Only Free Will is Thoughtful

The right to self-determination

This is third and last article in a trilogy on the I. Part I, inspired by the Phenomenology of Spirit, is on the dialectic of the I. Part II, inspired by the Science of Logic, is on the I as a metaphysical circle that expresses itself comically. Reading both beforehand is not necessary, but can enrich the thinking experience.

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The will would not be the will if it wasn’t free. Whether or not I am determined by the causal chain analyzable by the natural sciences, I continue to experience myself as a free subject. No matter how much I’m being determined by external factors, the biopsychosocial context with its insurmountable quantity of variables that reduce my freedom to either something inexistent, or make the space of freedom so insignificantly tiny it is practically inexistent — I still do experience myself as willing freely.

I can’t help it but continue to experience myself as free. On the other hand, this free will might just be a necessary social illusion, so that I’m being held accountable by my surroundings and the state at large.

The choice seems to be:

1. I feel that I am free, so I must be free.

2. Determinism leaves no space open for free will, so it is at best a mere practical illusion.

In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel sees spirit, and the free will specifically as a necessary belief of the fact of self-consciousness. His position is not reducible to the two options above. Attempting to prove the free will, by giving a definition and subsequently looking for some corresponding fact is not the way he proceeds to assert the actuality, the truth, of free will.

La Liberté ou la mort by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1795

The freedom of
subtraction and destruction

Perhaps, freedom is the freedom to not be beholden to anything. The freedom to abstract from everything. I might be who I am in existence, but to the extent that I substract myself from this existence, I am free from it. I am who I am, but I am not only who I am. I am also not who I am, so I am free. This is what Hegel calls the freedom of the void, the freedom to substract myself from all particularities that exist, to raise myself to universality above existence. This freedom does come to exist, but only as the negative will, saying its simple “no!” to everything. This position does not let itself be positively defined, but cannot help to do so. It does need a sense of existing. A good example of how this type of freedom manifests in the world, is the destructive fury of those who do not see themselves recognized in their world. For example, in the contemporary political context, we’ve seen the demolishing of statues on the one hand, and as of writing of this article, we can see the riots taking place in the UK on the other. Both are unified as impotent rage that attempts to get a sense of self by the destruction of (an) order. Any purported positive goal is meaningless insofar as this position of the negative will can only assert itself through demolishing what exists. This freedom, is the freedom to be indeterminate, to be nothing, really.

The freedom of
choice and determination

Naturally, true free will cannot merely will nothing, as the negative will would have it. The negative will that can only say “no!” can only oppose itself to the objective world. But for the free will to be will, it has to will something. It has to will something in particular. To will not only not this, but that. Yet, by willing something, the freedom of the void is lost. Now, is this freedom of the void so indeterminate after all? No, as its indeterminate state is bound up with negatively determining itself in contrast to the outer world. It turns out that the freedom of the void, the negative will, is not as boundless as it takes itself to be. The freedom to substract from all particularities of existence, to be raised above existence to universality, this indeterminate nothing, makes up its determinateness.

Willing something in particular, is this the free will? Surely I choose what it is that I will. But what about the content of this will, what is its effect? The particular content is itself not a self-determining will. The freedom of choice, the determinate will, is subjected to the content that it wills. It is dependent on what it wills, it is limited by it. The will does not determine this content, the content determines this will. This determinate will loses its freedom as soon it comes into existence, it is not truly free. This will, the freedom to will a particular, is unfree as it is determined by the content as soon as it attaches itself to it.

Free self-determination

The free will cannot be either of the inadequate positions described above, both have turned out to be false and unfree. The former because the content of this freedom is anything that is not, it takes its freedom to be everything that it makes inexistent, destroys. The latter because it is limited by the particular content that it has for its goal, it is not the self-determined free will. Both mirror each other by virtue of being determined by something that is outside of the will.

The true free will is neither the first negative will that is abstract universality, nor the second determinate will which is caught up with contingent particularity. The truly free will determines itself for its own content. It has itself, its own form for itself. It is the universal that has particularized itself and returned to itself as a concrete singularity — it is self-determining will bringing itself forth from its own freedom, which is not only its beginning, but also its end.

