Abstract

This paper focuses on Hegel's views on the idea of retrospective and intersubjective determination of intention. The main point is to distinguish four perspectives to human action: 1) The agent's "moral" perspective and the understanding and description under which the agent acted; from this perspective we can thematize the operative intention-in-action and distinguish "action" from "deed". 2) The agent's retrospective awareness and appropriation of the action: was what I did really justified and did it express my true goals? 3) The retrospective takes of others concerning the action, from within relevant social practices and the prevailing Sittlichkeit. 4) The perspective of Reason or Idea as emerging in the world history. In this paper I use this differentiation of perspectives to discuss Hegel's views on action. I defend the primacy of the individual herself in the first aspect mentioned, in what Hegel calls the "moral" perspective. I hope to show that while the Hegelian or expressivist theme of "retrospective determination of intention" as discussed by Charles Taylor and Robert Pippin is true and important concerning retrospective awareness, retrospective appropriation and retrospective justification of action, we should not take it to imply that the intention-in-action is determined intersubjectively or retrospectively. The intention is formed by the self-determining agent herself, before or at the time of the action, just like a common sense theory of individual action assumes. Hegel's distinction in Philosophy of Right between "action" and "deed" and his views concerning the role of intended results and foreseen consequences in discussing the responsibilities of the moral agent make clear that this is also Hegel's mature view. In Phenomenology, Hegel toys with the idea of retrospective determination of intention, but does not put it forward as his own view.