HEGEL ON WAR, SLAVERY AND FREEDOM

Submitted by-

RISHABH SEN GUPTA

UID No.: SM0116036
First Year (Second Semester)

Dr. Mayengbam Nandakishwor Singh

(Assistant Professor of Political Science)

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, ASSAM

CONTENTS:

1. Introduction
1.1. Literature Review
1.2. Scope and Objectives
1.3. Research Methodology
2. Hegel’s theory on War

3. Hegel’s theory on Slavery

4. Hegel’s theory on Freedom

5. Critical Responses to Hegel

6. Conclusion

7. Bibliography
INTRODUCTION:

German philosopher Hegel was the founder of modern idealism and developed the notion that
consciousness and material objects are in fact unified. In Phenomenology of Spirit , he sought
to develop a rational system that would substitute for traditional Christainity by interpreting
the entire process of human history, and indeed the universe itself, in terms of the progress of
absolute Mind towards self realisation. In his view, history is, in essence, a march of the
human spirit towards a determinant end-point.

Hegel’s principal political work, Philosophy of Right , advanced an organic theory of the
state that portrayed it as the highest expression of human freedom. He identified three
‘moments’ of social existence: the family, civil society and the state. Within the family, he
argued , a ‘particular altruism’ operates, encouraging people to set aside their own interests
for the good of their relatives. He viewed civil society as a sphere of ‘universal egoism’ in
which individuals place their own interests before those of others. However, he held that the
state is an ethical community underpinned by mutual sympathy, and is thus characterised by
‘universal altruism’. This stance was reflected in Hegel’s admiration for the Prussian state of
his day, and helped to convert liberal thinkers to the cause of state intervention. Hegel’s
philosophy also had considerable impact upon Marx and other so called ‘young Hegelians’.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

HISTORY OF WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT, A Thematic Introduction – John

Marrow – In this book the Author gives a thematic introduction into Hegel’s ideas on
freedom,war and state and also briefs us on his other range of works. The Author also gives a
lucid and clear understanding of the concepts of freedom and gives a sense of direction into
providing insight into Hegel’s mind behind his idea.

WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT, From Plato to Marx – Shefali Jha – The Author here
provides insight into Hegel’s ideas behind consciousness and embodiment of freedom and
also discusses critical responses to Hegel’s ideas in a short yet wholesome and complete
manner.

MASTER SLAVE RELATIONSHIP IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC – MUHAMMED KAMAL

– Very helpful and beneficial in understanding and comprehending the nuances behind
Hegel’s master slave dialectic. Provides a backdrop of the same before delving into the
concept followed by a simple logical explanation.

POLITICAL THEORY, AN INTRODUCTION – ANDREW HEYWOOD – Contains short

biography’s on famous western political thinkers and their life’s works. Great point to start
one’s research from.

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES:

Elucidate Hegel’s views on War, Slavery and Freedom.

Provide Critical analysis on the same.

RESEARCH METHADOLOGY:

In this paper doctrinal form of research has been applied where materials from secondary
sources such as libraries, archives, articles and the internet have been used.
HEGEL’S THEORY ON WAR:

According to Hegel, “War is not to be regarded as an absolute evil and as a purely external
accident, which itself, therefore, has some accidental cause, be it injustices, the passions of
nations or the holders of power, etc., or in short something or other which ought not to be. It
is what is by nature accidental that accidents happen, and the fate whereby they happen is
thus a necessity. Here as elsewhere, the point of view from which ought not to be. It is to
what is by nature accidental that accidents happen, and the fate whereby they happen is thus a
necessity. Here as elsewhere, the point of view from which things seem pure accidents
vanished if we look at them in the light of the concept and philosophy knows accident for a
show and sees in it essence, necessity."1

Far from viewing war as something accidental or contingent in human affairs, Hegel
attempted to give it a metaphysical foundation built into the very nature of things. Individuals
are not apparently isolated or self sufficient by nature, but come to develop a personality or
identity through a protracted period if opposition with another. Enmity, not friendship, is by
far the more characteristic condition of human beings. And what is true of two hypothetical
individuals is ispo facto true for states. "A state is as little an actual individual without
relations to other states as an individual is actually a person without rapport with other
persons"2

The ethical significance of war resides, then, above all in its ability to raise us above the level
of mere civil association with its rootedness in material possessions. In times of war, common
values and commitments are not only preserved but enhanced. Hegel presents war as the
power of the "negative" in which the contingency of the material world is demonstrated. This
approach is buttressed by a philosophy of history that views prolonged peace as giving rise to
the illusion that the state exists merely for the sake of civil society. The positive value of war
is then that it transcends attachment to things by uniting men for the purpose of a common
ideal. 3

To Hegel, war was for armies and a clear distinction was to be drawn between combatants
and non-combatants. However, he has shown war to be a necessary part of relations between
nations, not only because whilst peoples involved in civil strife acquire peace at home
through making wars abroad (Throughout history he saw that successful wars have checked
1
Hegel, 1946 , par. 324
2
Hegel 1946, par. 331
3
Great western political thinkers – 9, George Fredrich Hegel 413( Subrata Mukherjee & Sushila Ramaswamy)
domestic unrest and consolidated the power of the state at home.) but also when a nation as a
whole is at jeopardy, all its citizens are duty bound to answer the summons to its defence, and
so if in such circumstances the whole state is torn from its domestic life, the war of defence
turns into a war of conquest.

He also believed that sacrifice was a universal duty (e.g. The military, whose purpose was to
defend the state, sacrificing themselves). The true courage of civilised nations was readiness
for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst
many. The important thing here was to align oneself with the universe. He showed that
sacrifice was there for a reason: That states and individuals had the freedom to determine
their real existence, absolute obedience or renunciation. That is because in order to triumph it
was necessary for individuals (and states) to have a purpose (the end and content) rather than
only fearing death or even risk their lives just because. Just like robbers and murderers bent
on crime as their end, adventurers pursuing ends planned to suit their own whims, etc.
HEGEL’S THEORY ON SLAVERY:

According to Hegel the master needs the slave for recognition. That is what objective
certainty means. But this recognition is not reciprocal, as the master is recognised by
someone whom he does not recognise, and recognition from one side is not sufficient 4. The
master wants to act as a self-conscious being by directing his desire towards another self-
conscious being. This issue as we see is problematic, because at the end of the fight the slave
will not be recognised by the master as another self-conscious being, and is reduced to a
thing. The desire of the master is directed towards an objectified desire or an object, and
therefore, the master is not recognised by another self-conscious being. His objective
certainty is not confirmed by another self-conscious being and will never get satisfaction by
being recognised by a slave or a thing. There is no master without a slave. A self-conscious
being becomes a master by possessing slaves. Accordingly, the master depends on the slave
to become a master. That may be called formal dependence to distinguish it from material
dependence. The master depends upon the slave materially. His superiority over nature is
realised in the slave’s labour. Labour is placed between the master and nature and transforms
nature into the desired objects of the master. The paradise in which the master lives is bound
by the products of the labour of the slave. Whatever the master has is produced by the slave.
The master is, therefore, not an independent being, but rather dependent on the slave and
slave’s labour. As mentioned before, the master is idle, his relation to Being is mediated by
the labour of the slave. The master remains warlike, and the slave’s existence is reduced to
work for the master5. The slave is active and has direct relationship to Being. The relationship
of the slave to Being is dialectical, because Being is negated and transformed by the labour of
the slave into commodities. The slave is the main force behind the negation of Being. It is
true that the slave works for the master, but it is the slave and not the master who projects
his/her own existence in the work and transcends the given reality. Hegel’s interpretation of
labour, which has left a notable impact on Marx’s thought, makes a distinction between
human labour and animal work, for example the spider web. This distinction is based on the
nature of human labour as a conscious act and the realisation of the end at the beginning
before undertaking it. For this reason, animal work is for the gratification of instinct and will
not transcend Being. By contrast, human labour is a self-projection towards a realised end, in
relation to an idea. In this context, Marx remarks that,“At the end of every labour process, a
result emerges, which had already been conceived by the worker at the beginning, hence, it
4
Hegel, The phenomenology of Mind, p. 65
5
Kojève. Op. cit., p. 42
already existed ideally.”6 As we see the slave is at an advantageous position. L abour becomes
a vehicle for transcending the given reality and transforming Being as well as the essence of
the slave. Human beings become self-conscious through desire and become slaves due to the
fear of death. The apprehension of ‘Nothingness’ or ‘Death’ is a necessary condition for the
revelation of one’s own existence or authenticity. If we agree with Heidegger, that being
towards death or dying is not a communal occurrence, and an individual must die on its own,
then the experience of death and the realisation of that experience individualise human
existence.7In this case, it is the slave and not the master who grasps the meaning of
authenticity and becomes aware of his own individuality and the condition in which he is
moulded by the master. At this point, Hegel believes that the slave becomes the agent of
historical revolution. The slave, therefore, comes to a different conception of individuality
and authenticity, but since his product is for the master the slave is still alienated from it. In
Hegel’s philosophy the terror of death or ‘Fear’ has become the source of oppression in
human history. It had led to the rise of the institution of slavery and class distinction. The
recognising desire or the slave is afraid of death and cannot go beyond his animal desire and
biological needs. But labour creates a new existential condition for self-realisation. With this,
and under the influence of this new condition, the slave becomes aware of the contradictions
between the master and himself, which could be superseded only in a new fight to death. But
what happens when the slave is aware of these contradictions and yet not ready to fight? In
this case, according to Hegel, the slave searches for an excuse to avoid fighting and advocates
an ideology on which he could justify his indifference towards social responsibility. Hegel
calls this ideology ‘slave ideology’, such as Stoicism, Scepticism and Unhappy
Consciousness. In Stoicism human freedom is internal as a mental property having no
external content. The stoic slave rejects the essentiality of the external content for his
freedom and disengages himself with it. For this reason a stoic slave is passive and bored. To
abandon boredom the slave must acknowledge the necessity of the external content for
freedom.8This can be done by solving his contradictions with the master in a new fight to
death but as mentioned before the slave is not ready to fight. These contradictions, however,
leads to another stage and another form of slave’s ideology known as Scepticism. In
Scepticism the slave does not think that the reality of the external content to be essential for

