Woman’s Place and Nature in a Functionalist World
Aristotle’s philosophy is strikingly different, in its aim and in its entire tone, from that of Plato. Whereas Plato, throughout the dialogues, is essentially critical, radically questioning the most sacredly held conventions of the world around him, Aristotle sets out to acquire knowledge of the way the world is, and, moreover, to explain why it is the way it is. There is probably no other philosopher, not even Hegel himself, whose work better fits the definition that Hegel gave to philosophy—that it is “its own time apprehended in thoughts.”1
On the subject of scientific knowledge, Aristotle says: “We all suppose that what we know is not even capable of being otherwise…. Therefore the object of scientific knowledge is of necessity. Therefore it is eternal.”2 He sees the object of scientific inquiry as not simply correct observation of the world, but demonstration of why it is that the world and its constituent parts are, and must be, the way they are. This approach, moreover, is not peculiar to his natural philosophy, but deeply pervades his ethical and political writings also. He does not, like Plato, attempt to set out from a rational and autonomous base to examine and criticize prevailing modes of behavior, opinions and standards. Aristotle’s very different method of inquiry into these areas of thought is clearly described in the Nichomachean Ethics, at the outset of his discussion of one of the virtues. He states:
We must, as in all other cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently.3
He perceives his task as moral philosopher, then, as that of redeeming prevailing moral views and standards from whatever inconsistencies or vaguenesses might mar them. The assumption is that they are far more likely to be right than wrong.4 Aristotle’s ethics is, to a large extent, traditional ethics, clarified and justified. Unlike Plato, he does not argue, in dealing with ethics any more than with biology, that the world should be different from the way it is, but starts from a basic belief that the status quo in both the natural and the social realm is the best way for things to be.
This conservative approach, however, is not simply assumed dogmatically, but has its own rationale. Things are the way they are, Aristotle argues, because of the function each of them performs, and their survival is proof that they perform their functions well. He asserts, at the beginning of the Politics, “All things derive their essential character from their function and their capacity; and it follows that if they are no longer fit to discharge their function, we ought not to say that they are still the same things.”5
Aristotle’s functionalist outlook is very clearly illustrated by the account he gives of the nature of the soul. Although psyche, soul or essence, is a characteristic found only in living beings, it is defined in reference to two things that are clearly instrumental or functional—an axe and an eye. First Aristotle asserts, “If some utensil, for example an axe, were a natural body, then ‘being-an-axe’ would be its substance, and this would be its soul. Apart from this, it would no longer be an axe, save equivocally.” Then he adds, “If the eye were an animal, sight would be its soul.”6 Clearly, in Aristotle’s view, the soul of a thing is its capacity to fulfill its function, and while this seems reasonable enough when applied to artefacts or organs of the body, he extends it further, stating, “What, therefore, holds of a part, we ought to apply to the whole living body.”7 There is obviously no recognition by Aristotle of the significant distinction between natural beings and either artefacts or the component parts of natural beings. Not only does he perceive the relationship between soul and body as an instrumental one, as when he says that “each art must use its tools, and the soul its body,”8 but he also perceives the entire living creature in an instrumental or functional manner.
Certain prerequisites, however, are necessary, for beings to be perceived in terms of their functions. Clearly, a thing can be thought of as having a function only in relation to some other thing or things. This is why tools and parts of the body are archetypal examples of things that are thought of functionally. In order to postulate that living beings, in a manner parallel to artefacts or organs, have functions, they must be viewed in relationship to each other and to the world as a whole, in a particular kind of way. Aristotle provides such a world view.
