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Hegel and International Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Chris Brown
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Abstract

The collapse of the Eastern European communist regimes led to a re-evaluation of Hegel's philosophies as inspiration for shaping the post-communist governments. Concerned that the reappearance of literature on Hegel's ideas often expresses inaccurately and one-sidedly the philosopher's views, Brown attempts to clarify Hegelian ideas of absolute knowledge and self-knowledge that lead to the model of the modern state as “the vehicle for the self-expression of spirit…governed only by the requirements of reason” upon which Hegel grounds international ethics. The author links Hegel's work to some practical international concerns, such as internationalism, ethnocentrism, relativism, and the vision of the end of history. The author refers to Francis Fukuyama's essay “The End of History?” (1989) celebrating the triumph of political and economic history, and showing how it was based on an inaccurate interpretation of Hegel. When evaluating recent interpretations of Hegel's work, Brown shows that one must be cautious to review the accuracy of his explicit views.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 5 , March 1991 , pp. 73 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1991

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References

1 The major works of the English Idealists include, Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State (London: Macmillan, [1899] 1965); F.H. Bradley, Ethical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1876] 1988); and T.H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (delivered in 1872; published London: Longmans, 1941). For an account of American pragmatism stressing its Hegelian roots, the work of Richard Rorty is important. See esp., Consequences of Pragmatism (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982).

2 In Bertrand Russell's classic, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1912] 1989), Hegel's philosophy is employed to illustrate the dangers of exceeding the limits of philosophical knowledge (p. 82 ff.). The essays in A.J. Ayer, Metaphysics and Common Sense (London: Macmillan, 1969), continue to use Hegel at a much later date as an example of what philosophy should not be.

3 L.T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1918), p. 6. Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1945).

4 This famous metaphor occurs in the “Postface” to Capital, Vol. I [2nd ed., 1873] (London: Penguin Publishers 1976), p. 103. In fact, throughout his life, Marx remained closer to Hegel than these remarks would suggest, how close being a matter of intense debate. See David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (London: Macmillan, 1973), passim.

5 Of these studies, most notable are, Raymond Plant, Hegel: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983); Richard Norman, Hegel's Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 1976); and Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). My account of Hegel in this essay owes much to each of these sources, but especially to Taylor's outstanding and monumental study.

6 Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”The National Interest (Summer 1988). This article was extensively discussed in the United States, and in Britain long extracts were printed in the “quality” press (e.g., The Independent, September 20,1989). Fukuyama replied to his critics in December 1989 with, “The End of Hysteria?”The Guardian (December 15, 1989).

7 Taylor's account of Hegel's Logic is the best available attempt to make sense of this claim. See Taylor, Hegel, Part III.

8 The Philosophy of Right was published by Hegel in 1821; it is available, translated, and with notes, by T.M. Knox, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). The publishing history of the Philosophy of History is more complex. This “book” is based on lecture notes and is available in a number of forms. The best version and translation is of the introduction only: G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, trans. H. J. B. Nisbet, with an introduction by Duncan Forbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

9 The “demythologized” account of Hegel that follows draws heavily on two recent works: John Charvet, A Critique of Freedom and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and with special reference to the international dimension, Mervyn Frost, Toward a Normative Theory of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

10 Taylor, Hegel. Chapter 1 is the best short account of this background.

11 Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question What is Enlightenment,”' Kant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss with introduction and notes, trans. H.B. Nesbit (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 54.

12 See: F.M. Barnard, ed., J.G. Herder on Social and Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); and Hans J. Reiss, ed., The Political Thought of the German Romantics 1793–1815 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955).

13 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, sec. 33, and translator's notes, p. 319. These definitions are specific to Hegel. In normal German usage, as in English, the distinction between morality and ethics is less clear-cut.

14 Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 199. This quotation is drawn from Essay V, “My Station and Its Duties,” which, although quaintly titled, is still one of the best available instructions to Hegelian ethics.

15 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, secs. 257, 258, p. 156.

16 Ibid., Part III (iii). It should be noted that Hegel's “constitutional monarch” has powers that are not possessed by the actual constitutional monarchs of late twentieth-century Europe.

17 I take this point, and the specific example, from Duncan Forbes' Introduction to Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of World History.

18 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface, p. 10.

19 Ibid., Sec. 324, p. 209; sec. 338, p. 215; sec. 341, p. 216.

20 See Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, p. 160 ff.; and Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, Introduction to 3rd ed. (1919), p. xlix. The latter gave Bosanquet the opportunity to respond specifically to the suggestion that Hegelianism promoted military aggression.

21 Hegel, Philosophy of Right. Sections 321–23 seem to be saying this.

22 According to Hegel, the Germanic tribes had a primitive form of constitutional government. This is probably nonsense but the argument can be found in his Philosophy of History, especially in the full version translated by J. Sibree (New York: Dover Publications, 1956).

23 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, sec. 209, p. 134.

24 I discuss these matters in “The Modern Requirement?”: Reflections on Normative International Theory in a Post-Western World,”Millennium: Journal of International Studies Vol. 17, No. 2 (1988).

25 Fukuyama, “The End of History?” pp. 3,4. Emphasis his.

26 See The Guardian. December 15, 1989.