Res Publica Vol.II no.2 [1996]

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION

by

ANDREW C HrlTY*

What are the foundations of political and legal philosophy? On what ultimate basis can particular political institutions be justified? An almost irresistible answer is that they can be justified only on the basis of the nature of the human beings to whom they have to apply. However this justification can take different forms. One major form of it in the Western tradition is the pragmatic one: that of Hobbes, Hume and utilitarianism. Here the justification of political institutions is that, given the desires, needs and behavioural tendencies that in our experience human beings have, under such institutions they will behave so as to satisfy those needs and desires to a greater extent than they would under alternative institutions. Another major form is an "ontological" one, that dates back to Plato's analogy between the just city and the well-ordered soul. Here the justification of political institutions is that they somehow reflect or express, or else allow the realisation of, the essential nature of the human subject, as it can be discovered through self-reflection. In both cases there is an appeal to "human nature", but in a rather different sense in each case.

Contemporary liberalism and communitarianism both rely heavily on the ontological form of justification. Liberalism is mainly a view about what the content of political institutions should be, one that makes the protection of individual rights central. Yet to justify this view liberal theories also typically rely, whether explicitly or not, on an ontological form of justification, specifically one that appeals to the idea of the individual subject as essentially free. This is "ontological liberalism". To take a central example, John Rawls's initial justification of his principles of justice in A Theory of]ustice is based on the idea of a contract made in an original position. 1 Yet in the course of the book it emerges that the defining features of the original position itself, in

* School of English and American Studies, University of Sussex. 1 J. Pawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

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particular its "veil of ignorance", are chosen so as to express a "Kantian" conception of the person: as a subject that freely chooses its own life in such a way as not to prevent others from choosing theirs,2 This conception of the person remains foundational in Rawls's later presentation of his theory as "political not metaphysical", although now the justification of the principles is based on the claim, not that this conception is metaphysically true, but that it is shared by all groups in the political societies to which we happen to belong. 3

Communitarianism, too, can be defined in terms of the content of the political institutions it advocates. Roughly speaking, communita- rians think that political institutions should embody the shared values of the community, and accordingly that they should further a "common good" as defined by those values. Yet communitarianism also has a typical form of justification, and again this is of the ontological kind, for to justify such institutions it standardly appeals to the idea that the human subject is "socially constituted", so that the shared values of its community are built into its nature. The communitarian argument is then that political institutions should express the nature of this subject, and that to do so they must embody the communally shared values that are partly constitutive of it. Such "ontological communitarianism" has a parallel structure to ontological liberalism, although it has a different conception of the subject that forms the basis of justification.

Hegel's political philosophy has sometimes been seen as a form of ontological liberalism, in which the "system of r i gh t " - - the system of social, legal and political institutions of the Philosophy of Right - - is justified as necessary for the maintenance of an individual free will described in the introduction to the book. It has also been seen as a form of ontological communitarianism, especially in the wake of Charles Taylor's influential Hegel.4 I shall argue, however, that neither of these characterisations is correct. Hegel's form of justification is indeed ontological in my sense, but the subject he uses as the basis for it, the possessor of "free will", is neither the subject of ontological liberalism nor that of ontological communitarianism. For although it is socially

2 Rawls's reliance on a Kantian subject is documented in M.J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

3 See J. Rawls, PoliticalLiberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

4 C. Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

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constituted, it is not so in the sense that the values of any particular communi ty or culture are built into the content of its motivations. Rather it is so in that its possession of this free will arises from its participation in social relations as such, where social relations are understood as relations of mutual recognition. Furthermore, participation in such relations is itself necessitated by an even more fundamental feature of the human subject, its awareness of itself as a subject in contrast to an objective world outside it, or what Hegel calls "consciousness".

I shall suggest, therefore, that Hegel takes the debate between ontological liberalism and ontological communitarianism several stages further. He takes it further with regard to his account of the subject, which begins at the most elementary level of our own subjective experience. He also takes it further with regard to his method of justification, which is to show that there is a basic contradiction in the subject at this elementary level which can ultimately be resolved only by developing certain political institutions. Finally he takes it further with regard to his view of the content of justified institutions. For this contradiction in the subject requires it to become a subject with both individual and collective dimensions, and correspondingly the institu- tions needed to resolve the contradiction involve both the protection of individual rights and th e advancing of various common goods.

This is not to say that Hegel's picture of the subject is a satisfactory one, any more than is his view of the content of justified political institutions. However, by his example he does show that the ontological form of justification has possibilities that the liberal-communitarian debate has scarcely begun to explore. For this alone, Hegel's account of the subject, and the form of political justification associated with it, deserve reconstructing.

In this paper I shall attempt such a reconstruction, by retracing the steps through which Hegel derives "free will", the starting point of the Philosophy of Right, from "consciousness" in his Encyclopaedia Philosophy of Mind, and in the lectures that accompany it. 5 By doing so I hope to make good some of the above claims.

Hegel covers much of the same ground in the earlier Phenomenology of Mind, translated as The Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). My reconstruction concentrates entirely on the Philosophy of Mind account, although I believe that each throws light on the other.

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The main stages of Hegel's derivation of free will are as follows: consciousness, self-consciousness, mastery and servitude (one-sided recognition), universal self-consciousness (mutual recognition), intelligence, will, and finally free will. Most of these have sub-stages within them. Each main stage is what I shall call a "form of subjectivity". Each is a fundamental way in which a subject conceives itself and the components of its world, which constitutes it as a certain kind of subject. Each form of subjectivity in the sequence ~incorporates" the previous ones. That is, they appear within it as subordinate aspects, in the same way that when one shifts from conceiving something as circular to conceiving it as a sphere one's original way of conceiving it does not disappear but is reduced to a subordinate aspect of the way one now sees it.

