Practical rationality, that is to say, will, is good since its purposes necessarily display universality or an absence of egoism implying an exhaustive disjunction between acting from rationality and acting from selfish sensible desires with rationality instituting an impartial standpoint which obstructs the agent’s pursuing purposes out of mere selfishness. The will as practical reason is good because it formulates its purposes from this strictly impartial standpoint. The equation of practical reason, free will, and goodness means that much of what qualifies as free will is nothing of the kind but is mere Willkür (arbitrariness), the capacity to select from among pregiven desires. Hegel’s term will (Wille) may thereby appear restricted, as we read elsewhere:
'The finite will, purely with regard to its form, is the self-reflecting infinite 'I' which is with itself [bei sich selbst]. As such it stands above its content, i.e. its various drives, and also above the further individual ways in which these are actualized and satisfied. At the same time, since it is only formally infinite, it is tied to this content as to the determinations of its nature and of its external actuality (see § § 6 and II); but since it is indeterminate, it is not restricted to this or that content in particular. To this extent, this content is only a possible one for the reflection of the 'I' into itself; it may or may not be mine; and 'Ii' is the possibility of determining myself to this or to something else, of choosing between these determinations which the 'I' must in this respect regard as external. The freedom of the will, according to this determination, is arbitrariness, in which the following two factors are contained: free reflection, which abstracts from everything, and dependence on an inwardly or given content and material. Since this content, which is necessary in itself as an end is at the same time determined as a possible content in opposition to free reflection, it follows that arbitrariness is contingency in the shape of will'.
- 'Philosophy of Right'
A Kantian conception of practical reason can be reconciled with a critique of Kant’s duty/desire antagonism albeit there is an to Kantian Moralität since it is excessively demanding since finite human individuals can only act at all insofar as they anticipate sensible gratification.
'An action is both a purpose of the subject and also the subject's activity which carries out this purpose; it is only because the subject is in this way in even the most unselfish action, i.e. because of its interest, that there is an action at all.-Urges and inclinations are sometimes contrasted with, on the one hand, the empty dream of a natural happiness, by which needs are supposed to find their satisfaction without the subject's activity of producing conformity between immediate existence and his inner determinations. They are sometimes contrasted quite generally, on the other hand, with duty for duty's sake, with morality. But urge and passion are nothing but the life-blood of the subject, by which the subject itself is in his purpose and the execution o f it. The ethical concerns the content, which as such is the universal, an inactive thing, that has its activating agent in the subject; the immanence of the content in the subject is interest and, if it lays claim to the whole efficacious subjectivity, passion'.
- 'Philosophy of Mind'
The moral life is only possible inasmuch as desires are socially cultivated to conform internally to rational requirements and the good human agent cannot be one who acts from duty alone because such human agents are an impossibility and yet must be someone who acts from desires that have been cultivated to accord with the strictures of reason/duty, nevertheless this is not necessarily to rub against a Kantian analysis of practical reason as a general ontological structure. Hegelian moral and political philosophy merely outlines how this structure is instantiated in finite human beings, imperfectly in light of their passional nature, and presents an account of the social institutions that can overcome this imperfection by cultivating the passions to agree with rational requirements.
On the matter of the good will in the Logic Hegel a general analysis of the character of any being that acts from will is provided the contention being that the will of such individuals is good since it is practically rational,and yet an analysis follows concerning an internal contradiction within the will and the rationally necessary purpose upon which the will acts is the purpose of transforming objectivity so that it manifests the agent as a locus of rationality, yet when objectivity comes to display rational order just in virtue of having succumbed to modification it in addition manifests the fact that this order is something it does not intrinsically possess, this actuality ranks as something intrinsically worthless [Nichtige] that must first receive its true determination and sole worth [Wert] through the purposes of the good.
But what the practical idea still lacks is the moment of real consciousness itself, namely that the moment of actuality in the concept would have attained for itself the determination of external being. – This lack can also be regarded in this way, namely that the practical idea still lacks the moment of the theoretical idea. That is to say, in the latter there stands on the side of the subjective concept – the concept that is in process of being intuited in itself by the concept – only the determination of universality; cognition only knows itself as apprehension, as the identity of the concept with itself which, for itself, is indeterminate; the filling, that is, the objectivity determined in and for itself, is for this identity a given; what truly exists is for it the actuality present there independently of any subjective positing. For the practical idea, on the contrary, this actuality constantly confronting it as an insuperable restriction is in and for itself a nullity that ought to receive its true determination and intrinsic value only through the purposes of the good. It is the will, therefore, that alone stands in the way of attaining its goal, because it separates itself from cognition and because for it external actuality does not receive the form of a true existence. The idea of the good can therefore find its completion only in the idea of the true'.
- 'Science of Logic'
What agents need however is exactly that objectivity should intrinsically display rational order and so reflect them, indeed through their activity this existence is determined merely as an intrinsically worthless externality and so in it the good has only attained a contingent, destructible existence, not a realisation corresponding to its idea and the purpose which agents evince is in essence unrealizable, they need a spontaneously occurring state of affairs so of necessity cannot bring to pass this purpose through action, their very endeavour to do so means that whatever they bring about must differ in content from the purpose and because the purpose is unrealizable agents are irrational to espouse it yet at the same time they are rational to do so because only by espousing it can they hope to realize their inchoate self-awareness, the will’s purpose is an actual, that is, actualizable, purpose and at the same time merely possible, that is, unrealizable and fantastic.
