ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the basis of Hegel's discussion of reason, law and freedom, carried out in contrast to the abstract nature of the discussions of his predecessors and contemporaries. In the field of moral, social and political philosophy, one of the major consequences of viewing human beings as primarily individual was to raise questions about the nature, origin and justification of the state and its laws. One of the ways in which Hegel illustrates the difference between natural and positive law is the conflicts that appear in the Greek tragedies. The truth about freedom, for Hegel, is not something that is deduced or arrived at by way of abstract reasoning, but from an account of that in which freedom is claimed to be exhibited. More importantly, freedom as mere potential involves the possibility of being amoral, the view that engaging in morality is a matter of choice.
