Hegelian Practical Freedom and Nature

I.1 ‘Moments’ of the Concept of the Will

In opposing nature and (practical) freedom as he often does, Hegel appears to be contrasting the former specifically with what he calls the ‘first moment’ (PR, §5) of the will, namely, with a capacity for a certain kind of abstraction. In the context of the discussion of nature and spirit at the outset of his “Philosophy of Spirit,” Hegel writes: ‘[F]ormally the essence of spirit is freedom. … In accordance with this formal determination spirit can abstract from everything external. … This possibility is its intrinsic abstract universality’ (Enz, §382). The passage just quoted indeed echoes Hegel’s characterization of the ‘first moment,’ or the ‘moment of universality,’ in his discussion of the will in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right. Here is that characterization:

The will contains … the element of pure indeterminacy … in which every limitation, every content, whether presently immediately through nature, through needs, desires, and drives, or given and determined in some other way, is dissolved; this is the limitless infinity of absolute abstraction or universality … (PR, §5)

Although the first passage speaks of freedom in general whereas the second passage speaks of practical freedom or the will in particular, the similarity between the two should be evident. According to the first passage, freedom in general involves a capacity to ‘abstract from everything external’ or natural. According to the second passage, the first moment of the will is the moment of ‘absolute abstraction or universality.’ Our first task in getting to grips with Hegel’s account of practical freedom, and its relation to nature, then, is to answer the following pair of questions: What are the other ‘moments’ of the will, in addition to the ‘moment of universality’? And how does that first moment of universality or abstraction fit together with the other ‘moments’ or marks of the concept of the will? Having addressed these questions, we will then be in a position to turn to the further questions: What are the different ‘shapes [Gestaltungen]’ (PR, §10A) or species of the general concept of the will, according to Hegel? And why does Hegel think that the ‘shape’ he calls the ‘rational will’ (Enz, §482 and PR, §29A) is the ‘true’ shape of the will (PR, §10A)? I tackle the first set of questions in this subsection. I turn to the second set of questions in I.2.

In addition to the moment of universality, Hegel characterizes the will in terms of two further moments, which he associates with the categories of particularity and individuality respectively. According to the first moment, as we have just seen in the passage above, the capacity to abstract from or ‘dissolve’ our desires, urges and impulses is necessary for freedom. Lacking that capacity, our desires or wants would dictate our conduct. In such a situation, our conduct would be merely instinctive, as Hegel says of animal behavior (PR, §4Z), and not an exercise of a free will at all. As instinctive, our conduct would be determined by something ‘other,’ namely, our wants or impulses, and thus unfree according to our initial characterization of practical freedom above.

This first moment of the concept of the will is insufficient to account for our capacity for practical freedom, however. For the bare exercise of the capacity to step back or abstract from our desires by itself yields no determinate course of action. In Hegel’s words: ‘A will which … wills only the abstract universal wills nothing and therefore is not a will at all’ (PR, §6Z). In addition to stepping back and reflecting on its wants, then, a creature with a will acts only insofar as she settles on and pursues some particular desire or sets some specific end for herself. The requirement that the will set some specific end for itself or, as Hegel puts it, the will’s ‘positing of a determinacy’ (PR, §6) constitutes the ‘second moment’ of the will or the moment of particularity.

Finally, Hegel claims that the capacities described in the first two moments are not discrete or independent of one another but rather form a unity, and that this unity represents the third moment of the concept of the will, the moment of individuality. The moments of universality and particularity form a unity in the following sense: In acting on some particular desire, or in setting some specific end, the will does not thereby become identical to that desire and so surrender its capacity for abstraction or reflection. Again, our wills are not just bundles of desires or urges that dictate our conduct. Any ends that the will sets for itself are its own product and so expressive or reflective of the will—but the will itself ‘stands above’ (PR, §§11Z, 14), or retains a capacity to step back from, its ‘determinacy,’ its desires or ends. I take Hegel to be claiming that the will sees its ends or ‘determinacy’ as expressive of itself all the while ‘standing above’ that ‘determinacy’ when he writes: ‘[The will] knows [its determinacy] as its own and … as a mere possibility by which it is not restricted but in which it finds itself merely because it posits itself in it’ (PR, §7).

