Abstract

This dissertation examines the origins of Hegel's theory of abstract right in his Jena writings . It investigates how Hegel's understanding of person and law grew out of a prolonged engagement with natural right theory, classical political economy, transcendental idealism, and German legal and political history. It focuses in particular on Hegel's argument that while natural right theory correctly identifies person, property, and contract as the fundamental norms regulating economic interaction, this theory fails to recognize that these norms constitute an insufficient model for thinking about political life and social justice in general. I explore how Hegel's theory of social ethics not only seeks to restrict the "deontological subject" of modern legal and political theory to its proper sphere, but also attempts to provide a richer account of the duties and obligations that arise through other human relationships. ;Chapter one argues that Hegel's theory of legal relations in the German Constitution is significantly shaped by modern theories of state-sovereignty and public law, but that his restricted concept of individual liberty reflects the legal and political institutions of contemporary Germany. Chapter two, which treats the Jena critical writings , investigates the relationship between Hegel's critique of transcendental idealism and his appropriation of modern natural right theory. Chapter three, on the System of Ethical Life, analyzes Hegel's critical incorporation of natural right theory into his systematic theory of ethical life, focusing specifically on his speculative deduction of personality as the culminating form of "natural ethical life." The fourth and final chapter examines Hegel's provocative claim in the Phenomenology of Spirit that legal personality is a form of "comic consciousness" incapable of finding satisfaction in the ends it projects for itself