Each form of subjectivity also "necessitates" the next one in the sequence, in the sense that each form involves an internal contradiction which can be resolved only by abandoning that form in favour of the one that follows it. Furthermore, the contradictions that affect the different forms of subjectivity are in the end simply developed versions of the contradiction that affects the first of them, consciousness. Hegel's view is that a conscious subject must eventually become aware of the contradiction internal to consciousness, and must respond to that awareness by adopting the following form of subjectivity. In turn it must become aware of and respond to the contradiction in that form, and so on. So his exposition of the forms of subjectivity and the necessary transitions between them becomes a narrative of the journey that the conscious subject must, and does, make through these forms, successively reconstituting itself until it becomes the possessor of free will.

In the course of this progress the forms of subjectivity become at first practical, in that they essentially involve ways not only of conceiving but also of acting, and then collective, in that they essentially involve ways in which a number of different subjects conceive and act towards each other. Furthermore the development does not stop with the free will, but continues into the institutions of the system of right, which are themselves simply practical and collective forms of subjectivity. So Hegel's exposition is an account of the nature of the subject as it must become in order to resolve the contradiction of consciousness, which develops seamlessly into a justification of a set of political institutions as necessary to resolve that same contradiction.

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 185

1. Consciousness

To begin with, then, it is important to understand just what Hegel means by "consciousness", the first stage in the sequence, and how he thinks it is internally contradictory. In Hegel's narrative consciousness emerges out of a series of more elementary forms of awareness which he collectively calls "soul". It is best understood by contrasting it with one of these forms, the form of soul called "feeling of self" (Selbstgefiihl). Feeling of self is the most basic form of self-awareness. It consists just in having sensations, and in experiencing those sensations as mine. For Hegel, to experience one's sensations in this way, which he calls "idealising" them, is to establish a distinction between oneself and one's sensations of the same fundamental kind that is made in a subject- predicate proposition, or what Hegel calls a ~judgment", and making this distinction constitutes one as a subject:

The feeling totality is, as individuality, essentially this: to divide itself within itself, and to awaken to the judgment within itself, by virtue of which it has particular feelings and is a subject in relation to these its determinations. The subject as such posits these as its feelings within itself (E3 w 323-5). 6

However, in this initial form of self-awareness the subject relates only to "particular" sensations, and accordingly it forms a conception of itself only as the possessor of particular sensations:

It is sunken in this particularity of sensations, and at the same time it unites with itself therein as a subjective one [Eins] through the ideality of the particular. In this way it is feeling of self-- and at the same time it is this

References to the Encyclopedia Philosophy ofMind3rd ed. [1830] (E3) are given by paragraph number. R = remark to the paragraph. A = addition (Zusatz) to the paragraph by Bouwmann, compiled from various sets of students' lecture notes in 1840. G= Griesheim's lecture notes relevant to the paragraph, from the 1825 lecture course. K = Kehler's lecture notes relevant to the paragraph, from the same course. After the paragraph number I have given the page number of the English translation in Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, 3 vols., ed. and tr. M.J. Petry (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978), which is a bilingual edition with Griesheim's and Kehler's lecture notes included as an appendix. For w167 the pagination is from Perry's volume 2, and for w167 from volume 3. Petry repub- lished w167 with Griesheim's and Kehler's lecture notes appended directly to the relevant paragraphs, as The Berlin Phenomenology, ed. and tr. M.J. Petry (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981). I have modified all translations from Hegel's works.

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only in the particular fbeling (ibid.).

T he subject here is implicitly "universal" in the sense that it has a plurality of "particular" sensations, but it does not conceive itself as universal in contrast to the elements of its experience as singular things. T he feeling soul "has a content which has not yet developed to the separation of universal and singular, subjective and objective" (E3 w 207). In "consciousness", by contrast, the subject stands back and conceives itself as the possessor of the content of its experience in general, and therefore as something universal, separated off from the singularity of the elements of its experience.7 Thereby it constitutes itself as what Hegel calls an "I ':

[The] being-for-itself of free universality is the higher awakening of the soul to the L of abstract universality in so far as it is06r abstract universality (E3 w 425).

By conceiving itself in this universal way, the subject flees itself from its entanglement with particular sensation, and gains an independence from it, in that it no longer identifies itself just as the possessor of such sensation. At the same time this means for Hegel that it conceives the content of its experience as independent of it, and so outside it. Thereby it constitutes that content as an ~object'. Consciousness is just this joint conceiving of oneself as an "I" and of the content of one's experience as an ~object', dividing the world into subjective and objective, inner and outer.

[T]he immediate identity of the natural soul is raised to this pure ideal identity with itself, the content of the former is object [g.]8 for this reflection that is for itself. Pure abstract freedom for itself lets its determinacy, the natural life of the soul, go out of it as equally free, as independent object, and it is of this latter as something outside it that I is initially aware, and as such is consciousness (E3 w 3).

Just as the subject of consciousness, the ~I", conceives its objects as what

"Particular" (besonder) in Hegel has the sense "part of", whereas ~singular" (einzeln) simply has the sense "individual". See M. Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Oxford: BlackweU, 1992), 303. Hegel uses two terms for ~object': das Objekt and der Gegenstand. Gegenstand literally means ~standing-against", and using it emphasises the idea of the object as what stands opposite to the subject. In quotations from Hegel I have translated both terms as "object", and the corresponding adjectives as ~objective", but where the German word is GegenstandI have signalled this by adding ~[g.]" to the translation.

