Reflection, Habit And Freedom In Hegel’s Concept Of Ethical Life

Paul Franco and Allen Wood present different interpretations of reflection’s role in ethical life in Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Franco claims that “Hegel identifies ethical life in an important way with an unreflective and habitual ethical disposition on the part of the individual”, whereas Wood claims Hegel’s stance on habit and reflection is only the beginning of a more developed form of spirit. These interpretations conflict over the importance and necessity of reflection and habit for ethical life, as well as their portrayal of freedom in a Hegelian ethical society. In this essay I will examine what I take to be the reasons and motivation for Franco and Wood’s stances as a means to explicate the sources of conflict between them. I will then present a reading of Hegel that attempts to overcome this conflict by preserving the importance of unreflective action and habit while still valuing the necessity of reflection, all of which does not infringe upon a subject’s freedom. This reading holds that the unreflective and habitual ethical disposition of an individual leading a proper ethical life, which is the final stage of spirit’s development, can only can be achieved through reflection and reflective choice of action such that reflection plays a necessary role in the development of spirit up to this stage. Also, the concepts of willing and duty involved in this stage entail that the subject’s freedom is uninfringed.

Franco appears to have good reasons for thinking that ethical life is an unreflective ethical disposition. For one, Hegel writes that in individuals who are identical with the ethical, the ethical “...appears as custom; and the habit of the ethical appears as a second nature...”.1 This passage suggests that acting on custom and habit is all that is required for living an ethical life. Furthermore, to act on custom or habit seems unreflective analytically, as to act unreflectively is to act without considering the reasons for that action, and because habits and customs are patterns of behavior that one usually unconsciously upholds. For example, if Tim has a habit of dotting his ‘i’s, then Tim will dot his ‘i’s without thinking about why he is dotting them, or whether he should dot them. Thus, Franco’s position seems plausible.

Another reason Franco’s position seems correct is because Hegel claims “what the subject is, is the series of its actions”2. This claim separates a subject’s intentions from her actions, and holds the actions as the only important thing in determining the subject’s ethical value. Coupled with the claim that the Kantian system of morality is an empty formalism due to its mere subjectivity, this suggests that an action’s good exists only its actual outcome. For example, if a driver were to act with the intention of missing a pedestrian, and still hit him, then the action is still wrong despite the driver’s intentions. This supports Franco’s claim because it implies acting correctly is all that is required for ethical action. Thus, having or following habits and customs that lead to correct action is sufficient for a subject to be ethical. Whether the subject is reflective or unreflective is insignificant so long as they perform the correct action required by a circumstance. This is why Franco seems correct.

Wood’s reading of ethical life as the first stage in the development of spirit seems implausible. His developmental reading of the passage “the substance of spirit begins to exist as spirit”3 fails to explain why his reading is to be preferred over a reading in which the spirit’s existence through unreflective activity is the final stage of its development. Structurally, the Elements of the Philosophy of Right does not support Wood’s reading. Hegel’s work can be read as a progression of simple, logically and historically primary concepts to complex concepts that depend logically on the simpler concepts and occur later in history. Read this way, more complex and developed concepts occur later in the book. If there is a further development of spirit, then it is odd that Hegel neither gives an additional account of the spirit’s development nor suggests that his work is incomplete. It seems unreasonable and uncharitable to think that Hegel would not address further developments later in the book, and there seems to be no further development of spirit later in the book. Thus, Wood’s reading seems untenable.

Even if Wood’s account is untenable, this does not entail that his motivations for the account are wrong. Why would Wood think that a more developed form of spirit exists, and what would make it more developed? The problem with ethical life as interpreted by Franco is that it places no value on reflection, and reflection seems like a valuable thing, both intuitively and in Hegel’s writing. For example, Hegel defines ethical life as “the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action”4 If ethical life is unreflective, then it is odd that Hegel emphasizes self-conscious action and thought in the definition, as this seems like a form of reflection. Wood’s account may be motivated by a desire to explain why reflection is important, because if the primitive form of spirit doesn’t require reflection and acts unreflectively on habit, then an advanced form of spirit may include reflection and reflective action. In this way the value of reflection would be preserved.

