Liberalism: Hegel And Marx's View Of Freedom

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One of the most fundamental concerns throughout mankind have been the subject of a fully free emancipated humankind. Throughout history, philosophers have been in constant discussion in figuring out a way to respect human rights, while at the same time, preserve a well-ordered society. One of the schools of thought that demonstrate this type of society is liberalism. Liberalism is defined as “a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties” (Dictionary, 2017). Although most …show more content…

One of them main critiques of Hegel in regards to the liberalism view of freedom is that the view of liberalism is only a partial view of freedom. By referring to liberalism as a partial freedom, Hegel is referring to its subjectivity. To Hegel, liberal freedom is a subjective freedom. In other words, it is a negative freedom, it is a system of rights. To Hegel, freedom is the “the worthiest and the holiest thing in humanity”, where the core of freedom lies in free will (Par. 215). According to Hegel, without free will, individuals do not possess freedom. This is why Hegel refers to freedom as an abstract concept, as freedom by itself, is just an abstract right. As a result, when an individual think to himself “I will”, that is just the abstract thought, it

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