Abstract |
This project attempts to highlight an aspect of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right(PR),
exploring the conditions and consequences of the relationship between
the right to private property and the “right of necessity” (that is, the right invoked by
someone to violate the property of another ,because he is in an extreme condition in
which is threatened his very survival).
The project begins with some basic assumptions. Firstly, we accept the fundamental
connection of the Hegelian philosophical work on the legacy of the French
Revolution, namely the irreversible establishment of freedom. The approach that is
attempted here is therefore based on the assumption that the request that raises
strongly the PR is the institutionalization of that freedom, in order that, from the one
hand can not to jeopardize the possibility of free self-determination of the individual
and from the other, do not compromise social cohesion.
Secondly, we accept the position for the systemization and the continuity of the
Hegelian philosophical project, in particular the close connection between Logic and
PR. We accept thus that the post-revolutionary reality is governed by a speculative
logic and that the method used to be captured this, in PR, is the dialectical exposition
of the categories.
With these assumptions as interpretative axis, we approach the debate on the right to
private property, as a debate for the first, direct way of externalization of the Reason,
the most fundamental way to self-consciousness of freedom. The property, thus seen,
constitutes the first moment in the methodological logic of transition to higher forms
of unfolding and self-realization of the Reason. However it is distinguished from the
arbitrariness of the person, from individualism, and lack of essential intersubjectivity.
This paper then, is discussing the dialectical transition from Wrong to Morality, where
is realized the emergence of subjectivity. The distinguishing feature of this dialectical
moment is that the subject is aware of its particularity, as well as of its inalienable
right to try to realizing its particular aims. The hunting of individual welfare,
however, places in orbit of potential conflict the subject with the frame of right.
Hegel resolves this conflict situation, giving priority to the right, which guarantees the
free act of the subject. The right of necessity, however, comes to relativise this
priority. The claim of the right of necessity demonstrates the arbitrariness and the lack
of inclusion of the legal framework of property and illustrates that it is a bad
abstraction, a form that does not guarantee what it owes, the essential content, i.e. the
right of everyone to live. Seen thus the right of necessity, is requesting the restoration
of the lost balance between the life and her abstractions, between form and content. It
also suggests that the abstract right requires institutional enrichment, so as to avoid
jeopardizing social cohesion. Hegel proposes as a solution to this conflict a form of
corporatism, that is to say the associations, thereby achieving a dialectical synthesis
between individual and general welfare. The paper discusses this solution and also the
potential problems of adequacy of this proposition.
In conclusion, although the right of necessity demonstrates the intention of Hegel for
the defense of life against absolute abstractions, the Hegelian synthesis remains
susceptible, to the extent that the absolute priority to the strengthening and
establishment of freedom seems to have as cost, unresolved social tensions. He leaves
to us, however, as heritage, the pointing out of a critical innate contradiction of
modern societies and he warns us for the dangers that gestate the transmutation of
abstractive forms in absolute worldviews.
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