The Morality of Conscience

503-512

Conclusion:

Moral subjectivity is just a single individual, and it may or may not correspond to the Good.

“This supreme pitch of the 'phenomenon' of will — sublimating itself to this absolute vanity

 — to a goodness…. involves the nullification of the universal-collapses by its own force…. hold 

its own against the good, and of the good, which would only be abstract.” (512/273).

Premises:

1.) Moral subjectivity ought to commit to the Good; it shall look after not only its own interests/rights but also to the general welfare, the social goods. 

          a.) Welfare without right is not a good.                                                                                   

          b.) Right without welfare is not the Good.

          

          c.) The combination of the two is equivalent to the Good.

          d.) Subjectivity partakes in the Good.

 

2.) Moral subjectivity asserts its right to autonomy--to be the judge of itself what shall count as right or wrong. What it takes to be right may end up opposing the Good. [509/272]

a.) Subjectivity makes the Good private: the Good becomes his goods, not social goods, serving only himself.

b.) Moral subjectivity is on the verge of slipping into wickedness.

3.) Moral subjectivity or conscience contains both the Good and the wickedness. (511/273)

a.)    Subjectivity may take over by the wickedness and may do something contrary to the Good.

b.)    A good may be non-objective and non-universal.

c.)    Subjectivity becomes the judge for itself.

4.) Wickedness can work against subjectivity, and thus works against the Good.

           

a.) It leads to perversion and annihilation of the subjectivity, itself. (512/273)

5.) The actions of the subjectivity may not correspond to the Good.

Hegel - Preface to Philosophy of Right

Conclusion:
     Universal ethics must be understood and confirmed on an individual and rational basis through the study of philosophy.

"Right and Ethics, and the actual world of justice and ethical life are understood through thoughts; through thoughts they are invested with a rational form i.e. with universality and determinacy" (p. 259)

Premises:
     The content of the ethical world is inherently rational
          The form that this rationality manifests in is however usually not rational (p. 256)

     The State is endowed with a manifestation of "reason as it actualizes itself in the element of self-consciousness" (p. 257)
          The State imposes this ethic upon the people it is set to govern (as per its function)

     The majority of people will follow this law as dictated by social norms and subjectivity's influence through emotionality/guilt (p. 259)
          This same emotionality can manifest in an opposing way such that the populace doesn't trust the state and is critical of it (p. 261)
               This is due to the fact that there is a pluralism of different ideas regarding the nature of ethical life (p. 256).
                    These ideas are however wrong and caused by the same agent as the same superficial and subjective causes of mindless law-abiding (p. 256)

     One can only reconcile the law of the state, reason, and ethics through an individualistic study of philosophy and apprehending these truths from a purely rational standpoint, thereby achieving an objectivity that was impossible prior to the study (p. 263-264)

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel%20Glossary.htm

If anyone else is struggling with Hegel's terms, this might help.

"The State"

Conclusion: The state is the manifestation of the collective will of a nation, applied through reason. As such it provides for the unity, equality and liberty of its citizens through the rule of law.

“The State is the self-conscious ethical substance, the unification of the family principle with that of civil society. The same unity, which is in the family as the feeling of love, is its essence, receiving, however, at the same time through the second principle of conscious and spontaneously active volition the form of conscious universality.” (535)

“The essence of the state is the universal, self-originated and self-developed- the reasonable spirit of will…” (537)

Premises:

1)   The State is established by a constitution. (540).

2)   A constitution is the actualization of the collective will, or spirit, of a nation (540).
-Constitutions are not written or created but develop alongside the collective will as its real or actualized component (540).
-A constitution exists wherever there is a State; it is what gives the State reality.  (540)

3)   The State, in order to maintain the unity of its citizens as a collective whole, applies to all of civil life that which exists as love within the family (535).
-Love provides for the unity of the family.
-The unifying function of love, if not its concrete sentiment, may be adopted by the State and applied to its constituents.

4)   What is love in the family is rule of law in the State.

5)   What is love in the family becomes rule of law in the State through the process of reason.
-Reason makes universally applicable that which is subject to it.
- Love, subject to reason, and expressed by the State, is formulated into rule of law, which applies to all citizens universally, rather than to individual families.

6)   Rule of law provides for unity in the State as love provides for unity in the family.

7)   Rule of law provides for equality before the law for the constituents of the State.
- Rule of law is universal, being formed through reason. Universals apply to all equally.
- Equality before the law is the only occasion when equality exists between people. (People are not equal by nature, or in their influence in civil life.) (p. 286).