Hegel maintains, as we have just seen, that the third moment of the will (moment of individuality) represents the unity of the previous two. In the light of the ‘unity’ captured by this third moment, we can now summarily characterize the will as a capacity to ‘posit’ some specific end or act on some particular desire (moment of particularity) while remaining bei sich, not ‘restricted’ to, or determined by, its desires or urges (moment of universality).

I.2 The Rational Will as the ‘True’ Shape of the Will

Both in the Philosophy of Right and in the Encyclopedia Hegel describes various ‘shapes’ (PR, §10A) or species of the general concept of the will. The question to which I now turn is: Out of the various shapes of the will that Hegel considers, why does he privilege what he calls the ‘rational will’ (PR, §29A and Enz, §482), or the ‘will which has being in and for itself’ (PR, §21A), over other species of practical freedom, such as freedom as arbitrariness or the mere capacity ‘to do as one pleases’ (PR, §15A)? In what sense, that is, is the ‘rational will’ the ‘true’ shape of the will, as he puts it?

Before we can answer this question, we need to understand what makes a shape of the will the ‘true’ shape of the will, for Hegel. A shape of the will qualifies as the ‘true’ shape, he tells us, only if ‘it has freedom as its object and is freedom’ (PR, §10Z). In other words, the true shape of the will ‘wills the free will’ (PR, §27). Of course, this characterization of the ‘true’ shape of the will, as one that ‘wills the free will,’ just prompts the further question: How, exactly, should we understand this requirement from §§10Z and 27 of the Philosophy of Right, and in what sense is it fulfilled by the rational will but not by what he calls the ‘arbitrary will [Willkür]’ (PR, §§12–19 and Enz, §§477–79)? I begin by providing a negative answer to this question. The requirement to have ‘freedom as its object’ should not be taken to mean that the rational will sets no specific ends for itself but rather has only freedom in general as its object, whatever we more precisely take that to mean. For if that were our interpretation of §§10Z and 27, then the true shape of the will would not satisfy the second moment of the concept of the will (that is, it would not ‘posit’ any specific ends) and so would not qualify as a shape of the will at all, let alone its ‘true’ shape.

In order to provide a positive answer to the question of how the rational will fulfills the requirement expressed in §§10Z and 27, and what that requirement more precisely amounts to, it helps to take a closer look at the contrast between the rational will and one of the other shapes of the will that Hegel considers, namely, the ‘arbitrary will’ or ‘resolving will [der beschlieβende Wille].’¹⁵ The arbitrary will can step back and reflect on its desires and decide on which among those desires to act. By thus stepping back, the arbitrary will satisfies the first moment of the concept of the will. More specifically, the freedom of the arbitrary will consists in selecting some ‘determinacy’ from among the wants, desires or urges that it finds within itself. The behavior of the arbitrary will, then, is not determined by any particular one of its desires. But the choices of the arbitrary will are determined or fixed by its given set of desires. It is in this sense, we read, that the arbitrary will is both free from and yet ‘dependent on [its] content’ (PR, §15Z). Moreover, for that shape of the will, it does not matter what desires it chooses; in acting on some desire, the arbitrary will need not be following any criterion other than its own fancy. Having an arbitrary will indeed just ‘consists in being able to do as one pleases’ (PR, §15A).¹⁶

Unlike the arbitrary will, the rational will does not act on the basis of its fancy in the way I have just claimed that the arbitrary will does. To be sure, like the arbitrary will, the rational will seeks to satisfy some particular desire or pursues some specific end or other. This much we know from Hegel’s threefold discussion of the concept of the will. But the rational will acts on some particular desire only insofar as it takes the satisfaction of that desire to conform to the conditions or requirements of freedom. To give just one example: The rational will makes claims over some part of the external world (that is, it exercises what Hegel calls the ‘freedom of personhood’) only under the condition that those claims be compatible with everyone else also expressing their freedom in a similar way. Thus, the rational will endorses, or affirms as its own, principles such as ‘respect others as persons’ (PR, §36).

How does the distinction between the two forms of the will, namely, the arbitrary and the rational will, help us answer the question above about the rational will ‘willing the free will’? The rational will, I have said, acts in the light of the requirements of freedom, in the sense I have just illustrated. Like the arbitrary will, this shape of the will pursues specific ends and seeks to satisfy particular desires. In contrast to the arbitrary will, however, the rational will does so only insofar as it takes those ends and desires to conform to the requirements of freedom. Over and above any specific objects or ends it might have, then, the rational will ‘has freedom as its object,’ it embodies or ‘is’ freedom (PR, §10Z). In this way, Hegel manages to square the claim that the rational will is ‘the free will which wills the free will’ with the assumption that, as a shape of the will, it involves the ‘positing of a determinacy’ (PR, §6).