'The finitude of this activity, therefore, is the contradiction that the purpose of the good is being achieved and equally is not being achieved in the self-contradicting determinations of the objective world; that it is posited equally as an inessential purpose and an essential one, as an actual purpose and at the same time as a merely possible one. This contradiction presents itself as the infinite progress in the actualisation of the good, which is fixed in this progress as a mere ought. Formally the vanishing of this contradiction consists in the fact that the activity sublates the subjectivity of the purpose and hence the objectivity, the antithesis that makes both finite; it does not just sublate the finitude of this subjectivity but subjectivity in general: another similar subjectivity, i.e., the re-production of the antithesis, is not distinguished from the one that was supposed to be an earlier one. This return into itself is at the same time the recollection of the content into itself-a content which is the good and the identity in-itself of both sides. It is the recollection of the presupposition of the theoretical attitude (§ 224) that the object is what is substantial and true in it'.
- 'Encyclopaedia Logic'
In the Logic this is referred to as the finitude of the purpose, the fact that it cannot be realized, and hence stands always over against the world. The purpose therefore remains an ought (Sollen), for whose realization the agent strives endlessly, doomed to make infinite progress and this alludes to the Fichtean idea that agents insofar as they take themselves to be ontologically separate from the world, can only strive endlessly with no possibility of satisfaction to overcome their limitation by the world. The irrationality of willing activity calls for the emergence of a new and different form of the idea, in essence agents must not merely will but also recognize that will is already immanent within objectivity, like a mature person agents must come to embrace the providentialist outlook according to which the good has been reached in and for itself the objective world is in this way in and for itself the idea positing itself eternally as purpose and at the same time bringing forth its actuality through its activity.
'As a result the truth of the good is posited-as the unity of the theoretical and the practical Idea : [the truth] that the good has been reached in and for itself-that the objective world is in this way in and for itself the Idea positing itself eternally as purpose and at the same time bringing forth its actuality through [its] activity.-This life, which has returned to itself from the difference and finitude of cognition, and which has become identical with the Concept through the activity of the Concept, is the speculative or absolute Idea'.
- 'Encyclopaedia Logic'
At the same time as acting agents have to take on the view that practical rationality already and independently pervades objectivity, more exactly they have to recognize that rationality suffuses the world not passively but actively, carrying out what it purposes, the final purpose of the world the good, only is because it constantly brings itself about.
'What is null and vanishing constitutes only the surface of the world, not its genuine essence. This essence is the Concept that is in and for itself, and so the world is itself the Idea. Unsatisfied striving vanishes when we [re]cognise that the final purpose of the world is just as much accomplished as it is eternally accomplishing itself. This is, in general, the outlook of the mature person, whereas youth believes that the world is in an utterly sorry state, and that something quite different must be made of it. The religious consciousness, on the contrary, regards the world as governed by divine Providence and hence as corresponding to what it ought to be. This agreement between is and ought is not rigid and unmoving, however, since the final purpose of the world, the good, only is, because it constantly brings itself about; and there is still this distinction between the spiritual and the natural worlds: that, whilst the latter continues simply to return into itself, there is certainly a progression taking place in the former as well'.
- 'Encyclopaedia Logic'
Agents have to come to recognise all objective items as inherently pervaded by practical rationality or the will and this is not an argument for quietism for the providentialist outlook provides practical activity with renewed feasibility and reasonableness and this outlook renders practical activity worthwhile once more because agents who hold to this outlook can aim to elicit the rational order that is already implicit in objectivity and is striving to emerge, hence the outlook that Hegel designates providentialism resolves the initial contradiction within willing activity by combining it with an outlook according to which the purpose of that activity is realizable being complemented by a convergent dimension of willing activity within the external world. Hegel goes on to say in the Logic: 'Another way of regarding [its] defect is that the practical idea still lacks the moment of the theoretical idea' and in the Encyclopaedia Logic: 'The reconciliation consists in the will’s returning—in its result—to the presupposition of cognition; hence the reconciliation consists in the unity of the theoretical and practical idea', and so the will returns to cognition insofar as it again supposes that rationality is to be found, potentially, within objectivity as it is prior to being affected by willing activity.
This is not to say that rational activity ought to be jettisoned but that it ought to be carried on from a certain optimistic standpoint hence we can say that action is good insofar as it is done from practical reason but to be fully rational this action has to be carried out on the further assumption that its purposes are broadly realizable. The analysis of goodness in brief is that it is a general characteristic of any practical activity that aims to transform the world to reflect the agent, an aim that is rationally necessary given the prior situation of the agent as a cognitive being, so practical activity is motivated by reason which, as a motivating force exists as will. An analysis of goodness with real concrete significance, it applies to any natural or human forms that instantiate the general characteristic of activity from reason, when any of these forms acts from reason, it is good, and the issue is which natural forms if indeed any instantiate this general structure and in what way an Hegelian abstract logical analysis bears upon the substantive account of natural development in the 'Philosophy of Nature'.
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'Ivstitia',18th-century painting in the Lisbon Court of Appeal. The painting is an allegory of Justice, as a sitting female figure, holding a set of scales and flanked by an ostrich (the ostrich feather is an allusion to the Ancient Egyptian goddess Maat, a personification of Truth and Justice.
—Yerds and nudes say ayes and noes! Vide! Vide!
—Let Eivin bemember for Gates of Gold for their fadeless suns berayed her. Irise, Osirises! Be thy mouth given unto thee! For why do you lack a link of luck to poise a pont of perfect, peace? On the vignetto is a ragingoos. The overseer of the house of the oversire of the seas, Nu-Men, triumphant, sayeth: Fly as the hawk, cry as the corncrake, Ani Latch of the postern is thy name; shout!
