Hegel and Liberalism: Posing a Problem

Abstract

In her article the authoress poses a question whether is it possible to say, contrary to common agreement, that Hegel's political thought contains the elements of liberal political thought. She shows, through the examination of The Elements of the Philosophy of Right, that Hegel's definition of an individual as a being of reason and as a free being at the same time, points in the direction of liberalism and its preoccupation with the freedom and autonomy of the individual. Hegel’s key emphasis, however, is that freedom of free choice already presupposes a choice already made, a forced choice of the frame of the free choice itself, which an individual has to take upon himself/herself.