Chapter 32 (a) The ethical world; human law and divine law, man and woman

Ⅰ.Nation and Family; Laws of the Day and Laws of the Night The mere substance of the mind, as consciousness, differentiates itself.Or concretely, just as consciousness of abstract being, sensuous being, is transformed into perception, so is immediate certainty about actual ethical being; and just as simple being for sensuous perception is a Like other things, an act that is simple to ethical perception is a multirelational reality. However, for the former perception, a variety of unnecessary attributes are attributed to the essential opposition between individuality and universality, while for the latter perception, the situation goes further. Since ethical perception is a purified substantive consciousness, various ethical The moment comes down to a duet of a law of individuality and a law of universality.But either of these two aspects of the [ethical] substance is still the whole spirit;

If in sensuous perception the substance which things have is nothing but the two determinations of individuality and universality, here, in ethical perception, on the contrary, these two determinations only express the superficial relationship between the two parties. Just opposite. 1.human law Individuality, in the essence we are dealing with here, has the meaning of general self-consciousness, not just any individual consciousness.Therefore, the ethical substance, under this stipulation, is the real entity, the absolute spirit realized in the plurality of actually existing consciousness; the absolute spirit under this stipulation is the public essence (or community) 1, which, when we considered the actual formation of reason in general, was for us the absolute essence, now, in its truth, becomes for itself the conscious ethical essence, And for the kind of consciousness we are now dealing with, it is already present as the essence [of this kind of consciousness].This community or public essence is a spirit which is for itself, because it maintains itself in the reflection of the individuals of which it is a member, and which is in itself, or substance, because it Contains these individuals within itself.As a real entity, this spirit is a nation, and as a real consciousness it is a citizen of the nation.This consciousness, whose essence is in the pure spirit, has its self-certainty in the reality of this spirit, that is, in the whole people; Not in reality, but in a spirit that actually exists and is valid.

①Gemeinwesen, "Community", is also translated as "Community".In this book, Hegel generally refers to "communities" of various scopes and natures that are opposed to individuals, and even the whole society. - translator This spirit may be called the law of man, since it is essentially a reality conscious of itself.In the form of universality, it is the well-known laws and existing ethics and customs; Its individuality in its own certainty is government; its truth consists in its publicly manifest and visible validity [or authority]; it is an actual existence (Existenz) for Directly and definitively, it appears in the form of a specific existence (Dasein) that is unfettered, independent and free.

