Hegel's concept of evil in The 'Elements of the Philosophy of Right'

In this translated article, the author attempts to outline the elements of Hegel's concept of evil contained in the chapter on morality in Elements of the Philosophy of Right. It is oriented above all towards an analysis of a paragraph from the notes to paragraph 140 which is immediately related to Pascal's quotation. The author starts from an analysis of Pascal's citation which is in Hegel's view an adequate answer to the previous question of guilt. On the basis of this analysis it is shown that the problematics of the question of guilt is, for Hegel, irrelevant. In opposition to its empiricist reading within the Jansenian and Jesuit tradition Hegel stresses the moments alpha, beta and gamma (i.e., the knowledge of good, the wanting of evil and the distinguishing between them) for every agent. The ultimate consequence is that good and evil of acting does not depend on the contingency of the empirical fact that someone feels innocent of an evil committed. Such an empirically oriented interpretation would suggest the incorrect thesis (Elsigan) that Hegel must presuppose the possibility of acting evilly in good conscience.