What’s “Freedom” Supposed To Mean In The Age Of SDGs? Ask Hegel.
What does “freedom” mean, or should it mean, in the age where the untamed freedom of individuals and corporations are creating all sorts of social issues, such as the environmental crisis and social inequality within and between countries?
Hegel, a German philosopher of 18–19th century, seems to have an answer for us. For him, “the absolute and ultimate end of the world” is the realized freedom or what he calls the good, defined in his book Philosophy of Rights as “the unity of the concept of the will and the particular will (Hegel 1991, §129, 157).” What does this mean? In a nutshell, it means that in the ideal state of freedom, our longing for our own welfare and the longing for other’s welfare should be aligned. It means that we should care for others as we care for ourselves.
Needless to say, this idea of freedom resonates with our contemporary call for responsible consumption and production in economic activities. Since because of the self-centered pursuit of profit and satisfaction, our planet is damaged, and social inequality deepened.
Then, how can we realize this notion of freedom, where people see the interest of the whole community as their own interest? To answer this question, we must familiarize ourselves with another important term, ethical life: the state where the good is internalized in our mind, behavior, and institutions. In the ethical life, what we do serves both ourselves and others at the same time, and that tendency would be underpinned by habits and institutions.
Example? Family!
The essense of the family is the emotional unity, or what Hegel calls, love. Obviously the family is a type of ethical life, since what your parents do is mostly for you, not just for them. Well of course sometimes they may do stupid stuff as well, but we are talking about the ideal, not the reality; and so does Hegel. But family is just the beginning of the realization of Hegel’s freedom. The formation of civil society and the state are also key steps to realizing the ethical life. This process deserves another article or two, and I will not dive into this here. The point here is that the good, the unity of the care for ourselves and the care for others, can only thrive in communities, from small ones like family to big ones like states.
So, why are communities important? The answer comes down to our quality of moral choices. Individuals’ judgements on what is good and bad, Hegel says, cannot be a sufficient ground of the universal morality: a moral standard of the whole community. For instance, let’s say I got convinced that it is morally right to skip a boring mathematics class. Even if this conclusion is a result from the long and thorough contemplation, it does not guarantee that my conclusion is universally right. Then, how can we ensure that our individual, subjective and particular moral choices is also generally, objectively and universally right? One of Hegel’s answers is national law. For Hegel, laws are supposed to be the incarnation of the unity between the care for self and for others. While families possess emotional unity, states are legal, and therefore have objective unity. Our moral decisions, therefore, should be based on states law.
Common critics of Hegel think, and perhaps fellow readers might notice, that this sounds a bit too state-centric and could be dangerous logique. We know states’ legislature is often the products of nasty partisan struggle, and law cannot always be the base of our moral judgement. Even if Texas law forbids abortion, it does not mean abortion is morally wrong. Laws that seems immoral are everywhere in the world. Given this bleak reality we are facing right now, Hegel’s argument seems not only unrealistic, but also bestowing too much legitimacy on the national law.
Hold on. It might be too early to judge him. The reason why laws have such a moral power in Hegel’s thought is because law is envisaged as the institution to make sure our behavior is aligned with the public welfare. Consider the law that prohibits murder. By imposing a severe penalty, the law discourages people from committing murder. Also consider the law that secures our property rights. Without it, we would be worried about possible confiscation and could not engage in economic activity. So, although some laws are quite controversial, most laws encourages us to respect other’s welfare. Put differently, laws can help realize the ethical life. They helps us to restrain ourselves from doing harm to others.
Also, what he puts in question is our very notion of freedom. Freedom to do anything we want or what we think appropriate is not the freedom he permits. Freedom is supposed to be about willingly pursuing for everyone’s happiness as the pursuit of their own happiness. What we suppose to want from the beginning is not the individualistic pleasure, but everyone’s pleasure.
When Hegel’s state-centric logic sounds unpleasant, it may be because of the possibility that states’ law forces us to do something we don’t want to do. Here is the trick: Laws, for Hegel, are the realization of the unity of care for self and others. Anything legalized in his ideal world is something we want, and good for all of us, like the law prohibiting murder. So, it is logically impossible for us to not want to obey the law; since our behavior and motivation is striving for the greater good, the welfare of the whole community, we should be willing to behave according to the law.
It is better to interpret his argument not as an explanation of what is going on, but as what freedom is supposed to look like. What he is saying to us with a great relevance to the contemporary social issues is basically “guys, there does not have to be a conflict between our desire (ex. economic benefit) and the social good (ex. environmental protection). It is possible that we want the social good as part of our desire; And the purpose of law, state and community ultimately comes down to ensuring this miraculous but feasible unity!”
References
Hegel, G.W.F. 1991. Elements of the Philosophy of Right.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