2.God's law But this ethical force and this openness are opposed by another force, the divine law.For the ethical power of the state, as a consciously acting movement, finds the simple and immediate essence of ethics as its antithesis; as actual universality, its power of the state is a kind of opposition to the particular being-for-itself. power; and as reality in general it finds another alien in its inner nature. We have already mentioned that each of the two modes of opposition in which the ethical entity actually exists contains in itself all the moments of the whole ethical entity and its content.Therefore, if the ethical entity is a community or public essence, which takes the actual action with self-consciousness as its form of existence, its counterpart is the direct or existing entity as its form of existence.The entity under this latter form is, on the one hand, the inner concept and universal possibility of general ethics, and on the other hand, it also contains the link of self-consciousness in it.This moment, since it expresses ethics in this element of immediacy or immediate being, in other words, it is both a direct awareness of oneself in the other (awareness of oneself as both essence and this self), that is, In other words, since it is a natural ethical community or society, then obviously, this link is the family①.The family, as an unconscious and still immanent concept, as opposed to the conscious reality of the concept, as the actual element of the nation, as opposed to the nation itself, as an immediate ethical Contrasted with that ethic which preserves itself,--the patron saint of the family is opposed to the universal spirit.Although we define the ethical being of the family as an immediate being, it is an ethical essence within itself not because it is the natural relation of its members, Interrelationships are direct relations between individual realities.Because ethics is a universal thing in nature, this kind of connection from nature is also a kind of spirit in nature, and it is ethical only as a spirit essence.Now let us see what is unique about its ethics. —First, because ethics is something universal in nature, the ethical relationship between family members is not a relationship of affection or love.Here, we seem to have to set ethics as the relationship between individual family members and the whole family as an entity, so that the actions and reality of individual family members can take the family as its purpose and content.But the conscious purpose of the actions of this [family] whole remains itself an individual thing insofar as it concerns only the whole itself.The pursuit and preservation of power and wealth, on the one hand, consist only in the satisfaction of needs, and only in the sphere of desire; Something that has only an intermediary meaning.This higher definition does not lie within the family itself, but concerns the real universal, that is, the community; this definition rather has a negative effect on the family, and it excludes the individual from the family. oppresses his naturalness and individuality, and leads him to practice morality, to depend on and live for the universal.The inherent and positive end of the family is the individual himself.Therefore, in order for this relationship to be ethical, the individual, whether he is the actor or the other party involved in the action, must not appear in the relationship on an accidental basis, for example, in helping others casually or acting on behalf of others. Like when doing something.The content of ethical action must be substantive, in other words, must be whole and universal; thus ethical action can only be concerned with the whole individual, or that individual which is itself universal. .And on this point, we cannot understand it in such a way that ethical behavior is a kind of service like doing things for others, which promotes the overall happiness of this person. or actual behavior, which concerns only some particular aspects of him;—nor should we think that ethical behavior is as realistic as education, that it also takes a whole individual as its object, and passes through a series of Try hard to create and train him to become a work, because in education, apart from the purpose that has a negative effect on the family, the actual behavior has only a limited content;—Finally, we also cannot The ethical act is understood as an aid that actually saves the whole individual at an urgent moment, since aid itself is a completely contingent act, and the occasion for aid is an everyday, ordinary reality that may or may not exist.An act, therefore, which concerns only the whole existence of the consanguineous kinship, and does not concern the citizen, since the citizen does not belong to the family, nor the person who should be a citizen and should cease to be such an individual [member of the family], If it regards this individual person belonging to the family as its object and content, the universal essence that has superseded sensuous reality, that is, the individual reality, then this kind of behavior no longer concerns living people, but only human beings. Concerning the dead man, the dead man has shed his long and disjointed series of beings into a perfect single form, has risen from the tumult of accidental life to the serenity of simple universality. —As a man is real and substantial only as a citizen, so if he is not a citizen but belongs to the family, he is only an unreal disembodied shadow.

①The family can also be said to be self-consciousness, but self-consciousness in the element of being.In his Realphilosophie in Jena, Hegel saw the family as a prelude to the spirit. - translator ②Hegel believes that when alive, the individual belongs to the city-state (country) more than it belongs to the family; when it dies, it returns to the family; the important task of the family is to ensure the burial of the individual; shows that the family will make death not a natural phenomenon, but a spiritual event. - translator 3.individual rights This universality which the individual man attains as an individual is pure being, death; it is the result of immediate natural change, not from an act of consciousness.It is therefore the duty of the family member to add this aspect [the act of consciousness] so that this last, universal existence of his is also not only of nature, nor always a mere irrational, Rather, it becomes a thing created by action, and the right of consciousness is confirmed in this thing created by action.Or, to put it another way, since the tranquility and universality of a self-conscious essence do not really belong to nature, [is not the result of natural action], so the meaning of an act consists rather in that it unravels the falsehood and makes such a truth come to light. :