As free will, I posit myself, determine myself, which is self-limitation. Do we not lose our freedom in this limitation? Yes, in that the freedom of the void is lost. No, as it is my own free determination, through which I am with as universality. The closure of determination, is its own openness in the true free will. Consequently, for it, limitation is a moment of its own free act, what is in itself is a moment for itself. Free will is indifferent to the particularization, or the loss of abstract universality. This negativity is simply redoubled as my own abiding self-reference, a fact and deed of self-consciousness. Determination, or the making finite of myself, exiting the realm of infinite potentiality, inexistence itself, is where I become beholden to an alien particularity when I fail to recognize myself therein. This concrete form that freedom takes, self-posited objectivity — is the true freedom of the will and the substance of its actuality.

Free will, as the I, shatters the opposition between universality and particularity: the universal’s particularization is the correspondence of the universal with itself through its other. This is the concept. Freedom with the form of concrete universality no longer opposes itself to the particular content. This subjectivization, or the I’s self-posited otherness as the concept, is, as Hegel says, what the faculty of the understanding takes to be incomprehensible.

But it is this contradictory incomprehensibility, not keeping to the rules of formal logic, which is simply the concept itself. In love and friendship I am limited, and I myself have determined this limitation. Is that true? I have not chosen my flaws which inevitably appear in these relationships. I have not, yet insofar I still hold myself to be responsible for them, I take these flaws to be mine, so I must also be able to rid myself of these particularities. In love, I am not standing above my determinateness but am with it as the universal I.

La République by Jules-Claude Ziegler, 1848

A closer look at
the form of particularization

What is the form that the will takes? As will, the process of my activity is the work to bring about my subjective goal, to realize it as a product of objectivity. This form of the will is not the self-determining described above, since I can only externalize this goal outwardly, from subjective goal to objective product.

According to Hegel, such a determinate will is formal because its freedom can only be 1. an abstract universality of indeterminateness which 2. is applied to a determination, which is the loss of prior universality. Such a will loses its universality of freedom as soon as it applies itself, the content, or objective are detached from it.

This formal will, as the natural and immediate will, has the content of drives, desires and inclinations. In principle it could choose to satisfy any one of them. Yet the will itself has nothing to do with what it chooses, this will is not what it wills. The form differs from the content, the latter opposes and limits it. This natural will is finite, or, in other words, the only infinity of this natural will is the monotonous variety of drives it can satisfy, momentarily extinguish. Each of my drives are mine, but as an aggregate they are universal and indeterminate, it is out there for me to choose to go into. The choice of which one to satisfy, of determination, comes back to me, this is what makes this will take the form of actual individuality. However, the content itself is the loss of individuality. This content is not the work of my freedom, although we do have a form of freedom here. The free space to make a decision. An inadequate freedom, a freedom that in existence takes the form of its opposite: the unfreedom to be determined by that external thing which is decided on. But despite that, before making the decision, what is free is to reflect on it.

Those who separate willing and thinking
understand nothing about both

Intelligence is that which thinks, which is an activity that has an object, a universal, for its content. The object of thought is universal because it is an abstraction from particularity: thinking takes what is essential from the world, separates it from what is unnecessary, contingent. Thinking becomes willing when it decides to determine itself into existence:

“Intelligence, which as theoretical appropriates the immediate determinacy, is, now that it has completed taking possession, in its own property; by the last negation of immediacy it is implicitly posited that for the intelligence the content is determined through the intelligence. Thinking, as the free concept, is now also free in the content. When intelligence is aware of itself as the determining of the content, which is is just as much its own as determined as being, it is will.”¹

The will is a particular way of thinking, or more precisely the particularization of thinking brought into existence, thinking that sets itself into existence, practice. Thinking takes away the particularity of the existent object of thought, making it universal, theory. I am insofar as I think, and therefore the I is universal, but only theoretically, as it severs itself from practical existence. Now, the will’s object comes from thinking, it has its origin as an object of thought. I will a particular that intelligence has represented. Thinking posits an object by abstracting from the world, and consequently makes a distinction between it and itself, its object is a representation for the will that works to achieve it as a goal. There is no will without thought, willing is free thought’s decision to determine itself into existence.

