Part 2 of 3
Having at last defined the slave and the slave’s function, Aristotle explains how nature has endowed the slave to make him suitable for that function. His discussion is full of references to domestic animals. Before I explore that passage, it might be helpful to revisit Aristotle’s initial slave-herd animal comparison, and reconsider it in light of later comments. When introducing the household, he stated that the ox serves the poor man in place of a slave.
I demonstrated that Aristotle conflated ox and slave on the basis of two points of similarity: they are both part of the household, and they both perform physical labor. I can now add a third similarity. I have just shown that, when defining the slave’s function, Aristotle emphasizes the notion of subordination as much as manual labor. A slave works on his master’s orders; thus, he serves as the master’s tool for carrying out bodily labor. In order for the assimilation of slave and ox to be complete – and it has to be, because Aristotle treats them interchangeably – then the ox, too, must be a tool. It will become clear how easily herd animals fit this description, if we think of the ox and plow in terms of Aristotle’s later example of tools. Just as the pilot employs the look-out man and the rudder as an animate and inanimate tool for steering the ship, so a farmer employs an ox and a plow, an animate tool and an inanimate one, for the purpose of plowing the field. A plow does not pull itself, nor an ox move into the traces and pull the plow of its own accord. The farmer brings the two entities together, deciding when and where to plow. The farmer single-handedly initiates and dictates the whole activity, and so the other two elements in the process are merely tools by which he accomplishes what is essentially his task.
It is now obvious why Aristotle brings domestic animals into his discussion of slaves. As I suggested in the previous chapter, and will continue to argue in this one, domestic animals served as a shorthand reference for slavery, because they were perceived as slaves by nature. They are an entire species destined and formed for servitude, down to the last member. In this particular context, however, they also stand for a more specific set of attributes. They exemplify the two characteristics which Aristotle claims are the defining features of the servile role: manual labor and subordination. Animals do not, cannot, engage in intellectual work; they have only their bodies, and so bodily labor, to offer. Moreover, herd animals do not, cannot, discharge their tasks under their own impetus, at their own discretion – any more than a hammer can. They act only under compulsion from the master. Thus they exist in a truly perfect state of subordination, always executing their master’s will, doing jobs that are necessary for his well-being. Thus they are the perfect animate tools, or, as we would say, perfect pieces of equipment – like modern tractors, which eventually replaced draft animals.
Because his two definitions are basically equivalent – slave as physical laborer and herd animal, and slave as tool and possession – Aristotle can revert back to one after establishing the other. Although he has just described the slave as a tool and a possession, he never applies the label “tool” when he finally talks about the mental composition of the natural slave. He does specify once that such a person “is capable of becoming the property of another”, but other than that, references to physical labor and herd animals predominate. The passage is worth quoting in full:ὅσοι μὲν οὖν τοσοῦτον διεστᾶσιν ὅσον ψυχὴ σώματος καὶ ἄνθρωπος θηρίου(διάκεινται δὲ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον, ὅσων ἐστὶν ἔργον ἡ τοῦ σώματος χρῆσις, καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν βέλτιστον), οὗτοι μέν εἰσι φύσει δοῦλοι, οἷς βέλτιόν ἐστιν ἄρχεσθαι ταύτην τὴν ἀρχήν, εἴπερ καὶ τοῖς εἰρημένοις. ἔστι γὰρ φύσει δοῦλος ὁ δυνάμενος ἄλλου εἶναι(διὸ καὶ ἄλλου ἐστίν) καὶ ὁ κοινωνῶν λόγου τοσοῦτον ὅσον αἰσθάνεσθαι ἀλλὰ μὴ ἔχειν• τὰ γὰρ ἄλλα ζῷα οὐ λόγου αἰσθανόμενα, ἀλλὰ παθήμασιν ὑπηρετεῖ. καὶ ἡ χρεία δὲ παραλλάττει μικρόν• ἡ γὰρ πρὸς τἀναγκαῖα τῷ σώματι βοήθεια γίνεται παρ᾽ ἀμφοῖν, παρά τε τῶν δούλων καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἡμέρων ζῴων. (1254b16-26)
We may thus conclude that all men who differ from others as much as the body differs from the soul, or an animal from a man (and this is the case with all whose function is bodily service, and who produce their best when they supply such service) – all such are by nature slaves, and it is better for them, on the very same principle as in the other cases just mentioned, to be ruled by a master. A man is thus by nature a slave if he is capable of becoming (and this is the reason why he also actually becomes) the property of another, and if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself. Herein he differs from animals, which do not apprehend reason, but simply obey their instincts. But the use which is made of the slave diverges but little from the use made of tame animals; both he and they supply their owner with bodily help in meeting his daily requirements.
