Slavery -- natural or conventional?
Aristole's
theory of slavery is found in Book I, Chapters iii through vii of the
Politics. and in Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics 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? There is no difficulty in
answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of 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. This suggests that anyone who is ruled
must be a slave, which does not seem at all right. Still, given that
this is so he must state what characteristics a natural slave must have
-- so that he or she can be recognized as such a being. Who is marked
out for subjugation, and who for rule? This is where the concept of
"barbarian" shows up in Aristotle's account. Aristotle says: But
among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves,
because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of
slaves, male and female. Wherefore the poets say, It is meet
that Hellenes should rule over barbarians; as if they thought that
the barbarian and the slave were by nature one. So men rule naturally
over women, and Greeks over barbarians! But what is it which makes a
barbarian a slave? Here is what Aristotle says: Where then there is
such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and
animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body,
and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and
it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under
the rule of a master. For he who can be, and therefore is, another's and
he who participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not
to have, such a principle, is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower
animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts.
And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very
different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life.
Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and
slaves, making the one strong for servile labor, the other upright, and
although useless for such services, useful for political life in the
arts both of war and peace. But the opposite often happens--that some
have the souls and others have the bodies of freemen. And doubtless if
men differed from one another in the mere forms of their bodies as much
as the statues of the Gods do from men, all would acknowledge that the
inferior class should be slaves of the superior. And if this is true of
the body, how much more just that a similar distinction should exist in
the soul? but the beauty of the body is seen, whereas the beauty of the
soul is not seen. It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free,
and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient
and right. So the theory is that natural slaves should have powerful
bodies but be unable to rule themselves. Thus, they become very much
like beasts of burden, except that unlike these beasts human slaves
recognize that they need to be ruled. The trouble with this theory, as
Aristotle quite explicitly states, is that the right kind of souls and
bodies do not always go together! So, one could have the soul of a slave
and the body of a freeman, and vice versa! Nonetheless, apparently
because there are some in whom the body and soul are appropriate to
natural slavery, that is a strong body and a weak soul, Aristotle holds
that there are people who should naturally be slaves. It also seems that
men naturally rule women and that bararians are naturally more servile
than Greeks! This seems like an odd, indeed arbitrary, way for the
virtues of the soul to be distributed! Las Casas deals with a similar
problem in regard to the native peoples of the Americas. War and
Slavery One interesting feature of Aristotle's discussion which does
not clearly come out in the great debate has to do with slavery and war.
Aristotle, early in the Politics says: But that those who take the
opposite view [that is, who hold the view that slavery is not natural]
have in a certain way right on their side, may be easily seen. For the
words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or
slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort
of convention-- the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to
belong to the victors. But this right many jurists impeach, as they
would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they
detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence
and is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and
subject. So, those who hold that slavery is both conventional and
legitimate hold the doctrine that all prisoners of war can be
legitimately enslaved. If you lose the battle and are captured, that is
enough. Aristotle gives reasons for rejecting this view. One is that
this means that might makes right. Many people find this doctrine really
objectionable. (Plato in The Republic and other dialogues is one of
these.) The doctrine that might makes right means that if you have the
power, and so win the battle, however unjust your cause, the spoils are
legitimately yours. In fact, contrary to most of our intuitions, this
view says that wining makes your cause just! Saint Augustine held a view
like this conventional view, but he had an answer to Aristotle's
objection. Since God decided who would win the battle, victory in battle
amounts to a divine decision! To be captured in battle and enslaved is a
divine punishment for sin! This connection between war and slavery is
of some interest in the study of the period of the conquest of the
Americas. For at this time Europeans were beginning to develop what has
come to be know as just war theory. This theory holds that their are
criteria for determining whether a war is just. So, you can lose but we
can still recognize that your cause is just. Or you can win and we can
still recognize that your cause is unjust. Courtney Campbell's essay
"Dirt, Greed and Blood: Just War and the Colonization of the New World"
explores the beginnings of this tradition in the Spanish writer
Francisco de Vitoria. A later and important contributor to just war
theory during the period we are studying was the Dutch Jurist Hugo
Grotius. This discussion of war and slavery in Aristotle will turn out
to be quite interesting when we come to explore John Locke's theory of
slavery in The Second Treatise of Civil Government Locke does not
believe in natural slaves or in the conventional view that all prisoners
of war can be legitimately enslaved. He is a just war theorist who
explicitly rejects the doctrine that might makes right.
