Against the general ideological background set in the last chapter, it is not hard to see why Hegel felt compelled to rethink his conception of Sittlichkeit. The cumulative impact of his study of the fiscal policy of the Bernese oligarchy and his reading of various Scottish writings on political economy as well as his awareness of the foreclosure of opportunities for political reform in Württemberg after 1798 convinced him that his initial understanding of Sittlichkeit had been rather naively formulated. He realized that his early conception of Sittlichkeit had ignored the economic interest factor as a powerful determinant not only of men's actions but also of their perceptions of the possibility of action in any given social situation.

Before Hegel, Ferguson had understood this very well. Hence, the importance of the distinction Ferguson drew in the Essay between “wisdom” and “interest,” a distinction he believed his commercially minded contemporaries had badly confused. According to Ferguson, this confusion reduced wisdom to a matter of utility and material calculation, with the result that man's sense of wisdom was now being measured less in terms of his “human” (i.e., moral) than in terms of his “animal” (i.e., economic) nature. As Ferguson saw it, this was a dangerous way of thinking, for it made “preservation of our animal nature” not just a “constant” and necessary everyday concern of man but the “principal constituent of human felicity” as well.

This economic factor – this way of thinking by which man in commercial society gave increasing priority to the importance of material interests in the organization of collective life – is precisely what Hegel tried to address in his work between 1796 and 1804.