Res Publica Vol.II no.

2 [1996]

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION

by
ANDREW C HrlTY*

What are the foundations of political and legal philosophy? On

what ultimate basis can particular political institutions be justified? An
almost irresistible answer is that they can be justified only on the basis of
the nature of the human beings to whom they have to apply. However
this justification can take different forms. One major form of it in the
Western tradition is the pragmatic one: that of Hobbes, Hume and
utilitarianism. Here the justification of political institutions is that,
given the desires, needs and behavioural tendencies that in our
experience human beings have, under such institutions they will behave
so as to satisfy those needs and desires to a greater extent than they
would under alternative institutions. Another major form is an
"ontological" one, that dates back to Plato's analogy between the just
city and the well-ordered soul. Here the justification of political
institutions is that they somehow reflect or express, or else allow the
realisation of, the essential nature of the human subject, as it can be
discovered through self-reflection. In both cases there is an appeal to
"human nature", but in a rather different sense in each case.
Contemporary liberalism and communitarianism both rely heavily
on the ontological form of justification. Liberalism is mainly a view
about what the content of political institutions should be, one that
makes the protection of individual rights central. Yet to justify this view
liberal theories also typically rely, whether explicitly or not, on an
ontological form of justification, specifically one that appeals to the idea
of the individual subject as essentially free. This is "ontological
liberalism". To take a central example, John Rawls's initial justification
of his principles of justice in A Theory of]ustice is based on the idea of a
contract made in an original position. 1 Yet in the course of the book it
emerges that the defining features of the original position itself, in
* School of English and American Studies, University of Sussex.
1 J. Pawls, A TheoryofJustice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

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ANDREW CHITTY

particular its "veil of ignorance", are chosen so as to express a "Kantian"

conception of the person: as a subject that freely chooses its own life in
such a way as not to prevent others from choosing theirs,2 This
conception of the person remains foundational in Rawls's later
presentation of his theory as "political not metaphysical", although now
the justification of the principles is based on the claim, not that this
conception is metaphysically true, but that it is shared by all groups in
the political societies to which we happen to belong. 3
Communitarianism, too, can be defined in terms of the content of
the political institutions it advocates. Roughly speaking, communitarians think that political institutions should embody the shared values of
the community, and accordingly that they should further a "common
good" as defined by those values. Yet communitarianism also has a
typical form of justification, and again this is of the ontological kind, for
to justify such institutions it standardly appeals to the idea that the
human subject is "socially constituted", so that the shared values of its
community are built into its nature. The communitarian argument is
then that political institutions should express the nature of this subject,
and that to do so they must embody the communally shared values that
are partly constitutive of it. Such "ontological communitarianism" has a
parallel structure to ontological liberalism, although it has a different
conception of the subject that forms the basis of justification.
Hegel's political philosophy has sometimes been seen as a form of
ontological liberalism, in which the "system of r i g h t " - - the system of
social, legal and political institutions of the Philosophy of Right - - is
justified as necessary for the maintenance of an individual free will
described in the introduction to the book. It has also been seen as a
form of ontological communitarianism, especially in the wake of Charles
Taylor's influential Hegel.4 I shall argue, however, that neither of these
characterisations is correct. Hegel's form of justification is indeed
ontological in my sense, but the subject he uses as the basis for it, the
possessor of "free will", is neither the subject of ontological liberalism
nor that of ontological communitarianism. For although it is socially
2

Rawls's reliance on a Kantian subject is documented in M.J. Sandel,

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University

3
4

Press, 1982).
See J. Rawls, PoliticalLiberalism (New York: Columbia University Press,
1993).
C. Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

183

constituted, it is not so in the sense that the values of any particular

community or culture are built into the content of its motivations.
Rather it is so in that its possession of this free will arises from its
participation in social relations as such, where social relations are
understood as relations of mutual recognition.
Furthermore,
participation in such relations is itself necessitated by an even more
fundamental feature of the human subject, its awareness of itself as a
subject in contrast to an objective world outside it, or what Hegel calls
"consciousness".
I shall suggest, therefore, that Hegel takes the debate between
ontological liberalism and ontological communitarianism several stages
further. He takes it further with regard to his account of the subject,
which begins at the most elementary level of our own subjective
experience. He also takes it further with regard to his method of
justification, which is to show that there is a basic contradiction in the
subject at this elementary level which can ultimately be resolved only by
developing certain political institutions. Finally he takes it further with
regard to his view of the content of justified institutions. For this
contradiction in the subject requires it to become a subject with both
individual and collective dimensions, and correspondingly the institutions needed to resolve the contradiction involve both the protection of
individual rights and th e advancing of various common goods.
This is not to say that Hegel's picture of the subject is a satisfactory
one, any more than is his view of the content of justified political
institutions. However, by his example he does show that the ontological
form of justification has possibilities that the liberal-communitarian
debate has scarcely begun to explore. For this alone, Hegel's account of
the subject, and the form of political justification associated with it,
deserve reconstructing.
In this paper I shall attempt such a reconstruction, by retracing the
steps through which Hegel derives "free will", the starting point of the
Philosophyof Right, from "consciousness" in his Encyclopaedia Philosophy
ofMind, and in the lectures that accompany it. 5 By doing so I hope to
make good some of the above claims.
Hegel covers much of the same ground in the earlier Phenomenologyof
Mind, translated as The Phenomenologyof Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977). My reconstruction concentrates entirely
on the PhilosophyofMind account, although I believe that each throws light
on the other.