Nature professes to be the agent of such an action, but that is only an appearance. —What nature does in the individual is only in such a way that it appears to be due to the movement of this being that an individual becomes universal.It is true that the movement of beings is also within the scope of the ethical community and aims at this ethical community; death is the completion of the individual and the highest labor that the individual can perform for the community (or society) as an individual.But as long as the individual is essentially an individual man, the immediate connection of his death to his labor for the universal whole, and the fact that his death is the result of his labor, is accidental: for , in part, if his death is the result of his labor, then death is the negativity of nature, the movement of the individual as a being in which consciousness does not return to itself, does not becomes self-consciousness; or, on the other hand, if the movement of beings sublates beings and makes them being-for-itself, then death is the split in which the being-for-itself achieved Being is something else, different from the being that first came into motion. —Because ethics is spirit in its immediate truth, so the two aspects split by the consciousness of spirit also have the form of this immediacy, and individuality is transformed into such an abstract negativity, itself There is no consolation and reconciliation in itself, and in essence it must rely on a real and external behavior to get a little consolation.Consanguinity thus supplements the movement of nature in the abstract in that it adds to the movement of consciousness, interrupts the cause of nature, and saves the kinship from destruction, or, to put it more clearly, by virtue of Recognizing that destruction, the process of becoming pure being, is necessary and inescapable, it takes upon itself the act of destruction. —In this way even dead being, universal being, becomes a being that returns to itself, a being for itself, or, in other words, pure individuality that is powerless and individual rises to universal individuality.Since the dead has freed his being from his action, or from the singularity of his negation, the dead is an empty individuality, a passive existence for him, completely resigned to the lower, irrational individuality. and the powers of abstract matter, the former [irrational individuality] by virtue of its life, the latter [abstract powers] by virtue of their negative nature, are now stronger than he [the dead] himself.The dead are subject to and subject to the actions of unconscious desires and abstract essences; the family exempts the dead from this humiliating action and replaces it with an action of its own, marrying the kin to the eternal or natural individuality, arranged in the bosom of the earth; thus the family makes the dead relative a member of a community which, in turn, brings together those individual physical forces and The low-level life functions are all mastered and controlled.

This last duty then constitutes a fully divine law, or rather, affirmative ethical conduct towards an individual.All other relations of the individual, which are not confined to love but which are of an ethical character, belong to the laws of man and have a negative connotation, that is to say, they serve to make the individual transcend that which he belongs to as a real individual. beyond the constraints of that natural community.But now, although the rights of man take the actual, self-conscious ethical entity, that is, the entire nation, as its content and power, and the rights and laws of God take the individual on the other side of reality as its content and power, this The individual outside reality is not without power; his strength lies in the abstract, pure universal, in the natural or fundamental individual who wrests back the individuality which, freed from the elements of nature, constitutes a conscious national reality. , and returns this individuality to pure abstraction, his essence, which is the source of individuality. —How this power manifests itself in the nation itself remains to be elucidated.

Ⅱ.two regular movements There are still differences and stages in either of these two laws.For both essences, since they contain moments of consciousness within themselves, must develop differences within themselves; and this is where their motion and their proper life lie.By examining these differences, we can see the modes of activity and self-consciousness of the two universal essences of the ethical world, as well as their interrelationships and transitions. 〔1.Government, War; Negative Force] The community, that is, the law that publicly manifests its service to the upper world under the sun, has the government as its real life seat, because it is a whole individual in the government.Government is the self-reflective, realistic spirit, the single self of all ethical entities.This single power may, indeed, expand the [common] essence into its constituent parts, and make each part independent, a true being for itself; The elements upon which a particular existence is made.But at the same time, the spirit is the power of the whole which reconnects the parts into a unity which negates them, which makes them feel that they have no independence of themselves, and which makes them aware that only in the whole can they There is life.The community can thus organize itself, on the one hand, as a system of individual ownership and individual independence, of personal rights and property rights, and, on the other hand, as a The division of various kinds of labor into their own combinations makes them independent of each other.The spirit of the universal combination is the unity of these isolated institutions and their negative nature (principle of negation).In order to prevent these systems from being so deeply rooted in isolation, and to prevent them from disintegrating the whole and distracting their spirits due to isolation, the government has to use war to shake them from within at regular intervals, disrupt the order they have established, and deprive them of their rights. the right to independence; and the same applies to individuals, who, in deep isolation and divorced from the whole, pursue their sacrosanct existence for themselves and their personal security, and the government must make them feel their sense of responsibility in the war tasks entrusted to them. Master, death.It is by thus breaking down fixed forms of existence that the spirit defends the ethical being from degenerating into a natural being, preserves its conscious self, and raises this self to freedom and its own power. —Negative essence manifests itself as the power inherent in the community or community and the force by which it preserves itself; the community or community therefore acquires it in the essence of divine law and in the realm of the underworld or underworld truth, and strengthen its power in it.

