THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

describes a social sphere of “private persons whose end is their own interest.” 288 Such
individuals pursue freely chosen interests, and they enter into mutually beneficial
associations to further these interests.
Thus Hegel’s discussions of abstract right, morality, and civil society explore and
at least apparently endorse various central themes from the liberal tradition. However,
two dialectical transitions in the Philosophy of Right have long troubled proponents of
liberalism. After discussing abstract right and morality, spheres that emphasize self-
determination and basic rights, Hegel moves on to discuss Sittlichkeit – or ethical life, as
it is often translated – as an objective realm of social, economic, and political forces to
which “individuals are related as accidents to substance.” 289 Additionally, defenders of
liberalism have often objected to the final transition within the sphere of Sittlichkeit, the
transition from “Civil Society” to “The State.” With the exception of a few remarks
about world history, the Philosophy of Right ends with a discussion of the state as “the
actuality of the ethical Idea,” as the “ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and
revealed to itself,” and as that which is “absolutely rational.” 290 In such pronouncements,
Hegel seems to emphasize the primacy of the state at the expense of the individual.
These dialectical transitions pose an important question for our interpretation of
the Philosophy of Right – namely, how should we reconcile the liberal themes discussed
in “Abstract Right,” “Morality,” and “Civil Society” with the apparent anti-individualism
manifested in Hegel’s discussion of Sittlichkeit and the state? The answer to this question
depends upon our more general conception of the nature of dialectical progression in the
288 Philosophy of Right, paragraph 187.
289 Philosophy of Right, paragraph 145.
290 Philosophy of Right, paragraphs 257-8.
267