Here, Aristotle finally identifies the innate quality that makes the natural slave suited for the servile role, and no other. As he makes his case, he touches upon all the major premises of his argument, and, at each point, he associates slaves and herd animals as closely as possible. He repeats that natural slaves 1) perform physical labor in service to the master 2) are subordinate to the master 3) have been made by nature specifically for that function. In the course of the passage, Aristotle maintains that each of these attributes are just as applicable to domestic animals as to slaves. However, despite going out of his way to establish the functional similarity between them, he concludes that human slaves do not possess the same nature as domestic animals.
The assimilation of slave and animal on the basis of physical labor is especially obvious and emphatic in this passage, clearly demonstrating the ideological entanglement of slaves, domestic animals, and bodies. Animals are in fact mentioned three times; likewise, the word σῶμα appears three times. From the very first sentence, the reason for connecting body, slave, and animal is obvious: the body links slaves and herd animals, because both engage in bodily labor. Aristotle begins, “We may thus conclude that all men who differ from others as much as the body differs from the soul, or an animal from a man…” This statement groups animal, slave, and body together, in opposition to human and soul.
While stressing that both human and animal slaves are manual laborers, Aristotle reminds the reader that this role gives rise to their inherent characteristics. Who are these servile men, who differ from others as much as body from soul and animal from man? The answer is: “all those whose function (ἔργον) is bodily service (ἡ τοῦ σώματος χρῆσις), and who produce their best when they supply such service”. Here the crucial notion of function, ἔργον, resurfaces. The slave’s function determines his innate qualities, since nature has formed each thing so as to best fulfill its function. Thus, those “who produce their best” when they perform the servile function, must have been formed by nature in order to perform that function. What is this function appropriate to slaves? Use of the body (ἡ τοῦ σώματος χρῆσις). The reader is already prepared to identify this function with that of herd animals, since Aristotle grouped animal and body together in the very first sentence. The final sentence reinforces the association. He notes that the use (ἡ χρεία) made of slaves differs little from that of domestic animals. From both comes bodily help in meeting daily requirements: ἡ γὰρ πρὸς τἀναγκαῖα τῷ σώματι βοήθεια γίνεται παρ᾽ ἀμφοῖν.
The final sentence, in addition to reemphasizing physical activity, also alludes to the second feature that defines the servile state: subordination. The phrase τῷ σώματι refers to manual labor, and ἡ βοήθεια refers indirectly to Aristotle’s other description of the slave, slave as ὑπηρέτης and ὀργάνον. That description, as I argued earlier, arises from the ideas of “assistance” and “subordination” implicit in ὑπηρέτης. Βοήθεια is a conceptual echo of ὑπηρέτης and ὀργάνον, in that it too expresses the sense of “help” or “assistance” rendered to the master, and, by extension, of “subordination” to the master. Since Aristotle specifies that βοήθεια is forthcoming from both slaves and animals, he is explicitly stating what the reader previously had to infer: the herd animal, like the slave, should be considered a ὑπηρέτης and an ὀργάνον. This final sentence, then, completes the assimilation of slave and domestic animal on the basis of function. Aristotle has brought their respective roles into perfect alignment, maintaining that they in fact fulfill the same role in two major respects: they perform physical labor and they are subordinate to the master. He has argued, as well, that both types of creature have been formed by nature to play that part.
Aristotle only contrasts slave with herd animal when he discusses their mental capabilities. He writes, “A man is thus by nature a slave…if he participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself. Herein he differs from animals, which do no apprehend reason, but simply obey their instincts”: ἔστι γὰρ φύσει δοῦλος…ὁ κοινωνῶν λόγου τοσοῦτον ὅσον αἰσθάνεσθαι ἀλλὰ μὴ ἔχειν. τὰ γὰρ ἄλλα ζῷα οὐ λόγῳ αἰσθανόμενα ἀλλὰ παθήμασιν ὑπηρετεῖ. At last, Aristotle has indicated the characteristic which makes a slave adapted by nature to his role. The fact that he differentiates between slave and herd animal in this one regard seems strange in a passage devoted to establishing the similarity between them. By his own reasoning, slaves and domestic animals should be virtually identical, since they discharge identical functions. Apparently, not even an apologist as determined as Aristotle could deny the evidence of his own eyes, and pretend that slaves were no more intelligent than animals. He grants slaves some share in reason, but none at all to animals.
Specifically, Aristotle claims that slaves participate in reason (λόγου) so far as to apprehend it (αἰσθάνεσθαι), but not to possess it (ἔχειν). What does that mean, and how does this mental profile equip the slave for his particular function? This characterization of the slave’s mental capacity can only be explained with reference to Aristotle’s own psychological theory.33 For our purposes, we need not inquire too closely into the details, or how a creature could possibly understand reason without actually having it. It is enough to form a rough idea of Aristotle’s meaning from his comments in the Politics itself. Later in the text, he claims that “the slave is entirely without the faculty of deliberation”: ὁ μὲν γὰρ δοῦλος ὅλως οὐκ ἔχει τὸ βουλευτικόν (1260a12). Elsewhere, he says that slaves and animals “have no share in…a life based on choice”: διὰ τὸ μὴ μετέχειν...τοῦ ζὴν κατὰ προαίρεσιν (1280a33-34). From these remarks, we might safely conclude that the slave cannot deliberate for himself and thus arrive at a rational choice. Therefore he does not possess reason, to the extent that he is unable to produce the reasoned discourse that leads to an informed decision. According to Aristotle, however, he can “apprehend” reason. Aristotle must be suggesting that, although a slave cannot engage in rational discourse, he can comprehend it when it is directed at him by another. To put it another way, the slave lacks the διάνοια, intelligence, which was identified as the peculiar characteristic of the master back in the introduction to the household. This attribute enables the master to “foresee”, προορᾶν, presumably because he utilizes his intelligence to rationally assess a situation, and devise a response likely to ensure a positive outcome. A natural slave does not have this power, but he can understand his master’s reasons and instructions well enough to recognize their wisdom, and execute them.
This mental profile does indeed correspond to the slave’s function, as Aristotle has defined it. A slave’s proper role requires him to implement his master’s will by performing bodily labor. The natural slave’s limited grasp of reason makes him exactly suited to both aspects of this task. He must earn his keep through physical labor, because he has nothing else to offer; his mental deficiency leaves him unable to make intellectual contributions. The same deficiency renders him a perfect tool for implementing the master’s will. Since he can comprehend his master’s commands and their rationale, if it is explained to him, he is both receptive to those commands and capable of executing them. However, his intellectual shortcomings ensure that he will not exceed the purview of his station by formulating those orders for himself. The slave does not need to think for himself; his master thinks for him. Such an ability would be redundant in a slave, since he is constrained to obey his master anyway. It would even be undesirable, threatening to undo the master-slave relationship entirely. A high level of intelligence in the slave would potentially blur the distinction between master and slave, undermine the former’s claim to authority over the latter, and incite the slave to dangerous levels of independence. The fact that Aristotle limits the intellectual capacity of the natural slave thus reflects the concerns of a slave owner, who had a vested interest in reinforcing the disparity between himself and his slaves as a means of maintaining his power over them. This biased perspective leads Aristotle to identify a mental defective as the person best equipped to fulfill the servile function. A human endowed with the ability to apprehend reason, but not to produce it, can carry out his assigned tasks with efficiency, but cannot challenge his state of subordination.
A person so composed is ill-furnished to live without a master. Because his own reasoning capabilities are impaired, the natural slave actually stands to benefit from his master’s direction. This constitutes one, last similarity between slave and domestic animal. Aristotle declared in his introduction to the household that the association of master and slave is advantageous to both parties. They band together διὰ τὴν σωτηρίαν, for the sake of preservation, and cannot exist without each other. Since they cooperate to ensure mutual survival, the same thing benefits both. The word σωτηρία resurfaces in a comment about herd animals, thereby establishing another parallel between slave and animal. Both unite with the master for the sake of some sort of σωτηρία. Aristotle states, “Tame animals have a better nature than wild, and it is better for all such animals that they should be ruled by man because they then get the benefit of preservation”: τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἥμερα τῶν ἀργίων βελτίω τὴν φύσιν, τούτοις δὲ πᾶσι βέλτιον ἄρχεσθαι ὑπ’ ἀνθρώπου• τυγχάνει γὰρ σωτηρίας οὕτως (1254b10-13). Presumably σωτηρία, or “preservation”, in this instance means the same thing it did previously: the provision of daily needs.
To understand why the daily needs of animals and slaves are better provided for with a master than without, we must again consider the master’s contribution to the partnership between himself and his animal and human subjects. The sentence above specifies that it is better for tame animals “to be ruled by man” (ἄρχεσθαι ὑπ’ ἀνθρώπου); thus they procure σωτηρία. For the animal, then, σωτηρία is the result of being ruled, not of cooperating on an equal footing. This thought occurs in a section which argues that every whole has a ruling element (τὸ ἄρχον) and a ruled, or subject, element (τὸ ἀρχόμενον). In each case, it is natural (κατὰ φύσιν) and beneficial (συμφέρον) – for both the whole and the subject element – that the ruling element hold sway (1254b2-16). The man-animal relation is offered as an example. The entire argument culminates with the assertion that the same holds true for the master-slave relation. The concepts and language here echo those found in Aristotle’s earlier remarks, on the household. When he first speaks of the natural master and natural slave, he refers to them as the “ruler and ruled by nature”, ἄρχον δὲ καὶ ἀρχόμενον φύσει. In these two passages, then, Aristotle portrays both slave and herd animal as natural subject elements, who gain from their subordination to the natural ruling element, embodied by the master. By doing so, Aristotle indicates that both kinds of slave stand in the same relation to the master, and so profit from his rulership in the same way.
