Freedom and Nature: The Point of View of a Theory of Recognition

Morality and freedom are neither natural nor supernatural but are social products, the result of relationships of recognition that are consolidated in phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes of formation and learning. Following the central thesis that Hegel illustrates in Chapter IV of the Phenomenology of Spirit the author shows how the relation of recognition produces not only the constitution of our self-consciousness and the awareness of the distinction between consciousness and world, but also the discovery of the other, the acquisition of our reciprocal dignity and autonomy, the birth of moral sense, and the institution of our fundamental ethical principles.