What justifies turning to existing practice? That it is rational
Hegel's concept of rationality
Hegel as foundationalist?
appeals to an objective standard of right; claims Reason is in history and that our practices and institutions are essentially rational ("to comprehend what is, this is the task of philosophy, because what is, is reason")
But his claim that history, and our social institutions are rational can be taken as an interpretive claim: "To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back."
Hegel's life and works
Personal (1770-1831)
Early works: longing for totality
Jena and the idea of Sittlichkeit (ethical life)
1806 and The Phenomenology of Spirit (Geist)
Nuremberg schoolteacher
University lecturer in Berlin
Philosophy of Right and censorship pressures
Philosophy of History
Claim: reason is in history
Hegel's interpretation of history
Oriental world--static
Greeks--lack subjectivity
Romans: rise of personality and abstract right, but no ethical substance
Modern world: subjectivity within an ethical substance
Hegel on the French Revolution: between tradition and revolution
The Philosophy of Right
Hegel's immanent criticism (Philosophy of Right, Preface): 'What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational' (PR p. 20)
Conservative?
Ideals come from existing practices. But not everything about existing practice conforms with those ideals.
Distinction between actuality and existence:
Rph VII: "what is actual is rational (ideal), but not everything that exists is actual."
Ideality vs actuality vs existence:
Ideality is the world if it accorded perfectly with the ideals already immanent in that world
The world doesn't perfectly accord with ideality (Example: Being in love)
actuality is that part of existence which conforms with ideality.
We should bracket non-ideal aspects of existence--they don't really 'count'
But if the real world doesn't look at all like the ideal account, then we have to change our ideals
Example: punishment
A dialectic between ideals and existence
Practices (existence) change, so our conception of them changes: "the actual becomes rational".
Our conceptions (ideals) change, so practices change: "the rational becomes actual"
Hegel's conception of freedom (Philosophy of Right Introduction)
The bearer of freedom: The will
The logical structure of the free will: Paragraphs 5-7
Par. 5: capacity to abstract a. what it means--to detach, renounce
abstract freedom as freedom from
problems with abstracting will
Par. 6: necessity of being committed; freedom as freedom in
Par. 7: true freedom is capacity to abstract, yet being committed
Appropriate content of free will
limits of natural will (PR 11-13)
limits of arbitrary will (Willkuer) (PR 14-16)
content must be rational (PR 17-24)
Morality and Hegel's break with Kant
Hegel's rejection of natural rights
Hegel's idea of ethical substance
Hegel and Kurosawa on our most meaningful commitments
