Hegel\'s Theory of Freedom PDF

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Lecture notes on Themes in Social and Political Philosophy module...

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Hegel on right as the actualisation of freedom 1.

Hegel's central claim

The system of right is the realm of actualised freedom, the world of spirit produced from within itself as a second nature. (PR §4) Man is free, this is certainly the substantial nature of man; and not only is this freedom not relinquished in the state, but it is actually in the state that it is first realised. The freedom of nature, the gift of freedom, is not anything real; for the state is the first realisation of freedom. The misunderstanding over the general will begins when the concept of freedom is understood in the sense of the arbitrary will [Willkür] of each, instead of in the sense of the rational will, the will in and for itself. (Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy vol. 3 pp. 401-2) Freedom in action issues […] from the fact that the rationality of the will wins actualisation. This rationality the will actualizes in the life of the state. In a state which is really articulated rationally all the laws and organisations are nothing but a realisation of freedom in its essential characteristics. When this is the case, the individual's reason finds in these institutions only the actuality of his own essence, and if he obeys these laws, he coincides, not with something alien to himself, but simply with what is his own. (Hegel, Lectures on Aesthetics, p. 98) In short: The system of right (or the state, or the life of the state) is the actualisation (or realisation) of freedom (or the free will, or the rational will, or the will in and for itself) which is the essence (or substantial nature) of each human being. 1.

The free will as such (§§5-7)

For Hegel free will is something all (adult) humans have all the time, by contrast with Berlin's and Pettit's negative and positive freedom. Free will as the capacity to act independently of one's impulses: Hence, it is not so much the understanding which creates the specific distinction between animals and man as it is his quality as a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the beast obeys. Man experiences the same sensation, but he recognizes that he is free to obey or to resist, and it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul reveals itself. (Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality)

In man, the impulse is present before it is satisfied and independently of its satisfaction; in controlling or giving rein to his impulses, man acts in accordance with ends and determines himself in the light of a general principle. It is up to him to decide what end to follow; he can even make his end a completely universal one […] The animal is divided from itself and within itself. It cannot interpose anything between its impulse and the satisfaction of its impulse; it has no will, and cannot even attempt to control itself. (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, p. 50) Free will as the combination of indeterminacy/determinacy of content, of universality/particularity of the self. The will contains (α) the element of pure indeterminacy or of the ‘I’’s pure reflection into itself, in which every limitation, every content, whether present immediately through nature, through needs, desires, and drives, or given and determined in some other way, is dissolved; this is the limitless infinity of absolute abstraction or universality, the pure thinking of oneself. (§5) (β) In the same way, ‘I’ is the transition from undifferentiated indeterminacy to differentiation, determination, and the positing of a determinacy as a content and object. This content may further be given by nature, or generated by the concept of spirit. Through this positing of itself as something determinate, ‘I’ steps into existence in general – the absolute moment of the finitude or particularization of the ‘I’. (§6) (γ) The will is the unity of both these moments – particularity reflected into itself and thereby restored to universality . It is individuality, the self-determination of the ‘I’, in that it posits itself as the negative of itself, that is, as determinate and limited, and at the same time remains with itself, that is, in its identity with itself and universality; and in this determination, it joins together with itself alone. (§7) 1.

The form and content of the will (§§8-9)

The form of the will is 'the process of translating the subjective end into objectivity through the mediation of activity' (§8). Its content is 'its end' (§9). 1.

The will in itself (§§10-20)

[The] content, or the distinct determination of the will, is primarily [zunächst initially] immediate. Thus, the will is free only in itself or for us, or it is in general the will in its concept. (§10) There are two key stages to the will in itself. In the natural will the I 'finds itself naturally determined' by 'the drives, desires, and inclinations' (§11). In the arbitrary will [Willkür] the I chooses between these drives.

