Aesop admonished that reason should be the master and passion the slave. Politically, of course, the duality of master and slave and later lord and serf were quite literal social realities for Aristotle and most feudal thinkers. The master and slave imagery enters into modern philosophy in Rousseau, Fichte, and most famously in Hegel, who made the master-slave interaction the centrepiece of the most famous section of his Phenomenology . Hegel is at pains to point out that such roles, dependent on competition and power, are unsatisfactory as a basis for social relationships. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Nietzsche picked up the opposition as a metaphor for two distinct modes of morality.
Master morality prizes independence, creativity, and excellence.
Slave morality , by contrast, is servile, fearful, and, above all, resentful. Slave morality is victorious, and, according to Nietzsche, servile obedience and mediocrity replace the masterly Greek ideals of virtue and excellence. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 2. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 3. The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology 4.