Comments on: 139

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:54:07 +0000

§ 139: Evil

Conscience stands above everything that holds. That is its strength. But there is also a danger in this.

What danger?

Someone who has only himself as the measure can choose one of two things. He can will the universal, which is good for all. But he can also put what is his own above everything. He can make his pleasure, his advantage, his whim the measure. That is evil.

So conscience and evil have the same root. Both come from the certainty: I decide. That is why conscience is always on the verge. At any moment it can tip over into evil.

Where does evil come from?

This question is ancient. The answer here: Evil has to do with freedom. A human being must step out of his mere nature. He must set himself inwardly against his drives. Only in this way does he become a human being and not an animal. But this step holds a possibility: he may cling to his drives. Then he consciously makes them his principle, against the good.

An animal cannot be evil. Only a human being can. And only because he can be evil can he also be good.

Is evil then necessary?

The break with nature is necessary. But evil ought not to be. No one should stop there. A human being ought to overcome it. And whoever remains in evil bears the guilt himself. He cannot appeal to nature.

Summary: Conscience and evil have the same root: the certainty of deciding for oneself. A person is evil if he puts what is his own above the universal. The possibility of evil belongs to freedom, but a human being ought to overcome evil.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:36:27 +0000

The abstract certainty that knows itself as the ground of everything has within it the possibility of willing the universal of the concept, but also that of making a particular content into a principle and realizing it. To evil, which is this latter, there thus always belongs the abstraction of certainty of oneself, and it is only the human being, and indeed insofar as he can also be evil, who is good. The good and the evil are inseparable, and their inseparability lies in this, that the concept becomes objective to itself and, as object, immediately has the determination of difference. The evil will wills something opposed to the universality of the will, whereas the good will conducts itself in accordance with its true concept. The difficulty in the question of how the will can also be evil generally arises from the fact that one thinks of the will only in a positive relation to itself and represents it as something determinate, existing for it, as the good. But the question of the origin of evil now has the more precise sense: how does the negative come into the positive? If, in the creation of the world, God is presupposed as the absolutely positive, then, turn it however one will, the negative cannot be recognized in this positive; for if one wishes to assume a permission on God's part, such a passive relation is inadequate and says nothing. In the mythologically religious representation the origin of evil is not conceived, that is, the one is not recognized in the other, but there is only a representation of a succession and a juxtaposition, so that the negative comes to the positive from outside. But this cannot satisfy thought, which demands a ground and a necessity and wants to grasp the negative in the positive as itself rooted there. The resolution, then, of how the concept grasps this, is already contained in the concept itself, for the concept, or more concretely put, the Idea, has essentially this in itself: to differentiate itself and to posit itself negatively. If one remains merely at the positive, that is, at the purely good that is supposed to be good in its originariness, this is an empty determination of the understanding, which holds fast to such an abstract and one-sided thing and, precisely by posing the question in this way, raises it into a difficult one. From the standpoint of the concept, however, positivity is conceived as being activity and the differentiating of itself from itself. Evil thus has its origin, like the good, in the will, and the will, in its concept, is both good and evil. The natural will is in itself the contradiction of differentiating itself from itself, of being for itself and inward. Now if one were to say that evil contains the more precise determination that the human being is evil insofar as he is natural will, this would run counter to the ordinary representation, which thinks of the natural will precisely as the innocent and good. But the natural will stands opposed to the content of freedom, and the child, the uneducated human being, who have this former, are for that reason subject to a lesser degree of accountability. Now when one speaks of the human being, one does not mean the child, but the self-conscious human being; when one speaks of the good, one means the knowledge of it. Now, to be sure, the natural is in itself unprejudiced, neither good nor evil, but the natural, referred to the will as freedom and as knowledge of it, contains the determination of the unfree and is therefore evil. Insofar as the human being wills the natural, this is no longer the merely natural, but the negative as against the good, as the concept of the will. – If one now wished to say that, because evil lies in the concept and is necessary, the human being would be without guilt were he to lay hold of it, it must be replied that the human being's resolve is his own act, the act of his freedom and of his guilt. In the religious myth it is said that the human being becomes God-like through having knowledge of good and evil, and this God-likeness is indeed present, in that the necessity here is no natural necessity, but the resolve is precisely the sublation of this duality, of the good and the evil. Since the good as well as the evil stands opposed to me, I have the choice between the two, can resolve myself to either, and take up the one as well as the other into my subjectivity. It is thus the nature of evil that the human being can will it, but need not necessarily will it.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Fri, 17 Jan 1823 08:10:32 +0000

[zu § 139] α) Evil, how possible? – Origin of evil – how does something alien, negative, come into the positive, the good? – One wants to see this negative in the good, its opposite.
The ancients had, knew not the question of the origin of evil; not this abstraction of good and evil (such as knowledge of good and evil) – evil indeed, crime – but in its concrete shapes of human beings and actions – not such an opposition as we are accustomed to – hence also no depth of spirit – depth, spirit in itself, that is, in its pure abstraction, – light and darkness – not spirit, but thus at first only affirmatively recognized for itself in its freedom
β) Subjectivity – (freedom – absolute thinking – formal unity with myself – differentiating consciousness) – which gives itself a peculiar content – previously drives, well-being – not yet against the Idea, against the good; – the same content, insofar as it is held fast against the good.
Abstract inwardness has an object, a determination twofold: universality or particularity side by side – arbitrariness –
There is choice – arbitrariness – because indeterminate – but not only between this and that, but between good and evil – the objective [element] of the will.
Substantial determination – the being-in-and-for-itself of the will – in its opposition.
Human being, thinking consciousness – thinking of his essence – of the universal – of his will – choice of good and evil – accountability from this point of view.
To have guilt – as mine own – when I am evil, it is absolutely my guilt, that is, the objective [element] of the will is posited in and for itself, through reason, choice, resolve. It is subjective, that is, I – no one else, nor anything else, has done it, or willed it, or resolved it – but I – no representation given by another – nor force – absolute subjectivity cannot be compelled –

[zu § 139 Anm.] Natural will – neither good nor evil – no evil peoples, so-called peoples of nature, innocent peoples – worse than evil –
Evil is supposed to be the worst – that which absolutely ought not to be – nature even worse –
Evil by nature – that is, because the natural, which he is, is at the same time will, is this only through his resolve.
Old Testament – the law – to the knowledge of evil – The law first makes [one] evil.
No human being is evil, evil for evil's own sake; – rather affirmative – inclination, purpose – indeed; but this affirmative [is] the natural –

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1817)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1817) — Wed, 30 Apr 1817 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 427:

§ 427. Since this choosing certainty of itself is the reflection of the abstract will that is infinite in its immediate singularity, it yields the two forms passing immediately into one another, of conscience and of evil. The former is the will of the good, which, however, as within this pure subjectivity, is the non-objective, the non-universal, the unsayable, and concerning which the subject knows itself to be deciding in its singularity, and thereby beholds and enjoys its particular excellence. Evil, however, is this same knowing of its singularity as the deciding factor, insofar as it does not remain in this abstraction but has, in opposition to the good, the content of a subjective interest.