the new highest form of human activity is a kind
of death. While this transformation of Socratic preparation into Hegelian
actuality is part of Hegels completion of the ancient vision of the good, it
is not the sort of completion that helps his idea of the good life stand as a
valid account of the structure and experience of the living good.
The enervation of the human spirit is a problem that cannot be side-
stepped by treating banality as a defect of the human spirit in a way that
the ancients could treat the individual absence of virtue as some defect of
person, polis, or education. Hegels account of freedom shows that the re-
lationship between the good life and death belongs to the very structure
of the world.
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. This
lesson of the concept is necessarily also apparent from history, namely that it
is only when actuality has reached maturity that the ideal appears opposite the
real and reconstructs this real world which it has gasped in its substance, in
the shape of an intellectual realm. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, the
shape of life has grown old, and it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized,
by the grey in grey of philosophy; the owl of Minerva begins its ight only with
onset of dusk. (PR Preface p. 28/23)
In order for the individual human spirit to arrive at the banality of be-
ing at home in the world, the world must have already become this banal
dwelling place. For both the human spirit and spirit itself, only the forma-
tive process appears to contain any vitality. Only when the inward truth
of the world struggles against its outward form does the world seem alive.
Only when the human spirit is being cultivated toward freedom does life
appear new, delightful, and vital.
Hegels idea of the good life appears to sound a death knell. His call
to transform the world means that the shape of life will not be reborn.
Rather that shape is called to grow old. His long attempt to escape from
his youthful insight that the West has grown old and is incapable of satisfy-
ing the human spirit (TE 29; see chapter 2 sec. III. C) has simply returned
him to it. A vital condition of freedom is replaced with a human spirit to-
tally habituated to life,
mentally and physically blunted [because] the opposition between subjective

consciousness and mental activity has disappeared. For they are active only in
so far as they have not yet attained something and wish to assert themselves
and show what they can do in pursuit of it. Once this is accomplished, their ac-
tivity and vitality disappear, and the loss of interest which ensues is mental or
physical death. (PR 151Z)
Hegels idea of the good life shows that the good is available to us in
our ordinary activity and within the institutional possibilities of the mod-
ern political community. Yet, just as it does so, his idea of the good life
brings him to despair. The ancient foundation of the human spirit in hu-
man capacity and virtue proved impossible; the new foundation grounded
in spirit and freedom seems to show itself as lifeless. The call to transform
life now appears itself to require a transformation. The enchanted world
of the good must be recaptured. A vitalizing reconciliation with the world
must be securedand yet the resources for doing so seem nowhere to be
found within the shape of his idea of the good life.9
9 Of all Hegels commentators Alexandre Kojve perhaps best grasps this

problem of banality in the condition of the actualized good. Kojve calls this con-
dition the disappearance of Man at the end of history because, for him, the an-
nihilation of Being [ ] consists in the Negativity which is Man, that Action of
III. Vitality and the New Virtue of Freedom
If the problem of banality is a real one, it presents a profound challenge

to Hegels idea of the good. We cannot merely supplement his idea of the
good in order to solve the problem. The problem of banality arises di-
rectly out of the very structure of the good and so out of the self and of
freedom. Its correction would seem to require a return to the absolute
Selbstttigkeit of human nature. Only then would the human spirit have a
way of acting independently of the world in a way that is immune to the
worlds dulling effects.
Yet, we cannot return to the immediate absolute Selbstttigkeit of the hu-
man spirit underpinning the modern idea of critical reason and moral
conscience.10 Nor can we return to the disguised absolute Selbstttigkeit
Fighting and Work by which Man preserves himself in spatial Being while destroy-
ing it (1969: 159 n. 6 Note to Second Edition, 155). So, when Man must re-
main a Subject opposed to the Object to remain human, the absence of this
struggle means the end of the human and the submergence of man into nature:
Man remains alive as animal in harmony with Nature or given Being (ibid. 162
n. 6, 158 n. 6) Now, Kojve is incorrect about the Hegelian essence of man. We
have shown that it consists just in the preserving unity of subject and object or
that condition which we call the process of freedom and selfhood. Nonetheless,
he does properly capture the problem (the absence of struggle) and the experi-
ence in this fully ethical world: men would construct their edices and works of
arts as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musi-
cal concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals,
and would indulge in love like adult beasts. But one cannot then say that all this
makes Man happy. One would have to say that post-historical animals of the spe-
cies Homo sapiens (which live amidst abundance and complete security) will be
content as a result of their artistic, erotic, and playful behaviour, inasmuch as, by
denition, they will be contented with it (ibid. 159 n. 6).
Here Kojves comments recall both Friedrich Nietzsches discussion of the
animal [who] lives unhistorically: they leap about, eat, rest, digest, and leap
again; and so from morning until to night and from day to day, only briey con-
cerned with pleasure and displeasure, enthralled by the moment and for that rea-
son neither melancholy nor bored (On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History
for Life, 1, pp. 12) and those Ultimate men who have achieved a condition
in which work is entertainment, [n]obody grows rich or poor, all quarrel[s]
are soon ma[de] up, and in general [t]hey have their little pleasure for the day
and their little pleasure for the night: but they respect health. For this reason
they say, We have discovered happiness and Formerly all the world was mad,
and yet do not truly live (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue 5).
Both Kojve and Nietzsche associate the problem of banality with the Hegelian
end of history or, at least, Hegelian historicism (see Nietzsche, On the Advantage
and Disadvantage of History for Life, 8, pp. 4647).
10 Frederick Neuhouser engages in a similar project to nd the place of the
found in ancient virtue. Both lead to the assertion of the human spirit
against the world, making a universally known and lived good impossi-
ble from these foundations. Additionally, to try to reconceptualize Hegels
conception of the human spirit in order to reclaim this lost moment of
self-activity is to step outside of the foundation of Geist. Despite the prob-
lem of banality, fully developed spirit solves the actual destructiveness of
the human spirit as absolute Selbstttigkeit.
If we had not explored his youthful search for the satisfaction of the
human spirit then we might unreservedly turn to supplement Hegels ma-
ture account of the good life with the ancient virtues, particularly phron-
sis,11 for his mature interpretation of virtue seems so utterly devoid of
any real engagement with its ancient form that he appears to have failed
to consider it at all seriously. Even in light of our exploration a return to
moral conscience within the system of freedom. For him, the place of the moral
conscience is to allow the individual to gain access to the truth him or herself after
having been properly oriented to the community in a way that is a secularized ver-
sion of the Protestant conscience (2000: 24950). We have argued that the truth
cannot be acquired through the moral conscience at all, because the conscience
can never be properly oriented to the community. We have tried to show that
when the community does properly orien[t] the human spirit the result is, in-
stead, ethical habit (the concrete knowledge of the actual life of the good)
or custom (the knowledge of the concrete, but generic life of the community as
a whole). Nonetheless, Neuhouser does correctly see that within Hegels idea of
ethical life, the atomistic apprehension of truth falls by the wayside: the moral
conscience is not a thinking by oneself but rather a thinking together with oth-
ers (ibid. 247). This statement applies both to ethical habit and to the new form
of the moral conscience: the new social phronsis. See also Alice Ormiston 2004.
11 Steven Smith introduces the idea of the regenerative power of phron-
sis. The context in which he does so is the need to maintain and preserve both
the critical nature of philosophy and its realization in the world so that the in-
sights of universal reason [can] be applied to particular situations (1989: 245
46). Smith does not treat the problem of banality seriously because he connects it
with Hegels succumbing to the temptation of endowing his thought with a per-
manence and validity he denies to others(ibid. 230). He can make these claims
because he transforms the logical structure of the good that orders social experi-
ence in Hegels social philosophy into mere social experience itself. The problem
is not the correspondence of the social order to its inward truth, the problem is
consensus or intersubjective agreement among social agents who have become
aware of their interest in freedom (ibid. 221). He needs to remove Hegels logic
of social experience and selfhood in order to preserve the space for the ancient
logic of a self that is dened by its capacities. Smith does not equally make phron-
sis a matter solely of consensus or intersubjective agreement. Rather, he preserves
it as a capacity for deliberative insight that certain individuals possess and which
might be used to help foster agreement among those who do not possess it and
therefore who cannot come to any consensus on their own (see ibid. 246).
ancient virtue seems more promising than a return to the modern moral
conscience. The outward form of ancient virtue seems to strive for abso-
lute self-activity, but within the context of a natural order that ought to
give shape and direction to it. So, now we must ask a question: has Hegel
overlooked resources within the ancient theory of virtue that led the an-
cients to a rich account of the active life?
A. Completing Ancient Ethical Virtue in Rectitude
Hegels treatment of virtue in his Philosophy of Right is restricted to one

paragraph and its accompanying Anmerkung (PR 150 & A). In chapter 5
we discussed the meaning of virtue from the standpoint of Hegels idea of
the good. There it appeared as the adequacy of the human spirit to one
possibility of selfhood, be it substantive, subjective, or universal. Virtue
found its specication as rectitude: the adequacy of the human spirit to
the concrete way in which that possibility is lived for it. In turn, the genus
rectitude had various species called virtues or the specic characteris-
tics required by the selfs concrete life activity (PR 150A).
Now, Hegel understands his own account of virtue, rectitude, and the
virtues to be more than just the injection of new meaning into old lan-
guage. He understands himself to have captured both the outward and
inward truth of virtue as a representational form. When we speak of vir-
tue as a representational form we mean virtue as a way of representing the
good. Ancient virtue represents the good for the human spirit as a capac-
ity, a form of character, a way of acting, and so on. (The outward truth of
virtue in its non-representational form, i. e., as the complete expe-
rience of the good, is virtue as Hegel denes it in PR 150; the inward
truth of the non-representational form is rst rectitude, then custom, then
habit.) Hegel sees his account of virtue, rectitude, and the virtues as identi-
cal to Aristotles systematic study of ethical virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics
since the
quantitative principle of more or less will play a part in their [the virtues] de-
termination [and] [d]iscussion of them will therefore involve those defects or
vices which are opposed to them, as in Aristotle who judiciously dened each
particular virtue as a mean between an excess and a deciency. (PR 150A)
The inward truth or logical structure of the ancient representation of

virtue is that it refers only to something abstract and indeterminate; and
[ ] with its reasons and descriptions, is directed at the individual as arbi-
trary will and subjective caprice (PR 150A). This inward truth is moral
reection (ibid.). Because Hegels discussion of the inward represen-
tational truth occurs before his outward one, his mature account of the
good life leaves us with the impression that the ancient account of virtue
has not been taken seriously at all. When we look at Books II and III of the
Nicomachean Ethics, we do not nd Aristotle writing of the nature of ethical
virtue as if it were only subjective caprice or Kantian moral reection.
We can best appreciate Hegels mature interpretation of virtue in light
of the destruction of his rst Problemstellung detailed in Part I of this book.
From the latter standpoint we see that Hegels otherwise strangely brief
account presents the conclusion of his entire youthful development: that
the logic of ancient virtue is the logic of radical subjectivity. Only by follow-
ing the development of Hegels youthful thought do we nd the work be-
hind the conclusion presented in the Philosophy of Right. In his rst search
for the human spirits satisfaction he wrote from the standpoint of his
commitment to a conception of the human spirit rooted in ancient theory
of human excellence. In his maturity, and now as an actual Volkserzieher, he
writes for a lecture audience and a wider population for whom the experi-
ence of ancient virtue already has been replaced by the experience of the
moral conscience. Hegel has no need to recapitulate his own youthful ed-
ucation here in a philosophic form because he can assume its experiential
validation among his readership.
So, Hegel has not merely and unthinkingly read ancient virtue
as Kantian virtue in the Philosophy of Right. For that reason we must try to
grasp how his mature account of virtue, rectitude, and the virtues might
preserve the outward truth of the ancient representation of virtue in the
way that he implies it does.
The outward truth Hegel strives to preserve is not the perfection of
character that the ancient ethical virtues bring about. Rather he strives to
preserve the end towards which that perfection moves. Of all the features
of ethical virtue, Hegel xates only on Aristotles golden mean. In it he
sees Aristotles awareness of the true end of ethical virtue: the ethical vir-
tues can be more or less because they are relative to the particular and
contextualized needs of the polis, not to some xed nature of the human
soul. Aristotle himself identies these virtues as habits and not internally
existing powers or feelings.12 The Aristotelian ethical virtues ultimately re-
spond to the demands that the polis makes on its citizens in order to en-
sure the perpetuation of the city in its specic nature. When Hegel de-
nes virtue as the ethicals reection in character, he captures virtue as
the requirements of the polis as they exist in the human spirit. In recti-
tudes specication of this adequacy of the human spirit to the communi-
tys particular requirements, ancient ethical virtues goal is completed
and preserved.
12 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II ch. 4, 1105b201106a15.

