Habit, reflection, and freedom: From anthropology to ethics in Hegel

Recently published lectures allow a new interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel's anthropology in terms of three dimensions of human development. Pursuing the implications of this anthropology for ethics and politics in some cases reveals that Hegel's views are not as conservative as they are often claimed to be and in other cases supports a "Hegelian" critique of Hegel's own explicit positions.;As developed in the recently published Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie des Geistes, Hegel's anthropology consists of three stages of human development: We initially subordinate spontaneous, natural drives and inclinations to habits. Through the development of self-consciousness, we come to reflect upon and distinguish ourselves from these particular habits. Finally, through both theoretical and practical activity, we pursue freedom through the progressive overcoming of the duality between our consciousness of ourselves and our world, on one hand, and our activity in the world, on the other. In contrast to some interpretations of Hegel that have not focused on his anthropology, what is most striking here is the dialectical interplay of cognitive and active dimensions of human existence.;The analysis of these three levels provides a new perspective on the Philosophy of Right that distinguishes the pre-reflective appropriation of ethical life in habits, the overcoming of this immediate identification through the self-consciousness that characterizes morality, and the unity of the two brought about by a conscious recognition of the rationality of the existing ethical life. We are only fully free in a society in which the final stage is possible. This distinction allows us to separate Hegel's impressive account of the requirements of human freedom from the more problematic issue of judging the existing order rational. On this basis I examine central topics in Hegel's account of a free society---property, poverty, classes, and the relation between civil society and the state---arguing that the anthropology supports a Hegelian critique of Hegel's own views on these issues. Similarly, the relationship between theoretical and practical spirit developed in the anthropology requires a much more dialectical relationship between philosophy and practice than Hegel's explicit statements suggest.