- 'Finnegans Wake'
Notes:
'Let me fly like a hawk, let me cackle like a goose, let me lay always like the serpent-goddess Neheb-ka' - 'The Egyptian Book of the Dead'
corncrake: a name (originally Scottish) of the bird also called Landrail, Crex pratensis, found in summer in the British Islands; it lives concealed among standing corn and the grass of the hayfields, whence its harsh grating voice may be heard and Ulysses.15.2183: 'Elijah's voice, harsh as a corncrake's'.
Ani : Egyptian scribe, subject of the 'Papyrus of Ani' ('The Book of the Dead') and ALP and Anne Lynch's Dublin tea.
postern : a back door; a private door; any door or gate distinct from the main entrance and Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (1857 – 1934): 'The Book of the Dead' ch. CXXV: in it the deceased is obliged to name all parts of the Hall of double Maāti (Judgement Hall), including doors, posts, locks, pillars, posterns, etc., before he is permitted to pass through.
The Prayer of Ani: My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother! My heart whereby I came into being! May nought stand up to oppose me at [my] judgment, may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the Chiefs (Tchatchau) ('The Egyptian Book of the Dead').
Budge: 'The Book of the Dead' xvii: 'The very title "Book of the Dead" is unsatisfactory... it is no rendering whatsoever of their ancient Egyptian title... "Chapters of Coming Forth by Day"' and Budge: 'The Book of the Dead' ch. LXIV: 'I am the Lord... who cometh forth out of the darkness'.
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With regard to the goodness of nature one must understand how Hegelian abstract studies of logical structures bear upon the concrete accounts of natural or human forms in his Realphilosophie and the suggestion is that each logical form is to be understood as in a one-to-one match with a corresponding natural and human form so that for instance being corresponds to externality in nature and spatial intuition in mind, nothingness corresponds to negativity in nature and temporal intuition in mind, and so on.
'Now, in the first place, as regards the relation of the understanding or concept to the stages presupposed by it, the determination of the form of these stages depends on which science is being considered. In our science, which is pure Logic, they are being and essence. In Psychology, the stages preceding the understanding are feeling and intuition, and then representation generally. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, which is the doctrine of consciousness, the ascent to the understanding is made through the stages of sensuous consciousness and then of perception. Kant places ahead of it only feeling and intuition. But, for a start, he himself betrays the incompleteness of this progression of stages by appending to the Transcendental Logic or the Doctrine of the Understanding a treatise on the concepts of reflection – a sphere lying between intuition and understanding, or being and concept'.
- 'Science of Logic'
Such parallels are not immediately evident as passages from various texts diverge from what we find in others, for instance the 'Philosophy of Mind' does not begin with intuition, and furthermore some logical structures such as contingency are instantiated throughout nature and mind not appearing only at one particular phase in their development so the endeavour to correlate logical with natural structures one-to-one is not straightforward. Furthermore one must examine whether the analysis of practical activity and goodness is intended to apply to any natural forms at all and parts of the Logic suggests that under discussion are structures taken to be concretely instantiated only by the human mind. For instance, the cognitive idea exists as thinking, mind, self-consciousness.
'The concept is for itself as concept inasmuch as it freely and concretely exists as abstract universality or a genus. As such, it is its pure self-identity that internally differentiates itself in such a way that the differentiated is not an objectivity but is rather equally liberated into subjectivity or into the form of simple self-equality; consequently, the object facing the concept is the concept itself. Its reality in general is the form of its existence; all depends on the determination of this form; on it rests the difference between what the concept is in itself, or as subjective, and what it is when immersed in objectivity, and then in the idea of life. In this last, the concept is indeed distinguished from its external reality and posited for itself; however, this being-for-itself which it now has, it has only as an identity that refers to itself as immersed in the objectivity subjugated to it, or to itself as indwelling, substantial form. The elevation of the concept above life consists in this, that its reality is the concept-form liberated into universality. Through this judgment the idea is doubled, into the subjective concept whose reality is the concept itself, and the objective concept which is as life. – Thought, spirit, self-consciousness, are determinations of the idea inasmuch as the latter has itself as the subject matter, and its existence, that is, the determinateness of its being, is its own difference from itself'.
- 'Science of Logic'
These are all characteristics that are the differentia specifica of human beings and the discussion of cognition is the logical counterpart to the concrete account of the various stages of mind enumerated in the 'Philosophy of Mind'.
'In the stipulation the substance of the contract is distinguished from the real expression in the performance, which is reduced to its consequence. Similarly a distinction is thereby posited in the thing or performance between its immediate specific constitution and its substance or value, in which the qualitative constitution changes into quantitative determinacy; a property thus becomes comparable with another, and can be equated to what is qualitatively wholly heterogeneous. It is thus posited in general as abstract, universal thing'.
