G.W.F. Hegel’s discussion of civil society in the Philosophy of Right offers an important key through which to understand the whole philosophical project Hegel was undertaking. Karl Marx in his Critique of the Philosophy of Right remarked that “The entire mystery of the Philosophy of Right and of Hegelian philosophy in general is contained in these paragraphs.” Karl-Heinz Ilting, has a similar opinion, saying “Hegel could include this whole sphere in his political philosophy, only because he had discovered the productive power of labour as the foundation of civil society.”  By examining the critiques Marx had, as well as a critical view of Marx’s critiques will show the importance of civil society to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

Hegel advances this thought by discussing the idea of rights and duties. For Hegel duty and rights are a package deal, and are not something which can be separated apart from one another. Hegel says that “my obligation towards the substantial is at the same time the existence of my particular freedom; that is, duty and right are united within the state in one and the same relation.” Hegel argues that a person must, by acting within the state, gain rights so that their individual, particular interests become united with the universal interest. Hegel does not believe that the particular interest must be totally subservient to the universal, but that “on the contrary, they should be harmonized with the universal so that both they themselves and the universal are preserved.”

At this point, Hegel takes a turn towards the metaphysical in his discussion of the Idea and how it divides itself up into different spheres, family and civil society which Hegel says are the “ideal spheres of its concept.” Hegel does on to say that these while these spheres represent a finite mode, the