THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

In the following passage, Hegel characterizes the standpoint of morality in terms
of the rigid distinction between subject and object, and he claims that this distinction
leads to contradictions. He says:
At the standpoint of morality, subjectivity and objectivity are distinct from one
another, or united only by their mutual contradiction; it is this fact more
particularly which constitutes the finitude of this sphere or its character as mere
appearance, and the development of this standpoint is the development of these
contradictions and their resolutions, resolutions, however, which within this field
can be no more than relative. 313
This passage shows how the first two stages of Hegel’s dialectical method apply to the
section on morality. Hegel’s discussion of morality develops two rigidly oppositional
categories – subjectivity and objectivity. The standpoint of morality assumes that we can
characterize subjectivity without reference to the external or objective world, and it
privileges subjectivity as the domain relevant for determining the nature of the action and
the agent. Hegel expresses the priority of subjectivity in the so-called right of the
subjective will, the right of the will to recognize objective features of the world only
insofar as “the will is present to itself there as something subjective.” 314 This rigid
distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, along with the prioritization of the
subjective, leads to various contradictions. In this section on morality, Hegel shows how
our conception of subjectivity always makes implicit reference to objectivity, and thus he
shows how the attempt to prioritize subjectivity always ends up implicitly privileging
objectivity. 315 In this way, morality leads us into various contradictions.
313 Philosophy of Right, paragraph 112.
314 Philosophy of Right, paragraph, 107.
315 Paragraph 119 sets out one of the crucial steps in this argument. In paragraphs 117 and 118
Hegel argues that, in order for the subjective purpose to determine the nature of the agent, it must at least
have some expression in the objective world. In order to protect the subject or agent from unintended
consequences, morality seeks to distinguish the immediate effect of the purpose from the secondary and
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