{"id":903099,"date":"2026-09-17T12:30:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903099"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:30:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:30:05","slug":"is-the-will-really-free-if-it-must-be-rational","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/is-the-will-really-free-if-it-must-be-rational\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the will really free, especially if it is supposed to be rational?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> Hegel denies that rationality limits freedom \u2014 for him it is freedom\u2019s only shape. Free is not the will that reaches into a range of possibilities, but the one that remains with itself in what it wills. Whether that may still be called freedom is the real point of dispute; it is not settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction on which everything hangs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The usual concept of freedom \u2014 being able to do what one wants \u2014 is for Hegel not freedom but arbitrary will<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When one hears it said that freedom in general consists in being able to do what one wants, such a notion can only be taken as a complete lack of cultivation of thought [\u2026]. Arbitrary will, instead of being the will in its truth, is rather the will as contradiction<\/em>.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 15<\/a> Remark<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The contradiction lies in this: the chooser depends on what he chooses from. The content is given to him \u2014 by drives, inclinations, circumstances \u2014 and freedom consists merely in reaching among what is given. Whoever holds himself free because he can choose between A and B has only the choice, not the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Hegel puts in its place<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Free is the will that has itself for its content \u2014 which is determined not by something else but by itself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Only in this freedom is the will unqualifiedly with itself<\/em>, because it relates itself to nothing but itself, so that every relation of dependence<\/em> on something other<\/em> thereby falls away.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 23<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And \u00a7 27<\/a> puts this into a formula that at first sounds like a circle and is not one: the abstract concept of the Idea of the will is \u201ethe free will which wills the free will<\/em>\u201c. What is meant is: free is a willing directed not at something outside it but at the conditions of its own willing \u2014 that is, at relations in which willing is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this is not paternalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here lies the suspicion: if only the rational will is free, one can declare anyone who wants something else unfree and force him to his happiness. Hegel blocks this road expressly at two places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First: \u00a7 132<\/a> determines the \u201eright to recognize nothing that I do not see to be rational\u201c as \u201ethe highest right<\/em> of the subject\u201c. Whoever strikes out this sentence no longer has Hegel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second: \u00a7 206<\/a> requires that assignment to an estate happen not by birth or by authority but through \u201esubjective opinion<\/em> and particular arbitrary will<\/em>\u201c \u2014 the arbitrary will he has just disparaged is here given its right. And \u00a7 260<\/a> demands both at once: the universal is not to hold \u201ewithout particular interest, knowledge, and will\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duty as liberation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The sentence on which opinions divide stands in \u00a7 149<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But the individual has, in duty, rather its liberation<\/em> [\u2026]. In duty the individual liberates itself to substantial freedom.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 149<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This can be read as a demand hard to bear and as an experience. As experience: whoever has learned a craft is freer in it than the beginner, although he follows more rules. As a demand: the sentence can be used to declare any imposition a liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The open point<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel gives no criterion by which it could be decided from outside whether a given content is rational \u2014 the demonstration is supposed to lie in the course of the book. That means: whoever wants to test the concept of freedom must test \u00a7 1<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 360<\/a>. Whoever wants to misuse it can appeal to it without going through that course. Both have happened in the last two hundred years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 4<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 29<\/a> (the development of the concept of the will), especially \u00a7 15<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 21<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 24<\/a>, \u00a7 27<\/a>; \u00a7 132<\/a> and Remark, \u00a7 149<\/a>, \u00a7 206<\/a>, \u00a7 260<\/a>. \u2013 Encyclopaedia (1830) \u00a7\u00a7 469\u2013482. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Charles Taylor, Hegel<\/em>, Cambridge 1975; Isaiah Berlin, \u201eTwo Concepts of Liberty\u201c, 1958 \u2014 the classic criticism of precisely this figure of \u201epositive freedom\u201c; against it Robert B. Pippin, Hegel\u2019s Practical Philosophy<\/em>, Cambridge 2008. \u2013 In the glossary: freedom<\/a>, arbitrary will<\/a>, will<\/a>, subjective freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n