Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher. He was born in Stagirus in 384 BCE. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child and he lived under a guardian's care. At the age of eighteen, he joined Plato’s Academy in Athens and remained until the age of thirty-seven, around 347 BCE. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was the teacher of Alexander. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms. In his lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 400 books. His famous book was Politics. He also told about the inductive and deductive method (All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal). He thus set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum. He was died in 322 BC (aged 62) in Euboea.
Slavery by Aristotle
Aristotle Supported the Slavery
Aristotle raises the question of whether slavery is natural or conventional. He asserts that the former is the case. So, Aristotle's theory of slavery holds that some people are naturally slaves and others are naturally masters. Thus he says:
But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave and for whom such a condition is expedient and right or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
Slavery: Idealization of the Principle of Natural Inequality of Mankind
The study of slavery constitutes a very pertinent part of Aristotle’s approach to the state. It has been well observed: “There is no conception which is more fundamental to the Aristotelian theory of society than the notion of the natural inequality of human nature. Upon this turns out, not only his theory of slavery but also his theory of government. To Aristotle the institution of slavery is a necessary condition of a civilized life and of a civilized social order, and it is natural, because there are some men so inferior to their fellows as to be naturally servile. And, again, to Aristotle, the government of civilized society is always the expression of superiority of some men over others. The most ideal government is that of the best man over his inferiors, next to that is the government of the aristocracy; but even his ideal commonwealth is the rule of a small body of citizens, approximating equal in capacity and education, over a great unenfranchised multitude of inferiors, mechanical persons and slaves”.
The analysis of Book I of Politics opens with the origin of state. As the state is made up families, Aristotle, first of all, deals with the management of the household whose parts persons are composing it, including freemen and slaves and the instruments. Thus, he looks into the relationship between husband and wife, master and slave, father and child, his particular attention devoted to the issue of relationship between the master and the slave and the place of the latter in an ideal household ultimately results in his justification of the institution of slavery. The principal contribution of the author of the Politics, in this way, finds place in his advocacy of the principle of natural inequality of mankind sanctioning the rule of the few superiors over the many inferiors as both expedient and necessary. For this sake, Aristotle puts these arguments:
- It is impossible to lead a better life, even life as such, without a proper household consisting of articles and instruments of two types- living and dead. If the utensils and furniture constitute the inanimate part, the slave is the animate one. Thus, according to Aristotle, slave is the living tool of the household. As he says: “Now instruments are of various sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a ship have a lifeless, in the lookout man, a living instrument; for in the arts the servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession in an instrument for maintaining life. And so, in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession and property a number of such instruments; and the servant himself is an instrument which takes precedence of all other instruments.”
- The instruments of the household are meant for the discharge of certain specific functions. When the spindle, for example, is used, it makes something that is different from it in working. However, being an instrument of the household, of course, the slave is a tool of a different kind: he is an instrument of used-work. The slave “is an instrument not of production but of action not for making some particular article but to aid in the general conduct of life.” As production and action “are different in kind, and both require instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action (for the ministers to his master’s life).”
- The slave is a necessary living instrument of the household; it is proper as well as essential for him to act like a tool as per the will of the master. “The master is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him. Hence, we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another and yet a man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to belong to another who, being a human being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor.”
- Aristotle employs a psychological argument as well. Life is a possible only in the union of the body and the soul whereas the existence is determined by the union of the two the soul is the master and body its slave living under the control and direction of the former. Similar relationship exists between the master and the slave whose union determines the existence of the household. “And, therefore, we must study the man who is in the most perfect state both of body and soul, for in him we shall see the true relation of the two; although in bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, for in him we shall see the true relation of the two; although in bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and unnatural condition. First, then we may observe in living creatures both a despotically and a constitutional rule, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate is natural and expedient; whereas the quality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful.”
- The principle of natural inequality of mankind informs that when nature has made some richer than others in matters of reason, knowledge and virtue, it has at the same time or denied that inferiors live under the subjection of the superiors. It is useful for both the master and the slave. “The same holds goods of animals as well as men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle on necessity extends to all mankind.”
- Aristotle’s defenses of slavery treats slave as a living instrument of the household working under the control of the master. The relationship between the master and the slave, is therefore, unequal in view of the fact that of all the household relationships, only this fails to rise to the level of koinonia as it is not at all a relationship of man with man; the slave is an instrument of the master rather than a man with his individuality. Thus, Aristotle puts his classic statement: “There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary but expedient; from the hour of their birth some are marked out for subjection, others for rule?”
Apart from justifying the institution of slavery in the name of natural inequality of mankind, Aristotle sanctions certain conditions that should be fulfilled.
