The Character of Punishment Enc. par. 501

Robbert Veen's Hegel Podcast

# 501 The instrumentality by which authority is given to intrinsic right is () that a particular will, that of the

judge, being conformable to the right, has an interest to turn against the crime (which in the first instance, in

revenge, is a matter of chance), and () that an executive power (also in the first instance casual) negates the

negation of right that was created by the criminal. This negation of right has its existence in the will of the

criminal; and consequently revenge or punishment directs itself against the person or property of the criminal

and exercises coercion upon him. It is in this legal sphere that coercion in general has possible scope −

compulsion against the thing, in seizing and maintaining it against another's seizure: for in this sphere the will

has its existence immediately in externals as such, or in corporeity, and can be seized only in this quarter. But

more than possible compulsion is not, so long as I can withdraw myself as free from every mode of existence,

even from the range of all existence, i.e. from life. It is legal only as abolishing a first and original

compulsion.