Commentary on Mark Tunick’s
“Hegel’s Justification of Hereditary Monarchy”

WILLIAM J. URBAN

Knowing something of his reputation as an intellectual radical who fully recognizes the need for accepting historical constraints, modern readers of Philosophy of Right1 might not be surprised that Hegel concludes his early 19th century work by embracing the constitutional form of government as that which is most compatible with a free and rational political order. The first two sections of ‘Abstract Right’ and ‘Morality’ exposes our most cherished and self-imposed freedoms – as expressed in our contractual and moral obligations with others – as mere abstractions which only gain concrete significance in the ‘Ethical Life’ of the historically developed institutions of the modern state. So we are readily prepared to accept Hegel’s general argument that the state’s will is the concrete free will of the people. What is much more difficult to accept is exactly who should have the final word regarding the actual content of the state’s will, for according to Hegel, neither a democratically elected head of state nor a ‘philosopher king’ is proper. Rather, a monarch chosen by a hereditary principle of succession is claimed to be the most rational method of selection for the highest public office. This is not only unexpected, but for many a most disappointing climax to a work whose praise for freedom echoes from every page. To leave such important decisions concerning the free will of the state to one whose only qualification is to have been born into such a privileged position is thought to be anything but rational.

Accordingly, there is no shortage of Hegelian commentators who have set out to save Hegel from himself by offering alternative explanations for the inclusion of hereditary monarchy in Philosophy of Right.2 Mark Tunick is one such recent commentator and in this paper we will consider the merits of his essay entitled ‘Hegel’s Justification of Hereditary Monarchy.’ While he acknowledges Hegel’s political radicalism for his time, we shall see that his unfortunate dismissal of Hegel’s dialectical argumentation for hereditary monarchy inadvertently removes the most persuasive ground for Tunick’s own thesis of Hegel’s continued relevance to contemporary politics.

Tunick’s strategy is announced in the opening remarks in his essay, where he implies that he will be considering Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie as a political rather than as a metaphysical text. More specifically, he wants to do so by showing ‘the plausibility and relevance, of what appears to be one of the most metaphysical (and bizarre) claims to be found in Hegel’s political philosophy: his justification of hereditary monarchy.’ (Tunick 1991: 482)3 But just how he proceeds to do so is rather curious. We would expect him to take these metaphysical claims head on to demonstrate their supposed implausibility, but what he actually does is dismiss them outright with little to no explanation of why they should be so categorically dismissed. Perhaps we can see why he does so by considering the topological image he invokes when discussing Marx’s own dismissal of Hegel’s philosophy. Tunick characterizes the world of Marx’s Hegel as one in which ‘the space for politics is occupied by a house of logic.’ In Tunick’s mind, the only way to open up the political dimension in Hegel’s philosophy, where choices could be ‘made collectively’ and where we would be able ‘to argue and persuade, to judge among possibilities’ is to expel Hegel’s ‘house of logic’ from this space. (ibid) He seems to believe that Hegel’s specific arguments about hereditary monarchy, isolated from their larger speculative context, will suffice to hold open this political space. For Tunick, there is apparently a ‘political Hegel’ that stands apart from the more traditional figure of a ‘metaphysical Hegel’ to consider.

In contrast to this approach, we argue that there is no former without the latter Hegel, that far from the ‘house of logic’ crowding out politics, Hegel’s dialectical argumentation for hereditary monarchy actually makes such a political space possible in the first place. What we have in mind is how the monarchy is doubly inscribed in Philosophy of Right: it represents an institution that is justified by a progressing dialectical logic, but simultaneously is also an institution that serves in a critical capacity within that logic’s progression. That is to say, as an institution placed at the top of Hegel’s rational, developmental structure, it serves to best cultivate freedom in the state and thereby simultaneously participates in its own justification of why it should properly occupy the culminating point of that structure.

