Conscience and Spirit in Id St

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2005.Idealistic Studies,Volume 35, Issues 23. ISSN 0046-8541. pp. 119136

CONSCIENCE, RECOGNITION, AND THEIRREDUCIBILITY OF DIFFERENCE IN

HEGELS CONCEPTION OF SPIRIT

Nathan Andersen

Abstract: Hegels conception of Spirit does not subordinate difference to same-

ness, in a way that would make it unusable for a genuinely intersubjective idealism

directed to a comprehensive account of the contemporary world. A close analysis

of the logic of recognition and the dialectic of conscience in the Phenomenology

of Spirit demonstrates that the unity of Spirit emerges in and through conflict,

and is forged in the process whereby particular encounters between differently

situated individuals reveal and establish the emerging character and significance

of the stances they uniquely occupy.

It is a familiar problem in recent philosophy1that to the extent my experience of another

person can be assimilated to ready-made experiential categories, I have not really gotten

beyond myself. Rather, in the experience of the apparentother, I have merely reconfirmed

or reconnected with a prior sense of self-identity. If Hegels conception of Spirit, whose

substance and existence is described in the Phenomenology of Spiritas pure self-recogni-

tion in absolute otherness (reine Selbsterkennen im absoluten Anderssein),2is no more than

the identity achieved when the self discovers that what appearedto be other is really just

an integral moment in an expanded conception of itself, then it would appear that absolute

otherness in no way refers to a genuineother. Even if such an experience were to reveal

that my individual sense of self, along with my familiar categories, is grounded in a more

primordial identification with others in a shared world, that would only serve to expand my

self-awareness. It may be that I then come to identify with a universal self as opposed to

the merely individual self that finds itself opposed to and related to others in the world,

but what would remain unchallenged in this experience is the priority of self and of self-

identity over disruption and alterity. An expanded sense of the subject, in other words, does

not amount to a rigorous account of a diversely constituted, intersubjective world.

This essay will aim to demonstrate that Hegels conception of Spirit does notleave

unchallenged the priority of self-identity over difference, and does not on that account

fail to do justice to the claims of intersubjectivity. At the same time, it is a conception

that recognizes genuine differences to form a point of contact, whereby is constituted an

emerging unity that gives significance to difference at the same time as it is shaped bythese differences. I will argue that what Hegel means by Spirit, particularly in the Phe-

nomenology, is best conceived in relation to the phenomenon of conscientious conflict


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IDEALISTIC STUDIES120

and reconciliation, the analysis of which concludes his chapter entitled Spirit. The

universality of Spirit, on this conception, is not one that subsumes differences between

individuals; rather, it is a universality that is forged through the process whereby particular

encounters with others who are differently situated not only reveal but also establish theemergingcharacter and significance of the stances they uniquely occupy.

I will begin with an examination of Hegels concept of recognition, that will show

the genuine universality of recognition to be an achievement, that cannot therefore serve

as an a priori ground for the individuals who engage in the process of recognition. This

should not, however, be taken to imply that the individuals who engage in this process

are settled in themselvesprior to the formation of community. If this were the case, then

the conception of Spirit that emerges when the process of recognition is taken as central

would appear incompatible with Hegels repeated assertions of the foundational character

of unity and community. The distinctness of the individuals who communally constitutecommunity is, on Hegels account, at one and the same time formed by and formative of

the act of recognition.

Following a brief account of recognition, I will turn to a more detailed analysis of

Hegels discussion of conscience, and will conclude by showing what Spirit looks like

when conceived on the model of conscientious conflict and reconciliation. Conscientious

conflict in fact demonstrates both universality and individuality to emerge out of the

determinateparticularityof contact and conflict, which is to say that unityand compre-

hensionis just as much fragmentationand difference. For the reconciliation that takes

place between conscientious selves who find themselves compelled to differ is not onethat overcomes that difference, but is rather the discovery of a kind of unity that emerges

in and through conflict. This conception of Geist, then, is best characterized as Hegel

does in fact characterize Spirit, at the beginning of his Spirit chapter: as bothunshaken

righteous self-identity (die unwankende gerechte Sichselbstgleichheit) andfragmented

being, self-sacrificing and benevolent, in which each accomplishes his own work, rends

asunder the universal being and takes from it his own share (das aufgelste, das sich

aufopfernde gtige Wesen, an dem Jeder sein eignes Werk vollbringt, das allgemeine Sein

zerreit und sich seinen Teil davon nimmt).3

I. Universal and Individual as Achievements

The most extensive characterization of recognition in the Phenomenology of Spiritcomes

in Hegels chapter on self-consciousness.4Hegel argues that a stable self-consciousness

cannot be achieved in isolation from others. To secure the satisfaction of knowing ones

own independence, one must have this independence affirmed by another who is like

oneself.That means, however, that one cannot be simply self-conscious. One cannot be

aware of oneself alone, but must at the same time be aware of another upon whom ones

own identity as distinctive depends. The moment of self-consciousness coincides, accord-ing to Hegel, with the consciousness of the other.