8)   Rule of law provides for collective liberty, what the author terms “objective freedom”* (p. 287).   
- “Objective freedom” is the freedom that comes about by membership in a State that has reasonable laws. It is the freedom to participate in the accomplishment of the goals of the collective will.
-The laws of the State direct the collective will through reason.
-The State, through its laws, makes participation in the goals of the collective will, the instantiation of collective liberty, possible.

*This stands in contrast with subjective freedom, which is the freedom of the individual to pursue his or her whims and pleasures. This form of freedom is subordinate to objective freedom, which is defined by the collective will, or spirit, of the people. Subjective freedom is a lesser form of freedom in that it is self-limiting (in order to preserve your subjective freedom I have to limit mine and vice versa) and in that the desire for subjective freedom can only arise in an environment of objective freedom, in which the objective freedom is taken for granted.

Hegel: §321-329

Conclusion:

Citizens should defend with their lives the individuality of the state.

“If [the state’s] autonomy is in jeopardy, all its citizens are in duty bound to answer the summons to its defense” (326/300).

Premises:

1. The state has individuality (321/298).

-The mind after incorporating differences into itself sees itself as an individual, a unit exclusive of other units.

-The sovereign state incorporates differences into itself just as the mind does.

-The state is aware of its existence in sharp distinction from others, i.e. foreign states.

-The original appearance of a state in history is represented by an individual at its head, a chieftain or a patriarch, that represents a single amalgamation of the wishes of a collection of people (298).

2. It is a citizen’s duty to go to war and defend this individuality of the state from foreign states (326/300).

-Sacrifice on behalf of the state’s individuality is a substantial tie between the state and its members (325/300). The state cannot develop without its members, and the members cannot develop without the state.

-Citizens and the state have a reciprocal relationship. The state protects citizens’ individual rights and welfare (including the protection from crime) (537/285), and the citizens in return must protect the state from foreign states.

-The substance of the state, i.e. its absolute power, may nullify individual rights and interests within, but it also posits those absolutes into consciousness (324/298). The state’s individuality is necessary for this consciousness.

-Citizens will become indifferent to ideas of freedom and rights when they are not willing to die (300).

-The state’s individuality is represented by the crown. The crown makes decisions in foreign affairs, and the members of the state have to follow his decisions unconditionally to maintain the individuality of the state (329/302).

3. The class of citizens devoted to the state’s defense will be characterized by courage, for risking their lives.

-The soldier has to sacrifice everything, all personal opinions and reasoning, all possessions and happiness in life, just to preserve the sovereignty of the state (327/301).

-Courage is a formal virtue; it’s what others see, and not what one necessarily is. These soldiers can have other motives, besides courage, for defending their country, but because of their sacrifice, they will be seen as courageous (326/301).

-Robbers and murderers risk their lives also, but they do it for their own whims. The soldier risks his/her life for a greater whole (301).

Hegel: §540-281

Conclusion:  What secures a constitution is the collective spirit of a nation. The government as a constitution unifies and solidifies the separate members to work towards a common goal as one under the right conditions.

“Only through the government, and by its embracing in itself the particular businesses (including the abstract legislative businesses…), is the state one”. (541/290)

Premesis:

1. A constitution only develops from the national spirit identically with that spirit’s own development, and runs through at the same time with it the grades of formation and the alterations required by its concepts (540/289).

2. The government is the universal part of the constitution, i.e., the part which intentionally aims at preserving [the family and the “estates” of civil society], but at the same time gets hold of and carries out those general aims of the whole, which rise above the function of the family and civil society (541/289).

3. The monarchical constitution is the constitution of developed reason (542/290).

a) In the perfect form of the state, in which each and every of the notion has reached free existence, this subjectivity is not…a ‘moral person’, or a decree issuing from a majority, …but the will of a decree individual- monarchy (542/290).

4. …sovereignty depends on the fact that the particular functions and powers of the state are not self-subsistent or …grounded either on their own account or in the particular will of the individual functionaries, but have their roots ultimately in the unity of the state as their single self (278/291).

a) Sovereignty only belongs to the state

5. It is only as a person, the monarch, that the personality of the state is actual (279/293).

a) …the person enshrines the actuality of the concept, and only when the concept is determined as person is it the Idea or Truth (279/293).

