Hegel's Philosophy of Mind Part 14

(b) Contract.

-- 493. The two wills and their agreement in the contract are as an _internal_ state of mind different from its realisation in the _performance_. The comparatively "ideal" utterance (of contract) in the _stipulation_ contains the actual surrender of a property by the one, its changing hands, and its acceptance by the other will. The contract is thus thoroughly binding: it does not need the performance of the one or the other to become so-otherwise we should have an infinite regress or infinite division of thing, labour, and time. The utterance in the stipulation is complete and exhaustive. The inwardness of the will which surrenders and the will which accepts the property is in the realm of ideation, and in that realm the word is deed and thing (-- 462)-the full and complete deed, since here the conscientiousness of the will does not come under consideration (as to whether the thing is meant in earnest or is a deception), and the will refers only to the external thing.

-- 494. Thus in the stipulation we have the _substantial_ being of the contract standing out in distinction from its real utterance in the performance, which is brought down to a mere sequel. In this way there is put into the thing or performance a distinction between its immediate specific _quality_ and its substantial being or _value_, meaning by value the quant.i.tative terms into which that qualitative feature has been translated. One piece of property is thus made comparable with another, and may be made equivalent to a thing which is (in quality) wholly heterogeneous. It is thus treated in general as an abstract, universal thing or commodity.

-- 495. The contract, as an agreement which has a voluntary origin and deals with a casual commodity, involves at the same time the giving to this "accidental" will a positive fixity. This will may just as well not be conformable to law (right), and, in that case, produces a _wrong_: by which however the absolute law (right) is not superseded, but only a relations.h.i.+p originated of right to wrong.

(c) Right versus Wrong.

-- 496. Law (right) considered as the realisation of liberty in externals, breaks up into a multiplicity of relations to this external sphere and to other persons (---- 491, 493 seqq.). In this way there are (1) several t.i.tles or grounds at law, of which (seeing that property both on the personal and the real side is exclusively individual) only one is the right, but which, because they face each other, each and all are invested with a _show_ of right, against which the former is defined as the intrinsically right.

-- 497. Now so long as (compared against this show) the one intrinsically right, still presumed identical with the several t.i.tles, is affirmed, willed, and recognised, the only diversity lies in this, that the special thing is subsumed under the one law or right by the _particular_ will of _these_ several persons. This is nave, non-malicious wrong. Such wrong in the several claimants is a simple _negative judgment_, expressing the _civil suit_. To settle it there is required a third judgment, which, as the judgment of the intrinsically right, is disinterested, and a power of giving the one right existence as against that semblance.

-- 498. But (2) if the semblance of right is willed as such _against_ right intrinsical by the particular will, which thus becomes _wicked_, then the external _recognition_ of right is separated from the right's true value; and while the former only is respected, the latter is violated. This gives the wrong of _fraud_-the infinite judgment as identical (-- 173),-where the nominal relation is retained, but the sterling value is let slip.

-- 499. (3) Finally, the particular will sets itself in opposition to the intrinsic right by negating that right itself as well as its recognition or semblance. [Here there is a negatively infinite judgment (-- 173) in which there is denied the cla.s.s as a whole, and not merely the particular mode-in this case the apparent recognition.] Thus the will is violently wicked, and commits a _crime_.

-- 500. As an outrage on right, such an action is essentially and actually null. In it the agent, as a volitional and intelligent being, sets up a law-a law however which is nominal and recognised by him only-a universal which holds good _for him_, and under which he has at the same time subsumed himself by his action. To display the nullity of such an act, to carry out simultaneously this nominal law and the intrinsic right, in the first instance by means of a subjective individual will, is the work of _Revenge_. But, revenge, starting from the interest of an immediate particular personality, is at the same time only a new outrage; and so on without end. This progression, like the last, abolishes itself in a third judgment, which is disinterested-_punishment_.

