[1255a] It is manifest therefore that there are cases of people of whom some are freemen and the others slaves by nature, and for these slavery is an institution both expedient and just.
[loeb_subsection_16] But at the same time it is not difficult to see that those who assert the opposite are also right in a manner. The fact is that the terms slavery and slave are ambiguous; for there is also such a thing as a slave or a man that is in slavery by law, for the law is a sort of agreement under which the things conquered in war are said to belong to their conquerors. Now this conventional right is arraigned by many jurists just as a statesman is impeached for proposing an unconstitutional measure; they say that it is monstrous if the person powerful enough to use force, and superior in power, is to have the victim of his force as his slave and subject; and even among the learned some hold this view, though others hold the other. [loeb_subsection_17] But the reason of this dispute and what makes the theories overlap is the fact that in a certain manner virtue when it obtains resources has in fact very great power to use force, and the stronger party always possesses superiority in something that is good,The difficulty turns on the ambiguity of ἀρετή, (a) moral goodness, virtue, (b) goodness of any kind, e.g. strength. so that it is thought that force cannot be devoid of goodness, but that the dispute is merely about the justice of the matter (for it is due to the one party holding that the justification of authority is good-will, while the other identifies justice with the mere rule of the stronger); because obviously if these theories be separated apart,the other theories have no force or plausibility at all, implying that the superior in goodness has no claim to rule and be master. [loeb_subsection_18] But some persons, simply clinging, as they think, to principle of justice (for the law is a principle of justice), assert that the enslavement of prisoners of war is just; yet at the same time they deny the assertion, for there is the possibility that wars may be unjust in their origin and one would by no means admit that a man that does not deserve slavery can be really a slave—otherwise we shall have the result that persons reputed of the highest nobility are slaves and the descendants of slaves if they happen to be taken prisoners of war and sold. Therefore they do not mean to assert that Greeks themselves if taken prisoners are slaves, but that barbarians are. Yet when they say this, they are merely seeking for the principles of natural slavery of which we spoke at the outset; for they are compelled to say that there exist certain persons who are essentially slaves everywhere and certain others who are so nowhere.[loeb_subsection_19] And the same applies also about nobility: our nobles consider themselves noble not only in their own country but everywhere, but they think that barbarian noblemen are only noble in their own country—which implies that there are two kinds of nobility and of freedom, one absolute and the other relative, as Helen says in TheodectesA tragic poet, a friend of Aristotle.: But who would dare to call me menial, The scion of a twofold stock divine? Yet in so speaking they make nothing but virtue and vice the distinction between slave and free, the noble and the base-born;
[1255b] for they assume that just as from a man springs a man and from brutes a brute, so also from good parents comes a good son but as a matter of fact nature frequently while intending to do this is unable to bring it about.
It is clear therefore that there is some reason for this dispute, and that in some instances it is not the case that one set are slaves and the other freemen by nature; [loeb_subsection_20] and also that in some instances such a distinction does exist, when slavery for the one and mastership for the other are advantageous and just, and it is proper for the one party to be governed and for the other to govern by the form of government for which they are by nature fitted, and therefore by the exercise of mastership, while to govern badly is to govern disadvantageously for both parties (for the same thing is advantageous for a part and for the whole body or the whole soul, and the slave is a part of the master—he is, as it were, a part of the body, alive but yet separated from it; [loeb_subsection_21] hence there is a certain community of interest and friendship between slave and master in cases when they have been qualified by nature for those positions, although when they do not hold them in that way but by law and by constraint of force the opposite is the case).
And even from these considerations it is clear that the authority of a master over slaves is not the same as the authority of a magistrate in a republic, nor are all forms of government the same, as some assert. Republican government controls men who are by nature free, the master’s authority men who are by nature slaves; and the government of a household is monarchy (since every house is governed by a single ruler),whereas statesmanship is the government of men free and equal. [loeb_subsection_22] The term master therefore denotes the possession not of a certain branch of knowledge but of a certain character, and similarly also the terms slave and freeman. Yet there might be a science of mastership and a slave’s science—the latter being the sort of knowledge that used to be imparted by the professor at Syracuse (for there used to be a man there who for a fee gave lessons to servants in their ordinary duties); and indeed there might be more advanced scientific study of such matters, for instance a science of cookery and the other such kinds of domestic service—for different servants have different functions, some more honorable and some more menial, and as the proverb says, Slave before slave and master before master.Probably from a comedy of Aristotle’s contemporary Philemon. [loeb_subsection_23] The slave’s sciences then are all the various branches of domestic work; the master’s science is the science of employing slaves—for the master’s function consists not in acquiring slaves but in employing them. This science however is one of no particular importance or dignity: the master must know how to direct the tasks which the slave must know how to execute. Therefore all people rich enough to be able to avoid personal trouble have a steward who takes this office, while they themselves engage in politics or philosophy. The science of acquiring slaves is different both from their ownership and their direction—that is, the just acquiring of slaves, which is akin to the art of war or that of the chase. Let this then stand as our definition of slave and master.