Ethical theory and self-awareness

If there is any hope for ethics as a branch of rational inquiry, it lies in showing how ethical conceptions and a theory of the human good can be grounded in human self-understanding. Ethics must be grounded in a knowledge of human beings that enables us to say that some modes of life are suited to our nature, whereas others are not. In that sense, ethical theories generally may be regarded as theories of human self-actualization. Plato grounds his ethics in psychology, and Aristotle identifies the human good with a life actualizing the human essence in accordance with its proper excellences. Even the ethical theories of modern times rest on some identifiable conception of human beings, Kantian theories conceiving human nature as finite rational will, and utilitarian theories identifying human beings with bundles of desires, preferences, or affective states.

The common pitfall of ethical theories in this respect is that their conceptions of human nature are too thin, one-sided, and abstract, or else too much dictated by the needs of some convenient theoretical program. Hegel's ethical theory is based on a complex conception of human nature, which systematizes a number of different human self-images. Hegel grounds this conception in his theory of history, which attempts to show how the different elements arose through a process of cultural development. Hegel's ethical theory is therefore culturally and historically specific in ways that most ethical theories are not.