Yet in this preservation we nd no solution to the problem of banality.

Banality is a problem because it destroys vitality. If the ancient ethical vir-
tues might be a solution, it is because they held out the promise of the hu-
man spirits heroic perfection against the dulling receptivity of the ethical
order. Now we see that ethical virtues themselves do not aim at specialness
at all (see PR 150A). The appearance of the hero is merely a by-prod-
uct of a defective ethical order that forced the isolated human spirit to do
what institutions could not.
B. Completing Ancient Phronsis in Ethical Habit
The completion of ethical virtue in rectitude does not exhaust the re-
sources of ancient virtue. For the ancients, ethical virtues were never pre-
eminent. Because they articulate the systemic needs of the community, a
corrupt community will produce corrupt ethical character. The ancients
grasped the full vitality of the active life in terms of those virtues indepen-
dent of the community because they are natural to man. The best way of
life involved the exercise of what Aristotle called the intellectual virtues.
For Aristotle, a human life without phronsis is a life without vitality and
unity. In its absence, human activity would fall into a fractured chaos.13
The activity of phronsis is a deliberative insight, a coming to see through the
contingency of a human situation what that situation requires.14 Phronsis
does not read the situation to nd instructions; it is irreducible to a set of
rules or calculations or simply obedience. The unity of phronsis and the
world is lost if we see it only as the tting of the particular under the uni-
versal.15 While phronsis does provide knowledge of the universal and of partic-
ulars,16 to see it as a faculty that unies the two is to assume that the good is
not concretely present in the world but is brought in from above. Aristotle
understands, in the same way that we have tried to show Hegel does, that
we can do without abstract knowledge of the universal and still secure the
good for man.17 Apart from Aristotles own claims regarding the unity of
the nature or good for a being and that being itself,18 phronsis lets us know
that the good can be found within the concrete situation.19
13 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI ch. 13, 1144a110; 1144b305a6.

14 Ibid. Bk. VI ch. 5, 1140b412; Hans-Georg Gadamer 1990: 322. Ronald Beiner
provides an analysis of how this insight of phronsis differs from the other intellec-
tual virtues with which Aristotle compares it (1983: 7379).
15 Hans-Georg Gadamer 1990: 21.
16 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI ch. 8, 1141b1524.
17 Ibid. Bk. VI ch. 8, 1141b22.
18 E.g., Aristotle, Physics, Bk. II ch. 1, 193b5.
19 Alfredo Ferrarin nicely captures the difculty in understanding phron-
sis in terms of what Hegel and Immanuel Kant call judgement: In ethics, rules do
As a practical, deliberative insight into the world translated into human

activity, phronsis is an attractive solution to the problem of banality. Taken
as a capacity of the human spirit, it seems to provide a source of vitality that
is independent of the enervating effects of freedom. Hegel provides no ac-
count of phronsis in its representational form as he did with the ethical vir-
tues. Furthermore, there is no basis for such an account. The human spir-
its foundation is in spirit, not the xed characteristics of human capacity.
The collapse of phronsis into rulership revealed in Part I of this book
prepared us to see that spirit preserves the inward or logical truth of the
representational form of phronsis as the natural will. Although the natural
will is the basis for activity, this activity is not complete in itself. The natu-
ral will supplies the determinations necessary for practical activity, but
these determinations are a matter of caprice. Unlike the claim of phronsis,
the natural wills determinations do not achieve their rationality through
a perception of the good but through the rationality of the political com-
munity that gives shape to the natural will.
When we remove the inward truth from the representational form of
phronsis, what remains is the activity of self-integration and coordination
of the human spirit. Phronsis is the preeminent ancient virtue because it
maintains the human spirit in its unity. Now, we have already seen that
spirit takes up even this moment of phronsis. However it does so in a way
that removes the activity from the human spirit and places the integrat-
ing function within a system of relations that Hegel calls ethical life. This
move might at rst seem to rob the representational form of phronsis of
its vitalizing possibilities because individual vitality is no longer a concern.
The individual is not thereby forgotten. Phronsis discerns the good in the
practical situation in which the human spirit nds itself and so is a way of
knowing. It is knowledge of the nature of the political community in its
traditions, laws, and institutions through the apprehension of the commu-
nitys principle. As a form of structural knowledge,20 it is not mere obedi-
ence to givenness of the community but involves the mutual constitution
of that givenness with the individuals own deliberative activity. In this way,
the representational form of phronsis implies the Hegelian self as the self-
conscious and practically lived unity of subject and the concretely existing
good. The outward truth of the representational form of phronsis is that
phronsis aims at being at home in the world.21
not prescribe their application to all instances, for instances are not simple occur-
rences of universals to begin with; rather, rules are interpreted and given mean-
ing by instances that are the starting point for experience and the object on which
deliberation exercises itself. [ ] [W]e must resist taking particulars as uni-
versals (2001: 337).
20 Hans-Georg Gadamer 1990: 2122, 313, 314.
21 Ronald Beiner nicely articulates this dimension of social insight in what
Like Hegelian selfhood, the ancient representational form of phronsis

(i.e., phronsis as a capacity that is possessed by the isolated human spirit
and actualized through that isolated human spirits own efforts) aims to
honour the good by making the good live in the world. Yet phronsis actu-
ally dishonours the good by making it into a mere ought. The result for
the ancients is that members of the political community must be classi-
ed according to their adequacy to this ought. The highest human type
is one whose virtues articulate the integrating and systematizing function
that the ancient social order itself cannot perform. The man of superla-
tive virtue is the one who can exercise the architectonic functions of dis-
cerning the universal good and acting on it. He transcends virtues rooted
explicitly in the community; he possesses the intellectual virtues, particu-
larly phronsis and sophia. This man can secure the regime and thus make
the good into an actual universality. So, for the ancients the best regime is
inseparable from those men possessed of both the highest virtues and the
highest ofces.
Yet, both Plato and Aristotle know that the good ought not to be an
ought. If the good is the foundation of actuality, it must be present in all
of actuality. Those human types inadequate to the good should still expe-
rience the good. So Plato and Aristotle struggle to create a social order
in which each human type can nd its place. For Plato, in the Republic,
this struggle means a hierarchy of human beings according to the qual-
ity of their soul and then the projection of a community corresponding to
this ordering. For Aristotle it means the naturalistic attempt to distinguish
between men, women, children, and slaves. Minimally, the properly
constituted polis becomes one that is receptive to these fundamental di-
visions within the human type. Hegel himself explicitly experimented
with this approach to the good life especially in his Natural Law (see NR
48995/99104).
Hegels ethical habit preserves the goal of the representational form
of phronsis: the conditions for being at home in the world are secured and
the integrative activity previously associated with the phronimos becomes
available to ordinary activity. More importantly, the central contradiction
we have called the representational form of phronsis: We see now that the an-
swer must reside in the capacity of the prudent man, the phronimos, not just to
judge, but at the same time to judge-with (as among citizens)judgment guided
by shared concern, informed by reciprocal involvement in situations held in com-
mon. In this sense, sympathetic understanding and capacity for forgiveness are
essential moments of any judgment upon human affairs, and all authentic judg-
ment contains within it the potentiality for judgment-with. Aristotle, by pairing ph-
ronsis with understanding, judgment, and fellow-feeling, thereby contributes to
an awareness of the substantive human conditions of practical judgment (1983:
7982).
of phronsis is removed in ethical habit because, consisting only of a form

of relation, it does not issue forth any determinate content, leaving the
latter to be given by the role, trade or task. Since the content is already,
for the most part, determined by the institutional differentiations of the
world, the need to restrict the community in order to facilitate the coor-
dination and integration of these contents disappears. Both the ethical
custom of patriotism and the ethical habits of love, honour, and service
preserve the moment of knowledge contained in phronsis. However, this
knowledge is not asserted against the community as a practical plan of ac-
tion but nds itself in the possibilities of practical plans of action that are
issued forth by the objective aspect of the selfhood.22
Hegels mature engagement leaves all the truthful resources of phronsis
taken up. We can nd no untapped resources by shifting our focus to
the highest of the ancient virtues: sophia or wisdom. For sophias structure
and goal is no different from that of phronsis. It differs only in its object.
The ancient man of wisdom also strives to nd himself at home in the
world. However, that world now consists in divine mind rather than the
physical community. As a result, the contemplative life requires an even
smaller and more exclusive community than political life. The outward
community is one of philosophic friendship, for only among such a group
of friends can a coincidence of common assertion about the nature of the
divine good be sustained. The representational form of wisdom as an activ-
ity of divine insight merely intensies the contradiction between the uni-
versality of the good and the exclusiveness of its actualization.
The absence of the perpetual activity of deliberation, formulation of
practical plans, or striving for the good in ethical habit is not the fa-
tal blow to Hegels idea of the good life that it rst appears to be. Even
phronsis and sophia, as Aristotle himself understood them, aim at the very
condition we rst associated with banality. The autonomous activity that
rst appeared to be their excellence now appears as a symptom of the fail-
ure to actualize their true end. In this way, the representational form of
the preeminent ancient virtues neither provide resources for the vitaliza-
tion of Hegels idea of the good life nor do they challenge it. However, the
ancient intellectual virtues do conrm that vitality cannot overturn the ac-
tual community of the good. The active and autonomous life of self-activ-
ity must occur within the connes of the externally existing community.
We can no longer look for the fundamental extinguishment of the condi-
tion of banality. Indeed banality now appears as a problem of idiosyncratic
22 Merold Westphal also points to this relationship between ethical habit and
phronsis when he says In Aristotelian terms marriage is praxis, not poiesis, and the
knowledge of which it depends is phronesis rather than techne. Like all forms of vir-
tue, the We formed by love is its own reward (1984: 87).
taste, a holdover from a world in which the constant vitality of the hu-
man spirit was the only power that could maintain the good in the world.
Banality persists as a problem in so far as we have not followed Hegel in
abandoning the absolute Selbstttigkeit of the human spirit for that absolute
Selbstttigkeit of spirit.23
So, Hegels idea of the good life does not need to be revitalized in or-
der to logically secure the good. Only if we expect the experience of free-
dom to be the cultivation of specialness in the isolated human spirit rather
than the human spirits reconciliation to spirit will freedoms old age ap-
pear to us as intolerable.24 Yet, his account requires that freedom or being
at home in the world be made palatable for those who do not wish to be
at home in the world.
C. The Collective Determination in the New Phronsis

