Morality in the realm of Spirit: on the question of the specificsof understanding ethical issues in Hegel's philosophy

The subject of the research is the nature of Hegel's consideration of ethical issues and itsplace in the system of philosophy. The author draws attention to the contradiction be-tween the philosopher's interest in moral issues, which he retained throughout all his life,and the absence of a separate element in the system of philosophy that would strictly cor-respond to the concept of ethics as a philosophical discipline. Two complementary hy-potheses are proposed to explain this contradiction. The first hypothesis connects the spe-cial nature of the consideration of moral issues with the difficulty discovered by Hegelindescribing the content of self-consciousness. The second hypothesis establishes the de-pendence of the Hegelian approach to the study of ethical life on the peculiaritiesoftheorganization of the narrative space of the << Phenomenology of Spirit >>, in which therelationship between "self-consciousness" and "morals" are mediated by socio-historicalbeing. During the discussion of the first hypothesis, the conclusion is substantiated, ac-cording to which the appearance of socio-historical sections in the "experience of con-sciousness" is due to the fact that only in the process of analyzing human activity in thesocial environment it becomes possible to reveal the inner content of self-consciousness,which remains inaccessible to direct theoretical comprehension. During the discussionofthe second hypothesis, it is established that the formation of moral consciousnessistheresult of the << repeated >> ascent of self-consciousness to the Spirit, in the courseofwhich it appropriates the content explicated in the << experience of consciousness >> inthe form of social relations. As a result, ethical sections of philosophy turn out to beanelement of a broader socio-philosophical theory that received its final formalizationinthe "Philosophy of Spirit" and "Philosophy of Right"