Heglato and Kantotle

From online source

What lies at the heart of Hegel’s thought and binds the extremely broad range of topics discussed in the Philosophy of Right is the concept of freedom. But what precisely is freedom?

Hegel does not adopt a single procedure when dealing with concepts and for this reason it is hard to pin down a distinct, concise definition of the word “freedom”.

Indeed, Hegel rejects this manner of proceeding.

Speculative thought (the name Hegel gives his own philosophy), though it may make use of, does not proceed by setting up definitions or propositions and defending them through formal argument or supporting evidence (Hegel 12). Instead it seeks to understand and express the immanent development of the concepts which it investigates.

Therefore when dealing with political and social freedom, the goal of speculative thought is not to argue for or against definite accounts of freedom, or critique them from an external perspective (for instance, from the perspective of the state), but rather to simply develop the idea of freedom, or as Hegel puts it, “it must observe the subject matter’s own immanent development” (Hegel 12).

Hegel’s system of dialectical thought attempts to grasp the inherent process of development of concepts on its own terms. There is an inner evolution and an inner content that follows its own logic. Each philosophical position can be shown as incoherent on its own terms and by its own standards simply by thinking through the matter.

Hegel states, “dialectic then is not the external doing of subjective thinking, but rather the content’s very soul organically putting forth its branches and fruit” (Hegel 36). The dialectical method is not merely a matter of subjective critique, nor is it merely a matter of pasting our own rationality onto the way things are, but rather of understanding a theory’s own laws as they develop like a seedling becoming a plant or DNA becoming a living organism.

For this reason, Hegel does not attempt to discredit adverse philosophical positions by using his own external terms and standards – which would not be recognized by the opponent – but rather the key to refuting a position lies in revealing the inner criteria by which the truth of a position is judged and then showing how that very position fails measure up to its own standards. Dialectical thought is concerned with explicating what is actually rational within the movement of things as they are in themselves, i.e. the dialectical method is one of internal refutation and expansion.

However, merely positing contradictions, dichotomies, and antimonies does not go deep or far enough– it is a negative critique, a half-measure. Hegel contrasts his method to Plato’s dialectic (the Socratic method), which would often take an opponent’s immediate, unthought out proposition or statement and twist it around until it imploded. Hegel states that his method is contrary to the one which takes a viewpoint and “dissolves it, confuses it, pursues it this way and that, and has as its sole task the deduction of the contrary from what it starts with” (Hegel 36).

Hegel’s “higher” dialectic goes beyond simply pointing out tensions and contradictions by showing the way contradictions get resolved, by showing the immanent results and positive content of a concept. Thought, for Hegel, must think through the contradictions in its categories and revolve them. Unlike other philosophers, Hegel does not merely present arguments, counter-arguments and conclusions, but rather attempts to uncover the emergence of the tensions and limitations within an explanation or theory until it gives way to a deeper understanding which is able to overcome contradictions by both preserving and canceling what is negative within a concept. Hegel’s speculative method can be seen in his discussion of the will, which unfolds in three essential stages or moments. The will, and with it the development of freedom, moves from the universal, into the particular, and finally the individual.

The universal will is characterized by the capacity to abstract from all desires, impulses, and inclinations and satisfy none of them. This first moment of the will tarrying towards its freedom involves what Hegel calls “pure indeterminacy” of the self, or as Hegel explains, the “absolute possibility of my abstracting from every determination within which I find myself or which I may have posited within myself, the flight from all content as restrictive” (Hegel 20). This type of freedom is completely negative and primitive, but it also distinguishes humans from animals; it entails not being tied down to any particular frame of mind or desire, but rather having the ability to sever oneself from any particular engagement and remain free from the constraints and limitations of definite activities and particular courses of action. The universal will posits the infinite; thus it does not make choices because it would then be stuck in finitude. Hegel identified this form of freedom in the examples of suicide, mysticism, and the Terror of the French Revolution.

