In this section I consider the main lines of the ethical thought of two major theorists who are profoundly critical of individualist morality. The individualists fail to integrate the particular and general dimensions of individual life. Hegel and Marx are concerned specifically to overcome this alienation by re-integrating the particular with the general. My aim is to show that the overcoming of alienation in their theories involves so great an integration of particular with general that particular individuality is altogether absorbed in and destroyed by the general. This has to be demonstrated in the face of the theorists’ own claims; for both see particular individuality not as opposed to the realization of the general, but as developed only along with with it.

HEGEL

According to the individualist theory, the individual has objective value in himself or is of absolute worth as such, and hence his particular life as chosen by him necessarily embodies this value. At the same time, since it is in respect of his nature as a man, which he shares with all other men, that the individual is of absolute worth, it must be true that the particular life of one individual cannot both embody absolute value and invade the particular life of another individual. So one must say that the particular will has worth only insofar as it respects the equal value of others.