This paper investigates how Hegel was led to connect ethical life and consciousness. Firstly, the aim is to consider how Hegel's critique of the contractarian conception of political association (1), prepared in the so-called Naturrechtaufsatz, is directed, in the reconstruction of the community in the System der Sittlichkeit, towards a consciousness theory (2). Based on this perspective, it can be taken into account that if the appeal to consciousness obstructs the ethical formation of subjectivity, the measurebility of it is also anihilated by the absence of this orientation. Finally, the paper considers the foundation of ethical life's development on a theory of consciousness as an attempt to solve the exteriority of universal and individual, which constitutes the starting point of Fichte's and Kant's account of the rational foundation of law. The perspective of ethical life, articulated as a theory of consciousness formation, could emphasize the reciprocal connection between the modern institutions and the cognitive-practical capacities of the individual which are involved in the actualization of communicative freedom.2026151182