Conceptio › Archive › PhilArchive
PhilArchive open access

The dialectics of good and evil in state power: a model of master-slave asymmetry

Zhu, Dan · 2026
PhilArchive · Papers · 2026
Open Source ↗
philosophy
State power possesses an inherent dialectic of good and evil, rooted in the fundamental tension between the asymmetrical nature of the master-slave relationship and the ethical pursuit of symmetrical recognition. This paper depicts this dialectical process as a movement: it begins with the false harmony of Substantive Good, subsequently falls into the evil of a Bad Infinite stalemate where antagonism becomes ontological, and then attempts to achieve an ideal formal reconciliation in Noble Consciousness. However, this formal recognition, lacking material support, is ultimately doomed to alienate into a new round of false harmony. To break this cycle of good and evil, this paper argues for internalizing substantive recognition based on production relations as a necessary moment in the dialectic of state power, thereby transcending abstract ethical reconciliation. This framework, which is both diagnostic and normative, not only penetrates the antagonistic pathology of contemporary politics but also reconstructs the standard of a "good" state as a fundamental shift from Bildung-Formal Recognition to Production-Substantive Recognition.
Conceptio Open Archive

Analyze & explore related research in Conceptio

Connect this record directly into your research workflow or AI agent. Explore citations across open repositories, query full text, and export structured proof bundles.

This document is indexed with metadata only: full text is not available in the archive for this record. Open the official source ↗

Related documents

Record · ID 212713
Retrieved via Conceptio: every document is proof-bundled with source, license, and retrieval metadata.
Bring this data into your agent: Connect via MCP or API · 20 free credits to start · no card required
Read the Docs → · View CLI source on GitHub · Conceptio Open Knowledge Archive