Hegels sittlicher Geist Eine kritische Analyse zum Verhältnis von Geschlecht und Gerechtigkeit

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to offer an analysis of the conflict between two ethical principles presented by Hegel in the chapter of his Phenomenology of the Spirit titled “The True Spirit, Ethical Life.” One is the principle of the state of the ethical life; and the other, of family loyalty or “divine ethical law.” According to Hegel, these two principles are paradigmatically exemplified by the characters of Creon and Antigone (respectively) in Sophocles’ Antigone. The question to be addressed here is how and why Hegel understands the conflict between the two principles to be necessary. The thesis of this paper is that Hegel, in this case, already employs the modes of argumentation that he would only thematize explicitly half a decade later in his Science of Logic. We argue further that a close examination of the relationship between these texts sheds an important light on some key passages in Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, especially concerning the role of women in society, and shows the limitations of his interpretive approach.