Intentions vs. Reactions
- reactions are different
- accidents are different from actions
- accident and rational capacity
- children may do things, even on purpose, but they can not be held responsible
- there is a link between reason and responsibility
abstract right
- what should be the goal of my actions
- you must be concerned with the goals of others
- the unity of right and welfare is the good
- but it is not, there is always a question
- one of the characteristics of modern freedom
what we think is right matters
- you shouldn't be forced to act against your conscience
- the question is what is good
- the danger is to set conscience as a standard of good
- I want to do the right thing
- but what is the right thing?
- I only want to do what is right
- but who do I know what i know is right is actually right?
- abstract - a determination of what is good and right without the use of the subjective will
paragraph 105
- transitional point
- stand point of morality
- making the person into the subject
- you are now thinking about what it is you should will
- should I want this, is this what I want
- what is the object of your willing
- sub-consiously choosing what you are willing
- you recognize your will does not just flow out of being a human being, an animal
- freedom - we can say no to anything - we have choices not instincts
the principle of the will
- in abstract right, the will is external
- putting your will into itself
- becoming more aware of yourself
paragraph 107
- the will aware of its freedom
- you start with the concept of freedom
- the right of the accepted will
- you can be responsible only for things that you put your will into
- every action has ripple of consequences that flow outward
- socially you can only be responsible for things you can comprehend and reasonably be expected to follow
- if we were responsible for all of our actions we would have no scope for action
three aspects of the right of the subjective will
- the right of the moral will, the purpose of the subjective will comes from me
- will the good
- the particular aspec
- subjective and objective content of will
purpose and responsibility
- for what things can someone be responsible
- Why are you responsible for some things and not others
- one dimension of freedom is responsibility
- freedom makes sense only in a context of responsibility
- if you weren't free to choose how can you be responsible
Casual Outcomes do not Dictate Responsibility
- the finatude or limits
- acting in the world, lots of ripple effects
- when you act things happen
- my will has responsibility for its deeds
- you have to put your will into an action for you to be accountable for it
- driving a car, hit black ice, kill someone = not responsible
- driving a car, speeding, hit black ice, kill someone = responsible
- causally both chains of event are identical - the ends are the same
paragraph 116
- what does it mean to say something is mine
- it is not my own doing
- the damage is chargeable to me because they are mine
- if you have a cow, and don't maintain the fence
- if the cow gets outs you are responsible
- adequate precautions
- control and vigilance
- negligence
- you must anticipate that your property may do things that have consequences
- at least to some degree
- it goes back to the notion of putting your will into things
- there are degrees of negligence
paragraph 117 - second part
- you act in the world and have sense of the actions and their impact
- this awareness is finite and you can't know everything
- the right to know - a crucial dimension of freedom
- deliberate action
- edipus - he didn't know he was sleeping with his mother
paragraph 118
- the multitude of consequences that can emerge
- you are responsible for the consequences you can forsee
- you are also responsible for the consequences you ought reasonably have forseen
- if you didn't do it deliberately
Intention
- paragraph 119 - second part
- purpose comprises the intention
- he uses two examples
- when you set a building on fire you can't say I only planned to burn a small piece of wood
- Shakespeare - Shylock is entitled to his pound of flesh but cannot collect unless the ower dies because he can't have the whole body
- right of intention
- it should not be implicit
- the agent must not only be responsible but have the rational capacity to understand
- you know if you light a room on fire the whole house will burn down
- there is something morally wrong about putting a five year old in jail or in the electric chair - because he didn't know
limits to rationality
- inside the subject itself there is only so much that can reasonably be expected
- rational capacity is one thing - small children and mental health
- but there is a continuum
- some people are smarter and better able to comprehend
- stress and environmental barriers to comprehension must also be considered
- battered wife syndrome - mental state is effected out of fear of their lives
- if you deprive people of their freedom and agency it is worse than persecuting a few innocent
- persecuting people for actions after an arbitrary cut off point
- it is a prerequisite for freedom that there be some degree of responsibility for actions - even it is only a useful illusion
paragraph 124
- small print not the large print
- the right of the subject's perceptibility
- the right to be satisfied
- what I want matters
- what I choose matters
- this is reflected in all our modern institutions