and the Playful Revolution
The Philosophy of Right does contain realms vitalizing for subjectivity. The
most obviously encompassing one is public opinion, a realm of [f]ormal
subjective freedom, whereby individuals as such entertain and express
their own judgements, opinions, and counsels on matters of universal con-
cern (PR 316). In this realm, Hegel implies, the felt need for radical sub-
jectivitywhich is expressed as each individual wish[ing] to be consulted
and given a hearing (PR 317Z)can be met, for [o]nce he has fullled
23 The problem of banality is most acute for Friedrich Nietzsche and Alexandre
Kojve because they cleave most strongly to foundations of the human spirit that
are least spiritual in the Hegelian sense and most similar to the human spirit as
absolute Selbstttigkeit. Their concern about the re-animalization of man is only a
problem because, ironically, they use a conception of the human spirit that is ani-
malistic. Nietzsche nicely captures this conception in his image of the child as a self-
propelling wheel, a rst motion, a sacred Yes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Of the
Three Metamorphoses, p. 55); Kojve does nearly the same by adopting the lord-
ship/bondsman as the preeminent form of the struggle for recognition (1969: ch.
2). Thomas Pangle falls into the same error, although his is more difcult to see,
since the representational form of ancient virtue that he adopts appears quite dif-
ferent from the foundation adopted by Nietzsche or Kojve (Pangle 1992: 106
107). In this case, Steven Smiths insight into the rejuvenating possibilities of
phronsis does nd the good within the community and so it is indeed institu-
tionalized (1989: 24546; cf. Pangle 1992: 1213 and see also Carl Shaw 1992 for
an application of Smiths interpretation).
24 Donald Maletz makes a similar point, although he thinks that if we nd in
the actualization of those aims [of the will in the world] a certain decisive kind
of human completion or fulllment (albeit mundane), then there is no longer a
need to believe that our concern for right forces us to pursue unattainable per-
fection (1989: 4647).
this responsibility [to respect the subjective opinion of others] and had
his say, his subjectivity is satised and he will put up with a great deal (PR
317Z).
As a vitalizing realm, public opinion has much to recommend it. It al-
lows radical subjectivity to express itself. It is available to all, and therefore
could be everywhere that habit is. It involves the recognition of something
beyond each individuals own judgements, and so preserves within it the
space for an ethical order outside of itself. Nonetheless, as Hegel acknowl-
edges, public opinion is only a [f]ormal subjective freedom, and for that
reason, empty. Participation in public opinion does not affect the individ-
uals particular life. It does not touch upon the concrete place within ethi-
cal life where the individual rst becomes enervated. But this problem we
face within public opinion is not Hegels. He requires a space within his
ethical system where radical subjectivity in the people can express itself
harmlessly. We require a space within his ethical system that will engage
subjectivity as a counterweight to habits mental or physical death.
The space we are looking for must allow vitalization within the absolute
truth of spirit and therefore will share the position of phronsis in the an-
cient theory of virtue. It will represent the moment of the active life but
exist below, and be dependent upon, wisdom. In this way, a search for this
vitalizing space becomes a search for a new phronsis. In this search we re-
turn to that moment from which Hegel rst began his youthful attempt
to identify the satisfactions of the human spirit. We return, however, with
the full knowledge of both why his rst attempt failed and the shape of the
new solution to the human spirits satisfaction. In order to avoid the de-
structive logic of the old phronsis, this space, like public opinion, cannot
involve the cultivation of the human spirit, for cultivation is the process of
enmeshing the subject in substance of the production of the self.
The subject matter of the new phronsis must be that about which phi-
losophy has no concern, and [about which] it can save itself the trouble of
giving good advice on (PR Preface p. 25/21). As a result, the new phron-
sis home must be those innitely varied circumstances which take place
within the innite wealth of forms, appearances, and shapes that the
system of freedom has as its moments (ibid.). These innitely varied cir-
cumstances become the institutional interstices where the new phronsis
might live.25
25 Alan Brudner points to the same need for this space when he notes that the
system of relations between community and the human spirit must leave room
within itself for a sphere of asocial individualism wherein the common good is
actualized with a moderation that preserves the distinctiveness of that sphere
(1995: 17).
Alexandre Kojve articulates an intuition of this asocial space in his alterna-
tive to animalized man at the end of history: Japanized man (1969: 162 n. 6). For
There are a number of other examples throughout the Philosophy of

Right that seem promising but are ultimately insufcient. Perhaps rst
among these is the sphere of choice in Hegels recognition of the right of
individuals to consent to marriage or to chose their occupation, be it in
business or public service (PR 162, 25152, 291). However, here subjec-
tivity serves only to initiate its completion in the ethical substance of
marriage, market, or political state. Closer to the mark are his descrip-
tions of those places where radical subjectivity must accompany habit
instead of being replaced by it. These are: the extraordinary circum-
stances of genuine crisis or collision of duty (PR 150A); in charitable
succor to the poor (PR 242 & A); in monarchial decisions (PR 275); in
certain determinations by the executive branch (PR 287) and its various
arms, e.g., the determination of both harm by the police (PR 234 & A)
and sentences for the convicted in the administration of justice (PR 214
& A); in the deliberation and giving concrete shape to law by the deputies
in the legislature (PR 309, 299A); and nally in the actions of soldiers in
combat (PR 328). Nonetheless these instances, too, constitute an insuf-
him, Japanized men are an alternative because they do not live in harmony with
nature. Rather they are currently in a position to live according to totally formal-
ized valuesthat is values completely empty of all human content in the his-
torical sense. Thus in the extreme, every Japanese is in principle capable of com-
mitting, from pure snobbery, a perfectly gratuitous suicide (ibid. 162 n. 6). Tom
Darby provides a very good account of the psychological condition of snobbery
by rightly seeing as absolutely key the idea of the gratuitous. For him, the gratu-
itous is what is given by grace: it is something privileged or aristocratic; snobbery
becomes the psychological state of aidos or what is associated with the practices of
the aristoi or aristocracy (1990: 17476). However, there is also an important on-
tological sense to snobbery and gratuitous that we can recover. This ontologi-
cal sense makes Kojves insight an important support for our reading of the new
phronsis, even if we do not agree with his conception of man.
Darby implicitly points to this ontological sense when he notes that in
Japanized man, formalized values have replaced the conscience (ibid. 175).
With this replacement, action animated by what is ethically necessary (in Darbys
reading this ethical necessity is expressed as guilt and sin and the need to be
expunged of wrong-doing) is replaced by what is required only for public
esteem. So, ontologically, Japanized man is a snob because he lives according
to ends that are indifferent to those that are ethically necessary. If these ends were
not so indifferent then Kojve should not call Japanized man a snob but rather just
or good. In our terms: snobbery replaces ethical habit in Japanized man. Then,
his actions become perfectly gratuitous in that they have no ontological
meaning: they are not articulations of the good. While Kojves solution to the dis-
appearance of vitality with the animalization of man is not valid because we lose
the good, it does point towards the form that the solution to banality must take:
arbitrariness.
ciently robust answer to the problem of banality, for the scope for vitality
falls within an institutional space too restricted and exclusive to be found
in all the circumstances of ordinary life in which the enervation of the ha-
bitual experience of the good might be felt.
In a sense, we must seek a more democratic, vitalizing space within Hegels
texts, one that is open to all who can experience the good but also that
forces subjectivitys arbitrariness to take place within certain constitutional
limits. Ironically this democratic requirement means that we cannot widen
the compass of those political or administrative spaces mentioned above.
To do so is to introduce [t]he idea that all individuals ought to partici-
pate in deliberations and decisions on the universal concerns of the state
(PR 308A). Hegel cannot permit such a democratization without doing
damage to his larger metaphysical claims about the universal availability
of the experience of the good. If subjective opinion could ethically domi-
nate the political communitys foundational institutions, then there would
be no objective good for the subject to pass over into and therefore no rec-
ognizably Hegelian conception of freedom or human completion. Since
the institutional conditions for the latter experience are something that
can be objectively known, the deliberations and decisions on the univer-
sal concerns of the state become matters that are to be restricted to those
with the objectively required, and practically acquired, ethical knowledge
and disposition. In other words, this sort of decision-making must fall to
the civil service or properly selected legislative assemblies. To sustain the
Hegelian experience of the good, the ethical order must remain subject
to control from above (PR 295)as indeed it does to this day in every
modern, democratic state.
Once we have separated the state as system from state as moment, and
then separated political activity from the exclusive province of the univer-
sal self, political activity loses its otherwise special status. It is no more im-
portant to the life of freedom than economic or familial activity. Indeed,
neither familial nor economic activity is incompatible with the new phron-
sis. Only one condition removes the possibility of the new phronsis: the hy-
pertrophy of specialization and limitation of particular work(PR 243).
Not only is a hyper-division of labour bound up with the logic of poverty,
but when human labour can be replaced with a machine, human activity
has been reduced to invariant rules in which no innitely varied circum-
stances can be found.
A hyper-division of labour has its necessary source in the disorganiza-
tion of civil society. We have seen how Hegels description of ethical life
calls for the maturation of civil society into its true ethical power: the cor-
poration. Through the corporation, the pathological features of the divi-
sion of labour should retreat along with the all-pervasiveness of economic
activity and the exclusive articulation of subjective selfhood in market ac-
tivity. In this way, the criticism and solution present in Hegels description
of ethical life creates a space for the new phronsis even as the logic of free-
dom makes old age an ontological condition.
This space for the new phronsis goes beyond simply loosening the
bonds of overly specialized roles, trades, or tasks. The mature shape of
the good life creates space for the new phronsis by rst allowing the hu-
man spirit to fashion its own unity out of life. As we know, the com-
munity that is fully congruent with the demands of selfhood itself as-
sumes the broad functions of coordination and integration between the
ethical powers through their institutional articulations: family, civil so-
ciety, and the moment of the state. When the system of institutions is
not fully developed, these functions have to fall to the heroic strength of
the isolated human spirit. When ethical life has matured, the sort of uni-
ed life that the human spirit might ethically fashion changes.
The unity of life is no longer a way of life. It is not political life or the
contemplative life. Instead, its foundation consists in the human spirits re-
solve to take up an enduring and fundamental relation to the community.
The foundation of the unied life consists in selfhood. But the isolated
human spirit is left the task of coordinating and integrating the political,
economic, and familial modes of activity available to its particular possibil-
ity of selfhood. With no ethical trajectory to the life of the self, the specic
way in which the full range of the seriousness of life will be integrated into
this life must fall to its radically subjective determination. As long as the self
lives within the nature it has chosen (its ethical habit), the particular activ-
ity through which it concretely lives (i.e., the content of its role, trade, or
task) can have no affect on the freedom of the human spirit. In this way,
the selfs subjective unication of life activity becomes an analogue to the
systems own integrating and coordinating activity. The architectonic func-
tion preformed by spirit is returned in part to the particular individual.
This integration and coordination opens up another, more profound
space for lifes vitality beyond simply fashioning together preexisting modes
of activity into a unied life. The fully ethical community also creates
space for shaping the concrete situation in which the self lives. At rst
glance we might think that Hegels idea of the good life leaves little room
for the arbitrary transformation of the context of life activity. In one sense,
this thought is correct. In so far as the institutions and their relations are
necessary for selfhood, they must stand outside the compass of direct con-
trol of the human spirit. The system of freedom stands above the human
spirit; it is the human spirits foundation. Hegel incorporates these restric-
tions on the radical transformative power of the self when he describes
limits on the legislative (see PR 298), executive (see PR 234 & Z), and
implicitly to the monarchial power (see PR 281, 282 & A, 28385).

