Citizens, Slaves, and Foreigners Aristotle On Human Nature

Citizens, Slaves, and Foreigners: Aristotle on Human Nature
Author(s): Jill Frank

Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 1 (Feb., 2004), pp. 91-104
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American Political Science Review Vol.
98,
No. 1
February
2004
C itiz ens , Slaves ,
and
Foreigners :
Aris totle on H uman Nature
JILL FRANK
Univers ity of
South C arolina
mos t read ers ,
Aris totle's many references to nature throughout the firs t book of the Politics imply
a
found ational
role
for
nature outs id e and
prior
to
politics . Aris totle, they claim, pairs
nature with
neces s ity and , thus ,
s ets nature as a s tand ard that
fixes
the bound aries
of
inclus ion and exclus ion
in
political life. Through read ings of
Aris totle on the nature
of citiz ens , s laves ,
and
foreigners
in the
Politics ,
this
es s ay argues ,
in
contras t, that,
to
Aris totle, nature, es pecially
human
nature,
is
changeable
and
s haped by politics . Through
an
analys is of
Aris totle's
philos ophical
and
s cientific
treatments
of
nature in the
Metaphys ics
and
Phys ics ,
this
es s ay
d emons trates that in ord er to
pres erve
what he takes
to be characteris tic and als o cons titutive
of
a
d is tinctively
human
way of living-prohairetic activity-
Aris totle is
es pecially
keen to
guard agains t any
as s imilation
of
nature to
neces s ity.
Man is
by
nature a
political being.
Aris totle,
NE
1097b12,
Pol. 1253a21
o mos t
read ers ,
Aris totle's
many
references to
nature, phus is , throughout
the firs t book of the
Politics , imply
a found ational role for nature
prior
to
politics .2
Politics I is
important, they claim,
becaus e it
pairs
nature with
neces s ity
and s ets nature
as a s tand ard that fixes the bound aries of inclus ion
and exclus ion in
political
life.3 Aris totle's d efens e of
natural
s lavery provid es
the
primary
evid ence for this
interpretation. Treating
natural s laves as
neces s ary to,
but
incontrovertibly
d is tinct
from,
the free life of
pol-
itics ,
Aris totle maintains
that,
in virtue of their na-
tures ,
natural s laves mus t be exclud ed from
citiz ens hip.4
Richard Kraut
(2002) encaps ulates
a familiar
interpre-
tation when he claims that
"[a]t
leas t this much is clear
and uncontrovers ial": At
birth,
s ome are s uited to be
s laves ;
thes e ind ivid uals lack the
faculty by
which mos t
people reas on;
and
nothing
can be d one to und o the
d eficiency
with which
they
are born
(282).5
Kraut, along
with mos t
read ers ,
takes the content and
s ignification
of "nature" in Aris totle's d efens e of natural
s lavery
to
be
neces s ary and , s omehow, given.
Malcolm Schofield
(1999)
d oes as
well, claiming
that "the natural
princi-
ples
from which Aris totle d erives his theories of
s lav-
ery"
are
among
the firs t
principles
of
philos ophy;
"in
Pol. I
[Aris totle]
is
arguing from
firs t
principles " (215
n26).6
With the d is tinction between
neces s ity
and freed om
s ecured
by nature,
and with
hierarchy
thus es tablis hed
in Book
I,
Aris totle can move
on,
in the res t of the
Politics ,
to
engage
the real bus ines s of
politics ,
includ -
ing
citiz en
id entity, regime
formation and
change,
and
revolution. Where nature
appears
later in the
Politics ,
as it
d oes ,
for
example,
in Aris totle's id entification of
certain
foreigners
as natural s laves
(Pol. 1285a20-24,
1327b27-28),
it
s imply
s erves to confirm the les s on of
Book
I, namely,
that nature s ecures the d is tinction be-
tween free and unfree
(Smith 1991).
This
read ing
of
Politics I is
powerful.
It s eems to
explain why
Aris totle
began
his treatis e on
politics
with an account of nature
Jill Frank is As s is tant Profes s or of Political
Science, Univers ity
of
South
C arolina, C olumbia,
SC 29208
(jfrank@s c.ed u).
For their contributions to this
es s ay, my
thanks
go
to Danielle
Allen,
Amittai
Aviram,
Marianne
C ons table, Jeremy Elkins , Bryan
Gars ten, Larry Glickman,
Bonnie
H onig,
Richard
Kraut,
Nina
Levine,
Gerald
Mara,
Patchen
Markell,
Steve
Salkever,
and
Gary
Shiffman, to the Ed itor of APSR and its anonymous reviewers , and
to participants at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Mid wes t Political
Science
As s ociation,
at the
Univers ity
of South C arolina's Political
Science Res earch
Works hop,
and at the Northwes tern
Univers ity
Po-
litical
Theory C olloquium,
where earlier vers ions of this
es s ay
were
pres ented .
1
I
us e trans lations of Aris totle's texts by Jowett 1996 and Rackham
1977, in the cas e of the Politics , Ackrill and Urms on 1980 and
Rackham
1982,
in the cas e of the Nicomachean
Ethics ,
H icks 1991 in
the cas e of De
Anima,
Tred ennick 1980 in the cas e of the
Metaphys ics ,
and Waterfield 1996 in the cas e of the
Phys ics ,
at times mod ified .
2
Wayne
Ambler
(1984,487)
counts 86 references in Book I to "word s
bas ed on the root 'nature.'"
3 Some s cholars find Aris totle's s cience of nature to be outd ated ,
d is cred ited ,
and
altogether unacceptable,
and s o
reject
his account
of nature and the
politics
and ethics to which it is linked
(H abermas
1990, 44, 98-99;
Williams
1995,199,201;
contra Arnhart
1998;
Bolotin
1997, 2;
Park
1997).
Others
reject
Aris totle's s cience of nature but
remain committed to his ethics and
politics
and s ever the latter from
the former
(Salkever 1990a, chap. 1).
Still others s ee in Aris totle's
s cience of human nature rich res ources for his
political
and ethical
philos ophy.
Of thes e, s ome end ors e what
they
take to be Aris totle's
elitis t exclus ion of all but a few aris tocratic men from
participation
in a
political
life
(Miller 1979;
Straus s 1964, chap. 1; Winthrop 1975).
Others
argue
the
oppos ite, namely,
that Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of human nature is les s hos tile than is
generally thought
to women
(Nichols 1992, chap. 1;
Salkever
1991, 165-90;
Saxonhous e
1985,
chap. 4)
or s laves
(Booth 1993, chap. 2).
Still others
s plit
the d iffer-
ence, end ors ing
Aris totle's
philos ophical
account of human
nature,
while
d eploring
s ome of his
political applications
of it
(Nus s baum
1995, 87, 120).
The
s econd ary
literature on Aris totle's Politics I is
rich,
but few find in that text an account of the
politics
of
s lavery.
Ins tead , they
find an awkward
preface
to
politics
in
s lavery.
4 This is true of other hous ehold members as
well, though
in d ifferent
ways
and for d ifferent reas ons . Aris totle's focus on thes e relations
of
neces s ity
in the hous ehold have led s ome s cholars to
d is tinguis h
two d ifferent
beginnings
to Aris totle's Politics : Book I is about "The
Origin
of the
C ity
in the
Bod y";
Book
II,
about "The
Origin
of the
C ity
in
Thought" (Nichols 1992, chap. 1).
5 Aris totle claims that "from the hour of their
birth,
s ome are marked
out for
s ubjection,
others for rule"
(Pol. 1254a23-24),
but he end s that
pas s age
with the claim that nature cannot make this mark
plain.
For
d is cus s ion,
s ee s ubs ection
"Slaves ,"
below.
6
See,
in
contras t,
Mara
(1998),
who
argues
for the
importance
of
Aris totle's
d ialogic approach
in
es tablis hing
his
epis temological po-
s itions .
Although
Schofield and Kraut both
pair
nature and neces -
s ity, they
d iffer on the
givennes s
of Aris totle's account of nature.
For
Schofield ,
nature is
given
ins ofar as it is d etermined
by
the firs t
principles
of Aris totle's
metaphys ics ,
whereas for Kraut nature is
given
ins ofar as it is d etermined at birth. I think both accounts are
mis taken.
91
and
Foreigners February
2004
and it ves ts nature with a normative force that
jus tifies
the
political
exclus ions that follow. Aris totle
may
be an
ancient
thinker,
but the mod el he is s aid to
provid e--
in which nature s erves as an incontrovertible
ground
and
guid e
to the bound aries of
politics -remains pow-
erful in our own time. The
legacy
of this
und ers tand ing
may
be s een in
projects
of
imperial
rule in the name
of a
government
of natural
s uperiors
over their natu-
ral
inferiors ,
exclus ions from the
s pheres
of labor and
politics
of certain
immigrants
in the late nineteenth-
century
United
States ,
and
explanations
of acad emic
performance
in terms of natural
intelligence. Thus ,
na-
ture continues to be us ed to d o the work read ers of
Aris totle s ee it
d oing
in him:
s etting
the bound aries and
hierarchies of
citiz ens hip, participation, members hip,
and
belonging.
I think this
read ing
of Aris totle on nature is
wrong.
Aris totle
is ,
to be
s ure,
concerned with
neces s ity
and hi-
erarchy
in Politics
I, ind eed ,
with the
neces s ity
of hierar-
chy
to
politics ,
and he us es nature to frame this concern.
H owever,
on
my read ing,
Aris totle d oes not us e nature
to es tablis h the
prepolitical
and
neces s ary
cond itions
of
politics .
H e treats
nature, ins tead ,
as a
ques tion
for
politics .
H e
thereby
d ives ts nature of the moral author-
ity us ually granted
to
it; s ubjects
to
s crutiny
the exclu-
s ions s aid to be s ecured
by
that
authority; and , placing
authority
in thos e who es tablis h the hierarchies of
pol-
itics , namely,
rulers and
citiz ens ,
rend ers them account-
able for thos e hierarchies .
By challenging
the d ominant
appreciations
of Aris totle's account of nature in thes e
ways ,
this
es s ay
contributes to Aris totle
s cholars hip. By
opening
a new
way
of
thinking
about nature and a more
complex und ers tand ing
of the relation between nature
and
politics ,
it
challenges
the
commitment,
s till
preva-
lent
tod ay,
to the naturaliz ation of racial and ethnic
d is tinctions .
Throughout
Politics
I,
Aris totle us es
language
from
his
Phys ics
both to s ecure nature's
ability
to und erwrite
politics
and
als o,
s imultaneous ly,
to call this
ability
into
ques tion:
What nature
wants ,
he
s ays
at leas t twice in
the cours e of his d is cus s ion of natural
s laves ,
it
may
fail
to achieve
(Pol. 1254b26-32, 1255b3). Nature,
Aris totle
implies ,
cannot s tand as a
guarantee.
Unable to s us tain
its elf,
it
mus t, rather,
be s us tained
by s omething
els e,
namely,
as the context of Aris totle's d is cus s ion
s ugges ts ,
by politics .
This is not to make
politics prior to,
or more
fund amental
than,
nature or to
s ay
that nature is
wholly
political.
It is rather to call attention to the
complex
relation Aris totle s ets up between politics and nature.
H uman nature
may
be a meas ure of
politics
but the
fact that we are, in Aris totle's
terminology, naturally
political beings (NE 1097b12, 1169b20, Pol. 1253a2,
1253a7-8, 1278b19) s ugges ts
that human nature is als o,
at leas t in
part,
cons tituted
politically.