Obviously unintended by Tunick, the terminology he uses in setting out the main structuring principle in the essay implicitly validates the above argument which serves as a critique to his approach. He writes that Hegel’s justification of hereditary monarchy falls under one of two types. To be rejected are the so-called ‘foundational’ arguments that appeal to first principles, those axioms which ground the institution via some metaphysical conception. The two main variations here include Hegel’s speculative logic in general, as well as the historical unfolding of the Idea. (Tunick 1991: 486–8) To be embraced are what Tunick calls Hegel’s ‘nonfoundational’ arguments which are a ‘preponderance of good reasons, merely a persuasive account.’ These are specifically defined as lacking a solid logical proof. (Ibid 488) Albeit on the unconscious terminological level, with this approach he effectively acknowledges that the (rather demanding) dialectical logic actually used by Hegel is precisely what ‘founds’ the very space occupied by an institution whose existence is more readily understandable by ‘nonfoundational’ reasons. But the price Tunick pays for this approach is that it is no longer really justifiable by Hegel’s text. By dismissing the founding Hegelian dialectical logic which justifies the space the monarchy occupies in the structure, Tunick is forced to defend the institution solely on account of its prudential and consequentialist considerations, something which Hegel explicitly rules out. As Hegel writes, in the case of constitutional monarchy, ‘the one thing which we must bear in mind is the internal necessity of the Idea; all other considerations are irrelevant.’ (PR § 279A) The space the monarch occupies is logically prior, a space justified by a necessary set of metaphysical reasons that Hegel tells us are not to be set aside. Nor need they be, as they are perfectly compatible with those more palpable (‘nonfoundational) political considerations Tunick exclusively examines.

Nevertheless, Tunick essentially agrees with Marx that Hegel’s claim of the Idea justifying hereditary monarchy is a ‘mystification,’ something which can only ‘be understood as rooted in human illusion.’ (Tunick 1991: 485) Moreover, Tunick accuses Hegel of invoking ‘philosophical expertise to silence political discussion’ and worries that such ‘dogmatic logical’ argumentation ‘will not be persuasive in practice; it is not political; the logic it presupposes fills the space for argument and persuasion, crowding out politics.’ (Ibid 487) But as Yack correctly argues, while ‘Hegel’s political ideas may become more accessible when they are abstracted from the systematic character of his arguments… this method loses the unity and completeness of his political reasoning, which alone make his bold claims sensible.’ (Yack 1980: 710) One can especially see this sensibleness when Hegel speaks at the general level. Consider that Hegel begins his argument by reasoning that the rationality of the monarchy is due to the form it takes, not from any deduction from higher principles. As per §272, the constitution is rational when its inwardly differentiated structure corresponds to the structure of the Idea of reason: the monarchic, executive and legislative powers are respectively seen as the individual, particular and universal of the Idea. In the remarks to the next paragraph, we are told that this ‘development of the state to constitutional monarchy is the achievement of the modern world, in which the substantial Idea has attained infinite form.’ No longer is the legitimacy of the monarchy deduced from higher principles, as in feudalism where the divine right of kings provided the primary justification. Hegel rejects all such deduction from abstract principles as insufficient reasons for monarchy. Rather, his concern is with the inherent rationality or necessary reason in constitutional monarchy. And perhaps surprisingly, this points us not toward further rational abstractions (which might sympathetically dispose us toward Tunick’s dismissal of Hegel’s speculative approach), but rather forces us to seriously consider actual, historically functioning constitutions. (Yack 1980: 711)

In feudal monarchy, neither the state nor the monarch was truly sovereign because right was not derived from the state, but rather was conceived as simply belonging to the individuals and institutions that made up the state. (PR § 278R) In contrast, modern monarchy begins when the monarch is recognized as the embodiment of the state’s authority. And it is not just that constitutional monarchy emerges after the establishment of the modern world. Rather, it has to emerge in the modern world. Internal sovereignty is the specific feature of the modern state which necessitates that it be constitutional and be headed by a monarchy. (Houlgate 1997: 56) While Tunick does speak of the differences between the feudal and the modern monarchy, he does not seem to grasp the crucial point of the necessity that the modern state be a monarchy because of the state’s internal sovereignty. He has a rather simplistic notion that the monarchy is a necessary institution of a modern state because it must provide an efficient representation of the state’s sovereignty in a single symbolic figure. Although he does rightly admit that the monarch is not just a mere symbol of the unity of the state, it is also true he fails to indicate how one is to further conceptualize that office beyond its symbolic functioning. (Tunick 1991: 483) Further, he provides much unsupported speculation that Hegel must have had in mind a monarch who functions rather like a paternal authority figure, functioning as ‘an instrument of Bildung, or education and shaping, which prepares us for a life of commitment to the state,’ much like a child who is taught to obey his father for pedagogical purposes. (Ibid 484) However, Hegel actually considers the monarch qua symbol as secondary at best. True, his office is certainly representative of a unified political structure which was nonexistent in feudal times. But there is an objectivity here to consider as well. As Brudner succinctly puts it, ‘constitutional monarchy is the... adequate embodiment of the Idea of right and the consummation of history.’ (Brudner 1981: 121, emphasis added) In order to see this, we need to more closely examine Hegel’s Idea as it manifests itself in the modern institution of constitutional monarchy.

