Aristotle was generally a brilliant ethicist, BUT…
"Aristotle wrote Europe's greatest foundational works of ethics and politics, but only in the context of free Greek males: everyone else was of a lesser nature. This meant women, of course, but also those he categorized as naturally born for enslavement. The way to identify such a person, according to Aristotle, was this: "Someone is . . . a slave by nature if he is capable of becoming the property of another (and for this reason does actually become another's property) and if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself." This last clause was mainly to distinguish enslaved people from non-human animals, who could not even recognize reason when they saw it. With that proviso, the main point here was that you could spot those who were meant to be enslaved from the fact that they were currently enslaved. For them, clearly, "the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just." Aristotle further clarified the situation by comparing enslavement to the equally natural dominance of men over women. Aristotle's "slave nature" theory was used to justify centuries of later exploitation."
— Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell
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It is kind of entertaining to see such rudimentary thinking from someone who thinks all the time. This is a perfect example of a self fulfilling prophecy. This philosophy implies a universal condition of fate; it is so, because it is meant to be so. Strange that this line of thought persisted under Christianity, as the notion of freewill seems to be at direct odds with fate.
ReplyDelete-H3
DeleteRight. Thinking "all the time" has a point of diminishing returns even for an Aristotle. There's also a cautionary tale for us here: future generations will undoubtedly look back at our own brightest lights and say they/we were dim about this or that bit of "common sense," which I imagine Aristotle thought his views on slavery etc. mirrored.
DeleteAristotle equates happiness and fulfillment directly with achievement and success. This ideology is at direct odds with eastern philosophies which I tend to agree with. For example, a buddhist might say happiness is about being satisfied with less, not acquiring more. I think this is a self-evident truth. Why do the people that make the most money in this world always keep making money? because at heart they will never be satisfied, no amount is enough.
ReplyDelete-Sean Willis H3
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