In the wake of the postmodernist onslaught one thing is certain:
morality is in crisis. Where are we to look for answers? Perhaps to the German
idealists.—That is, to their bold synthesis of right and freedom. This paper seeks to
bring the timely issue of absolute freedom and the possibility of its total realization in
today's world back into the center of ethical-political discussion. Through a close
comparison of the theories of Fichte and Hegel via a critique of the former by the latter,
I hope to show that the antidote to the bulk of our political, moral and theological
distresses may well be found in Hegel's concept of the State and Sittlichkeit—i.e., truly
understood. Namely, as the realization of absolute freedom, or the "We that is
I."
In a recent interview, Derrida was asked the following question:
"We are . . . in a period of highly perfected, nearly
consummate nihilism. Everyone is waiting to know where we are going, toward what should we
be moving ourselves. Toward what does work such as yours lead?"
Derrida responded: "I don't know. . . . I have no message."(1)
In the wake of the postmodernist onslaught—or charade—one
thing is certain: morality is in crisis. Where are we to look for answers? Perhaps to the
German idealists—and to their bold synthesis of right and freedom. This paper seeks
to bring the timely issue of absolute freedom and the possibility of its total realization
in today's world back into the center of ethical-political discussion. Through a critical
comparison of the theories of Fichte and Hegel I hope to show that the antidote to the
bulk of our political, moral and theological distresses may well be found in
Hegel’s concept of the State and Sittlichkeit—as truly understood.
Namely, as the realization of absolute freedom, of the "We that is I."
In basic agreement with Hegel, I will first explain why absolute
freedom can not be realized in Fichte’s theory, and then why it can
be realized in Hegel’s. Lastly, I will underscore the importance of the German
idealist theory for our present situation.
I: Hegel’s Critique of Fichte's Ethics
In the Sittenlehre (SL)(2)
Fichte states: "The final end of my activity is absolute freedom, absolute
independence of nature (136, Kroeger)." This quote attests that for Fichte the
supreme goal is for my will to become absolutely free, that is, not dependent on or
restricted by any not-I, including the not-I which is another I or will.(3)
The realization of freedom, I would offer, will depend on how Fichte conceives
the relation between two selves.
The question is: Why can’t freedom be
realized in Fichte’s theory? That is, How, according to Hegel, does Fichte’s
ethics and political order turn out to be a system of slavery, constraint and unfreedom?
The chief reason concerns the Fichtean concept of right which forms the basis of
all relations within the state, to wit: "Each individual must restrict his
freedom ... (the sphere of his free acts) to allow for the freedom of the others (Naturrecht
(NR), 78)." For Hegel, Fichte’s fundamental formulation of right is
flawed in that it implies that entering into relationship with another self is a restriction
of my freedom rather than its expansion and realization. It presupposes that originally
and prior to entering the social contract I enjoy an "infinite sphere of freedom
(for my free acts) (SL, 67)" which subsequently gets limited with the
introduction of other selves. Thus the state, the community of rational beings is, by its
very nature, something repressive, towards which I must take a hostile attitude.
The individual can thus regard the Common Will and its laws only as an external coercive
power, the origin of all restrictions of its initially infinite sphere of
freedom, and not as that through which alone it is able to realize absolute freedom.(4)
Put differently, Fichte having begun his theory with a self-complete individual
or subject must needs end up with such; i.e., his theory is
"atomistic." It is true that Fichte both says that man can be free not apart
from but only in a community of men and offers a deduction of other
individuals, their bodies, the state etc. as necessary concomitant conditions of
the self-positing individual I, thus seeming to imply that the latter and its freedom are
inconceivable apart from the community. But this is only a semblance. For even granting
these are legitimate conditions, the fact remains that the community that results
is restrictive of freedom. Simply put, in the end I can only regard other persons
as limitations of my sphere of freedom, not as its fulfillment, i.e., I cannot
completely find my self in the others. And precisely because of this,
the will can only be a finite will, not an absolutely infinite will. It appears
Fichte was unable to grasp the concept of infinity or spirit, i.e., of
identity-in-difference.
