ONLINE FIRST
published on November 18, 2017
Mark Alznauer
https://doi.org/10.5840/owl2017111520
Is Hegel a Natural Law Constructivist?
In a series of impressive articles, Kenneth Westphal argues that Hegel should be understood as a natural law constructivist. In this essay, I examine what Westphal means by this, showing that any such position requires postulating rights or duties that exist prior to the formation of political institutions. I show that Hegel consistently denies the existence of any such natural rights or duties and conclude that he must have a fundamentally different, non-foundationalist conception of the fundamental task of moral philosophy.