Precisely because it ‘wills the free will’ or ‘has freedom as its object,’ the rational will is freer or ‘truer’ than the arbitrary will, understood as a capacity ‘to do as one pleases’ (PR, §15A). Recall our initial characterization of freedom as absence of external domination. The rational will is freer than the arbitrary will in that it is not determined by anything alien or merely given—it is, in Hegelian jargon, ‘completely with itself [bei sich]’ (PR, §23). In particular, and contrary to the arbitrary will, as we have seen, the ends of the rational will are not fixed or determined by its given set of desires. Additionally, although the rational will is constrained by certain requirements (for example, the duty to respect others as persons), it endorses or affirms this and other duties as its own, as a necessary condition of itself and others exercising their freedom. For the rational will, ‘its object is itself [namely, freedom] and therefore not something that it sees as other or as a limitation’ (PR, §22). Thus, for a will that is truly free, ethical requirements, understood as requirements of freedom, do not represent an external constraint on the will. As Hegel later sums up the point: ‘[The ethical laws and powers] are not something alien to the subject. On the contrary, the subject bears spiritual witness to them as to its own essence, in which it … lives as in its element which is not distinct from itself’ (PR, §147).¹⁷

The claim that the rational will relates to ethical laws as to ‘its own essence’ means that the arbitrary will is, in fact, doubly unfree (or less than fully free) in the sense that it is determined by an external ‘other.’ First, the arbitrary will is less than fully free, as we have seen, in that its ends are fixed or determined by its given set of desires. Second, because it does not recognize, or does not affirm as its own, the requirements of freedom, the arbitrary will is further unfree in that it is subject to those requirements as to an external or alien force.¹⁸

II.1 The Rational Will as Naturally Lawlike

In section I, I reviewed Hegel’s most general, threefold characterization of the will and attempted to elucidate his thesis that the ‘true’ shape of the will consists in a capacity to respond to and affirm as one’s own the ethical requirements by which it is bound. In getting to grips with this thesis, I relied on Hegel’s distinction between the arbitrary and rational wills. The contrast between these two shapes of the will allows us to frame the task of naturalizing Hegel’s account of the rational will in this section in terms of his relation to Kant. For, like Hegel, Kant distinguishes between the mere freedom ‘to do as one pleases’ (PR, §15) and ‘true’ freedom, or between the freedom of mere Willkür and Wille. Moreover, like Hegel, Kant also characterizes freedom proper as the capacity to subject oneself to, and affirm, requirements that are in some sense one’s own—or, in his preferred term, ‘autonomous.’ So the question arises: Other than details of presentation or terminology, what distinguishes Hegel’s general conception of practical freedom and the will from Kant’s? One crucial difference is that Kant takes the task of explaining our capacity to heed ethical requirements to involve an appeal to some ‘supernatural’ or ‘noumenal’ capacity. Contrary to Kant, Hegel makes no such appeal and instead construes the rational will as a natural capacity of sorts. I attempt to spell out and defend this claim on Hegel’s behalf in the remainder of the paper.

I propose that the rational will, understood as a capacity to respond to ethical requirements or duties, counts for Hegel as natural in the following two respects: (1) Our responsiveness to ethical requirements exhibits features similar to the lawlike behavior of subhuman denizens of the natural world and other law-governed natural processes. And (2) our capacity for practical freedom arises out of, or emerges from, the exercise of capacities that we share with lower animals. I noted at the outset how some of the points I make in articulating (1) have already been made by other commentators. Although these points illustrate the ways in which the behavior of the rational will resembles that of other natural phenomena, I believe they do not suffice on their own to establish that the will, for Hegel, is a natural capacity. Thus, the more novel (and the more important for the purposes of this paper) of the two theses I have just stated is (2). I turn my efforts to (2) in section II.2. My focus in the present subsection, however, is on (1).