While acknowledging that the earlier natural philosopher, Democritus, had recognized that natural phenomena are necessary, Aristotle criticized him for having omitted the concept of “final cause” or purpose. “It is of course true,” Aristotle agrees, “that (all the things which Nature employs) are determined by necessity, but at the same time they are for the sake of some purpose, some Final Cause, and for the sake of that which is better in each case.”9 The last clause of this assertion points us to the crucially important fact that Aristotle’s view of the world is completely hierarchical. His entire universe, from the lowliest plant to the human race, and beyond the human race to the heavenly bodies and the gods, is arranged in a strict hierarchy, and it is this that enables him to say, “In the world of nature as well as of art the lower always exists for the sake of the higher.”10
Thus, frequently stressing that “nature makes nothing in vain,” Aristotle argues that plants exist to give subsistence to animals, and animals to give it to men. Since man is clearly at the top of the scale of mortal beings, “all animals must have been made by nature for the sake of men.”11 The vision is not just an anthropocentric one, however. While all human beings are the highest of animals, within the human race, too, the hierarchical ordering is maintained. When Aristotle approaches the study of society, he arrives quickly at some fundamental and very firmly held premises, which are to function as the bases of his ethics and politics. These are that the Greek polis is the natural, and therefore best, form of political association, and that the Greek family—with its subordination of wife, children and slaves—is the natural, and therefore best, form of household and family structure. In order to see how he arrives at these beliefs, which of course gain a large part of their strength from the fact that these institutions were the Greek world of Aristotle’s time, we must examine what he conceives the function of man to be.
Near the beginning of the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle determines that happiness is the final and self-sufficient end of human activity, and sets out to give an account of what this happiness consists in. “This might perhaps be given,” he says, “if we could first ascertain the function of man.”12 Significantly, the function that is peculiar to man, unlike the functions of the lower members on the scale of being, is not found to be some purpose he serves for a being higher on the scale. While man shares some characteristics, such as nutrition, growth and sensation, with the lower animals, Aristotle concludes that what is peculiar to him alone is his reason. Since this is his distinguishing feature, man’s highest good is the “active life of the element that has a rational principle.”13 Man’s relationship to those above him in the hierarchy is not that of serving some purpose of theirs; though his reasoning power makes him akin to the gods, whose whole existence is spent in rational contemplation, it is clearly for his own sake, not theirs, that he emulates them. His objective is his own happiness, not the fulfillment of the needs of another. In fact, Aristotle is well aware that the gods, anthropomorphic as they are, are the idealization of the highest human virtues, reason and self-sufficiency. The gods are the way they are because man imagines them thus: “We make the lives of the gods in the likeness of our own—as we also make their shapes.”14 It is therefore hardly coincidental that man’s highest virtue is also the defining characteristic of the gods, or that the gods are depicted as perpetually engaged in that activity which man has decided on as the most worthwhile for himself.
Thus, whereas most beings serve a function in relation to some higher being, and whereas most activities have an end which lies outside the activity itself and to which it is subordinate, man’s proper end is his own happiness, and “the activity of reason, which is contemplative, seems … to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself.”15 The proper activity of man alone among mortals has no end or aim outside of the actor himself.
The word for “man” that Aristotle uses throughout his arguments about the nature of man, and man’s highest good, is anthropos, the Greek word meaning “human being.” It soon becomes very clear, however, that only a small minority of one sex of the human race is to share in what have been characterized as the human virtues and man’s highest good and happiness. For “man” requires not only his reason, but also certain essential external goods, if he is to live the good life. He cannot be happy, Aristotle tells us, without assets such as riches, friends, many and good children, leisure, noble birth, and beauty. Some of these clearly depend on the service of other people. Thus, in accordance with his characteristic teleology, Aristotle argues that not only the entire animal kingdom, but the vast majority of humans as well, are intended by nature to be the instruments which supply to the few the necessities and comforts that will enable them to be happy in their contemplative activity. Thus, women, slaves, and artisans and traders are all subsidiary instruments for the achievements of the highest happiness of “man.” “In the state,” Aristotle asserts, “the conditions which are necessary for the existence of the whole are not organic parts of the whole system which they serve.”16 Human good and human happiness have been defined in such a way that the vast majority of the human race is necessarily excluded from the achievement of either.
