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Western Political Thought

Notes or by world-historical individuals. It was made by people for people, by ideas of intellectuals like
Hegel. Marx made Hegel’s philosophy of history the starting point of his analysis, and thereby
transformed the very nature of the subject.
Hegel himself was unsurpassed among modern philosophers in his knowledge of the
history of Western culture. The history of religions, the history of philosophy and the
history of law were created as special subjects of investigation largely under the
influence exerted by his philosophy .

10.4 Philosophy of Right

Once Hegel became confident that the present reality was the ultimate one, he concentrated on
guiding enlightened citizens for the purposeful conduct of public life. Like Aristotle’s Politics and
Ethics, the material that we find collected in the Philosophy of Right comprised the lecture notes that
he delivered at the University of Berlin. Significantly, unlike his other works which were compiled
from the notes of his students; the Philosophy of Right was painstakingly prepared for publication
by Hegel himself. It was supposed to be a “compendium”, the purpose of which was “the need for
putting into the hands of my audience a text book for the lectures on the Philosophy of Right which
I deliver in the course of my professional duties” : Preface, 1). Many scholars raised the question
regarding the impact of the prevailing strict political control of the university publication on the
text itself, thereby implying that there were important differences between his lecture notes and
the published version, the latter obviously being a more careful and perhaps a doctored exercise.
We are not quite certain about this. But it was clear that the purpose of the publication by Hegel
was to “create a public minded ruling class, a sort of ideal civil service, fully committed to the
values of civility, impartiality and honourable conduct”. It was a long-term educational project
beginning at the universities and then spreading to other spheres. As such, it was a guide to action
to conduct the complex affairs of the state. With this overriding concern for harmony, the text was
supposed to create the basic framework of the detailed functioning of the modern state, for which
Hegel had to discuss the roles and functions of various components like the, family, civil society,
the legal apparatus, representative assemblies, bureaucracy, the monarchy and questions involving
international relations and war.
Family, Women and Children
Hegel had a much idealized view of the family. He characterized it as an arena of love based on
a sense of fulfillment and unity. Within the family, individuality flowered, not independently but
as a part of the larger whole. Hegel dealt with all the important aspects of family formation like
marriage, family, property and capital, the education of children and the dissolution of the family.
Marriage, for Hegel, was essentially an ethical relationship. It was a special kind of unity, whose
“objective source lies in the free consent of the persons, especially in their consent of the persons,
especially in their consent to make themselves one person, to renounce their natural and individual
personality to this unity of one with the other”. The bond of marriage was based on love, trust and
commonality. Recognition and confirmation by the family and the community were equally
important.
Hegel reflected the prejudices of his time, for he reinforced the traditional sexual division of
labour within the family and the stereotyped image of the woman. In external matters, man was
supposed to be powerful and active, while the woman was to be both passive and subjective. The
arena of civil society was an exclusively male preserve, whereas for the female her substantive
destiny was with the family. Hegel gave the example of Sophocles’ Antigone in defence of his
thesis.
Hegel regarded women as inferior, with less reasoning abilities, reinforcing the argument that the
natural differences between the sexes were immutable and basic. This did not deter him from

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