The Idea is not just a metaphysical abstraction, but a tool that uncovers the underlying reality of historical phenomena. It is a mistake to consider Hegel’s logic apart from its historical context, for the rational Idea is visible only in an actual historical setting. For Hegel, the necessary condition of the rational constitution is the modern development of the ‘German’ spirit. (Yack 1980: 712) This is so because Hegel saw Germany as a modern state that was rational, and only a rational state is a free state. This might seem like a contradiction, but his argument is quite persuasive. He argues that individuals have freedom, but it remains abstract without recognition of the will of the rational state as their own, at which point their freedom becomes substantial and truly self-determined. (PR § 257) Another way to understand this is to consider that the state is not a natural phenomenon, but rather a creation of the human will. But it is not simply the sum total of individual wills (as it was in feudal times), but rather the state is sovereign in that it has its own will. However, it is not an overwhelming power that stands over-against individual wills in some general, abstract sense; but rather it is something that must become concrete in order for true freedom to flourish. Everything hinges on how Hegel will argue just how this process of concretization is to occur.

Now, as we pointed out above, the state is composed of three elements: the monarch, the executive and the legislature. Due to our own, more democratic dispositions, we might well expect Hegel to make some argument for a balance of power, or some process in which ultimate decisions are arrived at through long deliberation, with no one element having a (formal) advantage over the others. Of course, Hegel argues just the opposite, telling us that the special status of the monarch is the key to a rational, modern state. Diamond points us to §285, in which Hegel indicates the exceptional status assigned to the office of the monarch: it is at once just one of the three moments of the state’s power, but simultaneously contains the whole state within itself. (Diamond 2004: 115) The monarch’s will stands over-against the individual wills in society, but in his office, his will immanently relates to those wills and so thereby actualizes them. In order to see exactly how this is accomplished, we need to closely examine the logic of this monarchical self-relation. The key paragraphs are §§276–281, where Hegel provides us the three moments of the universality of the sovereign power of the state as expressed through the monarch.

Hegel outlines the internal sovereignty of the state in the first three of these paragraphs, which explicitly tells us that – contra Tunick – the modern political state is not merely symbolically represented by the monarch. Rather, in §276 Hegel argues that the basic determination of the state is a ‘substantial unity or ideality of its moments.’ Hegel invokes the metaphor of an organic body in which all the particular powers and functions of the state are preserved not as independent elements, but rather only inasmuch as they are determined by the Idea of the whole organism. There is ‘fluidity’ here between individuals in their universal functions, so that particular personalities only stand in external and contingent relation to their objective capacities which belong to the state. These state powers thus cannot be privately held. (PR § 277) This marks the break with the institution of feudal monarchy, which should be thought of as an aggregate rather than as an organism. Paragraph §278 challenges us to start thinking of the unity of the state as that which is embodied in a ‘simple self,’ which he later explicitly tells us is the monarch qua single person. In his remarks here, Hegel argues that this conception of sovereignty, as an organic whole, manifests itself most clearly in times of domestic or international crisis. But more importantly, Hegel refers the reader to the use of an analogous dialectical logic which he first discussed in the introduction (§7), which referred to the abstract concept of the will as self-referring negativity. Similar references to his underlying speculative philosophy are quite frequent throughout his discussion of the state (as indeed they are elsewhere). Tunick should note this well, especially given the fact that in the Preface Hegel tells us that he presupposes the reader is familiar with the logical progression of the speculative method; accordingly he states that he will not systematically present it in the present work. (Hegel 1991: 10) Now, given the fact that he nevertheless frequently provides that logic, these occasions can only serve to underscore for us their importance to his underlying method of argumentation.4 So again, we emphasize along with Hegel that the institution of monarchy is to be justified primarily on logical and not on consequentialist grounds.

