grundlinien.de

115

First Section. Purpose and Responsibility

The finitude of the subjective will in the immediacy of acting consists, immediately, in this: that for its acting it has a presupposed external object with manifold circumstances. The deed posits a change in this existence that lies before it, and the will has responsibility for this in general, insofar as the abstract predicate of mine lies in the altered existence.

An event, a state of affairs that has come about, is a concrete external actuality that therefore has an indeterminably large number of circumstances attaching to it. Every single moment that shows itself as a condition, ground, or cause of such a circumstance, and has thus contributed its own share, can be regarded as being responsible for it, or at least as having a share of responsibility in it. Formal understanding therefore has, in the case of a rich event (for example, the French Revolution), a choice, among an innumerable multitude of circumstances, as to which one it wishes to maintain is responsible.

DE ES

Comments

5 responses to “115”

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

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 418:

    § 418. The general conclusion is that the moral subject, as the unity of the opposition existing for itself—an opposition that is likewise self-subsistent in its extremes—is this inner contradiction, and, as identity, is the activity and the drive to sublate it, that is, to act: in one and the same act, to realize the purpose and to make the external world conform to the purpose.

  2. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    Intent – purpose as distinct from intention.
    Accountability – of the action
    The objective is what is mine – consequences –
    Two kinds of objectivity – with regard to the action
    α) what is presupposed, which he wants to change
    β) the changed thing itself, what has been brought forth –
    The effective [factor], toward what is brought forth – which is thus also present in the product – and, as subjective ground, was present in the activity.
    Guilt – what is ground – ground – as active – as that which has acted –

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

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 504:

    § 504. Insofar as the determinacy of the action initially concerns existence immediately, what is mine is thus formal to this extent, since the external existence is also self-subsistent as against the subject. This externality can distort the subject’s action and bring forth something other than what was contained in it. Although every alteration as such, which is posited through the activity of the subject, is a deed of the subject, it does not therefore recognize this as its action, but acknowledges only that in the deed which lay in its knowledge and will, which was its purpose, as its own—as its guilt.

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

    Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 504:

    § 504. Insofar as the action immediately concerns existence, what is mine is to that extent formal, since the external existence is also self-subsistent as against the subject. This externality can distort the subject’s action and bring forth something other than what was contained in it. Although every alteration as such, which is posited through the activity of the subject, is a deed of the subject, it does not therefore recognize this as its action, but recognizes only that existence in the deed which lay in its knowledge and will, which was its purpose, as its own—as its guilt.

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

    That can be imputed to me which lay in my purpose, and in the case of crime this is chiefly what matters. But in guilt there lies only the wholly external judgment of whether I have done something or not; and that I am guilty of something does not yet mean that the matter can be imputed to me.

Leave a Reply