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Single Idea 21783

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 1. Slavery ]

Full Idea

Because slavery exists in states, it is a phase of advance from the merely isolated sensual existence - a phase of education - a mode of becoming participant in a higher morality and the culture connected with it.

Gist of Idea

State slavery is a phase of education, moving towards a full culture

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (The Philosophy of History [1840], p.98), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights'

Book Ref

Houlgate,Stephen: 'An Introduction to Hegel' [Blackwell 2005], p.187

A Reaction

[He adds that slavery should be removed slowly, not suddenly] A nicely provocative thought. Is it better to participate in something grand (like pyramid building) as a slave, or drift in dull isolation? How long should this 'phase' last?

Related Idea

Idea 12784 Allow no more miracles than are necessary [Leibniz]

The 29 ideas with the same theme [allowing workers to be unpaid and owned by others]:

21047 Aristotle thought slavery is just if it is both necessary and natural [Aristotle, by Sandel]
21358 Natural slaves are those naturally belonging to another, or who can manage no more than labouring [Aristotle]
17227 Slavery is a disgraceful crime [Spinoza]
19923 Slavery is not just obedience, but acting only in the interests of the master [Spinoza]
19870 If you try to enslave me, you have declared war on me [Locke]
19883 Slaves captured in a just war have no right to property, so are not part of civil society [Locke]
19913 A master forfeits ownership of slaves he abandons [Locke]
20000 Slavery is entirely bad; the master abandons the virtues, and they are pointless in the slave [Montesquieu]
20003 Slaves are not members of the society, so no law can forbid them to run away [Montesquieu]
20006 The demand for slavery is just the masters' demand for luxury [Montesquieu]
19775 People must be made dependent before they can be enslaved [Rousseau]
19784 Enslaved peoples often boast of their condition, calling it a state of 'peace' [Rousseau]
19785 If the child of a slave woman is born a slave, then a man is not born a man [Rousseau]
19841 Sometimes full liberty is only possible at the expense of some complete enslavement [Rousseau]
19847 We can never assume that the son of a slave is a slave [Rousseau]
21783 State slavery is a phase of education, moving towards a full culture [Hegel]
21784 Slavery is unjust, because humanity is essentially free [Hegel]
22776 Slaves are partly responsible for their own condition [Hegel]
21789 Slaves have no duties because they have no rights [Hegel]
21486 Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer]
5285 Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels]
22670 Slavery undermines the morals and energy of a society [Tocqueville]
24134 There is always slavery, whether we like it or not [Nietzsche]
14819 Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche]
23158 Slavery began the divorce between the work and the purposes of the worker [Russell]
23811 If effort is from necessity rather than for a good, it is slavery [Weil]
23868 The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil]
7353 The Pharisees undermined slavery, by giving slaves responsibility and status in law courts [Johnson,P]
18649 If everyone owned himself, that would prevent slavery [Kymlicka]