Sample Essay: Aristotle

Aristotle starts off by giving an example of a household and stating the necessities of managing a household. He then states that a slave is a possession and that he has a master. He then goes on to states a slave is not his own man but he is the man of another person so by nature he is a slave. One of his final examples of a slave is the he is a possession and may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor. His first example of a natural slave is women, secondly the inferiors, and finally by law there should be slavery.

Aristotle’s views are quite sexist. He feels that naturally males are superior to females. This idea would make it quite easy to see that most women should then be slaves. He then thinks it is an obvious reason as to why men should be the ruler and women should be the ruled. Aristotle makes this out to more of a common sense thing than anything. Stating that there is no difficulty answering this question of should their be slaves or not. Secondly Aristotle feels that inferiors should be ruled as well.

Aristotle goes on the say that there is a difference between someone who shows rational thought and principle compared to someone who doesn’t. He goes on to say that some people are just not cut out for politics. These people should then become slaves. He feels that all people would acknowledge the fact that the inferior should be ruled by the superior. This is much like his view of women but now he feels that men can be ruled too because there are some men who are smarter than others.

Aristotle’s final view on slavery is just as much a legal reason for slavery as is by nature. He is talking about whenever a group or country wins a war whoever they defeat should then become slaves. Since they lost they lost all rights to their good and the winners get to lout and take anything they want including the citizens of the country. Aristotle has some dispute for this case. He says that many philosophers and politicians feel this is not ok.

Aristotle’s seems quite confident in his views. When he is speaking about women being the inferior species there is a tone that makes it sound like it is an obvious reality. He comes of very confident that everyone should agree with him as well. Also when he speaks of less intelligent people he just acts like since they cannot contribute to politics then they should just automatically be slaves. His whole writing was in a tone very casual like everyone should agree with him and it is all common sense. He doesn’t use many examples of why women are inferior or doesn’t show us what he means by inferior men when talking about them.