Political society, the problem of the State in Hegel

Abstract

Hegel's political reading on Modernity refers to the interaction between the will as free will and the general life of the State. This is a reading that is openly opposed to the liberal conception of the State because it puts the emphasis precisely on the self-determination of the will under the laws and the right in the general life of the State, thus leading to a conception of the political order as a community of citizens that can only become such in the context of precisely that community (Sittlichkeit). In this case it is not only the rationality of the law, but the self-determination that is achieved with it and through political practices and institutions, what is decisive in shaping freedom and political society.