Brilliant thinker, dialectic. The French revolution, which symbolized the onset of the new rational world, showed a great influence on the formation of the views of young Hegel and on all his further spiritual development. Acknowledging the main idea of the French revolution, sharing in the early stages of his creative evolution, views on the necessary anti-feudal, anti-despotic bourgeois revolution, Hegel at the same time rejected Jacobin terror and sharply criticized supporters of Robespierre.
The problems of state and law were in the center of attention of Hegel at all stages of the creative evolution of his views. This topic is thoroughly covered in many of his works, including such as: “German Constitution”, “On scientific methods of studying natural law, its place in practical philosophy and its relation to the science of positive law”, “philosophy of law”, “philosophy spirit “,” philosophy of history “and others.
“The philosophy of law”, where the most comprehensively stated the doctrine of the state and the law of Hegel is one of the most significant works in the history of political and legal doctrines. The main task of the philosophy of law is scientific knowledge of the state and law, and not an indication of what they should be. Our work, Hegel writes, since it contains the science of the state and law will therefore be an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as something rational inside As a philosophical composition, it should be the furthest from constructing the state as it should be. ” “The science of law,” he emphasizes, “is part of philosophy. It must therefore develop an idea that is the mind of an object from a concept or, which is also the same thing, to observe one’s own, immanent development of the object itself.” The right, according to Hegel, is that present existence in general is the present existence of free will, a dialectic that coincides with the philosophical construction of the system of law, as the realm of realized freedom.
The concept of “law” is used in Hegel’s philosophy of law in the following basic meanings:
- Law, as freedom (“the idea of law”), where at the stage of objective spirit all development is determined by the idea of freedom, “freedom”, “law” express a single meaning. The relationship “freedom” and “right” are mediated through the dialectic of free will.
- Law, as a certain level and form of freedom, where the system of law as the kingdom of realized freedom is a hierarchy of “special rights”. At the top of the hierarchy of “special rights” is the right of the state. Since in reality the “special rights” of all levels (personality, conscience, criminal, family, society, state) are given simultaneously and therefore in actual or potential conflict, only the right of a higher level is finally true according to the Hegelian scheme.
- Right, like a law – where it is one of the “Special Rights”. Hegel writes: “That which is right in itself is laid in its objective existing being, that is, it is determined for consciousness by thought and is defined so that there is a right and is considered a right that is known as a law: there is a right in general, thanks to it definition, as a positive law. “The transformation of the right in itself into law through legislation gives the law a form of universality and genuine certainty. The subject of the law can only be the external aspects of human relations, but not their internal sphere.
Distinguishing between law and law, Hegel, at the same time, seeks to eliminate their opposition. As a major misunderstanding, he regards “the cessation of the difference between natural or philosophical law from positive to opposite, and the contradiction between them.” Hegel admits that the content of the law may be distorted in the legislative process; but not everything given in the form of a law is a right, since only the natural in positive law is legitimate and legitimate.
It also distinguishes civil society. Civil society is essentially a bourgeois society. Hegel depicts civil society as antagonistic society torn apart by conflicting interests as a war of all against all. The three main points of civil society are: the needs system, the administration of justice, the police and corporations.
In the structure of civil society, Hegel distinguishes three classes:
1) substantial (landowners – nobles, peasants);
2) industrial (manufacturers, traders, artisans);
3) the universal (officials).
Highlighting social and economic issues, Hegel admits that even with excessive wealth, civil society is not able to fight excessive poverty and the emergence of the mob, by which he means the pauperized part of the population. Hegel’s analysis shows that civil society is unable, based only on its internal capabilities, to solve the problem of poverty and the dialectic of internal contradictions causes it (the society) to go beyond its limits – in search of new opportunities in international trade and colonization.
In the section on civil society, Hegel also covers issues of positive law, justice and police activities, although this topic should have been considered in that part of the Philosophy of Law, which deals with the state. Hegel proceeds from the fact that in the sphere of civil society there is a real functioning of property, the strength of which must be confirmed by the protection of law, the court and the police. These institutions are called upon, in the element of private goals, to uphold the general interests of this system.
The development of civil society already assumes, according to Hegel, the existence of the state as its foundation. “In fact, therefore, – Hegel stresses, the state is generally rather the first, only in the aisles of which the family develops into civil society, and the very idea of the state divides itself into these two points.” Civil society in Hegel’s coverage is a system of needs mediated by labor, resting on the domination of private property and the universal formal equality of people. The formation of such a society, which was not in antiquity and the Middle Ages, is associated with the approval of the bourgeois system.
According to Hegel’s theoretical merits, there is also a clear, principled statement of the question of the relationship and correlation of socio-ecological and political spheres, civil society and the political state, of the necessary, legitimate dialectical nature of these ties and relations.
