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. There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact.

SOURCE FORMAT: Translated Manuscript (excerpt)Įxcerpt from Aristotle’s Politics, read and produced by Charlotte Goodman, ’23: Understanding such arguments from the very foundations of Western thought is essential as background for students who are studying how the fight over slavery’s morality evolved over time. This excerpt from Book One of Politics features a discussion of the different types of slavery –slavery “by law” and also “by nature,” and illustrates how justifications for the total rule of some humans over others struck Aristotle as sometimes complicated but not necessarily immoral. He wrote several classic texts in philosophy and ethics, including perhaps his most famous work, Politics (350 BCE). Later as a teacher on his own, Aristotle helped tutor the young Alexander the Great. He arrived in Athens from Northern Greece as an orphaned teenager to study under Plato who himself had earlier studied under Socrates. INTRODUCTION Bust of Aristotle (NY Times)Īristotle (384 – 322 BCE) was one of a trio of philosophers and teachers in Ancient Greece (along with Socrates and Plato) who helped shape the foundations of Western thought. 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?

Politics by aristotle