To: 2MAR$ who wrote (39054 ) 7/19/2013 7:28:33 PM From: Brumar89 1 RecommendationRecommended By
Respond to Stating the OT allowed slavery does nothing to establish Hellenic treatment of non-Greeks and slaves as enlightened.the first to speak to the issues of slaves & human treatment were the greek philosophers. Politics. and in Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? This suggests that anyone who is ruled must be a slave, which does not seem at all right. Still, given that this is so he must state what characteristics a natural slave must have -- so that he or she can be recognized as such a being. Who is marked out for subjugation, and who for rule? This is where the concept of "barbarian" shows up in Aristotle's account. Aristotle says: But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female. Wherefore the poets say, It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians; as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one. So men rule naturally over women, and Greeks over barbarians! But what is it which makes a barbarian a slave? Here is what Aristotle says:Where then there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body, and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. For he who can be, and therefore is, another's and he who participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle, is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong for servile labor, the other upright, and although useless for such services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace. But the opposite often happens--that some have the souls and others have the bodies of freemen. And doubtless if men differed from one another in the mere forms of their bodies as much as the statues of the Gods do from men, all would acknowledge that the inferior class should be slaves of the superior. And if this is true of the body, how much more just that a similar distinction should exist in the soul? but the beauty of the body is seen, whereas the beauty of the soul is not seen. It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right. ... oregonstate.edu http://ethicstalk.cmich.edu/naturalslavery.pdf
