Natural Right and the Problem of Aristotle's Defense of Slavery Author(S): Darrell Dobbs Source: the Journal of Politics, Vol
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Southern Political Science Association Natural Right and the Problem of Aristotle's Defense of Slavery Author(s): Darrell Dobbs Source: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 69-94 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2132346 Accessed: 10/12/2010 23:50 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. 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Cambridge University Press and Southern Political Science Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Politics. http://www.jstor.org NaturalRight and theProblem of Aristotle'sDefense of Slavery DarrellDobbs MarquetteUniversity Many social theorists,appalled at the moralenormities made possible by the modernscientific con- quest of nature, now look to a restorationof classic naturalright as a standardfor human affairs.But the key role of slavery in Aristotle's magisterialexposition of natural right is typically overlooked. Commentatorson Aristotle's account of naturalslavery add to the perplexity,charging that this ac- count is culturallybiased and logicallyinconsistent. Such chargesplay into the hands of the opponents of naturalright, whose common theme is the inabilityof reason to overcomesuch biases in its search for what is right by nature.Lacking a defense of the moral and theoreticalrespectability of Aristotle's accountof slavery,the restorationists'cause must remainunpersuasive. To providethis defense, I sug- gest that Aristotle'steleology implies that the naturalslave, generallyspeaking, is made not born. Child- rearingand other cultural practices,which ordinarilypromote the naturaldestiny of mankind, may instead subvert this telosby inculcatinga dysfunctional,slavish second nature. Despotic rule may be said to be naturalin such cases, and only insofaras it aids the slave in better realizingthe telosproper to a human being. Aristotle quite consistentlycondemns all employmentsof the slave that are unconge- nial to the reformationof slavishnessand allows for emancipationin the event of this achievement. C lassic naturalright is rooted in a teleologicalaccount of humannature and na- ture as a whole (Strauss 1953, 7-8; 126-33). There are, of course, several varia- tions on this classic theme, but each characteristicallygrounds its moral and politicaljudgments in an objectiveand ontologicallyprior account of the distinc- tively humanvocation. The exponentof classicnatural right attempts,then, to de- scribe the quality and operationscharacteristic of mature human nature and to prescribehow-given our individual circumstances-I, you, or the next person can get there from here. Natural right neither requiresnor furnishes a guaranty that any particularbeing will attain this goal of perfect maturity;on the contrary, it entails the possibilityof developmentalfailure. In fact, naturalright recognizes the complete spectrum of diversity as to the manner and the extent to which a given person, at any given time, may fall short of the finalityof perfect maturity. The precise adjustmentnecessary to bring a particularindividual into a condition of objective maturity is necessarily,then, a matter of prudentialjudgment. One may say that a natural right prescription exists for every circumstance,even though all such prescriptionsare mutable.But the prudentialexcellence, as distin- guished from the mere cleverness,of such prescriptionsis renderedall but invis- ible to us by modern science. For modernscience vilifies any considerationof final THE JOURNALOF POLITICS,Vol. 56, No. 1, February1994, Pp. 69-94 C 1994 by the Universityof Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 70 DarrellDobbs cause as irrelevantto the primarybusiness of humanity, which it takes to be the quest for powerover the naturalworld. Modern science, however, no longer possesses the irrefragableauthority that it once enjoyed. Many social theorists, appalledat the moral enormitiesmade pos- sible by the modernscientific conquest of nature,now suggest a seriousconsidera- tion of the restorationof naturalright as a standardfor human affairs (see, e.g., Maritain 1943; Lewis 1947; Rommen 1947, 135-58; Strauss 1953, chaps. 4-5; Murray 1960, 275-36; Veatch 1971, 106-38; MacIntyre 1984, 51-78, 146-203; Kass 1985, chap. 10; Budziszewski 1986, chaps. 1-4; Masters 1990, 204-7; and Rhodes 1991, among others). Althoughnatural right's honor roll is impressive,its prospectsare by no means assured.For a significantobstacle blocks the path of its restoration:namely, our own misgivings with respect to its hierarchicalpolitical implications,most scandalouslyrepresented by Aristotle'sdefense of naturalslav- ery. The restorationistsfor their part have accepted the burden of makingclassic naturalright safe for liberaldemocracy. Jacques Maritain, one of the earliesther- alds of restoration,attempted to bring about the reconciliationof naturalright and liberaldemocracy by divorcingAristotle's defense of slaveryfrom the whole of his classic naturalright teaching.In his seminalwork, TheRights of Man and Natural Law, Maritain(1943) claimed to present an account of political society recogniz- able as "Aristotle'sown conception,but freed of its slavery-condoningdregs . .. (Maritain 1943, 45). Maritain's gambit, as one might call it, remains a popular strategywith restorationiststoday.' But I maintainthat the problemposed by Aristotle'ssubtle and complex treat- ment of slaverycannot be resolvedin so neat a fashion.For in Aristotle'sview the partnershipof masterand slave standsas the communityin which a specificdevel- opmental inadequacymay be addressedin harmonywith the human telos.Thus, we are compelled to acknowledgethat Aristotle'sdefense of naturalslavery origi- nates in the same teleologicalconsiderations as the whole of his teachingconcern- ing naturalright. Any attempt to detach the specificallydespotic componentfrom the balanceof Aristotle'spolitical philosophy threatens to underminethe integrity of the teleology upon which the whole of his naturalright teaching depends.2So ' ConsiderMacIntyre (1984), who dissociateshis own contributionto the restorationof classic natu- ral right from what he describes as "Aristotle's indefensible defense of slavery" (162). MacIntyre nowhere substantiatesthis charge of indefensibility,other than to account for Aristotle'sposition as a symptom of a kind of blindness that "was not of course privateto Aristotle;it was part of the general, though not universalblindness of his culture" (1984, 159). By thus declaringthe cultural bias card trump, however, MacIntyreinvites a similar reply to any controversialor unconventionalelement of naturalright. 2This by no means implies that we should accept Aristotleas infallible.We may surmise, however, that Aristotlewould be the first to correct the judgmentsof sedimentedAristotelianism in light of the best contemporaryevidence, in many cases without serious consequencesfor the fundamentalprinci- ples of his analysis. There is no telling what theoreticalcontributions Aristotle would have made if only he had access to the dataavailable to modernembryology, astronomy, and paleontology;but it can be predictedthat the result in many cases would be recognizablyAristotelian. We may well expect, for NaturalRight and Aristotle'sDefense of Slavery 71 one must resist the dislocationof Aristotle'sdefense of slaveryfor the sake of the theoreticaltenability of natural right itself. If anything, it is the relocationand adequateelaboration of this defense within the philosopher'steleological under- standing of human affairs that poses the most pressing challenge to contempo- rary proponentsof naturalright. Only on the basis of such an elaborationwill it be worthwhile to speculate as to the compatibilityof natural right and liberal democracy. THE NEED FOR A FRESH LOOK AT ARISTOTLE ON SLAVERY The current polarizationof expert scholarlyopinion presents one with equally unpalatablealternative readings of Aristotle's account of slavery. On one side, Aristotle's account is deemed to be logically flawed; the enslavementof no one whatsoevercould be justifiedon the basis of such weak arguments.On the other side, Aristotleis regardedas an uncannilyshrewd observer of politicalrealities who obliquely endorses the enslavementeven of those who are not slaves by nature. Underlyingthis polarizationof opinion, however,there is a generalconsensus that the formulationof Aristotle'saccount of slaveryis riddled with inconsistencyand incoherence.