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ANDREW CHITIT

The main stages of Hegel's derivation of free will are as follows:

consciousness, self-consciousness, mastery and servitude (one-sided
recognition), universal self-consciousness (mutual recognition),
intelligence, will, and finally free will. Most of these have sub-stages
within them. Each main stage is what I shall call a "form of
subjectivity". Each is a fundamental way in which a subject conceives
itself and the components of its world, which constitutes it as a certain
kind of subject. Each form of subjectivity in the sequence
~incorporates" the previous ones. That is, they appear within it as
subordinate aspects, in the same way that when one shifts from
conceiving something as circular to conceiving it as a sphere one's
original way of conceiving it does not disappear but is reduced to a
subordinate aspect of the way one now sees it.
Each form of subjectivity also "necessitates" the next one in the
sequence, in the sense that each form involves an internal contradiction
which can be resolved only by abandoning that form in favour of the
one that follows it. Furthermore, the contradictions that affect the
different forms of subjectivity are in the end simply developed versions
of the contradiction that affects the first of them, consciousness. Hegel's
view is that a conscious subject must eventually become aware of the
contradiction internal to consciousness, and must respond to that
awareness by adopting the following form of subjectivity. In turn it
must become aware of and respond to the contradiction in that form,
and so on. So his exposition of the forms of subjectivity and the
necessary transitions between them becomes a narrative of the journey
that the conscious subject must, and does, make through these forms,
successively reconstituting itself until it becomes the possessor of free
will.
In the course of this progress the forms of subjectivity become at first
practical, in that they essentially involve ways not only of conceiving but
also of acting, and then collective, in that they essentially involve ways in
which a number of different subjects conceive and act towards each
other. Furthermore the development does not stop with the free will,
but continues into the institutions of the system of right, which are
themselves simply practical and collective forms of subjectivity. So
Hegel's exposition is an account of the nature of the subject as it must
become in order to resolve the contradiction of consciousness, which
develops seamlessly into a justification of a set of political institutions as
necessary to resolve that same contradiction.

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION

185

1. Consciousness
To begin with, then, it is important to understand just what Hegel
means by "consciousness", the first stage in the sequence, and how he
thinks it is internally contradictory. In Hegel's narrative consciousness
emerges out of a series of more elementary forms of awareness which he
collectively calls "soul". It is best understood by contrasting it with one
of these forms, the form of soul called "feeling of self" (Selbstgefiihl).
Feeling of self is the most basic form of self-awareness. It consists just in
having sensations, and in experiencing those sensations as mine. For
Hegel, to experience one's sensations in this way, which he calls
"idealising" them, is to establish a distinction between oneself and one's
sensations of the same fundamental kind that is made in a subjectpredicate proposition, or what Hegel calls a ~judgment", and making
this distinction constitutes one as a subject:
The feeling totality is, as individuality, essentially this: to divide itself
within itself, and to awaken to thejudgment within itself, by virtue of which
it has particular feelings and is a subject in relation to these its
determinations. The subject as such posits these as its feelings within itself
(E3 w
323-5). 6
However, in this initial form of self-awareness the subject relates
only to "particular" sensations, and accordingly it forms a conception of
itself only as the possessor of particular sensations:
It is sunken in this particularity of sensations, and at the same time it unites
with itself therein as a subjective one [Eins] through the ideality of the
particular. In this way it is feeling of self-- and at the same time it is this
References to the Encyclopedia PhilosophyofMind3rd ed. [1830] (E3) are
given by paragraph number. R = remark to the paragraph. A = addition
(Zusatz) to the paragraph by Bouwmann, compiled from various sets of
students' lecture notes in 1840. G= Griesheim's lecture notes relevant to
the paragraph, from the 1825 lecture course. K = Kehler's lecture notes
relevant to the paragraph, from the same course. After the paragraph
number I have given the page number of the English translation in Hegel's
Philosophyof Subjective Spirit, 3 vols., ed. and tr. M.J. Petry (Dordrecht: D.
Reidel, 1978), which is a bilingual edition with Griesheim's and Kehler's
lecture notes included as an appendix. For w167
the pagination is
from Perry's volume 2, and for w167
from volume 3. Petry republished w167
with Griesheim's and Kehler's lecture notes appended
directly to the relevant paragraphs, as The Berlin Phenomenology,ed. and tr.
M.J. Petry (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981). I have modified all translations
from Hegel's works.

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ANDREW CHI'ITY
only in the particularfbeling (ibid.).

T h e subject here is implicitly "universal" in the sense that it has a

plurality of "particular" sensations, but it does not conceive itself as
universal in contrast to the elements of its experience as singular things.
T h e feeling soul "has a content which has not yet developed to the
separation of universal and singular, subjective and objective" (E3
w
207). In "consciousness", by contrast, the subject stands back
and conceives itself as the possessor of the content of its experience in
general, and therefore as something universal, separated off from the
singularity of the elements of its experience.7 Thereby it constitutes
itself as what Hegel calls an "I':
[The] being-for-itself of free universality is the higher awakening of the soul
to the L of abstract universality in so far as it is06r abstract universality (E3
w
425).
By conceiving itself in this universal way, the subject flees itself from
its entanglement with particular sensation, and gains an independence
from it, in that it no longer identifies itself just as the possessor of such
sensation. At the same time this means for Hegel that it conceives the
content of its experience as independent of it, and so outside it. Thereby
it constitutes that content as an ~object'. Consciousness is just this joint
conceiving of oneself as an "I" and of the content of one's experience as
an ~object', dividing the world into subjective and objective, inner and
outer.
[T]he immediate identity of the natural soul is raised to this pure ideal
identity with itself, the content of the former is object [g.]8 for this
reflection that is for itself. Pure abstract freedom for itself lets its
determinacy, the natural life of the soul, go out of it as equally free, as
independent object, and it is of this latter as something outside it that I is
initially aware, and as such is consciousness (E3 w
3).
Just as the subject of consciousness, the ~I", conceives its objects as what
"Particular" (besonder) in Hegel has the sense "part of", whereas ~singular"
(einzeln) simply has the sense "individual". See M. Inwood, A Hegel
Dictionary (Oxford: BlackweU, 1992), 303.
Hegel uses two terms for ~object': das Objekt and der Gegenstand.
Gegenstand literally means ~standing-against", and using it emphasises the
idea of the object as what stands opposite to the subject. In quotations
from Hegel I have translated both terms as "object", and the corresponding
adjectives as ~objective", but where the German word is GegenstandI have
signalled this by adding ~[g.]" to the translation.

