POL320 - lecture - January 19, 2008

actualizing free will

  • For human beings to be free
  • they have to extend their freedom into something else

property

  • properties is necessary but not sufficient for freedom
  • the person, who is a bearer of rights, is treated arbitrarily
  • why do you want to put your will into things? - for hagel this is irrelevant, arbitrary

ownership

  • it can't just be in your mind
  • it must be reflected in the world
  • you take possession of something in three ways

3 ways of taking possession

  1. Direct possession
  2. use possession
  3. alienation possession

Being Conscious of our Freedom

  • sequentially we become more conscious of our free agency
  • with direct possession you become aware but with alienation your explicitely conscious of oneself
  • this is an abstract concept, Hegel is only considering the concept of ownership in the individual mind
  • objects claimed as ownership must not have someone else's will in it already

Direct Ownerhip

  1. grasping,
  2. forming
  3. marking

Grasping Possession

  • paragraph 55
  • there is a puzzle when taking possession
  • it is one thing to possess an apple, it is another to possess land
  • who far does your ownership extend? - mineral rights, air rights, building above?
  • it is not self evident or obvious
  • ambiguity forms and they can't be resolved inherently

Laws

  • laws have to be made to compensate - discrepancies must be explicitly decided
  • when you own land near a river, are you responsible for chemical run off in the river?
  • the nature of property has real concrete implications for social organization
  • the idea of ownership must involve the way in which the mind constructs the concept
  • real and reason, ownership involves the mind
  • taking ownership is complicated

use possession

  • forming, shaping
  • building, modifying
  • physically putting your will into the land
  • reclaiming a field from a forest
  • shaping in accordance with their own will and desire
  • the same thing can happen with objects - carving the wood into furniture

Marking Possession

  • marking intends to signify that will has been put into them
  • someone has indicated ownership
  • a mark is a claim on the object

Use Ownership

  • the thing doesn't count
  • the action is important
  • the reasons for the will can be arbitrary, whim, or desire
  • when you use something you go on simple possession
  • you put your will into it and then you negate it
  • there is nothing in the thing I have to respect
  • at no point am I compelled to holdback
  • negating any moral status
  • my need externally realized through the change, destruction, or consumption of a thing
  • the thing is selfless - it lacks a self
  • it is my will that matters

Alienation Ownership

  • paragraph 65
  • I have put my will into the thing and am able to abandon it or transfer it to another's will
  • the reason something is yours only because you choose to make it yours
  • often your identity can be caught up in your possessions
  • you identify with your possessions
  • you then use your possessions and modify and optimize them for performance and aesthetics
  • you can see a person's will go into a possession
  • once the possession is lost or broken the person losses a piece of themselves
  • being able to get rid of something

Withdrawing Ownership

  • your free will seems tide to possessions you have put will into
  • but once you withdrawal your will from an object you get your free will back
  • often people struggle to withdrawl their will
  • the capacity to reject demonstrates that what matters is your will not the object
  • the objects have no claim
  • it is when we get rid of things we have put our will into when we become aware of our free will

what can't we alienate

  • universal freedom of will
  • religion
  • independence
  • inalienable rights
  • right to life and freedom can not be alienated
  • you can't sell these possession, you can not bargain with them

small print

  • it real life it is not always like this
  • slavery exists and we must recognize it
  • real is rational
  • that is what happening but it is contradictory
  • now that we have the institutions that allow us to have an understanding of persons and things
  • institutions determine rational capacities
  • we now realize this contradiction
  • what matters is that institutions are forming to prohibit this kind of activity
  • page 53 - what is potentially may not be actually
  • you can have the practice of slavery, alienation,
  • if you cede your power of thought (if you abandon reason to superstition) it is possible but contradictory

selling objects

  • by contrast, there are things that are similar but distinguishable from my self
  • products are alienateable
  • you can build a table then sell it without contradicting you being as a free agent
  • you can mark objects and cede them without alienating your personality
  • single objects

temporary alienation

  • ceding abilities for restricted periods
  • if you make freedom so essential to a human being
  • how can you ever submit to the will of another
  • how can you hire out your capacity for others?
  • there are restrictions on time and demands they can make - this avoids it being a contradiction
  • this is the distinction between hiring and slavery
  • you have no control over yourself
  • the logic of ownership

Marx Comparison

  • Marx disagrees that you can give your abilities to others for a short period of time
  • Marx thinks this is wage slavery