From time to time, presumably to make his functionalism appear more palatable, Aristotle argues that the relationships between those whom he perceives as naturally ruling and naturally ruled, such as husband and wife, or master and slave, are good for both parties because the capacities of these are very different. This kind of reasoning forms a substantial part of his argument for slavery. Although the slave is characterized as an instrument or tool, we are told that “the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just” for him, that the relationship between him and his master is “for the preservation of both,” and that the two of them “have an identical interest.”17 Moreover, Aristotle argues that in the relationships between soul and body, craftsman and tool, and master and slave, “the latter in each case is benefited by that which uses it.”18 In a parallel manner, he argues, first, that husband and wife have a mutually beneficial relationship—that “they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts into the common stock,” and, second, that it is in fact the woman who is the beneficiary, and the man the benefactor of their relationship.19
As we might expect, however, given the hierarchical structure of Aristotle’s world, these illusions of mutuality and of benefits accruing to the inferior party are not consistently maintained. With regard to slaves, they very soon disappear. We are told that the relationship is primarily in the interest of the master and only incidentally in that of the slave, “who must be preserved in existence if the rule itself is to remain.”20 In general, moreover, speaking of all such pairs of the ruling and the ruled, Aristotle asserts, “Nor is the good divisible between them but that of both belongs to the one for whose sake they exist.”21 Again, in a context which explicitly includes reference to the rule of men over women, he says that “the ruled may be compared to flute-makers: rulers are like flute-players who use what the flute-makers make.”22
Aristotle asserts that women are “naturally” inferior to men, and that they are therefore “naturally” ruled by them. However, his use of the word physis (nature) and its derivatives is at least as complex and ambiguous as Plato’s.23 Sometimes, clearly, he uses “natural” to refer to innate as opposed to acquired characteristics.24 At times, again like Plato, he acknowledges that very little clear distinction can be made between the nature of a mature being and the habits it has acquired throughout its life.25 Aristotle’s most usual use of the word “nature,” however, is intimately connected with his functionalist approach to the world. I have already pointed out that he considered the “essential character” of a thing to be derived from its function, and the soul of each thing to be its capacity to function. Thus, when he tells us at the beginning of the Politics that “what each thing is when its growth is completed we call the nature of that thing, whether it be a man or a horse or a family,”26 we must not fail to take into account the essential connection which exists in his mind between the way a thing should grow and develop, and its function. It is noteworthy that when he first introduces the three basic relationships that exist within the household, he states his intention to examine “the nature of each and the qualities it ought to possess.”27 It is clear that, in Aristotle’s world, these two factors are virtually synonymous. Thus, when he makes the extraordinary statement that “dealing with … animate beings, we must fix our attention, in order to discover what nature intends, not on those which are in a corrupt, but on those which are in a natural condition,”28 it is necessary to perform a substitution of the two equivalents—the nature of a thing, and the goodness pertaining to that thing—in order to give the proposition any content. We must acknowledge Aristotle’s normative use of the word “natural,” and give the “natural” at the end of his sentence a distinct moral connotation. In order to be meaningfully contrasted with “corrupt,” it must mean “well-ordered” or “good,” and Aristotle’s statement is no longer value free, as it at first appeared. Moreover, as the above discussion of his functionalism indicates, nothing is well-ordered or good unless it can perform and does perform the function ascribed to it within Aristotle’s hierarchical world. Thus Aristotle has established a philosophical framework by which he can legitimize the status quo. For the conventional function of any person determines that person’s goodness, and a person’s nature, or natural condition, is also equated with his or her goodness. Every person, therefore, is naturally suited to his or her existing role and position in society.
Aristotle’s arguments about the nature of things and beings, especially of those within the human social realm, are virtually unintelligible unless one continually recognizes his esoteric use of the term. The family exists “by nature”; the polis exists “prior in the order of nature to the family and the individual.”29 By saying that the family is natural, Aristotle by no means intends to imply that it has always existed, but rather that its existence is necessary for the well-ordered life of man. The reason that the polis is prior in the natural order is, likewise, not that it is more original or basic than the family. It is because, while the family exists “for the satisfaction of daily recurrent needs” and sustains mere life, the polis is the only association within which man can enjoy that self-sufficiency which enables him to live the rational life, the highest life to which he can aspire. The polis is more natural, in other words, because of the superiority of its aim or object, which makes it a better institution than the family.