Hegel, in §279, explains in much more detail the crucial role of the monarch which underlies this ‘organicism’ of the state and of its determination into a ‘substantial unity or ideality,’ when he argues that sovereignty exists only through a resolving moment of subjectivity. This, we note with Diamond, follows the analogous logic Hegel outlines in §6 of the Introduction, where the free will of the I requires a positing of itself as something determinate and thus ultimately as actual or existent. (Diamond 2004: 116) On the state level, the subjectivity of sovereignty ‘attains its truth only as a subject, and personality only as a person... [in] but one individual, the monarch. (§279) Again, this could not happen if the monarch operated as a simple symbol of the state. For the will of the state to cease being an abstract thought in the minds of its subjects and to achieve true sovereignty, the will of the state must be made actual by the actual making of decisions to which those subjects of the state are actually subject. The monarch does this by signing his name to legislative decrees; a name, Hegel insists, that ‘is important: it is the ultimate instance and non plus ultra.’ (§279 A) In contemporary parlance, it seems that the monarch’s name is not the ultimate symbol of the subjective unifying will of the state, but rather its master signifier. We could say that the modern state ‘stands under’ or is ‘contained within the space’ cleared out by the monarch’s name. But just as the monarch is not a symbol, it is equally true that the monarch can neither be simply reduced to the signifying level of its title, as the concrete act of his signing his name is inseparable from this name. Their combined result is a modern state which stands unified under and within that monarch’s name.

In order to stress this point, Hegel contrasts the modern situation with that of the ancients, where there was a ‘need to derive the ultimate decision on major issues and important concerns of the state from oracles, a daemon (in the case of Socrates), the entrails of animals, the feeding and flight of birds, etc.’ (§279 R) What Hegel is trying to get at here is that in pre-modern times, the moment of ultimate decision of a state’s will is not self-determining , not an immanent organic moment of the state, but rather had to come into existence outside the circle of human freedom. In contrast, the modern monarch’s pronunciation of ‘”I will” constitutes the great difference between ancient and modern worlds, so that it must have its own distinct existence in the great edifice of the state.’ (§279 A) Thus, the constitutional monarch does indeed possess a supreme signifying capacity and does so by his very occupation of the highest nominal office of the state. The paradox is that the modern monarch acts in an office situated at the apex of the sphere of self-determining human freedom, but the function of this office simultaneously has as real a status as those writings of nature once relied upon by the ancients. Only now we no longer need to look for that final word in nature, but have reached a rationality commensurate with what our free will demands. That is, we can now acknowledge the necessity of having the single personality of the monarch transform the reasoned opinions of his ministers into a state decision, thereby actualizing the free will of the state.

In more general terms, Hegel tells us that ‘[w]ithout its monarch and that articulation of the whole which is necessarily and immediately associated with monarchy, the people is a formless mass. The latter is no longer a state.’ (§279 A) Without the performative act of uttering ‘I will’ on the part of the monarch, the state would never arise in the first place, but would remain mere collections of peoples with their varying sets of interests. We need to note here the self-determining logic Hegel endeavors us to think through: the ‘very concept of monarchy is that it is not deduced from something else but [is] entirely self-originating.’ (§279 A) The paradox is that without the authority of the monarch (an authority rooted in his purely performative, empty gesture of ‘I will’), there would be no state, but it seems that the very office of the monarch only comes into existence with the creation of the state. No wonder Hegel tells us that the ‘concept of the monarch is therefore extremely difficult for ratiocination – i.e. the reflective approach of the understanding – to grasp, because such ratiocination stops short at isolated determinations, and consequently knows only [individual] reasons, finite viewpoints and deduction from such reasons.’ (§279) Tunick evidently cannot grasp that modern constitutional monarchy is not only historically self-originating, but continuously so for speculative reasons.