“The commonest representation one has of freedom is that of arbitrariness – the position of reflection between the will as determined solely by natural drives and the will which is free in and for itself. When we hear it said that freedom in general consists in being able to do as one pleases, such a representation can only be taken to indicate a complete lack of intellectual culture; for it shows not the least awareness of what constitutes the will which is free in and for itself, or right, or ethics, etc.”²

Free will is commonly held to be the choice to do whatever one wants. Animals, subordinated to instinct have no such freedom of choice. However, as we’ve seen, such a will is still determined by its external content. And since such a free will is only formal, determinism is right to claim that there is no true freedom there. The independence of such a will is an illusion, a lack of self-determination. To get to free will that is true to its own concept, we cannot exchange one content for another, but we can take a step back by abstracting from the existing options present, by putting form in the place of content, and willing the will apart from particularities. Through this abstracting, this reflection into oneself, the abstract form of freedom becomes the content. The linear direction of the formal will, pointed to the content outside of it, is bent into a circle when it casts aside any particular content and reflects on its own form and has itself for its object of thought.

Cleanse the drives!

From particular drives
to universal determination of the will

The natural will is free in itself to choose from the infinite array of particular satisfactions. Its form is finite, it is unfree for itself. The will to be freed from this form of immediate naturalness, the plethora of satisfactions of the drive, sees a unity in what each drive in particular fails to get at. The will does not will the satisfaction of any one drive, but total satisfaction as such.

“The human being who is rational in himself must work through the process of self-production both by going out of himself and by educating himself inwardly, in order that he may also become rational for himself.”³

The reflecting will, goes from making choices outside of itself to an inward turn and comes to see general happiness (Glückseligkeit) as the essential substance of its many drives. Not any one satisfaction in particular, but general happiness as such. This new goal, this formal universality, requires of the reflective will that it will cleanse itself from the uncultivated stupidity of each of its drives, that it sacrifices immediate satisfaction, and reflects into itself before subjecting itself to a drive, so that it can achieve general happiness. The will sets out to gratify itself on a higher, cultural order. How is this to be achieved? This universal goal ought to particularize itself in existence, general happiness must be finitized in an individual will with its particular determinateness, but only that one that is willfully chosen to trump others. And so, general happiness is not freed from its external content, which is the particularized universal, but it is, because, the particularization is willfully chosen for itself. In other words, the sensuous material is sublated by free reflection for the will.

“But the truth of the particular determinacy, which just as much is as it is sublated, and of the abstract individuality, the arbitrariness which both gives and does not give itself a purpose in happiness, is the universal determinacy of the will in the will itself, i.e. its very self-determination, freedom.”⁴

Self-determining universality

“The truth, however, of this formal universality, which is indeterminate for itself and encounters its determinacy in the material already mentioned, is self-determining universality, the will, or freedom. When the will has universality, or itself as infinite form, as its content, object, and end, it is free not only in itself but also for itself – it is the Idea in its truth.”⁵

Now, the difference between the reflective will, with its opposition to its natural drives, and the formal universality of happiness (which falls back into a drive) on the one hand, and the will that is free in and for itself on the other hand is the following:

The particularization of universality, or the fact that any infinite form of freedom must negate itself for it to have existence, an opposition, dissolves itself when it is not taken to be an external doing against the free will, but is taken up to be a moment of the free self-determining will.

The free will has itself for its object, it has united infinite freedom with finite determination. The dialectic of universality and its particularization is itself raised to concrete universality, as the activity of the thinking will itself:

“The self-consciousness which purifies and raises its object, content, and end to this universality does so as thought asserting, perservering itself in the will. Here is the point at which it becomes clear that it is only as thinking intelligence that the will is truly itself and free.”⁶

This universality, is the concept as existent, actual infinity, objective outwardness as inner self.

Concrete universality

The actual universal will self-limits in and as unlimitedness, the limit of itself is posited by itself and in itself. Such universality that is concrete, or in itself and for itself is not:

1. Commonality
2. Allness
3. Excluding individuality
4. Abstract self-identity

It is free will by virtue of grasping its object by the universal going through its determination which is in it as identical with itself. This is what Hegel calls speculative reason, self-determining universality.

Understanding
the dialectic of the will

For the fixated understanding, thought that has become other to itself is a sign of falsehood. Consequently, the will comes to be thought of as either the choice to do what one wants arbitrarily, to not be limited by anything. Or else, it takes this to be wrong, as it sees that such a will is determined by its content, and declares free will to be an illusion. Generally, it confuses the negative will with the determinate will, the reflective will and the self-determinative will. It cannot raise itself to awareness of self-determination, to comprehend it in thought, and as a result, it does not have it. It is stuck between feeling and formal logic. Both take their content from what is outside, not from what is immanent to the concept itself, and separate subject and object as static representations, which can only be applied externally, clash with each other or terminate each other.

