ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs the basic aim and structure of Hegel’s main analysis and justificatory argument in his Philosophical Outlines of Justice to show that Hegel is a staunch, reform-minded civic republican who based his moral philosophy on the analysis and fulfillment of individual human freedom. Hegel argues that individual autonomy can only be achieved within a communal context. I begin by considering Hegel’s appeal to Kant’s Critical philosophy (sans transcendental idealism) to highlight their shared views about the human will, its freedom and autonomy, and how they argue (soundly, I contend) that those views obviate both substantive social contract theory and utilitarianism. Hegel’s social analysis of human freedom, both individual and collective, highlights the moral relevance of political economy. With these points in view, I reconstruct the structure of Hegel’s analysis, beginning with freedom, justice, and their grounds in the human will, and then examine how these premises are explicated, detailed and corroborated through Hegel’s analyses of Justice in the Abstract, Morality and Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), the three parts of his Outlines. These considerations elucidate Hegel’s institutional analysis of modern social freedom. Some limits of Hegel’s institutional analysis are noted, and a structural diagram of Hegel’s modern constitutional republic is presented.
