¶ … slavery and citizenship in Aristotle's Politic:
Aristotle believes that most people in the world can be enslaved devoid of injustice as they are born to be slaves. At the same time some are born to be free and dominate as masters. Most modern critics have smeared these concepts of Aristotle. In this paper the writer evaluates the concepts of citizenship and slavery in light of Aristotle's politic to reveal not only Aristotle's thinking but also how his views are inferred by contemporary philosophers.
One is forced to do the disagreeable task of reading Aristotle's account of slavery because of such divergence in the opinions of the expert scholars. If one takes a look onat Aristotle's account of slavery, he/she will notice that on one hand; his opinion about slavery is that the enslavement of someone can't be proved as acceptable merely based on weak arguments and on the other hand; he is known as a very cunning observer of realities based on politics and would indirectly endorse the enslavement of even those people who weren't actually by nature slaves. Although there is a lot of divergence in the opinions of the scholars regarding Aristotle's account of slavery but there is one thing on which everyone agrees that; his account is filled with incoherency and inconsistency (Arnhart, 1998; Fortenbaugh, 1977)[footnoteRef:2]. Comment by patrick: at Comment by patrick: one Comment by patrick:, on one hand, --no semicolon Comment by patrick:, on the one hand, Aristotle believes that slavery cannot be demonstrated acceptable on the basis of weak arguments but, on the other hand, he would indirectly advocate the enslavement of those not slaves by nature. Comment by patrick: Although scholars disgree about A's account of slavery, there is a point of consensus: the account is incoherent. [2: Arnhart, Larry. 1998. Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature Albany: SUNY Press.Fortenbaugh, W.W. 1977. "Aristotle on Slaves and Women." In Articles on Aristotle vol. 2: Ethics and Politics, ed.]
The supposed inconsistencies and incoherency found in Aristotle's account of slavery are either thought of as some mysterious symbols or very powerful force of cultural prejudice while, the presence of such critical stuff should actually be read and researched further by the reader. Schlaifer (1936)[footnoteRef:3] thinks about Aristotle as "an incoherent person [even] in the confines of a single sentence," he also says that the presence of such blemishes in the presentation of a philosopher only shows the extent of his illogicality regarding ethnocentrism; he further believes that Aristotle's "only has argument claiming that all barbarians are slaves by nature." These same sort of problems regarding the interpretation of Aristotle are found in Wood (1978, 209-57)[footnoteRef:4], Mulgan (1977, 43-44)[footnoteRef:5] and Lloyd (1968, 251)[footnoteRef:6]. The presence of incoherency is accepted by Barker (1959, 259-373)[footnoteRef:7] and Smith (1983, 119)[footnoteRef:8] but they refused to accept the statement about ethnocentrism that is found in this same interpretation, in fact they have admirably fought to refuse this charge. In their opinion Aristotle has used natural slave statement in order to state that this kind of creature doesn't exist. The most explanatory analysis has been provided by Bluhm (1980), according to whom what Aristotle wanted to do was secretly point out the unfairness of all kinds of slavery by hinting on the fact that the term natural slaves is in fact a negation (Nichols, 1992)[footnoteRef:9]. Comment by patrick: This incoherence is often attributed to cultural prejudice or interpreted too liberally, whereas what is required is more careful reading and research. Comment by patrick: Period here. He Comment by patrick: Power of ethnocentrism in inducing irrationality Comment by patrick: Period rather tan semicolon Comment by patrick: Without knowing the quote, I can't fix this. Perhaps: that A "only has argument[s] claiming…." Comment by patrick: Wood identifies these same interpretive problems Comment by patrick: Don't accept Comment by patrick: The argument concerning ethnocentric irrationality -- delete the rest Comment by patrick: Period goes here. In fact… Comment by patrick: Redundant Comment by patrick: In their view, A's account of the natural slave is his attempt to demonstrate that no such creature exists. Comment by patrick: The most powerful analysis Comment by patrick: At Comment by patrick: Self-negating? [3: Schlaifer, Robert. 1936. "Greek Theories of Slavery from Homer to Aristotle." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 47:136-204.] [4: Wood, Ellen M., and Wood, Neal. 1978. Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.] [5: Mulgan, R.G. 1977. Aristotle's Political Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.] [6: Lloyd, G.E.R. 1968. Aristotle:...
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