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

187

are external to it, so it also now conceives itself by contrast with its
objects, as that which stands opposite them and which has them as its
objects. In Hegel's terms,, it is "reflected into itself" in its objects (E3
w
425).
For Hegel, then, consciousness is more than mere awareness, or even
mere self-awareness. It is awareness of oneself as a subject counterposed
to an objective world outside oneself. So characterised, consciousness
immediately involves a fundamental contradiction, a contradiction
simultaneously in the way that the object and the I are conceived in it.
With regard to the object, the subject conceives this object as both
outside out of it and independent of it, and yet also as/ts object, in the
same way as in feeling of self it conceived of the contents of experience as
belonging to it:
Consciousness is both: we have a world outside us, which is firmly for itself,
and at the same time in that I am consciousness I am aware of this object
~.], it is posited as ideal, so it is not independent but superseded. These
are what are the two contradictory [elements], the independence and the
ideality of the objective side. Consciousness is just this contradiction, and
the progression of consciousness is its resolution (E3 w
275).
With regard to the I, it conceives itself as independent or free of each
of its objects, as related only to itself, and yet it still relies on its objects
in general in order to form a conception of itself as that-which-possessesthese-objects. This means that it has to conceive itself as both "with
itself' (bei sich selbst), related only to itself, and ~with another", related to
something alien to it:
[T]he certainty that mind has of itself at the standpoint of mere
consciousness is still something untrue and self-contradictory, for here, along
with the abstract certainty of being with itself, mind has the directly
opposed certainty of being related to something essentially other to it (E3
f~416A, 15).
The two-fold contradiction of consciousness is fundamentally a
contradiction between the mutual independence and separateness of the
I and the object on the one hand, and their internal relatedness, thus in a
sense their fundamental identity, on the other: "Consciousness is ... the
contradiction between the independence of both sides, and their identity"
(E3 w
9).

188
2.

~D~WCHITTY
Self-consciousness and Desire

In consciousness as described so far, the object is conceived as a

singular independent entity, in complete opposition to the universality
of the I. Hegel calls this elementary form of consciousness "sensuous
consciousness" (E3 w
19). In order to resolve the contradiction of
consciousness, the I must reconceive the object in successively more
universal, and so "I-like", ways, thereby tending to eliminate its
independence and "foreignness" and thus both aspects of the
contradiction. This leads initially to a new form of consciousness,
"perception", in which the object is endowed with some of the
universality of the I by being conceived as a thing with universal
properties (E3 w167
25-31). In turn this leads to another form,
~understanding", in which the object is further universalised by being
conceived as a realm of laws which subordinate the particular
appearances that present themselves to the I (E3 w
31-33). Finally
the object is conceived as a whole which subordinates its own parts
under it, in the same way that a law subordinates appearances under it:
that is, as a living being (E3 w
35; w
31 I-3).
At this point the object has in part the same characteristics that the I
uses in order to conceive itself, for in that it subordinates its parts it, in a
sense, possesses them, just as the I conceives itself as possessing its objects
in general. So in conceiving the object as a living being the I conceives it
as an object which in part shares its own quality of "I-hood'. When the
I conceives its object as characterised by subjectivity (where the term is
now used to mean such I-hood) then conversely it looks back at itself
from the perspective of this external subjectivity and conceives itself as an
object. This dual conception of the object as subjective and of the I as
an object constitutes a new form of subjectivity that Hegel calls "selfconsciousness":
There is consciousness present of some object [g.], livingness, I relate myself
to something living. I am now what thinks; and in that this as I relates
itself to livingness, and does so as thinking, subjectivity or livingness as such
comes into being for it there ... In that I now has subjectivity as such,
abstract subjectivity, as object ~. ], it has itself as object [g.]. I is itself living,
makes its livingness into an object, and so is self-consciousness (E3 w
315).
It might be said that if the I conceives its object as characterised by
subjectivity (I-hood) then surely it must conceive it as another I, another
conscious being. However in self-consciousness as it first appears the I

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION

189

has only one way of identifying itself, as "possessor of objects". So it has

no way of distinguishing between 'T' and "I-hood in general". It cannot
make the distinction between what is numerically identical to it (the very
same thing as it) and what is only qualitatively identical to it (the same
kind of thing as it), so it cannot formulate the idea of "another I",
something qualitatively identical to but numerically distinct from it. As
a result, for it to conceive its object as "characterised by I-hood" is just
for it to conceive its object as 'T'. Thus the I of sdf-consciousness
literally conceives its object as itself. "As judging, the I has an object
which is not distinct from i t - itself,- self-consciousness" (E3 w
35). Hegel expresses this with the formula "I=I", where "=" stands for
the relationship between a subject and its object.
Hegel calls self-consciousness in its initial form "abstract" or
"immediate" self-consciousness. In it the contradiction of consciousness
in its original form has been resolved, in that the object has been
rendered identical with the subject. However the contradiction now
reappears in a new form, as the contradiction of self-consciousness.
Again Hegel describes the contradiction as two-fold, but now both
aspects of it concern the self-conscious subject's conception of itselfi the
first its self-conception as object and the second its self-conception as I.
With regard to its self-conception as object, it faces a "contradiction
of abstraction". For it is part of the idea of an object that it be different
from the I. So the I is not after all a genuine object. It has "a lack of
reality, of existence [Dasein]" (E3 w
317). It is "without reality,
for since it is itself its own object [o~], it is not one, for there is no
difference present between itself and what is its" (E3 w
37). As
Hegel explains:
There is lacking here what there was too much of in consciousness. There,
there was a preponderance of difference, of content which is other than the
I. In self-consciousness the other determination predominates, I = I,
difference is altogether lacking, I am only conscious of me, only aware of
me, identity is too strong ... (E3 w
317).
W i t h regard to its self-conception as I, the subject faces a
"contradiction of immediacy". In self-consciousness the I conceives its
object as itself. So although when conceiving itself as "possessor of
objects" it conceives itself as related to its objects, it thereby remains
related only to itself. The contradiction between independence and
dependence that affected its self-conception in consciousness is resolved,
and it is now "free" in that it does not depend on anything else in order