6
Marx, Karl. Capital, Moscow: Progressive Publisher, 1974. P 71

7
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, London: Blackwell,
1997. P. 263
8
Kojève. Op. cit., p. 53
freedom but instead he becomes a sceptic about it. 9 Scepticism also suffers contradictions. It
pronounces the non-being of the external content and making it disappear before
consciousness. This negation is at the same time an acceptance of that external content.
Scepticism is, therefore, alienates consciousness from reality and for Hegel this alienation is a
new form of slave’s ideology called “Unhappy Consciousness”, or religion. 10 A religious
slave is not interested in solving social contradictions. He believes that true equality, justice
and freedom are found in another world in an afterlife where all human beings become equal
in the eyes of supreme master. The contradictions in unhappy consciousness arise between
eternity and temporality, universality and individuality, which are in Hegel’s view,
superseded in the personality of Christ. Another question, which arises here is that how does
a religious slave solve the contradictions between the master and himself? Hegel believes that
in human history the war among the states resulted in assimilating the weaker ones. The
strongest state among them was able to survive and expand its territory and became an
empire. The citizens of this state were no longer obsessed by war as the external threat was
eliminated. Since there was no more war, the master did not claim superiority over the slave,
because that superiority would be affirmed in the fight to death. As a consequence of this, the
master became a peace loving master, accepted slave’s ideology and became a Christian. A
Christian master is a master without a slave, and a Christian slave is a slave without master.
Since there is no master without slave and no slave without master, the Christian master and
slave are, therefore, pseudo-master and pseudo-slave. A master without a slave or a pseudo-
master is what Hegel calls the bourgeois or a business man in a new form of society. A
bourgeois is a master because he/she owns property and recognised as a master by the
worker. Meanwhile, since the bourgeois does not possess slaves and is not in the fight to
death for recognition, then he is not a real master. On the other hand the bourgeois, like a
slave is determined by animal desire and works for ‘capital’ and becomes the slave of capital.
The acceptance of the reality of death and risking life is the only way to achieve self-
emancipation from slavery. The moment the slave realises this point and is ready for a new
fight the possibility of socio-historical changes will be born. According to Hegel, this
realisation took place in the history of Europe and was materialised in the French Revolution.
With French revolution the historicity of consciousness reached the final stage of integration.
History was ended with the rise of bourgeois society, and absolute knowledge was obtained

9
Hegel. Op. cit., p. 246
10
Ibid., p.251
as all distinctions between Consciousness and Being were superseded. 11 The French
Revolution, however, disappointed Hegel at the end. The downfall of this revolution was in
its failure to do away with despotism. Individuals carried out terror against the state and the
power of the state was subordinated by the power of individuals. The state, by contrast, as a
universal form of “consciousness (Geist) must be superior to the power of individuals and the
individuals must bear the relation of duty to the state. In the end, after searching for the
meaning of recognition more probingly, Hegel has arrived at the conclusion that historicity of
human existence is impossible without violence. A thoroughly peaceful world is
contradicting the nature of this historicity. Human existence is, therefore, best understood in
terms of the fight to death for recognition, but since recognition is not mutual and one sided it
will remain unrealised.