Introduction of Social interaction

  • it is at this stage that abstractly social interaction can no longer be avoided
  • with property all that is required is an individual and a thing
  • marking something presupposes the existence of others but never mind that
  • our capacity to consider ourselves as free agents grows exponentially when others recognize our agencies
  • multiple complex webs of ownership emerge

Page 71

  • transition from property to contract
  • being for another
  • existent as an external thing
  • relationship between physical universe and individual
  • existent also as an embodiment of a human will
  • a natural world which exists, but for something to exist as property requires a recognition
  • the relationship from will to will is the proper existence origin of free will in the world
  • you can be recognized as a free agent only as a free agent
  • no one is there to recognize him as a free agent
  • you can only have something as your property if people respect your ownership, and by extension respecting your free agency
  • we are constantly recognizing the claims of human beings

fine print

  • initially property was thought to be grounded in natural needs
  • property for Hegel is grounded in reason
  • property is a prerequisite for freedom
  • exchange and gift is essential because it provides the opportunity to recognize each other's will
  • a relationship at the mind objective
  • recognition of individuals as person's and property owners
  • the millions of contractual exchanges that occur each day

Another's Will

  • another's will is embodied in the things you own
  • ownership is qualitative not quantitative
  • however, the more you own would logically make you more aware of your free agency
  • different kinds of ownership increase our awareness of our free agency
  • Hegel is deriving a theory of the state - freedom is not natural it is socially constructed, we are free because our social organization allows us to be free
  • we weren't always free in the past and we can imagine the conditions that would disolve our freedom

Abstract Right

  1. Property
  2. Contracts
  3. Wrong

Contracts

  • brings to conscious my capacity as an owner
  • you can't exchange without awareness of ownership and entitlement of both yourself and others
  • a project of growing self awareness and hightened consciousness
  • I have property
  • alienate it qua property
  • To alienate property
  • when you choose to give away possessions you have to be conscious that you owned it in the first place
  • your will becomes visible to you in ways that are qualitatively different from throwing things away when you are alone
  • heightening consciousness of free agency of both your self and others

paragraph 75

  • contract arises from the arbitrary will
  • why do people want what you have? it is complicated but doesn't matter for Hegel
  • you are not interested in others motivations -
  • a recognition that you are entitled to do what you want with your will without interrogation from others
  • this is the normal economic interaction, strings, conditions and interrogations are the exception

State and Marrige Are Not Contracts

  • contracts are based on whims, they are not necessarily rationally grounded
  • it is wrong to consider the state, and the obligation to obey law, and participate in a political community
  • there is a rational necessity and imperative
  • contract gives rise to the possibility of wrong

Wrong

  • right and its essential embodiment
  • the particular will particularized
  • the right is mediated
  • at the start it was implicit and immediate
  • when you enter into a contract you don't think about affirming the basic structure of property
  • you are subordinately aware of reinforcing the institutional structure
  • you presuppose the existence of the structure without being explicitly conscious of affirming the institution
  • when something goes wrong you have to affirm the institutional basis of claims
  • when people assert their will without regard for yours
  • we have to affirm the structure that enables agency in a way that we didn't before the wrong was considered
  • not every contract is disputed, you assume universally that humans are free agents, and this occurs on a daily basis
  • these presuppositions can be challenged by mistake or fraud and when challenged must be asserted and become the object of conscious in ways it is normally not

three types of wrong

  1. non malicious wrong
  2. malicious wrong
  3. crime

non malicious wrong

  • disputes over property lines, the extent of the right
  • two people make claims to the same objects
  • who does it properly belong to, we are not denying the owners right to own, it is a clarification
  • it is then time to bring to mind the conditions of ownership
  • what we agree is that who ever rightly should have the property will get it
  • rightness is the decisive factor,
  • the conflict requires an affirmation of rightness in a way that is normally not necessary
  • in clarifications rightness is kept in view and demanded by the parties
  • we disagree about the facts but we agree on the principle
  • affirm the structure of our interactions based on our conception of ourselves as bearers of rights

Fraud

  • paragraph 87
  • an even stronger affirmation of rights
  • an elaborate construction of pretending to be right and proper
  • a conscious affirmation of the structure of what is right
  • a vigorous attentiveness to what is right
  • convince people of legitimacy and results
  • this charade further affirms
  • hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue
  • self conscious acknowledgement of what is right in order to do wrong
  • even in undermining the structure it affirms it

