Ethical Life and the Family

1. What is ‘ethical life’ (Sittlichkeit)?

Sitte – custom (ethical life indicates a way of living rather than a moral theory)

Greek ēthos – custom, usage; disposition, character of a human being

Customary morality - implies unreflective and uncritical attitude towards social mores

Ethical relativism or traditionalism – it is always right to follow customs of the community to which one belongs and always wrong to violate them

In an ethical community, it is easy to say what someone must do and what the duties are which he has to fulfil in order to be virtuous. He must simply do what is prescribed, expressly stated, and known to him within his situation. (§ 150R)

Hegel’s theory of ethical life consists of (1) an objective and (2) a subjective aspect

(1) Objective spirit - a social and political order that is differentiated and structured in a rational way and has following features:

(i) Exists independently of the wills of individuals

(ii) Is valid independently of these wills (unlike ‘formal’ conscience)

(iii) In virtue of (i) and (ii) determines (or ought to determine) the thoughts and actions of individuals

(iv) Is an objectification and realization of human ‘spirit’ understood as freedom

(For Hegel, ‘spirit’ is something that necessarily objectifies itself, becoming ‘for itself’ as well as ‘in itself)

(v) Is a form of spirit which depends on human thought and activity for its existence (also concerns subjective aspect)

Ethical life is the Idea of freedom [iv] as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action [v]. Similarly, it is in ethical being that self-consciousness has its motivating end [iii] and a foundation which has being in and for itself [i and ii]. Ethical life is accordingly the concept of freedom which has become the existing world and the nature of self-consciousness. (§ 142)

(2) Certain attitudes or dispositions that individuals have towards the social and political order of which they are members

Ideally, one of identification – unity of objective and subjective aspects

Ethical life depends on the thoughts and activity of (at least some of) its members being of the right kind

It is essential, therefore, that its members are motivated to will the existence of the social and political order to which they belong and to fulfil its requirements through their actions

Ethical substance

Emphasis on objective aspect

(1) Ethical life made up of norms, laws, practices and institutions) that determine how individuals think and act and are valid independently of their own wills (ii and iii):

These distinctions give the ethical a fixed content which is necessary for itself, and whose existence is exalted above subjective opinions and preferences: they are laws and institutions which have being in and for themselves. (§ 144)

This ethical content confronts individuals as an existing, independent object (i):

In relation to the subject, the ethical substance and its laws and powers are on the one hand an object, inasmuch as they are, in the supreme sense of self-sufficiency. They are thus an absolute authority and power, infinitely more firmly based than the being of nature. (§ 146)

(In what sense are they ‘more firmly based than the being of nature’?)

(2) The ethical substance nevertheless depends on its members’ individual and collective activity of its members (v) Importance of subjective aspect It is produced and sustained by these members performing their roles:

The objective sphere of ethics, which takes the place of the abstract good, is substance made concrete by subjectivity as infinite form. (§ 144)

Individuals are subject to conditions which they themselves help to create through their own activity Thus the universal (the ethical substance) and the individual (subjectivity) are essentially related to each other in ethical life, which consists in their unity

The ethical ‘substance’ and its ‘accidents’ stand in a reciprocal relation

This substance would be nothing without its accidents

In these individuals – who are accidental to them – these powers have their representation, phenomenal shape, and actuality. (§ 145)

However, it is not necessary that one particular individual performs this or that social or political role, only that some individuals perform it:

Whether the individual exists or not is a matter of indifference to objective ethical life, which alone has permanence and is the power by which the lives of individuals are governed. (§ 145A)

2. Ethical life and morality

Notion of ‘true’ conscience suggests that morality is somehow retained in ethical life at the same time as its limitations are overcome

Abstract right and morality are two inadequate descriptions of human freedom

These individualistic notions of freedom nevertheless form parts of the modern practical self-understanding (they are necessary but not sufficient conditions of freedom)

