Comments on: 81

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:51:20 +0000

§ 81: Where wrong comes from

In a contract, two people want the same thing. Their will is common. But each also remains a single person with wishes of his own.

So it is not certain that the single person does what is right. He can respect right. He can also depart from it. Out of whim, out of error, out of self-interest. When the particular will sets itself against right, wrong arises.

Why is this no accident?

Right lives only in the will of individual people. Here it has no other place yet. But the individual will is not simply right itself. At some point, the two must separate. Only then does it show what right is for itself.

What did I give up in the contract?

Only my arbitrary will over a single thing. I kept arbitrary will itself. That is why I can also break a contract.

Summary: In a contract, each remains an individual with a will of his own. This will can depart from right. That is how wrong arises.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 09:12:27 +0000

In contract we had the relation of two wills as a common will. This identical will, however, is only a relatively universal, posited universal will, and thus still stands in opposition to the particular will. In the contract, in the agreement, there does indeed lie the right to demand the performance; but this in turn is a matter for the particular will, which as such can act contrary to the right that exists in itself. Here, then, the negation that already lay earlier in the will existing in itself comes to the fore, and this negation is precisely wrong. The course of the matter as a whole is to purify the will of its immediacy and thus to call forth, out of its commonality, the particularity that arises in opposition to it. In contract, those who have come to an agreement still retain their particular will; the contract has thus not yet emerged from the stage of arbitrariness, and remains accordingly exposed to wrong.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

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

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 495:

§ 495. The contract, as an agreement arisen from arbitrary will and concerning a contingent thing, contains at the same time the positedness of the accidental will; this is likewise also not adequate to right, and thus brings forth wrong, whereby, however, right, which is in and for itself, is not sublated, but rather only a relation of right to wrong arises.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

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

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 495:

§ 495. The difference in contract, however, which is at first a difference from person to person, passes from the difference between such a substantial element, which at first is present only as an agreement arisen from arbitrary will, and the accidental, into the higher difference of the pure substantial element contained therein against that side of the contingent will — of the universal in and for itself, of right as such, against wrong.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Thu, 05 Dec 1822 08:10:32 +0000

Diff[erence] between the universal will of right and the particular will. In contract right for itself emerges –
– over against the particular will, it is posited as determinately distinguished from the particular.
Determinate being of the will as a universal one, over against the particular –
What is stipulated in the contract is right – as such, i.e., in universal determination.
Transition. α) Determination – the universal will, at first only as posited; – performance a necessary consequence, – but equally dependent on arbitrary choice –
It is objective to me – my individual will as determinate being, and indeed at the same time in and through an other will – Hence right – but this determinate being – as will – only contingent, only a determination of commonality – β) There is to be the determinate being of the will – as will – will relating itself to itself as will. Right as right; the further development of the determination of right toward this – i.e., right posited, not this or that single [right], but right in its universality – i.e., stripped of the particular interest – in the subjective will – and not as [existing] in a particular matter, but rather it is right as such that is at issue. – This ground, this determinate being, is the subjective will – that right as such has been willed – that the determinate being of the will in general be willed, that right be realized. – I have property, i.e., this and that thing; – I will this thing, – this particular content – but now the particular content becomes right itself.
Here the starting point – common will – property has a contingency, an externality – hitherto [that] of my desire, or else some other external contingency, whether I can have this or that – in nature –, or whether the contingent will of another wishes to relinquish the thing to me – but this arbitrary choice of his concerns only the particular thing, concerns my desire, whether he wants to satisfy it or not, – not yet right as such – It itself has no absolute right to be satisfied, – i.e., the determinate being of desire as such is not the determinate being of the will –
But now – my right as such – i.e., the determinate being of my will contains not merely a thing, – but the will of another –
Hence will in relation to a will –
Here begins the element that leads to the standpoint of morality – for morality is the inwardness of the will – i.e., the will that wills itself; – will [being] its own object – but morality as being for itself – will returned into itself –
Here, at first, the relation of will to will, but to an other will, for immediately a difference of the will from itself as such is [present] as the will of another.
In general right – in – itself, – as against contingent will.
Value and communal will, – both a contingent universality. What binds and is bound – in the will of both – is this, that therein lies something existing in itself – right in itself – i.e., the determinate being of the will as such – in the contract both have not only divested themselves of their particular will, but have also presupposed that the determinate being of the will as such should hold good – the right in this matter – this is the inner essential presupposition – Breach of contract, non-performance, is against right as such – i.e., not merely against my particular will as particular – recognition not merely because he is in possession, – but of his will as such – in the stipulation – hence insight into the nature of stipulation is of the highest importance, and of the highest importance that the contract be regarded as valid once stipulated, for therein lies determinate being as the spiritual determinate being of the will – thus right as such –
The abstract external determinate being of the will, not merely the empirical one, because it is within his power and he will defend himself – (savage peoples, Moors, only this kind of apprehension – reflection of cunning, of advantage, of utility, perhaps also of religion, of humanity) – hence it is so important that peoples arrive at contractual relations among themselves and toward others –