ETHICS In this portrait Hegel radiates the self-confidence appropriate to a philosopher whose thought represented the highest point of human self-consciousness action Kant dethroned happiness and put in its place duty, the necessary motive of any action of moral worth For Aristotle virtue was exhibited in the joy that a good man took in his good actions; for Kant the measure of virtue was the cost in painful eVort of its exercise Hegel saw Aristotelian ethics and Kantian ethics as thesis and antithesis to which he should oVer a synthesis Like Aristotle he saw the foundation of ethics as a concept of human Xourishing; but he deWned this in terms of free self-actualization, which accorded with Kant’s emphasis on the autonomy of the moral life Unlike Kant, however, he gave pride of place in moral theory not to the notion of duty, but the notion of right: in Hegel, as in Aristotle, obedience to law takes second place to the free expression of what is best in each person’s human nature Hegel’s great innovation in moral philosophy was that he injected a social and historical element into the notion of ‘human nature’ The aims and capacities which an individual can pursue and develop depend on the social institutions within which she lives, and these institutions will vary in diVerent places and times Rights, which are the basic elements in Hegel’s 268