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are external to it, so it also now conceives itself by contrast with its objects, as that which stands opposite them and which has them as its objects. In Hegel's terms,, it is "reflected into itself" in its objects (E3 w 425).

For Hegel, then, consciousness is more than mere awareness, or even mere self-awareness. It is awareness of oneself as a subject counterposed to an objective world outside oneself. So characterised, consciousness immediately involves a fundamental contradiction, a contradiction simultaneously in the way that the object and the I are conceived in it.

With regard to the object, the subject conceives this object as both outside out of it and independent of it, and yet also as/ts object, in the same way as in feeling of self it conceived of the contents of experience as belonging to it:

Consciousness is both: we have a world outside us, which is firmly for itself, and at the same time in that I am consciousness I am aware of this object ~.], it is posited as ideal, so it is not independent but superseded. These are what are the two contradictory [elements], the independence and the ideality of the objective side. Consciousness is just this contradiction, and the progression of consciousness is its resolution (E3 w 275).

With regard to the I, it conceives itself as independent or free of each of its objects, as related only to itself, and yet it still relies on its objects in general in order to form a conception of itself as that-which-possesses- these-objects. This means that it has to conceive itself as both "with itself' (bei sich selbst), related only to itself, and ~with another", related to something alien to it:

[T]he certainty that mind has of itself at the standpoint of mere consciousness is still something untrue and self-contradictory, for here, along with the abstract certainty of being with itself, mind has the directly opposed certainty of being related to something essentially other to it (E3 f~416A, 15).

The two-fold contradiction of consciousness is fundamentally a contradiction between the mutual independence and separateness of the I and the object on the one hand, and their internal relatedness, thus in a sense their fundamental identity, on the other: "Consciousness is ... the contradiction between the independence of both sides, and their identity" (E3 w 9).

188 ~ D ~ W C H I T T Y

2. Self-consciousness and Desire

In consciousness as described so far, the object is conceived as a singular independent entity, in complete opposition to the universality of the I. Hegel calls this elementary form of consciousness "sensuous consciousness" (E3 w 19). In order to resolve the contradiction of consciousness, the I must reconceive the object in successively more universal, and so "I-like", ways, thereby tending to eliminate its independence and "foreignness" and thus both aspects of the contradiction. This leads initially to a new form of consciousness, "perception", in which the object is endowed with some of the universality of the I by being conceived as a thing with universal properties (E3 w167 25-31). In turn this leads to another form, ~understanding", in which the object is further universalised by being conceived as a realm of laws which subordinate the particular appearances that present themselves to the I (E3 w 31-33). Finally the object is conceived as a whole which subordinates its own parts under it, in the same way that a law subordinates appearances under it: that is, as a living being (E3 w 35; w 31 I-3).

At this point the object has in part the same characteristics that the I uses in order to conceive itself, for in that it subordinates its parts it, in a sense, possesses them, just as the I conceives itself as possessing its objects in general. So in conceiving the object as a living being the I conceives it as an object which in part shares its own quality of "I-hood'. When the I conceives its object as characterised by subjectivity (where the term is now used to mean such I-hood) then conversely it looks back at itself from the perspective of this external subjectivity and conceives itself as an object. This dual conception of the object as subjective and of the I as an object constitutes a new form of subjectivity that Hegel calls "self- consciousness":

There is consciousness present of some object [g.], livingness, I relate myself to something living. I am now what thinks; and in that this as I relates itself to livingness, and does so as thinking, subjectivity or livingness as such comes into being for it there ... In that I now has subjectivity as such, abstract subjectivity, as object ~. ], it has itself as object [g.]. I is itself living, makes its livingness into an object, and so is self-consciousness (E3 w 315).

It might be said that if the I conceives its object as characterised by subjectivity (I-hood) then surely it must conceive it as another I, another conscious being. However in self-consciousness as it first appears the I

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 189

has only one way of identifying itself, as "possessor of objects". So it has no way of distinguishing between 'T ' and "I-hood in general". It cannot make the distinction between what is numerically identical to it (the very same thing as it) and what is only qualitatively identical to it (the same kind of thing as it), so it cannot formulate the idea of "another I", something qualitatively identical to but numerically distinct from it. As a result, for it to conceive its object as "characterised by I-hood" is just for it to conceive its object as 'T ' . Thus the I of sdf-consciousness literally conceives its object as itself. "As judging, the I has an object which is not distinct from i t - i tself ,- self-consciousness" (E3 w 35). Hegel expresses this with the formula "I=I", where "=" stands for the relationship between a subject and its object.

Hegel calls self-consciousness in its initial form "abstract" or "immediate" self-consciousness. In it the contradiction of consciousness in its original form has been resolved, in that the object has been rendered identical with the subject. However the contradiction now reappears in a new form, as the contradict ion of self-consciousness. Again Hegel describes the contradict ion as two-fold, but now both aspects of it concern the self-conscious subject's conception of itselfi the first its self-conception as object and the second its self-conception as I.

With regard to its self-conception as object, it faces a "contradiction of abstraction". For it is part of the idea of an object that it be different from the I. So the I is not after all a genuine object. It has "a lack of reality, of existence [Dasein]" (E3 w 317). It is "without reality, for since it is itself its own object [o~], it is not one, for there is no difference present between itself and what is its" (E3 w 37) . As Hegel explains:

There is lacking here what there was too much of in consciousness. There, there was a preponderance of difference, of content which is other than the I. In self-consciousness the other determination predominates, I = I, difference is altogether lacking, I am only conscious of me, only aware of me, identity is too strong ... (E3 w 317).

