 Against the German Idealist tradition, Stein argues that the ethical idea of the state does not lie in the historical development of individual freedom (1925: 122[177]); freedom cannot “develop” but is either given or not, and can at best be only secured by the state. Rather, the only ethical role of the state lies in the “formation of a sensitivity” for positive spiritual and ethical values and the facilitation of the freedom to realize those values, or the “creation of culture” (1925: 124–125[181]). This partly resonates with Arendt’s famous dictum that “freedom is the raison d’être of politics” (Arendt 1961: 146). Yet, and this is where Arendt and Stein would arguably part ways, the state has only a facilitating role, even if the historically most powerful one, in “realizing values”—which is the very “sense of history” (1925: 126[184]). For Stein, there is nothing in the ontic nature of state that could ethically demand this role.