Elements of the Philosophy of Right Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Elements of the Philosophy of Right Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

The shape of freedom

Hegel emphasizes a particular view of freedom, partially in response to a strong allusion to Hobbes's Leviathan. Not only do humans sacrifice some freedoms in exchange for more opportunity (in Hobbes's estimation, because the government literally prevents violent deaths), but also, Hegel adds that if one wants to reap the maximum profit from their human freedom, there are other similar exchanges that should be considered. He says there is a shape to human freedom and that people will be happiest when they use their freedom for economic growth, political activism, and filial piety.

Abstract Recht

Before getting into the tangible beliefs of the political right, he analyzes the philosophical abstract of "rightness," which he dubs Recht. He comments that it stems from an instinctual behavior to conserve for the future. Perhaps the instinct might be called prudence or responsibility. This is a philosophical abstract which has broader implications than just human life. For instance, animals often store food for the future, a "right"-oriented behavior.

Moral constructs

Next, Hegel analyzes the manner by which humans invent and communicate moral principles that in time become social constructs. The method is depicted as a machine or function that takes situational input and then perpetuates it through a matrix of different situations until a dominant principle arises that can get "set into stone," and then conserved. In other words, the seasons of history combine with the human instinct and the current dialogue to synthesize into a moral abstract that eventually gets conserved.

Ethical life

Instead of obeying moral constructs through moralism, defined above, Hegel argues that the moral process is itself evidence of another instinctual process, one of greater importance. Hegel says that there arises from morality a goal that if clarified, could be pursued more specifically and strategically. This is ethics. He is arguing for each person to take responsibility for the potential effect of their life, and then to attach themselves to the greatest good, and then saying that this constitutes a higher "right"-ness. This is how true conservatism might come to involve progressivism as well.

History and progress

Some people conceive of progress as an arrow shooting through the dimension of history and time. Hegel doesn't describe history using that symbolism at all. He sees history as a constant concatenation and recombination of old and new, so that different situations reorient the "status quo" that the conservative nature preserves. Sometimes, new situations demand altering the status quo, and from that dynamic recombination, there arises Hegel's famous portrait of history as a dialectic, synthesizing order and chaos for a new order.

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