Hegel, History, Hostility: The Persistence of War in Hegel’s Political Philosophy

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231172415
• Author: Joseph Clarkson
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(4) 1661–1673

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231172415

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Hegel, History, Hostility: The Persistence

of War in Hegel’s Political Philosophy

Joseph Clarkson

1



Abstract

The return of war in Europe has renewed the urgency of understanding war’s role in the interstate syste m. Although

many theorists take a progressive view in which war is withering away, others argue war remains a recurrent feature of

political life. This article contributes to theoretical debates about war’s ongoing signif‌icance by systematically re-

constructing Hegel’s theory of war and its relevance for understanding war’s persistence. Histori cally, Hegel thinks war

has taken increasingly rational forms over time, though, contrary to optimistic interpretations, this points to enmity’s

distillation rather than its elimination. Causally, Hegel suggests war occurs because the lack of a power above states

capable of adjudicating conf‌licting rights and the consequent struggle to enforce one’s formally valid claims against those

who could substantively deny them. Ethically, Hegel holds war is a necessary evil which, abstractly, ought to end.

However, since war teaches citizens that their good is tied to the good of the community as a whole, thereby restraining

civil society’s encroachments on the political, Hegel denies the end of war would be an absolute ethical good. By

systematically reconstructing Hegel’s views on war, this article sheds new light on war’s role in the system of Europea n

states.

Keywords

History of political thought, German political thought, war, international relations, political violence

War remains a contentious topic in scholarship on Hegel’s

political philosophy, one whose resolution has gained

renewed urgency and importance with the return of war in

Europe. Earlier scholars connected Hegel’s writings on

war to Prussianism, fascism, or totalitarianism (Hobhouse

1918,6,23–24; Heller 1921;Popper 1945, 242–90; Kohn

1964, 305). They saw Hegel as a reactionary who dan-

gerously glorif‌ies war. Subsequent scholars pushed back,

arguing Hegel takes a pessimistic rather than romanti-

cizing view (Kaufmann 1959, 122–26; Findlay 1962, 331;

C. Smith 1965, 285; Nicholson 1976;Walt 1989,114–22).

For them, Hegel is a conservative who reaches pessimistic

conclusions about the prospect of perpetual peace because

he aims to comprehend the system of states as it is rather

than as it ought to be. Others have rejected both inter-

pretations, seeing grounds for a more liberal optimism in

Hegel’s writings on war (Avineri1961,1972, 194–207; S.

Smith 1983;Brudner 2017, 354). They see a progression

toward perpetual peace in Hegel’s philosophy of history.

Verene argues these interpretations stem from diverse

hermeneutics. While romanticizing interpretations usually

take Hegel’s statements about war as prescriptive and

pessimistic interpretations take them as descriptive, liberal

interpretations aim merely to repudiate the view that

Hegel is an enemy of the open society and constitutional

government (Verene 1976, 168, 171–72; similarly,

Hutchings 1999, 103–4).

1

However, diverse hermeneutics are not the only factor

at play. Hegel writes about war from three perspectives not

always clearly distinguished in the literature.

2

This is

troubling because whether one reads Hegel’s remarks on

war as representative of proto-fascistic romanticization,

conservative pessimism, or liberal optimism depends on

which perspective one takes as primary. Without deter-

mining the relationship between these perspectives, we

have little hope of determining how Hegel understood

modern warfare. Moreover, given the persistence of war

and, indeed, the current crisis in Ukraine, scholars must

Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre

Dame, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joseph Clarkson, Department of Political Science, University of Notre

Dame, 2060 Jenkins Nanovic Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556-7000, USA.

Email: jclarks2@nd.edu