What of the charge of slavery or the tyranny of the Moral Law, as Hegel
puts it, in the theory of ethics? The basic problem, according to Hegel, is rooted in
Fichte’s (and Kant’s) presupposition of an original divorce between morality
and nature and the subsequent impossibility of overcoming this split by means of
moral activity(5)—a presupposition evidenced in
Fichte’s concept of the ought [Sollen], e.g., "I ought to
produce the Idea (the Good, the Moral Law) externally" (SL, p.69).
This implies that the external world is not yet Idea, is deficient to begin with,
that the Idea exists only in concept but not yet in reality.(6)
It is to be made reality solely through my individual moral actions, my transforming of
portions of the not-I (or Nature) into I, so that ultimately the entire not-I will have
been converted into I.
The tyranny the Moral Law involves here is two fold. First: I
confront a not-I. I am aware of it as a not-I and am thus dependent. The
Moral Law directly commands that I act, determine the not-I, realize my purpose and become
free. No sooner than I become free, I find myself again a slave and dependent on another
not-I that now confronts me. I soon realize—if I have a
scintilla of intelligence—that this is a losing battle: there
will never be a shortage of not-I’s I will have to deal with. In fact, I see I can
never make any progress in morality and get closer to my goal. Indeed, the Moral Law is
relentless, a harsh unforgiving, unrewarding taskmaster: I can never find rest. Second:
I can never get a sense of satisfaction that I have done "the right thing"; not
just because each moral act is only a "drop in the bucket," but rather owing to
the "subjective" element involved in the choice of duties.(7)
That is, one’s choice between the infinite mass of contingent duties involved in a
single moral situation in the end is arbitrary and based on one’s limited
knowledge and subjective preference. This "curse" which affects the moral
standpoint, according to Hegel, can only be broken and transcended at the level of sittlichkeit,
where the "ought" has been superseded and activity and duty have become one.
The remedy for Fichte’s problems, Hegel tells us, is found by a
closer look at what is implied by his principles. What follows from the mere fact that I
am free? First, if I am free, if I am practical at all, then right now I
am also infinite. For if I can bridge the I/not-I hiatus, if I can transform a
not-I into I (recognize a determination of the object as my own determination),
then what this implies is 1. that the not-I or world possesses no absolute being, 2. that
the not-I is in reality nothing in itself, and most significantly, 3. that the
not-I was implicitly I all along. Therefore, in relating to the not-I, I am in reality
relating to myself. Hence, if I am free then I am not finite but rather infinite,
being in a state of "self-relation."
Secondly, this also means that once I recognize that I can, or
have already changed a portion of the not-I (the second step of Fichte’s
deduction(8)), I also at once know that I can change all
of the not-I—that, again, the not-I is implicitly I, indeed
that my absolutely infinite will or the Good, is already, with this insight realized! This
is precisely what Hegel says in the Science of Logic’s analysis of praxis:
[Ordinarily] the actualization of the good appears always as a merely individual
act, and not as a universal one. In reality this aspect has sublated itself in [a single]
actualization of the good; what still limits the objective Concept is its own
view of itself, which vanishes by reflection on what its actualization is in itself.
Through this view it is only standing in its own way, and thus what it has to do is to
turn, not against an outer actuality [another not-I, or person] but against itself. . .
Unsatisfied [Fichtean] striving vanishes when we recognize that the final purpose
of the world [viz., the Good] is just as much accomplished as it is eternally
accomplishing itself.(9)
Lastly, Hegel charges that Fichte’s theory is dangerous. This is
because its principle is a one-sided subjectivity which has spawned in
Hegel’s day (in F. Schlegel, Fries and Bouterweck) and in our own
"postmodern" age (in Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty) a host of immoral/amoral
philosophies where the individual conviction of a subject or ethnic group is held up as
the highest court of appeal for its actions. Hegel’s point is that on this principle
any action can be justified—even the most wicked.(10)
II: Hegel's Theory of Absolute Freedom
The reason why Fichte is unable to realize freedom, i.e. my will as an
absolutely infinite will in the here and now, is that he lacks the concept of Spirit
(Geist), i.e., of the true infinite or the Concept (Der Begriff),
and therefore of Sittlichkeit. To solve the problem of realizing an absolutely
infinite will one must first solve the problem of conceiving a relationship with the
other which does not restrict but rather guarantees my freedom; where the other is
regarded neither as a sheer limit or negation of myself, the point where I end
and something else begins (which would confirm me as a finite will), nor as
simply reducible to myself (the standard view and misreading of Hegel), but rather as independent
of and yet identical with myself. Only through such a relation with the other can
an infinite will be realized.
