Hegel’s Moral and Political Philosophy
Prof. Patrick Frierson
frierspr@whitman.edu
Office Hours in Olin 194: Tuesday 4-5, Wednesday
10-12, and by appointment.
Purpose: The primary purpose of this course is to help
you think more deeply about important moral and political problems. Hegel was one of the most insightful and
original moral and political philosophers of all time, and his approach to
moral and political philosophy is both radically different than most
contemporary approaches and deeply influential on current trends of
thought. By being immersed in Hegelian
thinking about moral and political problems, you will be able to think more
creatively about contemporary issues. As
secondary (but important) goals, this course will teach you to read difficult
texts carefully and closely and to express yourselves clearly and convincingly
orally and in writing.
Requirements:
In this course we will focus
on carefully reading through and thinking about Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The Philosophy of Right is one of Hegel’s
easier works, but Hegel is one of philosophy’s most difficult
philosophers. The reading, in other
words, will be doable but difficult. The
most important requirement for this class is to read and reread each assignment
carefully and come to class with a clear view about the meaning of the text,
how each paragraph flows into the following one and follows from the previous
ones, and what Hegel’s overall goal is in the reading for the day. This will not be easy, and we will not always
agree on the meaning of Hegel’s text.
The point is to come to class with a well-thought-out interpretation,
not with an unassailable and perfected understanding of the text.
In addition to coming to
class to prepared, you will be expected to share
your ideas and insights with the class.
Interpreting Hegel will be a cooperative venture, and the course depends
on active engagement with each other during class times. Thus class participation is a crucial part of
the class and will be worth 25% of your final grade, based primarily on the
quality (but also to some extent on the quantity) of your contributions to
class discussions. Because this is a
class in which you are a participant in your classmates’ education, rather than
merely a member of an audience, attendance will also factor into your
grade. After your first two absences,
every unexcused absence will lower your participation grade by 1/3 of a point
(from A- to B+, for example).
There are two key writing
components to the class, a journal (worth 50% of your final grade) and a final
paper (worth 25% of your final grade).
Philosophy of Right Journal: As you read
Hegel, you should be keeping a detailed journal. This journal will help you focus as you seek
to develop your interpretation of Hegel, and it will provide a permanent
resource to which you can return for your final paper and in the future. You
should email these journals to me every Tuesday, no later than 6:30 PM. In your emailed journals, you should put in
bold questions you want me to answer or sections that you particularly want me
to comment on. I’ll focus my comments on
those emboldened parts of the journal.
(Note that if you want comments before we meet as a class, you should
submit your journal to me no later than noon on the Monday preceding our class
session.) The journal has several parts:
(a) Hegel in outline (approximately 40%
of your journal grade): You should
regularly summarize Hegel’s argument in your own words. For each
paragraph (§) in Hegel, you should write a 1-3 sentence summary of the paragraph. As much as possible, you should avoid
Hegelese and you should write sentences that your friends could understand and
that would communicate to them the main points of Hegel’s text. It will probably be easiest to write these
sentences as you go along, writing a short summary for each paragraph after you
finish reading it. However, you should
periodically review your outline to make sure that the overall “flow” of
Hegel’s argument is represented in your outline. (For short paragraphs that do not add
significantly to the Hegel’s argument, you may cluster your summaries of two to
three §§ into a 1-3 sentence entry, but do this sparingly.)
At
the end of each section in Hegel
(including the Preface), you should write a 1-3 paragraph summary of the overall argument of the section. (When we get to Ethical Life, you may need to
write these at the end of each sub-section.)
The point here is to clearly explain the overall flow of Hegel’s
argument, including the key stages through which it moves, the motivations to
move on to each successive stage, and the concluding position of the
section. If possible, you should have a
paragraph discussing potential problems with Hegel’s “conclusion.” Similarly, at the end of each Part in Hegel, you should write a 1-3 paragraph summary of the overall
argument of the Part. (Thus at the end
of §141, for example, you will write a 1-3 sentence summary of §141, a 1-3
paragraph summary of “Section 3: The Good and Conscience,” and a 1-3 paragraph summary of “Part Two: Morality.”)
This outline must be written in your
journal before we discuss the
relevant sections in class, though it can – and in fact should – be revised in
the light of our class discussions.
(Journal grades will be lowered significantly if they are not kept up to date
as we go along.)
(b) Hegel Lexicon (~10%): Hegel uses words in some quite peculiar ways. Over the course of the semester, you should
put together a lexicon of at least 20 key Hegelian terms. For each term, you should provide the German
word (ask me for help with this or use the German edition on reserve in
Penrose), the English translation used in our text, a philosophically astute explanation
of the meaning of the term, and at least one example of its use in the text
that shows its philosophical significance.
You should add at least one word to your lexicon each week and should
have at least 20 words in it at the
end of the semester.