For Hegel, such reasons (even especially) extend to the fact that the monarch is to be selected on a hereditary basis and perhaps here it is most evident that the Understanding flounders, looking desperately for a deduction, for some substantial ground on which to base such speculative thought. The Understanding thinks that if it is the case that in the modern age, the divine rights of kings is no longer palatable, the right of the monarchy should at least be legitimized by the rational consent of the people, as in an election. For if the basis of the state is freedom, indeed how could Hegel insist on hinging the highest free act on a subject selected by the natural contingency of birth? What is overlooked by the Understanding when it raises such questions is that this highest free act undertaken by the monarch is purely formal. As Hegel famously writes:

‘[i]n a fully organized state, it is only a question of the highest instance of formal decision, and all that is required in a monarch is someone to say ‘yes’ and to dot the ‘i’; for the supreme office should be such that the particular character of its occupant is of no significance… In a well-ordered monarchy, the objective aspect is solely the concern of the law, to which the monarch merely has to add his subjective “I will.”’ (§280 A)

So contrary to the common wisdom that the monarch should be the wisest citizen since the responsibility for the state’s ultimate decisions rest with him, Hegel in effect carries out a great separation between the monarch’s formal function as highest decision-maker and the natural immediacy of his body. That is, implicitly Hegel argues that the Understanding’s fascination with the monarch’s charismatic power is due to a mistaken presupposed concomitance of his ‘I will’ with a belief in the natural and superior disposition of his person that somehow must have been ‘sanctioned’ (say, through an electoral process). Thus, the Understanding’s search for the source of this charisma will ultimately be in vain. In order to shield the final decision from all particular interests, to ensure that the universal will of the state is not infected with particularity, we need to grasp that the ‘ultimate self of the will of the state is simple and therefore an immediate individuality, so that the determination of the naturalness is inherent in its very concept. The monarch, therefore, is essentially determined as this individual... and this individual is destined in an immediate and natural way, i.e. by his natural birth.’ (§280) Essentially, in a rational state, it does not matter if the monarch is effectively an idiot.

If there is strength to Tunick’s analysis, it comes in the final third of his essay where he provides consequentialist rationale for why a monarch selected by birth is the best guarantee that his decisions will remain merely formal. This rationale Tunick readily admits Hegel himself considers as ‘icing on the cake,’ meaning that the concept of hereditary monarchy in the speculative sense should dominate its justification, while its concept ‘in the weaker sense’ of its advantages over other institutions is secondary. (Tunick 1991: 489–90) Nevertheless, Tunick feels that by rejecting his metaphysics and focusing on such secondary, nonfoundational reasons, Hegel’s justification is not only made more politically relevant to our contemporary situation, but feels that Hegel’s argument is actually strengthened. (Ibid, 496) Accordingly, Tunick offers up prolonged argumentation via intricate hypothetical situations to demonstrate how hereditary monarchy best ensures that final decisions are made completely arbitrarily in matters where there is no objective basis for deciding. He compares and contrasts with the case of elected monarchy and persuasively shows us that a more groundless method for decisions is provided by monarchs who are selected by birth. This is so because the elected monarch’s decisions would reflect the particular interests of those who elected him, whereas a monarch by birth would avoid obligations to particular constituencies. As well, factional struggles over temporarily vacant thrones are all but eliminated if succession is guaranteed by heredity. Granted, depoliticizing the regime at the top creates conditions in which freedom of political association can continue with minimal disturbance to the general rational administration of the state. And certainly all these reasons cited above and more are indeed provided by Hegel himself. (§281, R, A) But what Tunick overlooks is the advantage he gains to his own argument by aligning himself more closely with Hegel’s actual text. By considering Hegel’s speculative argumentation as relevant rather than as a ‘pantheistic mysticism’ as Marx would put it, Tunick’s argument actually strengthens. As we saw above, Hegel considers the very concept of monarchy as that which is not deduced from some higher principle, but is one that is completely self-originating. Thus, it is Hegel’s speculative philosophy that best ensures that the monarch’s formal decision-making is groundless and self-relating, and we need only secondarily consider ‘nonfoundational’ justifications for its superiority over the electoral method of selection.