To treat them as absolute results in certain ‘social pathologies’ (Honneth) - symptoms that the limits of their legitimacy have been overstepped

Examples of such social pathologies could include inflexible insistence on one’s rights’, the socially disruptive effects of basing ethics on personal conviction alone

Thus, there is the need to set the formal principles of abstract right and morality within an institutional framework

The problem of moral reflection

Communitarian reading

Emphasises shared communal values, namely, those of the society in which one lives

Ethical substance = community of which one is a member

Moral obligations are the ones I have in virtue of being a member of this community

These obligations are based on established norms and customs

I bring about through my actions that which already exists – ‘ought’ and ‘is’ thus coincide

Overcoming of opposition between self and community

Individuals’ feelings, thoughts, actions, their ways of relating to others are shaped by the culture and values of the society to which they happen to belong

Thus, one’s identity and self-understanding is inextricably tied up with the identity and self-understanding of the community of which one is a member

There is, therefore, no detached, purely universal standpoint, e.g. some kind of abstract ‘moral’ identity

There are no standards of rationality or goodness except those that are internal to (accepted within) a given society and that manifest themselves in its cultural and social practices

Does this viewpoint completely exclude the possibility of moral reflection?

Not necessarily – such reflection may itself constitute a standard within a given society (as Hegel thinks it does in the case of certain modern European states)

Increasingly reflective stages of ethical life (§ 147, including R)

(1) Immediate identity of objective and subjective aspects: ‘a relationship which is immediate and closer to identity than even [a relationship of] faith or trust’

(2) Faith or trust

Presupposes separation of subject and object – I can only place my faith or trust in something which I take to be external to myself in the sense of independent of me

(3) Insight based on reasons: ‘a relationship mediated by further reflection’

For example, I have insight into the fact that

• Ethical life is an effective means of overcoming the life-threatening insecurity of a purely natural condition (‘hope or fear’)

• Ethical life represents the best means of securing and furthering such fundamental ‘particular ends and interests’ as my happiness and welfare (rational self-interest)

• Enlightened self-interest may also involve insight into the fact that my happiness and welfare to a significant degree depend on the happiness and welfare of others

Instrumental rationality – absence of an unconditioned good

(4) The ‘adequate cognition of this identity’ belonging to conceptual thought

The conceptual knowledge gained in PR itself, in which various forms of right are derived from the essential nature of the free and rational will

It must in principle be possible to gain standpoint (4) even if (1), (2) or (3) are what characterise an individual’s relation to the ethical substance

Ethical attitude (1) is, in fact, possible only because standpoint (4) is in principle attainable

The ethical substance and its ‘laws and powers’ are not ‘alien’ to the individual and are not experienced as such (i.e. as purely external constraints) because

(i) They are in accordance with his or her rational will

(ii) They are recognised as such (though not, perhaps, explicitly)

In this actual self-consciousness [which it now possesses], the substance knows itself and is thus an object of knowledge. (§ 144)

How can laws and institutions ‘know’ themselves and constitute objects of knowledge except through human beings thinking of them in certain ways?

The determinations of ethical life are ‘more firmly based than the being of nature’ in the sense that they can withstand reflection on them because of their rational form Doesn’t this imply a standard that may not be ‘internal’ to a given society because this society lacks a rational form in the light of which it may be criticised? Knowledge of this standard may, however, be the product of cultural and historical development, and may not, therefore, have been available to earlier ages and societies

The rational form in virtue of its generality does not rule out the possibility of cultural variation and some differences in values Climatic conditions, geographical features, customs, historical factors, religion etc. will determine the particular form that ethical life assumes:

The ethical substance, as containing self-consciousness which has being for itself and is united with itself, is the actual spirit of a family and a people. (§ 156)

How far can such features be taken into account? For example, what about nomadic peoples that would arguably not be in the position to develop some of the institutions that Hegel identifies as essential to modern ethical life (e.g. a centrally organised state)?

