What is “ethical life”?

In ordinary German, the word Sittlichkeit means something like “customary morality”; it calls attention to the close connection between ethical norms and social custom or usage (Sitte). In English, these associations probably come through most strongly in the connection between “morality” and “mores”; but “morality” also has overtones of fussy “moralism,” and this (together with the fact that it is a direct cognate) makes it the natural rendering of Moralitöt. That means we are more or less stuck with the word “ethics” to translate Sittlichkeit, even though its abstract (even theoretical) connotations are utterly inappropriate. Ethisch has the same connotations in German, however, and Hegel nevertheless occasionally uses it in place of sittliche, alluding to the Greek word ethos (PR § 148R;cf. VPR2:557, VPR2:565, NR 504/112). It helps a little to translate Sittlichkeit as “ethical life,” indicating that it refers to a way of living and not to a theory.

Largely owing to the connotations of the word, Hegel's conception of ethical life has often been interpreted as committing him to ethical relativism and traditionalism. Hegelian ethics is understood to rest on the thesis that it is always right to follow the customs of one's community and always wrong to violate them. We get the same impression from Hegel's association of ethical life with an unreflective and uncritical attitude toward traditional mores.