Nature is thus
not immutable but
changeable,
and this means that the
hierarchy
it und erwrites , though neces s ary
to
politics ,
will be
changeable too.7
That
hierarchy
is
neces s ary
to
politics
is clear
enough.
Politics
d epend s
on
rule, arche,
which is to
s ay,
on
ruling
and
being
ruled . Without
hierarchy, then,
there can be
no
political
as s ociation. Political as s ociation als o d e-
pend s
on the freed om of its
members ,
and s o a s econd
hierarchy
is
neces s ary,
one that
d is tinguis hes
free from
unfree
(Pol. 1255b18-19).
On Aris totle's
account,
this
s econd
hierarchy
is s ecured
by s lavery,
which is nec-
es s ary
to free mas ters from
meeting
their
d aily
need s
s o that
they can,
as rulers or
citiz ens , practice politics
(and philos ophy) (Pol. 1255b35-38;
s ee als o 1328a34-
36, 1329a35-36).
To s ome
read ers ,
Politics I is about this
s econd
hierarchy only,
whereas the res t of the Politics
is concerned with the firs t
hierarchy,
the one within a
political as s ociation,
between rulers and ruled . A brief
look at the
d angers
of
hierarchy, brought
to
light
in
Aris totle's d is cus s ion of
s lavery, s ugges ts
a more com-
plex picture.
That
hierarchy
can be
d angerous
to s laves
goes
without
s aying.
This is
why
Aris totle is
centrally
concerned in Politics I with the
jus tice
of
s lavery (Pol.
1.5-6). Perhaps
more
important
to
Aris totle, however,
is that
s lavery
can als o be
d angerous
to thos e who
s tand mos t to benefit from it: rulers and citiz ens . When
rulers or citiz ens act
only
as
mas ters ,
Aris totle
notes ,
hierarchy
ceas es to be
properly political
and
becomes ,
ins tead , d es potic (Pol. 1292a14-38, 1295b20-24).8 This
is
why
Aris totle makes a
point
of
d is tinguis hing
the
rule of mas ters from
political
rule
(Pol. 1252a7-17).
Dangerous , too,
is when rulers or citiz ens act as
s laves ,
for then there ceas es to be a d is tinction between free
and
unfree,
and
hierarchy collaps es (Pol. 1277b5-7).
Where there is no
hierarchy,
as where
hierarchy
is all
and
only d es potic, political
as s ociation ceas es . Aris to-
tle's account of
s lavery,
this
s ugges ts ,
is not
only
about
the
neces s ity
of
s lavery,
or
only
about
s ecuring
the hi-
erarchy
between s laves and mas ters . It is als o about the
d angers
of
s lavery
to citiz ens and
rulers ,
which is to
s ay,
of the
politics
of
s lavery.
Politics
I,
concerned with the nature of
hierarchy
and its
jus tice, is ,
on this
read ing, hard ly
a fals e s tart
to Aris totle's
engagement
with
politics .
On the con-
trary,
Aris totle rais es fund amental
ques tions
of
politics
through
his d is cus s ions of natural
s lavery. Agains t
thos e
who take Aris totle's account of nature in his ethical
and
political writings
to be s tatic and
s traightforward
and , als o, agains t
thos e who take it to be
equivocal
and
ques tionable (Annas 1993, 146;
Irwin
1985, 416-17),
I
d emons trate that it
is , rather, d ynamic
and
complex,
unified , and continuous with his s cientific, metaphys -
ical, and
ps ychological writings
on nature. Aris totle's
d is cus s ion of natural s laves
may,
as we will s ee, be filled
with incons is tencies but this is no reas on to d is mis s it as
incoherent
(Garns ey 1996, 107, 125; Smith
1991)
or to
res olve it into "clear and uncontrovers ial"
propos itions
7 Swans on
(1999, 225)
als o
argues
that Aris totle und ers tand s na-
ture to be
changeable
but claims that he
pres ents
his conclus ions
bas ed on nature
d ogmatically
for two reas ons :
firs t,
becaus e
only
the
few
philos ophers
can
properly appreciate
nature's
changeability and ,
s econd ,
to
d is courage "political challenges
to the natural ord er in
the name of
progres s
or freed om." I
argue,
in
contras t,
that Aris to-
tle
pres ents
his conclus ions bas ed on nature
imprecis ely.
I therefore
d is agree
with Swans on's as s es s ment and
explanation
of Aris totle's
rhetorical
approach
to nature.
8
See Davis
(1996, 23-24)
for what he calls the
"tragic implications
of
[hierarchy's ]
unlimited extens ion."
92
American Political Science Review
Vol.
98,
No. 1
(Kraut 2002, 282).
Aris totle's
imprecis ions , there,
as
els ewhere in his
ethical, political,
and natural s cientific
writings , are,
I
argue,
better read as accurate reflections
of the nature of
beings
who act
through
and
change
over time. To
d evelop
this relation between human na-
ture and
activity,
the firs t s ection of this
es s ay
turns
to Aris totle's d is cus s ions of
citiz ens hip
and
s lavery.
To
es tablis h Aris totle's
categorical s eparation
of nature
from
neces s ity,
the s econd s ection examines his
philo-
s ophical
treatment of nature. The final s ection extend s
my interpretation
to Aris totle's treatment of certain
foreigners
and d raws s ome les s ons for
politics .
TH E NATURE OF IDENTITY
C itiz ens
To as k who is a
citiz en,
as Aris totle d oes at the s tart
of Politics
III,
is to as k about the
id entity
or nature
of a citiz en.9 In Aris totle's
hand s ,
this is to as k who
d es erves to be a citiz en or who merits the
political good
of
citiz ens hip.
Aris totle ans wers
by s aying
what will not
qualify
s omeone for
citiz ens hip:
not
place,
or
location,
or the
capacity
to s ue and be s ued
(Pol. 1275a7-11);
not
birth, ances try,
or blood
(Pol. 1275b32-34). Rather,
a
citiz en is one who
participates
in
ruling
and
jud ging
(Pol. 1275a22-23),
one who rules and is ruled in turn
(Pol. 1277b13-16),
one who s hares in the
jud icial
and
d eliberative offices of a
polity (Pol. 1275b18-20). Place,
legal capacity, birth,
and
parentage-as
s tatic
qualities
and /or markers of s tatus -d o not d emons trate merit
in Aris totle's view.
Although
there
may
be s ubtle d if-
ferences
among
the formulations Aris totle
approves ,
they
s hare an
emphas is
on
activity: "Sharing
in a cons ti-
tution,"
in Malcolm Schofield 's
(1999, 144-49) phras e,
qualifies
one for
citiz ens hip.10
Aris totle's
emphas is
on
activity
has a
curious ly
tauto-
logical
or s elf-contained
quality. Practicing citiz ens hip,
Aris totle s eems to be
s aying,
makes s omeone a citiz en:
A "citiz en is a citiz en in
being
a
citiz en"(Winthrop 1975,
407).
This
circularity
is a feature not
only
of Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of
citiz ens hip
but of all human
activity.
In
d oing,
he
s ays ,
"the end cannot be other than the act
its elf"
(NE 1140b6). Activity, energeia
or
entelecheia,
is that which
has , echein,
what is aimed at-an end or
telos -in, en, its elf
(Meta. 1050a23-24). Although
s elf-
contained , human
activity
is not invulnerable to exter-
nal influences . There is no
carrying
out one's
citiz ens hip
in a vacuum. Ind eed , Aris totle ins is ts that there can be
no citiz en
qua
citiz en
prior
to the
regime
of which that
citiz en is a
part (Pol. 1275a3-4).
For this
reas on, he
purs ues
his
inves tigation
of
citiz ens hip by as king
who
is a citiz en
of
a
d emocracy
or
of
an
oligarchy. Being
a
citiz en is
regime-d epend ent
not leas t becaus e what it
means to s hare in a cons titution
largely d epend s
on the
laws , ed ucation,
and other s ocial and
political
ins titu-
tions of that
particular
cons titution.11
Thes e ins titutions
all contribute to the
making
of citiz ens
(Pol. 1275b4).
Being
a
citiz en,
this
s ugges ts ,
is a
complex
combination
of
d oing
on the
part
of citiz en
practitioners
and
making
on the
part
of s ocial and
political
ins titutions .
At the s tart of his
inquiry
into
citiz ens hip, however,
Aris totle
s ays
that it is
important
to leave to one s id e
"thos e who have been mad e
citiz ens ,
or who have ob-
tained the name of citiz en in
any
other accid ental man-
ner"
(Pol. 1275a5-7).
This s entence is
key.
It carves out
what, for
philos ophical reas ons ,
Aris totle thinks
ought
not to be includ ed in an
inquiry
into the
id entity
or
nature of a citiz en. To be
exclud ed ,
as
alread y noted , are
thos e who are "mad e" citiz ens
by
the accid ents of
birth,
ances try, parentage,
or location. That is clear
enough.
But, agains t
the
backd rop
of Aris totle's
read y
acknowl-
ed gment
of the role of s ocial and
political
ins titutions
in the
making
of
citiz ens ,
how are we to und ers tand
Aris totle's
apparently s weeping
exclus ion of all "mad e
citiz ens "? H e offers the
following examples .
To be ex-
clud ed from cons id eration of the nature of a
citiz en,
Aris totle
s ays ,
are thos e who have been mad e citiz ens
"by
the
magis trates ,"
a kind of
making
he
analogiz es
to the
prod uction
of
artifacts , s pecifically,
kettles
(Pol.
1275b29-30);12
and thos e who have been mad e citiz ens
"after
a revolution"
(Pol. 1275b35-36).13
As with the
granting
of
legal rights
und er a
treaty (which,
as "the
capacity
to s ue and be
s ued ,"
Aris totle
rejects
as a
qual-
ification for
citiz ens hip),
thes e are
examples
of citiz ens
having
been mad e
citiz ens ,
one
might s ay,
ex
nihilo: by
being
s o named
by
a
magis trate,
or
by
fiat after a revolu-
tion,
or
by
the force of
legal treaty
alone. Aris totle d oes
not
id entity
thos e who are mad e citiz ens in
any
of thes e
ways
as citiz ens for the s ame reas on he exclud es thos e
who are mad e citiz ens
by
accid ent: Their
citiz ens hip
d oes not come about in virtue of their own
activity.
It
is rather
granted
to them.
9 That the "Who is ?"
ques tion
is one about nature and
id entity
is
s ubs tantiated
by
the trans lations . Barker
(1969, 92)
and Rackham
(1977, 173)
as k about the "nature" of the
citiz en;
Jowett
(1993, 51),
Reeve
(1998, 65),
and Robins on
(1995, 3) as k,
"Who is a
citiz en?";
Lord
(1984, 86)
as ks "what the citiz en is ."
10 See Nichols
(1992, 55-61)
for a d is cus s ion of the d ifferences
among
thes e formulations . To call
citiz ens hip
a
practice
of
"s haring
in a
cons titution" is d ifferent from what we
tod ay might
call a
"right"
to
join
in collective
d eliberation, which,
to
us , guarantees
our cit-
iz ens hip.
Whereas
having
the
power
or
potentiality (exous ia,
what
is s ometimes trans lated as a
"right")
to
participate
in a cons titution
is
certainly part
of Aris totle's
account,
exous ia is
always
referred
to
activity, i.e.,
the
practice
of
citiz ens hip
its elf. As Schofield
puts
it
(1999,149), citing
Politics 1275a34: "Thos e freeborn natives exclud ed
from the
as s embly
or court
members hip may
be called citiz ens in
an
oligarchy,
but
they
are not
really
s o." On the relation between
potentiality
and
actuality,
s ee s ubs ection "The Power of
Activity,"
below.