In a very helpful commentary on this passage, John Burbidge notes that the features

which characterize his [that is, the consciousness whose identity is here at stake] own

intrinsic nature are presented to him as something external. He thus learns that he is simply

an instance of a more general universal.5This is the first stage in the process of recognition,


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121HEGELS CONCEPTION OF SPIRIT

the stage of universality, that shows the discovery of oneself asa self to coincide with the

discovery of other selves. This discovery is, therefore, just as much a loss of self, insofar

as it involves the recognition of oneself as not unique but like others. To secure a sense of

itself in distinction from others the recognizing consciousness must engage at some level ina struggle to deny or overcome the appearance of a likeness with the other. In denying its

similarity with the other, however, the recognizing consciousness at the same time affirms

that the other is distinct from itself. This is the stage ofparticularity. To be a particular is

to be among others, from which one is distinguished. That to affirm itself as itself, it must

affirm its difference from the other, reveals that, contrary to its assumption of complete

and utter independence, the identity of the other asdistinct mattersto the identity of the

first. The first can recognize itself in particular only insofar as it recognizes the other to

be specifically distinct from itself. The final stage of recognition, that of individuality,

makes this result explicit. An awareness of difference alonedoes not individuate, for theawareness of themselves as different fromeach other establishes the two selves just as

much for themselves in relationto one another. According to Burbidge, the individual

becomes aware of himself as similar to the other even in the difference, and because he

becomes aware of the other as different even in the similarity, he becomes conscious of

the uniqueness of the other, and hence grants him freedom.6

Burbidges analysis of recognition, that highlights the roles of universality, particularity

and individuality within that process, is valuable for emphasizing that genuine universal-

ity isforgedthrough a process of differentiation between particular selves. Community

and communication generally are achieved only through the process whereby individualscome to discover the character of their own individual identity by positing this identity in

contrast to that of others. His analysis makes clear, at the same time, that the individuals

for whom this community is generated do not themselves exist as these individuals prior

to the process of recognition. He points out that for Hegel the three stages of this mu-

tual recognition cannot be interpreted sequentially, but only as moments in an integrated

activity.7Since to be a self requires at least the practical recognition of oneself as such,

and recognition of oneself comes by way of a recognition of another, that would imply

that neither the individual nor the community are original in the sense of preceding one

another. Burbidges analysis of communication, in particular, highlights the fact that not

only does the individual discoverherself as an individual in relation to others through

the process of recognition, but that her identity as individual is itself a resultthat comes

with the achievement of community.

Neither the universality of community nor the singularity of the individual are prior

on Hegels conception of Spirit. Rather, these are mutually implicating moments in a

process whereby the illuminative contrasts between individuals in fact contribute to the

formation of each in their differences and thereby bring them into significant connection.

Since the community that emerges in this process does not erase, but in fact reconfirmsand establishes the absolute character of differences, Spirit is best conceived not merely

as universal and individual, but always at once as particular. Spirit makes itself manifest,

or brings itself to self-consciousnessand hence comes into beingonly in and through

the particularities of the concrete processes whereby situated individuals come to know

themselves through encounters with others.


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II. The Community of Conscience: Reconciliation In and Through Conflict

This is demonstrated perhaps most powerfully by Hegels analysis of conscientious ac-

tion, action that proceeds according to the principle that an agent can only be responsible

to the moral demands of a particular situation insofar as she experiences those demands.Since one can never have more than a partial understanding of the total situation wherein

one acts, the principle of conscience takes this partially illuminated situation to bethe

genuinesituation of action, in relationship to which alone the conscientious action can

legitimately be evaluated. The conscientious agent insists therefore, that all action be

judged according to the particular demands of the conscience of the agent alone. This

insistence, however, calls upon her the judgment that she has violated her own criterion,

insofar as she expects others to act in accordance with a general principle. She expects

others to judge her actions, not according to theirunique perspective on these actions,

but solely in accordance with herclaim to have acted conscientiously. This conflict, aswe will see, motivates a resolution that does not so much dissolve the conflict as reveal,

in an exemplary fashion, the productive dimension of contrasting self-definitions. The

conscientious agent comes to recognize that the truth of the situation in which she has

an individual obligation to act is not comprised merely of the circumstances of action as

they appear to herself all at once. Rather, the truth of her situation is what dynamically

unfolds as she risks action on the basis of a limited perspective and finds herself obliged

to reformulate that perspective as a result of discovering the compelling character of the

judgments of others that this action calls down upon itself.

A. Conscience as Extreme Individuality:

The Place of Conscience in the Philosophy of Right

There is a difficulty posed for an interpretation of Hegelian Spirit that takes the dialectic of

conscience as its model. For Hegel appears to claim the need to get beyond conscience. The

problem with the ideal of conscience is that it appears to sanction an extreme subjectivism

as a grounds for action, and Hegel criticizes it on just these grounds in the Philosophy of

Right. If in the last analysis all we can appeal to is ourselves, and our subjective knowl-

edge of our own situations, this would appear to render mutual recognition impossible.Jay Bernstein has articulated the basic problem very well:

As modern agents the ultimate barrier to our self-recognition in absolute otherness

is formed by our understanding of ourselves as autonomous moral beings. If we are

autonomous, then nothing on heaven and earth can tell us what is right other than

our conscience; but myconscience cannot be an absolute touchstone of rightness

if yours is too. If I uphold the dictates of my conscience, then I cannot recognize

myself in your conscientious claims. Conversely, if I surrender my conscience

to the dictates of yours then I surrender my pure self-recognition; I become your

moral beast or slave.8

It is for this reason that a number of commentators (though notBernstein) have considered that

conscience is a stance that will ultimately need to be left behind in the progress of Spirit.9

To make more clear the objection, I will turn briefly to Hegels analysis of conscience

in the Philosophy of Right, where Hegel himself identifies forcefully the problems with


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asserting the primacy of conscience as justification for action.10In the Philosophy of Right,

