tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post3356385572703099375..comments2024-03-28T09:59:13.754-07:00Comments on bionic mosquito: It’s Not a State!bionic mosquitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-40504173203802236092019-03-19T08:57:14.269-07:002019-03-19T08:57:14.269-07:00"...for someone to get so much right is in it..."...for someone to get so much right is in itself a miracle and a blessing for all of us."<br /><br />I agree. I also appreciate the time in which he lived. As mentioned, slavery was "normal." That he even addressed it is a feather in his cap - it suggests to me that he must have had at least some struggle reconciling the institution with his broader views.bionic mosquitohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-6411763330613470422019-03-18T10:45:31.805-07:002019-03-18T10:45:31.805-07:00"it is impossible to regard Aristotle’s defen..."it is impossible to regard Aristotle’s defense of slavery, especially natural slavery, as anything other than a form of intellectual scotosis"<br /><br />I'm not so sure about that. We must bear in mind that Aristotle's defense of slavery in "Politics" was conditional on whether it was natural or legal:<br /><br />"But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?"<br /><br />"But that those who take the opposite view have in a certain way right on their side, may be easily seen. For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort of convention - the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors. But this right many jurists impeach, as they would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject."<br /><br />"We see then that there is some foundation for this difference of opinion, and that all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters: the one practicing obedience, the others exercising authority and lordship which nature intended them to have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both... Hence, where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true."<br /><br />It seems he advocated a form of voluntary or natural slavery, perhaps not so much different than serfdom in the middle ages.<br /><br />I think his discussion in Politics is nuanced and it is hard to deny that it contains at least elements of truth. Some are meant to lead and some to follow - that much is impossible to deny. He does seem to be pretty explicit that a master owns his slaves as though they were commodities (in passages I did not reproduce here) and this is hard to square with his condemnation of legal (forceful) slavery.<br /><br />As in the case of Rothbard, for someone to get so much right is in itself a miracle and a blessing for all of us. We should expect that our intellectual heroes, however much we admire them, are still capable of being wrong on important issues, especially when, as in this instance, being right might have cost him his life (think Socrates).<br /><br />We must also bear in mind that Aristotle did not have the immense benefit of knowing the teachings of Jesus (the supreme eradicator of involuntary slavery). A Texas Libertarianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02980539931923054404noreply@blogger.com