11 This is not
always
the cas e: Aris totle calls Theramenes an ex-
emplary
citiz en in the C ons titution
of
Athens for
refus ing
to follow
the laws of the
polity. Being
a
good
citiz en calls for
d is obeying
the
laws when there ceas es to be a d ifference between the
polity's
laws
and force, when nomos becomes bia.
See,
for
d is cus s ion,
Frank and
Monos on
(2003).
12
Winthrop (1975, 410) explains
the
pun
on Laris s aeans that names
both the
people
and the artifact.
13 Aris totle is
referring
here to the
foreigners
and alien s laves
s up-
pos ed ly
enrolled
by
the Athenian reformer
C leis thenes ,
who were
thus mad e citiz ens "in one
s troke,"
after the
expuls ion
of the
tyrant
H ippias
in 510 B.C .E.
See, for d is cus s ion of the
interpretative
con-
trovers ies around this
example,
Manville
(1997, 173-209, es p. 191).
See als o C ons titution
of Athens , 20.1, 21.2,
and Politics
1319b19-27.
93
and
Foreigners February
2004
Aris totle includ es in the
proper making
of citi-
z ens , laws , ed ucation,
and other s ocial and
political
ins titutions
becaus e,
unlike
treaty, revolution,
or
mag-
is terial
ed ict,
which like accid ent or
force,
make irrel-
evant the
activity
of a
citiz en,
a
polity's
ins titutions d o
not make that
activity
irrelevant but rather
s upervene
upon
or
guid e
it
(Pol. 1258a22-23). Ind eed ,
it is im-
pos s ible
to und ers tand a citiz en's
id entity
without tak-
ing
into account the
ways
in which it has been
s haped
by
thes e ins titutions
(Salkever 1990b, 176;
Smith
2001,
23-26).
C itiz en
id entity is , then,
a
prod uct
of
making
and
d oing,
where
d oing
is a kind of
s elf-making (by
s haring
in the
cons titution,
I make
mys elf
a
citiz en)
and
making,
as the
guid ed s haping by laws ,
ed uca-
tion,
and other
ins titutions ,
entails
citiz enly d oing.
Ac-
cid ent and force mus t be
pus hed
to one s id e when in-
ves tigating
the nature of the citiz en becaus e
they
make
irrelevant what is at the heart of both formations of
citiz en
id entity:
the
d ynamic
and
reciprocal
relation
between
id entity
and
action,
between d oers and their
d eed s .
C itiz ens are mad e citiz ens not
only by
their
particular
or ind ivid ual activities but
by s haring
in a
cons titution,
in other
word s , by
their collective
activity (Pol.
1275b4-
6).
At the s ame
time,
collective
activity prod uces
the
s ocial and
political
ins titutions that contribute to the
making
of citiz ens in the firs t
place. If,
to be
citiz ens ,
citiz ens mus t act as
citiz ens , they
d o s o not
only
in-
d ivid ually
but als o in their collective
action, by
which
they
make for thems elves the s ocial and
political
in-
s titutions that als o
help
make them.
Taking
d emoc-
racy,
with Jos iah Ober
(1996),
to be cons tituted neither
by
ins titutions alone nor
by popular
action alone but
rather
by "d ynamic
tens ions " between ins titutionaliz a-
tion and
participation (31),
there is
s omething nicely
d emocratic about Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of citiz en
id entity,
read in this
way.14 C itiz ens hip
is a matter of
ind ivid ual
s elf-d etermining activity
and it is
participa-
tory. By acting
in
concert, s haring
in their
cons titution,
citiz ens make the ins titutions
that,
in
turn,
as ins titu-
tions , guid e,
but d o not
fully d etermine,
their ind ivid ual
activity.
Read ing
Aris totle on
citiz ens hip
and
political partic-
ipation
calls for
attend ing
not
only
to thos e he includ es
but als o to thos e he
exclud es , s pecifically
to thos e he
exclud es not becaus e of what
they
d o
(s hopkeepers ,
crafts men) but, os tens ibly,
becaus e of who
they
are:
women, foreigners ,
and s laves . For mos t
read ers ,
it is
becaus e Aris totle takes the nature of thes e ind ivid u-
als to be
es s entially
and
neces s arily
d ifferent from the
nature of citiz ens that
they
mus t be exclud ed from
po-
litical
participation.'5
I
d is agree.
To
explain why,
I turn
next to an extend ed treatment of Aris totle's account
of
s lavery
in Politics I, the hard cas e for the claim I am
making
about
nature.16
Slaves
Aris totle
opens
his d is cus s ion of
s lavery
with the
ques -
tion: Who is a s lave? As he d oes in the cas e of citiz en-
s hip,
he
analyz es
this as a
ques tion
of
jus tice,
that
is ,
in terms of d es ert or
qualification. Rejecting parentage
or
ances try (Pol. 1255b1-3)
and convention
(which
he
calls nomos and
equates
with violence or
force, bia)
(Pol. 1255b15)
as
inad equate jus tifications
of
s lavery,
Aris totle
pus hes
to one
s id e,
as he d oes when he d is -
cus s es citiz en
id entity,
thos e who have been mad e s laves
by
accid ent or
by
force. The
s ignificance
of thes e moves
on Aris totle's
part
s hould not be und eres timated . That
Aris totle
pars es s lavery
as a
ques tion
of
jus tice,
which
he treats as the
key ques tion
for
politics (Pol.
1255a7-
17)
and
"a
ques tion
for
political philos ophy" (Pol.
1282b23), s ignals
that he intend s to
give
it careful
po-
litical and
philos ophical
cons id eration. That he
rejects
as
unjus t
all forms of ens lavement
by
force s hows that
he is
prepared
to
challenge
the
pred ominant
form of
s lavery
in ancient
Greece,
which was the ens lavement
of
foreigners captured by
war or
kid naped by pirates
and their d es cend ants
(Kraut 2002, 280;
MacDowell
1978, 79).
For thes e
reas ons ,
thos e who read Aris totle
as
s imply
a
prod uct
of his times
(Annas 1993, 153, 155;
1996;
Saund ers
1995, 79-83)
or as
merely
an
apolo-
gis t
for the ins titutions of his
regime (Wald ron 1992;
Williams
1993, 103-29)
are
mis taken.17
In the
light
of the s tructural s imilarities between his
accounts of s lave and citiz en
id entity,
one
might expect
Aris totle to d raw the s ame conclus ion in the cas e of
s lavery
that he d raws in the cas e of
citiz ens hip.
If
being
a citiz en is to be und ers tood in terms of citiz en
activity,
then
being
a s lave is to be und ers tood in terms of s lave
activity.
If citiz en
activity (includ ing
how this
activity
is
guid ed by
a
polity's
s ocial and
political
ins titutions
but
nothing accid ental, forced ,
or
neces s ary)
d efines
the nature of a
citiz en,
then s lave
activity (s imilarly
und ers tood )
s hould d efine the natural s lave.
Thes e are
exactly
Aris totle's conclus ions . H e
s ays ,
"The
good
man and the s tates man and the
good
citiz en
ought
not to learn the crafts of inferiors
except
for their
own occas ional
us e;
if
they habitually practice them,
there will ceas e to be a d is tinction between mas ter and
s lave"
(Pol. 1277b5-7).
H e warns
agains t includ ing
in
the art of hous ehold
management knowled ge
on the
part
of the mas ter of how to d o the tas ks of s laves
(Pol. 1255b23-38),
and he warns his aud ience of free
citiz ens
in the
Nicomachean Ethics
agains t engaging
in
s lavis h kind s of activities (NE 1118a23-b4, 1118b21,
1128a22).18
Aris totle d emand s this s ort of
vigilance
on the
part
of mas ters , citiz ens , and rulers becaus e, as
14
Ober (1998, chap. 6) d oes not read Aris totle in this
way.
15
Even as
they
cond ition its
pos s ibility
for others :
Politics ,
1328a34-
36, 1328b19-22,
1329a35-38.
16
Scholars who argue that Aris totle's treatment of the nature of
women is more
complex
than is
us ually appreciated
als o
nicely prob-
lematiz e the us ual
appreciations
of Aris totle's view of the nature of
s laves
(Nichols 1992, 19-24;
Saxonhous e 1985, 68-71).
17 For an excellent
challenge
to the common views that take Aris to-
tle's
teaching
on natural
s lavery
to
s upport
actual
s lavery,
s ee Ambler
1987.
18
Not, to
my knowled ge,
noticed
by s cholars ,
Aris totle us es d ifferent
word s when
referring
to thos e who are s lavis h
through
the
practice
of
vice
(and rapad oud ou root)
and thos e whom he calls
naturally
s lavis h
(d oulos root).
Whereas this
may
be read as evid ence that Aris totle
as s umes an es s ential and
neces s ary
d ifference between thes e two
ways
of
being
a
s lave,
the firs t
being revers ible,
the s econd
not,
it
might
94
98,
No. 1
thes e
examples s ugges t, performing
the activities of a
s lave can make one a s lave. The revers e s eems to be
true as well:
Pres uming
the
capacity
to ceas e
being
a
s lave,
Aris totle maintains that it is
appropriate
to
hold out to s laves the
promis e
of their freed om
(Pol.
1330a33-34). Ins is ting
that
friend s hip
is not
pos s ible
with a s lave as a s lave but that it is with the s lave as a
per-
s on
(NE 1161b5-6),
Aris totle hold s out the
pos s ibility
that a s lave can become a
pers on worthy
of
friend s hip,
Aris totle's mod el for free
politics .
Aris totle
may
take
s lavery
to be
neces s ary
to
politics ,
but all this
s ugges ts
that there is
nothing
immutable that
s ingles
out
any particular pers on
as a s lave.
Ins tead ,
s lave
id entity,
like citiz en
id entity,
is d etermined
by
ac-
tivity.
If this is
right,
then there is no
"permanent
and
complete"
d ifference between s lave and citiz en
(con-
tra Nichols
1992, 6).19
Aris totle's account of
s lavery
in
Politics
I, accord ingly,
s erves not to d es cribe and s et
apart
a d omain that is
pre-
or
nonpolitical,
but to warn
his aud ience of free citiz ens of their
vulnerability,
not
only
to accid ent and force
but,
more
importantly,
to
the
power
of
acting
in
s haping
their
political
d es tinies
(Davis 1996, 22;
Mara
1995, 286, 296).
It follows that
when I make
mys elf
a citiz en or a s lave in virtue of
my
own
activity,
it is
jus t
to s o treat me.
There
is , however,
a fund amental d ifference between
citiz ens and s laves in this
regard :
The s ocial and
political
ins titutions that
s upervene upon s elf-d etermining
ac-
tivity
to
prod uce
citiz ens as citiz ens and s laves as s laves
are the
prod ucts
of citiz en
activity
alone. Ins ofar as I
am
prod uced
as a s lave
by
s ocial and
political
ins titu-
tions in whos e
making
I have not
mys elf participated ,
I am mad e a s lave
ind epend ently
of
my
own
activity.
I
am, therefore, by
the terms of Aris totle's own
account,
mad e a s lave
by
accid ent
or,
more
likely, by
force. As we
have
s een,
Aris totle ins is ts that the effects of accid ent
and force are to be left out of a cons id eration of the na-
ture of
id entity.
A
s tud y
of s laves
prod uced
as s laves
by
coercive s ocial and
political ins titutions , then,
reveals
little about the nature of s laves . It
d oes , however,
reveal
s omething
about thos e who create s uch
ins titutions ,
namely,
that
they
confus e
political
rule with
mas tery,
a s cience Aris totle refers to as s ervile
(Pol. 1255b30-
35).20
C itiz ens
or rulers who act as mas ters s how
that
they
are
prepared
to rule
d es potically, which,
for
Aris totle,
is the
unmaking
of their
polity (Pol. 1292a14-
38, 1295b20-24).