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ANDREW CHITTY

to form a conception of itself. "In self-consciousness I am free, I am not

related to another, I am with myself' (/b/d.). Yet at the same time it only
achieves this self-relation through a relation to an object that is initially
merely given to it. So it is not after all free. Since it is ~related to an
object that is initially posited as immediate, the I is not yet posited as
independent" (E3 425G, 323). It is "still burdened with an external
object" (E3 w
39).
The self-conscious subject's sense of its double contradiction
expresses itself as a sense that the contradiction "ought" to be overcome,
that its abstract I ought to be given a genuine objectivity, and at the
same time that the object on which it depends ought to be rendered
thoroughly identical with it, so that it is no longer dependent on
anything external to it. Hegel calls this double sense of ought "desire":
Self-consciousness in its immediacy is singular and is desire-- the
contradiction of its abstraction, which ought to be objective, or of its
immediacy, which has the shape of an external object and ought to be
subjective (E3 w
43-5).
Specifically, desire is the urge on the part of the self-conscious subject to
overcome its double contradiction by consuming the living being which
confronts it as an independent object, thereby trying simultaneously to
objectify the subject and to render the object subjective. In the various
forms of consciousness, the contradiction of consciousness led to efforts
on the part of the subject to conceive the object differently. Here, the
contradiction of self-consciousness leads to efforts to change the object.
So the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness is a transition
from purely theoretical forms of subjectivity to the first practical form of
subjectivity, the first form which essentially involves a determination to
act in a certain way towards the object.

3. RelatedSelf-Consciousness
Self-consciousness in its present form can overcome its contradiction
only by consuming its object. It would not be able to overcome it by
simply transforming the object in some way, although such a
transformation might be seen as a way of objectifying itself and
rendering the object subjective, for it "does not yet possess the strength
to endure the independence of the other" (E3 w
51). As a result,
"desire in its satisfaction is altogether destructive" (E3 w
49). Thus
the act in which the self-conscious I attempts to change its object in such

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

191

a way as to resolve the contradiction in its self-conception is also the act

whereby it destroys that object. Hence the satisfaction of desire fails to
resolve the contradiction of self-consciousness, and that satisfaction only
gives rise to a new desire (ibid.).
Nevertheless, according to Hegel, the desiring I must eventually
succeed in giving itself an objectivity outside itself. For in the m o m e n t
of satisfaction of desire it has at least the fleeting sense of an object which
has been rendered thoroughly subjective while still remaining an object.
This enables it to make the transition from immediate self-consciousness
to a new form of self-consciousness:
The judgment or the division [Diremtion] of this self-consciousness is
consciousness ofa/gee object, in which I has awareness of itself as I, which
is however also still outside it (E3 w
53).
That is, it now comes to conceive its object as another I. It has "filled the other
with I, made it from something self-less into a free, self-like object, into another
I" (E3 w
53). Hegel does not consider the anthropomorphic
possibility of a single subject relating to an inanimate object or an animal
as "another I'. He assumes that a necessary condition for the appearance
of this form of self-consciousness is that two self-conscious individuals
encounter one another. Thus each self-conscious individual can resolve
its internal contradiction only by finding itself as a subject objectified in
another self-conscious individual. It is this fact, rather than an inability
to supply their own material needs, that draws individual human beings
(indeed any self-conscious beings) together in Hegel's version of the idea
of natural human sociability. The m o m e n t of treating the other as
another I is, as Hegel puts it in his notes to the Philosophy of Mind, the
"origin of society in respect of consciousness".9 The joint form o f
subjectivity that is established when two subjects each conceive each
other as "another I", a form that we could call "related selfconsciousness", is the precondition for society, although subjects that go
no further than this remain in a state of nature with respect to each other
in so far as this form does not entail any acceptance of a c o m m o n
authority. :0
The identification of an external being as "another I" resolves the
Cited Petry, notes to The Berlin Phenomenolog7, supra n.6, at 161. Hegel's
note is attached to that paragraph which becomes w
in the third edition
of the PhilosophyofMind.
10 Hegel's own phrase for this joint form of subjectivity is "relating [Verhalten]
of one self-consciousness to another self-consciousness" (E3 428G, 329).

