Hegel, the sacrifice of personality and marriage.

My dissertation aims to reconcile a tension in Hegel's thought between
his condemnation of social practices founded on the alienation of 'personality',
and his rejection of the concept of the 'person' as a conceptual foundation of
society and endorsement of 'the sacrifice of personality' as a basis for marriage.
Reconciling this tension is essential in clarifying Hegel's account of marriage.
My dissertation, therefore, focuses on the nature and role of the 'person' in
Hegel's philosophical system. I start by examining his rejection of this concept
as the basis for society in 'Absolute Freedom and Terror' and 'Legal Status', in
the Phenomenology of Spirit I then analyse Hegel's reasons for condemning
sacrifices of personality, including suicide, martyrdom, slavery and dependence
on others for moral and spiritual guidance. This forms a foil against which I
consider his account of marriage and the way in which it is presented as a
'sacrifice of personality'. I separate the account of sacrifice from his
'justification' of the sexual division of labour and evaluate different ways in which
the 'sacrifice of personality' might be understood. My intention is to develop an
account of marriage which coheres with the central Hegelian concepts of
recognition and freedom; and his claims about the value and limitations of
'personality'. I suggest that a coherent account can be given which
distinguishes between illegitimate 'sacrifices of personality', such as slavery,
and legitimate 'sacrifices', in which many key qualities of 'personality' are
retained. Finally, I apply this idea of legitimate 'sacrifice' to the 'ethics of care'
approach to moral decision making. I suggest that this account of Hegelian
marriage has the potential to ground a modified 'ethics of care', in which some
relationships are valued as sources of identity and normativity, whilst other
relationships can be criticised as damaging and illegitimate normative sources.