ABSTRACT
Legend has it that Hegel’s Philosophical Outlines of Justice cannot afford progress in morals, nor progressive politics, for two reasons: Either his entire moral philosophy is derived a priori from his first principles, ultimately from his Science of Logic, by inflexible, inexorable dialectical logical deduction; or alternatively: His putative theory of ‘justice’ must simple endorse whatever lurch the Weltgeist next takes in its mythological self-development through world history, dragging us haplessly in tow. However ideologically useful such legends may have been, they are literally Incredible (Stewart 1996), though they do underscore one point: Anyone who tries to pigeonhole Hegel’s views within a preconceived philosophical taxonomy winds up with rubbish, which itself belongs on the ash heap of history. Hegel’s methodology and his Science of Logic are important to understanding his moral philosophy. However, four related methodological precautions must be observed. Following those, I consider some substantive fundamentals of Hegel’s moral philosophy, central to his ‘Natural Law Constructivism’, in order to detail several specific regards in which Hegel’s normative social morality is progressive both principally and practically. I then reflect on Hegel’s career of public activism on behalf of liberal republican reform, to pose directly our question today: To what extent are we judging our own affairs as we ought? Various considerations suggest we are not judging well enough, and that Hegel’s Critical philosophy and his staunch civic republicanism provide specific guidance very important today.
