The Philosophy of Right and Wrong: Hegel on Crime, Transgression, and Injustice

Judgments of wrong are ubiquitous in moral, political, and legal discourse. Yet, we rarely talk about what is wrong, its place in the world, and its relationship to what is right. This conference brings together scholars to explore the notion of wrong (Unrecht) in and through GWF Hegel’s mature philosophy.
Since his early writings, Hegel was occupied with the question how to reconcile the normative order with deviations from that order. It is a question that pervades the Philosophy of Right, where his political theory finds its final formu­la­tion. When it first appears, the notion of wrong reveals the deficiency of a system based on abstract rights; after that, it remains an undercurrent of the argument. Arguably, the problem of righting wrongs does not just inform, famously, Hegel’s theory of punishment but also his examinations of morality, the capitalist market, courts, poverty, citizenship, and international politics, among other things.
From 11 to 13 September 2025, the Independent Research Group “Criminal Law Theory” welcomes scholars from ju­ris­pru­dence, philosophy, political theory, and adjacent fields to a collaborative and interdisciplinary conference on “The Philosophy of Right and wrong”.