Explain and discuss critically the role that Hegel attributes to ‘work’ in the development of self-consciousness in his account of the servant-master relationship

Résumé du document

In the section entitled "Relations of Master and Servant" from The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel explains one stage of the development of consciousness. He begins by pointing out that only by acknowledging an "other" is self-consciousness possible: for example a teacher only recognizes himself as a teacher with respect to his students. But if there is an other, then the original self-consciousness feels threatened and asserts its freedom by trying to dominate that other. This struggle results in a master (Herr) who dominates a servant (Knecht) and who forces him to produce material goods. What is the role of the work made by the servant in the development of his self-consciousness? How can it permit to reverse the relationship between the master and the servant?

Extraits

[...] Thus the labor of the slave has a permanent quality whereas the master's consumption is again dependent on the servant's production. The satisfaction of the master's appetites is only temporary and “lacks the side of objectivity and permanence”. Through the example of the master-slave relationship Hegel shows that work is a process of objectification alienation and its overcoming- leading to self-realization. This vision of work is very different from the one many people have nowadays: they consider work as an unpleasant and necessary task. [...]

[...] So the gratification of desire is postponed and the servant can learn to detache himself from desires and to achieve a relative degree of freedom. Through work, he duplicates himself, objectivises himself in the world. He “becomes conscious of what he truly (Hegel), more fully than the master does. He knows what he is since he knows what he can do, what his potentialities are and develop those potentialities through work. His production is a permanent embodiment of what he is. [...]

[...] But by not working, he is simply alienated from the world around him, because it does not appear as this work but has been produced by others. To conclude, in the servant-master relationship, the servant starts as the dependant, inessential person but becomes the independant person who develops his self-conscioussness thanks to three elements: fear, service and work. According to Hegel, all types of practical activities permit to develop one's self-conscioussness, and work in one of them. Biblio Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind Ch. Taylor, Hegel and Modern society S. Houlgate, An introduction to Hegel : Freedom, Truth and History S. [...]

[...] So we could argue that Hegel's theory about work is true in the conditions of the pre-industiral world, “when production was still on a domestic and local scale” (S. Sayers). Nowadays many works are monotonous and repetitive tasks which do not conduce to job satisfaction and do not permit workers to see the world as their own creation. Hannah Arendt criticizes Hegel by making a distinction between work and labour. She defines labour as a necessity task to satisfy our physical needs, which creates no products and work as an activity creating enduring objects. [...]

[...] Moreover, Elster argues that for a work to be satisfying it must be freely chosen which is not the case for the servant. For Marx, labour only brings real freedom when labour determined by necessity ceases. He uses the term ‘alienation' to describe the fact that work is externally imposed and is “merely a means to the end of satisfying material needs” (S. Sayers). However, for both Hegel and Marx, only purely immediate consumption is unfree and all economic work has a degree of freedom. [...]