2.The Ethical Relationship Between Men and Women as Brothers and Sisters As for the divine law governing the family, it also contains differences in itself, and its real and living movement is constituted by the relationship between these differences.But among the three relationships of husband and wife, parents and children, and brothers and sisters, the relationship between husband and wife is first of all a direct self-knowledge of one consciousness acknowledging itself as being in another consciousness and the recognition of this mutual recognition. .Because this self-knowledge is natural and not ethical, it is only an image and appearance of the spirit, not the actual spirit itself. — But the image or representation gets its reality in something other than itself, so the husband-wife relationship gets its reality not in itself but in the children; It is itself the forming of this other, and disappears in this forming of the other.Moreover, this generation-to-generation alternation is not without its continuous existence, and its continuous existence is the nation. —Therefore, the mutual love (pietat) of husband and wife is mixed with natural bonds and affections, and the self-return of the conjugal relationship is not realized in itself.The same is true of the second relationship, the mutual love of parent and child, from which parental affection for children arises: they are aware that they have something else [the child] as their reality, that they see the other The thing grows into being for itself and does not return to them [the parents]; the other is instead forever an alien reality, a reality alone.But the filial piety of children to their parents springs from the opposite sentiment: they see themselves growing up in the disappearance of an other [the parent], and their attainment of being-for-self and their own self-consciousness, It is entirely due to their separation from the source [parents], which tends to wither through this separation.

In the above two relationships, the two sides always transition to each other and are always out of balance. —but the relation between brother and sister is a relation without confusion.They were of the same blood, and the same blood was quiet and balanced in both of them.Therefore, they do not desire each other like a husband and wife. Their being-for-itself is neither given by one to the other nor received by one from the other. They are each a free individuality.The woman, therefore, the sister, has the highest premonition of the ethical essence, but is not conscious of it, does not bring it to reality, because the law of the family is for her an inherent and immanent essence, It does not manifest itself openly in the light of consciousness, but is always only an inner emotion and something sacred removed from reality.It is with these domestic patron saints (pensten) that women are associated.The woman sees them both as her universal entity and as her individuality, although her relation to this individuality is not necessarily at the same time a natural relation, a relation of pleasure. ——As a daughter, a woman can’t be unmoved by her nature when she sees her parents disappearing day by day, but she can’t help being submissive and calm in ethics, because she can only achieve the self that she can achieve only by the elimination of this relationship. She sees her own being-for-itself in her parents, therefore, not in a positively affirmative light. —The ethical relation of woman as mother and wife is partly individualized by something natural which belongs to pleasure, partly by something negative which only tends to disappear in this relation, And only in this way, on the other hand, its individuality is something accidental which can be replaced by other individualities.In an ethical family, these two relationships of a woman are not based on this [individual] husband or this [individual] child, but on an ordinary husband and ordinary children, not on emotion. , but based on the general.The feminine ethic differs from the masculine in that woman, by definition, is individual and concerns pleasure, but she always retains the immediate universality and the individuality of desire. the status of a foreign object; in the man, on the contrary, these two aspects [the individual and the universal] are separated from each other, and the man, as a citizen, possesses the power of self-consciousness which belongs to the universal. Use this as capital to gain the right to desire for yourself, while at the same time maintaining your own freedom for this desire.The ethical character of the wife's relationship is not pure because it is mixed with individuality; but as long as it is ethical, individuality is indifferent, and the wife always lacks this link of knowledge: she does not To know oneself is this (individual) self in an other. —But brothers, for sisters, are the general essence of a serene equality, the recognition of which is purely ethical, unmixed with natural [pleasure] relations; therefore, between brother and sister The indifference of individuality and its ethical contingent character in the relationship between the recognized and the recognized do not exist; on the contrary, the individual self-moment of the recognizer and the recognized can here retain its [existence] right. , because it is connected with the balance of blood and mutual desire.Therefore, the death of a brother is an irreparable loss to a sister, but the duty of a sister to a brother is the highest duty. ①

