Hegel

If the world exists as a means for G-d to discover his self-awareness, there is ultimately a telos, an end, to this process. The individual is a small piece of a broad process-in Hegel’s metaphysics; individual citizens become the cogs in the larger machine of the history of the world, which is the process of G-d’s self-actualization. Each society is a moment in G-d becoming conscious of himself that occurs through a set of processes in time. Societies are determined by where they exist in history, and the individual exists within a society that is at a point on the trajectory towards G-d’s self-actualization and so therefore it is the society that creates the identity of the individual. The individual as a citizen in society becomes part of a moment in the unfolding of the history of the world. The individual is dictated by society at this moment in time, that is, where the individual exists in the evolution of the history of world. Individuals depend on the recognition of others to identify themselves. The closer each individual gets to gaining self-consciousness through sublation with others, the closer the individual gets to becoming a moral being. Society moves closer to becoming to a state built on morality as opposed to necessity, or composed of individuals that have reached this higher level of self-consciousness, and this progress reflects the process of G-d’s self-awareness on the trajectory towards the telos. This progress occurs when society transitions into a moral state, and this happens when each individual citizen has a sense of morality, which they gain from self-consciousness and recognition from others. The freedom of the individual must guide him/her to do what G-d wants him/her to do, so it cannot be a pathological freedom, individuals must be moral, and have reasons for their actions. As the motive behind the actions of the individual moves from necessity to consciousness, freedom of action becomes enslavement to desire. In Hegel, the individual must apply reason to freedom in order to not be uncontrollably and therefore pathologically free; therein forms the morality of the individual, and by extension, society. By this reasoning the greatest freedom that the individual has is to see that which he/she should do and do it. This resembles Plato’s Republic where one is free to do one’s duty, but that is the greatest freedom one can have. It becomes the role of the individual to find this morality and apply it to the reasons for his/her actions and subsequently create a more moral society, leading to progression on the trajectory of the self-actualization of G-d. The self-actualization of the individual then becomes that of G-d.