Can slave-holding societies be moral?

PHIL 1003

2008-09

Concerning contemporary slavery, see this website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/05/slavery/html/5.stm

Question

• In modern society, it seems that a man is far less often controlled by “an arbitrary power over his life” (Locke, ch.4) than by a power over his sustenance of life, i.e. his bread and butter.

• How do you think this power can lead to slavery? And if a man is thus mistreated, do you think he will tend to be immoral or have less opportunity to practice virtue?

• Rousseau argued that “to deprive one’s will of all freedom is to deprive one’s actions of all morality” (Of the Social Contract, ch.4).

• Do you agree with him?

Aristotle on slavery

Natural vs conventional

Hierarchy & Its Justification

Man

Master

Husband

Woman

Mother

Wife

Slave

Barbarian non-Greek

Ruling Element

Reason Partial Reason

Appetite

Corresp.

Body part

Brain Brain & Body

Body

Each person’s fundamental attributes are by nature.

Therefore: Hierarchy is natural.

Master-Slave relationship (Pol. 1.6)

• Slaves = living tools or instruments

• Master should not abuse his authority;

• Master and Slave can be friends and have common interest;

• BUT only if relation is natural, not if it is conventional!

• Why?

Actual Slavery

Status• No rights;• Property of master, who

could kill or punish in any way he wished;

• Law required slaves to be tortured when giving evidence;

• Manumission (grant of freedom) rare in ancient Greece (common in Rome).

Sources of slaves• Birth• Conquest/War• Criminal conviction; in

Athens this meant being sent to the silver mines, where death was certain;

• The reality was different from Aristotle’s theory!

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);• Incorrect to assume that Aristotle’s review simply

reflects the view of his peers! • This would be Historicism.

Conventional slavery (Pol. 1.6)• 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.

Elaboration on ancient slavery

In Athens• Debated and codified• Personal dependence• Essential element of

oikos (household)• Manumission rare &

contracts offered few advantages

• Closed system—did not offer passage to citizenship.

Elsewhere • Slavery included

dependent communities• E.g. Spartan Helots• Different from personal

servitude; communities had their own identities, customs, gods, etc.

• Romans used manumission strategically to create patron-client networks.

Uniform characteristics of ancient slavery

• No rights or privileges

• Could not marry

• Could not attain citizenship

• At disposal of master

• No family or family gods (had to worship those of master’s family)

• Owner gives him/her his/her name.

Manumisssion, to manumit

• Latin: man mittere < man , ablative singular of manus the power of a father or master (lit. ‘hand’: cf. MANUS n.1 2) + mittere to release, send (see MISSION n.); man

•     1. trans.    a. To release (a person) from slavery, bondage, or servitude; to set free. Also intr.: to obtain one's release from slavery, etc. Oxford English Dictionary online.

Manumission Contracts

• “…Sophrona…hands over to the Pythian Apollo to be free the female house-born slave named Onasiphoron, priced at three silver minae, and has received the whole price…if anyone touches Onasiphoron in order to enslave her, then she who has sold her and the guarantor together are to ensure that the sale to the god is valid…”

• “…many of these contracts survive, inscribed on…public buildings at Delphi and similar religious centres” (Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, p. 46-7).

Manumission, cont.

• But,• “Onasiphoron is to remain with Sophrona for the

whole period of the latter’s life, doing whatever she is ordered to do without giving cause for complaint. If she does not do so, then Sophrona is to have the power to punish her in whatever way she wishes to. And Onasiphoron is to give Sophrona a child” (quoted in Wiedemann, pp. 46-7).

• The slave might have to remain with the master’s heirs as well!

Locke on slavery

It’s one’s own fault!

S of N/S of W

• It’s all right to kill a thief (18)– even though s/he is only stealing, not trying to

kill you!– His/her action puts him/her into a state of war

with you;– You are the judge, jury and executioner in S

of N

• “Force without right, upon a man’s person, makes a state of war…” (19).

How one becomes a slave

• Liberty is natural to man (22)– therefore cannot consent enslave yourself

(23)– “he that cannot take away his own life, cannot

give another power over it” (23)– = age-old prohibition on suicide

• So how can you become a slave?!• By entering into S of W w/ someone else• If you’re a slave, it’s b/c you did sth wrong!

Justification for slavery

• “…having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it:

• “for, whenever [the slave] finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw upon himself the death he desires“ (23).

Rousseau on slavery

It’s absurd; against everything human

Rousseau’s condemnation

• The use of force produces no right (pars. 1, 11)– Cf. Thrasymachus (Plato): might = right

• To consent to be enslaved is to cease to be human (6);

• Locke agrees;

• So how do they differ?

Property is core issue

• Locke’s conditions do not hold:– No S of W in S of N;

• Why?

• B/c no property!

• Property causes disputes;

• S of W only after establishment of society/ civil govts; war occurs b/w states (7).

Conventional slavery

• “…a slave made in war or a conquered people is not bound to anything at all toward their master, except to obey him as long as they are forced to do so.”

• “In taking an equivalent of his life, the victor did not spare it: instead of killing him unprofitably, he killed him usefully” (12).

Rousseau’s summation

• “Thus, from whatever angle one looks at things, the right to slavery is null, not only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These words slavery and rights are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive” (13).

Aristotle, Locke & Rousseau on slavery

Aristotle Locke Rousseau

S of N No Yes: war &

peace

Yes:

peaceful

S of W No Yes: but ag. Law of nat.

No: only b/w states; no states in

S of N

Slavery Yes Yes No: ag. Man’s nat.