Hegels Conception of Freedom - Essay Example

Hegel’s Conception of Freedom As a philosopher, Hegel was concerned with how to justify the entire history of philosophy. As new philosophers continue to write, they develop theories that are extensions of previous thought, or they develop theories that contradict previous ideas. Do the new theories erase the previous theories? If so, then there would not really be much progress in the field of philosophy. In order to deal with this, Hegel worked on the idea of dialectics, though he was not the first to come up with the idea. Dialectics are a way to attempt to understand how two conflicting theories can inform each other and coexist without canceling each other out. One reason for Hegel’s concern with dialectics was because two of the philosophers he respected immensely, Hobbes and Rousseau, had contradictory ideas concerning the nature of freedom. To Hegel, the idea of absolute freedom could only lead to tyranny, and he was in agreement with Hobbes and his work from The Leviathan, which stated that people needed society because otherwise they would more or less destroy each other. This is part of the “utter indifference toward death that Hegel saw as the hallmark of the terror” (Schmidt 4). Of course, with any ideas that Hegel worked with, the concept of freedom was multifaceted and complex, and it is necessary to discuss the many different aspects of freedom in order to fully comprehend the ways in which absolute freedom would lead to tyranny. This tyranny, witnessed as a result of the French Revolution, was the part of Rousseau’s philosophy that he attempted to contradict: “Hegel believed that Rousseau’s political philosophy was fundamentally misconceived because it sought to transpose to the state much the same ideal of individual self-sufficiency as was ascribed to uncultured peoples and to an education concerned in accordance with nature” (Wokler 35). Once all of Hegel’s conceptions of freedom have been discussed, we can see how Hegel’s conception of absolute freedom truly would lead to its opposite, tyranny, because, as Hegel says, “The sole and only work and deed accomplished by universal freedom is therefore death” (Absolute). The first conception of freedom that needs to be discussed is natural freedom. This is what we find people in their natural state; to be able to choose to determine one’s own self: “When a man is so self-determined but the only content of his will the only source of his determinations - are his impulses, appetites and desires, he has what Hegel calls an immediate or natural will” (Pelczynski). Hegel showed less differentiation between a person’s thoughts and a person’s will. Instead, he viewed them as being different sides of the same coin, more or less: “Will is not a separate faculty, distinct from reason; thought and will are simply two aspects or modes of reason” (Pelczynski). This act of self-determination is what gives people the ability to be free in the first place. This is not to be viewed as the same thing as absolute freedom; through natural freedom, people would act in their own self-interest, would naturally act in accordance to the next conception of freedom, ethical freedom. Ethical freedom is the freedom that comes from when people choose to all act in an ethical manner in which all people are able to benefit from it: “To speak of a man as free only if he can walk in the pure air of the highest conceivable purpose, is to use the word in an ethical sense” (Dyde 656). This is generally referred to as the social contract, and to Hegel, this was in a sense more freedom than what absolute freedom allowed. On this point Hegel was in disagreement with Rousseau: “Rousseau rejected the validity of all established morality, religion, customs and institutions. Nothing external to the individual could claim any authority” (Pelczynski). The result of such attitudes would be a disintegration of society into chaos, such as what took place as a result of the French Revolution: “the French Revolution’s descent from the sublime idealism which infused its inception to the dreadful scourge of the Jacobin dictatorship” (Wokler 34). Civil freedom is the result of ethical freedom. In this sphere people are free to choose their own occupation and, and in this way they are still able to contribute to society as a whole. Though this is a more individualistic sphere than ethical freedom, because people contribute to society as a whole through their occupations, there are less guidelines necessary for this sphere: “In civil society men interact with the minimum of ethical or legal constraint” (Pelczynski). Political freedom is the final culmination of Hegel’s conceptions of freedom. This has gone far beyond a mere social contract that keeps people safe; it is the expression of individual wills working together to shape and form society: “ethical freedom corresponding to this sphere of interaction - is the highest form of human freedom” (Pelczynski). Not only is the political state the result of individual wills working together, but it also has the ability to continue itself as it shows people that it is indeed the most rational and moral mode through which to interact: “Hegel has been described as a follower of Rousseau, particularly in regard to his conception of the link between liberty and law and his emphasis upon public service and the morally uplifting character or the state” (Wokler 34). Though the political situations during which he lived himself might have tempered his political writings at times, it was the very ideas behind the states and not their imperfect executions that mattered to Hegel. Political freedom has removed people so far from terror that we in the modern world cannot understand what it would actually e like to live through absolute freedom. These, of course, are not the only conceptions of freedom philosophers have works with. Freedom, in our modern conception of it, was not always recognised as such: “The unhampered pursuit of private, selfish interests, although it made an appearance at the end of the Hellenic era and was institutionalised in civil law in the era of the Roman Empire, was not conceived as freedom by the ancients” (Pelczynski). This self-motivated freedom that leads people to attempt to gain things for themselves, while not recognized as freedom to the ancients, still eventually forms its own set of social interactions that turn into a different sort of contract. This is not to be considered to be absolute freedom either. Though many modern states might describe themselves as capitalist, none of these states practice pure capitalism; there are aspects of socialism practiced in each of these countries. Whether it is socialised medicine in France or England, or social security in the United States, these countries cannot claim to be purely capitalist. A purely capitalist state would not be considered to be a result of absolute freedom either, because there would still be a set of practices involved that would lead people to enter into an arrangement in which a set of rules and customs were involved. While there would be a cut-throat aspect of pure capitalism that wouldn’t lend any support to those that were unable to take care of themselves, this is not to say that pure capitalism has absolutely no regulations which would be followed and would be considered a result of absolute freedom. Though Hegel’s work was concerned with implications of the