Hegels discussion of conscience forms the culminating moment in his analysis of moral

rights, rights as they apply in the sphere of self-determininghuman activity. Ones moral

right is to recognize oneself, and to be recognized by others, as responsible for onesown activity. The developments that Hegel traces within the sphere of morality, and that

culminate in a position advocating the primacy of conscience, can in fact be illustrated

in terms of a basic ambiguity in the notion of responsibility.11One can, basically, be

responsible for something both in the sense that one has causedit and in the sense that

one is to be held accountablefor it. So, to begin with, the moral self is responsible for

its activity in the (first) sense that it recognizes its own contributions to the world asits

own, and has the rightto be regarded as their originator. To act is to carry out ones own

purposesin the world, and one is therefore responsible(in the second sense) for ones

own action and its consequences.12With freedom comes accountability.Yet no one can reasonably be held accountable for those consequences of action that

she was unable to anticipate, which implies that as a moral agent one has the right to be

responsible solely for ones intentions. Actions are to be evaluated, therefore, in light of

what the agent was tryingto achieve, even if what she in fact achieves goes against what

would abstractly be conceived as right. The moral agent has the right, in other words, to

act for the sake of what she takes to be good, for herself and others.13It is an abstraction,

moreover, to oppose a genuine and universal Good to the merely particular goods that

individuals aim to achieve. For every achievement of what is taken to be Good universally

is always the product of particular actions on the part of individuals aiming to achieveparticular goods. On the other hand, there can be no achievement of particular goods ex-

cept where there is freedom for all to pursue particular aims,14which requires the mutual

recognition of a Good that is not merely particular.

By itself, however, the recognition of an obligation to the Good cannot specify how

one must act in particular situations. It amounts to no more than the formal dictum: One

should do what is right or one should strive after ones own welfare and the welfare of

others.15In the end, the principle of dutyto the Good has no content of its own, and it is

only what is experienced asobligating that counts as an actual duty. We doexperience

obligation, and in particular obligation that constrains against the experience of what

is merely inclination; yet it is only actual obligationto the extent that it doesconstrain,

and finds expression in determinate action. Thisexperience of active obligation is what

Hegel identifies as conscience(Gewissen):16the absolute inward certainty (Gewissheit)

of himself, that which establishes the particular and is the determining and decisive ele-

ment in him.17

The principle of conscience recognizes rightly the universal necessity (and Good-

ness) of individual determination in all action. There can be no duty, or good, that is not

recognized as such and willed by the individual. The problem with conscience is that itappears to make the necessity and rightnessof individual determination for all action into

an abstract principle. To operate on the principle of conscience is to anticipate that ones

actions will be recognized and respected merely as the product of an unassailable individual

sense of obligation or duty. It is, however, at the same time to respect the rights of others

to carry out their own actions in their own particular circumstances in accordance with the


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dictates of their own conscience. That means that the conscientious agent cannot justly

complain when her actions are not given the acceptance she anticipates; for the rejection

of these actions is itself justified when it proceeds from the opposed convictions of oth-

ers. As a merely formal principle, the conscientiousness of action cannot in fact sanctionany particular action or content. It acknowledges in general the power of the individual to

determine the content of the good, but for that reason has nothing to say when the good

is determined differently by different individuals.

The true contentof conscientious action, however, is not merely thefactthat it is the

product of individual determination. This individual determination acquires significance

and status as an action only insofar as it makes a difference to the determinate situation

that called it forth. The true conscience, that Hegel differentiates from the merely abstract

formal conscience he discusses in the section on Morality in the Philosophy of Right,

recognizes the authority of the state because it knows that whether what it considersordeclares to be goodis also actually good, can be recognized only from the contentof this

supposed good,18and that the contentof the action is inseparable from its status within

the instituted systems for interpersonal recognition that comprise the situation wherein

the action takes place. Genuine conscience, in other words, discovers itself only as the

individual commitment to carrying out the social institutions that give place toand yet

for that reason are themselves transformed and defined byits conscientious actions.

That is why I find it odd that Daniel Dahlstrom, who rightly notices that the true con-

science plays an important role in the sphere of Ethics as well as in Morality, nevertheless

points outin his otherwise compelling commentary on the role of morality and consciencein the Philosophy of Rightthat Hegel has, it bears noting, notoriously little to say about

this genuine conscience as such in the third part of the Philosophy of Right.19As I take

it, the third part of the Philosophy of Rightis allabout genuine conscience.20The division

of the Philosophy of Rightthat deals with ethics can essentially be taken as an answer to

the question: where, in the context of the objective reality of social life do we encoun-

ter actualindividual conviction with a content, of a kind whose formalcharacteristics

are proclaimed by conscience? On Hegels account, we find such conviction in ethical

institutions: in mature stages of marriage and family life, for example, wherein the ques-

tion whether one will or should take care of ones family, or discipline and educate ones

child, never comes up as a real concern. It is something that one mustdo, as a matter of

conscience. This particular example is a good one, because to be ethically committed to

family life requires that one notfix onto the merely formal principle of conscience. It is

the conscientious recognition of obligation, not to oneself, but to the particular demands

of a determinate family lifethat teaches the individual family member in the first place

the significance of his or her individual efforts to satisfy this obligation.

The solution to problems Hegel identifies with the formal principle of conscience in

the Philosophy of Rightis not to give up on the irreducible character of individual self-determination that it rightly proclaims. Rather, it is for the conscientious agent to come to

recognize the demands and judgments on the part of others in response to its action to be

themselves called forth by and definitive for the character of its immediately experienced

conscientious obligation. The individual conscience has its reality and significance only

in the reciprocal process whereby it discovers that reality and significance reflected back


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to itself through another. The principle of conscience is not, according to this analysis,

opposed to the process of recognition, but in fact demands it. This result will become

more clear in the next section, in the context of an analysis of Hegels discussion of con-

science in the Phenomenology of Spirit. I will show how there, within Hegels account ofconscience itself, conscience comes to recognize the limits of its purely individual stance,

and commits itself to the demands of intersubjective recognition.

