![Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Grundlinien_der_Philosophie_des_Rechts.jpg)
''Elements of the Philosophy of Right'' (german: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts) is a work by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
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 enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
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. A ...
,
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 from ...
and
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, it is an expansion upon concepts only briefly dealt with in the ''
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
The ''Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences'' (abbreviated as ''EPS'' or simply ''Encyclopaedia''; german: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, ''EPW'', translated as ''Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences ...
'', published in 1817 (and again in 1827 and 1830).
Law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
provides for Hegel the cornerstone of the modern state. As such, he criticized
Karl Ludwig von Haller
Karl Ludwig von Haller (1 August 1768 – 20 May 1854) was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of ''Restauration der Staatswissenschaft'' (Restoration of Political Science, 1816–1834), a book which gave its ...
's ''The Restoration of the Science of the State'', in which the latter claimed that law was superficial, because
natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
and the "right of the most powerful" was sufficient. The absence of law characterized for Hegel
despotism
Despotism ( el, Δεσποτισμός, ''despotismós'') is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot; but (as in an autocracy) societies which limit respect and ...
, whether
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
or
ochlocracist.
Summary
The ''Philosophy of Right'' (as it is usually called) begins with a discussion of the concept of the
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
and argues that the free will can only realize itself 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 typically h ...
s and relations,
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
s, moral commitments,
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
life, the
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
, the legal system, and the
polity
A polity is an identifiable Politics, political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of Institutionalisation, institutionalized social relation, social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize ...
. A person is not truly free, in other words, unless they are 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'' (''Moralität''). Under this, Hegel proposes that humans reflect their own subjectivity of others in order to respect them. The third sphere, ''ethical life'' (''
Sittlichkeit
''Sittlichkeit'' is the concept of "ethical life" or "ethical order" furthered by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in his 1807 work ''Phenomenology of Spirit'' and his 1820/21 work ''Elements of the Philosophy of Right'' (''PR'').
The thr ...
''), 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 each other, and eventually fall. The course of history is apparently toward the ever-increasing actualization of
freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
; each successive historical epoch corrects certain failures of the earlier ones. At the end of his ''
Lectures on the Philosophy of History
''Lectures on the Philosophy of History'', also translated as ''Lectures on the Philosophy of World History'' (''LPH''; , ''VPW''), is a major work by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), originally given as lectures at the University o ...
'', 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 or even totalitarian forms of government:
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile (; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian neo-Hegelian idealist philosopher, educator, and fascist politician. The self-styled "philosopher of Fascism", he was influential in providing an intellectual foundation for I ...
, 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-KantianTerry Pinkard, ''German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 199–212. philosopher and mathematician.
Biogra ...
, 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
August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue (; – ) was a German dramatist and writer who also worked as a consul in Russia and Germany.
In 1817, one of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl L ...
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
Karl Ludwig von Haller (1 August 1768 – 20 May 1854) was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of ''Restauration der Staatswissenschaft'' (Restoration of Political Science, 1816–1834), a book which gave its ...
(whose work had been burned at Wartburg) remained undisturbed in the body of the work.
Stephen Houlgate
__NOTOC__
Stephen Houlgate (born 24 March 1954) is a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He is known for his works on Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida's thought.
Books
* ''Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism ...
writes that Hegel's 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