Wi th regard to its self-concept ion as I, the subject faces a "contradiction of immediacy". In self-consciousness the I conceives its object as itself. So although when conceiving itself as "possessor of objects" it conceives itself as related to its objects, it thereby remains related only to itself. The contradict ion between independence and dependence that affected its self-conception in consciousness is resolved, and it is now "free" in that it does not depend on anything else in order

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to form a conception of itself. "In self-consciousness I am free, I am not related to another, I am with myself' (/b/d.). Yet at the same time it only achieves this self-relation through a relation to an object that is initially merely given to it. So it is not after all free. Since it is ~related to an object that is initially posited as immediate, the I is not yet posited as independent" (E3 425G, 323). It is "still burdened with an external object" (E3 w 39).

The self-conscious subject's sense of its double contradiction expresses itself as a sense that the contradiction "ought" to be overcome, that its abstract I ought to be given a genuine objectivity, and at the same time that the object on which it depends ought to be rendered thoroughly identical with it, so that it is no longer dependent on anything external to it. Hegel calls this double sense of ought "desire":

Self-consciousness in its immediacy is singular and is desire-- the contradiction of its abstraction, which ought to be objective, or of its immediacy, which has the shape of an external object and ought to be subjective (E3 w 43-5).

Specifically, desire is the urge on the part of the self-conscious subject to overcome its double contradiction by consuming the living being which confronts it as an independent object, thereby trying simultaneously to objectify the subject and to render the object subjective. In the various forms of consciousness, the contradiction of consciousness led to efforts on the part of the subject to conceive the object differently. Here, the contradiction of self-consciousness leads to efforts to change the object. So the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness is a transition from purely theoretical forms of subjectivity to the first practical form of subjectivity, the first form which essentially involves a determination to act in a certain way towards the object.

3. Related Self-Consciousness

Self-consciousness in its present form can overcome its contradiction only by consuming its object. It would not be able to overcome it by simply transforming the object in some way, although such a transformation might be seen as a way of objectifying itself and rendering the object subjective, for it "does not yet possess the strength to endure the independence of the other" (E3 w 51). As a result, "desire in its satisfaction is altogether destructive" (E3 w 49). Thus the act in which the self-conscious I attempts to change its object in such

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a way as to resolve the contradiction in its self-conception is also the act whereby it destroys that object. Hence the satisfaction of desire fails to resolve the contradiction of self-consciousness, and that satisfaction only gives rise to a new desire (ibid.).

Nevertheless, according to Hegel, the desiring I must eventually succeed in giving itself an objectivity outside itself. For in the moment of satisfaction of desire it has at least the fleeting sense of an object which has been rendered thoroughly subjective while still remaining an object. This enables it to make the transition from immediate self-consciousness to a new form of self-consciousness:

The judgment or the division [Diremtion] of this self-consciousness is consciousness ofa/gee object, in which I has awareness of itself as I, which is however also still outside it (E3 w 53).

That is, it now comes to conceive its object as another I. It has "filled the other with I, made it from something self-less into a free, self-like object, into another I" (E3 w 53). Hegel does not consider the anthropomorphic possibility of a single subject relating to an inanimate object or an animal as "another I ' . He assumes that a necessary condition for the appearance of this form of self-consciousness is that two self-conscious individuals encounter one another. Thus each self-conscious individual can resolve its internal contradiction only by finding itself as a subject objectified in another self-conscious individual. It is this fact, rather than an inability to supply their own material needs, that draws individual human beings (indeed any self-conscious beings) together in Hegel's version of the idea of natural human sociability. The moment of treating the other as another I is, as Hegel puts it in his notes to the Philosophy of Mind, the "origin of society in respect of consciousness".9 The joint form of subjectivity that is established when two subjects each conceive each other as "another I", a form that we could call "related self- consciousness", is the precondition for society, although subjects that go no further than this remain in a state of nature with respect to each other in so far as this form does not entail any acceptance of a common authority. :0

The identification of an external being as "another I" resolves the

9 Cited Petry, notes to The Berlin Phenomenolog 7, supra n.6, at 161. Hegel's note is attached to that paragraph which becomes w in the third edition of the Philosophy of Mind.

10 Hegel's own phrase for this joint form of subjectivity is "relating [Verhalten] of one self-consciousness to another self-consciousness" (E3 428G, 329).

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contradiction in self-consciousness, for now the subject of self- consciousness has succeeded in objectifying itself and rendering its object subjective without simultaneously destroying that object. However this only leads to the reappearance of the basic contradict ion of consciousness in yet another form, as a contradiction in related self- consciousness. Essentially this contradiction is encapsulated in the phrase "another I". On the one hand the 'T' in this phrase simply stands for "conscious subject" (or rather now "self-conscious subject"), an entity which is qualitatively identical to but numerically distinct from the I. But on the other hand the first-person reference of the 'T' in the phrase has to be taken quite literally, for the subject does not conceive the other just as simply another self-conscious subject but also quite literally as itselfi

The other human being is just as much I as I am, there is no distinction to be made there. From the point of view of the pure self of consciousness, of this root of subjectivity, there is an identity there, it is the identity of both self-consciousnesses, I have in the other what I have in myself. But secondly these Is are also distinguished, the I is also something particular, and the question is how this distinction is determined (E3 430G, 329).