I submit that (1) captures at least part of the sense in which our capacity for practical freedom counts as a natural capacity, in Hegel’s view. More specifically, for Hegel, there are—I propose—two respects in which practical freedom qualifies as naturally lawlike: (i) In the good or virtuous case, our responsiveness to ethical requirements manifests a psychological harmony or lack of inner conflict similar to the behavior of subhuman denizens of the natural world, and (ii) that responsiveness exhibits a regularity like that of other natural processes. I take up each of these two more specific points, (i) and (ii), in turn.¹⁹

(i) In the “Ethical Life [Sittlichkeit]” section of his Philosophy of Right, Hegel tells us that, for the virtuous individual, acting as one ought to is a matter of habit or second nature. He writes:

[T]he ethical [das Sittliche], as [the individuals’] general mode of behavior, appears as custom [Sitte]; and the habit of the ethical appears as a second nature which takes the place of the original and purely natural will and is the all-pervading soul, significance, and actuality of individual existence [Dasein]. (PR, §151)²⁰

One point that Hegel means to make with this characterization of virtue as a second nature is that the virtuous agent does not experience the kind of struggle or inner conflict to which the Kantian agent is by definition condemned, according to his estimation. The Hegelian virtuous agent, that is, exhibits a psychological harmony that is unavailable to her Kantian counterpart. Writing of ‘rational natural beings’ like us, Kant claims that ‘even when they do obey the [moral] law, they do it reluctantly (in the face of opposition from their inclinations)’ (MS, 6:379) or, as we might say, with some degree of pain or displeasure.²¹ Contrast Aristotle’s characterization of ethical virtue, to which Hegel is indebted in describing virtuous behavior as second nature.²² Taking temperance to stand in for virtue generally,²³ Aristotle writes: ‘[T]he temperate person is the sort to feel no pleasure contrary to reason, while the self-controlled [continent] person is the sort to feel such pleasure but not to be led by it’ (NE, 1152a). In other words, the continent person is the sort to follow the requirements of morality reluctantly or with a certain amount of displeasure. Kant’s notion of ethical virtue thus falls short of its Aristotelian (and Hegelian) counterpart, and is closer to continence, understood as a capacity to reluctantly or begrudgingly follow moral requirements, than it is to virtue proper.²⁴

Of course, Kantians will straightaway rejoin that the unfavorable comparison I have just made is based upon a misinterpretation. It is no part of Kant’s considered view, they will argue, that a dutiful action must be done reluctantly or with displeasure if it is to have moral worth. As long as an action is done from the motive of duty, it can be accompanied by feelings of pleasure, and so be performed happily or absent any inner struggle, without the action’s moral worth being diminished in any way. Crucially for our purposes here, however, on the Kantian picture, that lack of inner struggle in the performance of a dutiful action does not increase its moral worth. But at least part of Hegel’s (and Aristotle’s) point in describing virtuous action as second natural seems to be that the harmony or absence of inner conflict in the performance of an action that conforms to the requirements of morality does positively affect the action’s moral worth.

Moreover, even granting that the Kantian agent might on occasion act from duty without experiencing inner struggle or psychological conflict, Kant’s own texts suggest that he does not (indeed cannot) regard psychological harmony as a stable or enduring state of the moral agent. For one thing, given the imperatival character with which moral requirements appear to us humans, as well as the dualism of sensibility and reason on which such a character is based, it would appear that Kant is indeed committed to a view of the self whereby one part of the self is continuously monitoring or ruling over the other part.²⁵ And an agent that is split in this way, with one, higher part keeping in check another, lower part, would after all seem to be at best capable of continence, as I have described it above. For another thing, and more importantly, inborn or instinctive behaviors aside, a bit of behavior can reveal a lack of inner conflict or psychological harmony on the part of the agent only as a result of repetition or habituation. This is a point on which Aristotle insists in his practical philosophy. But the claim that repetition makes a bit of behavior come more easily to us is a point with which we are —I take it—familiar from our own experience, more or less uncontroversial and presumably accepted by both sides (Aristotle and Hegel, on the one hand, Kant, on the other) of our dispute. Kant, however, is adamant that dutiful action can never become habitual without losing all moral worth. Therefore, by modus tollens, the Kantian virtuous agent cannot exhibit psychological harmony or be unconflicted, at least not in a way that is stable or long-lasting.²⁶