- 'Philosophy of Mind'
Furthermore there is an evident philosophical basis for such claims, if practical reason presupposes cognition and natural forms do not consciously entertain thoughts then it seems that natural forms can be neither cognitive nor practically rational and it seems that nature can instantiate only the general structures of life and sentience but not those of cognition or will. However a principle premise of Hegel’s theory of nature is that all natural forms incessantly transform themselves in line with rational requirements and the conceptual element in natural forms is the locus of their agency. In the introduction to the 'Philosophy of Nature' reference is made to this conceptual element as the component of universality in natural forms, stating that it does not remain opposed to the individuality of things, but while it relates itself negatively against things and assimilates them to itself, it equally elicits their individuality, leaves them alone, and allows them to determine themselves freely within it:
'When this inwardness is grasped, the one-sidedness of the theoretical and practical approaches is transcended, and at the same time justice is done to both determinations. The one contains a universality without determinateness, the other a particularity without universality. Notional apprehension stands between the two, where universality is not personal and so opposed to the particularity of objects, but relates itself negatively to things and assimilates them, and while eliciting their particularity, leaves them alone, and allows them to determine themselves freely within it. Notional comprehension is therefore the unity of the theoretical and practical approaches ; the negation of particularity, as negation of the negative, is affirmative universality, which gives subsistence to the determinations, for true particularity is at the same time universality in itself'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
Each natural form contains elements of universality and individuality, that is, discrete, individuated, matter and in each case the universality aspires to assimilate this matter by purposefully shaping it into specific forms eliciting its individuality so that it comes to manifest universality. This purposeful activity is rational because as the overall account of natural development demonstrates the manifestation of universality in matter is rationally necessary to resolve a tension that, otherwise, universality is not fully present within the matter that it possesses and this element of universality or conceptuality in natural forms acting in accordance with rational necessity to manifest itself within its material parts seems to instantiate the logical structure of practical activity as the activity of rationally transforming objectivity to reflect the agent.
It may be objected that the Hegelian logical analysis demonstrates that practical rationality is only possible through cognitive activity which it presupposes and it appears to suggest that natural forms could only instantiate practical agency if they were conscious as well the for there are possible objections to a Hegelian conception of nature as intrinsically rational. And yet because natural forms are not conscious it appears as if they can instantiate the general structure of practical activity not entirely adequately yet it does not follow though since natural forms do not instantiate the structure of cognition they cannot instantiate that of practical rationality either. Nature as petrified intelligence would suggests otherwise and in the Logic he equates cognition with mind as the differentia specifica of human beings but he adds that that all natural forms are implicitly mental .....
'Nature is implicitly a living whole; more closely considered, the movement through its series of stages consists of the Idea positing itself as what it is implicitly, i.e. the Idea passes into itself by proceeding out of its immediacy and externality, which is death. It does this primarily in order to take on living being, but also in order to transcend this determinateness, in which it is merely life, and to bring itself forth into the existence of spirit, which constitutes the truth and ultimate purpose of nature, and the true actuality of the Idea'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
... or are shapes in which mind exists albeit outside itself:
'But it is already evident from our discussion so far that the emergence of mind from nature must not be conceived as if nature were the absolutely immediate, the first, the original positing agent, while mind, by contrast, were only something posited by nature; it is rather nature that is posited by mind, and mind is what is absolutely first. Mind that is in and for itself is not the mere result of nature, but is in truth its own result; it brings itself forth from the presuppositions that it makes for itself, from the logical Idea and external nature, and is the truth of the logical Idea as well as of nature, i.e. the true shape of the mind that is only within itself, and of the mind that is only outside itself. The semblance of mind's being mediated by an Other is sublated by mind itself, since mind has, so to speak, the sovereign ingratitude of sublating, of mediatizing, that by which it seems to be mediated, of reducing it to something subsisting only through mind and in this way making itself completely independent. -What we have said already implies that the transition of nature to mind is not a transition to an out-and-out Other, but is only a coming-to-itself of the mind that is outside itself in nature. But equally, the determinate difference of nature and mind is not sublated by this transition; for mind does not emerge in a natural manner from nature'.
- 'Philosophy of Mind'
The proto-mental element in nature is identified with the concept or idea inhabiting it
'It is as a positing of that which it is implicitly, that the development of the Notion in accordance with its determination is to be grasped. This determination might be regarded as its goal or purpose. In the development, these determinations of its content come into existence and are manifested, not however as independent self-sufficient being, but as posited moments of an ideal nature, which remain within its unity. This positedness can therefore be grasped as an expression, protrusion, exposition, or self-externalization in so far as the subjectivity of the Notion loses itself in the juxtaposition of its determinations. It preserves itself within them as their unity and ideality however; and seen from the opposite side therefore, this outward movement of the centre towards the periphery is just as much an internal resumption of that which is outward; it is a reminder that it is the Notion which exists in what is expressed. Beginning with the externality in which it is first contained, the progress of the Notion is therefore a turning into itself in the centre, i.e. the assimilation into subjective unity or being-within-self of what is, to the Notion, the inadequate existence of immediacy or externality; not so that the Notion withdraws from this existence and leaves it as an empty shell, but so that existence as such is immanent within itself, or adequate to the Notion, and so that being-within-self, which is life, itself exists. The Notion wants to break the rind of externality in order to become itself. Life is the Notion which has reached its manifestation and stands displayed in its clarity; at the same time however it is the most difficult for the understanding to come to terms with, because the understanding finds it easiest to grasp whatever is simplest, abstract, and dead'.
-'Philosophy of Nature'
... that is to say with nature’s conceptual element and tis conceptual element exists as mind that is outside itself, petrified, its rationality immediately poured out in its activity, retaining no interiority and so the rationality of natural forms is exclusively practical, unaccompanied by any distinct dimension of interiority or conscious thought and with regard to this lack of interiority nature’s conceptual element fails to instantiate the logical structure of cognition but it is exactly the character of natural forms that they do still act according to rationality continuously transforming themselves in line with rational requirements despite their lack of conscious rational thoughts and it is also characteristic of natural forms to instantiate the structure of practical rationality but not that of cognition.