-- 501. The instrumentality by which authority is given to intrinsic right is (a) that a particular will, that of the judge, being conformable to the right, has an interest to turn against the crime (-which in the first instance, in revenge, is a matter of chance), and () that an executive power (also in the first instance casual) negates the negation of right that was created by the criminal. This negation of right has its existence in the will of the criminal; and consequently revenge or punishment directs itself against the person or property of the criminal and exercises _coercion_ upon him. It is in this legal sphere that coercion in general has possible scope,-compulsion against the thing, in seizing and maintaining it against another's seizure: for in this sphere the will has its existence immediately in externals as such, or in corporeity, and can be seized only in this quarter. But more than _possible_ compulsion is not, so long as I can withdraw myself as free from every mode of existence, even from the range of all existence, i.e. from life. It is legal only as abolis.h.i.+ng a first and original compulsion.

-- 502. A distinction has thus emerged between the law (right) and the subjective will. The "reality" of right, which the personal will in the first instance gives itself in immediate wise, is seen to be due to the instrumentality of the subjective will,-whose influence as on one hand it gives existence to the essential right, so may on the other cut itself off from and oppose itself to it. Conversely, the claim of the subjective will to be in this abstraction a power over the law of right is null and empty of itself: it gets truth and reality essentially only so far as that will in itself realises the reasonable will. As such it is _morality_(153) proper.

The phrase "Law of Nature," or Natural Right(154), in use for the philosophy of law involves the ambiguity that it may mean either right as something existing ready-formed in nature, or right as governed by the nature of things, i.e. by the notion. The former used to be the common meaning, accompanied with the fiction of a _state of nature_, in which the law of nature should hold sway; whereas the social and political state rather required and implied a restriction of liberty and a sacrifice of natural rights. The real fact is that the whole law and its every article are based on free personality alone,-on self-determination or autonomy, which is the very contrary of determination by nature. The law of nature-strictly so called-is for that reason the predominance of the strong and the reign of force, and a state of nature a state of violence and wrong, of which nothing truer can be said than that one ought to depart from it. The social state, on the other hand, is the condition in which alone right has its actuality: what is to be restricted and sacrificed is just the wilfulness and violence of the state of nature.

Sub-Section B. The Morality Of Conscience(155).

-- 503. The free individual, who, in mere law, counts only as a _person_, is now characterised as a _subject_, a will reflected into itself so that, be its affection what it may, it is distinguished (as existing in it) as _its own_ from the existence of freedom in an external thing. Because the affection of the will is thus inwardised, the will is at the same time made a particular, and there arise further particularisations of it and relations of these to one another. This affection is partly the essential and implicit will, the reason of the will, the essential basis of law and moral life: partly it is the existent volition, which is before us and throws itself into actual deeds, and thus comes into relations.h.i.+p with the former. The subjective will is _morally_ free, so far as these features are its inward inst.i.tution, its own, and willed by it. Its utterance in deed with this freedom is an _action_, in the externality of which it only admits as its own, and allows to be imputed to it, so much as it has consciously willed.

This subjective or "moral" freedom is what a European especially calls freedom. In virtue of the right thereto a man must possess a personal knowledge of the distinction between good and evil in general: ethical and religious principles shall not merely lay their claim on him as external laws and precepts of authority to be obeyed, but have their a.s.sent, recognition, or even justification in his heart, sentiment, conscience, intelligence, &c. The subjectivity of the will in itself is its supreme aim and absolutely essential to it.

The "moral" must be taken in the wider sense in which it does not signify the morally good merely. In French _le moral_ is opposed to _le physique_, and means the mental or intellectual in general. But here the moral signifies volitional mode, so far as it is in the interior of the will in general; it thus includes purpose and intention,-and also moral wickedness.

a. Purpose(156).

-- 504. So far as the action comes into immediate touch with _existence_, _my part_ in it is to this extent formal, that external existence is also _independent_ of the agent. This externality can pervert his action and bring to light something else than lay in it. Now, though any alteration as such, which is set on foot by the subject's action, is its _deed_(157), still the subject does not for that reason recognise it as its _action_(158), but only admits as its own that existence in the deed which lay in its knowledge and will, which was its _purpose_. Only for that does it hold itself _responsible_.

b. Intention and Welfare(159).

