The Laws of the Spirit

Download or read book The Laws of the Spirit written by Shannon Hoff and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from a variety of Hegel's writings, Shannon Hoff articulates a theory of justice that requires answering simultaneously to three irreducibly different demands: those of community, universality, and individuality. The domains of "ethicality," "legality," and "morality" correspond to these essential dimensions of human experience, and a political system that fails to give adequate recognition to any one of these will become oppressive. The commitment to legality emphasized in modern and contemporary political life, Hoff argues, systematically precludes adequate recognition of the formative cultural contexts that Hegel identifies under the name of "ethical life" and of singular experiences of moral duty, or conscience. Countering the perception of Hegel as a conservative political thinker and engaging broadly with contemporary work in liberalism, critical theory, and feminism, Hoff focuses on these themes of ethicality and conscience to consider how modern liberal politics must be transformed if it is to accommodate these essential dimensions of human life.