The
practice
of
s lavery
and its ins titu-
tion, though neces s ary
to free citiz ens
ind ivid ually
and
collectively,
are als o, and at the s ame time, d angerous
to the
very
freed om
they
s ecure.
Agains t
the
backd rop
of this
read ing
of Politics I,
how
might
we und ers tand Aris totle's d efens e of natural
s lavery? Appearing
to carve out a
category
of nature
d efined
ind epend ently
of
activity,
it s eems to
d is play
a lack of
parallelis m
with his treatment of
citiz ens hip.
This
appearance
is
d eceptive.
Aris totle's d is cus s ion of
who is
by
nature a s lave
imports
into the Politics lan-
guage
he has introd uced in the
Phys ics . Pars ing
this
ques tion along
two
axes ,
he as ks whether nature as
matter, meaning phys ical bod ies ,
will
d is tinguis h
s laves
from
nons laves ;
and he as ks whether nature as
form,
meaning s oul,
will d o the trick. In Politics I Aris totle
has ins is ted that nature makes
nothing
in vain
(1253a9).
On the
contrary,
nature makes
things
to
particular
us es
and s o s hould mark a s lave in a
way
that s hows him to be
fit for us e as an
object
of
property by giving
him a
bod y
s uited to menial chores . Aris totle
notes , however,
that
although
"nature would like to
d is tinguis h"
s laves from
nons laves on the bas is of
phys ical appearance,
nature
can fail to d o
s o, giving s laves , ins tead ,
the bod ies of
freemen
(Pol. 1254b26-32).
Und er its material
as pect,
as
bod y,
nature cannot tell us who d es erves to be a s lave.
Mos t s cholars
agree
that und er its formal
as pect,
as the
s oul,
nature d oes a better
job
of
d is tinguis hing
s laves from nons laves .
They
claim
that,
to
Aris totle,
it is
the abs ence of the
faculty
of
d eliberation,
a
d eficiency
of the s oul
or,
in the
terminology
of De
Anima,
a firs t-
level
incapacity,
that makes natural
s lavery
natural.
Aris totle's examination of the s oul of the s lave is not s o
clear,
however. H e
s ays
that s laves lack the d eliberative
element
(Pol. 1254b22-23, 1260a12-13)
but als o that if
they
could not d eliberate at all
they
would not be able to
execute their mas ters ' ord ers
(Pol. 1260al);
he
s ays
that
s laves are not
capable
of s elf-rule
(Pol. 1254b16-21)
but
als o that
they
have the excellence
neces s ary
to
prevent
them from
failing
in their function
through
lack of s elf-
control
(Pol. 1259b22-28, 1260al-3);
he
d is tinguis hes
s laves from child ren on the
ground that,
unlike
s laves ,
child ren
pos s es s
the d eliberative element
(albeit
in an
immature
form) (Pol. 1260a13),
but he als o ins is ts that
the
proper res pons e
to
s laves ,
even more s o than to chil-
d ren,
is ad monition rather than command alone
(Pol.
1260b5-7);
he
s ays
that s laves are
es s entially
not-form
and ins tead
s imply
matter or bod ies
waiting
for mind s
as form to
impos e
ord er
upon
them
(Pol.
1252a31-
34, 1254b15-20)
but als o
that,
as human
beings , they
are cons tituted
by
matter and form
(Pol. 1254a32-34)
and s hare in the
capacity
to reas on
(Pol. 1259b29).
On
the bas is of thes e
incons is tencies ,
s ome s cholars d is -
mis s Aris totle's account of natural
s lavery
as incoher-
ent
(Garns ey 1996, 107, 125;
Smith
1991).
Aris totle is
not, however,
unaware that his examination of the s oul
of the s lave
pulls
in d ifferent d irections . H e maintains ,
by way
of
res pons e,
that
"beauty
of s oul is not s een"
(Pol.
1255al).
Becaus e the s oul is not vis ible to the
eye,
Aris totle's ans wer to the
ques tion
of who is a s lave
by
nature in terms of s oul can be no more conclus ive than
was his ans wer to who is a s lave
by
nature in terms of
bod y.
Aris totle, nonetheles s , conclud es that "it is clear,
then, that s ome men are
by
nature free, and others
s laves , and for thes e latter
s lavery
is both
exped ient
and
jus t" (Pol.
1255al-2).
If natural s lavery
is not d e-
termined
by
an immutable
phys ical d eficiency
and the
s oul's
invis ibility
makes it
impos s ible
to know whether
natural s laves s uffer from an immutable
ps ychological
jus t
as well be a
s ymptom
of Aris totle's
worry
that the
phenomena
are not
d ifferent;
hence the need to enforce, nominally
at
leas t,
a
s trict
bound ary
between them.
19
Though
s he als o
s ays
that the d is tinction is a matter of
d egree
(1992,
184
n.2).
20 For this
reas on,
Aris totle recommend s that thos e in a
pos ition
to
occupy
thems elves with
philos ophy
or
politics
have s teward s to
attend to the
management
of their hous ehold s
(Pol. 1255b35-37).
95
and
Foreigners February
2004
d eficiency, what, then,
makes
s lavery
natural? Aris to-
tle's ans wer is that the mas ter-s lave relation is natural
when it benefits both ind ivid uals
involved ,
when the
interes ts of the s lave and of the mas ter are the s ame
(Pol. 1255b13-14, 1252a35-bl).
The circums tances in
which
s lavery might
benefit a mas ter are clear
enough.
In what s orts of circums tances
might
s omeone benefit
from
being
a s lave?21 Aris totle
s ays
that a
pers on
whos e
s oul is s o d is ord ered that it fails to
guid e
his
bod y might
well be better off
guid ed by
s omeone els e's s oul than
left
wholly unguid ed (Pol. 1254b16-20).
Becaus e it is
d ifficult to s ee and therefore to know whether a s oul is
well
ord ered ,
evid ence of a d is ord ered s oul is
provid ed
by
the activities in which the
pers on engages .
The in-
ference that a
pers on's
s oul is d is ord ered is
jus tified
not when he
acts , every
now and
then,
"as mos t s laves
act,"
as this would
give
the s tatus of
s lavery
too much
weight.
Nor is there a
biological
s tand ard for d eter-
mining
when a s oul is d is ord ered :
none,
at
leas t,
in the
s ens e of a
neces s ary
one.
Rather,
what
might
be called
characteris tically
human
activity
its elf
provid es
a kind
of internal s tand ard s ufficient to allow
jud gment
about
which activities and
ways
of
living
are more s lavis h than
others .
What is
characteris tically
human
activity?
At the
s tart of the
Politics ,
Aris totle
d is tinguis hes
human be-
ings
from all other natural
beings
on the
ground
that
human
beings
alone
pos s es s logos ,
the
capacity
for ar-
ticulate
s peech
or reas on
(Pol. 1253a10).
All human
beings , by
virtue of
being human, pos s es s
this firs t-
level
capacity, includ ing
s laves
(Pol. 1259b29).
It is in
virtue of
logos
that human
beings
make choices about
the us eful and
harmful,
the
jus t
and
unjus t,
the
good
and the bad
(Pol. 1253a14-18),
and it is characteris -
tic of human
beings that,
with
regard
to thes e ethical
and
political matters ,
we act
"accord ing
to
thoughtful
or d eliberate choice"
(Salkever 1990b, 195; 1991, 182;
Saxonhous e
1985, 66),
kata
prohaires in (Pol.
1280a31-
34). C hoice, prohaires is ,
charts the cours e of a human
life. It is the act of
choos ing
one action ins tead of
(or
before, pro) another, namely, making
a
jud gment
about
what to choos e. It
is ,
Aris totle
s ays ,
the
s tarting point
or
rule, arche,
of action
(NE 1113a4-9).
As
s ignaled by
the
prefix "pro," prohaires is ,
in the Greek
und ers tand ing,
has an embed d ed character: The choices that initiate
the actions
people
und ertake are d etermined
by
their
habits ,
which reflect who
they
have been and therefore
who
they
are.22 Prohairetic
activity, combining
d es ire
and
intelligence (NE 1139b5-7),
is
characteris tically
human
activity
ins ofar as it d is clos es the
character,
the
s oul, and , thereby,
the nature of the one who
acts ,
s pecifically by revealing
the
d egree
to
which,
in the ac-
tions he
und ertakes ,
the actor is
us ing
the
capacity
for
logos
he
pos s es s es .
The one who
pos s es s es
the
capacity
for
logos
but
cons is tently
d oes not us e
it, engaging, ins tead ,
in ac-
tivity
that falls s hort of
prohairetic activity,
is a natural
s lave. Such a
pers on
can have no s hare in "a life bas ed
on choice"
(Pol. 1280a34-35)
but rather mus t have his
choices mad e for him
by
s omeone
who,
in
contras t,
us es
fores ight
to choos e
thoughtfully (Pol. 1252a32).
Slavery
thus benefits the
pers on
who
cons is tently
fails
to
engage
in
prohairetic activity by bringing
that
pers on
into a relation that allows him to mirror or
approxi-
mate it.23 The
d eficiency
of a natural s lave
is , then,
his
failure to actualiz e the firs t-level
capacity
for
logos
he
pos s es s es .24
A natural s lave thus lacks what Aris totle
calls a s econd -level
capability.
To
s ay
this is
not,
how-
ever,
to as cribe to natural s laves an immutable nature in
the s ens e that I have been
challenging.
A s econd -level
capability
is an actualiz ation of a firs t-level
capacity
that comes about
by
virtue of the
activity
of its us e
(De
Anima
11.4-5):
I
actualiz e
my
firs t-level
capacity
for
logos through prohairetic activity. Similarly,
a s econd -
level
incapacity
res ults from a failure to actualiz e the
firs t-level
capacity: My
cons is tent failure to exercis e
my
capacity
for
logos prod uces my
d eliberative
d eficiency.
Thos e who are
d eliberatively
d eficient
owing
to their
cons is tent failure to us e their
logos are,
for that rea-
s on, worthy
of
s lavery
and
are, therefore,
in Aris totle's
terms ,
natural s laves . In
contras t,
thos e who are
pre-
vented from
us ing
their
logos owing
to
conques t
or
coercive
ins titutions ,
or thos e whos e
capacity
for
logos
is
d amaged
from birth or
incapacitated
later in their
lives
(through
no
willing
nonus e of their
own),
are
mad e s laves
by
force or accid ent and
are, therefore,
to
Aris totle,
not natural s laves at all. Und ers tood
by way
of
prohairetic activity,
nature thus
d is tinguis hes
s laves
from nons laves but s ecures no abs olute bound aries and
offers no
permanent
found ations . Guid ed and d eter-
mined
by activity,
nature is
changeable.
It is for this
reas on
that,
when he d is cus s es the
capacity
of
nature,
und er its formal
as pect-the
s oul-to
d is tinguis h
s laves
from
nons laves ,
Aris totle's s tatements are
imprecis e.
It
21
Kraut (2002, 295-301)
offers an excellent account of
"Why Slavery
Benefits Slaves ," which
als o, however,
und ermines his ins is tence that
what
d is tinguis hes
s laves
by
nature is the
complete
abs ence of the
capacity
to
acquire practical
wis d om. Ins ofar as Kraut
agrees
that a
s lave can
d evelop s ufficiently good
habits and a s ufficient meas ure of
mod eration to
s omed ay
d es erve his freed om
(a pos ition
Kraut als o
rightly
attributes to
Aris totle),
and ins ofar as ,
to
Aris totle,
there can
be no mod eration without
practical wis d om,
ind eed no virtue without
practical wis d om,
and vice vers a
(NE 1144b30-33), attributing
to nat-
ural s laves even a "mod icum of virtue"
is ,
eo
ips o,
to attribute to them
practical
wis d om
and , thereby,
to call into
ques tion
the
immutability
of their
s lavery.