Furthermore, the other is not just distinct from me. It is also positively independent from me, in the sense that 'T' always stands for self- relatedness and so independence. This makes the contradiction even stronger:

Since I is what is wholly universal, absolutely pervasive, interrupted by no limit, the essence common to all humans, the two selves here relating to one another constitute one identity, one light so to speak, and yet at the same time they are two, which subsist in complete rigidness and unyieldingness towards each other, each as something reflected into itself and absolutely distinct from and impenetrable by the other (E3 w 55).

In short, "the highest contradiction is posited, on the one hand the clear identity of both and on the other this complete independence of each" (E3 w 329-31).

The contradiction of related self-consciousness can be seen in terms of the two subjects' simultaneous status for each other as corporeal entities and self-conscious beings. In so far as they are corporeal entities they are physically outside one another as objects, located in different places, and each of them is on a par for the other with ordinary living beings - - those living beings which, in desire, they simply subordinate to their own subjectivity. This is what they are in their "existence"

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(Dasein), by which Hegel means in the mode of being in which they are directly present to each other. From this point o f view they can see themselves only as distinct, singular entities. Yet in so far as they are self-conscious they are simply free, not only in the sense of being self- related, but also in the "practical" sense of being the self-originating source of action, for in subordinating objects to its subjectivity in desire this is how the self-conscious subject experiences itself31 As simply free they are indistinguishable. They are a unitary, universal I: the ~pure self o f consciousness" or the "essence common to all humans" that Hegel mentions above. Therefore the contradiction between their separateness and their identity can be seen as a contradiction between the corporeality and the freedom that each has for the other:

The more precise shape of the contradiction ... is that the two self- conscious subjects relating to one another, since they have immediate existence [Dasein], are natural, corporeal, thus are in the manner of a thing subordinated to an alien power, and come to be for one another as such, but at the same time they are simplyfi'ee and not to be treated by one another as something just immediately existing [Daseiendes], as something merely natural (E3 w 55-7).

Accordingly to overcome this contradiction it will be necessary for them somehow to integrate their freedom and their corporeality for each other. For Hegel, this can only happen through each, in its thoughts and thus in its actions as a corporeal entity, treating both itself and the other, as corporeal entities, as free, where to treat something as free means to treat it as a self-originating source of action, thus as a maker of decisions that are in some way valid for oneself. Hegel calls treating another as free in this way "recognition" (Anerkennung). 12 In treating each other as free they would simultaneously be distinct from each other, in that their actions would be actions of distinct corporeal entities, and yet identical, in that those actions would express a conception of them both as free, and thus as belonging to a single universal I whose defining

11

12

Hegel does not distinguish these two senses of freedom, or explain the transition from the first to the second. I have assumed that it must occur in desire. The German anerkennen generally means "recognise" in the sense of "publicly acknowledge as having a positive normative status", rather than in the sense of "identify as an individual or as a member of a kind". So the mere identification of an object as "another I" that occurs in related self- consciousness does not count as Anerkennung, and Hegel does not use that term to describe it. See Inwood, supra n.7, at 245.

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characteristic is freedom. Hegel continues:

In order to overcome this contradiction it is necessary that the two mutually opposed selves posit themselves and recognise themselves in their existence [Dasein ], in their being-for-another, as what they are in themselves or in their concept - - namely as not merely naturalbutj~ee beings [Wesen] (ibid.).

From the point of view of the individual subject, overcoming the contradiction is first o f all a matter of being recognised by the other individual, in one's very existence (Dasein) as thi~ corporeal entity, as free:

This contradiction gives the drive to show oneself as a free self and to m/st [da zu sein] as this for the other m the process of recognition (E3 w 53).

Similarly, the other individual will have the same drive to become recognised by the first as free. However to treat the other as free means to defer to its decision-making in some way, and for the self-conscious subject as we have it at present this is not easily achieved, for this subject is still "singular". That is, it understands its freedom as a matter o f it (conceived as this single individual) being completely self-determining in all its decisions. It does not yet see freedom in a universal way, as a matter o f it (conceived as a unitary universal I that is the same I as all other self-conscious beings are) being self-determining in making decisions valid for all. Its notion of freedom is still tied to its own single individuality. This means that as soon as it defers to the decision- making of another in any way, however minor, it cannot think of itself as free:

I, as free self-consciousness, am at the same time still an immediate and singular self-consciousness, the immediate singularity of my self- consciousness and my freedom are not yet separated from each other, and to that extent I cannot surrender anything of my particularity without surrendering my free independence (E3 w 333).

So this subject is incapable of recognising another as free, without losing its own freedom: "In that I recognise someone as free, thereby I am unfree" (ibid.). As a result, the two subjects cannot simultaneously recognise each other and themselves as free. The only way in which the first can conceive o f overcoming the contradiction of related self- consciousness is by having both of them recognise the first, and not the second, as flee. Then the two individuals would be distinct in that they would remain separate corporeal entities, but identical in that these entities would share a single will, that o f the first. The situation is

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parallel for the other individual. So each "must resist recognising another as free, just as on the other side each must set about demanding to be recognised as free in the other's self-consciousness" (E3 w 335). Thus the effort on the part of the subjects of related self- consciousness to overcome their contradiction degenerates into a struggle between them in which each tries to jgrce or coerce the other to recognise it alone as free, as that whose decisions alone the other must take as valid for itself (E3 432G, 337-9). This struggle is the "struggle for recognition".

