Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

The work, Elements of a Philosophy of Right is Hegel’s most controversial work. According to Hegel, the basis of individual rights lies in property. Property as conceived by Hegel does not refer to just material acquisition but also entails what is central to an individual’s assertion of identity and personality. Property is the centre of an individual’s claim to right and also an individual’s self-expression. In essence when we make claim to  rights  as  saying  this  is  mine  it  connotes a sense of property and according  to  Hegel  it  is through  property that one can say this or that is mine. Rights then in this context are a property that belongs to the individual. Property is the embodiment of personality says Hegel. This means property reflects persons and individuals.

Hegel sees rights as what constitutes the individuality and personality of the individual. This individuality and personality are also reflected in the system of private property which establishes them through contract and exchange. What one person has the other does not, because of the different personalities. So contracts are entered into, to facilitate exchange. These  contract  and  exchange  thrives  in  a  system of  private  property  thus, it is a system which brings out the individuality of persons. Contract establishes ownership through institutionalized norms of mutual respect of individual rights and obligations. Therefore, economic life governed by free exchange of commodities is based on an institutionalized notion of the individual as having some claim to recognition as a right-bearing person.

The existence of rights or the notion of the individual as a right bearing person permits the existence of free exchange of commodities. Each individual who possesses a property for exchange is by implication a rights bearer. Hegel asserts that if an exchange market is to function efficiently, economic actors must recognize universal standards by which a person can claim to own property. In trying to find out universal standards by which a person can claim to own property which also in Hegelian context implies rights, Hegel brings in universality into the discourse. In establishing this, norms recognised by all in the modern economic sphere are absolved in the economic  actors  to represent a common will thereby resulting in the birth of the universal individual and also the universal rights of the individual which of course is an abstract concept. The individual implied by this concept is a universal individual without particular traits and without reference to social or cultural environment.  Thus,  rights  established by private property and exchange  are  abstract  rights  and  engage  individuals as abstract, universal subjects. The system of mutual recognition and abstract right is the basis of what Hegel calls morality which therefore ,imposes a moral obligation to respect universal rights. People are morally motivated through a sense of duty to defend the universal rights of individuals.

In Elements of a Philosophy of Right, Hegel attempts to bring together diverse elements of his philosophy and social thought into an extensive statement about the nature of modernity. He traces a modern conception of individuality and of the individual as the bearer of rights to modern social, economic, and political institutions.  He also describes how this modern notion of individuality, while positive in many ways, can give rise to the alienation of the individual from the collective.  In the first section, Abstract  Right, Hegel returns to a theme of earlier writings in which he wrestles  with  the  fairly common belief  in natural  rights  that are present in the  various  social contract theories of, for example, John Locke. Admitting that the contract is an outcome of agreement between individuals he however disputed the fact that this contract is a basis for all societies throughout history, where social or political order is said to derive its legitimacy from its ability to uphold and protect the rights of autonomous, sovereign individuals. For Locke and others, the social order is merely the outcome of a contract between autonomous individuals to respect each other’s rights. In essence, the extent of one person’s relationship to another can be summed up in the slogan, be a person and respect others as a person. Hegel believes that the worldview implied in contract theory and in the moral obligation to respect individual rights, is not the foundation of social life but is rather a reflection of the spirit of the modern age. This spirit resides in modern legal and economic institutions, which foster an idea of abstract rights and universal personhood. Hegel therefore applies his theory of history and culture to an analysis of the modern world.