Sittlichkeit pronunciation
Sittlichkeit is intimate and cozy, but unconscious and uncritical. It is a simple, almost instinctive obedience to established law and custom. In this sort of moral community people live unreflectively by tradition and not by their own lights. But here always comes a time when the tradition s are questioned; this is an age of enlightenment or Aufklärung, as a result of which Sittlichkeit gives way to Moralität. The latter is an individualistic morality that has its source in individual conscience. In Hege’s veiw, Socrates … is responsible for having opened the Athenians up to the dangers f subjective or reflective morality.
In the Hegelian view, the Greek world was animated by a collective “we” that personified a spontaneous harmony of ideas and feelings. Those who were part of this collectivity were at home in the world because their personal feelings and inclinations were in complete concord with the social order. They did not suffer from the alienation, isolation, and estrangement so characteristic of men in modern society. The Greeks created a world in which order and liberty existed side by side in perfect harmony. Hegel envied them this harmony, but by the same token, he thought that they were morally infantile. Their freedom and harmony was the product of thoughtless conformity to conventional morality. It was Socrates who broke the spell of this happy coincidence of freedom and order. Socrates represented a new sensibility that was richer, deeper ..
Drury, Shadia. Alexandre Kojève: the roots of postmodern politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.