The vitality we are seeking is not given the utmost respect when the hu-
man spirits foundational conditions are permitted to fall under its arbi-
trary control. To do so is to return to rulership as the highest act of the
human spirit and absolute Selbstttigkeit as its nature. It is to repeat what
Hegel takes to be Rousseaus great error in grasping the spiritualized na-
ture of human beings: making the particular will both the foundation of
the general will and subordinate to it (PR 258A). It is to return to the de-
struction of the state, for [s]ubjectivity[s] [ ] most external manifestation
is the dissolution of the existing life of the state by opinion and ratiocina-
tion as they seek to assert their contingent character and thereby destroy
themselves (PR 320; see also 258A).
Between the empty vitality of public opinion and the exclusive vitality of
control from above lies another realm, one that Hegel says can be gov-
erned in a concrete manner from below (PR 290). At rst, this space too
seems unequal to the task of vitalizing habit. The activity that properly be-
longs to it he describes as triing business and triviality, noting both
its relative unimportance to matters of the state and the labourious,
foolish, inept, and inefcient way in which that business likely will be
conducted (PR 289A). In part, his language reects a desire to protect
Baron von Steins and, later, Prince von Hardenbergs local administrative
reforms from the re-imposition of control from above.26 Yet, Hegels lan-
guage is not simply rhetorical. It also captures the essence of human praxis
that lie[s] outside the universal interest of the state (PR 288): that it
will be radically open to being trivial, foolish, inefcient, and so on.
Although these characteristics in themselves do not constitute the vitaliz-
ing possibility of this space, they do point to its source: the subject is freed
to be that pure subjectivity which regards itself as the ultimate instance
[ ] [because] it knows itself as th[e] power of resolution and decision
(PR 140A [pp. 27778/181]). In contrast to the radical subjectivity
of Moralitt (either logically contained, in kernel, in ancient phronsis or
expressed as the Kantian free will), this subjectivity exists within a space at
once bounded by ethical institutions and entered into from them. The lat-
ter is implied by Hegels restriction of this space to those who, as he says
with regard to an analogous case, have acquired [the dispositions, skill,
and knowledge] through the actual conduct of business in positions of
authority or political ofce (PR 310). Subjectivity is freed only within the
26 A good overview of these reforms and Hegels relation to them can be

found in Terry Pinkard 2000: chs. 10, 11, and Allen Wood, Editorial notes in
Hegel 1991: 467 n. 1 to 28890.
connes of those institutional and dispositional conditions that sustain

ethical habit.
Encompassed by ethical institutions and the ethical disposition, sub-
jectivity is prevented from becoming the ironic consciousness (PR 140
[pp. 27779/18082]). The subject is already on the way to selfhood and
so cannot say,
You in fact honestly accept a law as existing in and for itself; I do so, too, but I
go further than you, for I am beyond this law and can do this or that as I please.
It is not the thing [Sache] which is excellent, it is I who am excellent and mas-
ter of both law and thing; I merely play with them as with my own caprice, and
in this ironic consciousness in which I let the highest things perish, I merely en-
joy myself. (PR 140 [p. 279/182])
The caprice and enjoyment of the play of irony is preserved in this new
realm, but the possibility of evil is removed. Instead of an evil whose most ex-
ternal manifestation is the dissolution of the existing life of the state (PR
320), we have merely activity that is trivial, triing, foolish, labourious,
and inept. Ironic play becomes a harmless, vitalizing play. This transforma-
tion is effected by an institutional space that shifts the objects of resolution
and decision from truth, right, and duty (PR 140A [p. 278/18182])
to an innite wealth of forms, appearances, and shapes (PR Preface p.
25/21). The objects with which play concerns itself are shifted from ones
of ethical signicance to ones that stand apart from the inner pulse of
their rationality and ethicality (ibid.). So, where the vitality of ironic play
is sustained by a rejection of the objective good of both law and thing, the
vitality of this harmless play is sustained by the absence of any ethically ob-
jective good from its realm in which it must get thoroughly settled and
become completely at home. Playfulness is now of a new sort that is not
harmful to the experience of the good. In these relations to the experience
of the good, Hegel shows play to be, as Hans-Georg Gadamer has also seen
it, an ontological condition, not a psychological one that might then be
contrasted with serious mindedness.27
27 Our analysis of play generally follows that of Hans-Georg Gadamer, in

that we do not take play and seriousness to be subjective conditions but onto-
logical ones (see Gadamer 1990: 10110). We differ from Gadamer more in
language than in meaning when we contrast play and seriousness. E.g., A young
child may play at preparing food, but if the physical reproduction of her life de-
pended on the actual preparation of food, we are no longer in a situation of
play. For the same reason we call a game of cards between friends play, but not
Russian roulette. Gadamer is quite right that play has its own seriousness, but it
The form taken by this harmless play is driven by the demands of the
institutional space in which it exists, that of local supervisory bodies (see
PR 289A). In this way, Hegels political philosophy gives playfulness the
form of practical deliberation we rst encountered in Aristotelian phron-
sis. But this phronsis is now ontologically playful and so no longer com-
petes with ethical habit. The original, Aristotelian phronsis takes guidance
from above, through sophia (wisdom), and acts from below, within the con-
tingency of the polis.28 Any possible Hegelian phronsis will also act from be-
low, but in the much more restricted institutional space allocated it. More
importantly, any possible Hegelian phronsis must take its guidance from
sophia made concrete as the demands of the ethical institutionsif it is to
avoid becoming the ironic consciousnesss evil or making fantastic claims
to an ultra-wisdom (PR Preface p. 25/21). As a result, a Hegelian playful-
ness will have the form of the ancient architectonic human virtue without
impinging on the architectonic ethical structures and experiences that
make for true human completion.
Although playful phronsis provides a way of vitalizing ethical habit, the
space Hegel sets aside for it is nearly as exclusive as that set aside for those
who control from above. To meet the challenge of the deadening affect
of ethical habit, the vitalizing power of playful phronsis must be democra-
tized beyond the restricted sphere of the supervisory bodies to the length
and breadth of ethical life. Such non-political democratization is already
present in the Philosophy of Right, perhaps most famously in his punning
transformation29 of Hic Rhodus, hic saltus into Here is the rose, dance
here (PR Preface pp. 2527/2122). When the good moves from being a
boast to actuality, participation in the good no longer requires heroic indi-
viduals. As H. S. Harris rightly points out, Anyone who has been properly
taught can dance anywhere; and anyone who has been properly educated
can recognize the rose.30 The concrete articulation of this imagery is Hegels
repeated insistence on the universal dissemination of knowledge of the laws
and judicial and governmental processes (PR 215, 224, 314).
The extension of this knowledge of the objective ethical order must not
be confused with the extension of actual participation in its decision-mak-
ing functions. Here, though, the realm of playful phronsis stands outside
the necessity of that objective order. Therefore no philosophic basis exists
is a seriousness whose purposive relations that determine active and caring exis-
tence have been suspended (ibid. 102).
28 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. VI ch. 5, 1140b412; ch. 8, 1141b1524. See
also Hans-Georg Gadamer 1990: 2122, 313, 314, and Ronald Beiner 1983: 7982.
29 H. S. Harris 1995a: 313.
30 Ibid.
for restricting participation in the realm governed from below to a par-

ticular group of individuals or to a particular organizational form. When
Hegel species both restrictions in the Philosophy of Right, he is engaging
in the same indulgence for which he criticized Plato and Fichte (see PR
Preface p. 25/21).
While the experience of the good does not require that various lo-
cal authorities, supervisors, administrators, etc. (PR 288) manage the
realm set aside for governing from below, some form of management
is necessary to coordinate the complex dependence and reciprocity of
work and the satisfaction of needs (PR 199) as well as the matrix of par-
ticular common interests (PR 288) that characterizes it. When the cir-
cumstances and interests are interdependent and shared, the act of man-
agement cannot be a matter for each individual to decide and judge by
himself alone. Playful phronsis must conform itself to the character of its
realm; it must become something fundamentally shared, a collective act,
both in its object and its process. So, while not all individuals ought
to participate in deliberations and decisions on the universal concerns of
the state, all individuals ought to participate in those areas that concern
their life activity in a non-necessary way.31 The realm of playful phronsis
must be politically democratized. Hegel himself points to the democratic
possibilities of this realm when he indicates that the lling of such ofces
will in general involve a mixture of popular election by the interested par-
ties, and conrmation and determination by a higher [i.e., ethical] au-
thority (PR 288). An authentically Hegelian extension of playful phron-
sis requires only that we push his democratic idea further by replacing the
election of local decision-makers with collective acts of decision itself.
Perhaps we already see the faintest adumbrations of this new social phro-
nsis in the committee structure of academic departments in universi-
ties. There, membership in organizations of communal insight and de-
cision are, generally, mediated through subjective interest. Also there, the
most proximate conditions of life activity are shaped: e.g., courses taught,
promotions, the strength and character of the department through
hiring decisions, and so on. Nonetheless, the foundational conditions for
this shaping cannot themselves be shaped: for example, to disband the de-
partment, to close the university. In this way, the institutional conditions
31 E.g., candidates for such concrete details to be governed from below are:
the scheduling of work (including breaks, holidays, vacations, hours of opera-
tions and stafng); layout of the physical work environment; sharing and distribu-
tion of inessential tasks; selection (if any) of the administrators of the conditions
of work; selection of the sorts of equipment to be used; issues of training and ad-
vancement; as well as the innumerable details which are particular to a particular
kind of work.
for that decision-making always remain; the vitalizing power of the new
phronsis cannot then destroy the conditions for its existence.
At the same time, we cannot go so far as to specify the areas of life that
ought to fall within the boundaries of the new phronsis. The natural com-
munity for any moment of the new phronsis is one that shares those condi-
tions of ordinary life under consideration. As the subject matter varies, so
will the community. Some issues will concern only one segment of a role,
trade, or task, others the role, trade, or task itself. Still others will concern
the sphere of life associated with a possibility of selfhood. As a result, the
new phronsis can no more have one deliberative centre than it can be lo-
cated in any one, xed decision-making body. In this way, the shape of
Hegels idea of the good allows for a radical democracy. At the same time,
he shows us that true democracys proper scope concerns the proximate
conditions of ordinary life. We are most directly affected by these proxi-
mate conditions, yet within our own democratic political communities,
these ordinary conditions of life activity are the ones that lie the most out-
side of our collective control.32
The unique features of this vitalizing realm allow us to say that Hegels
political philosophy contains the resources for a new phronsis. New be-
cause the ancient, ontological connection between its exercise and
human completion is no longer present. Moreover, it is new because
phronsis is transformed into an irreducibly shared experience. As with
Rousseaus general will and Kants aesthetic judgement, the ontologically
32 Steven Smith is correct to fasten on phronsis as a supplement to Hegels

ethical theory. However, we now see that the phronsis which truly supplement is
not the phronsis that he had in mind. Indeed this new phronsis inverts those at-
tributes Smith sees as its saving power. The new phronsis is not the means of in-
tersubjective agreement and social harmony, but the process by which the vital-
ity of struggle and communal decision making occurs: it is the give and take that
we conventionally associated with the pragmatics of politics. Smith captures this
place of intersubjective meaning (1989: 246, 243), but does not see that the objec-
tive basis for this consensus is not some human capacity but the proximate condi-
tions of life: the interrelations between people based on their role, trade, or task
and the shared perceptions that come from being educated up to the demands
of selfhood through them. Apart from whatever other larger project he may be
pursuing in his interpretation of Hegels political philosophy, Smith may turn
to phronsis because he cannot see in Hegels description of ethical life the basis
for agreement. His perception is at least practically correct, because the ethical
life that Hegel describes is particularly riven by apparent incommensurabilities:
the need for substantive life and the equality of all people; the need for material
equality and the apparent intractability of poverty; the seriousness of substantive
life and the avocational reality of its pursuit by the husband; and so on. At the
same time, Smith fails to see how Hegels own description provides a critique and
a solution to just this problem.
playful exercise of subjectivity implicates individuals in a shared search

