The Will to Freedom: Reconsidering Hannah Arendt’s Concept of Love and the Will and Their Relationship to Freedom

This paper answers two questions: (1) What is the relationship between freedom and the concepts of love and the will? (2) What does this relationship mean for the concept of freedom? By reading and interpreting Hannah Arendt's political thought, this paper argues that, on the one hand, through a self-transformation of the will-or, in Arendt's language, our willing activity-the will can turn into what she called "the spring of action". Our willing activity, Arendt said, must transform itself into activities of love, which serves as "a coupling, binding agent", to achieve self-sufficiency and to aid in building relationships. On the other hand, this paper contends that without this transformation-without the will transforming itself into a loving will-we cannot even begin to take action. The loving will constitutes the impetus that propels us to step outside of our solipsistic circumstances and, as "a binding agent", to get in touch with persons and things outside of ourselves. It is this impetus, or what I call the courage of movement, that Arendt viewed not only as the spring of action but also as an invitation to freedom. Thus, the loving will refers to the will to freedom that paves the way to further political actions. Ultimately, the conclusion stresses that through Arendt’s political thought, we can understand not only why but also how love and the will are relevant to politics.