The Hegelian speculative leap which considers hereditary monarchy a ‘groundless ground’ is one that Tunick has failed to accomplish. In terms of Tunick’s own hypothetical examples, this failure manifests itself in overlooking how there is a logically a priori choice of the very set of empirical choices with which the monarch’s ministers present him. This a priori choice reflects the abstract will of the people and finds its actual embodiment (ie, is concretized) in and through the monarch as he exercises his formal decision amongst the empirical choices given within that a priori chosen set. That Tunick overlooks this is not surprising, for we saw that his conception of monarchy remains at a mere symbolic understanding. So a speculative philosophy such as Hegel’s that endeavors to move us beyond mere symbolism represents for Tunick a great impasse to human freedom. Granted, citizens can more readily identify with the will of a monarch who is not elected and whose particular opinions are thus irrelevant, but this is to ignore the fact that for Hegel, such identification essentially reduces the modern state to civil society headed by mere symbolic, public authority figures.

By the time we reach the end of Tunick’s essay, where he criticizes those that are caught in the errors of the Understanding, we must conclude that Tunick himself is also unknowingly such a victim of the Understanding. He seems rather preoccupied with treating Philosophy of Right in a premature fashion, as a purely descriptive account of political reality. He essentially falls into the accustomed

‘view that Hegel’s “absolute knowledge” is quietistic and escaptist, endeavouring to reconcile in thought the conflicts unreconciled in society and the state… however, Hegel’s philosophy does not flee political life; rather, it enters into the latter in order to raise it to its essential rationality. And it does so at the decisive moment in time when this philosophical raising is the one thing still needed for the state’s perfection.’ (Brudner 1981: 138)

Tunick is correct that we cannot wish politics out of existence by instituting a purely scientific instrumentation. He is also right to emphasize the need for the human free will to be expressed by an actual personality and is further correct to suspect that Hegel offers a superior political philosophy to that end. What we fault Tunick with is overlooking the fact that Hegel’s concept of constitutional monarchy loses its status as the most fully developed account of the necessary political conditions of the rational state if one fails to acknowledge the central role of his speculative logic. Such a failure, as we saw, necessitates resorting to mere consequentialist argumentation. Such arguments may indeed sound persuasive, but they cannot legitimately be called Hegelian in the full sense of his philosophy. We thus conclude that Tunick’s own effort to ‘save Hegel from himself’ – by attempting to further strengthen Hegel’s contentious claim of how one should be selected to head the modern rational state – is misguided. Hegel’s justification of hereditary monarchy, properly understood, is more than adequate as it stands.

1 Cited by paragraph (§) number. Remarks are indicated by an ‘R’, Additions by an ‘A’.

2 Indeed, Karl Popper’s assessment of Philosophy of Right as nothing more than ‘pure apologetics’ is only the most forceful and famous expression of a long-standing argument in the literature that Hegel was a reactionary; alternatively, Hegel has been seen as holding more democratic views, but was obliged to accommodate himself to the censors of the Prussian authorities. Both these views have since been largely discredited. Hereditary monarchy as a rational institution is now considered to have been seriously put forth by Hegel, but is nevertheless still often dismissed in the literature, although this time because of the ‘obscurity’ and ‘comical’ nature of Hegel’s speculative argumentation proffered in its support. (Brooks 2007: 92)

3 Thus, if he can show in this essay that Hegel’s treatment of such a ‘bizarre’ claim can be made plausible, it follows that any of Hegel’s lesser claims can as well. Incidentally, this strategy seems to have launched Tunick’s overall approach in his career work on Hegel, beginning with the book Tunick published just a year following this essay. Having a much narrower focus than the rather misleading title would suggest, Hegel’s Political Philosophy deals almost exclusively with Hegel’s justification of legal punishment. As we shall see with his essay, likewise in the book a single concrete social practice is taken up rather than a more proper Hegelian discussion of the larger logical structure in which it is embedded and of which it serves.

4 For an excellent discussion of the relation between Hegel’s Logic and his theory of monarchy, see Redding (1994)

Bibliography

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______. Hegel’s Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)

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