Hegel’s Moral and Political Philosophy
Fall, 2023
Prof. Patrick Frierson
Class Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:30-12:50
Office Hours in Olin 193, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-10:30,
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 three
absences, every absence will lower your participation grade by 1/3 of a point
(from A- to B+, for example). Any
student who misses more than 20% of the class meetings will fail the class.
In addition to class participation (25%), 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
Monday, no later than midnight (you can revise them later). In your emailed journals, if there are
questions you particularly want me to answer or sections that you particularly
want me to comment on, put these in bold and/or put a comment beside them
marking them. 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.
You must turn in a final paper that meets these requirements by 11am on
the last day of class (December 9th) in order to pass the class.
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 a B+ or above on your paper, you must
submit a draft of your paper by November 28th.
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 and/or Thompson but must also include
other scholarly secondary sources (not websites). 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
November 28th, someone who gets an A or A- on their final paper must
submit an annotated bibliography no later than November 16th. 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, writing at
least 4000 words, and meeting the relevant deadlines is not sufficient to get an A- on your final paper. The paper must also be clear, compelling,
interesting, elegantly written, and meet the other criteria listed above.
Books:
Required: G.W.F.
Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of
Right, ed. Allen W. Wood. Cambridge
University Press, 1991. ISBN: 0-521-34888-9.
Recommended:
Allen Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0-521-37782-x. [Hereafter, HET]
Kevin Thompson, Hegel’s
Theory of Normativity: The Systematic Foundations of the Philosophical Science
of Right, Northwestern
University Press, 2019, ISBN: 978-0810139923. [Hereafter,
HTN]
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]
Accommodations: If you are a student who
will need accommodations in this course, please meet with Whitman’s Director of
Academic Resources for Disability Support for assistance in developing a plan
to address your academic needs. All information about disabilities is
considered private; if I receive notification that you are eligible to receive
an accommodation, I will provide it in as discreet a manner as possible. Moreover, all students should be aware that
the Academic Resource Center provides free peer tutoring for many 100 and 200
level courses. All tutors are students who have already completed the
course, earned a B+ or better, and were recommended by their instructor.
If you feel you would benefit from utilizing this service, please visit the ARC
webpage and submit a request. You can also locate a schedule for drop in
tutoring on the ARC website. Likewise,
in accordance with the College’s Religious Accommodations Policy, I will
provide reasonable accommodations for students who have conflicts with
scheduled exams, assignments, or required attendance in class because of
religious observances. Please review the
course schedule at the beginning of the semester to determine any such
potential conflicts and give me written notice (email is acceptable) by the end
of the second week of class about your need for religious
accommodations. If absences for religious reasons exceed three days, you
will not be penalized for the additional absences. If you believe that I have failed to abide by
these policies, you may contact my division chair Lydia McDermott, or my
colleague in philosophy Michelle Jenkins,
or file a grievance in accordance with Whitman’s Grievance
Policy.
Timeline:
|
|
From Hegel’s P. of R. |
Recommended
secondary literature |
Topics to Discuss |
|
August
29 |
Table of Contents
& §§1-4, 41 |
HET 10, 94-5 |
Introductions, urgent
moral and political problems today, syllabus, intro to Hegel |
|
August
31 |
Table of Contents,
Preface & §§1-4, 41 |
HET 10, 94-5 HTN 3-38 |
Intro to Hegel Read journal entries
in class (so come to class with your journal entries done!) |
|
Sept.
4. |
Reminder: Journals
must be emailed to me by midnight each Monday. |
(Include at least
one term in your Lexicon in this first journal entry.) |
|
|
Sept.
5 |
Preface & §§1-33 |
HET 1-74 HTN 3-64 HPP 3-35, 121-46 CG 1-36 |
Hegel’s method, “the
actual is rational,” critiques of negative freedom & utopianism, the
nature of freedom |
|
Sept.
7 |
Preface & §§1-33 |
HET 1-74 HTN 39-64 |
|
|
Sept.
12 |
§§ 29-52 These two links from Phenomenology of Spirit: Self-Consciousness,
Lordship
and Bondage. |
HET 77-93 HPP 183-209 |
Structure of PR, nature of personhood (Related to Phenomenology:
Recognition and freedom, master-slave dialectic) |
|
Sept.
14 |
§§ 29-52 These two links from
Phenomenology of Spirit: Self-Consciousness,
Lordship
and Bondage. |
HTN 65-95 |
|
|
Sept.
19 |
§§ 41-71 Also read Locke’s Second
Treatise, chaps II-V. |
HET 94-107 CG 37-57 |
Property rights,
need for and nature of them |
|
Sept.
21 |
§§ 41-81 |
|
Property Rights,
continued. Contract |
|
Sept.
26* |
§§ 82-104 (Journals need be updated only to §90) Formal Reflection due |
HET 108-26 Mark Tunick, Hegel’s
Political Theory: interpreting the practice of legal punishment |
Crime and
punishment Transition to morality (pay close attention to
§§102-104) |
|
Sept.
28 |
§§ 82-104 |
|
|
|
Oct.
3 |
§§105-28 |
HET 134-144 HPP 166-82 |
Nature of “morality,” subjectivity, action and
responsibility |
|
Oct.
5 – Fall Break |
|
|
|
|
Oct.
10 |
§§119-135 and Kant’s
Grounding Preface and §§1 and 2
(pp. 3-62 here) |
HET 144-173 CG 58-76 |
The Good, critique
of Kant |
|
Oct.
12 |
§§129-41 |
HET 174-192 CG 77-96 |
Conscience, critique
of romanticism. |
|
Oct.
17* |
No additional Reading Formal Reflection Due |
|
Catch-up |
|
Oct.
19 |
§142-147 |
HET 195-218 |
Ethical Life and
Ethical Substance |
|
Oct.
24 |
§§142-181 |
HET 195-218, 243-246 CG 97-115 |
Ethical life and
ethical substance, Marriage and Family |
|
Oct.
26 |
|
|
|
|
Oct. 31 |
§181-208 |
HET 200-2, 239-55 CG 116-136, 137-159,
177-196 |
Civil Society |
|
Nov.
2 |
§§208-256 |
|
Civil Society,
Police, poverty |
|
Nov.
7* |
§§ 239-72 Submit a formal reflection |
HET 237-9, 241-3,
249-55 CG 137-59, 160-176 |
Poverty, need for
the state, theory of punishment, the “rabble” (§244f.), church and state
(§270) |
|
Nov.
9 |
§§ 272-320 |
CG 197-218, HPP
210-238 Charles Taylor, Hegel’s
Theory of the Modern State Schlomo
Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State |
The structure of the
state |
|
Nov.
14 |
§§ 321-60 |
HET 219-236, 256-60 |
International
relations, int’l law, war, history Annotated bibliographies are due by November 16th
at midnight. (See description under A papers, above.) |
|
Nov.
16* |
No additional
reading Formal Reflection Due. You should also turn in a complete draft of your
entire journal. |
|
Catch-up and Review. |
|
Thanksgiving
Break |
|
|
|
|
Nov.
28 |
Paper Conferences
(probably) |
|
Paper drafts are due by November 28th. (See description under B+ papers, above.) |
|
Nov.
30 |
Paper Conferences
(probably) |
|
|
|
Dec.
7 |
Paper Conferences
(probably) |
|
|
|
Dec.
9 |
Review |
|
Your final
paper is due at 11 am on December 9th. (You must turn in a final
paper by this time in order to pass this class. Students may have extensions
only for the purpose of making further revisions to those final papers.) |
|
Dec.
14 |
No final exam! |
The latest that I will accept revisions to your
final paper is December 14th at noon. |