Aliens and Monsters: Aristotle’s Hypothetical “Defense” of Natural Slavery

Abstract

This paper examines Aristotle’s discussion of slavery, showing his description of actual slavery to be an indictment and those regarding natural slavery to be a hypothetical investigation of a separate kind. Aristotle not only precludes the inclusion of natural slaves and freepersons in a single natural kind, but also articulates such bizarre require-ments for natural slaves that they ultimately cannot exist. While this reading avoids notorious difficulties associated with Aristotle’s discussion of slaves, it replaces them with impossible preconditions for just slavery—so much that one must consider the possibility that Aristotle did not believe there was such a thing as “just” slavery. Was Aristotle’s otherwise acute mind blinded by the prejudices of his time? Or is this the inevitable result of “defending” the indefensible: an ad absurdum that has been ironically misunderstood and anachronistically misapplied to modern race and racism?.

Department(s)

Political Science and Philosophy

Document Type

Article

DOI

10.5840/du202232230

Keywords

Aristotle, political naturalism, Politics, race, slavery

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Journal Title

Dialogue and Universalism

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