① See Sophocles' tragedy "Antigone", line 910. "If a husband dies, I can marry another one. If a son dies, others can give me a second one, but I can't hope that another brother will be born into this world." - translator 3.The Laws of God and the Laws of Man Transition to Each Other At the same time, this relationship is a boundary, beyond which the closed family will disintegrate and cease to be a family.In the family, brotherhood is the relational aspect through which the spirit of the family is realized as an individuality which develops towards another sphere and passes into a consciousness of the universal.The brethren cast aside this immediate, primitive and, indeed, negative ethic of the family in order to acquire and create a self-conscious, realistic ethic. A brother is transitioning from the laws of God in which he originally lived to the laws of man.And the sister will become, as the wife has always been, the master of the family and the keeper of the divine law.In this way, male and female both overcome their natural essence and show two different ethical properties of the two sexes according to the different forms that ethical entities have.These two universal essences of the ethical world then take the naturally distinct [two] self-consciousnesses as their particular individuality, since the ethical spirit is the immediate unity of [ethical] substance and self-consciousness, and this unity is Such directness makes the unity appear to be an objective existence of natural differences both in reality and in difference. —This is that aspect of the individuality of its own reality which, in the conception of the spiritual essence, presents itself as originally determined nature.This link loses the indeterminacy and the accidental distinctions of talents and abilities which it had then.It is now the specific opposite of the two sexes, which, apart from their naturalness, at the same time acquire their ethically prescribed significance. ①Referring to the form of "the kingdom of spirit animals and deception or things themselves", please refer to the following pages from page 262 of the first volume of the translation of this book. - translator But the difference between the sexes and the difference in their ethical content is constant in the unity of the substance, and its movement is precisely the continuous formation and development of this substance.The masculine is driven by the spirit of the family into the community [community life], where he finds his self-conscious essence; The family, as the formal element of its reality, has the divine law as its strength and proof.Neither of the two laws alone is self-contained and self-sufficient; the human law, when it operates, proceeds from the divine law, and that which is valid on earth proceeds from that which is valid below ground. Yes, the conscious proceeds from the unconscious, the indirect proceeds from the direct, and in the end it also returns to its original place of departure.The subterranean power, on the other hand, acquires its reality above ground; it becomes a given being, an effective activity, through consciousness. ① "Finally" refers to the time of death.For Hegel, the death of the individual is the termination of his universal life as a citizen and his return to the family element. - translator Ⅲ.The Ethical World as Infinity or Wholeness Therefore, the universal ethical essences are entities as universal consciousness, and entities are entities as individual consciousness; the ethical essences have nation and family as their universal reality, but man and woman as their natural self and active individuality.We now see that this content of the ethical world is the realization of the ends that formerly disembodied ideologies conceived; Everything within itself has now become the real reality that exists objectively. ——Observing (reason) before the recognition of the ready-made existing things without the participation of the self (subject), here is the existing ethics, but this natural ethics is a kind of reality. As far as the author is concerned, it is not only a fait accompli discovered by the discoverer, but also a work created by the discoverer himself. —The individual, in seeking pleasure for his individual enjoyment, finds it in the family, and the inevitability of the disappearance of personal pleasure lies in his own consciousness of being a citizen of his nation;— —in other words, in its own awareness that the law of his heart is the law common to all hearts, and that his self-consciousness is the recognized universal order;—this self-consciousness is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of its self-sacrifice , to realize the end it seeks, that is to say, to manifest the essence as a presently existing reality; and the enjoyment of virtue is to live this universal life. —Finally, the consciousness of the thing itself is satisfied in the real substance which positively holds and contains the abstract moment of that empty