22
For this
reas on,
Aris totle
d is tinguis hes acting by
choice and
acting
voluntarily:
In the abs ence of external
cons traint,
as we will
s ee,
all
acts count as
voluntary.
That not all
voluntary
acts
are, however,
chos en
(NE 111.2),
s ets Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of choice
apart
from
more voluntaris t and
cognitive conceptions .
23
On the
importance
of the relation between mimes is and
logos
for
Aris totle, s ee Davis 1992 and Lear
2003, chap.
4. This is not to
impos e
upon
the mas ter
any obligation
to teach the s lave how to
engage
in
prohairetic activity.
On this
is s ue,
I
agree
with Kraut
(2002, 298-99).
24
Kraut
argues
that what
d is tinguis hes
natural s laves from freemen is
that the former can achieve
only
a low-level
capacity
for
d eliberation,
a
capacity
that allows them to be s killed
only
at menial
crafts mans hip.
Kraut cannot be
arguing
that this is a firs t-level
incapacity (although
he s ometimes s eems
to,
as when he
argues
that s laves "lack the
faculty
by
which mos t
people
reas on" from
birth)
becaus e to have even
a low-level
capacity
is to have a firs t-level
capacity. If,
in
contras t,
he is
arguing
that natural s laves lack the s econd -level
capability
to
actualiz e their firs t-level
capacity,
this can
change
over time. As a
practical d eficiency
rather than an immutable
one,
a s econd -level
incapacity may
be activated
through practice.
96
98,
No. 1
is s o as to
pres erve
the
prohairetic activity
he takes to
be characteris tic and als o cons titutive of a
d is tinctively
human
way
of
living
that Aris totle is
es pecially keen,
in
his more
explicitly philos ophical
treatments of
nature,
to
s afeguard
nature's
changeability.
As I s how
next,
this
he d oes
by guard ing agains t
the as s imilation of nature
to
neces s ity
and als o to chance.
TH E NATURE OF NATURE
To
enquire
whether
being
is
s ingle
and
unchanging
is no
part of
an
enquiry
into
nature.
Aris totle, Phys ics
184b25-185al
Between
Neces s ity
and C hance
Aris totle und ers tand s the natural as what
happens
us u-
ally
and for the mos t
part, epi
to
polu.
What
happens
us ually
and for the mos t
part
is a "mod al" mid d le be-
tween what is
always
and what is rare
(Fred e 1992).
What is
always corres pond s
to what is
by neces s ity,
and
what is rare to what
happens by
accid ent. There is much
to learn about Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of nature from
this
tripartite
d ivis ion. In an Aris totelian
fas hion,
I be-
gin my inves tigation
of what is d is tinctive about the
natural
by looking
firs t at what he
counterpos es
to na-
ture: the
neces s ary
and the accid ental.
The
primary s ignification
of the
neces s ary,
ana-
gkaion,
or the s ens e from which "all others are s ome-
how
d erived ,"
is "that which cannot be otherwis e"
(Meta. 1015a34-bl).
The
neces s ary
als o includ es the
compuls ory
or
forced ,
that which is
oppos ed
to im-
puls e
or
purpos e (Meta. 1015a27-28);
and what is
true
by d emons tration,
the firs t
principles
of knowl-
ed ge (Meta. 1015b7).
The
category
of the
neces s ary
in-
clud es a
range
of
s ignifications
acros s d ifferent field s
of
inquiry-ontology, epis temology,
ethics -held to-
gether by
a kind of
family
res emblance.25 What thes e
s ignifications
s hare
may
be
explored by looking
at Aris -
totle's
epis temological
and ethical treatments of the
neces s ary
in NE VI.3 and NE
III.1, res pectively.
Dis -
cus s ing
the intellectual virtue of s cientific
knowled ge,
epis teme,
Aris totle
s ays
it s tud ies what is
eternal,
un-
generated ,
and
imperis hable (NE 1139b24-25),
num-
bers or
figures ,
for
example. Always
and
invariable,
they
are
neces s ary
in that
they
are out-of-time
and ,
hence, without motion. As form without matter, num-
bers and
figures may
be
precis ely
and
s cientifically
s tud -
ied
by
the intellectual virtues of s cience, epis teme,
and
philos ophic wis d om, theoria.
Although they may
be
s tud ied
by
human
beings ,
what is
neces s ary
or
always
is
ind epend ent
of human
being.
This feature is
pres ent
as
well in Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of
neces s ity
as com-
puls ion
or force: "Actions are forced when the caus e is
in the external circums tances and the
agent
contributes
nothing" (NE
1110blff).
The
neces s ary,
und ers tood as that which cannot be
otherwis e in its
ontological, epis temological,
and ethi-
cal
s ens es ,
s hares a
kins hip
with the
pas t.
What is
pas t,
Aris totle
s ays ,
is not
capable
of not
having
taken
place
(NE 1139b7-9).
Once
pas t,
what has
happened
cannot
be otherwis e.
People may s tud y
the
pas t,
but
owing
to
its
invariability,
no one d eliberates about the
pas t (NE
1139b7-9). Likewis e,
no one d eliberates about eternal
things ,
for thes e cannot be
brought
about
by
our own
efforts
(NE 1112a20ff.).
The
pas t,
like the firs t
prin-
ciples
of
knowled ge,
and like force or
compuls ion,
is
ind epend ent
of human
being;
human
agency
cannot
change
it
(NE 1140a32-34).
C ounterpois ed
to the
neces s ary
and
flanking
the nat-
ural on the other s id e is the accid ental or the rare.
"Accid ent" is what
applies
to
s omething
"but neither
neces s arily
or
us ually" (Meta. 1025a15).
It is what can
always
be otherwis e and s o is
never,
at leas t not in the
way
the invariable is . The accid ental is
contingent.
It
is what Aris totle as s ociates with
chance, tuche,
which
he calls the
ind efinite, aoris ta,
and cites as the caus e of
accid ents
(Meta. 1025a25).
If what is
neces s ary
can be
s tud ied
precis ely
and
s cientifically,
what
happens
acci-
d entally
or
by
chance cannot be s tud ied at all.
Inexpli-
cable, ind eterminate,
and
rand om,
chance or accid ental
events have no account of their own
(Phys ics
197a18-
19).
If there is a
kins hip
between the
neces s ary
and the
pas t,
there is one as well between the accid ental and the
future: The accid ental is the
always pos s ible,
what lies
uncertainly
ahead .
Although
in mos t
ways
unlike the
neces s ary,
the accid ental and the
neces s ary
have one
thing
in common: What
happens by accid ent,
like what
happens neces s arily,
is
ind epend ent
of human
agency.
Between
"neces s ity
and
contingency,"
between what
is
always
and what is
never,
"between
pas t
and
future,"26
lies what is
by
nature: What
happens us ually
and for the mos t
part.
Unlike that which can never be
otherwis e and unlike that which can
always
be other-
wis e,
that which is
by
nature is both variable and s ta-
ble: What is
by nature,
Aris totle
s ays
in the
Phys ics ,
has within its elf a
principle
of
change
and res is tence
to
change (192b13-14).
Neither motionles s nor
per-
petually
in
motion,
natural
beings
are.
They
can als o
be otherwis e.
Owing
to their relative
s tability,
what is
by nature,
unlike what is
by accid ent,
can be s tud ied .
Owing
to their relative
variability,
s tud ies of what is
by
nature,
unlike s tud ies of the
neces s ary,
will be
impre-
cis e. It is becaus e their
pos s ibilities may
be actualiz ed in
any
number of
unpred ictable ways
that
only by looking
at what natural
beings
d o can
anything
be known about
what
they
are
(Salkever 1990a, chap. 3).
C laims about
the
id entity
of natural
beings will, therefore, be claims
about their activities . This is
why,
in his
inquiries
into the
natures of citiz ens and s laves , as we have s een, Aris totle
rejects
s tatus claims and focus es ins tead on what
they
d o. It is als o
why,
in his accounts of the natures of citi-
z ens and s laves , Aris totle, as we s aw, is often
imprecis e.
25
For other s ignifications that
belong here,
s ee
Metaphys ics ,
1015a20-23.
26
The phras es , "between
neces s ity
and
contingency"
and "between
pas t
and
future," belong
to
H amps hire (2000, 30)
and Arend t
(1961),
res pectively.
For
both,
as for
Aris totle,
thes e
phras es
refer to the
d omain of
prohairetic,
that is ,
ethical and
political,
action.
97
and
Foreigners February
2004
The
imprecis ion
aris es becaus e the nature of a natu-
ral
being
will
change
s hould its characteris tic activities
change.
There is thus an iterative
quality
to Aris totle's
s tud ies of natural
beings
that accommod ates the revi-
s ion of his own conclus ions in cas es of
change (Lear
1988, 43-54;
Salkever
1990, chap. 1).27
Even if the
id entity
of a natural
being
is
given by
its
characteris tic
activities ,
and is therefore
variable,
mos t
commentators claim that Aris totle
is , nonetheles s ,
com-
mitted to there
being s omething neces s ary
about na-
ture, s omething
that s omehow lurks behind or
beyond
a natural
being's
characteris tic activities to d is clos e its
true
id entity (Kraut 2002;
Swans on
1999).
As we have
s een,
this is not true of thos e whom Aris totle calls natu-
ral s laves . It
is , ind eed ,
not true of
any
natural
beings ,
for
to claim a
neces s ity
to
nature, es pecially
in the cas e of
human
nature,
is to und ermine
precis ely
what Aris totle
aims to
pres erve, namely,
the
characteris tically
human
activities
ofprohaires is , and , related ly,
of
accountability
and
res pons ibility.
To d emons trate
this ,
I turn next to an
exploration
of the bound aries of Aris totle's
category
of
the natural.
Aris totle often includ es in the
category
of the natu-
ral features that s eem to
belong
more
properly
to the
categories
of the
neces s ary
and the accid ental. Aris -
totle s ometimes us es the
phras e
"what is
always
or
for the mos t
part"
ins tead of "what is
us ually
or for
the mos t
part"
to refer to what is
by
nature
(replacing
"us ually"
with
"always ,"
the term he as s ociates with
the
neces s ary) (Phys ics 199b15-18).
Other times he
s eems to hold
up
as natural
examples
that are more
rare than us ual.2 Some commentators take thes e to be
s igns
that Aris totle's account of the natural is
equivocal
or that he is
ad jus ting
it to fit circums tances that d o
not
read ily
mold to his
principles (Annas 1993, 146;
1996;
Irwin
1985, 416-17). I
d is agree. Starting
firs t with
the
apparent
elis ion of the d is tinction between nature
and
neces s ity,
and
looking
next and more
briefly
at the
relation between the natural and the accid ental
(be-
caus e the
tend ency
is to read nature as
neces s ity
not as
chance),
I
argue
that
although
Aris totle takes neces -
s ity
or force and chance or accid ent to affect natural
beings -ind eed ,
he s ees natural
beings
as
s ingularly
vulnerable to both-neither has a
part,
and
they
mus t
have no
part,
in the d efinition of what is
by
nature.