More specifically the theory of nature implies that the conceptual element in all natural forms instantiates the structure of practical reason, and thereby introduces some intrinsic goodness into all these forms. This implicit account of nature’s intrinsic goodness is compatible with the idea that ultimately human beings instantiate practical activity more perfectly since they consciously entertain the rational purposes from which they act and thus better instantiate the whole complex of logical relations between cognitive and practical activity. However the account of nature’s intrinsic goodness does raise a question concerning the ethical status of the earliest natural forms, externality, negativity, and material bodies, as these do not yet contain any conceptual element distinct from their materiality while at the same time these forms still change from rational necessity and so too must be good, acting from practical reason. Since these forms are immediately conceptual they can transform themselves as reason demands, at the physical stage this conceptual element that is the locus of nature’s practical rationality/goodness, becomes more independent and so the physical stage can be taken to exemplify the overall way that intrinsic goodness penetrates the natural world.
Any matter that comes to realize fully the purpose motivating its conceptual centre through qualitatively manifesting that centre is derivatively good, for instance the homogeneous matter of light is good because it adequately manifests light’s universality.
'Light contains the moment of unity with self, and displays an absence of elision or finitude, consequently it was one of the first objects to be venerated, and has been regarded as the element in which mankind has become conscious of the absolute. It is the contrast between thought and being, subject and object, which exhibits the highest opposition however, and this was not to be found in light. The posited opposition between man and nature belongs only to the fullest form of self-consciousness. The religion of light is more sublime than that of the Indians or Greeks, but it is also the religion in which man has not yet risen to an awareness of opposition, to self-knowing spirituality'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
Not many value judgments are passed upon particular natural forms for we are well associated with the general ontological thesis that objects are what they ought to be when their reality corresponds to their concept.
'Truth is understood first to mean that I know how something is. But this is truth only in relation to consciousness; it is formal truth, mere correctness. In contrast with this, truth in the deeper sense means that objectivity is identical with the Concept. It is this deeper sense of truth which is at issue when we speak, for instance, of a 'true' State or a 'true' work of art. These objects are 'true' when they are what they ought to be, i. e., when their reality corresponds to their concept. Interpreted in this way, the 'untrue' is the same as what is sometimes also called the 'bad'. A bad man is one who is 'untrue', i. e., one who does not behave in accord with his concept or his destination. But without any identity at all between Concept and reality nothing can subsist. Even what is bad and untrue can only be because its reality conforms to some extent with its Concept. Precisely for this reason, what is thoroughly bad or contrary to its concept disintegrates inwardly. It is by virtue of the Concept alone that things in the world have their own standing, to use the language of religious representation, things are what they are only because of the divine and hence creative thought that dwells within them'.
- 'Encyclopaedia Logic'
So goodness of nature’s material dimension increases in proportion as it progressively manifests the universality within it and the hierarchical vision of nature implicates all natural forms in being arranged on a scale of ascending goodness and at the same time Nature’s ontological progression is a value progression toward the realization of the good. Because the material aspects of natural forms are good only inasmuch as they disclose universality they must be bad inasmuch as they do not and any actual thing no doubt shows in itself what it ought to be, yet it may equally show that its actuality only imperfectly corresponds to this concept, that it is bad.
'In the concrete things, together with the diversity of the properties among themselves, there also enters the difference between the concept and its realization. The concept has an external presentation in nature and spirit wherein its determinateness manifests itself as dependence on the external, as transitoriness and inadequacy. Therefore, although an actual thing will indeed manifest in itself what it ought to be, yet, in accordance with the negative judgment of the concept, it may equally also show that its actuality only imperfectly corresponds with this concept, that it is bad. Now the definition is supposed to indicate the determinateness of the concept in an immediate property; yet there is no property against which an instance could not be adduced where the whole habitus indeed allows the recognition of the concrete thing to be defined, yet the property taken for its character shows itself to be immature and stunted. In a bad plant, a bad animal type, a contemptible human individual, a bad state, there are aspects of their concrete existence that are defective or entirely missing but that might otherwise be picked out for the definition as the distinctive mark and essential determinateness in the existence of any such concrete entity. A bad plant, a bad animal, etc., remains a plant, an animal just the same. If, therefore, the bad specimens are also to be covered by the definition, then the empirical search for essential properties is ultimately frustrated, because of the instances of malformation in which they are missing; for instance, in the case of the physical human being, the essentiality of the brain is missing in the instance of acephalous individuals; or, in the case of the state, the essentiality of the protection of life and of property is missing in the instance of despotic states and tyrannical governments. – If the concept is maintained despite the contradicting instance and the latter is declared, as measured by the concept, to be a bad specimen, then the attestation of the concept is no longer based on appearance. But that the concept stands on its own goes against the meaning of definition; for definition is supposed to be the immediate concept, and can therefore derive its determinations of the subject matter only from the immediacy of existence and justify itself only in what it already finds there. – Whether its content is in and for itself truth or contingency, this lies outside the sphere of definition; but for this reason, because the singular subject matter under consideration may well be a bad specimen, formal truth, or the agreement of the concept subjectively posited in the definition and the actual subject matter outside it, cannot be established'.
- 'Science of Logic'
Albeit matter gains in goodness as we ascend nature’s ontological ladder the gain is offset by a prevalence of badness lower down the scale leaving nature as a whole with roughly equal quantities of goodness and badness.... which is as it happens not the conclusion Hegel arrives at, rather even the poorest natural form has a wholly good conceptual dimension so that even though its matter is wholly bad not manifesting universality at all, nature still begins with an equal division of goodness and badness. In Hegel’s theory this form is evidently externality or empirical space whose discrete material constituents do not manifest at all the universality with which they are fused. Goodness only preponderates ever more as nature’s trajectory unfolds and so to an Hegelian nature is a predominantly good realm.
