
Publication details
Publisher: Springer
Place: Berlin
Year: 2012
Pages: 111-129
Series: Studies in Global Justice
ISBN (Hardback): 9789048189953
Full citation:
, "Hegel, civil society, and globalization", in: Hegel and global justice, Berlin, Springer, 2012


Hegel, civil society, and globalization
pp. 111-129
in: Andrew Buchwalter (ed), Hegel and global justice, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
This chapter approaches Hegel's views of globalization and global justice through Hegel's treatment of civil society and state, which provides an alternative to Hobbes's international state of war and Kant's cosmopolitanism. Civil society is the locus of rights; as civil society spreads beyond Europe through commerce and law, so too do the rights of human beings. But, for Hegel, civil society on its own is unstable unless ordered and guided by the state; so the expansion of civil society needs to be matched by the expansion of political institutions that counter civil society's shortcomings and make its globalization justifiable. Hegel also sees a growth of inter-state relations. As states recognize, interact with, and develop norms of common behavior with other states, they move beyond the (Hobbesian) sovereign's arbitrary will and (sometimes haltingly, and without attaining Kant's cosmopolitan ideals) towards international co-operation.
Cited authors
Publication details
Publisher: Springer
Place: Berlin
Year: 2012
Pages: 111-129
Series: Studies in Global Justice
ISBN (Hardback): 9789048189953
Full citation:
, "Hegel, civil society, and globalization", in: Hegel and global justice, Berlin, Springer, 2012