Freedom’s Necessary Limits

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to further illuminate and explore implications of Hegel’s claim that our freedom is anchored in nature, or more broadly, in the realm of what is. In his view, human freedom is a capacity we possess not as “noumenal” natures but as animals endowed with special powers of abstraction and reflection. Hegel in addition argues that freedom’s products (that is, its concepts and laws) are indebted to nature and history in some way. Freedom’s concepts and laws are not pregiven; rather, they are acquired in human time and in the course of world history. Our idea of freedom develops, as does our understanding of the conditions of our freedom’s satisfaction. This development is propelled forward by interactions obtaining between our natural capacity for reflection and concrete forces of nature and history.