So far in this subsection, I have tried to show that the behavior of the Hegelian virtuous agent is harmonious in a way that Hegel believes the behavior of her Kantian counterpart is not. In characterizing the behavior of the Hegelian virtuous agent in this manner, I am in effect making the case that that behavior is natural at least in the sense that it exhibits features analogous to those exhibited by the lawlike behavior of lower animals. Consider, for example, a predator chasing its prey. The predator acts on instinct and so automatically; in chasing its prey, the predator exhibits no inner struggle resulting from the weighing up of different courses of action. To be sure, virtuous agents are unlike lower animals in that they act rationally or reflectively and not instinctively. But the point of the comparison does not concern the sources (reason, on the one hand, instinct, on the other) of virtuous and merely animal behavior, respectively. The point of the comparison is rather to signal a similarity on account of which both behaviors might be characterized as natural, namely, a lack of inner struggle or conflict.²⁷

(ii) I now turn to the second of the two points I mentioned above, namely, that virtuous behavior qualifies as natural in that it exhibits a regularity similar to that of law-governed natural processes (for example, the rotation of the earth around the sun). Although Hegel does not dwell on this point about the regularity of virtuous action, it is at the very least implicit in the connection he draws in the “Anthropology” between habit in general, including therefore ethical habit, and mechanism.²⁸ Moreover, the point is explicit in Aristotle, from whom Hegel takes the idea of ethical habit as a second nature.²⁹

In what sense is behavior virtuous only if regular? In order to get a better grip on the idea that virtuous action must be performed regularly if it is to count as virtuous at all, it helps to contrast a virtuous (for example, courageous) action with a morally neutral one like washing the dishes. An instance of dishwashing counts as a case of washing the dishes whether or not it is done regularly (in particular, habitually). I am in the habit of washing the dishes after every meal. Now imagine someone who lets the dishes pile up and washes some of those dishes only very rarely and randomly, approximately once every one or two weeks, say. This person can hardly be said to be in the habit of washing the dishes. Both this person’s next (non-habitual) washing of the dishes and my (habitual) washing of the dishes later this evening, however, count as instances of dishwashing. This does not appear to be so if we switch from morally neutral to virtuous action. Indeed, an allegedly one-off instance of courage, temperance or justice, Aristotle tells us, does not exemplify the corresponding virtue (and so does not represent an instance of temperance or justice at all). A seemingly just or temperate action is only really such, and so a case of virtue, if it is done ‘as the just and temperate person would’ (NE, 1105b), where part of what this phrase involves is that the action in question fits into a habitual or regular pattern of behavior.

But why hold fast to this connection between virtue and regularity, anyway? The answer, I take it, is that we expect the actions of a virtuous person to be reliable. A person does not count as virtuous, and her actions do not manifest virtue, unless she can be counted or relied upon to perform those same actions whenever the situation calls for it. And the best guarantee that a person can be so relied upon, so the thought goes, is that she performs such actions habitually or regularly. The answer to the foregoing question just prompts the further issue: How are the two points discussed so far in this section, (i) and (ii), virtue as inner harmony, on the one hand, and virtue as regularity, on the other, connected? Take courage, again, to stand in for virtuous action generally. To emphasize a point I made above: In most (or perhaps even all) cases, the inner harmony required for truly courageous action, (i), can be attained only by regularly and hence reliably performing actions like those that the virtuous person performs, (ii). In other words, only by regularly or habitually performing actions like those of the courageous person are our desires so molded as to eliminate any source of inner interference.³⁰

II.2 The Rational Will as Emerging out of Nature

My discussion in this section has so far aimed to show that our responsiveness to ethical requirements is natural for Hegel in that (in the good or virtuous cases) its exercises manifest features like, or similar to, features exhibited by the behavior of subhuman members of the animal world and other natural processes. This claim sets virtuous action apart from other human behavior, most obviously, from continent and incontinent action, that is, action that is the result of psychological conflict and so unreliable. For an agent might have managed to overcome her reluctance on some occasion. But in the light of that inner struggle or reluctance, it seems we have no reason to believe that she will continue to act similarly in the future.

The analogy or comparison I have exploited in the previous subsection, however, cannot be all that there is to the characterization of practical freedom as a natural capacity. Despite that analogy between virtuous action and natural phenomena, for all we have said, our will might be cut off from nature in that its origin owes nothing to the capacities we share with other animals. In the light of the broad similarities between the Kantian and Hegelian views of practical freedom I noted at the start of II.1, on the one hand, and Hegel’s rejection of the Kantian dualism of pure reason and sensibility,³¹ on the other, we are left with the task of piecing together Hegel’s alternative, naturalist story about our capacity for practical freedom. In addressing this issue in the remainder of the paper, I exploit part of Hegel’s discussion of habit towards the end of the “Anthropology” in ways that he himself does not.

