THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

general terms, it assumes that the desires of private individuals determine the meaning
and value of social practices, institutions, and economic arrangements. Hegel’s critique
of civil society demonstrates how these assumptions undermine themselves. He shows,
in each case, how the value and/or meaning of the first term rests upon that of the second
term.
The standpoint of civil society assumes that the desires of individuals can be
determined in isolation from the practices, institutions, and economic arrangements that
satisfy these desires. Theories of civil society often present accounts of the state of
nature as a means for distinguishing the basic needs and desires of individuals from the
institutions and practices of society. These theories often employ the desires and needs
present in the state of nature (a) to explain the development of society and (b) to justify
its current state. Even when theories of civil society do not make direct recourse to the
state of nature, they often take natural desires, rather than social ones, as their basic
model for understanding the individual. In “The Kind of Need and Satisfaction” – or, as
it might be translated, “The Nature of Need and Satisfaction” – Hegel considers the
development of human beings from natural to social creatures. Drawing upon various
themes from Kant and Rousseau, he shows how the process of socialization radically
transforms the basic structure of our desires. 323 This transformation merits careful
consideration.
In our pre-social desires for food and water, for instance, we seek the satiation and
pleasure that comes from eating and drinking. Likewise, in our basic desire for shelter,
we seek the warmth and security that shelter provides. The ultimate ends of these desires
323 Compare, for instance with Kant’s account of the transformation of natural desires in his essay,
“Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte,” in Werke XI.
291