for meaning.33 This sociality gives the new phronsis vitalizing power a new
depth and strength. Once radical subjectivity needs to be exercised in con-
cert with others, phronsis now has two objects: the matter under delibera-
tion and the process of collective deliberation itself. Hegel obliquely indi-
cates this vitalizing potential of collective deliberationalthough he has
no interest in developing the resources into a new phronsis as we have
done herein characterizing it as inefcient, labourious, and suboptimal
(PR 289A, 314). These qualities imply that deliberation has become
an end in itself and that subjectivity has gained that institutional space in
which its vitalism can be permanently engaged. The subjective satisfaction
of being consulted and given a hearing (PR 317Z) afforded by public
opinion is made more substantive as the playful sociality of perpetual in-
vention and re-invention of the most proximate conditions of ordinary life.
The new phronsis vitalizes without displacing the experience of the good.
Vitality and the ordinariness of the good life can go together, even as
vitality exists in the ethically unimportant details of life, and the good life
exists in lifes necessary organization. In allowing the good life to oc-
cur through ordinary life Hegel has not thereby trivialized the seriousness
of life. When the good exists as a relation rather than an activity, we can-
not look at the scope and subject matter of some role, trade, or task, and
decide its importance based on a xed conception of human nature. The
importance of a role, trade, or task consists rst in it articulating a pos-
sibility of selfhood and, second, in its integration into an exclusive and
complete sphere of life. Hegels developmental description of ethical life
shows how the rst is true; our interpretation of it revealed how this de-
scription points to the truth and shape of the second. Within the fully eth-
ical community what was before mere life is now fully spiritualized and
no longer present as something natural or animalistic standing below
a truly human life.
Within the space for the playful sociality of the new phronsis the experi-
ence of banality can disappear. The structure of Hegels idea of the good
life shows that freedom is both the source of the experience of banality but
also produces the space for lifes enduring vitality. The more the problem
of banality is felt, the more its playful overcoming must be encouraged by
the system itself. Then, the vitalization of the shape of the good life will
dwell in the innite wealth of forms, appearances, and shapes at the
33 See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Bk. II ch. 3, and Immanuel Kant,
Critique of the Power of Judgement, 40. Although unlike aesthetic judgement, the
conditions for the Hegelian determination without universal rule require the
ethical as its boundary, whereas beauty is independent of, but mysteriously con-
nected to, morality (see Kant, ibid. 4; Otfried Hffe 1994: 21516).
level of ordinary life. The ancient representation of virtue need no lon-

ger conne itself to extraordinary circumstances or extraordinary men.
His idea of the good life shows that the vitality of the human spirit is avail-
able to all in the playful sociality of the new phronsis no less so than the ac-
tual life of the habitual good. The attainment of the good life does not re-
quire the slaughter bench of history to be brought out again. It only needs
a playful revolution.
At the end of our examination of the development and meaning of
Hegels idea of the good life we nd ourselves back at its beginning. The
idea of phronsis we rst encountered in the Tbingen essay remains. But
it no longer lives in the theoretical edice of ancient virtue. Freedom is
the new home of phronsis. Freedom is the good life and the true virtue of
the human spirit, a virtue that cannot consist in some capacity or xed na-
ture of the human spirit. Instead, as we have seen, the true capacities of
the human spirit are the possibilities of selfhood available to it in the polit-
ical community. The true actualization of virtue consists in taking up one
such possibility in the act of spiritualized and participatory self-creation
so that the excellence of the human spirit and participation in the com-
munity are inseparable.
Now we also know that the shape of the community in which the good
lives is not the one Hegel outwardly describes in his Philosophy of Right, for
his own concept of freedom demands that the hierarchy of ethical institu-
tions be attened. Only then can each possibility of selfhood achieve the
equality that belongs to it. Moreover, political, economic, and familial ac-
tivity must be liberated from their exclusive association with one possibil-
ity of selfhood. Only once the full seriousness of life is available to each
possibility of selfhood can the good live in the human spirit as rightly eth-
ical habit.
We were unable to arrive at the full shape of Hegels idea of the good
life without having rst traced out the collapse of his starting point. Most
importantly, the movement from the Tbingen essay to the Life of Jesus
and the Neufassung des Anfangs provided a way of anchoring Hegels ma-
ture discussion of subjectivity to the ancient virtue of phronsis. Without
this anchor our conclusion that the solution to subjectivity redounds
upon ancient phronsis would have remained opaque. We would likely have
fallen into the terrible error of seeing ancient phronsis as a possible sup-
plementation or replacement for the Hegelian idea of freedom.
Indeed, without an analysis of the youthful development of Hegels
idea of the good life one aspect of the meaning of that idea might be lost
to us: the real political work of bringing about the good life within our own
community. This work does not consist in the moral education of cit-
izens in either its ancient representation or its modern logical purity.
Rather, it consists in the institutional transformation of the spheres
of domestic, market, and political life in order to make them congruent

with the requirements of selfhood so that the conditions for the full de-
velopment of one become the conditions for the full development of all.
Then the ancient vision of an all-structuring good can be actualized and
the modern vision of the good in which the community presents no limits
to all can be a living presence. The analysis of Hegels idea of the good life
presented here reveals these conditions to be inwardly present within the
modern political community. The actualization of the good now requires
neither the cataclysm of revolution nor the immaturity of a world consist-
ing of a hierarchy of human types, institutions, and activities. To properly
grasp the shape of the good life is to know what system of relations permits
the good to truly live without prejudice to its universality and power.
Hegels idea of the good life refocuses our gaze on an individual ex-
cellence inconceivable apart from the community, forcing us to reexam-
ine both the fundamental institutions of the modern state and the radical
equality of the activity that can ow from them. To have properly grasped
the shape of the good life is to see the innite receptivity of the free com-
munity to its citizens as the true honouring of a good. It is to unleash the
idea of the good from its privatization in the actions of the few and set it
free to live in the world through our ordinary lives.
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INDEX
Abraham 94 vs. good life 218

alienation 5152, 7677, 80, 176, 177178, problem of 226
187 and virtue 222
and being at home 74 and beautiful soul 179
in civil service 170 Beiner, Ronald 223224
in civil society 149 being at home in the world 30, 67, 80, 176,
in custom and habit 181 182. See also human spirit; virtue
as difference 74, 77 and activity 206
as divorce 163164 and banality 217
in ethical institutions 199 vs. being with oneself 75
and rectitude 179 and character 41
and selfhood 204 communalization of 78
of subject and object 138 as dwelling 2627
and virtue 178 and folk-religion 38, 42
and will 136 and freedom 138
Altenstein, Karl Sigmund Franz Freiherr and good life 117
vom Stein zu (17701840) 169 not human capacity 2728
ancients. See also Aristotle; phronsis; Plato and knowledge 184
good, vision of xix, 140142, 224, 238 and misfortune 41
good life, inquiry into 144146, 156 as obedience 103
Hegel vs. 140, 196, 212, 216 participations role in 75
virtue, conception of xixxx, 31, 103, and phronsis 223
108, 111, 133, 140, 142, 145, 179, problem derived from virtue 33
217, 218222, 236237 sources of 2728
Antigone 212 and Volksgeist 4243
Apostles. See disciples Bentham, Jeremy (17481832) 89
Aristotle 21, 24, 140141, 142, 224 Berlin, Isaiah (19091997) 143
Metaphysics 140, 141 Berne fragments. See Hegel: works
Nicomachean Ethics 24, 89, 108, 186, 220 Brudner, Alan 135, 227
221, 233 Buchwalter, Andrew
phronsis 23 on patriotism 188
Physics 222 on rectitude 180
Politics 156, 186 on virtue 179
zon politikon 24
art xix, 185, 186, 187 Cart, Jean Jacques (17481813) 113
Athens 5455, 63 Catholicism 44
Aufhebung (sublation) 200 character 16, 26, 27, 3435, 47
Avineri, Shlomo 166 and being at home 41
and religion 36
banality 215217, 236 charity 6869, 228
247
children as social relation 173174

and being at home 211 solidarity in. See corporate will
birth vs. adoption of 172 being somebody in 195
books as corrective 129 as substantive 195
education of 1112, 211 violence in 175
ethical signicance of 172 civil society 151, 199. See also corporation;
and incest taboo 162 estates; poverty; wealth
in marriage 172173, 173, 207 alienation in 149
and religion 12 critique of 203205
Christianity 67 and division of labour 229230
beliefs role in 7374 and economic activity 203
in Berne fragments 91 education through 167, 191
and Church Councils 9192, 94, 95 as ethical power 156
and community 64, 69 ethical differentiation of 200
and corruption 68, 88 ethical disposition in. See honour
critique of 68, 6971, 74, 80, 91 ethical immaturity of 203204, 205
doctrinal oor and buttresses and family 200, 204, 205, 210
of 7374, 92, 9394, 95 freedom in 166
doctrines of 44, 69 interdependence in 164
as historical faith 96, 9798 and legislative assembly 208
as fetish-faith 44 passing away of 149
and folk-religion 4345, 73 public authoritys role in 156
foundations of 91 and rectitude 192
and human spirit 70 and Roman empire 149
Jesus in 73, 91 as sphere of life 174
mans worthlessness in 73, 76 stability of 164167, 194
mystical elements in 73 vs. state 204, 205
and natural needs 73 and subjectivity 149, 164, 166
New Testament 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 system of needs in 192, 194
primitive 44, 68, 70, 91 communism 212
as private religion 44, 69 community 49, 5253. See also Athens;
reason and imagination, affect on 73 Jerusalem; Rome
as religion 44 and being at home 80
repressive institutions in 74 and brotherhood 109110
as superstition 44 Christian 64, 68, 70, 91
virtue in 7374 concept of 72
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 24 consciousness role in 6566
civil service 167168, 174. See also as an end 65
corporate will and esprit de corps 6061, 62
vs. civil society 171172 of excellence 76
vs. corporation 168, 169170 vs. folk-religion 65
education of 167, 195196 as goods horizon 183
as ethical power 157, 167170 human spirits satisfaction in 116, 145
ethical disposition in. See service and interest 61
ethical redescription of 207 story denes 93
executive 204 and obedience 110111
vs. family 167168, 169170, 171 participation in 66
hierarchys role in 170 social complexity in 5354, 56
instability in 168 unity in 56, 5960, 6265, 6869
vs. knight errant 173174 universal resources of 155, 156
mutual exclusivity of 171172 and virtue 80, 178
organization of 169 vs. Volksgeist 65
qualications for 207 Condential letters on the former constitutional
INDEX 249
relationship of the Pays de Vaud to the City division of labour 229

of Bern. See Hegel: works Dudley, Will 186
concept 198 duty 16, 176177, 180, 228
conscience xix, 109, 110, 218 education through 178
and phronsis 219 and familial roles 162
constitution 174 as good life 177178
corporate will 168169, 170
corporation 166, 174, 193194, 195 Earliest System Programme. See Hegel:
vs. civil service 169, 172 works
and division of labour 229230 education 3435, 47, 67, 175
education through 167, 191 of children 1112, 211
as ethical power 157 through conscience 219
and inner dialectic of civil society 164 through custom 182
mutual exclusivity of 171172 and good life 145
and recognition 167, 169 through ethical institutions 167, 190,
and rectitude 194 191, 193, 195196
as social relation 173174 and harmony 35
violence in 175 and introspection 124, 125
corruption 50, 97 of a people 50
moral 94, 9596 through philosophy 215
Crites, Stephen 4, 33 to politics 204205
on critique of Christianity 69 problem of 36
on folk- vs. private religion 4142 and religion 35
on Life of Jesus 89, 102, 113 to subjectivity 211
on Neufassung des Anfangs 117 and understanding 35
Cullen, Bernard and vitality 227
on civil society 205 of will 124
on public authority 155 through world 215
custom (Sitte) 179, 181183, 210 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences. See
as experience of the good 181 Hegel: works
as integrative 181182 end of history 218
and patriotism 188189 estate (Stand) 60, 61, 67, 193, 194, 200. See
as second nature 182 also civil service; historical development;
priests and princes; rulers
Darby, Tom 228 agricultural 206
death. See also suicide choice of 211
democracy 235 and ethical immaturity 206
and governing from above 229 honour in. See honour
and governing from below 234235 and interests 66
and participation 234 political signicance of 204205
political 229 and property 192193
and supervisory bodies 233234 self conated with activity in 203
Descartes, Ren (15961650) 20, 135 universal 207
dialectic 198 ethical disposition 180181. See
Dickey, Laurence 15, 2425 also patriotism; philosophy
on being at home 28 activities not incommensurate in 212
on Gemt 3435 and freedom 214
on homo religiosus and zon in civil service. See service
politikon 2425 in civil society. See honour
on Life of Jesus 8586 and institutions 189190
disciples 5152, 53, 107, 109, 110 in marriage. See love
disposition. See ethical disposition moral conscience replaced by 213
divorce. See marriage multiplicity of 189
and philosophy 213, 214 love sustains 191