6. In the “divine sign” of Socrates we see the will…beginning to apply itself to itself and so to recognize its own inward nature (279/296).

a) This is the beginning of the monarch’s self-knowing which leads to true freedom

b) the states’ will is true freedom

c) the monarch rises naturally to be the individual raised above all that is particular and conditional

Civil Society and Differentiated Estates (§§523-528

Conclusion

Differentiated estates necessarily arise with the existence of civil society and the State.

“Where civil society, and with it the State, exists, there arise the several estates in their difference: for the universal substance, as vital, exists only so far as it organically particularizes itself (527).”

Premises

1.     The abstract disruption of the spirit objective constitutes persons in their individual subjectivities.

a.     See, “The Idea,” pp. 170-189.

2.     The particularities of each of these individuals is firstly, their wants, which can be satisfied only when their labor creates the general stock.

a.     Such wants can be satisfied through the immediate seizure of external objects, but this practice barely exists.

                                               i.     Objects are already the property of individuals.

                                              ii.     Exchange can only occur if the possessor of an object wills it and if this exchange satisfies his interest.

b.     Exchange is conditioned by the continual creation of new exchange mechanisms created by the labor of the exchangers.

c.      This exchange, made possible by will and conditioned by the means of exchange, constitutes the general stock.

3.     Culture is the product of the division of labor, which arises naturally from the way in which intellect creates difference in individuals. This demonstrates the glimmer of the universal in the particular.

a.     Intellect creates differences in the wants of particular people.

b.     There is thus a multiplication of both wants and the means by which they are fulfilled.

c.      This renders both wants and means increasingly abstract.

d.     This abstraction gives rise to the division of labor.

e.     Habits of enjoyment, information, learning, and demeanor develop from this division of labor insofar as each sphere requires particular training.

f.      Taken as a whole, this abstraction forms culture.

4.     This abstraction of labor makes labor easier and increases production, but also produces an unconditional dependence on the social system, the deskilling of labor, and the eventual replacement of human with machine labor.

5.     The difference of Estate is also the rise of civil society and the State.

a.     Civil society and the State is the existence of each particular individual as he or she is a part of the universal substance.

                                               i.     The universal is given only in its instantiation as a particular.

                                              ii.     Estates are differentiated masses of people.

1.     Such estates are apportioned through natural talent, skill, option, and accident

2.     Differentiation is a product of each masses’ particular basis of subsistence and its corresponding form of labor, its means and the ways in which those are satisfied, its aims and interests, and finally, the mental cultures and habits of each.

b.     Each person thereby belongs to a definite and stable sphere through which is given their social morality, recognition, and honor insofar as they are both particular and universal.

Hegel: §49-52

Conclusion: The idea of God is inseparable from thought in that it must be a notion. The transition from being into notion (or conceptualization) i.e. self-knowing, is God. Self knowing, or this union between notion and Being is the most real reality

"God... expressly has to be what can only be 'thought as existing'; His notion involves being. It is this unity of the notion and being that constitutes the notion of God." (165/51)

Premises:
1: God is defined as the most real of beings. (160/49)

2: Every defining term is a negation of immediate reality.
a. In the transition from sensation into notion, the phenomenal is transmuted into the universal,
and "when it receives the stamp of universality at once loses its first and phenomenal shape." (162/50)
b. In other words, once the immediate is conceptualized it loses it's immediacy.
c. The defining of God reduces Him to an abstract.

3: The only appropriate term for the defining of the most real of real things is Being. (160/49)
a. Being, as a definition, is itself an abstraction

4. God cannot be proved using phenomenological premises based on contingent realities. (164/51               a."Merely animated nature is, at best, incapable of supplying the material for the truthful               expression of the idea of God." (164/51)
b. The most adequate starting point in a proof of God is in the nature of the Spirit

5. The notion is necessarily a reference back on itself.
a. In other words, to have a concept, one must be able to make a reference to being. (165/51)
             
6. Being is not truly actualized if it is not able to reference itself.
a. It is merely something which is supposed to be, "like that of the paper lying before me."     (165/51)

7. It is the faculty of thought which allows Being to transcend contingent sensory things into universal notions.
a."Suppose now that this fullness of being passes under the agency of thought. Then it is stripped of its isolation and unconnectedness, and viewed as a universal and absolutely necessary being which determines itself and acts by general purposes or laws. And this necessary and and self determined being, different from the being at commencement, is God." (160/49)

Hegel §213-222

Conclusion: The Idea consist of the absolute universal and is not of the particular or individual but creates the unity of the particular through notion and of the exhibition of the notion as “external existence”. (170/213).