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ANDREW CHITTY

contradiction in self-consciousness, for now the subject of selfconsciousness has succeeded in objectifying itself and rendering its object
subjective without simultaneously destroying that object. However this
only leads to the reappearance of the basic contradiction of
consciousness in yet another form, as a contradiction in related selfconsciousness. Essentially this contradiction is encapsulated in the
phrase "another I". On the one hand the 'T' in this phrase simply
stands for "conscious subject" (or rather now "self-conscious subject"),
an entity which is qualitatively identical to but numerically distinct from
the I. But on the other hand the first-person reference of the 'T' in the
phrase has to be taken quite literally, for the subject does not conceive
the other just as simply another self-conscious subject but also quite
literally as itselfi
The other human being is just as much I as I am, there is no distinction to
be made there. From the point of view of the pure self of consciousness, of
this root of subjectivity, there is an identity there, it is the identity of both
self-consciousnesses, I have in the other what I have in myself. But
secondly these Is are also distinguished, the I is also something particular,
and the question is how this distinction is determined (E3 430G, 329).
Furthermore, the other is not just distinct from me. It is also positively
independent from me, in the sense that 'T' always stands for selfrelatedness and so independence. This makes the contradiction even
stronger:
Since I is what is wholly universal, absolutely pervasive, interrupted by no
limit, the essence common to all humans, the two selves here relating to one
another constitute one identity, one light so to speak, and yet at the same
time they are two, which subsist in complete rigidness and unyieldingness
towards each other, each as something reflected into itself and absolutely
distinct from and impenetrable by the other (E3 w
55).
In short, "the highest contradiction is posited, on the one hand the clear
identity of both and on the other this complete independence of each"
(E3 w
329-31).
The contradiction of related self-consciousness can be seen in terms
of the two subjects' simultaneous status for each other as corporeal
entities and self-conscious beings. In so far as they are corporeal entities
they are physically outside one another as objects, located in different
places, and each of them is on a par for the other with ordinary living
beings - - those living beings which, in desire, they simply subordinate
to their own subjectivity. This is what they are in their "existence"

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

193

(Dasein), by which Hegel means in the mode of being in which they are
directly present to each other. From this point of view they can see
themselves only as distinct, singular entities. Yet in so far as they are
self-conscious they are simply free, not only in the sense of being selfrelated, but also in the "practical" sense of being the self-originating
source of action, for in subordinating objects to its subjectivity in desire
this is how the self-conscious subject experiences itself31 As simply free
they are indistinguishable. They are a unitary, universal I: the ~pure self
of consciousness" or the "essence common to all humans" that Hegel
mentions above. Therefore the contradiction between their separateness
and their identity can be seen as a contradiction between the corporeality
and the freedom that each has for the other:
The more precise shape of the contradiction ... is that the two selfconscious subjects relating to one another, since they have immediate
existence [Dasein], are natural, corporeal, thus are in the manner of a thing
subordinated to an alien power, and come to be for one another as such,
but at the same time they are simplyfi'ee and not to be treated by one
another as something just immediately existing [Daseiendes], as something
merely natural (E3 w
55-7).
Accordingly to overcome this contradiction it will be necessary for them
somehow to integrate their freedom and their corporeality for each
other. For Hegel, this can only happen through each, in its thoughts
and thus in its actions as a corporeal entity, treating both itself and the
other, as corporeal entities, as free, where to treat something as free
means to treat it as a self-originating source of action, thus as a maker of
decisions that are in some way valid for oneself. Hegel calls treating
another as free in this way "recognition" (Anerkennung). 12 In treating
each other as free they would simultaneously be distinct from each other,
in that their actions would be actions of distinct corporeal entities, and
yet identical, in that those actions would express a conception of them
both as free, and thus as belonging to a single universal I whose defining
11 Hegel does not distinguish these two senses of freedom, or explain the
transition from the first to the second. I have assumed that it must occur in
desire.
12 The German anerkennen generally means "recognise" in the sense of
"publicly acknowledge as having a positive normative status", rather than in
the sense of "identify as an individual or as a member of a kind". So the
mere identification of an object as "another I" that occurs in related selfconsciousness does not count as Anerkennung, and Hegel does not use that
term to describe it. See Inwood, supra n.7, at 245.

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ANDREW CHITTY

characteristic is freedom. Hegel continues:

In order to overcome this contradiction it is necessary that the two
mutually opposed selves posit themselves and recognise themselves in their
existence [Dasein ], in their being-for-another, as what they are in themselves
or in their concept - - namely as not merely naturalbutj~ee beings [Wesen]
(ibid.).
From the point of view of the individual subject, overcoming the
contradiction is first of all a matter of being recognised by the other
individual, in one's very existence (Dasein) as thi~ corporeal entity, as
free:
This contradiction gives the drive to show oneself as a free self and to m/st
[da zu sein] as this for the other m the process of recognition (E3 w
53).
Similarly, the other individual will have the same drive to become
recognised by the first as free. However to treat the other as free means
to defer to its decision-making in some way, and for the self-conscious
subject as we have it at present this is not easily achieved, for this subject
is still "singular". That is, it understands its freedom as a matter of it
(conceived as this single individual) being completely self-determining in
all its decisions. It does not yet see freedom in a universal way, as a
matter of it (conceived as a unitary universal I that is the same I as all
other self-conscious beings are) being self-determining in making
decisions valid for all. Its notion of freedom is still tied to its own single
individuality. This means that as soon as it defers to the decisionmaking of another in any way, however minor, it cannot think of itself
as free:
I, as free self-consciousness, am at the same time still an immediate and
singular self-consciousness, the immediate singularity of my selfconsciousness and my freedom are not yet separated from each other, and
to that extent I cannot surrender anything of my particularity without
surrendering my free independence (E3 w
333).
So this subject is incapable of recognising another as free, without losing
its own freedom: "In that I recognise someone as free, thereby I am
unfree" (ibid.). As a result, the two subjects cannot simultaneously
recognise each other and themselves as free. The only way in which the
first can conceive o f overcoming the contradiction of related selfconsciousness is by having both of them recognise the first, and not the
second, as flee. Then the two individuals would be distinct in that they
would remain separate corporeal entities, but identical in that these
entities would share a single will, that of the first. The situation is

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

195

parallel for the other individual. So each "must resist recognising

another as free, just as on the other side each must set about demanding
to be recognised as free in the other's self-consciousness" (E3 w
335). Thus the effort on the part of the subjects of related selfconsciousness to overcome their contradiction degenerates into a
struggle between them in which each tries to jgrce or coerce the other to
recognise it alone as free, as that whose decisions alone the other must
take as valid for itself (E3 432G, 337-9). This struggle is the "struggle
for recognition".