What does the master’s rulership entail, and how does it promote the welfare of his subjects? When I discussed Aristotle’s remarks on the household, I noted that he identifies intelligence, διάνοια, as the special attribute of the natural master, which grants him the special ability to foresee, προορᾶν; it is by virtue of this innate ability that the natural master is a natural ruler. We have seen that Aristotle’s entire argument reflects this understanding of the master’s capacities and purpose. He basically envisions the master as upper management: he is the director of the household enterprise, who uses his peculiar rational powers to make the best possible plans and decisions for the upkeep of the household. Slaves and herd animals must rely on their master to perform these duties, since, as entities not formed for rulership, they lack the rational capacity to do it themselves.
Because the master’s role consists of planning and management, and the slave’s role consists of physically implementing those designs, the distinction between ruling and being ruled amounts to a division of labor; Aristotle allots intellectual labor to the master, and manual labor to slaves and domestic animals. From this division of labor arises provision for the necessities of life. Each party in both pairs – master and human slave, master and animal slave – provides the other with something that he himself lacks. By pooling the mental resources of the master, and the physical resources of human and animal slave, together they accomplish whatever work is required for the upkeep of the household. It is vital to this process that the master have authority over all the participants, because his intelligent management makes the most of their working potential. I observed that herd animals do not carry out their jobs at their own instigation; their owner must compel them to perform the work. Likewise, the master must have control over the slave’s activities. Because the natural slave cannot reason, any more than a herd animal, he cannot even determine how best to use his own body, any more than a herd animal can. For this reason, it benefits slaves and animals alike to serve and obey the one who knows how to utilize them. Thus, their subordination, and the master’s rule, is advantageous in that it guarantees necessary tasks are accomplished in the best possible way, thereby improving the standard of living for all involved.
I argued previously that the servitude of natural slaves, human and animal, was considered just because that condition accorded with their innate capacities and merits. We have now seen why their servitude was supposedly beneficial for them, as well: it maximized their material well-being. This point completes the assimilation of slave and herd animal on the basis of function. By Aristotle’s reckoning, although the two are not mentally identical, they are identical in all the circumstances which pertain to their role in the household: the activities they perform, their subordination to the master, and now, finally, the return they secure by participating in that unequal partnership.
That is the sum of Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery, as it relates to the conflation of slave and herd animal. The entire argument responds to contemporary critics of slavery, who apparently critiqued slavery on the grounds that the master-slave distinction is conventional rather than natural. Aristotle sets out to show that the distinction is natural in instances where the master and slave are both innately suited for their particular roles. In order to accomplish this goal, he has to describe what those roles consists of, and how nature has formed certain people especially for those roles. His teleological theory provides the ideological mechanism which allows him to posit the existence of these two, intrinsically different categories of human being, fashioned by nature for two different functions. Aristotle’s teleology holds that every organism is constituted by nature in the way that best enables it to fulfill its function. Since masters and slaves do in fact perform necessary but distinct functions, natural masters and natural slaves must exist, each constituted differently in order to suit their respective functions. The master’s function is to make decisions and formulate plans for the household, using reason. The slave’s function is to physically implement his master’s plans, which amounts to serving as his master’s tool for performing physical labor. This function has two aspects: bodily labor and subordination to the master. A person formed for that function possesses limited mental abilities. He can understand reason, and so execute his master’s orders; however, he cannot reason for himself. Thus he must be told what to do, and has nothing to offer but his body. When nature has made someone in such a way, the distinction between master and slave is natural and just. The master-slave arrangement is beneficial, as well, even for the slave, because it optimizes his material welfare. The same is true of domestic animals, also fashioned by nature for precisely the same function. They are even more mentally deficient than human slaves, since they cannot comprehend reason at all. Therefore, they can do no better than to carry out bodily labor at the master’s bidding.
The ProblemsOstensibly, this theory offers a likely basis for the many slave-herd animal comparisons in the Greco-Roman textual record. As I discussed in the previous chapter, it seems to have been a common belief that domestic animals are natural slaves: because nature has made them for the purpose of serving mankind, they inevitably possess an inherently servile character. When Aristotle claims that human slaves, too, are slaves by nature, he locates them in the same conceptual category as herd animals. He also makes slaves equivalent to animals in several essentials. Aristotle maintains that both fulfill the same function, suffer a similar mental deficiency, and receive an identical benefit from their servitude. A comparison between the two that invokes Aristotle’s theory could therefore allude to the broader point of similarity, their shared status as natural slaves, or to any of the more specific points just mentioned.
We might think that ancient slave owners would embrace Aristotle’s argument, since it justifies their power over and exploitation of slaves. In fact, there is reason to believe that the idea was never widely accepted at all; it certainly does not account for the majority of slave-herd animal comparisons. I have observed that Aristotle’s theory not only assimilates slave and herd animal to the same category, “natural slave”, but also establishes other, more specific points of likeness, all of which are related to function. As I will demonstrate, these functional similarities provide the grounds on which Aristotle assimilates slave to herd animal. Here is the first indicator that his theory does not underlie most slave-herd animal comparisons. He himself reveals – and utilizes – a basis of comparison which is both more fundamental and more conventional: productive function. I will also discuss the following two circumstances, which make his theory unlikely to have been adopted in antiquity, especially by the Romans, and thus unlikely to have inspired a phenomenon as widespread as the slave-herd animal comparisons. Aristotle’s argument is more theoretical than practical. It is doubtful whether anyone familiar with ancient slavery would have found it applicable to reality. Moreover, the Stoics generally denied that any human is a slave by nature. Because Stoicism influenced the Romans far more than Aristotle, their opposition is likely to have limited the impact of Aristotle’s theory among the Romans.
Function-Based ComparisonsFor the most part, Aristotle himself does not liken slave and domestic animal on the basis of his own theory. Almost all of his comparisons establish similarities in function, which are external circumstances, separate from the personal character of those being compared. However, for us to safely conclude that a comparison makes use of his theory, it must clearly indicate that slaves and animals have some inherent feature in common. To say that both are natural slaves is to posit a shared character trait. If a slave or animal is a slave by nature, then nature has bestowed on him a certain character trait, or innate quality, that renders him fit for servitude. Yet, only twice does Aristotle make a statement that links slave and animal because of an innate quality. A close examination of both passages will reveal that, according to Aristotle’s own theory, the inborn characteristics of slaves and animals do not precisely correspond. Thus, comparing them on the premise that both are natural slaves is problematic, even for Aristotle. He has better grounds for claiming that they perform the same function; that assertion, as I maintain, comments on the external circumstances associated with the servile role, rather than the character of the slave himself.
I will now show that functional similarity is the more basic and workable analogy, one which does not depend on Aristotle’s theory, but actually gives rise to it. Moreover, the function supposedly shared by slave and herd animal, according to Aristotle, has two important features: it is an economic or productive function, and it is the function conventionally assigned to slaves and herd animals. I contend that, so far from Aristotle introducing the practice of slave-herd animal comparisons, a long-standing tradition of such comparisons, based on productive function, actually influenced him and shaped his theory. This understanding of the matter explains the prominence of the comparisons in his argument. He uses this common habit, and the common ideas associated with it, to support a more original notion: that of the teleologically adapted and mentally deficient slave by nature. Thus, Aristotle primarily employs the kind of function-based slave-animal comparisons that were already standard by his day, and does so for rhetorical ends.
I have already touched upon one of the comparisons that seem to establish an inherent similarity between slave and herd animal. Shortly before he describes their reasoning capacities, or lack thereof, Aristotle says: “We may thus conclude that all men who differ from others as much as body differs from the soul, or an animal from a man…all such are by nature slaves” (1254b16-19). When I discussed this sentence earlier, I pointed out that it associates both slave and animal with the body, and so with bodily labor. It also suggests that slaves are intrinsically different from other humans and intrinsically like animals, since they “differ from others as much as…an animal from a man”. However, this is one of the many contradictions within Aristotle’s argument. By his own reasoning, natural slaves are not, in fact, as far below other humans as animals are. When he provides the psychological profile of a natural slave, he specifically contrasts the slave’s mental capabilities with those of animals: “He participates in reason to the extent of apprehending it in another, though destitute of it himself. Herein he differs from animals, who do not apprehend reason, but simply obey their instincts” (1254b22- 24). While animals have no share in reason at all, natural slaves do “participate in reason”. Apparently, that is enough reason to make them human, albeit sub-standard humans, because Aristotle refers to slaves as ἄνθρωποι several times in the course of his argument, including three times in his definition of the slave (1254a13-20), as I indicated previously. Thus, even if he falls short of full human potential, the natural slave is not mentally equivalent to a herd animal. His mental deficiency certainly brings him much closer to the status of animal; nonetheless, the natural slave is neither completely human nor completely animal, but sui generis.34 This means that Aristotle’s theory will not support a comparison that equates slaves with animals because of mental composition. The most that can be said is that both are mentally lacking, though in different ways. The fact that slaves and herd animals differ mentally constitutes, too, a strange feature in Aristotle’s argument. He contends that both domestic animals and natural slaves are equipped by nature for precisely the same function, but, evidently, the one, natural trait that makes them so equipped is not the same for both.
There is a second passage which seemingly assimilates human to animal slave due to a shared innate quality. Having established that some humans, like animals, are slaves by nature, Aristotle says that such people, like animals, ought to be hunted and subdued (1256b15-26). Here again, though, he does not actually posit that slaves and herd animals have the same inherent traits; rather, he makes the comparison on the grounds that both types of slave perform and are naturally suited for the same role. He begins the thought by stating that plants exist to give subsistence to animals, and animals to give subsistence to men. Domestic animals serve for use (διὰ τὴν χρῆσιν) as well as for food, and even wild animals furnish food and other provisions. From these observations, Aristotle reaches the following conclusion. “Accordingly, as nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, all animals must have been made by nature for the sake of men”: εἰ οὖν ἡ φύσις μηδὲν μήτε ἀτελὲς ποιεῖ μήτε μάτην, ἀναγκαῖον τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἕνεκεν αὐτὰ πάντα πεποιηκέναι τὴν φύσιν. The word ἀτελὲς – from τέλος, “end” – shows that Aristotle’s teleological theory is at work here. Animals provide for various human needs. Since they serve that end, and since nature makes everything for an end, animals must have been made specifically for the end which they do in fact serve. This is as close as Aristotle comes to saying explicitly that domestic animals are slaves by nature, though the assumption has been there all along. Domestic animals exist by nature for the sake of men, and have been designed by nature for their use, διὰ τὴν χρῆσιν.
That attribute – designed by nature for use – is the one that animals share with humans in this passage; Aristotle is not necessarily claiming that some humans therefore are animals. The concept of “use”, χρῆσις, figured prominently in Aristotle’s discussion of the natural slave, presented as the primary feature that slaves and herd animals have in common. The natural slave’s function (ἔργον) is use of the body (ἡ τοῦ σώματος χρῆσις) (1254b18), and the use (ἡ χρεία) made of the slave differs little from the use made of tame animals (1254b24). There, we learned that the natural slave’s proper function, for which he has been created, coincides with the use to which herd animals are put. Here, Aristotle finally confirms that animals, too, have been created by nature especially for that same use and function. If a natural slave is someone or something that nature has fashioned to discharge the servile function, then domestic animals match that description just as well as human slaves. The fact that both slaves and animals fit this description, and that they are both natural slaves as a result, forms the emphasis of this passage. Aristotle does not mention the particular qualities which make them suited to their function.
Because they are natural slaves – not because they are mentally identical – Aristotle proclaims that hunting both animals and servile humans is natural and just. “Hunting humans”, of course, would normally be referred to as “warfare”. Aristotle conflates hunting and warfare on the grounds that both are modes of acquisition. Once he has established this point, he says: “Hunting ought to be practiced – not only against wild animals, but also against human beings who are intended by nature to be ruled by others and refuse to obey that intention – because war of this order is naturally just”: ἡ γὰρ θηρευτικὴ...ᾗ δεῖ χρῆσθαι πρός τε τὰ θηρία καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὅσοι πεφυκότες ἄρχεσθαι μὴ θέλουσιν, ὡς φύσει δίκαιον τοῦτον ὄντα τὸν πόλεμον. This statement must be explained with reference to the preceding discussion on natural slavery. The entire argument assumes that slavery is just if, and only if, the master and slave are each innately suited to and deserving of their positions; on this, Aristotle and his anonymous opponents agree. Therefore, the master-slave distinction is just when the former is a ruler by nature, and the latter a subject by nature. The current passage also presumes that justice is proportionate. When Aristotle claims that it is just to hunt “human beings intended by nature to be ruled by others” (πεφυκότες ἄρχεσθαι), he surely refers to natural slaves, for whom subjection to the master’s rule is part of their natural function, and for whom such subjection is just, because it is their due. Since he identifies hunting and warfare as means of acquisition, he clearly imagines that hunting or warfare, when practiced against natural slaves, aims at acquiring slaves, rather than killing them. Thus, hunting or warring against natural slaves attempts to reduce them to the state that nature has intended for them, and which fits their inherent qualities. For this reason, a war of that type is natural and just. Natural, because directed toward compelling slaves to fulfill the function which nature has created them for. Just, because that is their appropriate lot.
By saying that hunting ought to be practiced against both wild animals and natural slaves, Aristotle makes it clear that the same argument applies to hunting animals as to hunting slaves. All animals, by Aristotle’s reckoning, exist to provide for men, and are therefore innately suited to fulfilling this purpose. If a wild animal is captured and domesticated for service, that is one way in which an animal can provide for humans. If a wild animal cannot be tamed, but is killed for meat or some other product, that too provides for humans. Either way, the application of force ensures that the animal performs its natural function and suffers the fate merited by its natural qualities – just as the application of force ensures that natural slaves perform their function and receive their due. In both cases, that function entails meeting the needs of the natural ruler in some manner. The assertion, then, that it is just and natural to hunt both animals and natural slaves relies on the premise that both have been designed by nature for the same function. The exact details of the design, which render each party suited for their function, do not matter here.
By now it should be clear that mental likeness does not prompt Aristotle to compare slave and herd animal, and to do so repeatedly and emphatically throughout his argument; similar function does. Intellectual deficiency, in a general sense, renders each fit for the servile function, but they are not intellectually equivalent. Although he proposes that both lack full reasoning capacity, he still grants some reason to slaves, thus making them human, rather than mere animals. Apparently nature has equipped them in different ways for their role. After having established their respective psychological profiles, he drops the matter of mental composition. His next comparison, which asserts that both may be hunted justly, operates on the principle that both are slaves by nature, without addressing the mental traits that make them innately servile. By the terms of Aristotle’s theory, they are both natural slaves because nature has formed them for the same, servile function, not because they are identical in all respects, or even with regard to their reasoning powers.
This view of the matter reveals the primary basis of comparison between slave and herd animal, the one that generates all others: function. For Aristotle to contend that nature has formed them for the same function, he must first suppose that they do, in fact, serve the same function. That view underlies the very first slave-herd animal comparison, in which Aristotle claims that the ox serves the poor man in place of a slave (1252b12). Ox and slave are interchangeable with regard to the function, or work, they perform in the household. Like the rest of the premises established in Aristotle’s introduction to the household, this function-based comparison helps set up the rest of his argument. It is from this supposed functional similarity that he extrapolates both his definition of the slave, and the psychological profile of the natural slave. As I have already pointed out, the initial assumption that gives rise to Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery is the belief that slavery is necessary and therefore natural; since it is natural, then, by the terms of Aristotle’s teleological theory, there must be a natural human type adapted to fulfill that role. Accordingly, he first sets out to delineate the natural slave’s function – clearly with herd animals in mind, as the comparison with the ox reveals. After defining the slave’s function, only then can Aristotle propose the psychological profile which would best enable a person to discharge that function. He fits the mind to the function, not the function to some preconceived notion of the slave’s mental capabilities. Thus, the psychological profile is the result of Aristotle’s procedure, and the natural slave’s diminished mental capacity – which brings him closer to the level of an animal – is the endpoint of a long line of reasoning: a line of reasoning which begins with the premise that slaves fulfill the same natural function as domestic animals. The functional comparison is prior to the mental one, prior to all other points of comparison, and is therefore fundamental to Aristotle’s whole argument.
Since, according to Aristotle’s reasoning, function gives rise to innate qualities, the notion that slaves and animals perform the same function shapes his entire theory – and Aristotle is at pains to emphasize that fact. He decides that both carry out physical labor at the master’s direction; because the master provides the rational element in that process, herd animals and natural slaves lack the ability to reason for themselves, having no need of it. This characterization of the slave’s role brings his function perfectly – suspiciously – into alignment with that of a herd animal. Animals clearly offer only physical services, and possess inferior intelligence; Aristotle has fairly secure grounds for pronouncing as he does on their function and powers. However, his description of the slave’s function is more theoretical than realistic, in that many slaves surely had to exercise reason from time to time in executing their duties, and not all of them were engaged in manual labor. Aristotle – purposefully? – subscribes to a view of the slave’s proper function that ignores observable reality, and in so doing, assimilates the slave’s usefulness as closely as possible to that of an animal. If he then posits a rough psychological resemblance between the two, making them both mentally deficient, it is because their functional similarity calls for an innate similarity. Two entities designed by nature for the same purpose must have some trait in common, which equips each alike to serve that purpose. Aristotle thus appears to go out of his way to fit the slave’s function to that of a domestic animal, with dire consequences for the intelligence and humanity of the slave.
It ought to be noted that the function shared by slaves and herd animals is essentially an economic, or productive, one. Because Aristotle locates both in the οἶκος, the role which he assigns to them is economic, in the strict sense. It is economic in the broad sense if we recognize that Aristotle is basically talking about productive function. Strangely, Aristotle insists that a slave is a tool for action, not for production (1254a1-6). I say “strangely”, because many servile activities must have aimed at production. As P.A. Brunt points out, it is difficult to see which slave services could not be brought under the heading of production.35 I showed earlier that, when Aristotle claims that both master and slave derive σωτηρία from their relationship, σωτηρία means “provision for the daily necessities of life”. The daily necessities of life consist of goods that are necessary in order to live. If the master-slave relationship exists for the sake of σωτηρία, and σωτηρία subsists in producing necessary goods, then the relationship exists for producing necessary goods. It could be that Aristotle identifies the proper purview of slaves as “action” because “production” is a kind of action, and therefore falls under that wider heading; thus, the activities of a slave could be understood to include production, among other things.36 At any rate, the slave’s function, as he describes it, is essentially a productive or economic one, in our sense of those words. Even a service that does not result in a tangible product, such as cleaning, has a certain monetary, and so economic, value.
