Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination

8. Hegel's Theory of Crime and Evil: (Re)tracing the Rights of the Sovereign Self

Chapter 8 Hegel’s Theory of Crime and Evil (Re)tracing the Rights of the Sovereign Self Introduction This is the second chapter in our argument about Henry V’s character. Last chapter we looked at his ostensible virtue. This chapter we look at Hegel’s theory of evil. Next chapter, we look at various kinds of princely evil in order to nail down just what sort of evil Henry V’s character exhibits. Then, in Chapter 10, we will be able to resolve our questions about whether an absolute justice is possible and what it must involve. We begin with a look at Hegel’s account of evil in art. Hegel contrasts ancient with modern. He prefers the ancients, but he nonetheless holds Shakespeare to be exceptional because of Shakespeare’s ability to portray evil. Then we enter the main argument of the chapter. Hegel holds that evil is a product of the movement of Aufhebung. Rather than giving rise to ghostly contradictions or succumbing to an inner oracle that has no ear for the social clock, evil is a shape of sovereign self-certainty that reigns over contradictions precisely by tuning in to the times and rising above them. The reign of evil is based on the particularity of the individual and his aims and is therefore unjust. We begin the main argument with Hegel’s account of the general dialectical shape of evil. We look at his account of the role of crime and evil and in the development of the State. Then we look at the nature and psychology of evil in Hegel’s theory, focusing on its sundering (aufhebende) character. According to Hegel, evil is a product of the movement of the dialectic in the sphere of morality. It is one that must ultimately be overcome if there is to be a properly rational social dialectic. 183 184 Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination Finally, with all this in mind, we retrace the shapes of Sovereign self that we have been investigating in the History plays. Part I. Hegel’s View of Evil in Art1 Evil Is Worthless Unless in Greatness of Character; Greek Drama Is More Substantial in Its Collisions Hegel’s view in the Aesthetics is that “evil is in general inherently cold and worthless, because nothing comes of it except what is purely negative, just destruction and misfortune, whereas genuine art should give us a view of an inner harmony.”2 Hegel asserts that it is better tolerated if it is “elevated and carried by an intrinsically worthy greatness of character and aim, but evil as such, envy, cowardice, and baseness are and remain purely repugnant.”3 Hegel repeatedly contrasts Greek and the German Romantic Art (not Hegel’s Romantic Art Form but the ironic kind he dislikes) on the topic of evil. There is substance in the ills and sorrows of the ancient Greek dramas but not in the modern romantic ones. Modern dramas wallow in abstract evil. In Greek tragedy, “the occasion for collisions is produced by the moral justification of a specific act, and not at all by an evil will, a crime, or infamy, or by mere misfortune, blindness, and the like. For evil in the abstract has no truth in itself and is of no interest.”4 According to Hegel, the collisions in Greek drama are of “equally justified powers and individuals.”5 When horrible actions are performed in ancient art there is no romantic celebration of them. “[T]he harshness, wickedness infamy, and hideousness which gain a place in romantic art remain altogether foreign to classical.” Instead, there is a kind of social rationale for what happens : Horrible actions “partly commanded and defended by the gods . . . are every time represented one way or another as possessed of an actually immanent justification.”6 Shakespeare Is an Exception. He Interests Us Even in Vulgar Clouts and Fools For Hegel, Shakespeare has a particular excellence that is absent in most Romantic artists. He points to Shakespeare’s King Lear as an example: “The great poets and artists of antiquity . . . do not give us the spectacle of wickedness and depravity. Shakespeare, on the other hand, in Lear, for example, brings evil before us in its entire dreadfulness.”7 As we have seen, Hegel writes that Shakespeare portrays, “on the infinite breadth of his ‘world-stage’ the extremes of evil and folly,” investing his characters with such imagination that “he makes them free artists of their own selves, and thereby, with...