(c) Informal
reflection, questions, and criticism (~10%): As you read and summarize Hegel, you should
write down questions that you have about how to interpret him, reflection on
how Hegel might relate to other issues that concern you, and problems that you
see with his argument. This part of your
journal does not need to be carefully crafted; it is an opportunity for you to
keep track of your own thoughts and share them with me. Again, please embolden comments/thoughts that
you particularly want comments on.
(d) Formal
reflection and criticism (~30%): On days marked with an asterisk (and
emboldened), you should take one of the comments or criticisms raised in your
informal reflections (c) and develop this into a well-focused and articulate
comment, criticism, or question. These
should be at least 300 words and no more than 1500 words. At least one of these reflections should be
an “immanent critique” of Hegel – an attempt to show that some aspects of
Hegel’s philosophy violates his own standards or is inconsistent with his
system. At least one other reflection
should be an application of Hegelian philosophy to a current philosophical,
moral, or political problem. I will
comment on your formal reflections extensively, so you should use them to articulate
ideas on which you want feedback. They are a good forum to start working
towards the final paper, and you should think of each of these as a “first
stab” at a final paper. On days that
you have formal reflections, I will cut you a little slack in terms of keeping
up to date with your § summaries.
(e) Corrections,
revisions, and responses (~10%): I
will periodically write questions or comments in your journals when I collect
them. You should respond to at least
some of these comments. (You need not
respond to every comment; I’ll be looking for engagement in a conversation, not
exhaustive coverage of every point that I raise.)
Final Paper: The final paper should be a sustained
argument defending a particular interpretation of Hegel, using Hegel to defend
an important moral or political position, and/or criticizing Hegel in a
significant way. The thesis of your
paper should be significant, interesting, and potentially controversial. In other words, if you cannot imagine anyone
other than you being interested in your thesis, or if you cannot imagine any
intelligent person disagreeing with that thesis, do not write a paper defending
it. The argument for your thesis should
be clear and well supported with both philosophical argument and textual
references. For general advice on
writing papers in philosophy, I recommend that you consult this Brief
Guide to Writing a Philosophy Paper..
In order to get any higher
than a C on your paper, you must have a well-articulated thesis that is
significant, interesting, and potentially controversial. The paper must draw on the Philosophy of Right to defend that claim
with proper referencing and textual support.
The paper must be well organized into coherent paragraphs and show
grammatical correctness throughout. The
minimum length of a C paper is 1800 words.
In addition to these
requirements, in order to get a B+ on
your final paper, your thesis must be clearly explained and well
defended. A reader unfamiliar with Hegel
should be able to follow every step of your argument, and your argument should
be able to convince a person who began the paper doubting your thesis. You must have ample textual support from
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and you
must explain potentially difficult Hegelian terms. Your paper must be rigorous enough to be
appreciated by someone who has already studied Hegel but clear enough to be
read by someone unfamiliar with Hegel’s terminology. You must take into account significant
possible objections to your thesis, showing how you respond to those
objections. The argument for your thesis
should be clear and compelling. The
minimum length of a B+ paper is 2500 words.
To get higher than a B+, you must have submitted at least one draft of
your paper prior to the last day of class.
In order to get an A or an A- on your final paper, the paper must meet all
of the above qualifications and also be elegantly written. The thesis must be particularly challenging
and the argument particularly lucid and concise. In addition, a paper that gets an A or A-
will go beyond Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right and make substantial use of secondary sources. (These can include Wood but must also include others. Beyond
Wood, you can look to the recommended secondary sources on the syllabus below,
or find secondary sources of your own.
(See this link
– developed for a class on Kant, but still relevant – for some tips on finding
and using secondary sources.) Some other
good secondary sources for Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right include Schlomo Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State; Charles
Taylor, Hegel; Charles Taylor, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State; Paul
Franco, Hegel’s Philosophy of Freedom; Mark Tunick, Hegel’s Political Theory: interpreting the
practice of legal punishment; Terry
Pinkard, Hegel: A biography; Karl
Marx, Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’. In addition to submitting a
draft to me by the last day of class, someone who gets an A on their final
paper must submit an annotated bibliography to me no later than April 30. This annotated bibliography should include at
least four secondary sources that you think are likely to be relevant to your
final paper. You should provide full
citation information (in Chicago or MLA format) along with a short paragraph
explaining how you expect the secondary source to be useful for your paper.
The minimum length of an A or
A- paper is 4000 words. Note: Using secondary sources and writing at
least 4000 words is not sufficient
to get an A- on your final paper. The
paper must also be clear, compelling, interesting, elegantly written, and meet
all the other criteria listed above.
The final paper is
due on May 9, at noon.
Books: G.W.F. Hegel, Elements
of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN: 0-521-34888-9.
Allen Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-521-37782-x.
Available online to Whitman students through Penrose
Library:
David
James, ed., Hegel’s Elements of the
Philosophy of Right: A Critical Guide [hereafter, CG]
Robert
Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy
[hereafter, HPP]