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'Hygeia, Goddess of Health', 1615, Sir Peter Paul Rubens
Something of a sidesplitting nature must have occurred to westminstrel Jaunathaun for a grand big blossy hearty stenorious laugh (even Drudge that lay doggo thought feathers fell) hopped out of his wooly’s throat like a ball lifted over the head of a deep field, at the bare thought of how jolly they’d like to be trolling his whoop and all of them truetotypes in missammen massness were just starting to spladher splodher with the jolly magorios, hicky hecky hock, huges huges huges, hughy hughy hughy, O Jaun, so jokable and so geepy, O, (Thou pure! Our virgin! Thou holy! Our health! Thou strong! Our victory! O salutary! Sustain our firm solitude, thou who thou well strokest! Hear, Hairy ones!
- 'Finnegans Wake'
Notes:
Johnny Magories: to the Irish of the central and eastern counties, 'a hip or doghaw, the fruit of the dog-rose'
hic, haec, hoc; hujus, hujus, hujus; huic, huic, huic (Latin) @ this (male, female and neuter nominative; male, female and neuter genitive; male, female and neuter dative; as repeated in schools) + Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus (Latin) - 'Holy, Holy, Holy' (prayer) and (laughter).
'Toi seule es jeune, ô Cora; toi seule es pure, ô Vierge; toi seule es saine, ô Hygie; toi seule es forte, ô Victoire' (French:'Thou alone art young, O Cora; thou alone art pure, O Virgin; thou alone art healthy, O Hygieia; thou alone art strong, O Victory')
Genesis 27:11: 'Esau... is a hairy man'.
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All natural forms are to varying degrees intrinsically good which is to say they are good not only as a function of any human interests in or feelings about them but also in themselves by virtue of the objective relation between their conceptual and material elements and the way this instantiates the general structure of practical reason. This is a somewhat Kantian strategy for asserting intrinsic goodness in all natural forms whereby yo uphold their value goodness is first located in practical rationality and then practical rationality is extended into all natural forms, a strategy for re-enchanting nature albeit intrinsic value has traditionally been denied to nature in virtue of it being thought to lack the practical or theoretical rationality deemed criterial of intrinsic value and through extending practical rationality to nature Hegel differs markedly from many environmental ethicists who revalue nature not by contesting its non-rationality but by identifying in it qualities other than rationality that they take as criterial of its intrinsic value.
Hegel’s account of nature’s value compares with such recent approaches in this way. Most environmental thinkers do not believe themselves to share any common ground with Hegel’s account of nature but rather associate Hegel with the view that humanity is radically superior to nature through its placement at the top of the ontological hierarchy, and Hegel does hold this view, the value-hierarchy at the top of which he positions humanity already invests all nature with value so human superiority to nature is only of degree not of kind, on this, Hegel concurs with some recent environmental philosophers who consider humans superior to animals in the extent of their interests or capacities just as animals exceed plants in theirs, plants exceed minerals, and so on.
But recent advocates of intrinsic value in nature do not share Hegel’s conviction that practical rationality is the locus or criterion of value, alternative candidates h proposed being life, the subject-of-a-life, exhibition of a telic structure, or possession of interests. Such varying criteria lead different thinkers to attribute intrinsic value to different ranges of forms, higher mammals on the subject-of-a-life criterion, all organisms on the life or telic structure criteria, or all natural forms of which interests can reasonably be predicated, including species and ecosystems on the interestedness criterion. None of these theories extend intrinsic value as far as natural forms that are neither organic nor share the self-interested structure of organic life, forms such as rivers, mountains, soils, air, or seas. Other environmental philosophers have sought moral standing beyond the organic or quasi-organic, notably through either Aldo Leopold’s, (1887 – 1948), land ethic or deep ecology, but Leopold’s land ethic whereby 'a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise' extends moral standing to the biotic community understood, again, as quasi-organic. Deep ecology affirms the moral status of all natural entities by adopting a strong holism which denies firm ontological boundaries between things, so that we cannot distinguish ourselves from the world and can realize ourselves only by promoting the self-realization of the world too. Critics have noted that this approach remains anthropocentric and, indeed, egoistic, appealing to our concern for our own well-being.
This separates these theories from that of Hegel in which intrinsic goodness imbues all nature not only organisms or proto-organic forms and taking intrinsic goodness to adhere to practical reason and then extending practical reason to all nature allows for the postulation of goodness everywhere in it even in non-organic forms such as those chemical and electrical processes, sounds, colours, elemental qualities and rhythms, and even the passage of time and the vastness of space, nonetheless natural forms possess greater levels of value the higher they come hierarchically so that plants for example have greater value than the earth and animals greater value than plants and albeit all natural forms to have intrinsic value they do so to varying degrees, the organic being privileged over the nonorganic.
This extension of degrees of intrinsic goodness to all natural forms is allowed if we begin from the metaphysical view that all these forms act from requirements of rational necessity and for the most part environmental ethicists will not judge such a metaphysical view to be a viable place to begin from which to revalue the environment and yet this metaphysical view of nature is more adequate than the competing scientific paradigm in virtue of giving us a robust way of positing goodness in all nature, and while contemporary environmental ethicists are inclined to believe that a viable theory of nature’s intrinsic value has to be minimally reliant upon debatable metaphysical presuppositions, this judgment can be put into reverse whereby an Hegelian metaphysical conception of nature makes possible a robust account of nature’s intrinsic value and renders that metaphysical conception particularly adequate, indeed a metaphysical rethinking of nature will be particularly fruitful for environmentalism insofar as such rethinking will encourage recognition of intrinsic value in natural forms.