B. The Dialectic of Conscientious Recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit

The dialectic of conscientious recognition comes in the final section of Hegels chapter

on Spirit in the Phenomenology. The chapter as a whole examines the dynamics of the

relation between individuals and the communal institutions and activities in relation to

which they define themselves, and out of which they are formed. The study of conscience

follows an examination of two forms of communal life based on, first, the integration ofindividual into the community, and secondly, the formation of a community rooted in

the importance of the individual. The problems that emerge within the first two forms of

communal life can be traced to a failure, within the relationship between individual and

community, to make explicit and live up to the demands of the three stages of recognition

as I have outlined them above. The ethical substance, whose dialectical tensions Hegel

illustrates in terms of the complex relation between family and state in ancient Greece,

acknowledges particular differences between individuals, but treats these differences as

having their sole significance in the demand that each individual carry out the role to

which he or she is suited by virtue of the particular place he or she occupies within the

pre-established community of the ethical substance. As John Russon puts it, this com-

munity fails to recognize its dependence upon decisions made by singular agents on

behalf of the community.21The world of culture, by contrast, takes individuality as its

highest value. At the same time, however, it fails to recognize that individuals can define

and express themselves only through engaging in particular actions that embed themselves

within specific traditions, and that relate themselves to others in determinate ways. It is

only in conscientious forgiveness, as the culmination of Hegels section on Morality, that

we find the concrete living out within the relation between individuals and the community

they share of the full dynamics of the three moments of universality, particularity and

singularity that I have identified above with the process of recognition.

Conscience is, basically, the moral stance that recognizes, in spite of its inevitably

partial knowledge of its own situation and of the ultimate significance of its actions, that

its dutyis to act as it, now, sees to be best. The conscientious agent acts as she knowsthat

she must, on the basis of her apprehension of what is essential to the situation wherein she

finds herself. Well aware that her knowledge of the situation is finite, she deems aspects

of the situation of which she is unaware to be inessential to her duty as she now knows it.

That is not to say that she considers what she does not know to be utterly irrelevant to hersituation; rather, she recognizes the situation of action to be constituted in and through

these limitations, such that it is only by living up to the demands of thissituation that

she has an opening in the first place to what lies outside of or beyond her own immediate

conviction. What matters essentially for the conscientiousness of action is that the agent

act solelyon the basis of conviction. If there is hesitation, if it is unclear how she must


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act, then her conscientious duty would be to resolve this confusion, to discover how she

must act and thento act. But of course this deliberatehesitation is also a form of action,

and is the form of action that in this case is dictated by conscience.22

Conscience remains well aware that it does not possess that full acquaintance withall the attendant circumstances which is required, and that its pretense of conscientiously

weighing all the circumstances is vain.23The conscientious agent, nevertheless, holds

those aspects of the situation wherein she acts, with which she is not immediately ac-

quainted, to have a moral significance only for others, or for herself in another situation,

different from the one in which she, now, finds herself compelled to act. As Hegel puts

it: this acquaintance with, and weighing of, all the circumstances are not altogether

lacking; but they exist only as a moment, as something which is only for others. Oth-

ers, differently situated, will experience different demands. For thisconscientious self,

however, its incompleteknowledge is held . . . to be sufficient and complete, because itis its ownknowledge.24

To engage in conscientious action is to posit the essentialparticularityof the situation

wherein one acts, over and against the particular situations of others, and in opposition to

the abstract universality of the duty that is posited by the stance of morality. The stance

of conscience can thus be compared profitably to the second moment of the process of

recognition, as it is interpreted by Burbidge. Morality, we might say, recognizes rightly

the universalcharacter of duty, the first stage of recognition. To be moral is to act as

anyone would find themselves compelled to act in a determinate situation; it is to rec-

ognize oneself as bound by the same obligations that one might ascribe to others, andvice-versa. Against this conception of morality, however, the conscientious agent legiti-

mately responds that the situation of others is never strictly likethat wherein she finds

herself. For that reason she insists that herduty is distinctive, and can be revealed to her

not through the universality of a rational judgment but by her conscience alone. All that

others can expect of her, and her only obligation to these others, is an assurance that she

is in fact acting as her conscience dictates. This assurance enables the particular agent

to invoke the universality demanded by morality, in the sense that she anticipates that

others will recognize and sanction this assurance, at the same time as it demands of the

universal that it recognize particularity. As it turns out, however, this insistence upon an

automaticacceptance of the agent in her particularity fails to recognize the particularity

of the others. She will in fact only discover the distinctive character of her situation when

she recognizes the differentiated response her actions solicit in others to establish in the

first place the significance and validity of her action.

The language of consciencewhose distinctive content is the assertion of the conscien-

tious agent in the face of others that she is indeed acting as conscience demandsraises

the particularity of conscientious action to a kind of universality, that appears to enable

each conscientious agent to recognize the distinctively dutiful response invoked by theunique situation of others. Hegel writes that in calling itself conscience, [the individual

agent] calls itself a universal knowing and willing which recognizes and acknowledges

others, is the same as themfor they are just this pure self-knowing and willingand

which for that reason is also recognized and acknowledged by them.25 Through the

mutual recognition of the demand that agents give expression to the conscientiousness


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of action, a kind of community is formed, in which the differences invoked by the prin-

ciple of conscience are embraced a priori. Yet what this community in fact embraces is

merely difference in an abstract sense; it accepts a multiplicity of voices, but only to the

extent that they are all saying essentially the same thing. It is the community composedof self-proclaimed conscientious agents, and built upon the mutual assurance of their

conscientiousness, good intentions, the rejoicing over mutual purity, and the refreshing

of themselves in the glory of knowing and uttering, of cherishing and fostering, such an

excellent state of affairs.26

On Hegels account, genuine universality, the true community of conscience, is not what

is achieved in this mutual admiration society.27The genuinecommunity of conscience

is forged only out of the situation wherein conscientious agents are unableto rejoice in

the purity of one another, but find themselves engaged in a conscientiousconflict. It is

this situation that forces a recognition of unity in and through difference, and a discoveryof the true character of their differences precisely in that unity.

