E-LOGOS 2025, 32(1):42-61 | DOI: 10.18267/j.e-logos.514

Beyond Mutual Recognition – Hegel’s Neglected Dark Side of Modern Family

Manfred Man-fat Wu
Institute for Research in Open and Innovative Eduction, Hong Kong

Hegel is renowned for his view that in family members are fully recognised and the master and slave relationship does not exist in it. Among the problems of the modern society, Hegel devoted more attention to poverty, crime and alienation in the economic sense. Hegel rarely discussed problems which are commonly found in modern society despite his anthropologically nuanced philosophy, which treats the family, civil society and the state as the three highest moments in ethical life (Sittlichkeit). For Hegel, the family performs the functions of realisation of individual subjective freedom, performing deeds for the death, and the establishment and maintenance of morality on a collective level. This paper aims to move beyond Hegel’s discussions by exploring problems related to the family as a social institution, and proposes that family problems in modern society are caused by the conflicts between family as based on feelings and rationalisation based on ethical objectivity, tensions between the family and civil society, master and slave dialectic in marriage, and realisation of individual freedom through private property. Measures on alleviating family problems are suggested, and they include positive enhancement of bonds among family members through morality, re-discovery of unreflective feelings, deployment of family property, and extension of scope of Corporation to directly intervene in family problems.

Keywords: Hegel, family, ethical life, morality, Philosophy of Right

Received: February 3, 2025; Revised: February 3, 2025; Accepted: December 24, 2025; Prepublished online: December 24, 2025; Published: August 31, 2025  Show citation

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Wu, M.M. (2025). Beyond Mutual Recognition – Hegel’s Neglected Dark Side of Modern Family. E-LOGOS, 32(1), 42-61. doi: 10.18267/j.e-logos.514
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