Hegel on “the Living Good”

ABSTRACT Hegel calls social life “the living good,” but what this means is unclear. The idea expresses an ontological claim about the kind of being that human societies possess, but it is also normatively significant, clarifying why the category of social pathology is an appropriate tool of social critique. Social life consists in processes of life infused with ethical content. Societies are normatively and functionally constituted living beings that realize the good similarly to how organisms achieve their vital ends: via specialized, coordinated functions. In distinction to living organisms, the living good realizes itself through the consciousness and will of individual social members.