Subjectivity and vanity in Hegel's philosophy (Part 1)

 Moral agency and the notion of the good

In his prefatory remarks of Rechtsphilosophie, Hegel scorns subjective considerations based on mere convictions or feelings and associates them with vanity (Eitelkeit); vanity displays unjustified claims on the part of subjectivity, which purports to possess a spirit of superior knowledge in relation to the present (Gegenwart). When a philosophy attempts to spring over its time, thus constructing a world as it ought to be, the theories produced through such an undertaking would exist only in the pretentious endeavors of opinion—“a pliant medium in which the imagination can construct anything it pleases”.^[1] Hegel’s counter-argument is well known: the sole purpose of his treatise is “to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity”.^[2]  

Inwardness and objectivity 

With this in mind, I will attempt to inquire into Hegel’s accounts of vanity in the chapter on “Morality". This could contribute to the understanding of his more general—and by all means philosophical—stance as expressed in the preface of Rechtsphilosophie; it is where vanity relates to a widespread attitude of his time – namely, the hostility towards what is publicly and universally valid.

In the case of the preface, the critique of vanity concerns, more generally, the faultfinding that inwardness (Innerlichkeit) and opinion (Meinen) adopt towards what is universally and objectively valid as well as a tendency to deviate “from what is universally acknowledged and valid”.^[3]  I believe that an analogous line of argumentation can be identified in the context of Hegel’s critical examination of abstract morality, and particularly in his discussion of conscience (Gewissen). 

Henceforth, and in the next parts of this analysis, I will argue for such a link, first by presenting what conscience is and then by explicating subjective vanity and its, in a way, overly critical stance in reference to objectivity.

A new aspect of morality

In the second part of Rechtsphilosophie, entitled “Morality” (Moralität), vanity appears as a consequence of the limited and abstract standpoint of subjective conscience regarding what is right or wrong, legal or illegal. During the explication of subjective freedom seen as satisfaction of particular interests, the argumentation reaches a turning point, where cases of extreme danger and necessity (Not) give rise to a conflict between one-sided approaches: on the one hand, the rigorous implementation of the law, and on the other, the right to personal welfare, both of which appear equally justified. 

The solution to this opposition constitutes a new aspect of morality, the good (das Gute), which unifies abstract right with the subjective will; thus, the particular aims of subjectivity are legitimized through the good. In fact, both (abstract) right and welfare are “moments of the good”,^[4] and the aforementioned one-sided viewpoints are superseded, as the particular (das Besondere) retains its right within the universal. 

It's important to mention, however, that at this stage of the exposition the good is still something formal—there are no specific grounds or norms, by which the content of the good can be identified.^[5] The subjective will is not from the very beginning in accordance with the good, but it relates to the good as to something that ought to be realized, and this only by means of the individual will’s commitment.^[6]

Caspar David Friedrich, Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, 1818

[1] G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, in Werke, vol. 7, E. Moldenhauer, K. M. Michel (eds.), Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 25; Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Part I: Science of Logic, tr. by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 20. 

[2] Hegel, Grundlinien, 26; Elements, 21.

[3] Hegel Grundlinien, 15; Elements, 12.

[4] Hegel, Philosophie des Rechts nach der Vorlesungsnachschhrift von H. G. Hotho 1822-23, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, frommann-holzboog, 1974, § 130, 409.

[5] Hegel, Die Philosophie des Rechts, 1822-23, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2005, § 129, 128.

[6] Hegel, Grundlinien, § 131, 244; Elements, 158.

What is Hegel's dialectic?

 Disco Dialectic

The Hegelian notion of the dialectic remains a hot topic! You may need to turn your mind into a database of Hegel's Werke in order to piece together evidence and solve such… complicated puzzles! And here we are, celebrating his birthday (August 27, 1770) by trying to pierce through the philosopher's texts on logic and political science, in order to elucidate the meaning and use of the dialectic -- drawing on Hegel's own propositions. 

Point of departure 

Hegel intended his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences to serve as a textbook for his university courses. During the first part of this book, he notes that the dialectic demonstrates the “immanent process of going beyond”^[1] the finite and one-sided determinations on which the faculty of understanding (Verstand) usually fixates. In fact, "every finite is this, the sublating of itself"^[2] -- "[w]e know that all finite things, instead of being something fixed and ultimate, are really changeable and perishable, and this is nothing but the dialectic of the finite".^[3]

Negativity and progression

The dialectic is also the principle "through which alone an immanent connection and necessity enters into the content of science".^[4] In the Science of Logic for example Hegel connects the dialectic with the “course of the fact itself”.^[5] It is precisely the content that possesses the dialectic – the “negative”^[6] – “within itself”^[7] and thus develops itself further. 

In Hegel's 1821 treatise on political science named Elements of the Philosophy of Right, we read that the dialectic is immanent in the subject matter -- “the moving principle of the concept”^[8] of right. During his 1822/23 university lectures on the same topic, Hegel underlines that abstract determinations of right (such as property, family, morality, civil society) cannot exist on their own without the totality they comprise and which they eventually require as their ground. The preeminence of the totality must be explicated through the immanent demonstration of the finitude pertaining to each of the abstract shapes of right. This course enables us to find the necessity of the progress of the subject matter.

The method

Hence, the so called "hegelian method" consists in the self-development of the subject itself, the matter under consideration – for example the concept of right – through which it becomes the proof of itself. Regarding the above-mentioned example of the philosophy or right, the dialectic is not a blueprint externally applied, but rather enables us to grasp the seemingly externally arranged subdivision of particular and seemingly isolated determinations of right in an organized course, which demonstrates the limitation and relative necessity of each.^[9] 

Hegel's Portrait by Jakob Schlesinger, 1831.

[1] G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse I, in Werke, vol. 8, E. Moldenhauer, K. M. Michel (eds.), Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, § 81 A: 172; Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part I: Science of Logic, tr. by Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 129. 

In the case of the Philosophy of Right, the university lectures on the philosophy of right and the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences we will quote by §§. The letter A refers to the Anmerkungen and Z to the Zusätze.   

[2] Hegel, Enzyklopädie, § 81 A: 172-173; Encyclopedia,129.

[3] Ibidem, § 81 Z: 174; 130

[4] Ibidem, § 81 A: 173; 129.

[5] Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik I. Die objektive Logik, in Werke in zwanzig Bänden, volume 5, E. Moldenhauer, K. M. Michel (eds.), Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1969: 50. The Science of Logic, tr. by George Di Giovanni, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 33.

[6] Hegel, Logik, 51; Science of Logic, 34.

[7] Ibidem, 50; 33.

[8] Hegel Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, in Werke, vol. 7, E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel (eds.), Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, § 31 A: 84. Elements of the Philosophy of Right, tr. by Hugh Barr Nisbet, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 60.

[8] Hegel Grundlinien, § 31 A: 84; Philosophy of Right, 60.

[9] See Hegel, Philosophie des Rechts. Nach der Vorlesungsnachschrift von H. G. Hotho 1822/23, in Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie 1818-1831, vol. 3, Karl-Heinz Ilting (ed.), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, frommann-holzboog, § 32: 164-168.