Aither is a double-blind peer review, Open Access online academic journal. It is indexed at ERIH+ and Scopus. It is published by the Faculty of Arts of the Palackı University in Olomouc in cooperation with the Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It comes out twice a year. Every second issue is international and contains foreign-language articles (mainly in English, but also in German and French). The journal is registered under the number ISSN 1803-7860.

Aither 32/2024 (International issue no. 12):42-71 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2024.009

Natural Slavery

Nevim Borçin
Université de Fribourg

Aristotle’s conception of the natural slave remains a contentious issue. I challenge two common interpretations that misrepresent his account. The first holds that natural slaves share the same human nature as free men, with their deficiency arising from their actions and habituation. The second sees the natural slave as a subhuman, closer to animals, with an innate and ineliminable rational defect. I reject both views and argue that Aristotle sees the natural slave as a legitimate human being but with a rational deficiency. Furthermore, I contend that this deficiency is more severe than some scholars acknowledge, particularly those who take Aristotle as identifying non-Greeks with natural slaves and assess their cognitive abilities on the basis of the intellectual achievements of non-Greeks.

Received: March 11, 2024; Revised: March 11, 2024; Accepted: October 10, 2024; Published: March 5, 2025  Show citation

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Borçin, N. (2024). Natural Slavery. Aither, 16(32), 42-71. doi: 10.5507/aither.2024.009
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