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119

Second Section. Intention and Welfare

The external existence of the action is a manifold connection that can be regarded as infinitely divided into singularities, and the action may be regarded as touching, in the first instance, only such a single point. But the truth of the single is the universal1, and the determinacy of the action is, for itself, not a content isolated to an external singularity but a universal content that contains within it the manifold connection. The purpose, as proceeding from a thinking being, contains not merely the singularity but essentially that universal side — the intention.

Intention contains, etymologically, abstraction — partly the form of universality, partly the extracting of a particular side of a concrete matter. The endeavour to justify oneself by appeal to intention is the isolating of some single side in general, which is then maintained to be the subjective essence of the action. — The judgment on an action as an external deed, still without the determination of its right or wrongful side, ascribes to it a universal predicate — that it is arson, killing, and so forth. — The isolated determinacy of external actuality shows what its nature is as an external connection. Actuality is at first touched only at a single point (just as arson immediately affects only a small point of the wood, which yields only a proposition, not yet a judgment), but the universal nature of this point contains its extension. In the living thing, the single is immediately present not as a part but as an organ, in which the universal as such exists as present, so that in murder it is not a piece of flesh, as something singular, but life itself that is violated therein. It is, on the one hand, the subjective reflection that does not know the logical nature of the singular and the universal and that indulges in the splintering into singularities and consequences; on the other hand, it is the nature of the finite deed itself to contain such separations of contingencies. — The invention of dolus indirectus has its ground in what has been considered here.

  1. Hegel gives no reference. The proposition is a logical one: the singular is not the isolated particular but has the connection in which it stands at its own self – which is why an action is never merely the one singularity it first touches (Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed. § 163–165 and § 172 ff.). – See Die Grammatik der logischen Begriffe (in German): Allgemeinheit. ↩︎

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5 responses to “119”

  1. Hegel (Encyclopedia 1817) Avatar
    Hegel (Encyclopedia 1817)

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 419:

    § 419. The action is indeed the absolute determination, through its purpose, of the objectivity that is selfless as against the free subject. But since this objectivity is likewise self-subsistent, it can distort the individual’s action and bring to light something other than what lay within it. Although every change as such that is posited through the activity of the subject is its deed, it does not therefore recognize this as its action, but recognizes only that within the deed which lay in its knowledge and will as its own; – as its guilt; – because it counts itself only as an absolutely subjective and self-subsistent will.

  2. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    (last class of this year)
    Here we advance to the more determinate character of the moral ground.
    Difference, [something] other than the immediate action, initially a matter of judgment (but generally as a predicate of reflection).
    Here purpose, as determinate purpose, in opposition to means in the proper sense; – formal.
    a) Purpose – subjectivity in general, abstract knowledge – representation in general, – as in nature.
    b) Intention – determination of the action – from self-consciousness, from reflection into itself, from my knowledge of[?] myself.
    Action [is] a doing (not mechanical as with an animal – not merely juridical, – the sphere of my personality, – ) as determined by me, and hence as a necessary determination. The sphere of right contains in its principle no determinacy, for it is the universal of the freedom of personality itself. Hence entitlement, permission – but determinacy, particularization, [is] a matter of indifference, – I can do it, or also leave it, take possession, make a contract, [and] am not bound to do so. In the moral [sphere] I bind myself, and find myself [bound], am bound – morality [is] the standpoint of determination. – The universal of the will must be determinate – determinacy in the nature of the will. –
    Thus action contains something positive – a compulsion positively grounded in knowledge, a determination toward this or that expression. – Duty – I ought – in reflection, distinction, choice. – I, the particular, distinguished from the universal, which is the substantial. – Particularity [is] an essential moment – hence determining – but it itself [is] determined through the universal.
    Judgment of [the] action; – its determination as a universal; order, class.
    Action [is] the doing of the thinking human being – hence a universality within it – this is the essential [point].
    a) Intention – as such, in general. Formal distinction in general – the universal of some content or other that is not yet determinate. – The immediate content of the action as reflected into itself.
    b) Determinate opposition –
    α) αα) my (abstract) subjectivity – and
    ββ) the matter in general
    β) my determinate, concrete subjectivity – welfare
    γ) this reflected – universal – also the welfare of others
    c) Collision of welfare and right, – of the universality of the will.
    Intention – universality is the matter.

  3. Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827) Avatar
    Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 505:

    § 505. According to its particular content, the action has, 1) in its empirically concrete externality, a manifold of particular aspects and connections; the subject must have known and willed the action according to its essential determination, which comprises these particulars within itself; – right of intention. 2) The subject likewise has the right that the particularity of the content should, as regards its matter, not be something external, but rather the subject’s own particularity – its needs, interests and purposes – which, likewise gathered into a single purpose, constitute its welfare; – the right of welfare.

  4. Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830) Avatar
    Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 505:

    § 505. The action has, 1. according to its empirically concrete content, a manifold of particular aspects and connections; as regards form, the subject must have known and willed the action according to its essential determination, which comprises these particulars within itself; – right of intention. – Purpose concerns only the immediate existence, but intention concerns the substantial element and its end. 2. The subject likewise has the right that the particularity of the content in the action should not, as regards its matter, be external to it, but should contain the subject’s own particularity, its needs, interests and purposes, which, likewise gathered into one purpose, constitute, as in happiness (§ 479), its welfare; – the right of welfare. Happiness is distinguished from welfare only in that the former is represented as an immediate existence as such, while the latter is represented as entitled in relation to morality.

  5. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    It is indeed the case that, in an action, more or fewer circumstances can intervene: in the case of arson, the fire may fail to catch, or, conversely, it may spread further than the perpetrator intended. Nevertheless, no distinction between good fortune and misfortune is to be made here, for the human being, in acting, must engage with externality. An old proverb rightly says: the stone thrown from the hand belongs to the devil. In acting, I expose myself to misfortune; this therefore has a right over me and is an existence of my own willing.

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