“The Idea is truth in itself and for itself… Its “ideal” content is nothing but the notion in its detailed terms; its “real” content is only the exhibition which the notion gives itself in the form of external existence, whilst yet, by enclosing this shape in its power, and so keeps itself in it" (170/213).

Premises:

1. The Idea is totality or absolute (170/213).

2. The Idea is not of a single individual, conception, or external object but every “actual thing” that is true, is the Idea (170/213).

            a) Every actual thing gains its truth within and by the Idea (170/213).

            b) Every individual being is only one aspect of the Idea (170/213).

3. The Idea should not be confused with a singular idea (170/213).

4. The Idea is the one universal substance and at the same time it’s “genuine actuality” is the mind (170/213).

            a) The Absolute, which is the Idea, is the universal one idea (170/213).

            b) Through “judgment” this one idea breaks down into the system of specific ideas (170/213).

            c) These specific ideas are “constrained by their nature” to where truth is for them, which is within the one idea   (170/213).

            d) In the process of judgment and reconstitution the Idea first, is the one universal substance, and second, in     actuality it is to be such as a subject, i.e. mind (170/213).

5. The Idea is not a logical form (170/213).

6. The Idea is not an abstraction within itself but “essentially concrete” (170/213).

            a) Concreteness is created by the free notion birthing character to itself and in turn the character becomes reality (170-171/213).

7. The Idea is in every consciousness and therefore something present within this “mortal sphere” (171/213).

8. Notion is realized by the internal collectivity of all individual beings and their relation to each other (171/213).

            a) the individual does not correspond to its notion alone (170/213).

            b) the notion should never be considered a specific notion (170/213).

9. The Idea can be described in many ways (ex. Reason, object-subject, infinite-finite) because it contains all the relationships of understanding             (172-173/214).

10. The Idea is the dialectic that makes understanding and diversity know their finite nature which brings the diversity back into a unity (172-            173/214).

            a) Understanding makes two “misunderstandings” 1) it takes the extremes of the Idea as abstractions instead of the concrete unity it is.  2) that the “self-identical” Idea contains  contradiction or an external reflection which does not lie in the Ideal itself. (172-173/214).

11. The Idea is essentially a process and runs through three stages of development (174/215).

            a) First, the idea is in the form of immediacy (172-173/214).

            b) Second, the idea is in the mediate form of Knowledge (172-173/214).

            c) Third, the idea is the Absolute Idea (172-173/214).

12. The purpose of Philosophy has always been to make certain of the Idea (172/213).

            a) The proof of the Idea is contained in the whole history of Philosophy (172/213).

            b) Idea is the result of this historical dialectic (172/213).

            

Hegel: § 40-45

Conclusion:

The differences between subjectivity and objectivity are useful only insofar as the mere being of an object is being related to us via sensation or thought, but are meaningless when thoughts extend from us to actually constitute the object in itself. This extension is what helps us begin to discern the content of that object, examining it for its own sake as opposed to considering its treatment as subjective or objective.

“It does no good to the things to say merely that they have being…we are chiefly interested in knowing what a thing is: i.e., its content, which is no more objective than it is subjective.” (151)

Premises:

1. Thoughts, as well as categories, are to some extent objective in that they exist outside sensation through universality but are also subjective in that they reflect what is felt (148).

            a. Kant attributes knowledge of the objects of categories (as appearances) to the Ego, in which the mind is the subject that unifies experienced phenomena to reach its own personally inclusive identity (151).

            b. Following from Kant, while categories are universal and necessary, they nonetheless exist only for us and give no insight into objects in themselves, which are alienated from our knowledge (148).

            c. If thoughts are confined to our own being, then the nature or constitution of an object will remain indeterminate.

2. The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity with regards to categories is only useful in determining that something is, and its relationship with other objects.

            a. The mere existence of that object, rather than its content, is being referenced to either in sensation (subjective grounds) or in thought (objective grounds).

3. Categories’ being a part of thought does not necessarily imply that the categories are not indicative of the characteristics of their corresponding objects (151).

4. The content of these objects can begin to be illuminated if thought extends beyond us to comprise the very nature of objects, and such an extension of thought grants the possibility of defining our relationship with what they are.

            a. There is a point of utility in knowing the content of an object and its truth, rather than only admitting that the object exists, which neither benefits the object nor us (151).

            b. The issues of subjectivity and objectivity do not highlight the relationship among the contents of the objects themselves.