--- Ted Winslow <egwinslow@rogers.com> wrote:
On the basis of this from Hegel:
"The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness 
of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a content which is 
immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towards any and 
every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to 
a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then 
actualize
  it." (Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 2)

The "Universal Will" is "the Will which is Lawful and Just or in 
accordance with Reason." (Philosophical Propaedeutic p. 1)

Ted discusses:
"the self-contradictory attempt to justify retributively inflicting 
suffering by means of an argument that attributes an autonomous will to
 the criminal."

I don't understand why it's self-contradictory.

The quotation speaks of 'will proper', 'ego' and 'universal will'. 
When Ted emphasises 'autonomous' will, I think there is a shift in 
terms.  I don't claim to speak for (or even understand) Hegel, 
but it looks to me like he is discussing two aspects of the ego - 
first, high-fallutin' indeterminateness, and second actualized choice.
We can attribute will to a criminal and still realise that the 
actualized choice was not in accordance with universal will.  And it is 
on that basis that we can punish criminals in accordance with their 
own will, in the former sense of ego. The introduction of 'autonomous' 
to qualify 'will' misses what for me is the key - the general will. I'm 
not trying to be pedantic - I'm just really struggling to follow this 
argument.

Ted then continues:
"Marx's sublation of this returns to a wholly positive conception of 
autonomous willing i.e. it's the willing productive of the greatest 
pleasure and happiness.  In the case of sexual relations, it leads to 
evaluative judgments in these terms i.e. to the judgment that sexual 
relations that actualize autonomy in the above sense will be the most 
pleasurable ones."

I don't see how it's a sublation if it's a return to 'a wholly positive 
conception" - dosn't this just reverse the dichtomy?  And I don't know why we need Marx to tell us where pleasure lies - "Oh baby, actualize 
autonomy in the above sense"?!  What turns people on is no doubt very interesting from a psychological perspective, but politically I don't think that there's anything to say except anything goes so long as it dosn't harm another.  'Subversive' sexual practices may be fun, but they won't change the world and they're not that interesting to non-
participants.  Legal restriction of them will make it a much duller place, though.

--James