-- 505. As regards its empirically concrete _content_ (1) the action has a variety of particular aspects and connexions. In point of _form_, the agent must have known and willed the action in its essential feature, embracing these individual points. This is the right of _intention_. While _purpose_ affects only the immediate fact of existence, _intention_ regards the underlying essence and aim thereof. (2) The agent has no less the right to see that the particularity of content in the action, in point of its matter, is not something external to him, but is a particularity of his own,-that it contains his needs, interests, and aims. These aims, when similarly comprehended in a single aim, as in happiness (-- 479), const.i.tute his _well-being_. This is the right to well-being. Happiness (good fortune) is distinguished from well-being only in this, that happiness implies no more than some sort of immediate existence, whereas well-being regards it as also justified as regards morality.

-- 506. But the essentiality of the intention is in the first instance the abstract form of generality. Reflection can put in this form this and that particular aspect in the empirically-concrete action, thus making it essential to the intention or restricting the intention to it. In this way the supposed essentiality of the intention and the real essentiality of the action may be brought into the greatest contradiction-e.g. a good intention in case of a crime. Similarly well-being is abstract and may be set on this or that: as appertaining to this single agent, it is always something particular.

c. Goodness and Wickedness(160).

-- 507. The truth of these particularities and the concrete unity of their formalism is the content of the universal, essential and actual, will,-the law and underlying essence of every phase of volition, the essential and actual good. It is thus the absolute final aim of the world, and _duty_ for the agent who _ought_ to have _insight_ into the _good_, make it his _intention_ and bring it about by his activity.

-- 508. But though the good is the universal of will-a universal determined in itself,-and thus including in it particularity,-still so far as this particularity is in the first instance still abstract, there is no principle at hand to determine it. Such determination therefore starts up also outside that universal; and as heteronomy or determinance of a will which is free and has rights of its own, there awakes here the deepest contradiction. (a) In consequence of the indeterminate determinism of the good, there are always _several sorts_ of good and _many kinds of duties_, the variety of which is a dialectic of one against another and brings them into _collision_. At the same time because good is one, they _ought_ to stand in harmony; and yet each of them, though it is a particular duty, is as good and as duty absolute. It falls upon the agent to be the dialectic which, superseding this absolute claim of each, concludes such a combination of them as excludes the rest.

-- 509. () To the agent, who in his existent sphere of liberty is essentially as a _particular_, his _interest and welfare_ must, on account of that existent sphere of liberty, be essentially an aim and therefore a duty. But at the same time in aiming at the good, which is the not-particular but only universal of the will, the particular interest _ought not_ to be a const.i.tuent motive. On account of this independency of the two principles of action, it is likewise an accident whether they harmonise. And yet they _ought_ to harmonise, because the agent, as individual and universal, is always fundamentally one ident.i.ty.

(?) But the agent is not only a mere particular in his existence; it is also a form of his existence to be an abstract self-certainty, an abstract reflection of freedom into himself. He is thus distinct from the reason in the will, and capable of making the universal itself a particular and in that way a semblance. The good is thus reduced to the level of a mere "may happen" for the agent, who can therefore resolve itself to somewhat opposite to the good, can be wicked.

-- 510. (d) The external objectivity, following the distinction which has arisen in the subjective will (-- 503), const.i.tutes a peculiar world of its own,-another extreme which stands in no rapport with the internal will-determination. It is thus a matter of chance, whether it harmonises with the subjective aims, whether the good is realised, and the wicked, an aim essentially and actually null, nullified in it: it is no less matter of chance whether the agent finds in it his well-being, and more precisely whether in the world the good agent is happy and the wicked unhappy. But at the same time the world _ought_ to allow the good action, the essential thing, to be carried out in it; it _ought_ to grant the good agent the satisfaction of his particular interest, and refuse it to the wicked; just as it _ought_ also to make the wicked itself null and void.

-- 511. The all-round contradiction, expressed by this repeated _ought_, with its absoluteness which yet at the same time is _not_-contains the most abstract 'a.n.a.lysis' of the mind in itself, its deepest descent into itself. The only relation the self-contradictory principles have to one another is in the abstract certainty of self; and for this infinitude of subjectivity the universal will, good, right, and duty, no more exist than not. The subjectivity alone is aware of itself as choosing and deciding.