We have s een this
alread y
in Aris totle's exclus ion from
cons id eration of force and accid ent/chance in his inves -
tigations
of the nature of citiz ens and s laves . We mus t
now look more
carefully
at what und erlies Aris totle's
exclus ion of force and chance and his inclus ion of what
I call the "as if"
neces s ary
and accid ental.
The nature of natural
beings
is d is cerned , we have
s een, by looking
at their activities .
Although
this is not
to
s ay
that nature is d etermined
by activity alone, thes e
activities d o form the
patterns
of our lives . Becaus e
natural
beings us ually
act thus and
s o,
it is not hard
to
imagine patterns
of
activity becoming
s o
ingrained
as to be
jus tifiably
treated as
pred ictable
and
precis e,
that
is ,
as characteris tic: A human
being
who has acted
courageous ly
when confronted with
d anger
will
always
d o
s o,
we
might s ay,
for s he is that s ort of
pers on.
We
often
s peak
in this
way,
and it
might
be s aid that the
s tability
and
s ecurity
of our
d aily
lives
d epend
on the
trus t in the world
pres uppos ed by
this
way
of
s peaking.
We
think, s peak,
and
act,
in other
word s ,
as
if
us ual
patterns
of
activity
were
compelled ,
as
if they
were
neces s ary.
Aris totle's d efinition of "the us ual" in the
Phys ics
makes this
plain:
What is
by
nature
"always
[tend s ]
toward the s ame
end ,
unles s
s omething
inter-
venes "
(199b18). Although
we
think, s peak,
and act as
if the us ual were
neces s ary,
we d o s o
knowing
that it
is
always pos s ible
that
things
will turn out otherwis e.
The
courageous pers on may
meet a
d anger
s he cannot
face d own. We
s peak
of "the
always "
in the cas e of
human
beings
and all natural
beings only
as
if
it were
neces s ary.
This is as it s hould be. H uman
beings
are
s table ins ofar as we have within ours elves a
principle
of
s taying
the s ame or res t. Ins ofar as we have within
ours elves a
principle
of
change,
we are als o
changeable
and in cons tant interaction with our circums tances . In
d ifferent
circums tances ,
human
beings
act
d ifferently.
When nature is und ers tood not in terms of
s tability
but
in terms of
neces s ity, invariability
controls
beings who,
for Aris totle at
leas t,
are d efined as well
by
movement
and
pos s ibility (Arnhart 1998, chap. 9).
Aris totle's
vigilance agains t any
more than an "as
if" as s imilation of nature to
neces s ity
is on
d is play
in
his d is cus s ion of
res pons ibility
in Nicomachean
Ethics ,
III.1,
where nature and
neces s ity
are
brought
into a con-
frontation. As noted
earlier,
Aris totle takes actions to
be
compelled
when a
pers on
contributes
nothing
to the
action;
the caus e of action is rather in external circum-
s tances .
Only
two kind s of s ituations meet Aris totle's
d efinition of force or
compuls ion,
s o und ers tood : when
an
agent
acts without
knowled ge
of the circums tances
of action
(and
his
ignorance
is hones t or
innocent);
or when a third
party phys ically
effects the action in
the
agent's place by,
to us e an anachronis tic
example,
putting
his hand over the
agent's
when s he is
hold ing
a
gun
and
us ing
his
finger
over hers to
pull
the
trigger
d es pite
her efforts to res is t. For all other
actions ,
the
agent,
in Aris totle's
view,
is
res pons ible, for,
as he
puts
it, the
origin
of action is in the
agent (NE 1111a23).
In
comparis on
to mod ern
legal d efinitions , Aris totle's ac-
count of force is
exceed ingly
limited : It d oes not includ e
actions taken und er cond itions of d ures s , d ebilitating
d runkennes s , pent-up rage,
and the like, when thes e
cond itions are
brought
about
by
the
agent
hims elf. For
Aris totle, an
agent's
actions are forced
only
when he is
effectively prevented
from
acting voluntarily.
If Aris totle's
und ers tand ing
of force is narrow, his
account of
res pons ibility
is
remarkably expans ive.29
As
27
Lear (1988, 45) argues that Aris totle's s cientific method can re-
vis e its own conclus ions . This is true as well about his
ps ychological,
ethical, and
political
method s .
28
As in the cas e of certain forms of
money-making
he d is cus s es in
Politics , 1.8-10,
and calls natural but that
are,
in
reality, extremely
rare. Annas
(1996, 733)
treats this
example
as evid ence of Aris to-
tle's incons is tent us e of nature and of his
illegitimate
elis ion of the
d is tinction between the natural and the id eal.
29
H e d oes not cons id er
d ures s ,
for
example,
as an excus e for bad
action. H e
d oes , however,
ad vocate
taking jus tifications
and other
98
98,
No. 1
the
following pas s age
from the Nicomachean Ethics in-
d icates , people
are
res pons ible
for all of their
voluntary
actions ,
virtuous as well as vicious :
Virtue is
up
to us . And s o als o is vice. For where we are free
to act we are als o free to refrain from
acting,
and where
we are able to
s ay
No we are als o able to
s ay
Yes . If it is
up
to us to act when
d oing
a
thing
is
good
or
noble,
not
acting
will be
up
to us when
acting
would be s hameful or
wrong;
and ,
if not
acting
when inaction is
good
is
up
to
us , s o, too,
acting
when action is s hameful is
up
to us . But if it is in
our
power
to refrain from
d oing right
and
wrong,
and if
...
being good
or bad is
d oing right
or
wrong,
it
cons equently
d epend s
on us whether we are
good
or bad
(1113b6-14
trans .
mod ified ).
Prohairetic
activity
is at s take in Aris totle's
vigilance
agains t as s imilating res pons ibility
to force. Prohairetic
activity
is als o at s take in his
vigilance agains t
as s imi-
lating
nature to
neces s ity.
In the Nicomachean
Ethics ,
neces s ity
or
compuls ion-as
that to which the
agent
contributes
nothing,
becaus e the caus e of action lies
altogether
outs id e the
agent-s tand s oppos ed
to
pro-
hairetic
agency
as that which has within its elf its own
principle, arche,
of action. Abs ence of force or
neces s ity
is a
neces s ary, although
not a
s ufficient,
cond ition of
choice, prohaires is .
In the
Metaphys ics ,
the
Phys ics ,
and
els ewhere,
force or
neces s ity
s tand s
oppos ed
to what is
by
nature as that which has within its elf its own
princi-
ple
of motion and res t.
Elid ing
the d is tinction between
nature and
neces s ity
makes virtue no more
voluntary
than
vice,
a
pos ition
Aris totle
rejects (NE 1113b14).
When nature and
neces s ity
are
paired , prohairetic
ac-
tivity, res pons ibility,
and s elf-d etermination
d is appear.
What is
by nature, then, may
reach toward
neces s ity
but it mus t remain d is tinct from the
neces s ary
s o as to
pres erve
the
activity
characteris tic of human
beings .
What is
by
nature als o reaches toward but remains
d is tinct from the accid ental. Aris totle
may recogniz e
the role of chance or luck in the lives of natural be-
ings
and the ameliorative effects of
contingent
external
good s throughout
the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics
(Nus s baum 1986, chap. 11).
As with
neces s ity, however,
Aris totle refus es to und ers tand the
id entity
of natural
beings
in terms of
chance, luck,
or accid ent. The s takes
in
keeping
nature and chance d is tinct are no d ifferent
from what
they
were in
keeping
d is tinct nature and
neces s ity. Und ers tand ing
the nature of natural
beings
in terms of
chance,
like
und ers tand ing
it in terms of
neces s ity,
makes
and
res pons ibility
irrelevant.
If, on the s id e of the
neces s ary,
Aris totle enfold s into
the
category
of the natural what I called the "as if"
neces s ary,
on the s id e of the accid ental, he enfold s into
the
category
of the natural, the "as if" accid ental, what,
in the Nicomachean Ethics , he calls art, techne. Art is
concerned neither with
things
that are or come into
being by neces s ity
nor with
things
that d o s o in accor-
d ance with nature. Art is rather "concerned with the
s ame
objects "
as chance
(NE 1140a14-20).
Both are
concerned with
pos s ibility,
with how
s omething may
come into
being
which is
capable
of
being
or not
being
(NE 1140a13). Moreover,
in
art,
as in
chance,
the fin-
is hed work is not
completely governed by
the
activity
of
prod ucing (NE 1140a18).
"Art loves chance and chance loves art"
s ays
Aris to-
tle, quoting Agathon approvingly (NE 1140a20).
But
art is
only
"as if" accid ental. Unlike
chance,
where
the caus e is
altogether ind eterminate,
in
art,
it is the
blueprint
in the s oul of the
maker, eid os ,
that is the
caus e of action
(Meta. 1032b22ff.).
There
is ,
in other
word s , prohairetic agency
in art but not in chance. This
is not to
d eny
the
key
d ifference Aris totle is at
pains
to und ers core between the
making
of art and the
d oing
that
belongs
to
activity proper:
In
art,
he
s ays ,
the end is
outs id e the
activity
of
making;
whereas
d oing
is
activity
that has within its elf its own end
(NE 1140b4-6).
Even
if the end
prod uct
in art is outs id e the
agent's control,
nonetheles s , making,
like
d oing,
but unlike chance or
neces s ity, crucially
involves
activity
and
res pons ibility.
In
keeping
d is tinct what is
by
nature from
neces s ity
or force and als o from chance or
accid ent,
as Aris totle
d oes in his d is cus s ions of the nature of citiz ens and
s laves and in his account of the nature of nature
its elf,
Aris totle
pres erves
the
that char-
acteriz es and
d is tinguis hes
human nature. In
includ ing
the "as if"
neces s ary
and the "as if" accid ental in his
account of the
natural,
Aris totle reveals the
expans ive-
nes s of his
conception
of
It is
pol-
itics ,
its elf an art and s o a
prod uct
of human
activity,
that
prod uces
the ins titutions that
help
make citiz ens
and s laves . Politics is the art that Aris totle takes to be
integral
to
any und ers tand ing
of the
practices
of human
beings
and their natures
(NE 1094a27-1094b11).
It is
becaus e what is
by
nature
is ,
in Aris totle's
view,
d efined
by
the
practice
and effects of
activity
und er all three
as pects , s elf-d etermining activity, guid ed making
of cit-
iz ens
by ins titutions ,
and
making by
citiz ens of ins titu-
tions ,
that he
can,
without
incons is tency,
treat human
beings and , ind eed ,
the
polity
its elf as both natural and
mad e
(Pol. 1253a19-31, 1252b30ff.).
The Power of
Activity
Is human nature all and
only activity?
Aris totle's an-
s wer s eems to be
"yes ": yes ,
in
that,
as we have
s een,
there is
nothing neces s ary lurking
behind
activity; yes ,
in that natural
beings
are
d is tinguis hed by
their activi-
ties ; yes ,
in that even the
s tability
characteris tic of hu-
man nature is bas ed on
activity.
Aris totle ins is ts , how-
ever, that
activity
alone cannot
prod uce
the movement
and
change
or
s tability
that characteriz e human nature.
Activity
alone d oes not account for the nature of natu-
ral
beings
becaus e the nature of a natural
being
is not
s imply
a
d es cription
of what it tend s to d o.
Activity,
we have noted , als o s ets a s tand ard , an internal and d e-
mand ing
one. To s ee how
requires attend ing
not
s imply
to
activity
but als o to what
gives
ris e to
activity
in the
firs t
place,
the cond itions of its
pos s ibility.
Aris totle calls that which makes
activity pos s ible
d unamis , which is trans lated
various ly
as
capacity,
mitigating
factors into account when
d etermining
how to
res pond
to
actions taken und er d ifficult cond itions
(Rhet. 1374b13-16).
99
and
Foreigners February
2004
power, capability, potentiality.
Dunamis
is ,
Aris totle
explains ,
the
capacity
or
power activity
has to
regu-
late
its elf.
H e
analyz es
this relation between
capabil-
ity, d unamis ,
and
activity, energeia,
in his d is cus s ion
of the
Megarians
in
Metaphys ics , IX.3.30
The
Megar-
ians ,
Aris totle
recounts , s ay
"that a man who is not
build ing
cannot
build ,
but
only
the man who is build -
ing,
and at the moment when he is
build ing" (Meta.
1046b30ff).
This means that it is
only
when a d unamis
(or capability)
is
actually
at work that the
ability
to
d o
s omething
is
pres ent.
When it is not at
work,
the
d unamis ,
as a
capacity,
is
only potential and , therefore,
abs ent. For the
Megarians ,
as for s ome
contemporary
pos t-Nietz s cheans ,
this
means ,
that activities
emerge
ex nihilo.
Aris totle thinks that this account of
activity
is abs urd .
When d unamis is treated as
only pres ent
when it is in
action,
he
argues ,
there can be no
change
or movement
at all
(Meta. 1047a15). C hange
or movement mus t
hap-
pen
from one
thing
to another. It
may
be true that to be
capable
means to have a
d unamis ,
and that not
having
the d unamis means not
being capable, but,
Aris totle
ins is ts ,
d unamis has its own
energeia
or
activity.
The ac-
tivity
or
actuality
of d unamis
(the activity
or
actuality
of
capacity)
lies in its
being pos s es s ed
even when it is not
at work. The build er can have the
capability
to
build ,
this
means ,
even when he is not
actually build ing.
Not
build ing, then,
d oes not
neces s arily s ignal
the abs ence
of
d unamis , though
it
can,
as
when,
for
example,
the
build er los es the
capacity
to build
through
bad luck
(he
los es his
hand s , s ay)
or he
forgets
how to build
owing
to the
pas s age
of time. Und er thes e cond itions of ac-
cid ent or
nonus e,
there can be no
build ing activity
at
all. Where there is
activity
or
energeia,
it
emerges
not
from
s omething only potential, i.e., abs ent,
but from
d unamis
und ers tood ,
in
H eid egger's (1995)
word s ,
as
"the withd rawal into its elf of the
capability
s uch that
it is
primed
for
releas e, i.e., primed
for
activity" (158).
Dunamis ,
as "the
s ource, arche,
of
change
in s ome other
thing,
or in the s ame
thing qua
other"
(Meta. 1046a11,
1019a19-21),
is the
"power"
of
activity:
It is what makes
activity pos s ible.
As we s aw
earlier,
without the
capacity
for
logos ,
there could be no
activity
of its us e.
If d unamis
powers activity,
this d oes not make ac-
tivity
its elf
any
les s
important.
Dunamis
may
be that
from out of which
change occurs ,
but it is not s ome-
thing inert, waiting
to move to action.
Rather,
it effects
change by way
of its
actualiz ation, by d oing
its
work,
through practice.
It is
by performing
the activities for
which it is
hold ing
its elf in read ines s that a d unamis
becomes
capable
in the firs t
place.
It is , in other word s ,
by build ing
that a build er becomes
capable
of
build ing
(Meta. 1046b34-36).
The
activity
of
build ing
actualiz es
the build er's
capability
to build . One is a build er in the
way
one is a
courageous pers on
or a d eliberative
per-
s on, for
example,
that is , only
as
long
as the
d is pos ition
to build or to act
courageous ly
or
prohairetically
s hows
its elf from time to time in the relevant
activity. Along
s imilar
lines ,
Aris totle remarks that "d is tance d oes not
break off
friend s hip abs olutely, only
the
activity
of it.
But if the abs ence is
las ting,
it s eems
actually
to make
men
forget
their
friend s hip" (NE 1157b6-13).
H uman nature
is , then,
not d etermined all and
only
by activity
on Aris totle's
und ers tand ing,
for activities
come out of
capabilities .
There
are,
s o to
s ay,
d oers
behind d eed s . Who the d oer
is ,
the nature of the
d oer,
is s table. This is not to
s ay, however,
that nature is once
and for all d etermined .
Rather,
who the d oer
is ,
his
nature,
is
continually
informed
by
the activities he has
performed
and continues to
perform.
This means that if
a d eed or action is the
prod uct
of
activity,
it is not activ-
ity's
s ole
prod uct.
For even as activities
emerge
out of
a s table
character,
activities thems elves are formative
of character. The more
courageous ly
I
act,
for
example,
the more
courageous
I become. There can be no
activity
without
capability,
but there can als o be no
capability
without
activity.
Each
d epend s
on the other. It is this
interd epend ence
between
energeia
and d unamis that
makes
pos s ible
the
changes
over time and movement
that d efine the nature of human
beings
and als o their
s tability.
This
interd epend ence
als o d efines
s oul,
the
part
of natural
beings
that contains their
principle
and
s ource of motion. If the
ord ering
or cons titution of s oul
and of human nature its elf is
given by
the
interd epen-
d ence between
energeia
and
d unamis ,
and is
change-
able,
it is nonetheles s
pos s ible,
at
any given moment,
to
d is tinguis h among
thos e who are and thos e who are
not
actualiz ing
their
potential.
This
d is tinction,
as we
have
s een,
res ts on the
practice
of
Some commentators have taken Aris totle's d efini-
tion of nature in
Metaphys ics
V.4 to be
equivocal. They
s ay
that he d efines nature in two s ens es and
they
criti-
ciz e him for s ometimes
favoring
one and s ometimes the
other
(Annas 1993, 146;
Irwin
1985, 416-17).31
As "the
s ource of motion in natural
beings ,
which is s omehow
inherent in
them,
either
potentially, d unamei,
or actu-
ally,
entelecheia" (Meta. 1015a18-19),
Aris totle's d efi-
nition of nature in the
Metaphys ics
involves
d uality,
to
be s ure. In one
s ens e,
he
s ays ,
nature is the
primary
s tuff-matter-and ,
in another
s ens e,
it is form. In one
s ens e,
it is the immanent
thing
from which a
growing
thing
firs t
begins
to
grow, d unamis ;
in another
s ens e,
it
is the
genes is
of
growing things ,
their
activity, energeia.
H e takes
form,
or
energeia,
to be
primary
and
guid ing
(Phys ics 193b17) (Lear 1988, chap. 2;
Nus s baum and
Putnam
1992),
and he als o und ers tand s form to take
its
guid ing
orientation from matter, much in the
way
the
s hape
of a s tatue
may appear
to its
s culptor
from
30
Becaus e I am interes ted in what Aris totle's
analys is
teaches about
his
und ers tand ing
of
activity,
I leave to one s id e whether Aris totle's
d es cription
of the
Megarian pos ition
is fair.
My analys is
here d raws
on
H eid egger (1995, chap. 3).
31
Annas (1996, 735
n.12; 1993, 146)
und ers tand s Aris totle here to
be
"ad d ing
to" his
Phys ics '
account of nature as the internal s ource
of
change
"the
point
that a
thing's
nature is both the matter from
which the
change begins
and als o the s ubs tance or form which is the
telos of the
completed change." C alling
the matter from which the
change begins
"mere nature" and the form or telos of the
completed
change
the
"s trong
s ens e of
nature,"
Annas
d is aggregates what,
for
Aris totle,
cocons titutes natural
beings -matter
and form or d unamis
and
energeia (De
Anima
412a10).
Irwin
(1985, 416-17)
makes the
s ame mis take. Arnhart
(1998, 36-39),
in
contras t,
treats nature as
"both
original potential
and
d eveloped potential."
100
98,
No. 1
out of the
clay.
But this is not to
equivocate.
For in the
Metaphys ics ,
as in the
Phys ics ,
the Nicomachean
Ethics ,
and als o the
Politics ,
where Aris totle both es tablis hes
the
neces s ity
of
hierarchy
or
teleology (among s pecies
and human
beings
in Politics I and
among regimes
in
the res t of the
Politics )
and als o alerts us to its
d angers ,
the s ens e of nature that Aris totle takes to be
primary
and
guid ing
is nature neither as an
origin
nor as an
end
s eparable
from
growth.32
It is
both,
and it is
cap-
tured in the
proces s
of
growth
its elf. A natural
being
becomes and reveals its nature as it
grows , changes ,
and
moves
through
time.
Nature,
und ers tood as an end and
a
beginning
all at
once,
is an
ongoing proces s .33
As the
d omain of
activity,
it is
als o,
and
crucially
for
Aris totle,
the d omain of ethics and
politics (NE 1103b26-30).
TH E NATURE OF FOREIGNERS
If,
to mos t
read ers ,
Aris totle takes nature to be im-
mutable, neces s ary,
and
prepolitical,
I have
argued ,
in
contras t, that,
to
Aris totle,
human nature is
cons tituted ,
in
large part, by
the
practice
and effects of
prohairetic
activity. Nature,
s o
und ers tood ,
has both a more limited
and a more
expans ive
role than is
us ually granted
to
it
by
Aris totle's read ers . It has a more limited role in
that it is not
neces s itarian; changeable
as well as
s table,
and
s haped by
the arts and
practices
of
politics ,
nature
can es tablis h no
permanent
and s ecure hierarchies or
found ations . It has a more
expans ive
role in that human
nature,
und ers tood via the
practices
and effects of
pro-
hairetic
activity,
makes human
beings res pons ible
and
accountable for the hierarchies
they
create and
s us tain.
This not
only
is the cas e within a
given polity
but als o
extend s to the bound aries and hierarchies
among poli-
ties . To s ee
this ,
I
turn, by way
of
conclus ion,
to what
might
be called the hard es t
part
of the hard cas e for
my
account of
nature,
Aris totle's treatment of certain
foreigners
as natural s laves .
Aris totle is
us ually
read as
treating
certain
foreigners
as
jus tly
ens laved bas ed on an immutable
inferiority
he is s aid to as s ociate with thos e non-Greeks
(Kraut
2002, 290-95).
If this is
right,
then
my
account of human
nature in terms of
activity,
even if true about
Greeks ,
would falter in the face of Aris totle's
xenophobia.
Its
relevance would als o become
ques tionable,
as mos t
s laves in Athens were non-Greeks .
H owever,
rather
than
pos ing
a
challenge
to the account I have d evel-
oped ,
the
pas s ages
in the Politics on
foreigners
confirm
it. Aris totle's d is tinction between Greeks and certain
non-Greeks ,
it turns
out,
res ts not on nature as s ome-
thing immutable,
not on his conviction that Greeks
were
s uperior
to
foreigners ,
but on his obs ervations
about the
(political
and
nonpolitical)
behaviors of thos e
foreigners .
In Politics
I,
Aris totle maintains that
"among foreign-
ers no d is tinction is mad e between women and
s laves ,
becaus e there is no natural ruler
among
them:
they
are
a
community
of
s laves ,
male and female."
Immed iately
following
this
s tatement,
he
quotes
"the
poets "
as
s ay-
ing,
"'It is meet that H ellenes s hould rule over non-
Greeks ';
as if
they thought
that the
foreigner
and the
s lave were
by
nature one"
(Pol. 1252b5-9).
