Hegel on war, recognition and justice

Gary Browning

pp. 193-209

in: Andrew Buchwalter (ed), Hegel and global justice, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

Hegel's account of war in the Philosophy of Right is a significant expression of Hegel's understanding of the importance of mutual recognition in social and political life. Its deployment evokes and relates to Hegel's account of the struggle for recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Just as the account in the Phenomenology of Spirit invokes an imagined emergency situation in the life and death struggle to highlight the existential importance of recognition, so war serves to underline the life and death issues at stake in the commitments of citizenship. War exhibits the fragility of social and political order and points to the overwhelming need of individuals to recognize the duties of citizenship. War, however, is only one mode in which citizens recognize themselves to be citizens, just as social recognition underpins the entire development of knowledge that is charted in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel's emphasis upon recognition in his remarks on war and on institutional maintenance underpins his rejection of internationalism and his repudiation of cosmopolitan norms of justice. Justice, for Hegel, is about the maintenance and development of conditions of right in particular ethical communities.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich