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Aristotle Slavery

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Aristotle believes that some people are by nature slaves. What is his argument for that claim? Do you agree with Aristotle that a slave-holding society can be democratic?

According to Aristotle, a slave is the property of its master, and that any piece of property can be regarded "as a tool enabling a man to live". The slave, therefore, is a living tool of the master, whose purpose is to allow the master to live well. A slave belongs to a master, but a master doesn't belong to a slave. The rule of a master over a slave, then, is exercised with a view to the master's and the slave's goals or interests. He represents slaves as a tool in his definition of slavery. Aristotle continues his definition of slave by explaining that those people who are “slaves” are naturally born as slaves and they are naturally the property of some one else.

“Those who are as different [from other men] as the soul from the body or man from beast – and they are in this state if their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them – are slaves by nature….For he is a slave by nature who is capable of belonging to another – which is also why he belongs to another – and who participates in reason only to the extent of perceiving it, but does not have it.”

Slaves are tools but they are alive and they belong to their masters. But when he widens his explanations about slavery, he states that all slavery instituted by human convention is not compatible with justice by saying “the distinction between slave and free is one of convention only, and in nature there is no difference, so that this form of rule is based on force and is therefore not just.” Therefore, if someone is not naturally born as a slave, it is unjust to refer him as a slave in his opinion. This critic of Aristotle means that if the slavery is built up my laws or is enforced by some particular

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