PR—Hegel—Morality Lecture
–last week—examined Hegel’s idea of property rights as rooted in an abstract conception of the self, and as entailing a movement somewhat beyond this purely abstract conception towards the idea of a moral self
–In the position of Abstract Right the only thing that was recognized and enshrined was the idea of the self as Abstract Ego. The fact that the substance of one’s freedom comes from one’s desires and needs and particularity generally is not recognized. Indeed, that this is a contradiction, that the freedom of the Abstract Ego is “at once the sublime and the trivial,” does not become apparent until the experience of wrong. Through wrong the abstract ego is forced to reflect on itself and become more self-conscious. It becomes aware that it is a universal self in a finite body and a particular context. Furthermore, this finite body and its particular context could drive it to go against the universal aspect of itself. It becomes aware of both sides of itself, and of the potential contradiction or antagonism between them. Hence instead of the idea of the self as abstract ego we get a larger conception of the self as rational and universal on the one side, and as finite and particular on the other. Furthermore, we have the idea that we must act freely and universally within the context of this embodied self. It must take responsibility for itself as such. In today’s terms, Hegel is moving towards the idea of a situated freedom and an embodied self.
Of significance is the position of Hobbes in relation to Hegel. Hobbes begins from the position of abstract ego or the idea of the individual as free and self-determining according to his/her particular interests—seeing all individuals as essentially the same apart from the substance of their actual desires. [[Doesn’t look at the individual in terms of moral self-responsibility or social context.]] And he also sees logically that this leads to the position of “wrong” (although properly speaking for Hobbes there is no wrong). If we start only from the position of individuals as free, and where the substance of their freedom is merely particularistic desires, then logically people will violate each others freedom and go against each other. However for Hobbes the solution to this is an absolute sovereign. He never gets beyond the position of the empirical individual. He never gets beyond the position of wrong. And in order to deal with it he must severely restrict freedom in the figure of the absolute sovereign. It’s only when we get the idea of the individual as morally self-determining or self-governing, as taking responsibility for themselves in their finitude, that we can go beyond the thought of Hobbes, or beyond the idea of dictatorship politically.
In a certain sense Locke gets beyond Hobbes or gets to a kind of position of morality in his theory of private property and of a society based upon it, in the sense that he understood that a natural right to private property presupposed a capacity for morality, and in the sense that politically he derives from this a position of limited government. However there are a couple of problems with Locke’s position. First, he merely asserts this according to the Christian doctrine of natural law. He never succeeded in philosophically justifying this morality. Second, to the extent that there is a rationality to Locke’s morality it never gets beyond the position of the empirical self and its expression in private property (expansion, survival, commodious living, efficiency—all the categories of Hobbes). That is, it never really adopts the idea of an abstract ego as imbedded in a finite context that would really condition the way that freedom is expressed in the world. He never really absorbs the reality of the free self as embodied and finite. Always for him the idea of the self is as standing over against nature and subduing it. Really coming to terms with the embodied reality of the self (which the standpoint of morality gets us to in Hegel), is anathema to Locke. Rather our embodiedness—our cultural particularities, our embeddedness in nature, our finitude, our vulnerability—all this is foisted onto others in Locke’s thought, or projected. (women, natives, blacks, the working class). Hence although Locke seems to be at Hegel’s standpoint he is not. The most important part of the shift to morality—the two-sided idea of the self, the awareness of its contradiction—is absent in Locke.
While Locke does not advance to the position of morality, Rousseau and Kant do. For both have a concept of the self as dual and divided, as free and self-determining but in the context of a particular finite body. This is the case at the outset of the idea of morality. However, in how this concept unfolds Hegel will distinguish himself from both of them. (both play it out by repressing one side. Hegel wants us to find freedom in and through our particularity and context—or he’s moving towards the idea of a situated freedom. )
The major difference between the abstract ego of private property and the moral self at the beginning of the morality section is that the latter is more self-reflective and self-aware, and hence has a much expanded conception of itself. It is driven by the idea that it is willing itself as a universal self, in the context of a finite body and world. It is no longer an abstract self. This leads to a whole different set of rights—rights of the embodied self (or of a free self that is embodied), that cannot properly be derived from the position of abstract right. This constitutes the real significance and advance of Hegel’s section on morality.
Out of the section on property we have developed the right to possession, to stake out territory, to use and labour on one’s property, to sell one’s labour, to make contracts, to punishment, and to an impartial judge. Out of the section on morality we find a right to be recognized in terms of one’s purposes, the right not to be held responsible for things one didn’t intend, a right to pursue one’s particular motivations or happiness (out of which develops the right to general welfare or wellbeing, which includes a right of distress), and a right of conscience. [it will also turn out to be the basis for a right to welfare, to corporate membership and representation (class-based or group based rights)—but this doesn’t become evident until the section on ethical life]. All of these latter rights emerge from the will’s struggle to come to terms with itself as a universal in a finite context.
First, the right to be recognized in terms of purpose or intention. This emerge’s from the self’s attempt to deal with the finite content of its will in its passions and inclinations. Instead of merely allowing itself to be bounced around by its passions, it reflects on them and only is determined by that into which it self-consciously puts itself. Even the need to eat must not be seen as an absolute compusion. The will must self-consciously put itself into eating; it must decide to eat in order to satisfy its hunger, or to stop itself from dying. (anorexics are struggling with this aspect of embodiedness—an attempt to exert control over it).
It also seeks to come to terms with its situatedness in the world by only taking responsibility for those things which it intended in acting according to purpose. For the reality is that it acts in a world that is governed by external necessity, and its actions will “become the prey of external forces which attach to something totally different from what it is explicitly and drive it on to alien and distant consequences.” (131). Furthermore, a condition of its situatedness is that its knowledge of the situation is necessarily limited. So it will not take responsibility for aspects of which it was not aware (Oedipus example).
Furthermore, it demands recognition from others for its intention or purpose. (there is a right to recognition tied to right of intention). For the reality is that it acts in a world of others (its context again). Hence it is vulnerable to or dependent upon them. For my right of intention to be realized I must expect that others can distinguish between what I intended to do and what I didn’t.
To come to terms with its particular self or the finite aspect of itself the moral self must not only seek recognition of its intention in the abstract, but of its particular intention or motivation in carrying out the act—e.g. why did I commit murder? Even if I murder for the sake of pleasure, my particular motivation is that of pleasure. Also for ends of great worth there must be a particular motivation. But the only particular motivation can be found in its own embodiment, “in needs, inclinations, passions, opinions, fancies” (123). In other words, for its happiness or welfare (Aristotle here). Hence its broader purpose is to further its own welfare or happiness.
Here we get the idea of the individual’s right to welfare. It emerges out of their reality as an embodied individual. It is one of the ultimate manifestations of my reality as an embodied individual. I have a right to basic wellbeing.
The right to welfare puts a limit on property rights. I still have property rights but under the perspective of morality they are not absolute. They cannot go so far as to deny me my particular well-being. If the competitive world of private property, which ends up entailing a disparity between rich and poor, ends up denying me the needs of my physical self (as happened on a widespread level in the industrial revolution and th Great Depression), then property rights must be limited by the right of welfare. (Hegel’s example of the right to steal bread is clear but a bit simple. At a more developed or concrete level it means the right of the state to intervene in the market for the sake of the welfare of the people. Or it means the right generally of society to limit property rights to ensure that people’s basic needs are met. This is the “right of distress”). Right and welfare go together necessarily. It is because I am a rights bearer that one should care about my welfare. But my abstract right to property is meaningless if I am in a context where I am starving and the means to my survival are denied me. Hence Hegel tries to combine Locke and utilitarianism. One cannot violate property rights purely for the sake of maximizing utility or the happiness of the greatest number. But one can limit property for the sake of basic wellbeing.
This puts me into a greater commonality with my fellow humans. Before the level of human community was very limited—mutual respect as property-holders, making contracts with one another—only see one another as persons or abstract ego. Now I understand that we are all particular, embodied individuals seeking happiness or wellbeing. Furthermore, as embodied, we are all subject to distress, to the possibility of falling ill, having accidents, being unhappy, getting old, in short any kind of difficulty that can afflict the mortal person. Hence we get a sense of our common vulnerability, and this is wherein people find a bond that enables them the will to put limits on the market—for the sake of human protection.