4. Mastery, Servitude and Universal Self-Consciousness

I shall not rehearse the detail of this struggle. Briefly, Hegel's claim is that each individual must use physical force against the other, to the point of being willing to kill it, in order to try to make the other recognise it as free. At the same time, each must expose itself to the danger of being killed by the other in order to demonstrate to the other that it is free, in that it cannot be coerced even by the threat of death. When one individual capitulates rather than die, then in that act it demonstrates to itself (as well as to the other) that it is not free. Thereby it abandons the demand to be recognised as free, and recognises the other alone as free by taking the decisions of the other individual as decisions for it too, obeying unconditionally the orders which the other now gives it. This one-sided or "immediate" recognition constitutes a new joint and practical form of subjectivity, "mastery and servitude" (Herrschafi und Knechtschafi), as it constitutes the two subjects as "servant" and "master" respectively. This is how the contradiction of related self-consciousness is initially resolved:

Being recognised by the other must come about, and initially [it must come about] immediately, so that the one subjects its will, gives up the independence of its will, a resolution of the contradiction which is again a contradiction within itself. Thus the relation of mastery and servitude is posited. The one that prefers life to independence, that allows itself to be coerced, is the subjected, the one that obeys, the server [Diener] (E3 432G/K, 339).

In abandoning its claim to be free and recognising only the other as free, the servant has effectively surrendered its own will: "the self-will of the servant gives itself up to the will of the master w and receives as its content the purpose of the commander" (E3 w 65). As a result,

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there is now as far as both individuals are concerned only one will, one centre of free decision-making:

The will of the master counts, not that of the server. It is one will, and this is already a universal one, it is not only the will of this self, it is a will that has become broader. The servant has to work for the desire of the master, whatever shape it has, but at the same time universality is present. Will, subjective will, desire is widened, the master is will in this consciousness and also in the consciousness of the servant (E3 435G, 341-3).

The surrender of the will that initiates mastery and servitude is the analogue of the act in which men leave the state of nature by alienating their wills to the community in Rousseau's social contract, and as with Rousseau the surrender creates a general or universal will.13 However, in contrast to Rousseau, the resulting will is not truly universal. It is universal in that it counts as the will o f both master and servant (or servants, if there are many), but it does not have an impersonal content. Its content is made up of the desires of one particular individual, the master, and the way the servant obeys that will is through labour to produce things to satisfy that one individual's desires.

As a result, the master-servant relation does not resolve the contradiction of related self-consciousness which gave rise to it. It is true that servant and master could be said to be "identical" in that they share a single will, but because this will is determined by the desires o f one particular corporeal individual, it is not genuinely self-determining or free. So it is not a will that is expressive of the I as such, of the universal I that they sense themselves to be. Their actions therefore do not express a conception of themselves as a single universal I, and so fail to unite their corporeal separateness with their identity as such an I. The servant's recognition in working for the master does not express to the master the servant's identity with it as free, but rather the opposite. The same is the case for the master's activity of giving orders to the servant.

Thus the contradiction of related self-consciousness remains. Never- theless, the master-servant relation does show how this contradiction can finally be overcome. For the servant, in working for the master, learns to resist its own immediate desires. It "works off its singular- and self-will in service to the master" and "supersedes the inner immediacy of desire" (E3 w 67). It thereby achieves a sense of freedom as something

13 The German allgemein, translated here as "universal", also means "general", and elsewhere Hegel uses allgemeine Wille to translate Rousseau's ~general will" (for example in the Philosophy of Right at PR w 277).

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other than just being individually self-determining in all its decisions, for here it is free in the sense of being able to act independently of its own desires. Thereby it partly overcomes the "singularity" that drove subjects into a struggle for recognition. However it is still not yet free in the sense of being able to act independently from everyone's desires, for it only acts independently of its own desires in so far as it carries out the master's desires:

This servile obedience.., forms only the beginning of freedom, for that to which the natural singularity of stir-consciousness sabmits is not the in- and-for-itsdftruly universal, rational will, but the singular, contingent will of another subject. What emerges here is merely one moment of freedom, the negativity of self-seeking singularity (E3 w 69).

The "positive side of freedom" (ibid.) can only be realised when:

servile self-consciousness disengages itself from the singularity of the master just as much as from its own singularity, and apprehends what is rational in-and-for-itself, in its universality which is independent of the particularity of the subjects (ibid.).

Hegel is unclear about what it is within the master-servant relation that brings about the realisation of this "positive side" of freedom, but he appears to suggest that it is the master's concern to meet the needs common to itself and its servants, which leads it, like the servant, to overcome its own immediate desires and instead to do a.nd order done what is necessary to meet those common needs (E3 w 65; w 67). Thus the will which it comes to enact (and which the servants in turn also enact) becomes an impersonal one whose content is independent of any one individual's desires.

This would be at least an approximation to the will that is independent of everyone's desires and "rational in-and-for-itself". If both master and servant can come to enact such a will, and to feel that their freedom consists in enacting it, then they will both have overcome their "singularity": they will have come to conceive freedom no longer as individual self-determination but as the self-determination of a unitary universal I that they all, as separate individuals, are. Thereby they will have overcome the condition which originally prevented them from mutually recognising each other as free and forced them instead into the struggle for recognition. They can then finally resolve the contradiction of related self-consciousness by recognising each other as flee, dissolving the master-servant relation. Hegel calls the collective and practical form of subjectivity in which subjects do this "universal self-consciousness".

