22 November 2020

Aristotle, on the Slave and Leisure

Throughout Book I of the Politics, Aristotle describes in great detail the slave, particularly regarding their disposition towards slavery and the intricacies of their relationship to the master. The Philosopher believes some humans to be born slaves, and thus “natural” in their servitude. The slave is inclined towards their chains in two senses, the physical and the mental. Physically, they “can work with their body,” which generally implies that they possess general health and strength to a degree that lends itself to physical labor, more so than the master. However, the true distinction can be found in their mental faculties. According to Aristotle, the slave can “reason enough to apprehend, but not to have reason.” Such an individual, while capable of heeding command, cannot control the direction of their minds, and thus cannot fulfill any meaningful contribution through their own reason. Their function lies in that they are an “instrument of action,” akin to the ox which plows the field. They exist to be used by the master, to be shaped and broken in, just like a favorite tool or a new hunting hound. Such possessions would have no meaning without a human being to use them.

Aristotle goes into further depth to justify his claim by bringing about the comparison of the relationship between the master and the slave to that of the soul and the body. To Aristotle, and Plato as well, the soul is the driving aspect of our being, from where intelligence stems, along with feeling. All that makes humanity beautiful--our curiosity, our elegance, our brilliance, our power--comes from the soul. The body, in comparison, is merely a tool, by which the soul can reach into the world through action. It would be logical then that Aristotle would postulate that the master would be akin to the soul, the vessel from which original thought, art, and strategic brilliance would flow. The body, or the slave, is merely a shell, an axe with which to chop a trunk, or the spinning wheel with which to weave a tapestry. Without the rule of the soul, the body is useless. Similarly, without rule over the body, the soul cannot make its imprint on the world. Thus, Aristotle believes equality, or worse, power in the hands of the slave, to be detrimental to both parties.

        Of course, the thesis of Aristotle’s presumption about the natural slave is inherently illogical. He believes in the rigidness of the human mind, that intellectually, the slave is “from the hour of their birth marked out for subjection.” However, in treating such a principle as fact, he ignores the most remarkable aspect of humanity, which is our ability to learn. We are able to use past experience to shape our reason and direct ourselves in a different manner as a result. Aristotle seems to discount this ability, which is rather strange, as it happens to be a central aspect of philosophical and scientific thinking, both of which he professes to possess some mastery over.

The fallacy in Aristotle’s justification of enslavement lies closely related to the problems with his original definition of the slave. I argued that learning shapes our being more so than our natural-born intelligence or physical disposition, which is a reality that Aristotle completely ignores in his proposition. Any human being, save those with severe mental deficiencies, are capable of conscious thought, about the world and themselves, and are thus able to learn. However, through the relationship that Aristotle proposes between the master and the slave, the plasticity of the mind is perverted. If one is conditioned to be a tool, to be an instrument, they will be so, if they have never known anything else. By claiming that there are individuals that have no other value in society save as a mindless, menial laborer, he is forging such beings, where they do not exist. He is creating a situation in which a person is unable to discover if they can grow in the first place, and thus are incapable of ever finding a higher purpose which they can fulfill. In his justification, he is condemning a portion of mankind to live under the haze of enslavement, sculpted to lie absent of rational thought. He is promoting this lie, and willing it to be used in practice, to create the drones for which he has so much disdain. He is robbing society of potential contributors, which is ironic, as he sees such an act as unforgivable evil, hence his critique of the systems of slavery in the ancient Hellenic world.

        One of Aristotle’s boldest claims is that leisure, those moments in which we are free to pursue the object of personal curiosity, is only present when there are human beings to build it upon. The slave driving the ox in the fields allows his master to philosophize, and so forth. As it pertains to how society has developed since Aristotle, I believe the frame of this proposition has changed. The general divergence from Aristotle in terms of leisure and contribution is that nowadays, all of us who contribute to society generally work for the benefit of others, whether it be providing a product or service, or fulfilling some fundamental task that the community needs in order to run. From Bezos to the guy behind the counter at Wollastons, the wealthiest and the working class alike work towards the general benefit of mankind. In other words, we are all living for the sake of one another in some sense. Things are not so stark as the philosopher sitting in his chair, thinking about the grandeur of reality, while the slave cultivates his vegetables. In fact, in terms of leisure, the powerful C.E.O may have less time to spend on frivolous pursuits than the person who works on an hourly wage.

The inequity now comes in how we live for one another. Within the frame of fulfilling some purpose in society, there is certainly a divide between those who have selected their paths out of interest, and those who fall into their positions out of necessity. There are still those migrant workers in the central valley of California, estranged from their families, working 12 hours a day in the fields so that we may pick up our fresh fruits and vegetables from Whole Foods. It seems unlikely any person would dream of such a situation, yet these jobs allow our world to run. If, say, we were forced to cultivate and retrieve produce ourselves, perhaps we would not have the time to pursue a career of our own choosing, to contribute to the world upon the basis of our own curiosities. The physicist, lawyer, and doctor have been able to choose the course of their lives on the basis of their own passions or ambitions, because there are others willing to fill those roles which are deemed unattractive, such as the janitor sauntering down the dreary hallway, or the construction worker toiling away high in the clouds. So in a sense, there are those who are fulfilling undesirable roles in society, which allows others to contend for pursuits of their choosing.

Bibliography:

Aristotle. Aristotle's Politics. Oxford :Clarendon Press, 1905.