phronsis completed by 224225 modalities of 211
and political life 209, 229 and nature 148, 173
ethical life (Sittlichkeit) 147148, 237 passing away of 149
critique in 201206 and polis 149
developmental account of 148149, 151, roles in 148, 195
153, 173, 198, 199, 200, 236 sexual differentiation in 199200, 202
equality in 153 as sphere of life 172
immaturity of 162, 201206 in state 210
and monarch 208209 and subjectivity 148
receptivity in 153 fancy. See sensibility
redescription of 206213, 236 feeling. See sensibility
restrictions of 230231 Ferguson, Adam (17231816) 29
stable system of 211213 fetish-faith 1315, 38, 39
subjectivitys role in 230 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (17621814) 4, 5,
truth in 197201 72, 98, 115, 133, 184, 234
unity of 230 Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation 4
ethical powers 154175, 206. See also civil folk-religion (Volksreligion) 5, 1517, 33, 37,
service; corporation; marriage 39, 53. See also community; phronsis
and activity 200 and being at home 38
education of subjectivity in 190 content of 5, 17, 37
and mutual receptivity 154, 156157 and human spirits satisfaction 36, 37,
principles in 200 3839, 4142, 96
vs. public authority 154155 inuence on actions of man 5
and self-determination 212 vs. private religion 1617, 40
not sovereign 174 project 4142, 43, 46, 4748, 50, 63, 68,
evil impulses 10 79, 8889
executive 230 vs. public religion 5
experience. See also custom; duty; habit; vs. rational religion 1718, 40
rectitude; virtue as subjective 13
education of 123 vs. superstition 40
of subjective freedom 138 unity of 65
of the good 175, 229. See also ethical and virtue 1516
disposition and Volksgeist 43, 46
of introspection 124 Franco, Paul 150, 203
ordinary 123, 124, 131 freedom. See also Selbstttigkeit
and rectitude 179180 not created 153
of the self 144 determinacys role in 142143
of self-determination 211212 and education of subjectivity and
of wholeness 131 objectivity 137138
experiences of 126, 138, 176177, 216,
faith and trust 176 217, 236
family 151, 193, 199. See also marriage; and good, vision of 141144
substantive selfhood and human spirit 147
and agricultural estate 206207, 208 and institutions 155, 159, 166, 209
and civil society 204, 210 and right to marry 159
in contemporary society 210 and participation 139, 144
critique of 202203 rationality of 135
dissolution of 158159, 207 reective 126
domestic activity in 202203 and self-legislation 130
as ethical power 156 as selfhood 152153
ethical immaturity of 202203 subjective 214, 227
ethical redescription of 206207, 209 as system 137, 153
and legislative assembly 208 and will 98, 128, 130, 132, 136, 147
INDEX 251
French Revolution. See Terror as stable system 151

and virtue 138
Gadamer, Hans-George 108 visions of xix, 140143, 224, 238
on phronsis 108 vitality in 217
and play 232233 will vs. virtue in xviii
Gans, Eduard (17981839) 125, 166 Gordon, Rupert 189
Gemt. See character Gospels 86
God 34, 87, 110, 111, 114, 116, 137 government 67
as divine spark 87, 101, 106 the executive 170
fear of 14 Griesheim, Karl Gustav Julius von
kingdom of 106, 116 (17981854) 125
love of 1415
as divine Mind 140141 habit (Gewohnheit) 181183, 210. See
obedience to 109 also ethical disposition; phronsis
voice of 106, 109 and being at home 183
worship of 87, 101 experience of 181, 182
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1748 as integrative 182, 183
1832) 27, 29, 42, 45 knowledge in 182, 183
good life. See also freedom; right; selfhood and patriotism 189
activities in 172, 212 Haering, Theodor 17, 20
and being at home 117, 201 on Life of Jesus 8586
as brotherhood 109 Hardenberg, Karl August, Prince von
conservativism of 215 (17501822) 231
constancy in 212 Hardimon, Michael 139
content of 196 on divorce 163
as custom and habit 181 on ethical institutions 154
democracy in 235 on family 203
early conception of. See human spirit: on gender 160161
satisfaction of and metaphysical reading 133
equality in 146, 148, 212 on philosophy 185
vs. ethical life 147148 harm 155, 228
experience of 175 to subjectivity 174175
givenness of 109, 111 harmony
and human spirit 121, 138, 145 and education 35
inquiries into 144146, 148, 150, 151, and folk-religion 37
156, 213 of human capacities 2930
institutional form of 147175 instruments of 31
Hegels vs. other ideas of xviixxii, 140, of virtue and being at home 30
196, 212, 216 Harris, H.S. (Henry Silton) 4, 5, 32, 51
as love 191 on being at home 2728
and monarch 208 on Berne Plan 72
and moral reection 212213 on Christianity, critique of 77
as obedience 111, 115 on folk- verus public religion 6
as ordinary life 196, 217, 236237 on folk- verus rational religion 17
and participation 145 on Gemt 3435
in Phenomenology of Spirit 175 on Gospels use 86
in Philosophy of Right 121, 175 on Hellenic ideal 45
and philosophy 213 on historical development, theory of 64, 66
and play 232 on human nature 2021, 115, 116117
as relationless identity 176, 181 on Alexandre Kojve 123
as rulership 108, 111 on Life of Jesus 88
and Selbstttigkeit s failure 112 and metaphysical reading 133134
seriousness of 212 on philosophy 184185
and state 213 on phronsis 104
on private vs. folk-religion 1617 intention of 88

on reason 31 and Kantian ethics 85, 98, 102
on revolution 215 miracle stories in 86, 87
on Rome 54 narrative in 86, 97
on subjective and objective religion 10 and Problemstellung 8586
on The Transcendental Idea of Volkserzieher s project 8998
God 99 and Western genius 94
on Tubingen essays conclusion 4748 Neufassung des Anfangs (the New Version
on Volkserzieher 89 of the Beginning) 112117
Harrison, Roger 100101 Phenomenology of Spirit xix, xx, 108, 121,
Hartmann, Klaus 149
on ethical life 201 as science of experience 175
non-metaphysical reading 133 Philosophy of Mind 122
heart. See sensibility Philosophy of Right xx, 8990, 133134,
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770 149, 186
1831). See also Hegel: works Abstract Right 142, 144, 193
and Aristotle 140141 and audience of 121
concept of community 72 and good life 121122, 148
early inuences on 4, 5, 7, 9, 15, 2021, vs. Logic 122
2425, 2728, 29, 32, 42, 4546, 51, Morality 143, 144
52, 72, 8586, 98, 99, 115 vs. Phenemonology of Spirit 121, 122
Magisterexamen 9 Volkserzieher s role in 121
metaphysical and non-metaphysical Science of Logic 122, 133, 191
readings of 133135 The Spirit of Christianity and Its
Real philosophy 133 Fate 112
as Volkserzieher 121, 123124, 221. See The Transcendental Idea of God 85,
also Life of Jesus 98
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, works of Tbingen essay 348, 79, 88, 115
Berne fragments 8889, 91, 95, 139 missing pages 19
Auer dem mndlichen Unterricht 5055 object of investigation in 12
Christus hatte zwlf Apostel 7479 overt themes 3
Die Staatsverfassungen 5561, 68 religions importance in 3
ordering of 49 ber die Religion der Griechen und
Unter Objektiver Religion (Berne Rmer 20
Plan) 7273 Urkunde der Geschichte 85
Wie wenig die objektive Religion 6771 Heidegger, Martin (18891976) 108
Condential letters on the former Hellenic ideal 21, 24, 42, 4546, 104
constitutional relationship of the Pays hen kai pan (the one and the many) 28
de Vaud to the City of Bern. A complete Herder, Johann Gottfried (17441803) 27,
exposure of the previous oligarchy of the 29, 30, 45
State of Bern 113 historical development
Earliest System Programme 112 abuses role in 6263
Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic and Christianity, critique of 71
Sciences 122, 137, 140. See consciousness role in 57, 59
also Philosophy of Mind contradictions role in 198199
Im Anbeginn war die Weisheit 85 corruption in 5758
Life of Jesus 50, 85117. See degenerations role in 58, 5960, 62
also Volkserzieher 63, 64
audience of 9495, 96, 9698 elements of 5561
dating of 85 estates role in 6061, 6263
doctrinal destruction by 9394 and history, constitutive conception
educational purpose of 9697, 98 of 56
Gospels use in 86 institutions role in 5758, 62, 63
historical details in 86, 87 interests role in 58, 61, 6263
INDEX 253
peoples maturation in 5758, 63, 9596 and natures transcendence 100

reason in 58, 60, 9596 and needs,
theory of 5758, 6164, 79, 80, 91, 95 articial 7071, 73, 80, 9192
96, 97 harmonized 2931
traditions role in 58, 61 natural 1920, 25, 28, 42, 63, 103
violence in 58, 63, 97 reconstructed 2130
Hobbes, Thomas (15881679) 133, 140, overpowered 25
144 project 48
as exemplar 142 and reason 25
on freedom 142 pregnant with 20
The Leviathan 127, 142, 144 sensibility unied with 8788
Hlderlin, Johann Christian Friedrich and religion, 35
(17701843) 24, 29, 45, 46 folk- 3738
holiness 1415, 33, 37, 76 structure of categories 3839, 40
and being at home 4142 as a response to 31
as ethical conducts apex 14, 32 as rulership and obedience 109, 111,
and human capacity 33 115
human aspect of 32 satisfaction of 31, 34, 65, 80, 81, 8283,
and virtue 4142 103104, 108, 116, 132
homo religiosus 2425 as spiritual self 138
honour 194, 195 and sensibility 25, 8788
in corporation 194 as subject and substratum 132
in civil society 191194, 194195 unity of 28, 38, 48, 78, 127, 183, 230
in estate 192193 and universality 128
and property 193 and virtue 21, 2931
Horowitz, Asher and Gad Horowitz 201 and Western Volksgeist 47
Hotho, Heinrich Gustav (18021873) 125 and will 129130, 131132, 136
Houlgate, Stephen 186 Huson, Timothy 114
human nature. See also human spirit
and community 116 idea 198
critique of 112115 imagination. See sensibility
as historicized 112113, 114 Im Anbeginn war die Weisheit. See Hegel:
as human capacity 113, 113114 works
vs. human spirit 113 incest taboo 161162
pathologies in 112 individuality 131
modications of life replace 112113 institutions 26
as rulership 114 and activity 213
human spirit 9, 99. See also being at ethical differentiation of 197198, 200
home in the world; human nature; ethical immaturity of 205206
mechanicality; virtue as ethical powers 148, 154, 156
and autonomy 103, 104, 105, 108, 114 hierarchy in 149150, 151
beauty of 8081 and receptivity 151152, 153
and being at home 2526, 52, 75 repressive 90
and community 66, 77, 92, 116 and selfhood 199
and divine 32, 80, 83 inter-subjectivity 135
enervation of 216. See also banality ironic consciousness 232
and freedom 153
and good life 111, 145 Jerusalem 5455, 63, 79
harmony in 2931, 3334 Jesus 5152, 55, 68, 7475, 116
and homo religiosus 15 authority of 105
and human capacity 21, 27, 103, 104, and being at home 53
113114 betrayal of 107
and mechanicality 10 death of 87
and non-moral motives 32 and disciples 107
human parentage of 86 mathematical method 8, 22. See