I now turn, then, to (2), the second and more important of the two theses I stated above. The interpretive hypothesis I seek to articulate and defend in this subsection is that our capacity for practical freedom is the result for Hegel of a process of habitual liberation from what he refers to as our ‘natural determinations,’ for example, our urges, desires or impulses. Because Hegel, as I understand him, thus grounds our capacity for practical freedom in habit, his story is one whereby the will emerges from, or arises out of, nature.³² To render my hypothesis somewhat more concrete, and to begin to appreciate the sense in which freedom qua habitual liberation qualifies as a natural process, it might be useful to mention an example of habit that Hegel classifies under the heading of ‘habits of hardening,’ namely, the habit of hardening against the sensation of cold. In becoming habituated to cold temperatures, a living or ensouled creature is liberated in that it is no longer completely ‘absorbed’ by the sensation of cold and, consequently, is ‘free’ to direct its attention elsewhere (Enz, §410). Such a process counts as natural in that it requires only the exercise of capacities that we share with lower animals, in particular, the ability to take in our environment through our senses and react behaviorally to those sensory promptings. And even more elaborate, voluntary habits, like ‘habits of skill’ consisting in the mastery of a musical instrument, for instance, involve primarily the exercise of the capacities that we share with other animals that I have mentioned. For the cognitive abilities like consciousness or self-consciousness, whose exercise is involved in skills like playing the violin, say, are themselves supposed to emerge from processes of habituation, according to Hegel’s discussion of habit in the “Anthropology.”³³

In Hegel’s own words, the principal function of his treatment of habit in the “Anthropology” is to account for ‘the soul’s liberation’ and ‘its attainment of objective consciousness’ (Enz, §410Z). Briefly, that account is supposed to go as follows: As a result of the repeated exposure to similar stimuli, ensouled creatures acquire a capacity to ‘withdraw’ or ‘liberate’ themselves from such stimuli, from their sensations, urges, desires or other ‘natural determinations.’ Otherwise put: On account of its repeated exposure to these ‘natural determinations,’ the soul is no longer ‘absorbed in them’ or even ‘interested in or occupied with them,’ Hegel writes (Enz, §410). By thus ‘liberating’ itself, the soul achieves a separation from its affections or determinations that is required for the kind of awareness that Hegel associates with objective consciousness. The soul no longer identifies itself with its sensations or other affections but sees itself rather as their bearer, and so as related to, yet distinct from, those affections. With the onset of objective consciousness and other higher forms of spirit, humans in turn become capable of acquiring further habits that are unavailable to lower, non-rational animals, for example, habits of skill like playing the violin.

Admittedly, the kind of ‘liberation’ achieved by habits of hardening, to which I have alluded, is very different from the distinctively human capacity for practical freedom. So different do the two appear to be, in fact, that it might be difficult to see how one can hope to provide an account of the latter in terms of some kind of habitual liberation, as I propose to do on Hegel’s behalf. One way to bring out the difficulty is to note that mechanism, which as we have already seen Hegel associates with habit, is a form of organization that belongs to the inorganic natural realm. And that realm, one might object, certainly seems like an unlikely place to search for and find the materials for an account of practical freedom.

Despite this kind of hesitation, I believe Hegel provides several hints that his account of practical freedom does indeed rely on some story about habitual liberation like the one I am recommending. First, Hegel employs very similar language in discussing the result of habituation, one the one hand, and our capacity for practical freedom, on the other. He describes the first moment of the concept of the will, let us recall, as:

[T]he element of pure indeterminacy … in which every limitation, every content, whether present immediately through nature, through needs, desires, and drives, or given and determined in some other way, is dissolved; this is the limitless infinity of absolute abstraction or universality … (PR, §5)