The particular will not only abstracts, but reflects on desires, impulses, and inclinations to figure out which one it will choose in order to determine, clarify, or orient itself towards a particular course of action. Even in the common, everyday understanding, freedom does not solely mean not being weighed down or restricted; it also involves the positive ability to engage in particular actions if one wants to do so. The second stage of freedom (particular will) also contains the ability to accede into a definite state of mind or activity and to concern oneself with something particular. The ability to abstract from one’s desires is an essential component in higher forms of freedom. Since the particular will can abstract from all of its desires, it’s not fettered (like an animal) to act on anyone of them (even the strongest desires)– thus the particular will is free to pick and choose between them. Hegel argues that this is usually what is meant by “freedom of the will” (as found Kant and Fitche, for instance). This stage of the will is immediate and natural, but it is also unsatisfactory for the following reasons: first, the will is dependent for its content on a rang of options that are simply given to it, that it is “thrown” into. For instance, I am free to choose which of my desires to fulfill or act upon, but I do not choose what desires I have in the first place. Second, none of these options is an appropriate object of the will, since while the will is universal each of its potential objects is merely particular– if the will is content and satisfied with just one of them, the will won’t fulfill its concept. Even if the will aims, not at the satisfaction of a current desire, but at its long term happiness, the content of its happiness still depends on the content of particular desires that are simply given to it.

The individual will is the auhfeben or sublation of both previous stages of the will. In exercising its freedom to partake in particular endeavors, the will must still preserve its freedom to withdraw from them, if the will is to remain free in the initial, negative sense. The individual will overcomes the problems and contradictions by willing itself or willing freedom, thus generating from its own resources (immanently) an object that is, like itself, universal. The individual will is conceived as a combination of the first and second stages of freedom; in other words, the third moment of freedom is a unity of opposites (of the first two moments): the freedom to choose and engage in some particular end, while simultaneously preserving the awareness that one is not irreversibly bound to that end, because one has chosen it oneself and so could remove oneself from it and engage in some other activity is one felt inclined to do so. The individual will is a restoration of universality out of particularity. When constructed in this manner, freedom involves the ability to make commitments, while also keeping one’s options open. In this final stage, the will is entirely free because it has itself as its object and is wholly self-contained. This is a fairly common notion of freedom held by most people: freedom as the protecting of one’s possibilities and capacities when confronted by whatever commitments one may make, freedom as the ability to choose and do as one pleases (Hegel 21-3).

Hegel is highly critical of this view of view of freedom. He, however, does not criticize it from a presupposed view of the good or of what designates a just, ethical, or responsible life. Instead, he thinks through the implications of this conception of freedom and comes across a contradiction within it. The aforementioned mode of freedom lies, as Hegel explains, not in being “bound to this or that specific content”, in not being required to choose or do anything (Hegel 27). Individuals may be confronted by seemingly unavoidable needs (for instance, the need to eat, rest, or work for a living), but they may believe themselves to be free if they are not actually coerced into any particular course of activity, but could, for instance, refuse to sleep or eat. When looking at freedom from this perspective, the fact that an individual is free does not bring with it any necessary commitments or obligations of its own. An individual must certainly choose something if his freedom is to be a real freedom to choose, but he does not consider that he is committed to any specific course of activity simply by virtue of the fact that he is free– because he considers his freedom to be nothing other than the ability to withdraw or disengage himself from any particular commitment which he has made.

An individual can thus only maintain his freedom of choice if he considers the options which he is able to choose, or reject, to be distinct and external from him, i.e. to be activities or interests which do not follow from his freedom itself. In Hegel’s understanding, this is where the inherent contradiction in this account of freedom becomes obvious. For if one wishes to maintain the sense that one’s freedom lies in facing a set of options to which, as a free individual, one is not necessarily committed, then the following question needs to be asked: if it is not from one’s own freedom itself, then what determines the options among which one has choose from? The only answer seems to be that those options are determined by factors other than one’s free will (chance, nature, etc.), and that they are given to an individual to choose from or reject. But if this is the situation, then one’s freedom is subsistent upon what is available to be chosen. Furthermore, by insisting that freedom lies in being able to choose whatever one wants, one limits oneself to and makes oneself dependent on whatever one happens to want or wish for at that moment (a subjective basis), i.e. whatever one’s particular desires happen to be or whatever one’s circumstances lead one to desire. Hegel is pointing out that what is perceived as autonomous is actually heteronomous. It is obvious, therefore, that when one lays claim to unbridled freedom of choice, one is not actually a free as one thinks they are, since one’s commitments are not derived from one’s free will itself, and thus are not determined by one’s own free will. Hegel writes, “Typical human beings believe that they are free when they are allowed to act willfully [based on subjective whim – P.G.], but it follows from their willfulness that they are not free” (Hegel 28). This is the case because the content of my will – what I will – is not “determined to be mine by the nature of my will, but rather by some contingency” and is not “adequate to me; it is therefore separate from me” (Hegel 28). Freedom of this kind is therefore “dependence on a content and material given either from within or from without” (Hegel 27).