Another of Wood’s intentions may be to avoid a situation where a society could indoctrinate its subjects with the correct customs such that everyone must lead an ethical life by habit and custom, without the subject’s willing it. This seems to be permitted under Franco’s description, as the subject only needs to act correctly in order to be ethical. Thus, it does not matter whether a person acts a certain way because they reflectively choose to be or because they are indoctrinated, as long as that action is the correct action. This is at odds with Hegel’s emphasis on freedom, as the subject is precluded from subjectively willing what they please. If a more developed form of spirit exists, then it is possible that this state allows reflection to play an important role. This in turn might require enough reflection and action based on reflection in subjects such that indoctrination comes at odds with the developed ethical life; the subjects wouldn’t be able to reach the higher level without reflectively recognizing that the customs and habits they are indoctrinated with are correct. Thus, the motivations for Wood’s developmental reading conflict with the account given by Franco.

The conflict between Franco and Wood’s accounts arises primarily from their different valuations of reflection. This is also connected to the role freedom plays in an ethical society. If reflection is valuable, then habit and custom are less important to ethical life, as they are a lesser stage of a too be developed concept of spirit. By valuing reflection, indoctrination is precluded as an option for developing an ethical society, and the concept of freedom is preserved. If reflection is not valuable, then habits and customs that lead to ethical action are important, as they keep the subject focused on performing ethical action. These accounts appear as two extremes, one in which correct action is valued at the expense of freedom, and the other in which freedom is valued at the expense of habit and custom.

I think that Hegel manages to avoid a dichotomy of this sort, and any such tension is only apparent. Both views can be held without contradiction, as they are required at different stages in the account of ethical life. A subject necessarily needs to reflect in order to gain knowledge of ethical laws, however, once those laws and the subject’s relation to them are correctly identified, reflection becomes unnecessary and even problematic to acting ethically, and thus unreflective action becomes an important aspect of ethical life. This is what my reading will attempt to show.

Hegel defines ethical life as “the Idea of freedom as the living good which has its knowledge and volition in self-consciousness, and its actuality through self-conscious action”.5 By “living good” Hegel seems to mean actual or objective goodness, which exists outside the subjects, and continuously in time. This living good, or the ethical substance, is an object independent of subjects such that “Whether the individual exists or not is a matter of indifference to objective ethical life, which alone has permanence and is the power by which the lives of individuals are governed.”6

These passages suggest that ethical substance is an object independent of individuals. The ethical substance is most like an answer to a math problem in that its truth is independent of what subjects will it to be, and there are single, final answers to it. For example, the answer to the problem “2+2” does not depend on a subject’s subjective judgment of it and there is one true answer; the subject can’t objectively hold five to be the answer and there is no answer to be developed beyond four. Likewise, ethical laws exist whether subjects get them “right” or not, and there are no further laws beyond the laws that exist, just as there are no further answers beyond the correct answers. This is important because it shows that when the correct ethical laws are reached, the problem is done and no more cognition need take place.

While the ethical substance is an object outside the subject, “...it is not something alien to the subject...”, as “...the subject bears spiritual witness to them [ethical laws] as to its [the subject’s] own essence, in which it [the subject] has its self-awareness and lives in its element which is not distinct from itself...”7 This passage implies that ethical laws and a subject’s essence are closely related if not identical. It seems at this point that a subject must be reflective and capable of conceptual thought if they are to behave ethically as “...adequate cognition of this identity [between the subject’s essence and ethical laws] belongs to conceptual thought.”8 Thus, reflection is necessary for the identification of ethical laws and knowledge of the ethical life, as the laws are part of the subject’s essence and are discovered by self-reflection. Here, Wood’s valuing of reflection is correct, as reflection is a necessary step in discovering ethical laws. In this way, the concept of ethical life requires reflection.

