Comments on: 133

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:53:58 +0000

§ 133: Duty for duty’s sake

The good is the essential thing in my will. So I have an obligation to it. The good meets me as duty.

What does that mean?

I do not yet know what exactly I should do. I only know: I ought to do the good because it is good. Not out of fear of punishment. Not for some advantage. But for duty’s sake.

Why is this a step forward?

Someone who does his duty in this way is free. He follows no outside command. He follows what he himself has seen to be essential. In his duty, he is at home with himself. Kant above all worked out this high idea of duty. That is his great merit.

Summary: The good first meets me as duty. I ought to do it for its own sake. In this lies my freedom.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:34:13 +0000

The essential [element] of the will is, for me, duty; but if I now know nothing more than that the good is my duty, I still remain standing at the abstraction of it. I am to do my duty for its own sake, and it is my own objectivity in the true sense that I accomplish in duty: in doing it, I am with myself and free. It has been the merit and the lofty standpoint of Kantian philosophy, in its practical part, to have brought out this significance of duty.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Wed, 15 Jan 1823 08:08:32 +0000

β) Law, good – here as [coming] out of me – particular, peculiar content – enter into difference –
α) essentiality – obligation – duty
β) duty for duty's sake – not for the sake of its particular content, but because [it is] duty – separation of the content from essentiality as such –