ETHICS becomes ‘alienated’ from it This concept of alienation—of treating as alien something with which by rights one should identify—was to have a powerful future among Hegel’s disciples All such forms of false consciousness represent an attempt to interiorize a problem that can only be solved by a change in social institutions The realization of this is what accounts for the emphasis that Hegel places on rights A person has an inalienable right to life and to freedom from slavery, and to a minimum of personal property; only societies that protect these rights can provide a context for individual human Xourishing (PR, 46) Rights are necessary because an individual person can only express herself as a free spirit by giving herself an external sphere of freedom A right is an entitlement to property interpreted in a broad sense; for Hegel, a person’s body, life, and liberty are his property no less than material things Some rights, like the right to the products of one’s labour, can be given up; but no one can relinquish her total freedom by accepting slavery Besides rights to property Hegel recognizes two other forms of right: rights of contract and rights of punishment The former are embodied in the civil law, and the latter in the criminal law Hegel’s view of punishment is retributive: it is an annulment of wrongdoing, implicitly willed by the criminal himself since his crime was itself a violation of the universal will (PR, 99–100) The theory of rights, important though it is for Hegel, is only one of three sections of his ethics The other two are the theory of morality (Moralitat) and of uprightness (Sittlichkeit) Morality incorporates the Kantian elements of Hegel’s system, and uprightness the Aristotelian elements Morality is deWned largely in formal terms; uprightness is described in more concrete examples Morality is related to duty, and uprightness is related to virtue For Hegel, morality is concerned mainly with the motives of the moral agent Hegel distinguishes between purpose (Absicht) and intention (Vorsatz) The purpose is the overarching motive that relates an action to my welfare; the intention is the immediate end to which I choose a means (Thus, in taking a particular medication my intention might be to lower my cholesterol level; my purpose is to keep in good health.) Intention is, for Hegel, deWned in terms of knowledge: unforeseen consequences of my actions are 270