Hegel's Theory of Normativity

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This essay offers an interpretation of Hegel's theory of normativity according to which normative evaluation is primarily a matter of a thing's answerability to its own constitutive norms. I show that natural and spiritual norms correspond to two different species of normative evaluation for Hegel, two categorically distinct ways something can violate its own constitutive norms. I conclude with some general reflections on the relationship between normativity and ontology in Hegel's system.

Hegel on the Normativity of Animal Life

“…: § §217-22. For more on the 'triad of processes', see, in addition to Alznauer (2016) and Rand (2015), Khurana (2013: 175ff. ) and (2017: 343ff.)…”

“…And what makes for an ‘important role’, anyway? Alznauer tells us this much: We should look to the ‘necessary determinations of the concept of life itself’ (2016: 204), which Hegel spells out in terms of the three processes I outlined in the previous subsection. But is this inquiry into the ‘necessary conditions of the concept of life itself’ an a priori enterprise?…”

“…We pick out which of the given organism's features and capacities are essential to it by seeing which features play an important role in the way organisms of that kind grow, assimilate, and reproduce. (2016: 204)…”

“…For his part, Alznauer, as we have seen, writes that essential features, namely, those that serve as a standard by which to appraise organisms as sound or defective, are picked out ‘by seeing which features play an important role in the way organisms of that kind grow, assimilate, and reproduce’ (2016: 204). The connection I have drawn between Hegel's Gattungsprozess , teleology, and normativity spells out Alznauer's position by providing a principled way of identifying the features that play that ‘important role’ in animal life, according to Hegel.…”

“…Nonetheless, he is adamant (contra Rand) that both plant and animal specimens can be appraised as normatively sound or defective in as much as they exhibit or lack features that characterize the species or kind to which they belong. Alznauer rightly notes that ‘Hegel does not think that every divergence of the organism from one of the general characteristics of its species counts as a defect’ (Alznauer 2016: 204). What matters for the purposes of the normative evaluation of organisms are the ‘essential’ features or characteristics.…”