3. Duty Despite the ‘identity’ of ethical substance and subjectivity, Hegel speaks of an ‘ethical theory of duties’ (§ 148R)

This implies some relation of obligation (typically expressed by means of an ‘ought’)

These ethical duties derive from the relation of the individual’s will to the norms embedded in the social practices and institutions of ethical life

For example, the duties deriving from one’s roles as family member, member of a profession or trade, member of a political class, etc.

As free and ‘as subjective and inherently undetermined - or determined in a particular way’, the individual is ‘distinct’ from these duties and may act contrary to them (§ 148)

In acting in conformity with these duties, the individual ‘finds his liberation’ and attains ‘substantial freedom’ (§ 149)

Compatibility of freedom and constraint

Liberation from:

(i) Natural drives that determine the will independently of one’s volition

(ii) Having to deliberate about what to do

(iii) As a result of (ii) being unable to act

Given that the constraints in question constitute the objective aspect of the agent’s own rational will, they are not experienced as external constraints

Rather, once suitably internalised, acting in accordance with duty becomes a matter of custom and habit, or ‘second nature’ (§ 151)

This does not mean, however, that reflection is incompatible with duty

Virtue v. rectitude (§ 150)

Virtue – the ‘naturally determined character of the individual’

An individual just happens to be constituted in such a way as to perform consistently the right action in the circumstances

Such virtue is only necessary when sufficient guidance as to how one ought to act is lacking

Thus typical of pre-modern societies, in which actions were not governed by principles

Ancient Greek ethics, for example, depended on attempts to emulate what the heroes of Greek mythology would have done in similar circumstances

Rectitude – ‘nothing more than the simple adequacy of the individual to the duties of the circumstances to which he belongs’

Doesn’t this amount to social conformity rather than autonomous action?

What is to happen in cases of ethical indeterminacy when, for example, the practices and principles associated with a social role are not sufficient to determine how an individual ought to act in the particular circumstances?

Within a given ethical order whose relations are fully developed and actualized, virtue in the proper sense has its place and actuality only in extraordinary circumstances, or where the above relations come into collision. But such collisions must be genuine ones. (§ 150R)

As well as character, mightn’t conscience also have a role to play?

4. The family

Specific historical form - Bourgeois family

Community of consumption rather than one of production and consumption (cf. Greek oikos, feudal peasant family)

Therefore, not a self-sufficient whole but dependent on civil society

Also, determined by the needs and character of civil society – must seek to produce individuals capable of participating in civil society

‘Nuclear’ family, not extended one

Concerned with private sphere as opposed to public one

Objective aspect

Institution that exists in the world independently of the wills of individuals

Generates certain constraints (e.g. commitments) in relation to its members, whose rights as isolated individuals are thereby limited

… the spiritual bond asserts its rights as the substantial factor and thereby stands out as indissoluble in itself and exalted above the contingency of the passions and of particular transient caprice. (§ 163)

These constraints are not, however, experienced as external ones

Subjective aspect

Takes the form of an immediate feeling – love – a form of being with oneself in the other

Feeling, as something natural and contingent, is at the same time provided with an ethical context and thereby ‘exalted above the contingency of the passions and of particular transient caprice’

Consciousness of oneself as the member of a greater whole rather than a self-sufficient individual

Thus, the disposition [appropriate to the family] is to have self-consciousness of one’s individuality within this unity as essentiality which has being in and for itself, so that one is present in it not as an independent person but as a member. (§ 158)

‘self-consciousness of one’s individuality within this unity’ – it is not the case that one completely loses one’s individual identity within the family

Rather, membership of this greater a whole is a condition of consciousness of one’s individuality, in the sense of the ability to conceive of oneself as someone whose particular identity is of value

Thus the importance of fostering in children a sense of emotional well-being (e.g. trust) as well as educating them not to be determined by their immediate desires, feelings etc. and to be obedient (§ 175)

The full development of particularity and ‘self-sufficiency and freedom of personality’ requires that the children leave the family to become members of civil society