French Revolution, there is not much in the way of concrete illustrations when he discusses these aspects of freedom in the chapter “Absolute Freedom and Terror” from The Phenomenology of Mind. For instance, Hegel states “For in absolute freedom there was no reciprocal interaction either between an external world and consciousness, which is absorbed in manifold existence or sets itself determinate purposes and ideas.” Though not concrete in any manner, we can examine this passage to discover its real world implications. Since there is no interaction between the external world and consciousness, there would be no reason to attempt to arrive at a contract to ensure one’s safety. By definition, absolute freedom does not give people the freedom to interact with one another, and interaction is obviously necessary for a contract. Another passage that we can examine explains the difficulty for absolute freedom to interact with the concrete: This brings on the scene the spirit in the form of absolute freedom. It is made of self-consciousness which clearly comprehends that in its certainty of self lies the essence of all the component spiritual spheres of the concrete sensible as well as of the supersensible world, or, conversely, that essential being and concrete actuality consist in the knowledge consciousness has of itself (Absolute). The consciousness is aware of the concrete in absolute freedom, and it comprehends the separate spiritual spheres, but yet it is unable to interact with them. If the consciousness was unable to comprehend the concrete in absolute freedom, then there would be no terror, because there would be nothing else to take for oneself. Because the consciousness cannot interact with the concrete, though, it cannot realise that there are other beings with consciousness outside of itself. Because of this lack of comprehension, there is little to no deterrent from taking what one needs for one’s own desires. This is the difference between ethical freedom and absolute freedom; ethical freedom is merely the realisation that one’s consciousness is not by itself and that there are others every bit as deserving of its own desires. Though Hegel referred to ethical freedom, the main idea behind the social contract, as the only true freedom for people, it is perhaps merely a semantic ruse that it is called freedom. The social contract was proposed as a way in which to explain how society worked; it was not an effort to explain an actual historical event. At some point, however explicitly stated or not, there had to have been some sort of agreement amongst people to not attack each other out of a sense self-preservation. Those people, out of their own absolute freedom, chose to give up some of their rights in order to gain safety, and this was passed down and developed into what we experience today. However, the social contract is not something that we as modern people have given up part of our absolute freedom for. In this sense, we can hardly point to our advantages gained from the social contract and still state that it is in some sense a version or conception of freedom. While absolute freedom might lead to terror, at the same time it does not seem quite right to say that the social contract provides us with a different variation of freedom in order to make up for the absolute freedom given up to gain safety. This is not to say that people are only free if they are free to harm, maim, or murder due to a lack of a social contract. People are free when they have given up a certain amount of freedom to guarantee safety, but because this choice has been made generations and generations ago and there are no choices as to whether or not to accept the social contract, this is no the same sense of freedom. While Hegel thought people were only free once they have made the choice to follow the tenets of ethical freedom, it is difficult to say that this is the same conditions which existed previously. Since the conditions are not the same, it cannot be considered the same thing. After all of the conceptions of freedom have been studied, it is quite obvious that Hegel’s conception of absolute freedom can only lead to terror. However, we cannot at the same time state that Hegel’s conception of ethical freedom, which is the basis for civil and political freedom, can truly be called freedom. Yes, people are able to follow their desires without fear of harm, but this safety is no longer built up from freedom. Absolute freedom does not exist because of the social contract. One way in which to define free will is to say that it is “the identification of ourselves with a conceived end” (Dyde 665). Because the social contract was in place before we were able to accept it, it was not of our free will that it was accepted. It was not an end that was conceived of for ourselves. We cannot act in a manner that absolute freedom would allow us because the social contract is already in place to punish anybody that ends up breaking it. It does not make any sense to state that something that is not based on a particular conception of freedom can become freedom by itself. Only one kind of freedom can logically spawn another type of freedom. This is not to say that the benefits of the social contract are not worth being able to say that we are truly free in any sense. But since the social contract is an obligation for people, we cannot truly say that ethical freedom thus. Perhaps, instead of freedom, a better term would be rights. We now longer have absolute freedom, but in exchange for these, we now have rights to be able to perform tasks on ethical, civil, and political levels. Once all of this has been examined, we can see how the Hegel was able to use the work of two contradictory philosophers in his own work. Hegel’s conception of natural freedom explains exactly why life is “nasty, brutish, and short,” while Rousseau’s work accounts for much of Hegel’s views on the validity of ethical, civil, and political life. While the idea of dialectics might initially seem contradictory, once we have come out at the other end of the labyrinth which is Hegel’s thought, we can see quite easily how it works. Works cited Burbidge, John (1981) “Man, God, and Death in Hegels Phenomenology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 183-196 Dyde, S.W. (1894) “Hegels Conception of Freedom.” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 655-671. Hegel, Georg W.H. (1807) “Absolute Freedom and Terror.” Available from http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc2b3.htm Accessed on 13/07/08. Pippin, R.B. (1997) ‘Hegel’s Ethical Rationalism’ in Pippin(1997) Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations. Cambridge, CUP. Schmidt, James (1998) “Cabbage Heads and Gulps of Water: Hegel on the Terror.” Political Theory, Vol. 26, pp. 4-32. Stewart, John (1995) “The Architectonic of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 747-776. Stillman, Peter G. (1980) “Hegels Civil Society: A Locus of Freedom.” Polity, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 622-646. Wokler, Robert (1998) “Contextualizing Hegels Phenomenology of the French Revolution and the Terror.” Political Theory, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 33-55. Z. A. Pelczynski (1984) “Political community and individual freedom in Hegels philosophy of state.“ Source: The State and Civil Society, Cambridge University Press, 1984. Available from Accessed on 13/07/08. Read More