scholarly journals Hegel and the Problem of Affluence

Author(s):  
THIMO HEISENBERG

Abstract It is widely known that Hegel's Philosophy of Right recognizes poverty as one of the central problems of modern civil society. What is much less well known, however, is that Hegel sees yet another structural problem at the opposite side of the economic spectrum: a problem of affluence. Indeed, as I show in this essay, Hegel's text contains a detailed—yet sometimes overlooked—discussion of the detrimental psychological and sociological effects of great wealth and how to counter them. By bringing this discussion to the fore, we get a more complete picture of Hegel's theory of civil society (and of some of its central concepts, such as ‘the rabble') and shed light on an aspect of Hegel's social philosophy that speaks to problems we face today.

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-201
Author(s):  
Simon Lumsden

AbstractIn the Philosophy of Right Hegel argues that modern life has produced an individualized freedom that conflicts with the communal forms of life constitutive of Greek ethical life. This individualized freedom is fundamentally unsatisfactory, but it is in modernity seemingly resolved into a more adequate form of social freedom in the family, aspects of civil society, and ultimately the state. This article examines whether Hegel’s state can function as a community and by so doing satisfy the need for a substantial ethical life that runs through Hegel’s social thought. The article also examines why Hegel does not provide a detailed analysis of community, as a distinct sphere between the private and the public political sphere in the Philosophy of Right, and why it is not a key platform of his social freedom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-544
Author(s):  
ANDREW KOMASINSKI

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


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 605-607
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Deneen

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni's Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues. Perspectives on Politics is a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Dahl Rendtorff

This paper reconstructs the argument of Axel Honneth’s recent book Das Recht der Freiheit as a theory of the institutionalization of freedom in modern society. In particular, it looks at Honneth’s argument for the realization of freedom in law and morality that is proposed as a contemporary re-interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Then I discuss Honneth’s argument for the reality of freedom in the ethical spheres of civil society, in particular in the family, the market and in democracy. Finally, the paper proposes some critical remarks to Honneth’s theory.


2019 ◽  
pp. 105-134
Author(s):  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom ◽  
Valerie Sperling ◽  
Melike Sayoglu

Chapter 4 explores the inter-network dynamics between the human rights and women’s rights communities in Russia, and how the uneasy relationship between these two sectors of civil society helps keep Russian women’s sex-based discrimination claims from percolating up to the ECtHR. We draw upon our interviews with feminist activists and human rights activists in Russia to shed light on the experiences of feminist activists within the human rights and international litigation communities in Russia. We find that the separation between women’s rights and traditional human rights networks in Russia has until recently excluded feminist lawyers from learning how to take cases successfully to the ECtHR through legal training. We compare the experiences of feminist activists and the reception of Russian human rights NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to gender-based claims of human rights violations to the strikingly different experiences of LGBT rights activists who have found common cause with human rights organizations in Russia in trying to contest hate crimes and other rights violations in court.


October ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 3-177
Author(s):  
Lucia Allais ◽  
Noel W. Anderson ◽  
Andrew Weiner ◽  
Tania Bruguera ◽  
Tom Burr ◽  
...  

“A Questionnaire on Monuments” features 49 responses to questions formulated by Leah Dickerman, Hal Foster, David Joselit, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty: “From Charlottesville to Cape Town, there have been struggles over monuments and other markers involving histories of racial conflict. How do these charged situations shed light on the ethics of images in civil society today? Speaking generally or with specific examples in mind, please consider any of the following questions: What histories do these public symbols represent, what histories do they obscure, and what models of memory do they imply? How do they do this work, and how might they do it differently? What social and political forces are in play in their erection or dismantling? Should artists, writers, and art historians seek a new intersection of theory and praxis in the social struggles around such monuments and markers? How might these debates relate to the question of who is authorized to work with particular images and archives?”


Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thom Brooks

G. W. F. Hegel is widely considered to be one of the most important philosophers in the history of philosophy. This entry focuses on his contributions to political philosophy, with particular attention paid to his seminal work: the Philosophy of Right. A particular focus will be placed on Hegel’s theories of freedom, contract and property, punishment, morality, family, civil society, law, and the state.


1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 51-72
Author(s):  
David Merrill

The Philosophy of Right is not usually taken to contain a prescriptive ethics. Yet to establish as much regarding the elementary relations of the economy is the task of this essay. The project is cast into three parts. It begins with Hegel's account in the ‘Introduction’ of the free self prior to the exposition of the modes of just conduct or philosophy of right proper. It is an account of freedom not yet realized — without any particular content. Yet, the point is established that the philosophy of justice will be based on a twofold notion of self-determination. Most of the ‘Introduction’ concerns the argument that freedom or valid conduct has to do with pure self-determination, the self determining itself. The claim is also made that philosophy establishes its own legitimacy through its conceptual self-determination. Part two deals with the question of how freedom can be realized in civil society where the individual's governing orientation is particularity. The characteristic features of civil society do not encourage the expectation that freedom can be realized there. One, particularity itself appears to be rooted in a natural necessity which seems to preclude any possibility of freedom. Two, the inherently social character of civil society seems to rule out the exercise of a freedom that is about the self's relation to itself in self-determination. Three, the pursuit of particularity characteristic of civil society seems inherently antisocial and thus not a suitable mode of conduct for ethics. However, the argument will be made that the theory can conceive of the relations of particularity in a way that makes the free self inherently social and particularity both social and free from natural determinations.


Author(s):  
Cynthia M. Horne

The widespread complicity evident in the post-communist cases complicates approaches to transitional justice because it lays some of the blame on society. Lustration procedures use information in secret police files to shed light on the past. Those files contain information documenting how neighbors, friends, co-workers, and even relatives might have informed on you. There is a potential for such revelations about the scope of the interpersonal and institutional betrayals to undermine social trust and civil society. This chapter explores the problems associated with complicity and transitional justice measures by examining the cases of Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria. The cases highlight how historical memory is affected by negative revelations about the past. These cases illustrate how rising nostalgia can collide with truth telling, forcing the reconsideration and sometimes revision of historical memory.


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