Once the person has reflected on what the ethical laws are, they must self-consciously will themselves to follow the laws of the ethical. By doing so, the subject recognizes these laws at their duties. This willing should be understood as choosing their moral duties to be the ethical laws that exist in reality, as Hegel writes “...but the objective system of these principles and duties and the union of subjective knowledge with this system are present only when the point of view of ethics has been reached”.9 These willing needs do be done of the subject’s free will, as it is what preserves the subject’s subjective determination of freedom. These individuals are thus still free in ethical life.

There still may be the objection at this point that only some individuals need to do the reflection required to know ethical laws, and others only need to act on them. Reflection would not be an important step in these people’s lives. There are a few ways to deal with this objection. One is to accept it, but note that unless the people following the ethical laws laid out by others reflected on them and chose them to be their duties, their right to a subjective determination of freedom would be infringed. In this case, a person could be both ethical and not free.

Another way is to hold that while a person can act ethically at times, this is not existing ethically, as “what the subject is, is the series of its actions”10 and “ If this or that particular action of a person is ethical, this does not exactly make him virtuous; it does so only if this mode of conduct is a constant feature of his character”.11 This responds to the objection by showing that a subject needs to know the ethical in order to continually and non-accidentally act ethical. Thus, people will not be able to recognize when a certain habit or custom is inappropriate to follow, and will fail to be ethical in this circumstance, if they are unable to determine the ethical themselves. Also, appropriate action might be partially determined by a subject’s particular characteristics-what masculine or feminine qualities they have, and thus the subject will have to reflect to know himself in order to know which actions are appropriate for him to make. In this way, the subjects can’t really be ethical as apposed to acting ethically unless they do the necessary reflection. In both cases though, reflection needs to be done at some point by someone to discover the ethical laws, and is still necessary.

Once the subject knows the ethical laws and wills herself to do them, the subject knows what the correct action to undertake in any circumstance is, and thus acts the same way in all circumstances requiring it. This is why Hegel writes “But if it [the ethical] is simply identical with the actuality of individuals, the ethical, as their general mode of behavior, appears as custom; and the habit of the ethical appears as a second nature which takes the place of the original and purely natural will...”12. As the subject behaves the same way in each circumstance, the right way, the subject’s actions appear to be habitual and customary. Furthermore, at this point the subject does not need to be reflective, as once they know how to act correctly in a given circumstance, they don’t need to re-think how to act, they just act. Extra reflection, doubt, and further subjective determination is only a hindrance to ethical action at this point, as an action is only ethical if it is completed, and further thought slows downs or prevents action from taking place. For example, if a person is drowning and a potential rescuer needs to reflect on whether saving them is an ethical action or not, there is a risk that the person will drown before the reflection is finished and the rescuer would not be able to perform an ethical action. The repetition of right action so that it becomes habit removes the obstacles doubting and subjective determination create.

Thus, there is a sense in which Franco’s claim that ethical life is importantly an unreflective and habitual ethical disposition of the individual is correct, because actions do not need to be further reflected and are in a sense habit at the final stage of ethical life. At this point, both Franco and Wood’s valuations of reflection are compatible with an account of ethical life, both can be held without contradiction, and a subject’s subjective determination of freedom is not imposed on.




__________________________________Notes_________________________________

1.(All notes are from Elements of the Philosophy of Right, and are section numbers.)
S. 151
2. S. 124
3. S. 151
4. S. 142
5. S. 142
6. S. 145 (in the addition)
7. S. 147, words in boxes are mine.
8. S. 147, again, words in boxes are mine.
9. S. 137
10. S. 124
11. S. 150 (in the addition)
12. S. 151 words in boxes are mine.

Works Cited

Hegel, G.W.F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press: 1991.