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33

Division of the Work

According to the sequence of stages in the development of the Idea of the will that is free in and for itself, the will is

A. immediate; its concept therefore abstract – personality – and its determinate being an immediate external thing; – the sphere of abstract or formal right;

B. the will reflected out of its external determinate being into itself, determined as subjective individuality over against the universal – the latter being in part something inward, the good, and in part something outward, a world at hand – and these two sides of the Idea only mediated through one another; the Idea in its diremption, or in its particular existence – the right of the subjective will in relation to the right of the world and to the right of the Idea, which, however, is only an Idea in itself; – the sphere of morality;

C. the unity and truth of these two abstract moments – the thought-Idea of the good realized in the will reflected into itself and in an external world¹ – so that freedom exists as substance just as much as actuality and necessity as it does as subjective will; – the Idea in its existence that is universal in and for itself; ethical life.

The ethical substance, however, is likewise

a) natural spirit; – the family,

b) in its diremption and appearance; – civil society,

c) the state, as that objective freedom which is equally universal in the free self-subsistence of the particular will; – whose actual and organic spirit α) as that of a people becomes and reveals itself as actual β) through the relation of the particular national spirits to one another γ) in world history as the universal world spirit, whose right is the highest.

¹ [handwritten:] i.e. other subjects

That a thing or a content which is posited only according to its concept, or as it is in itself, has the shape of immediacy or of being, is presupposed from speculative logic; the concept which is for itself in the form of the concept is something else again; this is no longer something immediate. – Likewise the principle determining this division is presupposed. The division may also be regarded as a historical anticipation of the parts, for the various stages must issue from the nature of the content itself as moments in the development of the Idea. A philosophical division is in general not an external classification of a given material, carried out according to one or more grounds of division adopted from outside, but the immanent distinguishing of the concept itself. – Morality and ethical life, usually taken to be roughly synonymous, are here taken in essentially different senses. Meanwhile, ordinary usage too seems to distinguish them; Kantian usage prefers the expression morality, since indeed the practical principles of that philosophy confine themselves entirely to this concept, even rendering the standpoint of ethical life impossible – indeed expressly negating and repudiating it. But even if morality and ethical life were synonymous according to their etymology, this would not prevent these two now-distinct words from being used for distinct concepts.

DE

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2 responses to “33”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    A. Freedom in general turns first to immediate external existence – within it. α) Determinacy – immediate freedom – β) Existence – thing
    B. within itself – to be in itself, for itself –
    In my inwardness will – thoughts – a universal – freedom as subject of the will with the determination of subjectivity; thereby it is existence – determination of the moments of right
    Right is not concerned with particular inwardness – insight, conviction, intention, conscience – at all –
    Will – I, subjective reflection into myself, freedom as universal, immediate concept –
    α) Existence of freedom in general. I and freedom immediately identical – immediate apprehension – undifferentiated – I will because I will – I am particular I and universal – not yet differentiated as free. I have right – simply because I am free.
    β) Personal freedom, i.e. concept, universal, and I
    – differentiated
    Separation into universality and singularity.
    Essentiality of both sides
    Universality and singularity (subjective particularity) have differentiated determinations as
    α) knowing – insight – conviction, relation to the good,
    β) particular needs become the object
    αα) objectification of the good – duty for me. Right of the good over me – makes it a duty for me
    ββ) subjective right, that I know it, be convinced of it, consent to it – right of subjectivity – of knowing, of my willing, of my needs, welfare
    β) particular welfare
    αα) universal welfare – subsumed under αα), good here only abstract.
    Is – truth – i.e. unity of the two determinations – which are posited as determinate, as differentiated.
    Particular persons and yet in One
    Ethical life –
    α) Abstraction, thoughts α) Good. –
    β) my particularity, my will β) with this universal the particularity identical – good will – contingent connection
    γ) Immediacy – like right γ) A substantial relation – actual – as relation, bond subsisting for itself.
    Giving up – the particular subjectivity of the individual. No longer my arbitrary choice in feeling, but an objective bond – that for me this unity is present as being, as valid, independently of my subjectivity, not merely a thought within me, in my certainty – in my conscience.
    [C.] Good, universal, essentially determinate within itself – determinacy taken up into the universal – determinate good
    Appearance as substantial unity of several [?] – self as having given itself up – as in identity – spirit – otherwise no other content
    The development determines the concept further – and therefore also at once changes the first shape – Hugo is surprised that world history [is subsumed] under the state)
    Right of spirit – only here spirit – namely no longer merely I, reason, unity of subject and reality, of concept and I – and not merely in itself, universal – but knowing self-consciousness.
    a) Only in the family a concrete beginning – ethically actual spirit – Penates
    b) Relation of many families to one another; cannot exist for itself – system of needs, that is, an external, spiritless connection, mediated relation – relativity – identity [as] ground – self-interest – the bond – needs. One often understands by the state – need as contingent necessity. Also relation, connection – of need, of particularity
    c) The spirit of a people – its world – solar system. Relation to the spirit of the world
    Right of spirit
    α) Laws
    Right of substance
    β) Right of individuals; their highest right [is] the substantial existence of their freedom –
    ) cf. Gustav Hugo’s review of the Philosophy of Right in the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (issue 61, 16 April 1821, p. 601 ff.) and Hegel’s reply

    [handschriftlich] (inline) i.e. other subjects

  2. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    When we speak of right here, we do not mean merely civil law, which is what is usually understood by it, but morality, ethical life, and world history, which likewise belong here, because the concept brings together thoughts in accordance with their truth. The free will must first, in order not to remain abstract, give itself an existence, and the first sensuous material of this existence is things, that is, external objects. This first mode of freedom is the one we are to know as property, the sphere of formal and abstract right, to which no less belong property in its mediated form as contract, and right in its violation as crime and punishment. The freedom we have here is what we call the person, that is, the subject that is free, and indeed free for itself, and that gives itself an existence in things. This mere immediacy of existence, however, is not adequate to freedom, and the negation of this determination is the sphere of morality. I am no longer merely free in this immediate thing, but I am also free in the sublated immediacy, that is, I am free within myself, in what is subjective. It is in this sphere that everything depends on my insight and intention and on my purpose, since externality is posited as indifferent. The good, which here is the universal purpose, is not, however, to remain merely within my inwardness, but is to realize itself. For the subjective will demands that its inwardness, that is, its purpose, attain external existence, so that the good is to be accomplished in outward existence. Morality, like the earlier moment of formal right, are both abstractions whose truth is only ethical life. Ethical life is thus the unity of the will in its concept and the will of the individual, that is, of the subject. Its first existence is in turn something natural, in the form of love and feeling: the family; here the individual has sublated its brittle personality and finds itself, with its consciousness, within a whole. But at the following stage one sees the loss of true ethical life and of substantial unity: the family falls apart, and its members relate to one another as independent persons, bound together only by the tie of mutual need. This stage, that of civil society, has often been taken for the state. But the state is only the third moment, the ethical life and spirit in which the immense union of the independence of individuality and universal substantiality takes place. The right of the state is therefore higher than the other stages: it is freedom in its most concrete configuration, which falls only under the highest, absolute truth of world spirit.

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