C. Coercion and Crime
That my will, in property, places itself into an external thing entails that it is, just as much as it is reflected into that thing, seized hold of within it and placed under necessity. In this it can, in part, suffer violence in general; in part, through violence, some sacrifice or action can be made a condition of some possession or positive being — coercion can be exercised upon it.
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 414:
§ 414. This action, in which the abstract, self-posited singularity of the person actualizes itself, is null and void in and for itself. But in it the agent sets up, as a rational law, one that is nevertheless merely formal and recognized only by himself, and through it has at the same time subsumed himself under it. The demonstrated nullity of this action, and therein the carrying-out of this formal law by a subjective, individual will, is revenge, which, because it proceeds from the interest of immediate, subjective personality, is at the same time only a new violation, continuing on into infinity. This progression likewise sublates itself in a third judgment, one without interest, punishment.
What has preceded is abstract wrong – wrong within right; partial negations; – ideal wrong – inward, in opinion, in dispute –
Real wrong – wrong that touches the thing itself.
Actual wrong – against will and thing –
Negation α) of the subjective will of the other –
β) of the objective will, the will that is in itself.
Hence assault, coercion.
Neither particular nor universal will respected.
– Objectivity of the will.
The thief avoids semblance, does not give the semblance of right that fraud gives –
Semblance is a) negative – against right, mere, only semblance – b) recognition
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 499:
§ 499. 3) The particular will presents itself as something simply contingent to right-in-itself, in the negation both of the latter itself and of its semblance; – negatively infinite judgment (§ 173) – violently evil will – crime.
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 499:
§ 499. 3. Insofar, finally, as the particular will sets itself against right in itself in the negation both of the latter itself and of its recognition or semblance (a negatively infinite judgment, § 173, in which both the genus and the particular determinacy – here the appearing recognition – are negated), it is a violently evil will, which commits a crime.
Wrong proper is crime, where neither right in itself nor [right] as it appears to me is respected, so that both sides, the objective and the subjective, are violated.
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