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What makes universal self-consciousness possible is the internal division which each subject has now made within itself between its own desires, which are particular to it as a separate corporeal entity, and its freedom, as possessor of which it is the same I that all the others are:

Universal self-consciousness is the affirmative awareness of oneself in the other self, each of which as a free singularity has absolute independence, but, in virtue of the negation of its immediacy or desire, does not differentiate itself from the other (E3 w 71).

Thanks to this internal division each one can recognise the other as free without being in any way unfree itselfi for when one recognises the other as free it only treats as valid for it the decisions of the other m universal I, and enacting the decisions of that same universal I is just what its own freedom consists in.

However it is unclear at this point how the decisions of this universal I are to be identified. Until now, to speak of a universal I was simply a way of saying that individuals felt themselves to be somehow numerically identical at some level. Hegel does speak of mutual recognition as constituting a common "substance" that is the basis for all social institutions (E3 w 71; w 345), and it is at least consonant with his usage to say that it creates social relations and a society for the first time. He further suggests that mutual recognition constitutes each individual as universal in some sense, for in universal self-consciousness:

[each] is universal and objective, and has real universality as reciprocity, in that it knows itself recognised in the free other, and knows this, in so far as it recognises the other and knows it as free (ibid.).

Yet this is not enough to be able to say that any real universal I with determinate decision-making capacities has been constituted by virtue of mutual recognition. So it is still difficult to see how the "decision- making" of the universal I can be conceptualised. I f this decision- making I is Hegel's version of the general will, then it is a version that as yet lacks any content.

5. Will, Free Will and Right

In order to see a solution to this problem it will be necessary to look at Hegel's conception of the free will. There are several stages between universal self-consciousness and "free will" but they do not involve any development in the way the subject sees its fellow subjects, so I shall

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 199

summarise them very briefly. Firstly, the individual of universal self-consciousness sees other

individuals as both object (distinct from itself) and subject (identical with itself), so it unifies the objective and the subjective. Thereby it gains the confidence or "certainty" that the objective and the subjective in general can be unified. This confidence is "reason" (E3 w 75). It is as if the individual attaining to universal self-consciousness gains the confidence to assume that the underlying principle that animates itself and its fellow mutual recognisers as subjects is a principle that also underlies the physical universe, so that there is no distinction between things as they are and things as they can in principle be known by such subjects. The individual becomes, in Hegel's terms, an idealist. Universal self-consciousness, supplemented by this more general metaphysical confidence, is what Hegel calls "mind" (Ge/st)14 (E3 w 353-5).

Secondly, as mind, the individual immediately confronts the fact that the physical world presents itself as something independent of it and alien to it, contradicting its confidence in their underlying unity. So it is compelled to attempt to make this unity explicit, and it is this activity of attempting to realise its unity with the objective world that is the characteristic activity of mind (E3 ~441A, 87).

This activity first takes a cognitive form, giving rise to the form of subjectivity called "intelligence" (or "theoretical mind"). Here, in a process that parallels the development of the forms of consciousness, the individual renders the objective world progressively more like the "universal I" that it is by transforming its singular intuitions of that world into representations, which are more general, and then thoughts, which are more general still (E3 w167 117-229). Through this process, the individual proves to itself that things themselves have the same universality that it does (E3 w 229).

This gives it the confidence to reverse the process, so that its attempt to realise its unity with the objective world takes a practical form, giving rise to the form of subjectivity called "will" (or "practical mind"), where "will" has to be understood as meaning something more than it has until now. Here the individual attempts to objectify successively more universal aspects of itself in action (E3 w167 231-265). Initially, as "practical feeling", it simply registers the satisfaction of its individual

14 Here and above, I have translated Hegel's Geist as "mind" rather than the more common "spirit".

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needs in feelings such as pleasantness and pleasure. Then, as "natural will", it actively tries to satisfy its inclinations through drives that correspond to them. At this point the introduction to the Philosophy of Right begins its systematic exposition of the will, so that from here on its account runs parallel to that of the Philosophy ofMind (PR w167 44- 52). ~ Next, as "reflecting will", it stands back from its inclinations and chooses which inclination to try to satisfy. Then, under the heading of "happiness", it attempts to maximise the sum total of such satisfactions.

In all the above forms the will is free "in itself", for regardless of its content it always involves some form of self-determination in so far as the individual makes some effort to act that content out into the world. Finally however it becomes "free will" in the proper sense (~will free in and for itself", or "free mind"). This is the genuinely rational will (PR w 58). Here freedom forms the actual content of the will. The individual attempts to objectify freedom itself as an objective world, the world of what Hegel calls "objective mind". This "realm of actualised freedom, the world of mind produced out of itself as a second nature" is just the system of right (PR w 35). In fact Hegel simply identifies "right" as any objectification of the free will - - any actual institution, practice or law in which the free will is directly present to us. "Right is this, that an existence [Dasein] in general is an existence ofthejgee wilt' (PR w 58). Correspondingly an individual is properly free in so far as it acts to create or sustain such institutions, practices and laws.