HEGEL’S THEORY ON FREEDOM:

11
Ibid., p. 599
 Hegel repeatedly interpreted different historical events as struggles which had the realization
of freedom as their aim. He also stated that the criterion for the legitimacy of political
institutions was whether they hampered or facilitated individual freedom. In this emphasis on
freedom, Hegel was as one with modern political philosophy. At the same time, he developed
his own distinctive concept of freedom which he did not see as fulfilment of unobstructed
desire and neither as opposed to sensuous desires. Central to the meaning of freedom for
Hegel was the idea of embodiment in an “other”. Embodiment in otherness in general
becomes a requirement of individual freedom.

Hegel determined that whereas animals could not be called free, because they were governed
by drives and instincts, it was part of human nature to be free, because human beings, unlike
animals, had the faculty of will. The will, unlike theoretical reason, is thought which results
in action. ‘For Hegel, the will is not a faculty separate from thinking but rather, “a particular
way of thinking – thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the drive to give itself
existence.12 Since human beings have the faculty of consciousness, when a human being
performs an action in order to fulfil his desires, this action differs from when an animal does
the same, because a human being represents to himself the object of his desire. If it is the
nature of animals to follow their drives, it is the nature of human beings to be determined by
their will. To be self determined is to be determined by one’s own will, or in other words, to
let the will determine for itself.

Hegel’s understanding of freedom is rather different from the common understanding of the
concept. Generally, to follow our desires unhindered, and not to fret about the source of those
desires, is considered to be freedom. It seems rather different from Hegel’s definition of
freedom because that was not the way he defined it. Hegel often defined freedom as, “being
at home with oneself in one’s other”.13 This could mean, for instance, that we become
conscious of our body, as an “other” with its own needs. Once we accept these needs of our
body as a part of us, the body no longer seems like an ‘other’, as something which is a
constraint or an obstacle to our will. The needs of our body our no longer an infringement to
our freedom. “The freedom of man, as regards natural impulses, consists not in being rid of
such impulses altogether and thus striving to escape from his nature but in recognition of
them as a necessity and as something rational”. 14 Human beings can recognize the natural
order of their impulses, and they are engaged in precisely this attempt when they try to make
12
Paul Franco, Hegel’s Philosophy of Freedom, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 157.
13
Ibid, p. 155.
14
Ibid, p. 167.
themselves happy. “In happiness, thought already has some power over the natural force of
the drives, for it is not content with the instantaneous, but requires whole happiness”.15

Many scholars argue that Hegel overturned the usual meaning of freedom, although, the
sense of freedom as the absence of constraints seems included in his understanding of
freedom. The problem faced is that one’s acceptance of rational order of impulses or the
rational order of specific political institutions and social institutions would mean that one
does not see those impulses or those institutions as a constraint to one’s freedom. Freedom
then becomes another name for reconciliation. However using the term ‘self determination’,
Hegel focused our attention on the ‘self’ which is attempting to determine itself. Hegel
believed that self consciousness was the minimal condition to be fulfilled for there to be a
sense of self which is interdependent on with another self that is ‘other’. By insisting on this
Hegel opened up the whole idea of social requirements which are much more stringent than
the liberal’s absence of restraint. “Self – consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by
the fact that it so exists for another, that is, it exists only on being acknowledged”. 16 If we
take this statement of Hegel to mean that our sense of selves is mediated through the
acknowledgement of others, then we see how others can make us feel estranged from
ourselves. The solution of this being, if the ‘self’ subjugates the ‘other’, then that other’s
consciousness cannot be a source of the certainty of the ‘self’. The ‘other’ must be recognized
as an equal with self and only through this mutual recognition between two equals, do these
separate ‘selves’ become conscious of themselves as having the capacity of and the right to
freedom.

For Hegel the consciousness of freedom developed progressively in human history. In

earlier societies, for example, in the oriental despotisms of China, India and Persia, the belief
system sustaining was that only one individual, the monarch, was entitled to be free. In other
ancient societies that were slave-owning democracies, for instance several Greek city states,
the ideology was that not all but several Greek males were born and meant to be free. The
development of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and more significantly, the Reformation,
brought about the modern idea that individual freedom is an entitlement of all human
beings.17 It is clear now, that according to Hegel human consciousness of freedom was not
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid, p. 167.
17
George F. Hegel , Philosophy of History translated by J.Sibree, New York: Dover Publications, 1956. Hegel
divided Philosophy of History into four parts, with the first part discussing the ‘Oriental World’ of China, India
and Persia the second part the ‘Greek World’, the third part the ‘Roman World’ in which a discussion of
Christainity is included, and the fourth part the ‘German World’ , containing a section on the ‘modern time’
inborn. The modern idea that all human beings, male or female, of whatever rank, caste, class
or educational status, are entitled to be free, emerges only after a long historical process.