The finite will, purely with regard to its form, is the self-reflecting infinite ‘I’ which is with itself (see §5). As such, it stands above its content, i.e. its various drives, and also above the further individual ways in which these are actualized and satisfied […] ‘I’ is the possibility of determining myself to this or to something else, of choosing between these determinations […] The freedom of the will, according to this determination, is arbitrariness [Willkür - arbitrary will], in which the following two factors are contained: free reflection, which abstracts from everything, and dependence on an inwardly or externally given content and material. (§§14-15) The everyday idea of free will is the arbitrary will: The commonest idea we have of freedom is that of arbitrariness [Willkür] – the mean position of reflection between the will as determined solely by natural drives and the will which is free in and for itself. In the arbitrary will the givenness of the content contradicts the universality of the I: Arbitrariness is […] the will as contradiction. (§15R) [O]nly the formal element of free self-determination is immanent within arbitrariness [Willkür], whereas the other element is something given to it (§15R) If, then, I put all the other [drives] aside and commit myself to only one of them, I find myself in a destructive limitation, for by my very act I have relinquished my universality (§17A) 1.

The will in and for itself (§21-24)

Only when the will has itself as its object is it for itself what it is in itself. (§10) Reflection, the formal universality and unity of self-consciousness, is the will’s abstract certainty of its freedom, but it is not yet the truth of this freedom, because it does not yet have itself as its content and end. (§15R) The truth, however, of this formal universality, which is indeterminate for itself and encounters its determinacy in the material already mentioned, is self-determining universality, the will, or freedom. When the will has universality, or itself as infinite form, as its content, object , and end, it is free not only in itself but also for itself – it is the Idea in its truth. (§21) The will which has being in and for itself is truly infinite, because its object is itself, and therefore not something which it sees as other or as a limitation; on the contrary, it has merely returned into itself in its object. (§22)

This looks like Kant's positive freedom: [W]hat, then, can freedom of the will be other than autonomy, that is, the will's property of being a law to itself? (Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:447) 1.

The system of right as the actualisation of the will in and for itself (§§21R)

The absolute determination or, if one prefers, the absolute drive, of the free spirit (see §21) is to make its freedom into its object – to make it objective both in the sense that it becomes the rational system of the spirit itself, and in the sense that this system becomes immediate actuality (see §26). This enables the spirit to be for itself, as Idea, what the will is in itself. The abstract concept of the Idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the free will. (§27) Right is any existence in general which is the existence of the free will. Right is therefore in general freedom, as Idea. (§29) That an existence in general is an existence of the free will: this is what right is. (§29 retranslation) See also: The slave does not know his essence, his infinity and freedom; he does not know himself as an essence – he does not know himself as such, for he does not think himself. This self-consciousness which comprehends itself as essence through thought and thereby divests itself of the contingent and the untrue constitutes the principle of right, of morality, and of all ethics. (§21R) 7. Why does the will that wills its own freedom will the system of right? See again §5-7. The will combines the universality and particularity of the I. Its universality is a pure emptiness (§26A). So it is universal across individuals. Its particularity is its identity as this individual. Perhaps the system of right is a successive set of ways of reconciling the two. A contemporary conception of this idea of the I as pure and empty: I have climbed the spire of Our Saviour’s Church together with my oldest son. Holding onto the railing, I see Copenhagen spread out before me. I can hear the distant noise from the traffic beneath me and feel the wind blow against my face. Far away, I can see an airship. My attention is drawn to something that is written on its side, but

despite repeated attempts to decipher the text, I cannot read it. My concentration is suddenly interrupted by a pull in my hand. My son asks me when we are supposed to meet his mother and brother for cake and hot chocolate. I look at my watch and shamefully realize that we are already too late for our appointment. I decide to start the descent immediately, but when rushing down the stairways, I stumble over an iron rod and feel pain blossom up my shin. If I compare two successive experiences, say a perception of a blackbird and a recollection of a summer holiday I can focus on the difference between the two, namely their respective object and mode of presentation, but I can also attend to that which remains the same, namely the first-personal givenness of both experiences [..] An informative way of characterizing the self might consequently be as a ubiquitous dimension of first-personal givenness in the multitude of changing experiences. (Dan Zahavi, 'Is the self a social construct?', Inquiry , 2009) Hegel and Isaiah Berlin....