THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

“Sittlichkeit” presents the unity that grounds the distinction between subjectivity and
objectivity. 316
The unity presented in “Sittlichkeit” forces us to reinterpret and reevaluate the
claims of morality. In one of the Zusätze from the Philosophy of Mind, Hegel indicates
the radical nature of this reevaluation. In his explanation of the relationship between
insanity and objective consciousness, Hegel makes the following remark:
The moral sphere…must be considered before the ethical sphere [i.e. before
Sittlichkeit], although the former to a certain extent comes to view in the latter
only as a sickness. But for the same reason in the sphere of Anthropology, too,
we have had to discuss insanity before the concrete, objective consciousness,
since insanity, as we have seen, consists in an abstraction rigidly held in
opposition to that concrete objective consciousness. 317
This remark points out similarities between morality and insanity. In both cases,
subjectivity becomes an isolated phenomenon, one that is not fully integrated into the
objective world. Hegel says that from the standpoint of Sittlichkeit, morality represents a
kind of sickness. It remains ambiguous whether morality demonstrates the sickness of
316 In “Sittlichkeit,” Hegel’s clearest statement of the essential relation between subjectivity and
objectivity comes in paragraph 152, where he says: “Subjectivity is itself the absolute form and existent
actuality of the substantial order, and the distinction between subject on the one hand and substance on the
other, as the object, end, and controlling power of the subject, is the same as, and has vanished directly
along with, the distinction between them in form.” Hegel makes a similar point much more clearly in the
Zusätze to paragraph 140 of the Encyclopedia, where he considers the categories “inner” and “outer,”
categories that serve as close analogs to the moral conception of subjectivity and objectivity. Hegel says:
“Yet so long as understanding keeps the Inward and Outward fixed in their separation, they are empty
forms, the one as null as the other. Not only in the study of nature, but also of the spiritual world, much
depends on a just appreciation of the relation of inward and outward, and especially on avoiding the
misconception that the former only is the essential point on which everything turns, while the latter is
unessential and trivial. We find the mistake made when, as is often done, the difference between nature and
mind is traced back to the abstract difference between inner and outer.” This is the mistake presented in the
right of the subjective will, the right proclaiming that a subject’s self-understanding determines the nature
of her action. In the same Zusätze, Hegel goes on to discuss the same mistake in terms that directly relate
to his discussion of morality. He says: “There certainly may be individual cases where the malice of
outward circumstances frustrates well meant designs, and disturbs the execution of the best-laid plans. But
in general even here the essential unity between inward and outward is maintained. We are thus justified in
saying that a man is what he does.”
317 Philosophy of Mind, Paragraph 408Z.
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