Hegel’s Moral Concept of Evil

The central aim of this article is to set out the essential elements of Hegel’s conception of evil. I demonstrate that Hegel understands evil primarily as a moral phenomenon. In particular, he identifies evil as a pernicious subjectivism and hypocrisy that undermines the social and institutional conditions for ethical action. An appropriate understanding of his conception of evil points to the centrality of trust to ethicality (die Sittlichkeit).