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Single Idea 22776

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

Full Idea

If someone is a slave, his own will is responsible. The wrong of slavery is not only the fault of those who enslave people, but of the slaves themselves. …[66 add: The slave has an absolute right to free himself]

Gist of Idea

Slaves are partly responsible for their own condition

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 057 add)

Book Ref

Hegel,Georg W.F.: 'Elements of the Philosophy of Right', ed/tr. Wood,Allen W. [CUP 1991], p.88


A Reaction

He accepts that enslaving people is wrong. Are the slaves at fault for losing their struggle? Would Hegel approve of someone giving modern weapons to the slaves?


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

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