Individual Right and the Living Ethical Order

This chapter gives an account of Hegel’s early Jena critique of social contract theory and the most important elements in his account of value and justice in the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit. It begins by laying out the essentials of the most important theoretical foil for Hegel’s account: J.G. Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right. The chapter sketches Hegel’s early attack on Fichte’s theory and the initial conception of life that is supposed to provide an antidote to individualist social contract doctrine. Hegel’s own mature treatment of recognition and life is first articulated in Chapter IV of the Phenomenology. The chapter outlines Hegel’s case for the isomorphism of self-consciousness and life in the Phenomenology and shows how that underwrites his theory of value and the emergence of value in the work of the servant. The chapter concludes with a treatment of Hegel’s account of immediate justice in the ancient Greek polis.

Value in the Development and Conclusion of Abstract Right

This chapter is a reading of “Abstract Right” that demonstrates the centrality of value and inference to the account. Hegel’s account unfolds private property as the immediate expression of the free will in the external world. When the argument turns toward the use of property, Hegel’s account of value comes to the fore as the universality of property ownership that is implicit in the right to use what one owns. While dealt with only briefly in the published Philosophy of Right, value gets a much more extensive treatment in the 1824–1825 lectures, where it becomes the main concept for understanding the process and result of the alienation of property. The chapter shows that the transition from alienation to contract brings Hegel’s account of mutual recognition to the fore along with an inferential equivalence form of value. Equivalence of value is a central dimension of punishment, but that equivalence can be secured only with the transition to the moral will.

The Circulation of Value in Civil Society and the State

This chapter utilizes the structure of life and valid inference to analyze the internal structure of Civil Society and the State as well as the relationship between the two institutional spheres. The chapter unpacks the passage from the Logic in which Hegel describes the State as a totality of inferences with the three terms of individuals, their needs, and the government. It is shown that the “system of needs” itself forms a quasi-living institutional system of estates centered on the division of labor. This system’s inadequacy motivates the role of the “police” and corporation as ethical agencies, forms of the Good, within Civil Society. While the move to the State overcomes the individualism of “needs,” the right of the individual remains in the dynamics of “settling one’s own account” in receiving from the State a return on one’s duty to the State. Hegel treats the State proper as a constitution consisting of three powers of government that form a totality of inferential relations that has the full structure of a living organism. The executive power is examined in detail as the particularizing element in the system.

Law and Public Reason

This chapter provides an account of Hegel’s conception of the law and of the law’s realization within Civil Society and the State. It is argued that Hegel is a legal positivist because he holds that right is binding only when it has been promulgated as law, and that law can be valid even if it does not measure up to the standard of right. The chapter gives an account of Hegel’s contextualism and shows that he is committed to an essential but limited role for philosophy in determining the content of the law. Ultimately Hegel’s view is best understood as a public reason conception of the rationality of law. The court system is a prototype of public reason in that its goal is to guarantee standards of evidence and publicity in a setting of mutual recognition. The chapter argues that Hegel does believe in the need for a written constitution, and that his view of the legislative power is a further elucidation of public reason based on the idea of representative interests.

Value and the Expressive Conditions of the Subjective Will

This chapter analyzes the pivotal “Morality” section that makes subjective rights and universal welfare essential to the overall conception of justice. It is shown that Hegel’s analysis of the “deed” motivates the move to intentional action in which subjective value and the right to satisfaction come to the fore. The tension between objective and subjective value in the intention leads to the decisive conflict of abstract right and morality in the “right of necessity.” With the Basic Argument template it is shown why the right of necessity leads to an all-encompassing conception of value, the Good, that Hegel calls “the final purpose of the world.” The treatment of formal and true conscience is read in dialogue with the theory of justification that John Rawls calls reflective equilibrium. The chapter argues that conscience is the individual justification akin to reflective equilibrium, and that the transition out of “Morality” highlights the deficiencies of the individual (as opposed to institutional) reflective equilibrium model.

The Sovereignty of the Good

This chapter begins with a treatment of Hegel’s conception of the sovereignty of the State in the person of the individual monarch. It is argued that the sovereign authority is bound to the inferential articulation of the living Good. Hegel’s treatment of external sovereignty focuses on the welfare of the individual State in opposition to other States in an external form of recognition. The logic of recognition results not in a world State, but rather in a conception of world Spirit as the rationality of right in its development in time. World Spirit is best read as the unfolding of the Good rather than as a process set apart from morality. It is shown that the key conclusion of Hegel’s argument is the convergence of the State, religion, and philosophy. The chapter unpacks the bearing of this convergence claim on Hegel’s understanding of the relation of the State and religion, showing how religion functions as the bearer of the living Good at a higher level of spiritual practice. Hegel conceives of philosophy as an evaluative discipline that can both reconcile individuals to the rationality of the world and liberate both individuals and the social order.

The Inferences of Right

This chapter provides the basic conceptual framework that guides Hegel’s account in his Philosophy of Right. It begins with an account of the final moves in “Subjective Spirit” through which Hegel deduces his conception of the free will. His key move is the unification of the rationality of inference (theoretical) with the purposiveness of the will (practical) to arrive at a conception of the practical inferences of the free will. It is shown how this conception is the basis of the account of the free will in the Philosophy of Right Introduction. The chapter argues for a conception of expressive validity to capture the normative character of the practical inferences of right. This account makes sense of Hegel’s conception of the immanent dialectical development of right. The template of the Basic Argument is refined to show how it guides the incorporation of particularity and contingency into the universality of right.

The Living Good

This chapter provides the structural underpinnings of the overall system of Sittlichkeit that Hegel calls “the living Good.” The goal of this chapter is to put the preceding account of the inferential validity of right together with the model of life from Chapter 1. The chapter first explains the metaphysical claims in the introduction to “Ethical Life” as claims about value. The chapter provides a new interpretation of the identity of right and duties in “Ethical Life,” arguing that Hegel endorses both right-as-duty and right-as-return-on-duty. A template is developed for institutional rationality that consists of three steps needed to build a living institution. The model is illustrated through an analysis of Hegel’s treatment of the family, and the model is shown to provide a way to carry out an immanent critique of Hegel’s own account.

Introduction

The Introduction situates Hegel’s theory of justice in relation to the political moralism of ideal theory and the critical realism of those who hold that theories of morality and politics should be sharply separated. The Introduction argues that the unification of morality and right in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right depends on an overlooked theory of value. The various forms of value in Hegel are listed and it is shown that they can be conceived as unified through his conception of purposiveness. Spelling out the rationality in the account as a version of inferentialism, the Introduction distinguishes Hegel’s teleological inferentialism from pragmatist inferentialism. It is shown how inferential rationality in the practical domain can underwrite a theory of justice through Hegel’s conception of the rationality of life. Finally, a Basic Argument is given as the template for the development of the content of right.