Rather...

Rather, the suggestion is that insofar as they do follow out this pattern, their history exhibits the logic of these Hegelian transitions. There are two particular sequences which any interpretation of Hegel must take seriously. The first of these is not specifically concerned with morality, but it is concerned with the nature of the framework within which moral questions arise. It is also an excellent introduction to Hegel’s own fundamental attitudes.

When the self-consciousness of individuals realizes itself in social roles, a central part is played by the relationship of Master and Serf. In this relationship the Master at the outset envisages himself alone as a fully self-conscious person; his Serf he seeks to reduce to the level of a thing, a mere instrument. But as the relationship develops the Master, too, is deformed, and more radically than the Serf is. For the relationship is defined in terms of their relationship to material things.

These provide work for the Serf, but merely transient enjoyments for the Master. The Serf is indeed deformed, for his aims are so limited by the aims and the commands of the Master, that he can do little more than assert himself in the barest possible way; but the Master, insofar as he sees himself as Master, cannot find in the Serf any response through which in turn he could find himself as a fully developed person.

He has cut himself off from the kind of relationship in which self-consciousness grows through being an object of regard by others, through finding itself “mirrored” in others. Whereas the Serf can see in the Master something at least that he wants to become. But for both it is true that growth in self-consciousness is fatally limited by the Master-Serf relationship. Hegel then looks at three false solutions to the problem posed by that relationship.

And in doing this he is thinking back to imperial Rome and to the attitudes engendered in a society actually dominated by the Master-Serf theme, not only in the institution of slavery itself, but in the relation of Caesar to his subjects and in the whole ranking of superiors and inferiors. The first false solution is stoicism: the acceptance of necessity, the identification of oneself with the universal reason of the cosmos, whatever one’s rank or relationship.

Emperor and slave equally envisage themselves as citizens of the world. But this is to mask their real relationship, rather than to transform it.