At the level of reflective Verstand—which is unable to unite fixed
opposites such as finite/infinite, individual/universal (other than via metaphor) and at
which level Fichte and Kant remained—this problem cannot be solved; for this one must
rise to the level of speculation or the Concept. Briefly—and this is the
concept of the infinite, the fount of Hegel's concept of Spirit and Sittlichkeit—I
am finite in that I find myself in relation with an other which is my limit.
However, the other ceases to be sheer other and limit when I reflect that we are
constituted in the self-same way. That is, the other is also a self, like myself.
Further, to the other I am the other. Since both of us are equally self and
other, the limit or restriction the other initially constituted for me is abolished.
In meeting with the other, I am meeting only with myself, and vice versa. As Hegel says I—rather We—have already
passed over into each other.(11) Since in the result I am
non-limited or non-finite, I am now infinite. Further, this infinite, that is,
true freedom, can only be realized in and through the other or others, i.e. in
and through a community or state, a universal medium of recognizing and being-recognized (Anerkanntsein).(12)
It is crucial to see that this concept of the infinite, of the unity
of opposites in which the opposites are preserved and not nullified, lies at the
basis of Hegel's concept of right, Spirit and Sittlichkeit and makes possible the
total realization of freedom in the here and now. In the 1807 Phenomenology
for example Hegel writes: "[Spirit] is the absolute substance which is the unity of
the different independent self-consciousnesses which, in their opposition, enjoy
perfect freedom and independence: the I that is We and the We that is I (p.
110)."(13) In this and like texts, Hegel is telling us
that true freedom or infinity, my will as an absolutely infinite will, is not merely an
Idea never to exist but only infinitely approximated to but, on the contrary, actually
realized in an ethical totality or state alone. Notice that the standard picture
of Hegel disseminated by Levinas, Derrida and others, according to which Hegel
"reduces the other to the same" or violates the sanctity of the Other by
repressing one of the pair of "binary opposites" is totally false. Robert
Williams(14) and others are to be highly commended for
correcting the widespread misrepresentation of this key doctrine of the German Idealists
concerning the status of the other. Hegel moreover unequivocally states in the Philosophy
of Right that, "The moral will of the individual constitutes a sanctuary that is
inviolate and inaccessible."(15)
Attention must also be directed to Hegel's crucial remarks found at the
close of the Phenomenology’s section on Morality which reveal that at the very
center of this relation between two selves which constitutes infinity and freedom one
discovers none other than—God:
The reconciling Yes, in which the two I's let go their
opposed existence, is the existence of the I expanded into a duality, and in it remaining
identical with itself . . . : it is God ["it," that is, the
"Yes," the "doubled I," the "I-Thou identity-in-difference,"
is God] appearing in the midst of those who know themselves in the form of pure [absolute]
Knowledge (p. 408).
This is a very important text—showing the
critical manner in which theology and political/moral theory are integrated in
Hegel's position. Hegel's ruling aim, what Richard Kroner and a few others have noted, is
simply to transform a transcendent Heaven (Jenseits) into an actual, present
Heaven; —an imaginary, indefinitely postponed "futural" freedom into an actual
freedom. In the text cited, Hegel is announcing that the true locus of God is
precisely and only in the relation between actual (active, acting)
historical selves. The true definition or cash value of the word "God" therefore
is—"spirit" (Enc. 384) and "spirit," in the end, is
— the state, is us, —that is, the "We,"—the
"We that is I" —or as four rock-poets of the 1960s put
it: "I am he, as you are he, as you are me and we are all together," or
in the language of James Joyce: "Here comes everybody!" All of this is to say
that God, i.e., the true God, is not a transcendent being, one not here
(as Altizer and Nietzsche also tell us(16))—but rather
a being who is fully present—identical, a la Hegel, with the ethical whole
or "Sittlichkeit" itself.