There is, Hegel points out, another aspect whereby the conscientious agent comes into

contact with others than merely through the expression of its conscientious character. Con-

science, Hegel insists, has to be considered as acting.28Even the mere proclamation that

her action is conscientious must itself be considered as an action, that makes a difference

to the situation wherein the conscientious agent stands. As a result of this activeside of

the self-expression of conscience, Hegel writes, the antithesis of individuality to other

individuals, and to the universal, inevitably comes on the scene.29The self-expression

of the conscientious agent does not enable her to isolate herself and her situation whollyfrom judgment, for in this very utterance the agent actively invokes the judgment of others

by explicitly differentiating herself from them, positing her action before them ascom-

pelling in its uniqueness.30In the very action of proclaiming herself to be conscientious,

the conscientious agent solicits over and against herself a conscientious judgment, that

is to determine whether in fact this action lives up to the standard she proclaims. As it

turns out, however, there is an ambiguity in the utterance that enables it to be taken up in

a sense quite differently from the one in which it is intended by the conscientious agent.

This ambiguity in the utterance of conscience is at the heart of the conflict out of which

the true situation of conscience comes to light.

The problem with the utterance of conscience, as Hegel puts it, is that the two mo-

ments constituting this consciousness, the self and the in-itself, are held to be unequal

in value within it, a disparity in which they are so determined that the certainty of itself

is the essential being in the face of the in-itself or the universal, which counts only as a

moment.31To proclaim the conscientiousness of ones actions is to know oneself as a

singular being whose actions carry out a lived experience of necessity that may not be

accepted by others, at the same time as it is to insist that these actions be respected by

these others. What mattersfor the conscientious individual is the fact that her claim toconscientiousness be genuine and that she recognize herself in this claim; to the extent

that she doesshe expects that others will recognize this as well. The aspect of universal-

ity, or of universal acceptance, however, is taken for granted. The agent does not, in other

words, take this judgement on the part of others to matterto the character of her action

asconscientious. For the judging consciousness, by contrast, it is the judgement alone


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that matters when considering the utterance. Even when the judge takes for granted the

feelingof conscientiousness that the agent proclaims in the utterance, there still remains to

him the task of determining whether the utterance itself is a conscientious act. He knows

the utterance to be conscientious only to the extent that he judges it to be such. Yet sincethe utterance of the agent poses this judgment as a foregone conclusion, as something

that need not in fact take place, the judging consciousness must reject the utterance as a

failure to live up to the demands of the principle of conscience.

The acting conscience is thus, as Bernstein puts it, the moral ironist who, having

recognized that action always embeds itself in a context over which the actor does not

have exclusive control, attempts to overcome responsibility for the consequences of action

by appealing to the inevitable finitude of conscience.32The sacred, inviolable character of

claims to conscience is, from the standpoint of the judging consciousness, taken lightly

by the acting conscience. From the standpoint of the judge, who knows that he is notina position to judge whether or not the agent in fact operates on an undeniable conviction,

the assertion that she doesappears as a contingent strategy for acceptance, one that indi-

cates her not really to be in earnest about being accepted. She is, in that sense, according

to the judge, a hypocrite.33

On the other hand, from the perspective of the agent, the judge is insensitive to the par-

ticularities of the situation in which she acts. His insistence upon respect for the principle

of conscience, when seen in contrast with the feeling of what is right for her now, seems

just as much to be arbitrary and one-sided as her approach. In general, the conscientious

agent will consider the judgment that opposes it to be itself one-sided, and to rest upona particular and idiosyncratic way of taking up the principle of conscience in the same

way that this judgment proclaims to be true of the action. The judge does violence to the

expectations of the agent, just as much as he considers the agent to show disregard for

the expectations of others.

For this reason, however, it is precisely in her confrontation with the judge that the

conscientious agent is able to see herself. The judge takes his own position to be just as

obvious as the acting consciousness takes hers to be. Yet, on the one hand, the condem-

nation by the judge makes the agent aware that her own way of taking up the principle

of conscience is not universally acceptable, and, on the other hand, because she does not

interpret the principle in the same way as does the judge, she knows also that neither is

the claim of the judge. As a result of the conflict, she has found herself compelled to see

the truthof the judges condemnation, and now knows that not only her activity but even

her claimto be acting conscientiously is open to multiple interpretations. Likewise, and

for that reason, she can no longer anticipate that others will automatically accept her

claims to be conscientious. She recognizes the possibility of failure to communicate as

inevitable, and characteristic of her shared situation with others.

Having recognized this, however, she expects that the mutual acceptance of failurewill produce a reconciliation. While she cannot accept the particular character of the

response of the judge, she nevertheless respects this response, as a singular expression of

hisconscience. She anticipates, however, that whereas her expectation of an automatic and

universal acceptance of her claim to conscience was frustrated, her confession that she is

like the judge precisely in the one-sidedness of their approach will at least be acknowledged.


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But, of course, thisanticipation merely repeats her error at a higher level. Her confession

merely indicates that she has so far continuedto interpret the judges position solely in

light of her own, and on her own terms. From her perspective, as we saw, what matters

is to act in accordance with the dictates of her conscience, and she expects that allwillrecognize and sanction such a course of action. Having recognized and acknowledged that

the judge is also acting as he feels he must in light of his own best understanding of the

situation they share, she expects that her confession will be automatically acknowledged

and accepted by the judge, in the same way that she had previously expected her own

claims to conscience to find an immediately accepting audience.

Reconciliation, or forgiveness, can only come, on Hegels account, when both agent

and judge come to acknowledge not merely that conscientious conflict is possibleso that

the recognition of the validity of ones claims can never be automatically expectedbut

that the very character of the claim to conscience calls forth such conflict. Each must cometo recognize, in the opposed claims of the other, the experience of necessity that animates

his or her own claims. Moreover, each must come to recognize the essential bearing of

opposed claims upon his or her own conscientious character. As Hegel puts it, just as the

former [agent] has to surrender its one-sided, unacknowledged existence of its particular

being-for-self, so too must this other set aside its one-sided, unacknowledged judgment.34

The acting consciousness has recognized the demands of its own conscience to include

respect for the demands of the other, and therefore no longer takes the recognitionof her

claims to conscience by this other as inessential to her own identity as a conscientious

agent. Likewise, the judge must come to recognize that what is essential is not the legiti-macy of his judgmentper se, but thatthe agent herself come to recognizethe legitimacy

of his judgement, and thereby come to judge herself.

