Natural Slavery
Aristotle's notorious, much-contested claim that some people are, by their very nature, fit only to be slaves.
In Book I of the Politics, Aristotle (4th c. BCE) argued that certain human beings lack the capacity to deliberate and rule themselves, and so are 'slaves by nature,' for whom servitude is fitting and even beneficial. He set them apart from people enslaved merely by conquest or law — a distinction his own argument left unstable. The theory was challenged even in antiquity and became one of the most criticized ideas in his work, later invoked and disputed in debates over conquest and human equality.
How it traveled
- LawsAthens · -348explains
- GorgiasAthens · -348redefines
- PoliticsChalcis · -322explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Ab urbe conditaPadua · -27applies
- LycurgusChaeronea · 120explains
- Civil WarsAlexandria · 165applies
- DeipnosophistaeNaucratis · 230explains
- KiddushinSura (Babylonia) · 500
- Torah Temimah on TorahPinsk · 1904
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
- Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit—applies
- De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv)—explains
- OrationesPrusaexplains
- De Virtutibus—explains
- Fragmenta MoraliaAthenschallenges
- Epistulae—challenges
Key passages(20)
De Vita Contemplativa · Philo Judaeus
Praeparatio Evangelica · Eusebius of Caesarea
Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit · Philo Judaeus
Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit · Philo Judaeus
Excerpta Controversiae · Seneca the Elder
De Beneficiis · Seneca, Lucius Annaeus