Comments on: 157

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:54:33 +0000

§ 157: The three shapes of ethical life

Ethical life develops in three shapes. They give the third part of the book its order.

First, the family. Here ethical life is still natural and immediate. Love binds people together.

Second, civil society. Here people move apart as independent individuals. Each looks after himself. They depend on each other through their needs. The law protects their persons and their property. An external order regulates their common affairs.

Third, the state. Here the universal itself becomes the purpose. Public life serves the common good. The state takes the first two shapes up into itself.

An image for the path:

We grow up in a family. Then we go out into the world, work, trade and negotiate. And in the end, we know ourselves as citizens of a community that carries everyone.

Summary: Ethical life has three shapes: the family, civil society and the state. The path leads from love through an independent life to a conscious community.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830) — Sat, 18 Sep 1830 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 517:

§ 517. The ethical substance is a. as immediate or natural spirit, - the family; b. the relative totality of the relative relations of individuals as independent persons to one another within a formal universality, - civil society; c. the self-conscious substance as the spirit developed into an organic actuality, - the constitution of the state.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827) — Thu, 24 May 1827 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 517:

§ 517. The ethical substance is a. as immediate or natural spirit, – the family; b. the relative totality of the relative relation of individuals as independent persons to one another within a formal universality, – civil society; c. the self-conscious substance as the spirit developed into an organic actuality, – the constitution of the state.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Tue, 28 Jan 1823 08:06:32 +0000

Difference between family and state
α) Free, independent persons, who provide for themselves – bondsmen, for whom the lord or the state provides
β) For them the universal, a purpose, fatherland, laws, state as a universal, as that which commands subjectivity, and indeed as a law – respect for the law – not love or fear – law is not the subjective will – the same for all, and the shared element between the one who commands and the one who obeys – what is duty for the latter is also a limitation, a right, for the same – not contingent will, arbitrariness – but fixed, a boundary beyond which what is imposed may not go.
γ) Division of affairs – All moments of the substantial and its efficacy constitute their own bodies and systems of laws and activities.
System – particularization of ethical life, i.e. ethical life posited in its determinations – forms – every form, – difference, – is the whole genus, idea; –
a) immediate will; natural will, freedom – to be with oneself – through negation of the natural will, i.e. the first is natural
b) reflection – right, morality, abstract moments – falling down into particularity – unconscious substance, – necessity, bond –
For the particular (abstract –) form of universality – only form – formation – independence of personality – out of the natural unity – as pure unity purifies itself only in being-for-self into free [unity] –
c) state as third: α) independence of individuals –
β) union in laws – unity as known, conscious, expressed, thought unity – in freedom as such –