Forgiveness, for Hegel, is not merely a matter of accepting and tolerating the finitude

and partiality of the stances adopted by others, any more than confession was a matter

of automatically giving up such a partial stance. Forgiveness does, however, come to

recognize the futility of a merely externalcriticism. It involves the acceptance of the

other in its uniqueness, as a self-determining being who is not in principle confined to the

particular, finite stance it appears to adopt, but who will nevertheless accept and respond

only to criticism that it can understand on its own terms. At the same time, the forgiving

conscience comes to acknowledge that the criticism of others cannot itself be merely

external, and recognizes the demand to come to comprehend as necessary the experience

of ones own shared situation with others that called forth precisely this concern. Forgive-

ness, in Hegels sense, is thus not something that one can decidewhether or not to extend

to the other; to forgive involves, rather, the compulsion to respond to and acknowledge

the other as genuinely conscientious, both in the sense that she responds to hers own

situation as she knows best and in the sense that her own appraisal of a shared situation

cannot be ignored or taken lightly.Conscientious forgiveness lives up to the demands of recognition insofar as it identifies

as genuineuniversality only what is forged in the process whereby particular encounters

with others, from whom the conscientious agent differentiates herself, in fact progres-

sively reveal to her who she is herself as an individual in the first place. In Hegels words,

conscientious forgiveness beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universalessence, in


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its opposite, in the pure knowledge of itself quaabsolutely self-contained and exclusive

individualitya reciprocal recognition which is absoluteSpirit.35According to this re-

sult there can be no genuine universality or community except that which emerges out of

particular situations wherein individuals discover themselves and the character of the situ-ation they share with others only in and through their acknowledgement of the compelling

character of the others affirmation of difference. The community that is achieved between

them is not a community that exists prior to these opposed individuals, a shared identity

that they come to realize they had already possessed. It is not even the community that

comes by way of affirming differences in advance, and that for that reason overlooks the

formative role of differences in establishing identity. It is, rather, the unity that emerges

through the dynamic interaction and opposition of distinct individuals, who refuse to be

assimilated by each other and yet because they recognize this refusal in the other as well,

discover who and how they are by affirming and identifying with the other in their differ-ences. They discover the uniqueness of their own experienced demands precisely insofar

as they open themselves up to a discovery and awareness of the demands that animate the

actions of others. This self-discovery, moreover, is just as much a matter of self-formation

or self-creation, insofar as it involves the active reformulation of the boundaries between

each individual and her others, that takes place as each comes to comprehend ever more

adequately the necessity that motivates the activities of these others to be a necessity ac-

cording to which she herself bound.

III. Spirit as an Emerging, Situated WholeIn an essay entitled Hegels Concept of Geist, Robert Williams points out the difficul-

ties involved in interpreting what Hegel means by Spirit. He contrasts interpretations that

consider Spirit to be largely a development of Kants transcendental ego with what he

calls a social-intersubjective interpretation of Geist. When Spirit is interpreted along

transcendental lines, he argues, it founders on the problem of intersubjectivity. Whether

social encounters and developments are conceived as the immanent unfolding of the condi-

tions of human subjectivity or as the self-othering of transcendent divinity, there appears

to be no room in such an interpretation for an otherness that is not already conditioned by

a prior unity or identity. According to Williams, it is Hegels concept of recognitionthat

provides the key to a conception of Spirit that does justice to the ontological transcendence

of the other. Spirit, he argues, is not a transcendental structure a priori, but rather a

result, an intersubjective accomplishment.36He acknowledges, however, that it is not clear

whether and how this interpretation of Spirit as social infinite can be reconciled with an

idealist conception of Spirit as self-identical unity, a conception that does appear also to

play an undeniably important role throughout Hegels writings. My concluding remarks

will aim to show that Williams is right to insist upon the intersubjective and emergent

character of Hegelian Spirit. At the same time, however, I will seek to demonstrate thatthe intersubjectively emerging Spirit is rightlydescribed just as much as a self-identical

unity or totality from which differences emerge.37

I have claimed that the universality of Hegelian Spirit, and its relation to otherness in

general, is best conceived on the model of the phenomenon of conscientious reconciliation.

This is not to say that, for Hegel, Spirit is ultimately to be found onlyin conscientious


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conflict and reconciliation. In that case, if Spirit is universal, it would appear that the logi-

cal dynamic uncovered in thissituation is one that, strictly speaking, has no other. The

universality of Spirit would be abstract, and Hegelian philosophy would amount to the

attempt to applythe terms of the phenomenological dynamic we have discovered in ourstudy of conscience and forgiveness to a diverse range of phenomena. This universality

would consist, like the abstract formalism of certain strands of idealism that Hegel criticizes

in his Preface, of the shapeless repetition of one and the same formula, only externally

applied to diverse materials, thereby obtaining merely a boring show of diversity.38I want

to suggest, in conclusion, an alternative sense in which his account of conscience and

forgiveness can be considered paradigmatic for Hegels conception of Spirit in general: the

universality of the culminating dynamic of Hegels account of Spirit should be conceived

precisely on the model of the universality that this dynamic itself reveals.

The result of this culminating moment of conscience is that universality and communityis never pregiven. It is the result of situated selves coming to terms with one another in and

through their discovery of differences. Community can only be created and established

through exemplaryencounters, wherein opposed individuals reveal to themselves and

to each other the nature and implications of their own expectations, precisely as these

expectations call forth opposition or resistance from others who are differently situated.