4. Mastery, Servitude and Universal Self-Consciousness

I shall not rehearse the detail of this struggle. Briefly, Hegel's claim
is that each individual must use physical force against the other, to the
point of being willing to kill it, in order to try to make the other
recognise it as free. At the same time, each must expose itself to the
danger of being killed by the other in order to demonstrate to the other
that it is free, in that it cannot be coerced even by the threat of death.
When one individual capitulates rather than die, then in that act it
demonstrates to itself (as well as to the other) that it is not free. Thereby
it abandons the demand to be recognised as free, and recognises the
other alone as free by taking the decisions of the other individual as
decisions for it too, obeying unconditionally the orders which the other
now gives it. This one-sided or "immediate" recognition constitutes a
new joint and practical form of subjectivity, "mastery and servitude"
(Herrschafi und Knechtschafi), as it constitutes the two subjects as
"servant" and "master" respectively. This is how the contradiction of
related self-consciousness is initially resolved:
Being recognised by the other must come about, and initially [it must come
about] immediately, so that the one subjects its will, gives up the
independence of its will, a resolution of the contradiction which is again a
contradiction within itself. Thus the relation of mastery and servitude is
posited. The one that prefers life to independence, that allows itself to be
coerced, is the subjected, the one that obeys, the server [Diener] (E3
432G/K, 339).
In abandoning its claim to be free and recognising only the other as
free, the servant has effectively surrendered its own will: "the self-will of
the servant gives itself up to the will of the master w and receives as its
content the purpose of the commander" (E3 w
65). As a result,

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ANDREW CH1TTY

there is now as far as both individuals are concerned only one will, one
centre of free decision-making:
The will of the master counts, not that of the server. It is one will, and this
is already a universal one, it is not only the will of this self, it is a will that
has become broader. The servant has to work for the desire of the master,
whatever shape it has, but at the same time universality is present. Will,
subjective will, desire is widened, the master is will in this consciousness
and also in the consciousness of the servant (E3 435G, 341-3).
The surrender of the will that initiates mastery and servitude is the
analogue of the act in which men leave the state of nature by alienating
their wills to the community in Rousseau's social contract, and as with
Rousseau the surrender creates a general or universal will.13 However, in
contrast to Rousseau, the resulting will is not truly universal. It is
universal in that it counts as the will of both master and servant (or
servants, if there are many), but it does not have an impersonal content.
Its content is made up of the desires of one particular individual, the
master, and the way the servant obeys that will is through labour to
produce things to satisfy that one individual's desires.
As a result, the master-servant relation does not resolve the
contradiction of related self-consciousness which gave rise to it. It is true
that servant and master could be said to be "identical" in that they share
a single will, but because this will is determined by the desires o f one
particular corporeal individual, it is not genuinely self-determining or
free. So it is not a will that is expressive of the I as such, of the universal
I that they sense themselves to be. Their actions therefore do not express
a conception of themselves as a single universal I, and so fail to unite
their corporeal separateness with their identity as such an I. The
servant's recognition in working for the master does not express to the
master the servant's identity with it as free, but rather the opposite. The
same is the case for the master's activity of giving orders to the servant.
Thus the contradiction of related self-consciousness remains. Nevertheless, the master-servant relation does show how this contradiction can
finally be overcome. For the servant, in working for the master, learns to
resist its own immediate desires. It "works off its singular- and self-will
in service to the master" and "supersedes the inner immediacy of desire"
(E3 w
67). It thereby achieves a sense of freedom as something
13 The German allgemein,translated here as "universal", also means "general",
and elsewhere Hegel uses allgemeine Wille to translate Rousseau's ~general
will" (for example in the PhilosophyofRight at PR w
277).

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

197

other than just being individually self-determining in all its decisions, for
here it is free in the sense of being able to act independently of its own
desires. Thereby it partly overcomes the "singularity" that drove subjects
into a struggle for recognition. However it is still not yet free in the
sense of being able to act independently from everyone's desires, for it
only acts independently of its own desires in so far as it carries out the
master's desires:
This servile obedience.., forms only the beginning of freedom, for that to
which the natural singularity of stir-consciousness sabmits is not the inand-for-itsdftruly universal, rational will, but the singular, contingent will of
another subject. What emerges here is merely one moment of freedom, the
negativity of self-seekingsingularity (E3 w
69).

The "positive side of freedom" (ibid.) can only be realised when:

servile self-consciousnessdisengages itself from the singularity of the master
just as much as from its own singularity, and apprehends what is rational
in-and-for-itself, in its universality which is independent of the particularity
of the subjects (ibid.).
Hegel is unclear about what it is within the master-servant relation
that brings about the realisation of this "positive side" of freedom, but he
appears to suggest that it is the master's concern to meet the needs
common to itself and its servants, which leads it, like the servant, to
overcome its own immediate desires and instead to do a.nd order done
what is necessary to meet those common needs (E3 w
65; w
67). Thus the will which it comes to enact (and which the servants in
turn also enact) becomes an impersonal one whose content is
independent of any one individual's desires.
This would be at least an approximation to the will that is
independent of everyone's desires and "rational in-and-for-itself". If both
master and servant can come to enact such a will, and to feel that their
freedom consists in enacting it, then they will both have overcome their
"singularity": they will have come to conceive freedom no longer as
individual self-determination but as the self-determination of a unitary
universal I that they all, as separate individuals, are. Thereby they will
have overcome the condition which originally prevented them from
mutually recognising each other as free and forced them instead into the
struggle for recognition. They can then finally resolve the contradiction
of related self-consciousness by recognising each other as flee, dissolving
the master-servant relation. Hegel calls the collective and practical form
of subjectivity in which subjects do this "universal self-consciousness".

