Question

Select the sections in the following passage where Aristotle explains why he believed certain people were destined for enslavement.

*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?*
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. *For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing, not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.*
*The same holds good of animals as well as of men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is rules; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind…* *Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong for servile labour, the other upright, and although useless for such services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace. But this does not hold universally: for some slaves have the souls and others have the bodies of freemen…*
*There is a slave or slavery by law…The law of which I speak is a sort of convention, according to which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors…For what if the cause of the war be unjust? No one would ever say that he is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave. Were this the case, men of the highest rank would be slaves and the children of slaves if they or their parents chance to have been taken captive and sold.*

Answer 1

Selections where Aristotle gives his reasons for natural slavery:

1. "There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing, not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."

2. "The same holds good of animals as well as of men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is rules; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind…"

3. "Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong for servile labour, the other upright, and although useless for such services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace. But this does not hold universally: for some slaves have the souls and others have the bodies of freemen…"

(The final paragraph about "slavery by law" is Aristotle contrasting conventional/legal slavery with the natural slavery he is defending, so it is not part of his argument that some people are naturally destined to be slaves.)