It is not, moreover, just that these opposed selves come better to understandthemselves

by relating to their other. Rather, they becomethemselves only as each begins to acquire

through the other a genuine sense for the sigularity of his or her own situation. For that

reason, however, the process itself does not prioritize either the one or the other, because,as Hegel writes in the account of recognition discussed above, what is to happen can only

be brought about by both.39What does happen is that, as a result of the dynamic interplay

of their contrasting perspectives, a situatedunity is forged, that reveals and embraces the

mutually implicating character of just these particular perspectives.

The results of this process are always particular, in the sense that the result is always

the formation of a determinate shape of community in which uniquely situated individu-

als have to some degree come to terms with their differences. For that reason, what is

learned in this result cannot be applied as a formal structure to other situations. The

process itself makes manifest that universality can only emerge out of the particularity of

contrast, wherein is established in the first place the singularity or uniqueness of opposed

individual moments. What is indicated in this process, however, can illuminate experience

generally according to the logic of this result. The result itself teaches us how we are to

read this result in relation to other forms of experience that are not explicitly included in

the analysis of conscientious conflict, or even how we are to read this result in relation

to forms of conscientious conflict other than ones that rest on the specific grounds that I

have identified above.

Just as the conscientious agent invokes judgment in proclaiming herself to be con-scientious, so the claim that the situation of conscientious conflict and reconciliation is

exemplary of Spirit calls upon itself a contrast with other forms of experience, whose dy-

namics are unique to themselves. The identification of such forms of experience constitutes

a judgement with respect to the alleged universality of the result we have developed. The

judgement cannot be ignored, and to respond to it requires a serious investigation of this


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new form of experience that will both illuminate our grasp of the distinctive character of

the experience Hegel has examined in his discussion of conscience, and will establish a

linkage between these forms in their illuminative contrasts.

What makes the situation of conscientious conflict exemplary of Spirit is that theuniversality achieved therein emerges precisely from the recognition on the part of both

agent and judge that their claims are the expression of particular perspectives, that have

their significance only in the dynamic interplay with the claims of others. The self-knowing

that emerges in this situation is absolutein the sense that it is absolvedfrom a dependence

upon an otherness of which it is completely unaware. Conscientious forgiveness knows

that its comprehension of the situation wherein it acts is finite, and knows that the truth

of its situation is only that revealed through the process whereby it takes the risk to act

in spite of limitations, and is attentive to the responses this action invokes upon itself.

The absoluteness of the Spirit that takes shape within this situation is not opposed to theessentially intersubjective process of recognition, for it is absoluteand unitary only by

announcing the irreducibility of difference, through the recognition of itself aslimited

in ways that are so far unanticipated.40As Hegel writes of the word of reconciliation

wherein forgiveness is expressed, it is the objectively existent Spirit, which beholds the

pure knowledge of itself qua universalessence, in its opposite, in the pure knowledge of

itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individualitya reciprocal recognition

which is absoluteSpirit.41

Eckerd College

Notes

1. Thematized powerfully in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, for example. Similar conclusions

are reached in the work of a wide range of feminist philosophers and social theorists.

2. References to HegelsPhenomenology of Spirit

throughout this essay will be to the num-bered paragraphs in the translation by A. V. Miller, indicated by an M followed by the paragraph

number. These references will be followed in each case by references to the German edition of the

Phnomenologie des Geistes, hrsg. v. Hans-Friedrich Wessels und Heinrich Clairmont, indicated

by W/C and then the page number. The current reference is to M26, W/C 19.

3. M439, W/C 289; in chap. VI, entitled Spirit.

4. M178185, W/C 127129.

5. Language and Recognition, p. 89.

6. Ibid., p. 90.

7. Ibid., p. 89.

8. Conscience and Transgression: The Exemplarity of Tragic Action, p. 79.

9. Several commentators who interpret Hegel in this way are cited by Daniel Dahlstrom

in The Dialectic of Conscience and the Necessity of Morality in Hegels Philosophy of Right.

Bradleys famous essay My Station and Its Duties is an attempt to argue (along Hegelian lines)


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for a modern-day ethics that puts the Sittlichkeitof finding oneself situated within and obligated

to ones larger community abovethe claims of conscience that insist on obedience only to what

conscience recognizes as right. By contrast, Bernstein argues in Conscience and Transgression:

The Exemplarity of Tragic Action, that the moment of self-conscious self-formation that is

emphasized in claims to conscience cannot be subordinated communitarian demands. He writes:

There is an assumption in the literature that Hegel is a communitarian and, more to the point, that

all obligations are sittlichBradleyan my station and its duties. But if for Hegel we are free and

self-determining, then not all obligations can be sittlichin character; to believe that would involve

adding only a level of reflexivity to the sittlichobligations of the kind found in the Greekpolisand

ignoring the formation of individuality and self-consciousness that is the medium of Spirits com-

ing to self-consciousness, p. 80. Other commentators who maintain the priority of conscience in

Hegels account of Spirit include H. S. Harris (inHegels Ladder) and John Russon (in The Self

and its Body in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit).

10. Of course the Philosophy of Righthas a different aim than does the Phenomenology of Spirit,so we should not expect the account of conscience to be identical. Whereas the Phenomenology

is explicitly an investigation of knowledge, the Philosophy of Rightis concerned primarily with

freedom, and deals with knowledge only insofar as this has bearing upon the explicit formulation of

the concept of right. In the case of conscience and morality, however, we should expect the results

of these two books to converge, insofar as moral agents have the rightto be judged in accordance

with their knowledge of the situation wherein they act. My aim in the present section will not be to

make a conclusive case for the compatibility of the Philosophy of Rightand the Phenomenology

on the issue of conscience (but see Dahlstroms The Dialectic of Conscience and the Necessity of

Morality in Hegels Philosophy of Right, which could at least serve as the basis for demonstrating

this compatibility). My aim is rather to indicate that there is no immediately compelling reasonto consider Hegels argument in the Philosophy of Rightthat conscience as it comes up in that

context cannot serve as the basis for an adequate conception of rightas a refutation of the posi-

tion of primacy that conscience appears to occupy in the Phenomenology of Spirit. In neither case

is theformaldoctrine of conscience taken to be sufficient to the claims that are put forward in its

behalf. Yet in both cases, as I will show, conscience continues to play an essential role even after

its merely formal character is overcome.