It is only when the will is no longer dependent on something given to it that this contradiction can be resolved. The will gains independence when what it wills is determined by itself– not by external or internal contingencies. But what content does the free will determine by itself? What commitments or duties become apparent simply by the fact that one is– and is self-aware that one is– a free will? We can see the answer to this question if we think about what the will is attempting to uphold and realize by exercising its freedom. When one chooses a specific course of activity one obviously wills whatever it is that one chooses; yet, by holding the view that one is not irreversibly bound to the choice, it becomes clear that one is not interested solely in a specific option, but more fundamentally in preserving one’s freedom to choose. Whatever particular commitments one makes a primary concern – insofar as one seeks to uphold the possibility of other, different options or choices – is to protect and exercise one’s freedom itself. The content that any free will wills simply by virtue of being free is therefore nothing other than its own freedom.

To the extent that the free will wills its own freedom, it is a truly free will. This is because it wills a content which is inherent in autonomous activities itself, and thus is not subservient on a group of contents which are given to it to choose between. Hegel explains, “the absolute determination or, if you like, the absolute drive of free spirit is to make its freedom its object” (Hegel 34). Therefore, real freedom is found not merely in doing or choosing what one wishes, but in being “the free will that wills the free will” (Hegel 34).

When Hegel uses the phrase “the free will that wills itself” he does not mean the exact same thing as Kant: that the will generates rules for its content by a priori rational thinking. Instead, Hegel means the following: the will – like Kant’s thinking self — is essentially rational. However, a better counter part to this rationality is found, not in impulses and inclinations which come and go as they please, but in the structure of ethical life, which imbues the system of rationality that forms the core (the content) of the self. The institutions of ethical life overcome the disparity between reason and inclinations postulated by Kant. Inclinations are transformed into the rights and duties connected to social roles and are therefore imbued with rationality. For instance, sexual urges are channeled into marriage, hunger is satisfied at organized meals, and intellectual curiosity is channeled into universities. In this sense, we win liberation from our desires and inclinations not by repressing or disregarding them, but by satisfying them in a cultivated, socially acceptable manner. We are then not simply fulfilling our subjective whims, but working for the maintenance of the whole of the state and its society, and its subsidiary institutions. To use an analogy, it is not that each of us is playing our own tune, rather each of us is part of an orchestra. The key to solving the contradiction of the will, between reason and desire, is the sociality of our being. Moreover, the will and its freedom form a bridge between society and the individual.

Like Kant, Hegel believes the truly free will to be the will that wills itself and its own freedom. He explicates this conception of true freedom from the structure of freedom of choice. As we have seen, Hegel’s analysis developed immanently, dialectically from choice into a new conception of freedom. The will that wants to be able to choose whatever it wants must aim to preserve its own freedom to choose, even though it thinks of its freedom as the lack of necessity or constraint. Nonetheless, the will that is explicitly and consciously free notes that freedom is something which it must will because it is free, and thus ceases to insist on the priority of its own freedom to choose. This kind of will is no longer dependent for its content or object upon external, contingent factors, but wills a content (freedom) which is derived from the self and is thus completely its own. But, oddly enough, it only gains its freedom through its conformability and willingness to give up its unlimited ability to choose, and let itself become determined by the nature of its own freedom.

The truly free will conceives of freedom as something to which it is necessarily invested in and committed to, something which therefore commands the recognition of any free will by necessity. When looked at in this sense, freedom is an issue of simple and immediate right (Hegel 34-5). Hegel’s conception of freedom turns out to be a philosophy of right, an exposition of what the will must enforce if it is to be truly free.

Hegel’s conception of freedom, at first glance, might not appear to be much better than the view of freedom as choice– especially when reflecting on the notion that one can insist on one’s right to make a choice as much as any other right. What is decisive for Hegel, though, is the distinction between the will which views freedom merely in terms of choice and the will which views freedom as a matter of right in itself, importantly that the latter understands that freedom itself entails necessary commitments, obligations, and responsibilities that develop immanently from the nature of freedom itself, and from which, as a free will, it cannot choose to withdraw itself without denying its own freedom. In Hegel’s philosophy of freedom then there is put forward a view where the distinction between necessity and constraint melts away. The truly free will does not acknowledge the requirement that it recognize rights and laws as a restriction on its freedom, but rather as a necessary condition for its freedom. The free will is self-aware that its obligations are derived from itself, i.e. it is a self-determining, self-legislating, autonomous being. The free will is both determined and self-determining.