Hegel on Death and War

Abstract

Hegel sees war as contributing positively to the experience of social and political life. Of course, his support for war is qualified in that the overall aim is to maintain peace and to mitigate the violence and destruc­tion of warfare. Nonetheless Hegel takes individual citizens to appreciate the achievement of social and political life in the light of war, and how the patriotism evidenced in war reinforces their recognition of the freedom and unity of public life. Hegel’s support for war arises in part out of a real­ism that he shares with Hobbes. But he also considers the significance of war on more general philosophical grounds. War, like the life and death struggle between individuals that is set out in the Phenomenology, plays a role in the development of recognition. If the life and death struggle brings out the sociality of recognition, war is a graphic reminder of the social and public operation of freedom. While Hegel’s philosophical justification of war and death make sense in the context of his wider philosophy, his dramatic depiction of death and war tends to supersede the systematic style of his philosophy. It is excessive in a way that is similar to how the figurative language of Hobbes’s Leviathan supersedes Hobbes’s own sense of the limits of language.