Now the steps between universal self-consciousness and the "natural will" can obscure the fact that the individual that possesses this will, with which the Philosophy of Right begins, is an individual that has already attained universal self-consciousness, that is, one that belongs to a community of "mutual recognisers", and thanks to this can think of itself as a "universal I" as well as a particular individual without contradiction. Since each of the forms of subjectivity in Hegel's systematic derivation presupposes the others, it is natural to expect that this should be the case, and Hegel effectively confirms it. In his initial introduction to the idea of the will in paragraphs 5 to 7 of the Philosophy

15 References to the Philosophy of Right [1821] (PR) are given by paragraph number. R = remark to the paragraph. A = additioh (Zusatz) to the para- graph compiled by Gans from various sets of students' lecture notes in 1833. After the paragraph number I have given the page number of the translation as Elements of the Philosophy Right, ed. A.W. Wood, tr. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 201

of Right he states that the will involves an 'T' which is universal and abstracted from every content (PR w 37), but which gives itself an existence (Dasein) by investing itself in some determinate content (PR w 39), and which retains its abstractedness even as so determinate (PR w 41). Interpreters of these paragraphs have tacitly assumed that the 'T' which Hegel is talking of is an individual 'T', and that he is simply referring to the capacity of the individual who has a will to refrain from acting on any particular drive. But in his lectures Hegel states explicitly that the 'T' associated with the will is one that abstracts from the particular individual as well as from its various drives:

I is thinking, thought, conceptualising in general, I is the universal, the completely universal, there is nothing more universal When each one says ~I" he means himself as a particular, but each is I, and in the higher sense the universal, wholly abstractly the universal. I is wholly abstract; in the I, I leave out of account every particularity, my particular character, temperament, knowledge, age. 16

This I is the "universal I" of universal self-consciousness. According- ly, will's self'investment in a determinate content is not just a matter of choosing to do one particular thing, but of the individual differentiating itself as one particular individual, from the indeterminacy of the universal I. Hence Hegel calls this moment the "particularisation of the I" (PR w 39). It happens through the decision by the individual as to which of its various inclinations to act to satisfy: "By deciding, the will posits itself as the will of a determinate individual which separates itself out from another" (PR w 13, 46).

So the "natural will" involves the capacity for seeing oneself without contradiction both as the universal I and also as "this particular I", a capacity realised only in the communi ty of mutual recognition of universal self-consciousness. It follows that the properly free will whose aim is to objectify its freedom as the system of right must also be the will of a member of this community of mutual recognition. Furthermore this properly free will must be nothing other than a developed form of the free decision-making capacity of the universal I of universal self- consciousness. For since the properly free will wills only freedom itself, it does not involve any element of "particularisation of the I ' . Its content is completely impersonal, so that it is a will that everyone has.

16 Vorlesungen iiber Rechtsphilosophie [ 1818-31], 4 volumes, ed. K.-H. Ilting (Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag,1973-), vol. 4, at 105. A version of this lecture note is included in the Philosophy of Right (PR w 35).

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In Fact it now appears that the difference between the individual of universal self-consciousness and the individual with a properly free will is only this: although the former sees itself as part of a free universal I, it has no particular conception of what the content of decisions of this universal I is to be, whereas for the latter, which has had its will "awakened" by the experience of unifying the objective and the subjective in cognition, what this universal I must do is objectify its own freedom in a determinate system of institutions and practices.

Given this close connection, it is possible to see a much more direct way in which Hegel could have derived the properly free will that is the basis of the system of right from universal self-consciousness. Universal self-consciousness consists in individuals' enactment of a self-conception of themselves as a universal I through mutual recognition of one another as free. Yet to recognise someone as free means to treat the decisions of that individual, considered as universal I, as valid for one in some way: and in order to do that one must know what the decisions of this "universal I" are. As we have seen, though, in universal self-conscious- ness these decisions are completely indeterminate. Universal self- consciousness is therefore contradictory. Like the initial, abstract form of stir-consciousness, it lacks existence (Dasein).

The contradiction cannot be overcome by making a collective decision, for such a decision might simply be based on desires shared by all, in which case it would fail to count as a decision of the universal I. This I consists only in that common subjectivity in ourselves and each other that we take as authoritative over us when in our thoughts and actions we recognise each other as free, and whose only essential characteristic is freedom. So the urge to overcome the contradiction can only be the urge to give a Dasein to this freedom of the universal I, that is, to derive from the nature of that freedom those practices that will count as recognising oneself and others as free. This, I suggest, is exacdy the aim of objectifying freedom as an objective world, the aim of the properly free will. The objective wodd which the properly free will must will is then simply that system of practices and institutions which can realise the idea of mutual recognition that appears in an abstract form in universal self-consciousness.

Hegel's justification of those practices and institutions, then, will be that in the end that they are necessary in order to resolve the contra- diction in universal self-consciousness. In turn universal self-conscious- hess was necessary to resolve the contradictions in related self-conscious-

ON HEGEL, THE SUBJECT, AND POLITICAL JUSTIFICATION 203

hess, immediate self-consciousness, and finally consciousness itself. If this is correct then it is no accident that the institutions that Hegel

goes on to describe in the Philosophy of Right alternate between seeing right as a matter of protecting individual rights (property, morality, civil society) and advancing a collective good (family, state). For the univer- sal I whose freedom has to be given a Dasein in these institutions, as a subject that incorporates in its nature both sides of the contradiction of related self-consciousness, is the universal I of subjects that simultane- ously see themselves as distinct, particular Is. It is an "I that is we and we that is I".17 In turn this double nature of the universal I finally reflects our own double nature as both conscious and corporeal beings, subjects and objects.

This is not the place to begin to reconstruct Hegel's justification of those institutions, beginning with property, as necessary Daseins of the freedom of such a subject. One thing that would be needed for such a reconstruction would be a more exact account than I have been able to give here of the idea of"mutual recognition as free". However I think it is possible to say already that Hegel shows that there is more to the ontological form of political justification than is dreamed of in most contemporary political philosophy.

17 Supra n.5, at 110.