as personied ideal 8283 also understanding
as Kantian 85, 87, 98 MacGregor, David 166
pedagogy of 52 Machiavelli, Niccol (14691527) 140
precepts of 68 machinery, piece of 10. See
as salvations source 9394 also mechanicality
story of 7879, 103 MacIntyre, Alasdair xviiixix
as teacher 107 Maletz, Donald 139
vs. Socrates 5155 market. See also poverty; wealth
as virtue 78 and corporation 167
Jews 5, 52 as disorganized 165
Jocasta 161, 162 industrialization in 165
John the Baptist 94 needs in 165
justice, administration of 155 marriage 174, 190, 194. See also family;
incest taboo; love
Kant, Immanuel (17241804) 5, 20, 21, 30, and children 172173
32, 46, 51, 72, 98, 104, 115, 133, 135, communal purpose in 171
139, 235 cultivation to 163
Critique of Pure Reason 9 and divorce 158159, 163164, 171, 173,
Critique of the Power of Judgement 236 175, 207
in the Life of Jesus 87 education through 190
and practical reason 23 as ethical power 157, 163
Religion within the Bounds of Reason ethical authority in 163164
Alone 89 ethical disposition of. See love
Kaufman, Alexander 188189 ethical immaturity of 162
Kaufmann, Walter 117 husband in 203
Kingdom of God 28, 45 monogamy in 171
Kojve, Alexandre 122123 mutual exclusivity of 170171
on banality 217219, 226 and nature 190
on Hegel and good life xvii and parental relations 173
on Japanized man 227228 partners in 159
on philosophy 185186 property in 171
Kng, Hans same-sex 159160, 161
on Life of Jesus 95 and selfhood 159
on Socrates vs. Jesus 52 sexual differentiation in 159, 162, 202
as sphere of life 172173
law 147 stability of 158164
legislative assembly 204, 207, 228, 230 subjectivity in 163
and possibilities of selfhood 208 violence in 175
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (17291781) 26, Marx, Karl (18181883) 140, 166
27, 42, 45, 72 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts 145
Nathan 26 The German Ideology 212
Life of Jesus. See Hegel: works McCumber, John 201202
Locke, John (16321704) 140 mechanicality 71
Louis XIV (16381715) 26 abandoned 116
love 11, 21, 22, 192, 195, 210. See and children 11, 12
also marriage Problemstellung s key 10
vs. feeling 190191 in understanding 910
in marriage 190191, 202 memory 4, 69, 11, 12. See
and substantive selfhood 191 also understanding
lucus (sacred wood) 5859, 214 Mendelssohn, Moses (1729 1786) 72, 115
Luther, Martin (14831546) 71. See moderns
also Reformation and good, vision of 142143, 238
INDEX 255
and good life, inquiry into 145146 objective religion (objektive Religion) 69,
vs. Hegel 146, 196 1113, 39, 67, 72
monarchy 208209, 228, 231 in childrens education 11
moral law 101, 109, 110 mechanicality in 10
as ower of reason 87 memory in 6, 10
rulership and obedience unied by 102 as meta-category 11, 13
moral manual 10 senses used 7, 10, 11
as summum malum 11
nationalism 210211. See also patriotism and theology 10
Neufassung des Anfangs (the New Version of understanding in 6, 7, 10
the Beginning) See Hegel: works objectivity 138139
Neuhouser, Frederick Oedipus 161, 162
on civil society 165166 outstanding men 1113, 36. See also wise
on conscience 218219 pagan
on ethical institutions 154
on ethical life 150 Pangle, Thomas xvii, 226
on experience of the good 176 participation 7677, 196
on participation 139 and being at home 75
on philosophy 186 vs. commonality 82
on poverty 167 communalized 7677
on practical freedom 183 and decision making 234
new phronsis 233236 through ethical disposition 213
vs. ancient account 233, 235 and freedom 138139, 141, 146, 153,
and democracy 233235 206
vs. division of labour 229 as good 145
and political activity 229 and human capacity 114
and public opinion 236 of human spirit and world 75
and selfhood 227 problem of 9798, 99100
space for 227229, 230, 233234 in public opinion 227
and universities 234 through role, trade, or task 186
vitality of 236 and self-legislation 102
Nicolacopoulos, Toula and George selfhood mended by 139
Vassilacopoulos subjective 144
on love 191 through system of relations 141
on family 159 and virtue 75, 7677
on sexual differentiation 161 patriotism 187188
Nietzsche, Friedrich (18441900) and alienation 187
on banality 218, 226 as custom and habit 188189
The Birth of Tragedy xix inadequacy of 188
on Hegel and good life xviixviii as knowledge 187, 188
On the Advantage and Disadvantage of Patten, Alan 126, 139, 185
History for Life xviixviii, 218 on negative and positive freedom 143
Thus Spoke Zarathustra 218, 226 Pelczynski, Zbigniew A.
and non-metaphysical reading 133
obedience 99 on will 127
and duty 177178 Peperzak, Adriaan 4, 21
as faith 106 on custom and habit 181
and human spirit 109 on Hellenic ideal 45
and participation 100 on historical human nature 114
and phronsis 111 personality. See character
and rulership 106, 110 personhood 142
as Selbstttigkeit 103104, 107108 Phenomenology of Spirit. See Hegel: works
as sensibility 106 philosophically unhappy consciousness 175
philosophy xix, 215 practical wisdom. See phronsis

and community 185186 priests and princes 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63,
and good life 213 7071, 168
inadequacy of 184, 187 private religion 6, 1517, 38
and reconciliation 186, 213 and being at home 41
not way of life 185 and Christianity, primitive 44
Philosophy of Mind. See Hegel: works comfort provided by 41
Philosophy of Right. See Hegel: works vs. folk-religion 1617, 40
phronsis (practical wisdom) xx, 2223, 30, and phronsis 40
3940, 5354, 111, 127, 189, 196, 219. and virtue 1516
See also new phronsis Problemstellung 115, 117, 127, 221. See
and banality 222226 also community
and being at home 223 and being at home 49
and conscience 219 in Berne fragments 50, 63
ethical disposition, completed Berne fragments vs. Tbingen
in 224225 essay 7273
and fetish-faith 3940 denition of 3
and folk-religion 37 in Life of Jesus 8586, 8788, 93, 113
as integrative 223 mechanical action as key to 10
and knoweldge 222, 223 and participation 78, 8788
and natural will 223 Taylor, Charles on 30
as preeminent need 79 in Tbingen essay 3, 29, 48, 68, 72, 74,
as participation 79 114
and phronimos 224 property 80, 192193
playful 233. See also new phronsis and children 173
reason and sensibility, unied by 23, 75 in corporation 171
representational form of 223 and education 193
as rulership 108 in marriage 171
as self-legislation 104 protection of 193
and spirit 223 prudence 9, 14, 39
and vitality 222, 223 public authority 155156, 164
Plant, Raymond 64 public opinion 226227, 236
on Life of Jesus 8889, 94, 112113 public religion (ffentlicher Religion) 56, 33,
Plato 24, 46, 51, 142, 150, 184, 234 37, 39, 6768
Crito 185 and Catholicism 44
Laws 185 content of 5, 13
Republic 185, 187, 224 national and governmental institutions
play 129, 232233. See also vitality required by 6869
and monarch 209 vs. private religion 1617
and revolution 237 and Protestantism 44
police 155, 167, 228 rabble. See poverty
polis 199 rational religion 6, 1516, 33, 38
political disposition. See patriotism vs. fetish faith 16
positive religion 15 vs. folk-religion 1718, 40
The Positivity of the Christian and human spirit 40
Religion 15, 112, 113. See and virtues conditions 1516
also Neufassung des Anfangs reason 4, 23, 25, 31, 37, 38, 79, 105106,
poverty 107, 110, 115
and children 173 and alienation 82
and civil society 164165, 205 and Christianity 43
corporations role in solving 167 critical 57, 8182, 96, 97, 100, 218
and rabble 165, 166 and divine spark 101
and selfhood, loss of 166 engine of change 57, 58, 6061, 62, 63,
sources of 164165 8081
INDEX 257
excesses of 23, 26, 2931, 3233. See religion xix, 39, 81, 185, 186, 187.
also being at home in the world See also fetish-faith; folk-religion;
and historical faith 96, 9798 objective religion; positive religion;
as faith 8182, 9596, 96 private religion; public religion;
and historical development 6667 rational religion; subjective religion;
historicized 117 superstition; theology
and human capacity 88 and being at home 3334
and human spirit 1920 as analytical category 4, 37
and morality 1920, 21, 87 and children 12, 14
and motives, non-moral 32 and Christianity 44
as obedience 100101 differentiation within 3536
and the other 22 Greek 45
participative 8182, 96, 9798, 98, 102 as historical faith 82
and principles, self-generated 8182 and human spirit 3132, 3334
and religion 81 and institutions 57
as rulership 100101 and natural need 19
as Selbstttigkeit 103 and a people 90
and understanding 23 and Pietism 28
and will 137 and positivity 15, 116
receptivity 238 as practical 4
criteria for 151152 Protestantism 28
and custom 182 and reason 3233
dimensions of and sensibility 32, 33
internal stability 158170 as social fact 1819
mutual exclusivity 170172 truths, universal in 13
sphere of life 172174 universal Church in 16
in ethical life 153 revolution
and family 211 playful 237238
institutional requirements of 153 vs. transformation 215
logical vs. practical 157158, 170 right (Recht) 122
mutual 146, 147, 148. See in Abstract Right 142
also participation in Morality 143
recognition 135 Rome 63, 79, 149
through civil service 168 no humans in 54
through civil society 169 Roque, Paul 85
through corporation 167 rose in the cross of the present 213, 215
in ethical life 213 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 7, 27, 51, 140, 144,
and monarch 209 231, 235. See also corporate will
through skilled trade 165 mile 46
and virtue 178 as exemplar 142
wealth, conated with 165 on freedom 142
reconciliation Second Discourse 127, 158164
and banality 215216 Social Contract 127, 143, 144, 145, 168,
as a death 216 177, 201, 204, 236
delight in 214, 216 rulers 56, 57. See also priests and princes
gourmet, example of 214215 evil dispositions of 59
and freedom 135 rulership 98, 107110, 125, 139140
and philosophy 186, 213214 as arbitrary choice 99
and vitality 217 as conscience 108
rectitude (Rechtschaffenheit) 179180, 220 and participation 100
education through 180181 as Selbstttigkeit 103104
as ethical disposition 192
and virtue 179, 180, 221 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von
Reformation 71 (17751854) 42, 45, 98, 115
Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von and human spirit 1920