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ANDREW CHITI'Y

What makes universal self-consciousness possible is the internal

division which each subject has now made within itself between its own
desires, which are particular to it as a separate corporeal entity, and its
freedom, as possessor of which it is the same I that all the others are:

Universal self-consciousnessis the affirmative awareness of oneself in the

other self, each of which as a free singularity has absolute independence, but,
in virtue of the negation of its immediacy or desire, does not differentiate
itself from the other (E3 w
71).
Thanks to this internal division each one can recognise the other as free
without being in any way unfree itselfi for when one recognises the other
as free it only treats as valid for it the decisions of the other m universal I,
and enacting the decisions of that same universal I is just what its own
freedom consists in.
However it is unclear at this point how the decisions of this universal
I are to be identified. Until now, to speak of a universal I was simply a
way of saying that individuals felt themselves to be somehow numerically
identical at some level. Hegel does speak of mutual recognition as
constituting a common "substance" that is the basis for all social
institutions (E3 w
71; w
345), and it is at least consonant with
his usage to say that it creates social relations and a society for the first
time. He further suggests that mutual recognition constitutes each
individual as universal in some sense, for in universal self-consciousness:
[each] is universal and objective, and has real universality as reciprocity, in
that it knows itself recognised in the free other, and knows this, in so far as
it recognises the other and knows it as free (ibid.).
Yet this is not enough to be able to say that any real universal I with
determinate decision-making capacities has been constituted by virtue of
mutual recognition. So it is still difficult to see how the "decisionmaking" of the universal I can be conceptualised. If this decisionmaking I is Hegel's version of the general will, then it is a version that as
yet lacks any content.

5. Will, Free Will and Right

In order to see a solution to this problem it will be necessary to look
at Hegel's conception of the free will. There are several stages between
universal self-consciousness and "free will" but they do not involve any
development in the way the subject sees its fellow subjects, so I shall

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199

summarise them very briefly.

Firstly, the individual of universal self-consciousness sees other
individuals as both object (distinct from itself) and subject (identical
with itself), so it unifies the objective and the subjective. Thereby it
gains the confidence or "certainty" that the objective and the subjective
in general can be unified. This confidence is "reason" (E3 w
75). It
is as if the individual attaining to universal self-consciousness gains the
confidence to assume that the underlying principle that animates itself
and its fellow mutual recognisers as subjects is a principle that also
underlies the physical universe, so that there is no distinction between
things as they are and things as they can in principle be known by such
subjects. The individual becomes, in Hegel's terms, an idealist.
Universal self-consciousness, supplemented by this more general
metaphysical confidence, is what Hegel calls "mind" (Ge/st)14 (E3
w
353-5).
Secondly, as mind, the individual immediately confronts the fact
that the physical world presents itself as something independent of it and
alien to it, contradicting its confidence in their underlying unity. So it is
compelled to attempt to make this unity explicit, and it is this activity of
attempting to realise its unity with the objective world that is the
characteristic activity of mind (E3 ~441A, 87).
This activity first takes a cognitive form, giving rise to the form of
subjectivity called "intelligence" (or "theoretical mind"). Here, in a
process that parallels the development of the forms of consciousness, the
individual renders the objective world progressively more like the
"universal I" that it is by transforming its singular intuitions of that
world into representations, which are more general, and then thoughts,
which are more general still (E3 w167
117-229). Through this
process, the individual proves to itself that things themselves have the
same universality that it does (E3 w
229).
This gives it the confidence to reverse the process, so that its attempt
to realise its unity with the objective world takes a practical form, giving
rise to the form of subjectivity called "will" (or "practical mind"), where
"will" has to be understood as meaning something more than it has until
now. Here the individual attempts to objectify successively more
universal aspects of itself in action (E3 w167
231-265). Initially,
as "practical feeling", it simply registers the satisfaction of its individual
14 Here and above, I have translated Hegel's Geist as "mind" rather than the
more common "spirit".

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ANDREWCHrITY

needs in feelings such as pleasantness and pleasure. Then, as "natural

will", it actively tries to satisfy its inclinations through drives that
correspond to them. At this point the introduction to the Philosophyof
Right begins its systematic exposition of the will, so that from here on its
account runs parallel to that of the PhilosophyofMind (PR w167
4452). ~ Next, as "reflecting will", it stands back from its inclinations and
chooses which inclination to try to satisfy. Then, under the heading of
"happiness", it attempts to maximise the sum total of such satisfactions.
In all the above forms the will is free "in itself", for regardless of its
content it always involves some form of self-determination in so far as
the individual makes some effort to act that content out into the world.
Finally however it becomes "free will" in the proper sense (~will free in
and for itself", or "free mind"). This is the genuinely rational will (PR
w
58). Here freedom forms the actual content of the will. The
individual attempts to objectify freedom itself as an objective world, the
world of what Hegel calls "objective mind". This "realm of actualised
freedom, the world of mind produced out of itself as a second nature" is
just the system of right (PR w 35). In fact Hegel simply identifies
"right" as any objectification of the free will - - any actual institution,
practice or law in which the free will is directly present to us. "Right is
this, that an existence [Dasein] in general is an existenceofthejgee wilt'
(PR w 58). Correspondingly an individual is properly free in so far as
it acts to create or sustain such institutions, practices and laws.
Now the steps between universal self-consciousness and the "natural
will" can obscure the fact that the individual that possesses this will, with
which the Philosophyof Right begins, is an individual that has already
attained universal self-consciousness, that is, one that belongs to a
community of "mutual recognisers", and thanks to this can think of
itself as a "universal I" as well as a particular individual without
contradiction. Since each of the forms of subjectivity in Hegel's
systematic derivation presupposes the others, it is natural to expect that
this should be the case, and Hegel effectively confirms it. In his initial
introduction to the idea of the will in paragraphs 5 to 7 of the Philosophy
15 References to the Philosophyof Right [1821] (PR) are given by paragraph
number. R = remark to the paragraph. A = additioh (Zusatz) to the paragraph compiled by Gans from various sets of students' lecture notes in
1833. After the paragraph number I have given the page number of the
translation as Elementsof the PhilosophyRight, ed. A.W. Wood, tr. H.B.
Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICALJUSTIFICATION

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of Right he states that the will involves an 'T' which is universal and
abstracted from every content (PR w 37), but which gives itself an
existence (Dasein) by investing itself in some determinate content (PR
w 39), and which retains its abstractedness even as so determinate (PR
w 41). Interpreters of these paragraphs have tacitly assumed that the
'T' which Hegel is talking of is an individual 'T', and that he is simply
referring to the capacity of the individual who has a will to refrain from
acting on any particular drive. But in his lectures Hegel states explicitly
that the 'T' associated with the will is one that abstracts from the
particular individual as well as from its various drives:
I is thinking, thought, conceptualising in general, I is the universal, the
completely universal, there is nothing more universal When each one says
~I" he means himself as a particular, but each is I, and in the higher sense
the universal, wholly abstractly the universal. I is wholly abstract; in the I, I
leave out of account every particularity, my particular character,
temperament, knowledge, age. 16
This I is the "universal I" of universal self-consciousness. Accordingly, will's self'investment in a determinate content is not just a matter of
choosing to do one particular thing, but of the individual differentiating
itself as one particular individual, from the indeterminacy of the
universal I. Hence Hegel calls this moment the "particularisation of the
I" (PR w 39). It happens through the decision by the individual as to
which of its various inclinations to act to satisfy: "By deciding, the will
posits itself as the will of a determinate individual which separates itself
out from another" (PR w13, 46).
So the "natural will" involves the capacity for seeing oneself without
contradiction both as the universal I and also as "this particular I", a
capacity realised only in the community of mutual recognition of
universal self-consciousness. It follows that the properly free will whose
aim is to objectify its freedom as the system of right must also be the will
of a member of this community of mutual recognition. Furthermore
this properly free will must be nothing other than a developed form of
the free decision-making capacity of the universal I of universal selfconsciousness. For since the properly free will wills only freedom itself,
it does not involve any element of "particularisation of the I'. Its
content is completely impersonal, so that it is a will that everyone has.
16

Vorlesungen iiber Rechtsphilosophie[ 1818-31], 4 volumes, ed. K.-H. Ilting

(Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag,1973-), vol. 4, at 105. A version of this
lecture note is included in the Philosophyof Right (PR w 35).

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ANDREWCHITI'Y

In Fact it now appears that the difference between the individual of

universal self-consciousness and the individual with a properly free will is
only this: although the former sees itself as part of a free universal I, it
has no particular conception of what the content of decisions of this
universal I is to be, whereas for the latter, which has had its will
"awakened" by the experience o f unifying the objective and the
subjective in cognition, what this universal I must do is objectify its own
freedom in a determinate system of institutions and practices.
Given this close connection, it is possible to see a much more direct
way in which Hegel could have derived the properly free will that is the
basis of the system of right from universal self-consciousness. Universal
self-consciousness consists in individuals' enactment of a self-conception
of themselves as a universal I through mutual recognition of one another
as free. Yet to recognise someone as free means to treat the decisions of
that individual, considered as universal I, as valid for one in some way:
and in order to do that one must know what the decisions o f this
"universal I" are. As we have seen, though, in universal self-consciousness these decisions are completely indeterminate. Universal selfconsciousness is therefore contradictory. Like the initial, abstract form of
stir-consciousness, it lacks existence (Dasein).
The contradiction cannot be overcome by making a collective
decision, for such a decision might simply be based on desires shared by
all, in which case it would fail to count as a decision of the universal I.
This I consists only in that common subjectivity in ourselves and each
other that we take as authoritative over us when in our thoughts and
actions we recognise each other as free, and whose only essential
characteristic is freedom. So the urge to overcome the contradiction can
only be the urge to give a Dasein to this freedom of the universal I, that
is, to derive from the nature of that freedom those practices that will
count as recognising oneself and others as free. This, I suggest, is exacdy
the aim of objectifying freedom as an objective world, the aim of the
properly free will. The objective wodd which the properly free will must
will is then simply that system of practices and institutions which can
realise the idea of mutual recognition that appears in an abstract form in
universal self-consciousness.
Hegel's justification of those practices and institutions, then, will be
that in the end that they are necessary in order to resolve the contradiction in universal self-consciousness. In turn universal self-conscioushess was necessary to resolve the contradictions in related self-conscious-

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hess, immediate self-consciousness, and finally consciousness itself.

If this is correct then it is no accident that the institutions that Hegel
goes on to describe in the Philosophy of Right alternate between seeing
right as a matter of protecting individual rights (property, morality, civil
society) and advancing a collective good (family, state). For the universal I whose freedom has to be given a Dasein in these institutions, as a
subject that incorporates in its nature both sides of the contradiction of
related self-consciousness, is the universal I of subjects that simultaneously see themselves as distinct, particular Is. It is an "I that is we and
we that is I".17 In turn this double nature of the universal I finally
reflects our own double nature as both conscious and corporeal beings,
subjects and objects.
This is not the place to begin to reconstruct Hegel's justification of
those institutions, beginning with property, as necessary Daseins of the
freedom of such a subject. One thing that would be needed for such a
reconstruction would be a more exact account than I have been able to
give here of the idea of"mutual recognition as free". However I think it
is possible to say already that Hegel shows that there is more to the
ontological form of political justification than is dreamed of in most
contemporary political philosophy.

17

Supran.5, at 110.