Hegel, Freedom and the State

 

According to Hegel freedom constitutes the substance and essential character of the will, and the system of right is the kingdom of actualized freedom. The ethical is the synthesis of the abstract good, or right, with morality, or consciousness. The ethical system is the idea of freedom, the living good, and the actualization of good in the self- consciousness. The ethical comes alive in the self-conscious through knowing, willing and through the action of the self-consciousness. In the ethical self-consciousness discovers it goal, its teleology. Because the good is substance, or the filling of the objective with Subjectivity, the ethical material, the system of the phases of the idea, freedom, realizing itself, is rational. Thus freedom is the absolute will, the objective, subjectivity is self-consciousness driven by desire. Desire bound by necessity in actuality is the ethical the actualization of freedom. Separately individuals are particulars of this process, accidents, bound by duty. But they are, in the good society, the actualization of freedom, just average citizens following social norms and laws.

Self-consciousness holding itself as an object and goal is will, with the lust for life that the bondsman has, will shape and order themselves. A group of individuals will do the same on the level of the state. It seems reasonable that Hegel would go towards a social democracy, but according the St. Louis Hegelian Snider[i] Hegel was moving toward a monarchic type of rule. All answer to the Monarch who not only holds no responsibility for his actions, but he is not elected. Hegel’s monarchic so called “actualized free state” (were the Monarch is chosen by nature) is comparable to the Chinese kingdoms Hegel criticized in his Philosophy of History.

Hegel was correct in his critique of Rousseau, that you can never escape society, it is insidious.  For Hegel a good state is made up of good ethical individuals. For Hegel the synthesis of the abstract good and morality is the filling of objectivity with subjectivity this is the ethical, a person who lives ethically has virtue. The ethical substance, as the union of self-consciousness with it the actualization of its freedom, its duty, is the actual spirit of a family and a nation.

The family is patriarchal[ii].

The prince’s function is “that of particularity, involving a definite content and the subsumption of it under the universal. In so far as it receives a particular existence, it is the supreme council, and is composed of individuals. The Princely office presents to the monarch, the final arbiter or judge, with affairs of the legal cases which necessarily spring out of actual wants. The “princely function concerns the absolutely universal, which consists subjectively in the conscience of the monarch, objectively in the whole constitution and the laws. The princely office is responsible for securing the lawful succession to the throne by inheritance. The prince must insure the stability of the princely office, justice and public liberty. The constitution is tradition. The princely office must insure public liberty.

The executive office is the objective side of the sovereignty inherent in the monarch. The distinguishing feature of this state-business is found in the nature of its matter. The executive is the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy runs the everyday elements of civil society. The executive is maintenance. According to Knackstedt’s analysis of Marx’s critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, “the ultimate goal of Hegel’s state is to overcome the opposition between the mass of particular, egoistic desires intrinsic to civil society, and the universal ends of ethical community. This is accomplished through the mediating structures of the state machinery, such as the Assembly of the Estates and the Executive.”

According to Knackstedt Hegel believed the function of the Executive is to administer functions like the judiciary and the police. Men should give up personal wants and selfish ends, or at the very least find something they like in their duty, in order to be a good civil servant. For Hegel, the “bureaucratic class is a universal class freed from need, the bureaucratic class is said to be able to transcend the particularism of civil society and serve the state in a selfless fashion.” However for Marx the bureaucracy “is the ‘state formalism’ of civil society” where all of the particularistic desires of civil society are concealed under the mantle of the universal. Decisions are made by individuals, particulars, to hire other individuals. The bureaucracy is based on the self-interest of its members. While Hegel argues for the monarch is the embodiment of the universal will in a single man, Marx realizes, and argues, “that the particular will of the monarch is simply that: particular.”

The last stage is the Legislature. “The legislature interprets the laws and also those internal affairs of the state whose content is universal. This function is itself a part of the constitution. In it the constitution is presupposed, and so far lies absolutely beyond direct delimitation. Yet it receives development in the improvement of the laws, and the progressive character of the universal affairs of government.”

According to Hegel every nation has a “constitution which suits it and belongs to it.” Hegel adds an example of Napoleon constitution on the Spanish. “Napoleon insisted upon giving to the Spanish a constitution apriori, but the project failed. A constitution is not a mere manufacture, but the work of centuries.”

In the centralized state that Hegel advocates, I would need to do more research to better answer the question, but from what I have discovered it doesn’t seem as though Hegel advocates any separation of powers. However, it could be argued that by giving the bureaucratic power to the middle class Hegel could be seen as advocating a separation of powers. But keep in mind that the monarch still retains all the power.

 

Reference

http://www.logomancer.com/state/chapter1.html

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[i] “Here lies the undeveloped element in Hegel, in fact in all European philosophy from the beginning. It projects an absolute principle which is to dominate and even create man, yet what is omitted is that man has to recreate it in turn else it would not be.”

[ii] In the family, the rights of the son are not the same in content as his duties towards his father, nor are the rights of the citizen the same in content as his duties to his prince or government. This is because of our abstract treatment of duty which insists on abolishing particular interest as something unessential and unworthy. However the concrete method, or the idea, exhibits particularity as essential and is fulfillment a sheer necessity. Thus in “carrying out his duty the individual must in some way or other discover his own interest, his own satisfaction and recompense.”