The right of welfare and the right to property together turn out to be inseparable. Any attempt to realize individual freedom through merely property or merely utility, is one-sided. There emerges here the notion of larger good, or common good, that right and welfare are aspects of. It is this unified conception of the good that has emerged and that is now the true object or purpose of the moral will.
Here we have really got to the standpoint of Rousseau and Kant. The will’s job is to will what is good. To will the universal, to will the general will.
But what is the good? So far it is very abstract, consisting in what is right and what is in the universal welfare. Hegel rejects Kant’s solution, the specification of the good by means of the moral law, as “an empty formalism” which ends up justifying any content at all (135R). Kant is too abstract. The moral will, rather, to act according to its conception of the good, finds it within, as conscience (a more embodied conception of the good). Conscience “establishes the particular and is the determining and decisive element” (136). In other words, it goes back to its own particularity to determine the good. Again, Hegel is moving towards an embodied conception of the good here. He is in fact closer to Rousseau than he is to Kant in terms of his positive conception of conscience. Only conscience in this embodied sense (conscience as conviction) can will anything.
Conscience is the highest realization of the idea of freedom so far. It is higher than the expression of self in property. It is higher than the pursuit of one’s own happiness. It combines both of these principles in a higher concept.
But again, then, we encounter the contradiction that the standpoint of morality is always dealing with—that it is universal but that it must will from within its finite condition in a finite world. It has before itself the idea of an objective good according to which it must act, but it determines that good from within itself according to its own particular judgement. So, while it asserts that it is willing the good, it can’t know this. It may really be willing evil.
The positive aspect of conscience that get here, the right of conscience, is “the absolute claim of the subjective self-consciousness to know in itself and from itself what right and duty are, and to recognize nothing except what it thus knows to be good.” (136Notes). In other words, the rights enshrined in a state, in order truly to be right and to have real existence, must have the recognition of the citizens in their conscience. They cannot simply be abided by in an enslaved manner. This is Hegel’s idea of mutual recognition (between state and individual—both are dependent on the other for their existence).
The negative aspect is the subjective standpoint of conscience. It does not have the ultimate right to determine the good. For the good is something objective, not subjective. The opinion of conscience is not enough. There is a “right of objectivity,” or a right of society and history and laws and institutions (and philosophy) to determine what the good is. Conscience must defer to this. This doesn’t mean that conscience isn’t responsible for determining the good. It simply means that it must be affirmed by the society around it.
Also, it means that where there are laws and institutions in place that have been established to be rational, (by Hegel’s philosophy, and by history, and the people), conscience must defer to these as well. But the ultimate establishment of what is right is found in philosophy—Hegel’s philosophy—which affirms what has been enshrined in history as good. His unfolding of the idea of freedom makes manifest what the good is. Conscience can question doctrines of private property and utilitarianism. But it will ultimately have to reestablish them again because they are right, as Hegel has shown. They are expressions of the true and free content of the will.
So far the substance of the good has been shown to be the rights of private property, the right of punishment, the right to an impartial judge, the rights of self-determination in the context of one’s embodiedness, including the right only to be responsible for what is rationally intended, the right to pursue one’s own happiness or welfare, the obligation towards the welfare of others, balanced by the requirement to respect the right of others in return, and finally the right of conscience—the right to determine the good or recognize the good from within oneself.
Hegel’s vindication and critique of conscience shows that to realize ourselves as free, we need not just to act autonomously, but to have that autonomy enshrined in laws and institutions around us, to have it vindicated by society, to have our conscience recognized. We may, in times of social and political breakdown, be forced to retreat into ourselves, as Socrates, the Stoics, Christ, etcetera, have done. But we can never be satisfied with this. We need to live in a community that enshrines the right and upholds it. Only there can our conscience find satisfaction. The unity of the subjective with the objective. Only there can we find peace. We need to see justice done in the world. This idea of unity is “ethical life”. This is higher concept of freedom than conscience. It involves the idea of mutual recognition between individual and society, or individual and state. Hegel has transcended the monological, individualistic standpoint of Rousseau and Kant.
-hegel as Aristotelian—conscience must look to the world in order to see what is right and true (what has been enshrined historyically). People will over time tend to enshrine what is rational. But there can be pathology and breakdown. Philosophy is the ultimate vindication of what’s right and true as it has been enshrined historically.