Aris totle
firs t
reports
what he s ees
among foreigners
and then
quotes
the word s of the
poets ,
who
proclaim
the
jus tice
of Greek rule over non-Greeks on the
ground
that for-
eigners
are natural s laves . If Aris totle's obs ervations
are
accurate,
and the
foreigners
to whom he refers
d o,
ind eed ,
act as a
community
of
s laves , then,
in the terms
of the
analys is
offered s o
far,
he is
jus tified
in
calling
them natural s laves in virtue of that behavior. In
light
of the fact that Aris totle
puts
the id entification of
(all)
foreigners
as natural s laves into the mouths of "the
po-
ets ," however,
it is not
clear,
in this
pas s age
at
leas t,
whether he would hims elf end ors e this id entification
(Ambler 1987, 393).34
Als o in Politics
I,
Aris totle
s ays ,
"It mus t be ad mit-
ted that s ome are s laves
everywhere,
others nowhere"
(Pol. 1255a31-32).
Aris totle is
us ually
read as main-
taining
that there are
s ome, namely,
certain
foreigners ,
who
(becaus e they
are natural
s laves )
are s laves
every-
where,
and that there are
others , namely, Greeks ,
who
(becaus e they
are
naturally free)
are s laves nowhere.
The res t of the
pas s age, however, s ugges ts
a d ifferent
read ing.
Aris totle is
exploring
the
ques tion
of whether
the ens lavement of
foreigners conquered
in war is
jus t.
H is
ans wer,
as we have
s een,
is that
conques t,
as a mod e
of
force,
cannot
jus tify s lavery.
What can? Aris totle
ans wers that worthines s d etermines one's
qualifica-
tion for
s lavery (Pol. 1255a25-26,
als o
1255b21-23).
When, jus t
after
this ,
Aris totle
s ays
"It mus t be ad mit-
ted that s ome are s laves
everywhere,
others
nowhere,"
he s hould be read as
s aying
that thos e who are
igno-
ble are s laves
everywhere,
and thos e who are
good ,
nowhere
(Saxonhous e 1985, 70-71).
Aris totle notes
that there is a
tend ency among
Greeks to
regard
for-
eigners
as
ignoble
and thems elves as
good and , there-
fore, to treat
foreigners
as
jus tly
ens laved . In
res pons e,
Aris totle reiterates that the
proper
d eterminant with
regard
to
s lavery
is not
foreignnes s
but worthines s or
32
Notice that in the cas e of what is
by nature,
form
may
be the telos
of natural
beings
but form is not its elf s tatic. Its elf d efined in terms of
entelecheia and
energeia,
the form of natural
beings ,
as their
telos ,
is no
les s (and no more) kinetic than activity its elf. For illuminating d is cus -
s ions of Aris totle's s elf-cons cious ly complex treatment of teleology
in Politics
I, s howing
how he both es tablis hes and
problematiz es any
s traightforward
claims about
teleology,
s ee Salkever 1990, chap. 1;
Davis
1996, chap. 1;
and Nichols
1992, chap.
1.
33 C ontra Villa
(1996, 42-52), accord ing
to whom Aris totle's tele-
ology
robs action of its
initiatory power
and
gives
action a
pred e-
termined "authoritarian" future or end . Ins ofar as the telos is its elf
kinetic,
it
may
be embed d ed in a
pas t
and oriented
by
a s et of
capa-
bilities , yet pred etermines nothing.
The telos of a bons ai
s apling
will
be
appropriate
to it and d ifferent from the telos of an acorn. And the
telos of a
particular
bons ai
s apling
will not be the s ame as the telos
of another. The s ame is true of
people:
The telos of one human
being
will not be the s ame as that of another. Both
may
aim at
excellence,
but what excellence amounts to in each will d iffer.
34 For
d is cus s ion,
s ee Davis
(1996, 17),
who
argues
that Aris totle in-
vokes the
pas s age
from
Euripid es
with
knowled ge
of its context to call
into
ques tion any too-eas y oppos ition
between
foreigners
as natural
s laves and Greeks as
naturally
free:
"Iphigeneia,
who is
s peaking,
is
about to be s acrificed
by
her
father, Agamemnon
to
propitiate
the
god s
s o that the Greeks can continue their
exped ition agains t Troy.
Is this les s barbaric than
treating
women as s laves ?
Iphigeneia
is a
living
ins trument us ed for the s ake of an action."
101
and
Foreigners February
2004
character
(Pol. 1255bl),
its elf a function of
activity (NE
II.1-2). C haracter,
Aris totle
continues ,
will not
jus tify
s lavery
in
perpetuity:
Whereas nature intend s that from
good
men a
good
man will
s pring (and
from a s lave
will
s pring
a
s lave),
this d es ire is often thwarted
(Pol.
1255b3).
A
pers on's
character can therefore
jus tify only
his own
ens lavement,
not that of his child ren.
Toward the end of the
Politics ,
Aris totle us es
s pirit,
thumos ,
the s ource of the love of freed om and the
power
of command
(Pol. 1328al-8),
to
d is tinguis h
free from
unfree, calling Europeans comparatively
free
and As ians natural s laves
(Pol. 1327b25-29).
Aris totle
frames this d is cus s ion
by referring
to
meteorological
cond itions :
Europe
is cold and As ia is hot. Aris totle's
references to climate
s ugges t right
off that his d is tinc-
tion between free and unfree res ts on
s omething
other
than a fixture of
foreign ps ychology.
Aris totle
s eems ,
rather,
to be
s aying s omething like,
"Where it is often
extremely hot, people
act
lis tles s ly
or without
s pirit."
To
s ay
this is not to announce a
neces s ary,
immutable
feature about the As ian
s oul, which,
like
any s oul,
is
unobs ervable and hard to
s peculate
about.
Aris totle,
ins tead ,
calls As ians natural s laves bas ed on what he
s ees as their
apparent lethargy,
which is to
s ay,
their
tend ency
to
forget
how to act on their own
initiative,
or
"inactivity" (OED, 963).35
Dis cus s ing
the fact that certain monarchies
among
foreigners
s ometimes res emble
tyrannies ,
Aris totle
claims that "s uch
kings hips
have the nature of
tyran-
nies becaus e the
people
are
by
nature s laves "
(Pol.
1285a22-23).
Aris totle
goes
on to
s ay
that thes e
tyran-
nies are in no
d anger
of
being
overthrown
becaus e,
unlike other
tyrannies , they
are
hered itary
and
legal,
legal
in that the
s ubjects acquies ce voluntarily
in the
tyrannical
rule
(Pol. 1285a25-29).
It is
pos s ible
to read
Aris totle,
in this
pas s age,
as
as cribing
to certain
foreign-
ers ,
in this
ins tance,
As ians once
again,
an immutable
inferiority
that
explains
their
willing acquies cence in,
and
res pons ibility for,
the
d es potic regime
that
governs
them. The res t of the
pas s age s ugges ts
another
pos s i-
bility.
Aris totle s tres s es that the
tyrannies
of As ia are
not
only legal
but
hered itary.
In the s ame
d is cus s ion,
he
counterpos es
thes e
hered itary tyrannies
to the elective
tyrannies that,
from time to
time, governed
the ancient
Greeks
(Pol. 1285a30-33).
If an immutable
inferiority
is to be held
res pons ible
for the
tyrannies governing
the
As ians ,
then Aris totle would have to conclud e that the
ancient
Greeks ,
who were als o
governed by tyrannies ,
were
s imilarly
inferior. Further, if the ancient Greeks
were
immutably inferior, then it would follow that
Aris totle's
contemporary
Greeks were too, becaus e,
when nature is und ers tood in terms of
neces s ity,
to
be
immutably
inferior at one
point
in time is to be s o
always .
Aris totle d oes
not,
of
cours e,
as cribe to Greeks the
s tatus of natural s laves and this
s ugges ts
that
explaining
regime type by
reference to an immutable
inferiority
is
not his
purpos e. By focus ing
on
regime, s pecifically,
on
the d ifference between the forms of the
tyrannies gov-
erning
As ians
(hered itary)
and thos e
governing
Greeks
(elective),
Aris totle s eems rather to
imply
that human
nature is as much a
prod uct
of the
regime
und er which
one lives as it is a
regime's
caus e. Ins ofar as
they
have
long
been habituated to
living
und er
tyrannies
and
acting accord ing
to the habits fos tered
by tyrannies ,
As ians are
naturally
s lavis h and s o
acquies ce
in
and ,
thereby, reprod uce
the
regime
that
prod uced
them. In
contras t,
it is becaus e Greeks
experienced tyrannies
only s porad ically,
if
willingly,
that
they
d id not become
habituated to s lavis h behavior and s o cannot be called
natural s laves . This is not to
s ay, however,
that
they
cannot become natural
s laves ,
and that s eems to be at
leas t
part
of Aris totle's
point
in
allud ing
to both Greeks
and As ians as
being governed by tyrannies ,
albeit in
d ifferent forms .
The
pas s ages
on
foreigners
in the
Politics , then,
like
Aris totle's
early
d is cus s ion of natural
s lavery,
reinforce
the id ea that human nature is
changeable.
Vulnerable
to,
and
s haped by,
both
politics
and
s elf-d etermining
ac-
tivity,
human nature cannot be fixed and can never func-
tion as the
d etermining ground
for
political hierarchy.
In
keeping
with the les s ons of Politics
I,
the
pas s ages
on
foreigners
reinforce the
ways
in which Aris totle's
d efens e of natural
s lavery
at the s ame time s erves as a
warning
about the
d angers s lavery pos es
to
politics .
In
both
s ettings ,
Aris totle's intent is d id actic: Greeks can
become s laves if
they
act like
s laves ; they
have no
free,
rational nature to
guarantee agains t
that.
If nature offers no
guarantee agains t s lavery,
it als o
offers no
guarantee agains t d es potis m.
Abs ence of thu-
mos
may
be a
s ign
of s lavis hnes s in
As ians ,
but Aris -
totle als o warns that
thumos ,
the love of freed om and
power
of command that makes free
politics pos s ible,
can,
like the art of
mas tery,
orient its
pos s es s ors
toward
d es potis m (Pol. 1324b19-26),
thus
rend ering
them no
les s unfree than thos e with no thumos at all. It is
only
by avoid ing
activities that
may
lead
(back)
d own the
paths
to
s lavery
and
d es potis m
that Athens ' citiz ens
and rulers can
navigate
between thes e twin
d angers
to
freed om.
Doing
s o
requires vigilance
in
foreign
rela-
tions , in the
political
relations of one's own
polity,
and
even, or
perhaps , es pecially,
in d omes tic life. There, in
the realm of
d omes ticity, hierarchy
can often s eem mos t
given and , therefore, mos t s ecure. This s ens e of s ecu-
rity is , however, fals e. The hierarchies of the hous ehold
and
polity
are revers ible. Aris totle offers not the
guar-
antees of
immutability
but rather a call to ethics and
politics
und ers tood as
perpetual
and
ongoing
activities
of
bound ary-s etting
and
keeping.
That hierarchies are
natural and mad e, neces s ary
and
d angerous (d angerous
not
only
to thos e at the bottom but als o to thos e who
are
[for now]
at the
top),
is a les s on no les s
important
for
contemporary politics
than it was for
fourth-century
d emocratic Athens .
35 Unlike
H ippocrates ,
for
example,
Aris totle d oes
not,
to
my
knowl-
ed ge,
invoke
res id ency
in the mother's womb or the
quality
or nature
of the mother's
conception
in his account of the effects of climate on
human
ps ychology.
In
s upport
of
my argument
about the
key
role
of human
activity
in human
nature,
it is to be noted that
although
Aris totle has a lot to
s ay
about the mechanics of
reprod uction,
he
d oes not s eem to d raw
any
clear caus al lines between the
biology
of
birth and
reprod uction,
on the one
hand ,
and the
ps ychology
of the
born
pers on.
102
98,
No. 1
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