Elements Of The Philosophy Of Right
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''Elements of the Philosophy of Right'' (or ''Outlines of the Philosophy of Right''; ) is a work by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...
published in 1820, though the book's original title page dates it to 1821. Hegel's most mature statement of his
legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...
,
moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...
,
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...
and
political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
, it is an expansion upon concepts only briefly dealt with in the '' Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences'', published in 1817 (and again in 1827 and 1830).


Summary

The ''Philosophy of Right'' begins with a discussion of the concept of the
free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...
and argues that the free will can realize itself only in the complicated social context of
property right The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typicall ...
s and relations,
contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ...
s, moral commitments,
family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
life, the
economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
, the legal system, and the
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
. A person is not truly free, in other words, unless he is a participant in all of these different aspects of the life of the state. The bulk of the book is devoted to discussing Hegel's three spheres or versions of 'right,' each one larger than the preceding ones and encompassing them. The first sphere is ''abstract right'' (''Recht''), in which Hegel discusses the idea of 'non-interference' as a way of respecting others. He deems this insufficient and moves onto the second sphere, ''
morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...
'' (''Moralität''). Under this, Hegel proposes that humans reflect their own subjectivity of others in order to respect them. The third sphere, ''ethical life'' ('' Sittlichkeit''), is Hegel's integration of individual subjective feelings and universal notions of right. Under ethical life, Hegel then launches into a lengthy discussion about family, civil society, and the state. Hegel also argues that the state itself is subsumed under the higher totality of world history, in which individual states arise, conflict with one another, and eventually fall. The course of history is apparently toward the ever-increasing actualization of
freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...
; each successive historical epoch corrects certain failures of the earlier ones. At the end of his '' Lectures on the Philosophy of History'', Hegel leaves open the possibility that history has yet to accomplish certain tasks related to the inner organization of the state.


Reception

There were a number of issues that arose during the translation of the text. Most notably the phrase that is contained in the addition to §258, which was initially translated as "The state is the march of God through the world" as well as being translated thus: "The existence of the state is the presence of God upon the earth". From these early translations came the criticism that Hegel justifies
authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...
or even
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...
forms of government:
Giovanni Gentile Giovanni Gentile ( , ; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian pedagogue, philosopher, and politician. He, alongside Benedetto Croce, was one of the major exponents of Italian idealism in Italian philosophy, and also devised his own sys ...
, whose thought had a strong influence on Mussolini, bases his Hegelian revival on this point. However, Walter Kaufmann argues that the correct translation reads as follows: "It is the way of God in the world, that there should be a state". This suggests that the state, rather than being godly, is part of the divine strategy, not a mere product of human endeavor. Kaufmann claims that Hegel's original meaning of the sentence is not a ''carte blanche'' for state dominance and brutality but merely a reference to the state's importance as part of the process of history. The preface to the ''Philosophy of Right'' contains considerable criticism of the philosophy of
Jakob Friedrich Fries Jakob Friedrich Fries (; ; 23 August 1773 – 10 August 1843) was a German post-Kantian Terry Pinkard, ''German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 199–212. philosopher and mathematician. Bio ...
, who had been a critic of Hegel's prior work. Included in this is a suggestion that it is justifiable for the state to censor the writings of philosophers like Fries and welcoming Fries' loss of his academic position following Fries' participation in the Wartburg Festival. The inclusion of this passage has led to scholarly debate as to the reason for Hegel's advocacy of the kind of censorship the Prussian state had introduced following the murder of August von Kotzebue in the form of the Carlsbad Decrees. Hegel scholars have suggested that the inclusion of these passages was done to satisfy the censors. T.M. Knox argued that, while clearly designed to curry favour with the censors and written well after completion of the work proper, the Preface's condemnation of Fries was "nothing new", that there was no betrayal of his support for the Wartburg Festival principles, rather a mere denunciation of method, while condemnation of Karl Ludwig von Haller (whose work had been burned at Wartburg) remained undisturbed in the body of the work. Stephen Houlgate wrote in The Hegel Reader, which he edited, that the work is now "recognized as one of the greatest works of social and political philosophy ever written."


References


External links

* *
''Philosophy of Right''
– translation into English, 1896
Complete PDF of the ''Philosophy of Right'' (McMaster University)

Complete PDF of the ''Philosophy of Right'' (University of Warsaw)


* ttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/ Redding, Paul, "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel", ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Elements Of The Philosophy Of Right 1820 non-fiction books Works by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Ethics books Philosophy of law Social philosophy literature Political philosophy literature