(17591805) 27, 29, 30 as love 21, 22, 39
Schlegel, Friedrich von (17721829) and morality 1920, 32, 101
Lucide 162 and reason 21
Schler, Gisela 49 and ts sphrosuns 42
Science of Logic. See Hegel: works as virtue 22
Selbstttigkeit (independent self-activity) 98 service 195196
99, 107, 211 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd
as human spirit 114 Earl of (16711713) 51
marriage, role in 163 Shaw, Carl 170, 196
and obedience 107, 111 Siep, Ludwig 154
and participation 115 slavery 175
and self-legislation 115 Smith, Steven 122
and will 125 metaphysical reading 133134
self-consciousness 132, 136 on philosophy 185
self-legislation 127 on phronsis xixxx, 219, 235
failures of 106107, 110111, 115 Socrates 5152, 55, 7475, 116, 185, 186
and human spirit 104, 108 and being at home 52
and phronsis 104 vs. Jesus 5155
rulership and obedience unied by 104 pedagogy of 52
selfhood 157, 180, 199. See also subjective story of 7879, 103
selfhood; substantive selfhood; soldier 228
universal selfhood Sophocles
and activity 172, 200, 201, 212, 213 Antigone 199
choice of 212 Jocasta and Oedipus 161, 162
as custom 182 Spinoza, Baruch (16321677) 51
and duty 177178 The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate. See
and ethical powers 190 Hegel: works
foundational ends of 151152 spirit (Geist) 129, 214, 219. See
as fractured 138 also Volksgeist
and harm 174175 development of 198199
and human spirit 132 and integration 223
and good life 145 of a people. See Volksgeist
and institutional differentiation 199 realm of 123, 127, 145
and marriage 163 as will 136
and monarch 208, 209 Stand. See estate
and political activity 205 state 199
possibilities of 152153, 204 economic institutions in 208
and rectitude 180 as ethical power 156157, 174
as relationless identity 176 ethical differentiation of 200
as self-creation 152 ethical immaturity of 205
vs. single unit 131 familial moment of 210
and vitality 227 family and civil society integrated in 200
will as ground of 132 and freedom 151
youthful vs. mature conception of 138 as good lifes end 149150
sensibility (fancy, feeling, heart) 4, 12, 16, and hierarchy 151
23, 25, 32, 33, 37, 38, 42, 54, 58, 59, 66, and monarch 209
70, 76, 79, 80, 83, 109, 110, 115 organism of 174
and action 1920 senses used 150151
and being at home 41 as sphere of life 174
excesses of 23, 26, 2931, 33. See Stein, Heinrich Friedrich Carl, Baron von
also being at home; reason (17571831) 231
and God, service to 88 Stift. See Tbingen theological college
INDEX 259
Storr, Gottlob Christian (17461805) 51 system 137

Strauss, Leo 123 of needs 192, 194
subjective religion (subjektive Religion) 6
9, 1113, 35, 36, 39, 72. See Tacitus, Gaius Cornelius 24
also outstanding men; wise pagan Taylor, Charles 24
doctrines not universal in 12 on Aristotelianism 30
as meta-category 11, 13 from human spirit to spirit 117
senses used 7, 10, 11 on Problemstellung, youthful 30
sensible shell needed 12 on radical freedom and integral
sensibility in 6 expression 30
as summum bonum 11 on spirit 132133
subjective selfhood 152, 193, 195 on the state 210
and economic activity 205 Terror of the French Revolution 199, 210
vs. universal selfhood 205 theology
subjectivity as non-practical 4
and duty 176177 as science of God 4
education to 211 trade, skilled 167, 195
and ethical life 230 and industrialization 165
as end, unaccomplished 135136 vs. day labourer 173174
ends of, foundational 151152 recognition through 164165
and ethical powers 148 selsh aspect of 164165
and freedom 137138 as social relation 173174
and harm 174175 The Transcendental Idea of God. See
and human spirit 138 Hegel: works
as inward 135 Tbingen essay. See Hegel: works
and ironic consciousness 232 Tbingen theological college (Stift) 3
and marriage 163, 164 Tunick, Mark
vs. morality 231 on commitment 129
and opinion 147 on incest taboo 162
as unity 135 on suicide 128
and will 135136
substantive selfhood 152, 163, 171, 173, ber die Religion der Griechen und Rmer. See
195, 229230 Hegel: works
and activity, domestic 202203, 205 understanding (Verstand) 4, 710, 4041
ethical immaturity of 207208 anxiety caused by 10
ethical redescription of 207208 as a benet 8
generic sense of 177 and Christianity 43
and homosexuality 160 and education 35
and incest taboo 161162 and fetish faith 14
and love 191 heart numbed by 7
and sexual differentiation in 159160, mathematical method 8
202 mechanicality, problem of 9
as somebody 166 as non-practical 7, 9
vs. subjective selfhood 203 in objective religion 69
suicide 127128, 228 principles, claried 8
superstition 1315, 38, 39 and reason 23
vs. folk-religion 40 servitude of 810, 71
and holiness 15 syllogizes 8
and human spirits satisfaction 40 and truths, practical 8
mechanicality in 1314 universal selfhood 152, 169, 194195
as objective 13 and political activity 205
vs. prudence 14 Urkunde der Geschichte. See Hegel: works
syllogism 23
Verstand. See understanding and Life of Jesus purpose 9697, 98

vices 59 project of 8998, 90
virtue 31, 66, 67, 80, 83, 107, 114, 180 sources of 6566
and alienation 178 Volksgeist (spirit of a people) 51, 55. See
ancient xixxx, 31, 103, 108, 111, 133, also community
140, 142, 145, 179, 217, 218222, childlike 56, 5758, 63, 66
236237 conjunction of history, religion, and
articial 54, 94 political freedom 43
and banality 222 as family 56
vs. being at home 48 vs. genius of a people 90
character in 178 Greek 4546
civic 180, 188 as polis 56
communalization of 76, 78, 7980 Western 47
and social complexity 5354 Volksreligion. See folk-religion
vs. duty 178
education through 178 wealth 169, 194. See also poverty
and good life 138 and civil service 170
and human capacity 178179 and civil society 164
and mechanicality 16 as an end 172
and monarch 208 private 164165
and moral law 87, 220221 and recognition 165
moral 22 selfhoods loss through 166
vs. natural will 178 Western Genius 9092, 217
as phronsis 22, 2223 and Christianity 90
reason and sensibility unied by 21 vs. Greeks 90
and receptivity 178 vs. Jesus 90
and recognition 178 and Kantian morality 93
representational form of 220222 reason in 98
as rulership and obedience 103 Westphal, Merold 179180
and selfhood 178, 237 will 87, 123132. See also Life of Jesus;
structure of 2122 rulership; Selbstttigkeit
virtues, becomes 180 abstraction 124
vitality 217220 arbitrary 126
vs. banality 217 account of 124
choice as 228 and desire 126
decisions as 228229 as determination 124, 128129, 131
and democracy 229 132, 135136
and education 227 as developmental process 137
and ethical institutions 231 nite-innite duality 130
and governance from below 231 and human nature 124, 130131, 132,
as new phronsis 227, 236 136
and phronsis 222, 223 as human capacity 128, 130
as public opinion 226227 individual 125126, 127128, 136
and Selbstttigkeit 218219, 231 and monarch 208, 209
space for 227 natural 125126, 178, 223
and subjectivity 231232 and Selbstttigkeit 125
Volkserzieher (educator of a people) 50, 54, as self-mediating activity 131132
121. See also Jesus; Socrates; Life of Jesus as spirit 136, 145
characteristics of 89 as subject and substratum 131132
and doctrinal conformity 9293, 9798, as systemic totality 137
102103 unity of 127, 130, 136, 137, 145
historical examples of 51 as universalization 126128, 131132,
INDEX 261
135 on ethical institutions 154

Williams, Robert 135 on happiness 126, 142
on ethical institutions 154 and non-metaphysical reading 133
on natural sexual differentiation 160 on poverty 167
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim (1717 on substance 177
1768) 42, 45 on women 160
wisdom 12, 2223
wise pagan 1112, 19. See also oustanding Xenophon 51
men
Wolff, Christian von (16791754) 20 zon politikon (political animal) 24
Wood, Allen Zustze (Additions) 125
Studies in German Idealism
1. A. Peperzak: Modern Freedom. Hegels Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy. 2001
ISBN 0-7923-7040-6; Pb 1-4020-0288-2
2. G. Freudenthal (ed.): Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic.
Critical Assessments. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1473-2
3. W. Desmond, E.-O. Onnasch and P. Cruysberghs (eds.): Philosophy and Religion in
German Idealism. 2004 ISBN 1-4020-2324-3
4. Y. M. Senderowicz: The Coherence of Kants Transcendental Idealism. 2005
ISBN 1-4020-2580-7
5. A. Poma: Yearning for Form and Other Essays on Hermann Cohens Thought. 2005
ISBN 1-4020-3877-1
6. H. Svare: Body and Practice in Kant. 2006 ISBN 1-4020-4118-7
7. J. D. Goldstein: Hegels Idea of the Good Life. From Virtue to Freedom, Early
Writings and Mature Political Philosophy. 2006 ISBN 1-4020-4191-8
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(Studies in German Idealism 7) Joshua D. Goldstein (Auth.) - Hegel's Idea of The Good Life-Springer Netherlands (2006)

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STUDIES IN GERMAN IDEALISM

HEGEL'S IDEA OF THE

Advisory Editorial Board:

ISBN-10 1-4020-4191-8 (HB)

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Printed in the Netherlands.

ABBREVIATIONS, WORKS, AND TRANSLATIONS XIII

PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT AND DECLINE OF AN

1 THE HUMAN SPIRIT AND FOLK-RELIGION:

I. A Purpose Apart from Religion 3

2 DISCOVERING THE COMMUNITY:

I. A Return to the Social World 49

4. The Nature of Degeneration: Element VI 59

3 THE END OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT:

I. The Volkserziehers Project 85

PART II: FREEDOM AND THE COMPLETION

4 THE MATURE FOUNDATION OF THE GOOD LIFE:

5 THE LIVING FORM OF THE GOOD LIFE 147

I. The Institutional Form of the Good Life 147

6 THE IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE 197

I. The Shape of the Good Life 197

WORKS CITED 239

References to works by G.W.F. Hegel follow the abbreviations listed below.

EG The Encyclopaedia of Mind

EL The Encyclopaedia of Logic

NdA Neufassung des Anfangs (New Version of the

PhG The Phenomenology of Spirit

PR The Philosophy of Right

TIG The Transcendental Idea of God

This answer is shared by thinkers from a number of otherwise antagonis-

And what a school of decorum it is to contemplate history in this way! To take

1 Thomas Pangle 1992: 13.

3 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, 8,

tioned showbringing out the way it engages and constitutes an alterna-

In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the modern conscience is presented as the

to the regenerative power of that architectonic Aristotelian intellectual vir-

6 Steven Smith 1989: 24546.

The reconstruction of Hegels answer to the question of the good life

tion does form his new solution to the problem of participationbut

Chapter 6 completes the examination of the development and mean-

T HE D E VELOPMENT AND DECLINE O F AN

T HE HU MA N SPIRIT AND FO LK-RELIGIO N:

I. A Purpose Apart from Religion

The so-called Tbingen fragment or Tbingen essay is the first step

A. The Basic Categories of Religious Analysis

Hegels analysis is characterized by the resolution of religious phenom-

The essence of religion is to be an active force in the world. Religion is

3 H. S. Harris notes the inuence of Johann Gottlieb Fichtes Attempt at a

Where we speak of public religionwe mean to include in it the concepts of

4 H. S. Harris sees a three-fold inuence on Hegels denition of public re-

At this point, we do not know why Hegel needs to distinguish between

5 In this first sense, the categories of objective and subjective religion

By providing insight into the principle lying within the ux of historical

6 See Benthams statement of the principle of utility in The Principles of

7 H. S. Harris arrives at the same insight we do: the categories of subjective

B. Subjective and Objective Religion

Once we grasp the double meanings of subjective and objective religion,

For children, religious activity is a matter of rote and habituation. It is me-

subjective religion of these outstanding men as an ideal. Indeed, he does

Why has Hegel refused to make these extremes of objective or subjective

It is not my object to investigate what religious doctrines are most appealing

[r]eligion becomes mere superstition if one derives ones determining grounds