category.The thing itself acquires from the ethical forces a real content, a content sufficient to replace those insubstantial commandments that healthy reason has tried to give and to know; The content itself dictates a measure of censorship—a measure, of course, not of law but of creation. ① Refer to page 239 and below in the first volume of this book. ② Refer to page 244 and below in the first volume of this book. ③Refer to page 252 and below in the first volume of this book. ④ Refer to page 262 and below in the first volume of this book. ⑤ Refer to page 279 and below in the first volume of this book. The whole is an implicit balance of all the parts, and each part is a spirit in its own right; this spirit does not seek its satisfaction beyond its own shore, but is satisfied in itself, because it is in this connection with itself. In the overall balance.It is true that this balance is a living balance because in it on the one hand inequality arises and on the other hand this inequality is restored to equality by justice.But justice is neither an alien essence existing on the other side, nor some reality like intrigue, treachery, ingratitude, etc., which does not deserve to be called justice, although such reality is an uncomprehended connection Involuntary actions or involuntary inactions sometimes coincidentally (unintentionally) with legal justice.On the contrary, justice is the justice that guarantees the legal rights of people. Since it forces the self-existence that destroys the balance of the (whole), that is, the independent strata and individuals, to return to the universal, it is the ruling power (government) of the nation, and it is the universal essence. The self presents the individuality and self-consciousness of all individuals, their own will. —But justice, since it also suppresses and restores the balance to the universal which is gaining the advantage of the individual, is likewise the single spirit of the injusticed individual and not divided in him into an injustice The individual and an essence on the other side; the individual himself is the power of the subterranean kingdom, and it is his Ellenie who takes revenge; for his individuality, his blood, will live on in his house; His entity has a continuous reality.The injustice to which an individual may be imposed upon himself in the ethical world is only something that happens to him purely by chance.It is nature that imposes this injustice on individual consciousness, making it a mere thing; it is not the universality of the community, but the abstract universality of (pure) existence; It is not the former but the latter that he revolts against injustice, because he has not suffered the injustice of the former.From this it follows that the consciousness of individual consanguinity abolishes this injustice by considering the accidental things that happen to him as his own creations, so that the being, the last, is also his own creation. Willing to have something that is thus pleasant. ①Erinnye, the goddess of revenge in Greek mythology. - translator Thus the ethical kingdom remains, in its continuation, a world without blemish, without division, and perfect unity.In the same way its movement is a peaceful transition from one of its own powers to another, so that each power in itself contains and creates the other.True, we also see the ethical kingdom itself split into two opposing essences and their reality; but their mutual opposition is rather their mutual confirmation, and their middle and element is their immediate penetration, because They come into immediate contact with each other as realities in their verification.One of the extremities, the universal mind conscious of itself, is united with its other extremity, with its power and its element, the unconscious mind, through the individuality of man.On the other hand, the divine law achieves its individuation, or the individual unconscious spirit acquires its specific existence, through the woman; with the woman as the middle term, the unconscious spirit rises from unreality to reality. , from a state of neither knowing nor being known, into the realm of consciousness.The combined unity of male and female constitutes the active middle term of the whole, and constitutes the element which, though split into two extremities, the divine law and the human law, is at the same time the immediate unity of both; Moreover, this immediate unity of the elements unites the two previous connections (Schlusses) into one connection (Schluss), and unites into one movement the two movements of reality in opposite directions: one is the descent from reality into unreality. , is to differentiate itself into independent moments, to be subjected to the danger and test of death, that is, the downward movement of the masculine, human law, the other is the ascension from twilight to daylight, from unreality to reality, into Conscious objective existence, that is, belongs to women, and is an underground lawful ascending movement.