Such a rationalist metaphysics combines with a Kantian conception of moral worth to engender a conclusion whereby that the natural world is predominantly good and this makes this rationalist metaphysics more adequate than that presupposed in empirical science, to be clear Hegelian metaphysics engenders an ethical conclusion that renders it more adequate than the scientific view that it opposes to the extent that it does oppose it though it may be objected that the unusual ethical implication of Hegel’s metaphysics of nature merely confirms that this metaphysics is a fantasy giving birth to a fantastic view of nature that may well be pleasing and consoling while not contributing much to the illumination of nature’s real character.
Klaus Schulze, 'The Unspoken Thing':
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Which brings us to the issue of sensibility and the intrinsic value of nature, this metaphysical conception of nature is distinguished from the scientific conception in that its rationalism enables us with its underlying Kantian understanding of goodness to attribute intrinsic goodness to all natural forms while the metaphysics presupposed in empirical science holds that natural forms are bare things acting only by virtue of external laws, things that are in themselves wholly value-neutral, intrinsically bereft of moral significance. And from the perspective of this scientific metaphysics,natural entities can only acquire value in relation to the interests or projects of human beings and to suppose that nature can possess intrinsic value would be to project into nature in itself a value it can have only relative to us. Hence Hegelian rationalist metaphysics enables us to challenge the narrowly anthropocentric assessment of nature’s ethical status that is incorporated into empirical science at least when that science is understood as presupposing a metaphysical view of natural forms as bare things.
And so Hegelian metaphysics is made more adequate than that of science, and we can see why through comments addressing the value of nature and its relation to sensible experience and that provide in outline an explanation for why the ethical implications of Hegel’s metaphysics make it most adequate. That outline is as follows. Our basic sensible which is to say preconceptual) experience of nature embodies a sense of its intrinsic value that an adequate conception of nature must be able to articulate and so the Hegelian ethical argument is supported and his metaphysics is most adequate since it can identify nature as intrinsically good with an additional phenomenological argument that this renders his metaphysics most adequate since it means that it can remain continuous with our sensible experience of nature as valuable on its own terms.
There is a requirement for a philosophical standpoint,or metaphysics that recognizes nature’s intrinsic worth. 'The Spirit of Christianity' (1798–1799) contains remarks to this effect the preoccupation being with the problem of human domination of nature. For instance the claims is made that natural beings should be recognized as having 'life, rights, [worthiness of] love for itself' and such a view is contrasted to a putatively Judaic position that nature is hostileand had to be mastered (beherrscht). Abraham thought that the world in itself was a nullity (Nichts) acquiring meaning only from God but having no intrinsic significance or value the Judaic view in general is that 'everything is matter . . . a stuff, loveless, without rights, something which . . . they treat as accursed and then assign to its proper place if it attempts to stir' an outlook to be superseded, and which in his 'Differenzschrift', 1801, he discovers restated in a modern guise by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814) and he objects that in Fichte’s thought 'the living is torn apart into concept and matter and nature comes under servitude [Botmäßigkeit]'. By way of contrast Hegel affirms our '[n]eed for a philosophy which would reconcile nature for the mishandling which it [also] suffers in Kant’s and Fichte’s systems' and this philosophy has to be premised on a kind of reason that 'forms itself into nature', a new philosophy predicated upon a metaphysical outlook that recognizes that reason is present in nature and so nature has intrinsic value, a position that reconciles nature for its former mishandling. Such are the views found in early Hegel anyway, but they foreshadow Hegel’s later claims that modern culture 'mishandles nature and denies its right and that this modern denial of nature’s right, that is, of its intrinsic worth, must be transcended by a philosophical standpoint that rejects the opposition of nature to reason.
'Now the pictorial and external side, which is just as necessary to the Ideal as the inherently solid content, and the manner of their interpenetration, brings us to the relation between nature and the ideal artistic representation. For this external element and its configuration has an association with what in general terms we call 'nature'. In this connection the old, ever-recurring dispute whether art should portray external objects just as they are or whether it should glorify natural phenomena and transfigure them is not yet settled. The right of nature and the right of the beautiful, the Ideal and truth to nature-in such prima facie vague words we can hear argument going on unceasingly. For 'the work of art should of course be natural', but 'there is also an ordinary ugly nature, and this should not be reproduced', 'but on the other hand'-and so it goes on without any end or definite result.
- 'Aesthetics'
As Jere Paul Surber observes the 'Differenzschrift' remains in the background to Hegel’s later thought: it 'provides what can . . . be called a ‘metaphilosophical’ viewpoint which seems to remain constant throughout the rest of his [Hegel’s] life'. In the 'Aesthetics' there is an indication that the denial of nature’s intrinsic value that occurs in science and in certain post-Enlightenment philosophical views is connected to the disengagement of these views from our sensible experience and these perspectives that deny nature’s right are thinking about it abstractly and this means that they drain nature of its colour, noisiness, and qualitative richness in general.
