Aristotle on
Slavery, Women and Usury
PHIL 2011
2006-07
Some issues to think about:
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Do you think the polis can aim at ‘the
highest good’ if women, slaves, and
foreigners are excluded from
participation (i.e. 80-90% of total
population)?
What are the dangers of placing the
good of the community before that of
the individual, and vice versa?
And from the discussion board:
I feel a bit troubled about why we, people of
year 2006, should criticise Aristotelian views
on CONCRETE social settings of his time. I
think that we won't get much from
discussions such as Feminism, Slavery and
Property 'rights'.
Other views of slavery
Sophists: teachers of rhetoric to lawyers
 They taught that slavery is a convention;
 Not a natural institution;
 People become slaves through capture in war
(or birth), but there is no slave by nature;
 It is therefore incorrect to assume that
Aristotle’s review simply reflects the view of
his peers!
 This would be Historicism: reduction of a view
or idea to being simply a product of its era.
Aristotle’s view of conventional
slavery (Pol. 1.6)
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Convention is not necessarily right, it’s just customary
(although ‘a sort of justice’);
E.g. convention that people captured in war may be
made slaves;
Why? Because the cause of a war may not be just;
Aristotle could have added: war itself may be unjust
(he later criticizes Sparta for making war its goal);
Idea of kings (presumably more excellent than
ordinary men) being slaves seems absurd.
Aristotle on Women
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Husband’s “rule over his wife is like that of a
statesman over fellow citizens” (Pol. 1.12).
Women have a degree of governing capacity, i.e. for
child care, but ‘without authority’ (Pol. 1.13);
‘Silence is a woman’s glory’ (Sophocles, quoted in
Pol. 1.13);
Aristotle favors moderate exercise for women;
Women should be much younger than their husbands
(18 for wife, mid-30’s for husband) (Pol. 7.16).
Actual Status of Women
Athens:
 Confined to home:
weaving and child care;
 Allowed outside for
important religious
festivals;
 No sports!
 Forbidden to marry or
have relations with
metics (foreign males);
 Metic women had
greater freedom.
Sparta:
 Young women exercised
in public;
 Participated in sports;
 Did not perform
household labor;
 Responsible for
childcare;
 Old husbands
introduced young men
to their wives for
procreation.
Two good books on reserve:
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James Davidson,
Courtesans and Fishcakes:
The Consuming
Passions of Classical
Athens (London:
HarperCollins, 1997)
Women, boys and food
Challenges idea of ‘Wives
and the Rest
[prostitutes]’
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Page Du Bois,
Torture and Truth (New
York: Routledge, 1991)
Torture of slaves
See also Wiedemann,
Greek and Roman Slavery
(reading list)
Household Management
Two views:
 1) Art of acquiring wealth (a lesser
goal); wealth only a means to an end,
not an end in itself (Pol. 1.8-9);
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-critique of retail trade (Pol. 1.9);
-critique of usury (Pol. 1.10);
2) Art of managing people (‘human
resource management’) (Pol. 1.11-13).
Household Management
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Monarchical rule (one head, members
of household not equal);
Vs Constitutional rule (equals rule each
other in turns—the polis);
Science of slave—what slave must know
how to do;
Science of master—knowing how to
order what slave must know how to do.
Wealth Acquisition (1.7)
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Part of HM? To a degree, because both use the same
materials, e.g. plants and animals;
Hierarchy of nature: plants exist for animals, animals
for man, to be hunted or farmed;
“…in both, the instrument is the same, although the
use is different” (1.9);
Or instrumental? As wool is to cloth or the shuttle to
weaving? Does the household need wealth?
To an extent, yes: as much wealth as the household
needs; people need “external goods” to be happy
(NE, 1099b).
To acquire more wealth than is needed is unnatural.
Limit to Wealth (1.7)
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“Of the art of acquisition then there is one kind
which by nature is a part of the management of a
household, in so far as the art of household
management must either find ready to hand, or
itself provide, such things necessary to life, and
useful for the community of the family or state, as
can be stored. They are the elements of true
riches; for the amount of property which is needed
for a good life is not unlimited….But there is a
boundary fixed; just as there is in other arts…”
Unnatural Acquisition: usury
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Barter between persons (natural);
Coinage enabled retail and international trade
(starting to be unnatural);
Banking/usury (lending money at interest):
“the most hated sort [of wealthgetting]..which makes gain out of money
itself, and not from the natural object of it.”
Forbidden by the medieval Church;
Usury today means to exceed a certain rate
of interest and is still a crime;
What is the usury rate in HK?
Unnatural Trade 1.9
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Example of unnatural use of an object:
A shoe is made for wear, but not for exchange;
“Hence, we may infer that retail trade is not a natural
part of the art of getting wealth; had it been so, men
would have ceased to exchange when they had
enough”;
How would Aristotle define ‘enough’?
How would we? Do we accept this notion?
Cf. idea of ‘limits to growth’ put forward by
environmentalists.
Why not stockpile money (1.9)?
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Some assume riches = large quantity of coin;
Others say coin = convention (recall slavery
argument), and hence nothing;
Example of Midas: “how can that be wealth
of which a man may have a great abundance
and yet perish with hunger…?”
These are “riches of the spurious [false]
kind.”
Other objections to
wealth-getting (1.9)
Object of life: To lead a good life (not just ANY life);
 This is also the purpose of the household;
“…some persons are led to believe [by confusion over
means] that getting wealth is the object of household
management, and the whole idea of their lives is that
they ought either to increase their money without
limit, or at any rate not to lose it. The origin of this
disposition in men is that they are intent upon living
only, and not upon living well….”
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Legitimate wealth-getting (1.11)
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Tillage of soil;
Animal Husbandry; which animals yield best,
and in which environments;
Refs. Treatises of Chares, Apollodorus;
Natural resources: timber, mining
Thales of Miletus, whose knowledge of
meteorology enabled him to predict the olive
harvest, hire presses and create a monopoly;
Thales “showed the world that philosophers
can easily be rich if they like, but that their
ambition is of another sort”!
Question 1.
"We can never know what nature
means since we won't be able to
know 'the end.'" Do you agree or
disagree, and why?
Question 2.
If Aristotle is right about women’s role,
do we consider the movement of
emancipation that started in the
second half of the nineteenth century
only as an error of society?