Pecca Fortiter for the Sake of Morality?Making Sense of Wrong in Hegel’s System of Right

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to clarify the role ‘wrong’ plays in Hegel’s system of right, as both a form of freedom and the transition to morality. Two approaches will be examined to explore wrong in practical philosophical terms: First, one could take the transition to bedescriptivein nature. The transition describes wrong as a realized fact of the human condition that one inherits from the outset. Second, one could see it asprescriptive. Actual wrongdoing would be essential for the subject’s progression tobecoming moral. Though both are most likely the case, emphasis is given to the latter since it represents the actualization of potential. Furthermore, it will be suggested that wrong plays a similar role as that which alienation does in thePhenomenology of Spirit; both bridge the will as abstract personality with the moral point of view.