'The more thought predominates in ordinary perceptiveness, so much the more does the naturalness, individuality, and immediacy of things vanish away. As thoughts invade the limitless multiformity of nature, its richness is impoverished, its springtimes die, and there is a fading in the play of its colours. That which in nature was noisy with life, falls silent in the quietude of thought; its warm abundance, which shaped itself into a thousand intriguing wonders, withers into arid forms and shapeless generalities, which resemble a dull northern fog. Both these determinations are opposed to both practical ones, and we also find that the theoretical approach is inwardly self-contradictory, for it appears to bring about the precise opposite of what it intends. We want to know the nature that really is, not something which is not, but instead of leaving it alone and accepting it as it is in truth, instead of taking it as given, we make something completely different out of it. By thinking things, we transform them into something universal; things are singularities however, and the lion in general does not exist'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
Scientific and classical Enlightenment views of nature represent it as bereft of the qualities including value-qualities that we sensibly understand to be present within it and in this scientific and Enlightenment views are abstracted from sensibility, the modern picture of nature is detached from sensible experience in virtue in part of its disenchantment for sensibility embodies a basic understanding of nature as intrinsically valuable, as having its own right. There is a need for a philosophical recognition and conceptualization of nature’s intrinsic value and this conceptualization is necessary to reintegrate philosophy with sensible experience. The ideal of Bildung commits us to the general principle that a philosophy is justified insofar as it retains continuity with sensible experience yet philosophy can be adequate only if it articulates sensibility and especially it has to articulate our sensible experience of nature as valuable in itself for the Hegelian metaphysical conception of nature is uniquely adequate since it can articulate this experience by attributing intrinsic goodness to all natural forms.
We must recognise nature’s right. The ethical defence of the metaphysics is supported by the phenomenological argument. Hegelian metaphysics is justified by articulating a basic understanding of nature’s intrinsic value, which approaches closely the view that moral theory must be directed by intuitions, particular allegedly universal and fundamental intuitions about the goodness of nature, a coherent set of intuitions about nature’s ethical status is present if we are open to them, intuitions we can rely upon and take on board, albeit Hegel opposed at least one contemporary moral theory with some affinities with later intuitionism, the ethics of conviction of Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843). Fries presented his theory as a development of Kant whereby conscientious convictions provide our best guide as to the content of the moral law so that in acting from conscience one is acting with good will, even when as can regularly happen one’s convictions are misguided. Hegel’s funny polemic against Fries prefaces the 'Philosophy of Right', an attack on the morality of conscience but I won't go into that here as much as I would like to.
So perhaps in light of that response to Fries it appears unlikely that Hegel would endorse a moral theory granting a similarly privileged status to intuitions, but Hegel’s position on the need to articulate sensibility differs from any kind of intuitionism in two ways, only our sense of nature’s value should receive conceptual articulation and not all our everyday moral intuitions or convictions deserve to be taken seriously, indeed many diurnal intuitions will need substantial overhaul in light of a proper apprehension of nature’s ethical status. Our basic sense of nature’s value holds special status among these various intuitions since it is a fundamental element in all experience not merely the internalized reflex of a contingently dominant social norm as most intuitions are.
And secondly, the Hegelian stance differs from intuitionism for the proposition is not that our sense of nature’s value should be straightforwardly accepted but rather that it should receive conceptual articulation into a cogent metaphysical position. In the 'Differenzschrift' he says that reason should not 'renounce itself' or 'become a hollow imitator of nature' but 'form itself into nature out of an inner strength'. Which is to say this new philosophy should conceptualize nature, coherently, in a way that recognizes its intrinsic value and our basic sense of this value,being nonconceptual is too inchoate and amorphous to provide a basis for moral judgment prior to conceptual articulation and so the Hegelian stance is not one akin to intuitionism.
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'La maga Circe', Giovanni Domenico Cerrini, (1609–1681)
—There is some thing more. A word apparting and shall the heart’s tone be silent. Engagements, I’ll beseal you! Fare thee well, fairy well! All I can tell you is this, my sorellies. It’s prayers in layers all the thumping time, begor, the young gloria’s gang voices the old doxologers, in the suburrs of the heavenly gardens, once we shall have passed, after surceases, all serene through neck and necklike Derby and June to our snug eternal retribution’s reward (the scorchhouse). Shunt us! shunt us! shut us! If you want to be felixed come and be parked. Sacred ease there! The seanad and pobbel queue’s remainder. To it, to it!
- 'Finnegans Wake'
Notes:
Gloria : a name for each of several formulæ in Christian liturgical worship and gloria (Latin) : praise, honor.
gang : any band or company of persons who go about together or act in concert
voice : to express in words or with the voice
doxology : a short formula of praise to God, esp. one in liturgical use and doxologia (Greek) - laudation, praising.
Suburra (Latin) : red-light district of Imperial Rome and suburbs.
surcease : the action, or an act, of bringing or coming to an end; cessation, stop; esp. a temporary cessation, suspension, or intermission and Circe.
all serene : a slang phrase for 'all's well', 'all right'
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Hegelian rationalist metaphysics of nature is more adequate than the metaphysics presupposed in empirical science since it can recognize nature’s intrinsic value thereby articulating our basic, sensible, mode of experience a glorious ethical argument for a rationalist conception of nature.
But what need I for such intricate abstract arguments for nature's given my love for nature's glory, my muse, the dear One, to whom I dedicate everything I do?
I've got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it's cold outside I've got the month of May
I guess you'd say What can make me feel this way
My girl, my girl, my girl
Talkin' 'bout my girl
My girl I've got so much honey
The bees envy me I've got a sweeter song
Than the birds in the trees ...
Coming up next:
More on nature's rights.
It may stop but it never ends.