He describes habituation, for its part, as a process whereby ‘the soul makes itself into abstract universal being’ (Enz, §410), and adds that ‘through habit’ one achieves a ‘liberation from sensations’ (§410A). Second, and perhaps more to the point, although we do read that habit has ‘the shape of something mechanical’ (§410Z), Hegel’s use of ‘mechanical’ in this context is arguably synonymous with ‘automatic,’ roughly, and not a reference to his discussion of mechanism in the “Philosophy of Nature” (or the “Logic,” for that matter). This interpretive suggestion finds support in the systematic placement of Hegel’s discussion of habit: That discussion is found in the “Anthropology” and not in the “Mechanism” chapter of the “Philosophy of Nature.” Moreover, even assuming that ‘mechanism’ and ‘mechanical’ are not employed in the loose way I have just suggested, and instead do refer to Hegel’s discussion of mechanism in the “Philosophy of Nature,” the connection between habit and practical freedom would not thereby be wrecked. For Hegel is adamant that habit (and so mechanism, ex hypothesi) ‘embraces all kinds and stages of spirit’s activity’ (§410A), including therefore practical spirit or the will.

Before making good on the hints I have just mentioned, I should explicitly address a further, related objection to the connection between habit and practical freedom that I am attempting to draw. One might worry that the universality and freedom attained through habitual liberation is deficient in that it is ‘merely anthropological’ (Enz, §410Z) and so, the objection goes, cannot provide the model by which to understand the freedom that belongs to the higher stage of objective spirit. The universality and freedom of habit remain ‘merely anthropological,’ Hegel explains, in that ‘although, on the one hand, by habit a man becomes free, … on the other hand, habit makes him its slave’ (§410Z).³⁴

What should we make of Hegel’s remark to the effect that the freedom gained through habit is ‘merely anthropological’ and so enslaving? Does this remark ruin the connection between habit and practical freedom that I have begun to draw in the preceding paragraphs? To be sure, as I have already noted, the sort of freedom or Beisichselbstsein attained by affirming as one’s own our ethical requirements and duties is more complex than the freedom that ensouled creatures in general attain in ceasing to be ‘absorbed’ by their sensations, desires or impulses. Unlike the liberation gained in becoming accustomed to cold temperatures, say, the freedom that belongs to objective spirit requires various social institutions and involves processes of habituation that are more sophisticated (typically voluntary) than the mere exposure to environmental conditions.

However, it would be an overreaction to infer from Hegel’s claim that habitual liberation remains ‘merely anthropological’ that the kind of freedom that belongs to objective spirit does not consist in a form of habitual liberation at all. For first, as we have just seen, Hegel explicitly tells us that habit ‘embraces all kinds and stages of spirit’s activity’ (§410A), hence not only the soul but also objective spirit. Second, and perhaps more importantly, although habit may lead to enslavement or unfreedom, it need not do so. As we will see more clearly below, habitual behavior becomes enslaving only if performed in a manner that is entirely automatic and unreflective. Such automatic conduct is enslaving precisely in that, although it is not simply inborn or instinctive, I no longer regard it as my own free doing. This risk of enslavement notwithstanding, a bit of behavior can be habitual, and so come to me spontaneously or automatically, while still being such that I can back up that behavior rationally if prompted. To express the contrast somewhat more concretely: Someone might fulfill her social role as a teacher or parent, for example, routinely or unreflectively, in a way that renders her a slave to her station. This person would be dominated by some ‘other’ both in that she is passively subjected to the norms of her social role as to an external imposition, and in that her behavior appears to go on of its own accord, determined completely by her (second) natural impulses or desires. But someone might alternatively fulfill her social role spontaneously and decisively while reflectively endorsing that role (and fulfill the role spontaneously or decisively precisely because she reflectively endorses or affirms it). This second person is free or bei sich in that she acts in the light of norms that she affirms as her own, as opposed to being dragged into action by her (habitually acquired) desires or impulses. Thus, although enslavement or unfreedom is a risk inherent in habitual behavior, both in its higher objective forms and in its lower anthropological forms, enslavement is by no means an unavoidable outcome of habituation as such.³⁵

Now that I have deflected what I take to be the two main sorts of objections to my proposed interpretive view, I go on to spell out the connection between habit and practical freedom. I do so in two steps: First, I pull out an abstract, threefold structure of habituation from cases more complex than the example of hardening against external sensations mentioned above, namely, what Hegel classifies under the heading of ‘habits of dexterity’ or skill like writing. Second, I apply that threefold structure of habituation to the case of practical freedom as a capacity to respond to ethical requirements.