Coercion

  • My will is in it, i don't care if your will is in
  • the threat of violence
  • I recognize that you don't agree with my demand and are unwilling to comply
  • I don't care that you are a person or bearer of rights
  • Even the perpetrator expects recognition of his rights and free agency
  • this is what is contradictory about coercion
  • to address coercion
  • a willingness to override freedom must be challenged by over ridding the will
  • what distinguishing the first annultion from the second is
  • when a school master beats children it is progressive, because the goal is to teach them to be free
  • juvenile delinquency is so anti-thetical to freedom that they must be forced into rational behaviour
  • when someone steals your stuff they violate your will

Crime
when you commit a crime you negate freedom

  • in negating the criminals act
  • the negation of a negation
  • an assertion of free agency must accompany the negation
  • we become, again, explicitly aware of our free agency
  • a Hobbesian world of power, all again all, claims owed to no one
  • not all crimes are equivalent

Theft vs. Robbery

  • difference between theft and robbery
  • threats to the body and threats to possessions
  • quantity and quality
  • a rejection of stoicism, freedom is not just in the mind
  • when your body is harmed or violated a fundemental denial of your freedom
  • these distinctions matter

Annuling Crime

  • you have to negate and say no to crime
  • Revenge - it must not be exercised via personal revenge
  • For Hegel this is insufficient
  • it is insufficient because it leads to constant escalation
  • revenge is justifiable in content not form
  • you are angry about stuff, but in actuality the problem is with freedom and trampling on the principle of ownership
  • affirming not just the body but the concept of the body
  • affirming not just the stuff but the concept of ownership

Victim Impact Statements

  • objective standards
  • agents acting in the name of objective standards
  • in revenge the wrong is annulled but not in the right way
  • it should not depend if you are faster or stronger than the thief
  • there should be an objective system to take care of this for you

the content of the will

  • we see that we need a structure of freedom

tutorial

  1. three dimensions of the will
  2. arbitrary will

idealists

  • how the mind works in modern society
  • how we came to think in certain ways and use are will in certain ways
  • it is no apriori
  • the three moments of the will developed historically

3 types of will

  1. abstract will
  2. particular will
  3. universal will

Abstract Will

  • paragraph 5 - the first dimension
  • the right to say no is tied to human freedom
  • abstract will is the first moment of will - our capacity to abstract, pull away from, remove yourself from immediate desires
  • as modern beings we have the capacity to say no to things
  • the most radical way of saying no is suicide
  • negation of your own life and your self
  • you say not to making choices, you make one final choice

2nd moment of free will

  • the particular will, what does it entail?
  • paragraph 6
  • the realization of the particular will
  • making choices - particular will
  • you are aware of the choices and exercise the choice
  • the problem with the particular will is that you are never bound to follow through on your choice

3rd moment of free will

  • individuality, abstraction converges and compliments
  • if you never resolved to do something you would remain indeterminancy
  • in resolving to do something we
  • freedom has to be exercised
  • negative freedom is necessary but not sufficient

You are not Bound by your Decisions

  • you have the ability to say no but you are not reducible to your choices
  • you are not bound by your decisions
  • paragraph 10 - 11
  • common conceptions of freedom
  • are human beings instinctive?

Instinct vs. Will

  • para 11 - relationship between natural will and human instinct
  • are they acting on instinct? - is there a difference between a baby and a dog?
  • a baby has a will? why? - when it cries is it instinctive?
  • potentiality - Hagel argues that humans are fundamentally different from animals and have the potential for freedom, make choices, and question their desires
  • even if they live in an instinctive environment without enabling mechanisms
  • modern punishment only makes sense if you assume the person could have acted otherwise
  • Being a bearer of rights only makes sense if their rights are respected

Arbitrary Will

  • freedom is not do what ever you want to do
  • you have to respect the freedom of others
  • for hagel freedom and reason have already partly emerged
  • if we refine the existing institutions we can realize fuller notions of freedom and reason
  • the problem of the arbitrary will is that

Arbitrary Will

  • being too rich, you buy all the potatoes in the market and there is less available for everyone else
  • choices that erode the prerequisites institutions erode the free will of others
  • Hagel is for a redistributive state
  • you need to be physically fit to enable you to make rational choices, rational will

Abstract Right

  • making sense of modern legal structure
  • making sense of contract, property, and punishment

three moments

  1. Abstract
  2. determinante
  3. individuality

Property

  • embodiment of freedom outside your self
  • when you acquire you realize and actualize your free will
  • your free will can not be only in your head
  • the first rationale is to put free will into something
  • people who appropriate
  • using it, negating the rights of the object
  • subjecting objects to your will

Alienation
denying things an independent existence
denying its usefulness

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