Reason is free and has relinguished the rigidity of such a fixated thinking, which is not dillusioned enough to see its own doing in existence, as determined by the free concept. The subject, concrete universality, has itself for its object, and is free in its unity with difference.

To summarize: the will as freedom existing in itself is subjective, which therefore is its concept, and so its objectivity, which is the will for itself. The unity of unity and difference is determined by the absolutely free will.

Absolute Will

Absolute determination of the free spirit, self-determined drive which makes freedom its object — the absolute will. It is objective in two ways: it is its own creative rationality, and it also produces its own immediate actuality. Like a self-propelling wheel, it is

“ … the free will which wills the free will.”⁷

The activity of such a will, being concretely universal, is to particularize its universality while being indifferent to this negativity and abiding with it as universality. Such a standpoint of freedom, boundless apart from and in binding at once, is the singular I filled with free thought.

Right is the existence of will

The existence of free will, is right, the right of self-consciousness to determine itself. It needs no explanation, let alone a justification. Belief in the free will is necessary and true, like the freedom of thought and speech are. The existence of the forms of right, has its richest truth in rights that are also duties, the freedom of ethical life. Which first of all, is objective in the institutionalization of love.

The stakes of a metaphysical investigation into the nature of free will has immense political ramifications. Today we can see two major tendencies in our political landscape. One of them, regardless of what flag one subjects oneself to, claims that it can justify the drive to freedom based on felt experience. Proposals of more desirable states are based on what kind of particular feeling one has toward reality. It finds those, who do not feel like it feels to be wrong. The end conclusion of this negative will is destruction: of laws, institutions or some scapegoated enemy.

The other tendency, either rejects freedom or reduces it to insignificance or a practical illusion. These all boil down to the same — determinism. As we’ve seen, determinism rightly points out that basing the concept of freedom on one’s feeling is false. So, we could argue that it does take a higher standpoint of thought. Be that as it may, by invalidating freedom, it invalidates the right of subjectivity, the self-determination of the individual.

So where do we go from here, politically?

“No Idea is so generally recognized as indeterminate, ambiguous, and open to the greatest misconceptions, to which therefore it actually falls pray, as the Idea of freedom, and no Idea is in common circulation with so little consciousness of it. Since the free spirit is the actual spirit, misconceptions about it have the most tremendous practical consequences, and when individuals and peoples have once got in their heads the abstract concept of freedom that is for itself, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength, just because it is the very essence of spirit, and is in fact its very actuality.”⁸

Because freedom as an abstraction (even if it is for itself, like in communist theory) is so volatile and explosive, its concrete existence in right, its objectivity in law, institutions and ethical life (Sittlichkeit) must be recognized before moving on to passionate and zealous proposals for political action, regardless of how heartfelt these are. This recognition of concrete freedom comes about by spirit thinking itself in the infinite differentiations of itself, like in the family and the state for example. This is the only way for spirit to rise to its self-determination, not as an inner contemplation of itself apart from the objective world, but by developing itself in self-reference to the world, its own world.

“This will to freedom [that finds its life impaired by being subjected to slavery] is no longer a drive which demands its satisfaction, but the character, – the spiritual consciousness that has become driveless being. – But this freedom, which has the content and purpose of freedom, is itself initially only a concept, a principle of the mind and heart, and destined to develop into objectivity, into legal, ethical, religious actuality, as well as scientific actuality.”⁹

Icarus rex by a good friend, 2024

1. §468 in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit. All translations are slightly modified by me.

2. §15 in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

3. §10, Philosophy of Right.
Original: “Der Mensch, der an sich vernünftig ist, muß sich durch die Produktion seiner selbst durcharbeiten durch das Hinausgehen aus sich, aber ebenso durch das Hineinbilden in sich, daß er es auch für sich werde.”

4. §470, Philosophy of Spirit.

5. §21, Philosophy of Right.

6. §21, Philosophy of Right.
Original: “Das Selbstbewußtsein, das seinen Gegenstand, Inhalt und Zweck bis zu dieser Allgemeinheit reinigt und erhebt, tut dies als das im Willen sich durchsetzende Denken. Hier ist der Punkt, auf welchem es erhellt, daß der Wille nur als denkende Intelligenz wahrhafter, freier Wille ist.”

7. §27, Philosophy of Right.

8. §482, Philosophy of Spirit.

9. §482, Philosophy of Spirit.