I begin by providing Hegel’s own description of the habit of writing at the end of the “Anthropology” and then identify the general structure of habituation that underlies that description:

[S]ince the individual activities of man acquire by repeated practice the character of habit, the form of something received into … the universality of the spiritual interior, the soul brings into its expressions a universal mode of acting. … This universal is internally so concentrated to simplicity that in it I am no longer conscious of the particular differences between my individual activities. That this is so we see, for example, in writing. When we are learning how to write we must direct our attention on every individual detail, on a vast number of mediations. By contrast, once the activity of writing has become a habit with us, then our self has so completely mastered all the relevant individual details, has so infected them with its universality, that they are no longer present to us as individual details and we keep in view only their universal aspect (§410Z)

Let us briefly gloss Hegel’s account of writing in the preceding passage. In his own words: ‘When we are learning how to write we must direct our attention on every individual detail,’ every line, trace, movement of the hand and fingers. Once writing has become habitual in us, however, we cease to focus on these ‘particular differences’ or ‘individual details’ and consequently, Hegel tells us, our production of strings of symbols takes ‘the shape of something mechanical, of a mere natural effect.’ In acquiring the skill of writing, that is, we progressively move from a focus on the ‘individual details’ of our behavior to a consideration of that behavior in its ‘universal aspect’ or as a mere instance of a general type. By thus abstracting from the ‘individual details,’ lines or traces of a string of symbols, we open ourselves qua skilled writers to ‘other activity and occupations’ (§410), including (most obviously) to an occupation with the content or meaning of those written symbols.

Taking this account of writing as an exemplar, we might characterize habituation generally in terms of the following three aspects or moments: (a) In undergoing a process of habituation, the subject ceases to be ‘absorbed’ by (and thereby liberates herself from) the particular. (b) As a consequence of this process, a mechanical or automatic pattern of behavior sets in. (c) This mechanical behavior in turn allows the subject to adopt the point of view of universality and thus direct her attention to ‘other activity and occupations.’³⁶

I now attempt to apply this abstract structure to practical freedom as a capacity to respond to, and affirm, ethical requirements. (a) As in the example of a habit of skill, so in the case of ethical habituation, various ‘particularities,’ that is, natural determinations such as sensible desires or urges, are molded or numbed. Indeed, in acquiring an ethical virtue, conflicting desires are often overcome. (b) However, if the result of this process of ethical habituation were in turn merely a bit of automatic or mechanical behavior, as the second moment mentioned above would have it, then that outcome by itself could hardly count as a case of virtue. As we have seen in II.1, Hegel’s description of ethical habit as a second nature is meant to capture features (such as psychological harmony) that mechanical or automatic behaviors appear to paradigmatically instantiate. Nevertheless, virtuous action does not consist for Hegel merely in automatically acting according to duty, or in mechanically performing the same types of actions as the virtuous person, but in doing so for the right reasons or with the right frame of mind. And part of that state of mind involves being capable of reflecting upon and backing up one’s action with reasons. (c) Luckily, the abstract structure of habituation extracted from Hegel’s example of writing allows us to respect this latter thought in the following way: As in the case of skill, the insensitivity to immediate urges or desires makes room for the subject to step back from the particular and adopt the point of view of universality. In this case, it allows her to direct her view to the idea of freedom itself, and so come to appreciate the authoritativeness of ethical requirements, understood as requirements of freedom. Thus, I submit that habitual or mechanical behavior, for Hegel, is not only compatible with, but necessary for, a conception of ourselves as responsive to ethical requirements.

I end with one of the passages about freedom and nature with which I began. The ‘essence’ of spirit, let us recall, lies for Hegel in ‘freedom from and within the natural’ (VPG1827/28, 19/71). Our preceding discussion of habituation vindicates this characterization of specifically practical freedom. Indeed, practical freedom as a capacity to respond to ethical requirements involves a liberation from our first natural determinations, desires, impulses or urges. But that process of liberation from our immediate determinations occurs, and its result remains, within nature. Creatures with rational wills are for Hegel animals capable of undergoing complicated processes of habituation. Having outlined the connection between habitual liberation and practical freedom as a capacity to respond to ethical requirements, I have completed my task in this paper of naturalizing the Hegelian rational will. I hope that, by undertaking this task, I have filled what I take to be a gap in the literature and made a contribution to the broader project of reading Hegel as an ethical naturalist.