THE IDEA OF THE GOOD LIFE

Abstract

In the Philosophy of Right's developmental presentation of the good, the community as a whole shows itself to be ethical because it is properly institutionally differentiated. Similarly, the ethicality of each institution depends on its own appropriate differentiation, at least in so far as each corresponds to one radical possibility of self-determination or selfhood and excludes the others. Although the account set out in the previous chapter corresponds to the logical requirements of selfhood demanded by Hegel's concept of freedom, the spheres of life laid out there lacked the concrete differentiation contained in his own description.