The institutional embodiment of the idea of individual freedom in social practices becomes,
then, an essential component of the reality of individual freedom. If the human consciousness
of freedom is not inborn, if it is the historical consciousness, emerging or being engendered
through interaction with others, then, the social is the location of individual freedom
Individual freedom for Hegel, is situated in the social. The social is the site of individual
freedom. The modern consciousness of freedom is expressed in the social institutions that
make up modern life. In Philosophy of Right, Hegel gives us his analysis of how individual
freedom is embodied in the modern institutions of the family, civil society and the state, since
it is these institutions that makes up a person’s life in modern societies. Hegel believed that it
was the modern family, civil society and the modern state, that were the institutional
embodiments of a ‘mutual recognition’ based freedom.

CRITICAL RESPONSES TO HEGEL:

Today in many quarters Hegel is not as popular a thinker. Many people have taken to dictum
that history is the progressive realization of the idea of freedom. We have come across reports

and the Reformation , the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

about several world leaders who have claimed to be acting for the sake of spreading freedom
in the world. For most of them, the spread of freedom is maximized under liberal democracy,
and therefore they are unhappy with Hegel’s criticism of liberal democracy. His strictures
against ‘subjective freedom’ and his rejection of the English Reform Bill of 1831 which
sought to extend the suffrage, brand him, in the eyes of these critics, as a conservative for
whom individual freedom was not really a central value. When freedom becomes identified
with liberal democracy, any reservations about the latter are seen as an attack on freedom
itself. Hegel, in such a world view, becomes an enemy of individual freedom. Of course there
are many theorists today, who agree with Hegel that freedom as self determination requires
much more than liberal democracy. For these thinkers, to view the idea of freedom as no one
or nothing stopping one from doing as one desire, within a framework of minimal laws, is to
make a travesty of the value of freedom. To understand the Hegelian idea of freedom, we
need to ask ourselves why we consider freedom for individuals so valuable. What is freedom
for, and how does it enhance human flourishing? Or, is freedom human flourishing itself? Is
it because Hegel had a certain view of human flourishing of which freedom was an important
part that he refused to define freedom as self determination? Even these theorists, however
have given up on Hegel’s idea that history is the march of human freedom. So, by his
supporters, too, Hegel is branded as a conservative thinker. Hegel is attacked for holding on
the Enlightenment ideas of ‘progress’, ‘science’, and ‘reason’ , and for not seeing that these
ideals actually mask the domination of large groups of people. Hegel’s claim of having
individual freedom as his central value again comes under attack when his philosophical
system is faulted for not having the intellectual resources to unmask domination. For these
critics, to see all of human history as progressing towards a goal of spreading freedom is to be
unacceptably teleological. The attempt to posit one end for the entire world and then turn the
gaze backwards into history, obviously led Hegel to misinterpret different to fit the telos that
had already been set.

CONCLUSION:
Hegel, a German academic philosopher, synthesized important but ‘one sided’ conceptions of
a range of reflections on human experience that has emerged in the course of Western
Philosophy. He wrote on aesthetics, logic and philosophies of history, mind and science, as
well as on political philosophy. His major works include The Elements of the Philosophy of
Right(1821) which is usually known in English as The Philosophy of Right.

Hegel’s political writings focus on the ‘state’ and present an understanding of the distinctive
features of modern social and political life that was derived from close study of political and
economic developments in the most ‘advanced’ states of the period, France and Great Britain.
The modern state was not an ideal but it represented the latest and most complete attempt
thus far to create political institutions that protected the freedom of individuals while
recognizing that individual life and consciousness was forged in interaction with cultural and
social forces that were independent of particular individuals. In a manner that echoed
Aristotle’s idea of Polis, Hegel’s ‘state’ incorporated other forms bringing them together in a
complex, dynamic whole that integrated aspects of human experience and made rational
freedom possible. This account of the modern state includes many references to the history of
Western Political philosophy, with Plato, Aristotle and Rousseau being especially prominent.
Hegel’s political philosophy was important for a range of later thinkers, including Bakunin,
Marx , T.H Green and modern ‘communitarians’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
HISTORY OF WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT, A Thematic Introduction – John
Marrow

WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT, From Plato to Marx – Shefali Jha

POLITICAL THEORY, AN INTRODUCTION – ANDREW HEYWOOD

MASTER SLAVE RELATIONSHIP IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC – MUHAMMED KAMAL