Kyle Scott

Work is not typically associated with freedom. On the contrary, in both the history of philosophy and in ordinary life, work is often seen as inherently unfree: a mere means or necessary evil undertaken for the sake of freedom elsewhere. This dissertation challenges this prevailing view by developing an account of freedom in work that draws on three main figures: Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx. The account I develop is guided by a conception of freedom as self-sufficiency. In Chapter One, I begin by providing an interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of self-sufficiency, or autarkeia, according to which an activity is self-sufficient to the extent that it does not depend upon anything external to it, in the form of either inputs that make its performance possible or outputs that determine its success or worth. On Aristotle’s view, however, work (technē) falls short of such freedom because it depends on external inputs (materials, tools, and so on) and outputs (the various products it produces, and the use made of those products by others). Yet I argue that Aristotle’s treatment of moral virtue suggests a more ambivalent appraisal of work. Although virtue depends upon external goods, it also achieves a measure of self-sufficiency by sustaining and reproducing itself across time: each exercise of virtue draws upon prior exercises and produces future ones in both the virtuous agent herself and in others. By analogy, I suggest, Aristotle gestures toward the possibility that work, too, might attain a form of self-sufficiency if it could likewise come to be directed at previous and future instances of itself. In Chapter Two, I turn to Hegel, who inherits the Aristotelian ideal of self-sufficiency but develops it in ways that give fuller expression to the more tentative possibilities noted above. In particular, Hegel shows how self-sufficiency can be achieved not by retreating from what is “other” but through a distinctive relation to it. This comes out most clearly in his account of mutual recognition, in which one acts both in dependence upon and for the sake of an “other,” while at the same time finding in that relation an affirmation and extension of one’s own self. In this way, relations of mutual recognition allow external aims and conditions to be “stripped” of their merely external character and recast as moments of one’s own activity. Yet Hegel denies that modern work fully embodies this mutually recognitive structure. Although modern workers do what in fact depends upon and is directed towards previous and future instances of itself, they do not typically act from a conscious awareness of this fact. As such, their activity remains externally related to the conditions and ends upon which it depends. Finally, in Chapter Three, I turn to Marx, who I argue incorporates the Aristotelian–Hegelian ideal of freedom as self-sufficiency into his account of unalienated labor. Unalienated labor, I claim, is highly self-sufficient, and thus free, because it is forms a continuous whole with the activities of others, which serve as both its object (input) and aim (output). Unalienated labor, that is, would achieve a type of mutual recognition between the worker and the consumer of her products, in which each acts in unity with the other. Unalienated work, then, for Marx, does not terminate in a product that stands apart from the worker, but extends into the activity of the consumer, who takes up and completes that act in turn. Likewise, each act of unalienated labor draws upon previous such acts by others that provide the materials and conditions that it carries forward. In this way, unalienated labor forms part of an ongoing cycle of activity in which individuals do what continues and completes the activity of others, and act from a conscious awareness of this fact. The account that emerges challenges the prevailing view of work as inherently unfree and shows instead how it could become a form of self-sufficient activity—what Marx calls “really free work.”

In this paper, I offer an original interpretation of Marx's conception of unalienated labor, which I frame as a response to Aristotle's view of work, or technē. Both Aristotle and Marx share a particular conception of freedom as “normative self-determination,” according to which an activity is free insofar as it does not depend for its value on externally valuable things. For instance, when my activity is a mere means for satisfying some need separate from it, it comes to depend for its value on the externally valuable effect—the “needs-meeting”—it achieves. Or, when my activity is only causally—but not normatively—enabled by the cooperative contributions of others, it comes to depend for its value on those externally valuable contributions. On Aristotle's view, work is unleisurely (ascholos) and servile (doulos) because it is normatively dependent in both of these ways. For Marx, by contrast, work possesses the capacity to “internalize” these external determinants of its value. Unalienated work does this, first, by satisfying “internal” needs, or needs whose satisfaction does not constitute a normatively external effect of the work that satisfies them. The satisfaction of internal needs is valuable because of the manner or way in which they are satisfied. Second, unalienated work would not only be causally, but also normatively, enabled by the contributions of others, in that those contributions would help to make it the distinctively valuable act that it is. Unalienated work would be valuable because, and not despite, its cooperative character. In both of these respects, then, cooperation is essential to make work fully free.