Right, Ethicity and State in Hegel

Abstract

The aim of this article is to give an account of Hegel’s conception of right as a mutual implication of ethical and political life against the backdrop of the modern theories of right, based on the construction of a sovereign will authorized by the procedure of representation and on the notion of a threefold division of the powers of the State. After having clarified Hegel’s definition of State as the actuality of the ethical Idea, I will provide a stepwise reconstruction of the inner logic of the constitution (Verfassung), as it is articulated in its three main moments: the power of the monarch (singularity), the civil society (particularity), and the legislative power (universality). Specifically, I will argue that, from the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right (1820) to the Enciclopedia of 1827 and 1830, passing through the course of 1824/25, Hegel’s texts show the discontinuous development of a broad and original notion of government (Regierung), which, in the §541 of the Enciclopedia of 1830, culminates in the identification of government with the political State. Thus, the traditional distinction of powers ends up being transformed into the articulation of three ruling agencies, which are actively present in every sphere of the constitution, without, however, pretending to reduce or eliminate any of them.