The principle of the modern state

The Philosophy of Right is both an ethical theory and a social theory. It is an ethical theory based on the conditions for human self-actualization in the modern world, and an attempt to show that modern social institutions provide for self-actualization. In this chapter, we will look at selected parts of Hegel's attempt to defend modern society, and at some of his problems. As a social observer, Hegel was subtle and far seeing. The difficulties he encounters in demonstrating the rationality of the modern state are seldom merely theoretical mistakes. They usually point to practical problems of the modern ethical life we are still living.

Hegel says that the distinctive principle of the modern state is the principle of subjective freedom (PR § 273A; cf. PR §§ 185R, 206R, 260, 262A, 299R, 316A; VPG 540/456). But this is not to be understood in the sense of Kant's liberal political theory, that the end of the state is to maximize individual freedom under law. Hegel rejects the view that takes the end of the state to be “personal freedom and the protection of property, or the interest of the individual as such” (PR § 258R; VPG 434/542); that is to confuse the state with civil society or the “necessity state” (Notstaat) (PR § 183). On the contrary, for Hegel the state is an “absolute unmoved end in itself” (PR § 258; cf. VPG 540/456), or “the universal, having the universal as such for its end” (VPR4 : 635).