Situating Freedom

Abstract

This dissertation is an inquiry into Hegel’s account of the modern constitutional state. In particular, it traces Hegel’s understanding of its historical genesis, theoretical foundations, and sustaining conditions. Chapter one begins with an examination of the presuppositions, method, and structure of Hegel’s philosophy of history, which provides the anthropological and historical framework that underpins his political thought. Hegel argues that the human is a rationally reflective, socially embedded, historically self-transformative being, whose nature can only be fully realized through intersubjective recognition under norms that affirm the inherent dignity and equality of human beings. Seeking to uncover the logic that has been at work within history, he portrays it as a “progress in the consciousness of freedom” that is driven by the search for a form of intelligibility and a corresponding socio-political order in which the human being can be fully at home in the world. Chapters two and three reconstruct Hegel’s account of this historical development, which proceeds through a series of ethical-political orders that each instantiate a distinct image of the human and the divine. This development culminates in the production of institutional conditions that allow for the full recognition of human freedom: the emergence of a universal notion of right, the affirmation of individual moral autonomy, and the creation of modern constitutional nation-states. Chapter four turns to Hegel’s conception of the political order that best realizes modern notions of justice and freedom. While Hegel fully affirms and embraces a notion of the individual as a rights-bearing and morally autonomous agent, he contends that a philosophically adequate conception of freedom must account for the historically-formed institutions that realize freedom by making it concrete. His conception of ethical life portrays the modern individual as the creation of specific institutional configurations, shared normative commitments, habits, and mores that bind a community together and produce a "second nature.” Hegel thereby provides a conception of political community that integrates the historical, social, and cultural conditions that nourish and sustain modern liberal institutions and their underlying aspirations. The dissertation concludes with a critical juxtaposition between Hegel’s and Carl Schmitt’s judgements of liberalism in an attempt to reflect upon the enduring tensions within the modern constitutional state.