Hegel’s Concept of Right Cover Image

Zum Begriff des Rechts bei Hegel
Hegel’s Concept of Right

Author(s): Christoph Horn
Subject(s): Ethics / Practical Philosophy
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Hegel’s concept of the right; justification of law; natural law; contrac-tarianism; positivism;

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the foundations for the legitimacy of law from the perspective of Hegel’s philosophy. In a first step, Kant’s justification of law is discussed, as Hegel takes the Kantian model as a central point of (critical) reference. Then, in the Section 2, I discuss Hegel’s reasons for rejecting the main strategies of justification of the legal order: natural law, contractarianism and legal positivism. This is further followed by a discussion of the meaning and scope of Hegel’s contextualism, according to which there can be no practical normativity without a certain historical embedding. Finally, I describe a more traditional met-aphysical reading (supported among others by Kevin Thompson) that I consider to be the correct solution, contrasting it with Honneth’s theory of recognition and Bran-dom’s pragmatism.

  • Issue Year: 13/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 24-40
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: German