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.Then, in a later essay,Hegel praises the monarch of Württemberg for introducing arational constitution that comprises universal truths of consti-tutionalism (VVL, IV, 471/254).Among these truths are equalitybefore the law, the right of the estates to consent to new taxes, andthe representation of the people. 210 HegelThe problems with all three readings raise anew the question:Does Hegel really have a single coherent doctrine, one that saves thestrengths and cancels the weaknesses of voluntarism, rationalismand historicism? He indeed does have such a doctrine, though it isprofoundly metaphysical, resting upon his absolute idealism.Hegel s theory about the sources of normativity is based on hissocial and historical conception of reason, which ultimately derivesfrom his Aristotelian view that universals exist only in re or in par-ticular things.The fundamental claim behind this conception is thatreason is embodied in the culture and language of a people at aspecific place and time.There are two more basic theses behind thisclaim, both of them deeply Aristotelian.First, the embodiment thesis:that reason exists as the specific ways of talking, writing and actingamong a specific people at a specific time.This thesis states that tounderstand reason, we must first ask Where is reason? , In whatdoes it exist? It claims that the answer must lie in the language,traditions, laws and history of a specific culture at a specific timeand place.Second, a teleological thesis: that reason also consists in thetelos of a nation, the fundamental values or goals that it strives torealize in all its activities.The teleological thesis derives fromHegel s immanent teleology, which he applies to the historicalworld as well as the natural.Hegel thinks that just as each organismin the natural world has a formal final cause, so each organism inthe social world has such a cause, which consists in its definingvalues or ideals.In his philosophy of history Hegel will argue thatthese values and ideals play a decisive role in determining theactions of people in a culture, even if they do not pursue them in anorganized and co-ordinated manner, and even if they are not awareof them (pp.267 70).True to his immanent teleology, Hegel understands norms andvalues essentially as the formal final causes of things.The norm orlaw for a thing consists in its formal final cause, which is both itspurpose and essence.In Aristotle, the form or essence of a thingand its purpose or end are essentially one and the same, because it Freedom and the Foundation of Right 211is the purpose or end of a thing to realize or develop its inneressence or nature.Hence we determine whether something is goodor bad, right or wrong, according to whether it realizes this pur-pose or essence.The good or right is that which promotes therealization of this end; the bad or wrong is that which prevents itsrealization.It is important to see that this formal final cause has both anormative and an ontological status: a normative status because athing ought to realize its essence; and an ontological status becausethis essence exists in things as their underlying cause and potential-ity.It is for this reason that norms have an objective status forHegel: the formal final causes are in things whether or not werecognize or assent to them.It is also for this reason, however, thatnorms are not simply to be identified with whatever happens toexist: the norm is what is essential to a thing, and it is not necessarythat it is realized in all circumstances.Since the norm has an object-ive status, existing inherently in things, we cannot understand it,pace the voluntarists, as the result of convention or agreement; butsince the norm is also the essence of a thing, its ideal or intrinsicnature that it might not realize in its specific circumstances, we alsocannot reduce it down to any accidental or incidental facts, such asthe present status quo, pace the historicists.Hence Hegel breaksdecisively with one of the basic premises of the voluntarist tradi-tion: the distinction between is and ought , between facts andvalues.But in doing so he never fell into the historicist camp, whichvirtually conflated ought and is by identifying the rational withany set of social and historical circumstances.In fundamental respects, Hegel s Aristotelian doctrine placeshim very firmly in the scholastic branch of the natural law tradition.It was indeed Aristotle s metaphysics that inspired some of theclassics of that tradition, such as Hooker s Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie(1597) and Suarez s De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore (1612).Hegel wasfully aware of his debt to the Aristotelian natural law tradition,which he was intent on preserving and continuing.It is indeed for 212 Hegelthis reason that he subtitles the Philosophy of Right Natural Law andPolitical Science in Outline.It would be a serious mistake, however, tosee Hegel s theory simply as a revival of the traditional scholasticdoctrine.For, in two basic respects, Hegel transforms that traditionso that it accords with his modern age
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