This pure self-cert.i.tude, rising to its pitch, appears in the two directly inter-changing forms-of _Conscience_ and _Wickedness_. The former is the will of goodness; but a goodness which to this pure subjectivity is the _non-objective_, non-universal, the unutterable; and over which the agent is conscious that _he_ in his _individuality_ has the decision. Wickedness is the same awareness that the single self possesses the decision, so far as the single self does not merely remain in this abstraction, but takes up the content of a subjective interest contrary to the good.

-- 512. This supreme pitch of the "_phenomenon_" of will,-sublimating itself to this absolute vanity-to a goodness, which has no objectivity, but is only sure of itself, and a self-a.s.surance which involves the nullification of the universal-collapses by its own force. Wickedness, as the most intimate reflection of subjectivity itself, in opposition to the objective and universal, (which it treats as mere sham,) is the same as the good sentiment of abstract goodness, which reserves to the subjectivity the determination thereof:-the utterly abstract semblance, the bare perversion and annihilation of itself. The result, the truth of this semblance, is, on its negative side, the absolute nullity of this volition which would fain hold its own against the good, and of the good, which would only be abstract. On the affirmative side, in the notion, this semblance thus collapsing is the same simple universality of the will, which is the good. The subjectivity, in this its _ident.i.ty_ with the good, is only the infinite form, which actualises and developes it. In this way the standpoint of bare reciprocity between two independent sides,-the standpoint of the _ought_, is abandoned, and we have pa.s.sed into the field of ethical life.

Sub-Section C. The Moral Life, Or Social Ethics(161).

-- 513. The moral life is the perfection of spirit objective-the truth of the subjective and objective spirit itself. The failure of the latter consists-partly in having its freedom _immediately_ in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing,-partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. When these two imperfections are suppressed, subjective _freedom_ exists as the covertly and overtly _universal_ rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal _actuality_ at the same time exist as moral usage, manner and custom,-where self-conscious _liberty_ has become _nature_.

-- 514. The consciously free substance, in which the absolute "ought" is no less an "is," has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The abstract disruption of this spirit singles it out into _persons_, whose independence it however controls and entirely dominates from within. But the person, as an intelligent being, feels that underlying essence to be his own very being-ceases when so minded to be a mere accident of it-looks upon it as his absolute final aim. In its actuality he sees not less an achieved present, than somewhat he brings it about by his action,-yet somewhat which without all question _is_. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs its duty as _his own_ and as something which _is_; and in this necessity _he_ has himself and his actual freedom.

-- 515. Because the substance is the absolute unity of individuality and universality of freedom, it follows that the actuality and action of each individual to keep and to take care of his own being, while it is on one hand conditioned by the pre-supposed total in whose complex alone he exists, is on the other a transition into a universal product.-The social disposition of the individuals is their sense of the substance, and of the ident.i.ty of all their interests with the total; and that the other individuals mutually know each other and are actual only in this ident.i.ty, is confidence (trust)-the genuine ethical temper.

-- 516. The relations between individuals in the several situations to which the substance is particularised form their _ethical duties_. The ethical personality, i.e. the subjectivity which is permeated by the substantial life, is _virtue_. In relation to the bare facts of external being, to _destiny_, virtue does not treat them as a mere negation, and is thus a quiet repose in itself: in relation to substantial objectivity, to the total of ethical actuality, it exists as confidence, as deliberate work for the community, and the capacity of sacrificing self thereto; whilst in relation to the incidental relations of social circ.u.mstance, it is in the first instance justice and then benevolence. In the latter sphere, and in its att.i.tude to its own visible being and corporeity, the individuality expresses its special character, temperament, &c. as personal _virtues_.

-- 517. The ethical substance is

AA. as "immediate" or _natural_ mind,-the _Family_.

BB. The "relative" totality of the "relative" relations of the individuals as independent persons to one another in a formal universality-_Civil Society_.