Thus the answer to the question, How does Hegel succeed in realizing
absolute freedom where Fichte fails? is, in one word: the Concept of the Self,
or, Sittlichkeit, the Concept realized. In simple terms, Fichte advanced as far
as the spheres of right, morality and the pre-political, but not all the way to Sittlichkeit
and the truly political—i.e., he remained stuck in the
sphere of the "ought" and the individual as such and could not rise to
universality, objectivity, and concrete freedom.
In §§ 514-515 of the Encyclopedia Hegel defines Sittlichkeit
or the "We that is I" thus:
The free self-knowing Substance, the absolute
unity of freedom's individuality and universality, in which the absolute ought
no less is, has actuality as the spirit of a nation. The absolute
diremption of this spirit is its individualization into persons . . . But as a
thinking intelligence the person knows the substance to be his very own being. .
. and regards it as his absolute final aim. . . Without having to choose among duties the
person performs his duty as his own, as something which is; and in this
necessity he has himself and his actual freedom [italics added].
How then does Sittlichkeit realize the Good, the
infinite—while Morality could not? In a word, ethical life is absolute
freedom fully realized and existent, the unity of my individual will with the universal
substantial will—where is and ought, activity and duty
coincide. And it is this only insofar as I actively participate in its sphere as
a member of the family, of civil society and the State. It is
my membership in these several spheres, each with its respective duties—spheres which
have been established independently of my individual, particular will—which
guarantees that my actions are "good" and "right." Indeed, Hegel says
that, "The State is the product of my activity,"(17)
which is to say that what I am doing every day, i.e., the true product of all my
actions, momentous and mundane, is not this amount of money, job promotion,
vacation, sensual enjoyment, home improvement, and so on, but rather the State itself
and its ongoing maintenance. And since the State, the realization of absolute freedom, is
also the Good, the product of my activity is in truth the Good! Hence my actions can be
deemed "good" precisely because they sustain the Good.
Thus, in virtue of my participation in the State, the Good, and the already
established and sanctioned sphere of universal duties, I now also participate in
absolute freedom. I no longer, as formerly qua moral subject or person, regard
the world, the objective political-social order, as the negation of myself but rather as my
own substance and being: the world is truly my world. The truth alone is the
"We"—the nexus of universal recognition—that is, the "We
that is also I." I see and have myself in each person and institution I
encounter, and experience the liberation which the Concept alone can provide.(18)
III: Conclusion
Fichte thus remained at the standpoint of individuality and one-sided
subjectivity, i.e. the moral standpoint. He was not able to raise his individuality
to universality; nor escape his subjectivity and reach objectivity, i.e., a true
subject-objectivity, where thoughts and actions are no less objective than
subjective; nor transcend his finitude or limitation by the Other and attain to
Spirit or true absolute freedom.
Indeed, it may well turn out that Hegel's concept of the State—as
the complete existence of freedom or God on earth (for God = freedom
for Hegel and Fichte alike)—can alone provide us with the desperately needed antidote
to our contemporary "postmodern" political, moral and theological distress: Political—in
that, if correct, it supplies the crucial grounds for the legitimization of the modern
state and its arrangements which, properly understood, alone provides for the realization
of universal freedom—a legitimation arguably unattainable via current foundationalist
theories (consult Richard Winfield’s excellent Reason and Justice on this(19))—and
it also puts an end to the painful problem of the individual's alienation from
the state via the complete experience of herself as the same; Moral—in that
it not only deduces and specifies the content of the "right" and the
"good" (which other theories are unable to do), but shows how right or
righteousness and the good are actually attainable in the here and now—viz.,
by a shift in one's view of one's actions and of what the state actually is, and by a
"transcending" of morality into sittlichkeit; and perhaps above all, Theological—in
that the problem of the existence and knowledge of God becomes finally resolved by the
recognition that the state, in the end, is God, and since God is not transcendent
but fully present as the state (= Kingdom Come(20)),
we can know for certain that He exists—for in knowing
ourselves, the "We that is I," we at the same time are knowing Him.(21)
Lastly, only one who possesses the true concept of the state can really
enjoy the life of freedom. From this one can acquire a true appreciation of the absolute
value and importance of philosophy—the very last thing one will
obtain from Derrida and friends.
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