First, he does not recognize slavery by force. It can never be a just form of slavery in cases where strong and powerful persons enslave the weak or less powerful. In this way, the enslavement of the defeated people by the conquerors is unjustified as the factor of physical strength is no proof of higher reason, virtue or excellence of a man.
Second, it is equally undesirable that a Greek should enslave another Greek. IT testifies to the prevalent notion of the Greeks that their Hellenic race was civilized, while others were barbarians.
Third, the master should never abuse his authority and if ever the slave covers up his deficiency and exhibits a equality of virtue or excellence with his master, he should be emancipated on payment. Aristotle has given sanctions due punishment to a master persecuting his slaves. The master should behave like a ‘friend’ of the slave; he should not merely command but ‘reason’ with him and give him the hope of emancipation.
Last, Aristotle rejects the case of slavery by inheritance.
Criticism
- It is clear that nothing but a blind faith in the superiority of the Hellenic race sustains the line of defense taken by Aristotle. His assertion that a Greek should not enslave another Greek is altogether implausible. None would agree with the view of Aristotle that all Greeks were civilized and others barbarians. The blind nationalism of arch-defendant of the imperfect institution of slavery is evident from this own statement: “Wherefore, Hellenes do not like to call themselves but confine the term to barbarians, Hellenes regard themselves as noble everywhere, and not only in their own country, but they deem the barbarians noble only when at home, thereby implying that there are two sorts of nobility and freedom, the one absolute and the other relative.”
- The line of psychological argument, as advanced by Aristotle, based on the simile of soul and body is wholly inapplicable in this cases; it is at the most like a forced insertion. It is quite ridiculous to say that while the master is a soul without a body, the slave a body without a soul. Nor is the slave a mere instrument whether living or dead. As a matter of fact, no person “should be regarded as simply a “living tool”. Aristotle’s treatment of the question contains implicitly the refutation of his own theory. He admits that the slave is not a mere body but has that subordinate kind of reason which enables him not merely to obey a command but to follow an argument. Again, he says that the slave as a slave cannot be the friend of his master, as a man can. His being a man is incompatible with his being a mere living instrument.”
- Aristotle’s notion of some being superior to and therefore masters and of many being inferiors and therefore slaves contradicts his celebrated dictum of the Ethics that man is a rational being. If a man is a rational animal, then every man, including the slave, is a rational creature. Even if he may be treated as a servant working under the control of the master, he cannot be taken like a mere tool of the household. A slave is a living person and for that reason he cannot be compared with the dead instruments of the household. Thus, Barker points out: “If the slave can be treated as a man in any respect, he ought to be treated as a man in all: and the admission that he can be regarded as a man destroys that concept of his wholly slavish and non-rational (one might say non-human)character which was the one justification of his being treated as a slave”
- While one may admire Aristotle’s injunction that a master should not abuse his authority and ‘reason’ with his slave like his friend, he may find fault with his notion of the slave’s eventually emancipation on some payment. When every fruit of a slave’s labor is taken away by the master, where from any amount may fall into these hands so as to seek his emancipation. One may also ask that whereas a slave may be quite inferior to his master in regard to his rational development, can’t he earn maturity of mind in due course so as to supersede even his master? How can one reconcile such a view of Aristotle with his earlier notion that the slave ever lives in a state of adolescence. Obviously, it all militates against progressive humanitarian and egalitarian ideas.
- Above all, such an idealization of slavery is without any plausible group of defense in modern times. True that the institution of slavery in Greece was never as bad as it was in the days of Roman Empire or as it obtained in the United States, yet it was not free from its own taints. Hence, such a justification of the evil institution of slavery can have no admirer in modern times. Moreover, the view of Aristotle looks like an attempt to cut the society into two unequal classes – one class of the freemen exploiting the other class of the slaves in the most malevolent manner. Ross thus remarks: “What cannot be commended in Aristotle’s view, however, is his cutting of the human race in two with a hatchet. There is a continuous gradation of mankind in respect of both moral and intellectual qualities.”
Once again, we may take note of the fact that Aristotle’s defense, even idealization, of the institution of slavery serves his real purpose-justification of the rule of the privileged few. He mercilessly ignores even contemporary Greek conditions in which a section of the free people was in favor of progressive egalitarianism. Though he is said to have followed the course of empiricism, such a treatment becomes self-contradictory. The arguments employed by Aristotle cannot be proved on empirical grounds. The result is that the whole argument of ‘the first political scientist’ turns on the intentions of nature and he alone has the monopoly of knowing them. It may be that Aristotle was a favored one but then closer to nature, further from scientific explanation.