The Role of Nature in Fichte’s and Hegel’s Justification of Patriarchal Marriage

Abstract

This paper contributes to the methodological debate on how to deal with sexist passages in classical works by examining how ‘deeply’ anchored Fichte’s and Hegel’s sexism is in their philosophies. We argue that Fichte’s and Hegel’s patriarchal conceptions of gender relations, marriage in particular, are not based on biological determinism – that is, they do not derive social norms from given natural relations. In doing so, we introduce a distinction between simple and transformative biological determinism. In contrast to biological determinism, Fichte and Hegel provide philosophical justifications for the ‘patriarchal organization of nature’ which, as it were backwardly, underpins their defenses of patriarchal society. On a philosophical level, their theories thus exemplify Judith Butler’s thesis that not only gender but also sex is socially constructed. If Fichte and Hegel are not biological determinists, as we contend, their patriarchal views cannot be removed from their philosophies by simply correcting them with up-to-date biological knowledge.