- if you were a peasant it didn't matter what you wanted,
- if you were a daughter it didn't matter what you wanted
love and romanticism
- marriage and social organization will be determined by feelings
- it is taken for granted today - it is not self evident
- for most of human history it didn't matter
- people had these feelings but there was no obligation on society to pay attention
- feelings had not influence on the social organization of society now it is central to our social organization
- individual right
- desire will and choices matter
I matters and Protestantism
- christianity - the personal relationship with god
- god cares about you as an individual - Martin Luther
- that makes sense only with a whole package that say I matters
- when I matters, rationality becomes the glue that holds a community of individuals together
- most of human history is presumptuous that the god is for the community
I matters is a theme woven into all our major institutions
- we should consider what the individual wants
- this is an essential prerequisite for freedom
- people get to choose their jobs
- what you want is given attention and space,
- it is not the absolute or most important factor but it is considered in our social organization
welfare - paragraph 128
- we aim at our own well being
- subjective right, i get to pursue what is right for me
- the idea that we build a structure that gives space
- what I want matters and this is a universal principle
- what each "I" wants matters
- what I want is important and what everyone else as individuals wants is also important
- the fact that I care about what happens to me is intimately connected to the universality of human will
- like that of others,
- the notion of what I want matters makes sense only because I am free
freedom has its basis in right
- in attempts to secure my welfare or the welfare of others
- the pursuit of mine and others welfare is constrained by what is right
- Hegel rejects the robin hood method - it violates the right -
- the welfare you aim at must be in line with the right
- but in danger, mortal danger, an infinite injury to a human's existence
- if you are at risk of dying you get to break the law to survive
the fundemental right
- right sets limits on welfare and welfare sets limits on rights
- right's make no sense in the absence of life
- welfare trumps rights
good
- paragraph 129
- the good is freedom realized
- good embodies the welfare of all - paragraph 130
- it is not your good, particular will, that matters
- welfare without right is not a good
- right without welfare is not the good
- justice be done until the world parishes - Hegel says this is nonsense
Object of Action
- the object of any action is ones own good
- but why should your good matter? - because i am entitled
- the object of the will is the good
- this is what we seek and what we should seek
- the idea of thinking about what is good
- it is not just what you think that matters
- on good and conscience
- Paragraph 130
three dimensions of abstract right
- property
property
- a prerequisite for freedom
- intimately linked with realizing ones freedom
- the idea behind it is you translate your freedom into the external world
- you appropriate, use and alienate things
- paragraph 41, 42, 43
Locke and Rousseau
- paragraph and 42
- what is distinct about their definitions of property
- with Rousseau, when you have property you start to lose natural freedom
- For Hagel property is positive not negative
- the relationship between property and subsistence for hagel is
- Lock's conception of property is - self preservation
- Locke - you need property in order to survive
Deeper Embodiment of Existence= superceding needs
- not in the satisfcation of needs but the supersition proving your existence to yourself
- Hegel says property is more important than just self preservation
- what does Hagel think about self preservation and property
- how much property does one need to be free
Mill and Freedom
- like Mill he argues that you can't be free if you are struggling to get on - it deprives you of choice
- However, you can express some degrees of freedom from even those minute quantities of freedom
- Marx has issues with this definition of property
- what does Hagel have to say about communism
- why can't you realize your freedom with communal property
- paragraph 46 - R? - communal property, cooperative property, contractually based
- Plato's suggests communism - you don't have a share - all property is communal
- if you don't have a share in anything you can't externalize your will
- you need to claim certain things
freedom
- forget about reason what is important is freedom
- the institutionalization of freedom
immediacy
- realizing parts of your subjectivity in appropriating property
- speaking of legal persons as immediate
- abstract right is about the person in its immediacy
- right is in its first sense immediate
- mediating - going between two different things
- the negation of mediation
- mediation establish a relationship between two things
- immediacy - cancels mediation
- with abstract right - you are
- immediate - without context, or in ideal sense
- your private property is your actuality
- legality - rationales for how we are treated as entities in modern institutions
- wrong and punishment is a sphere of legality
- in order for the concept to be actual you must give it form and then the concept becomes an idea
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