11. What follows is merely a sketch of the basic stages of Hegels argument. For a good general

discussion of the argument of the Philosophy of Rightas a whole that has the merit of being concise,

see Stephen Houlgates Freedom, Truth and History, chap. 3.

12. The first section of Hegels analysis of Morality is thus entitled Purpose and Responsibility.

13. The second section of Hegels analysis of Morality is entitled Intention and Welfare.

14. Hegel writes: My particularity, however, like that of others, is only a right at all in so far

as I amfree. It cannot therefore assert itself in contradiction to this substantial basis on which it

rests, Philosophy of Right, 126.

15. Compare Philosophy of Right, 134.

16. The third and final section of Hegels analysis of Morality is entitled The Good and

Conscience.

17. Philosophy of Right, 136.

18. Ibid., 137.

19. The Dialectic of Conscience and the Necessity of Morality in Hegels Philosophy of Spirit,

p. 185.


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20. Hegel himself appears to say as much in a remark appended to 137 in the Philosophy

of Right: At the level of morality, distinguished as it is in this book from the level of ethics, it is

only formal conscience that is to be found. True conscience has been mentioned only to indicate

its distinction from the other and to obviate the possible misunderstanding that here [i.e., in the

section on morality], where it is only formal conscience that is under consideration, the argument

is about true conscience. The latter is part of the ethical disposition which comes before us for the

first time in the following section [i.e., in the section on ethics].

21. The Self and Its Body in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 84. My account in this para-

graph of the general dynamics of Hegels Spirit chapter, according to which the movement of the

chapter turns on the progressive recognition that each form of community depends for its existence

upon a moment of the process of recognition that this form of community works systematically to

exclude, relies upon interpretations developed in this and other studies of the Phenomenology of

Spiritby John Russon.

22. InHegels Transcendental Induction, Peter Simpson describes the position of conscience,as it emerges out of the confusions of the moral world view, in similar terms: the conscientious self

is the self that knows it must act to carry out its duty, no matter what. The conscientious self is

the self that places the need to realize its duty above the complications that morality produces. . . .

[C]onscience posits the necessity of action under the conditions of a limited or situated singularity

as the universally recognized truth of experiencing, p. 94.

23. M642, W/C 422.

24. M642, W/C 422.

25. M654, W/C 430.

26. M656, W/C 431.

27. As it is described by Shklar in Freedom and Independence, p. 191.

28. M659, W/C 433.

29. M659, W/C 433.

30. It is just this character of individual action as compelling in its singularity that is focused upon

by the genre of Romantic literature that proclaims the ideal of the Beautiful Soul. Hegel explicitly

references the figure of the Beautiful Soul only at two significant dead ends in the argument of

his text: the beautiful soul whose sole object is to express itself, by producing an image of itself as

beautiful in its isolation from the world, and yet fails to discover itself in these very images (M658,W/C 432433); and the judging consciousness whose sole action is to condemn and renounce all

action (M667668, W/C 438440). But see Jean Hyppolites commentary on this section in Genesis

and Structure of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit. Hyppolite traces in Hegels text five separate

significations of the beautiful soul, all of which have a place in the literature of Romanticism. See

also Benjamin Saxs article Active Individuality and the Language of Confession: The Figure of

the Beautiful Soul in theLehrjahre and thePhnomenologie.

31. M660, W/C 434.

32. See Hegels Poetics of Action, p. 38; Bernstein borrows and extends the language of irony

in relation to the position of conscience from Hegels own concluding remarks on conscience in thePhilosophy of Right(in a remark to 140, under heading f).

33. According to the judge, as Hegel explains, one cannot even consider the agents employ-

ment of the principle of conscience as a sign of respect for its sanctity, for the fact that [she] uses

what is an essence as a being-for-anotherimplies rather [her] own contempt for that essence, and


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the exposure to everyone of its own lack of any substantial being. For what lets itself be used as an

external instrument shows itself to be a thing which possesses no importance of its own, M661.

34. M669, W/C 440.

35. M670, W/C 441.

36. Hegels Concept of Geist, pp. 23. It should be noted that character of Spirit as an intersub-

jective achievement is not lost on those who interpret Hegels concept of Spirit as a development and

transformation of Kants transcendental ego. Merold Westphal, for example, who Williams identifies

as one for whom Hegels philosophy is regarded as an instance of transcendental philosophy (p. 2),

insists that spirit is a social reality, a unity of individual human selves, not a timeless metaphysical

reality . . . something present, not a supersensible beyond. Yet he also argues that Hegelian Spirit

must be conceived as absolute, a self-developing socialwhole.

37. Williams attempts to show that his account can be reconciled with Hegels descriptions

of Spirit as self-identical totality by pointing out that through the process of recognition a We isformed, to which the other is no longer alien (see Hegels Concept of Geist, pp. 1617). But if the

We is merelya result, that makes it difficult to see how it can also be the groundof differences.

38. M15, W/C 12.

39. M182, W/C 121.

40. Compare Burbidges account of the absolute in Hegel: The only thing that is genuinely

absolute, that is without any condition and any restriction, is not an entity identified by a noun, but

a living process in which each absolute realization of spirit is overturned in favour of another that

is more truly absolute, in Hegels Absolutes, pp. 3334.

41. M670, W/C 441.

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