Hegel's social and political thought has been studied by philosophers, even more by political theorists and historians of ideas. Treatments of it have usually neglected the philosophical foundations of Hegel's theory of society and politics. By “philosophical foundations” I do not mean Hegel's speculative metaphysics. I suspect that one of the reasons why Hegel's ethical theory has been neglected is that it has been supposed that this is what “philosophical foundations” has to mean in his case. If you decide to examine those foundations more closely, you know before long that you are in for a difficult and generally unrewarding time of it, at least from the standpoint of social and political theory. If you are sensible, you will try to avoid that. If you are not so sensible, you will humbug yourself into thinking that there is some esoteric truth in Hegelian dialectical logic which provides a hidden key to his social thought.

What I mean by “philosophical foundations” is the ethical theory on which Hegel rests his critical reflections on modern social and political life. This subject has been neglected partly because some believe it to be nonexistent. I hope to show that such beliefs are seriously in error. Hegel's philosophical orientation does tend to obscure his ethical theory, and that ethical theory does not fall into the familiar patterns of consequentialism and deontologism, but involves a critique of them.