Hegel’s dialectical idealism is a blending of Enlightenment and Counter Enlightenment to come to a holistic theory based on his own philosophy. While accepting the universality of Kant to a degree, he does not believe Kant’s universality can be used alone when it comes to morality. For just as there is universal love in a priori, in contrast; there is also pure evil; thus universals alone cannot provide the moral duty Kant describes.
For Hegel, man grows much like a society. His reason and behavior is a product of learning, and just like societies, this learning (governing) cause more changes as we learn more. We cannot know exactly where this learning will take us, but change and direct it in different ways when needed. Thus while we strive for what we think is universal, we rarely achieve it, and the process is more important than the actual goal. So while we strive to achieve universal love, the process teaches us more about the reality of love, for human beings. As Hegel States in Introduction to the Philosophy of History:
“The connection of events above indicated, involves also the fact that in history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond what they aim at and obtain, what they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.” (The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche: Beardsley m, 2002, p561)
Hegel calls this learning “sense certainty”, (Continental Philosophy: West d, 2010, p42).This is the struggle of each layer of knowledge, which causes newer struggles due to what is learned. Each layer is doomed in a sense to its own teachings, but this is not a bad thing for Hegel, but a growing for the spirit of man. This spirit of man is what separates his basic animal and individual wants and needs, into a higher sense of what is right. Thus for Hegel the natural state of man, is not in nature itself, but in the aspirations man has to grow. To seek out the universals of Kant, but understand because we are human, they are not the universals of reality, but universals of our own spirit.
REFERENCES:
The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche: Beardsley m, 2002