Aristotle’s emphasis on the slave’s subordination obscures the economic focus of his argument, since the notion of subordination seems to indicate a power relationship rather than an economic one. However, as I noted previously, it really signifies not so much the power disparity between master and slave, as the division of labor between them. The master uses his intellect to plan. The slave uses his body to implement that plan. Respectively, they represent the intellectual and physical aspects of one productive process, providing for the household. In this process, the plan is prior to the execution, and the executor must obey the planner. “Subordination” in this context therefore refers to the slave’s secondary role in production, as the executor of another man’s plans. It does not refer to the power relation specific to legal slavery, whereby a slave’s life is completely subject to the master’s power. This reading is borne out by the fact that Aristotle illustrates his point with examples that feature free men; he could not do so if he were thinking about slavery’s peculiar power dynamic. When he describes the slave as a tool – a description which entails the idea of subordination, as I said – he uses the look-out man as an example of an animate tool (1253b29). Later, he groups the assistants of master-craftsmen (τοῖς ἀρχιτέκτοσιν ὑπηρετῶν) together with slaves as types of animate tools (1253b38-1254a1). His reference to the assistants of “architects”, master-craftsmen, suggests a modern parallel. Construction workers, who realize the designs of architects, and who often take orders from foremen, perfectly fulfill Aristotle’s qualifications for tools and slaves. They perform manual labor on another’s orders, in order to execute the plans of another. We would have no trouble with classifying the construction worker’s professional role as an economic and productive one, and – given the exact correspondence between their job description and a slave’s – we should do the same for the role which Aristotle designates for slaves. Thus, when Aristotle defines the slave and his personal qualities according to function, he is doing so according to the slave’s economic or productive function. A productive function which domestic animals also serve.
Aristotle was probably not the first to characterize slaves by their productive function, and to see a similarity between slave and herd animal on that basis. He was certainly not the last. In the next chapter, I will demonstrate that Roman authors also assimilated one to the other because of productive function. This is not the place to explore the Greek tradition of comparing slaves to domestic animals, but I will point out that the habit of likening slaves to animals, and of emphasizing their use for physical labor, predates Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery. Tyrtaeus, for instance, a Spartan poet active in the seventh century B.C., wrote that the Messenians are “like asses worn out by great burdens”: ὥσπερ ὄνοι μεγάλοις ἄχθεσι τειρόμενοι (Paus. 4.14.4- 5).37 There are also instances in which authors assimilate slave and animal, without stating the basis of comparison, and others in which they speak of the slave as a manual laborer, without reference to herd animals. Xenophon, for example, twice compares slaves to animals (Oec. 13.9; Cyrop. 8.1.43-44). Demosthenes twice employs the word “body”, σῶμα, without an adjective to indicate the slave (24.167; 59.29), a usage which must surely arise from the notion that slaves work with their bodies. By the fourth century, it was clearly common and acceptable, at least in literary works, to treat slaves as physical laborers, and as a category of humans analogous to animals. Since this is the case, we should not automatically look to Aristotle to explain any given slave-herd animal comparison. It is far more likely that widespread assumptions shaped his own ideas, than that he single-handedly invented those assumptions and put them into circulation.
I propose, in fact, that, in formulating his theory of natural slavery, Aristotle drew upon a pre-existing tradition of slave-herd animal comparisons, and that the prevalence of such comparisons in his argument serves a rhetorical purpose – just as the comparisons we saw in Cicero and Sallust draw on a tradition and serve a rhetorical purpose. I have already suggested that Aristotle models the slave’s function on that performed by domestic animals – not entirely realistically. Why? Could he not have formulated a more nuanced definition of the role played by human slaves? As I said, he was probably influenced by common ideas, or generalizations, about slaves and their purpose, but that still does not explain why he goes out of his way to establish such a close correspondence between slave and herd animal. Human slaves are the topic under discussion, not animals, and no one would have denied that domestic animals provide bodily assistance, lack full human intelligence, and are seemingly formed for service to humans. However, animals are useful to Aristotle’s argument precisely because there was a general consensus regarding their function, mental powers, and innate servility – just as animals are useful to Cicero and Sallust for the same reason.
There was no such consensus about the mental powers and innate servility of human slaves, which is why Aristotle employs animals to make his case. The critics of slavery attacked the institution on the very grounds that there is no intrinsic, or natural, difference between master and slave. Apparently, it was not evident to everybody that slaves possessed sub-standard reasoning capabilities. It could be true – indeed, it seems likely – that the critics of slavery were assuming a polemical stance, and that Aristotle’s belief in innately substandard humans better reflects common prejudice. Even so, it requires an additional leap in logic to arrive at the conclusion that naturally inferior humans are also intended by nature to be slaves. Perhaps this too was a popular view, but the same cannot possibly be said for Aristotle’s particular variation on the idea of natural slaves. The average person would hardly have thought that some humans are teleologically adapted to the servile economic role by virtue of understanding reason without possessing it.
That is the unusual and non-obvious point that Aristotle has to make, and herd animals provide a means for doing so. I will now show that his use of man-animal comparisons suggests that they serve in a rhetorical capacity. He sets forth his least problematic premise, that human and animal slaves fulfill the same function – least problematic, because based upon popular preconceptions. Once he has established a similarity in function, he can more easily demonstrate that slaves and animals also share an innate similarity, connected to that function. Thus he assimilates their respective functions as much as possible, so that he can more convincingly assimilate their natural characteristics. He may do so simply to clarify and support his reasoning. If he believed his conclusions to be contentious, perhaps the comparisons are even meant to be persuasive. Either way, the close association of slaves with herd animals is an argumentative strategy.