Conclusion: What secures a constitution is the collective
spirit of a nation. The government as a constitution unifies and solidifies the
separate members to work towards a common goal as one under the right
conditions.
“Only
through the government, and by its embracing in itself the particular businesses
(including the abstract legislative businesses…), is the state one”. (541/290)
Premesis:
1. A constitution only develops from the national
spirit identically with that spirit’s own development, and runs through at the
same time with it the grades of formation and the alterations required by its
concepts (540/289).
2.
The government is the universal part of the constitution, i.e., the part which intentionally
aims at preserving [the family and the “estates” of civil society], but at the
same time gets hold of and carries out those general aims of the whole, which
rise above the function of the family and civil society (541/289).
3.
The monarchical constitution is the constitution of developed reason (542/290).
a)
In the perfect form of the state, in which each and every of the notion has
reached free existence, this subjectivity is not…a ‘moral person’, or a decree
issuing from a majority, …but the will of a decree individual- monarchy
(542/290).
4.
…sovereignty depends on the fact that the particular functions and powers of
the state are not self-subsistent or …grounded either on their own account or
in the particular will of the individual functionaries, but have their roots
ultimately in the unity of the state as their single self (278/291).
a)
Sovereignty only belongs to the state
5.
It is only as a person, the monarch, that the personality of the state is actual
(279/293).
a)
…the person enshrines the actuality of the concept, and only when the concept
is determined as person is it the Idea or Truth (279/293).
6.
In the “divine sign” of Socrates we see the will…beginning to apply itself to
itself and so to recognize its own inward nature (279/296).
a)
This is the beginning of the monarch’s self-knowing which leads to true freedom
b)
the states’ will is true freedom
c)
the monarch rises naturally to be the individual raised above all that is
particular and conditional
Monarch who truly cares about his state would think of his states' will. But it does not necessarily can lead to true freedom.
ReplyDeleteHegel's idea in Premise 3, where he noted that monarchical constitution is of developed reason. Is it because he (i.e., monarch) is educated?
Although Hegel claims that sovereignty lies in the state and is composed of the state as the "single self" of individual wills, I think of Hobbes' Leviathan and wonder if this truly follows his dialectic. If sovereignty lies in the state, how is it that this sovereignty collapses under rebellions such as the American Revolution? Is a new sovereignty created? Even if his argument holds under creation of new states, Hegel does a poor job addressing counterarguments for his claims of sovereignty and is likely due to an inherent bias which weakens an otherwise well-thought out argument.
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