Similarly, Aristotle’s arguments about the naturalness of slavery are incomprehensible unless one recognizes his totally teleological version of the natural. For his attempts to convince us that some people are by nature slaves are most unpersuasive if we rely on his claims that natural slaves are those men “who differ from others as much as the body differs from the soul, or an animal from a man.”30 It is only if we accept the premises that society is most properly structured when it enables the privileged few to spend their lives in rational activity, and that the functions and therefore the nature of all others must be fixed accordingly, that we can accept Aristotle’s justification of slavery as natural.
The same considerations apply to Aristotle’s conclusions about the nature and the natural position of women. These can be understood only by reference to the function the female sex is perceived as fulfilling in the stratified society he assumes to be the best for man. At the beginning of his discussion of the household, Aristotle informs his reader that, contrary to what the barbarians think,
the female and the slave are naturally distinguished from one another. Nature makes nothing in a spirit of stint, as smiths do when they make the Delphic knife to serve a number of purposes: she makes each separate thing for a separate end; and she does so because each instrument has the finest finish when it serves a single purpose and not a variety of purposes.31
As the context makes very clear, the slave’s function is the provision of the daily needs of subsistence, whereas the female’s primary function is reproduction.
On the subject of woman’s function, which is on the whole implicit in the Politics, we must turn to Aristotle’s biological writings for clarification. Reproduction was a subject in which he had an intense interest, since he regarded it as the “most natural” of the operations of mature living beings.32 In fact, however, compared with the astounding accuracy and originality of his biological findings as a whole, Aristotle’s “observations” about sexual reproduction contain a number of serious errors, of which virtually all are attributable to his basic assumption that the male is always and in every way superior to the female.
The reason for the very existence of the sexual form of reproduction in most animals, Aristotle argues, is the superiority of form over matter. His “observations” of sexual reproduction informed him that the male, via his semen, always provides the form or soul of the offspring, while the female, via her menstrual discharge, provides the matter. Since “the Form, is better and more divine in its nature than the Matter, it is better also that the superior one should be separate from the inferior one. That is why whenever possible and so far as possible the male is separate from the female.”33
Thus Aristotle explains the need for sexual reproduction in terms of his hierarchical view of the world. Indeed, he argues that it was only the need for this higher form of reproduction that made nature stray from the generic type of each species, which is clearly perceived by him as that embodied in the male. Immediately prior to explaining the appearance of “monstrosities” in nature, he accounts for the “first deviation,” which occurs “when a female is formed instead of a male.” This deviation from the norm, we are told, “is a necessity required by Nature, since the race … has got to be kept in being.” Altogether, he concludes, “we should look on the female as being as it were a deformity, though one which occurs in the ordinary course of nature.”34 Even with respect to reproduction, the only reason she exists at all, the female is characterized as inferior and disabled. It is the male who performs the active role, whereas the female merely acts as a passive receptacle for the new life. It is he who provides the new life with its soul, which is after all the raison d’être of the body that she furnishes. “A woman,” Aristotle concludes, “is as it were an infertile male,” and even in regard to reproduction, “a male is male in virtue of a particular ability, and a female in virtue of a particular inability.”35 In all this, moreover, “what happens is what one would expect to happen,” and “in all her workmanship herein Nature acts in every particular as reason would expect.”36
The proposals made in the Politics for the regulation of marriage and breeding clearly reflect these biological beliefs and Aristotle’s perception of woman as fundamentally an instrument for breeding men. Marriage is regarded solely as an institution for “the provision of a stock of the healthiest possible bodies (for) the nurseries of our state,”37 and the age of marriage should therefore be when both partners are at the height of their procreative powers, with the woman in her late teens, and the man in his late thirties. Following the oracle, Aristotle recommends that the citizens “plough not the young fallow”; when mothers are too young they have great difficulty in childbirth. In keeping with his general theory of reproduction, since the mother provides only the matter for the child and the father its rational soul, it is only the father’s mental prime that is taken into account, and while the mother is advised to exercise and eat well while pregnant, since the growing foetus draws on her body, her mind should be kept idle, in order that more of her strength be preserved for the child’s growth. Since the child is in no way perceived as drawing on the mother’s mind, the development of her mind is quite needless.38
In spite of her widespread inabilities, then, woman is necessary for the reproduction of man, and this is therefore seen by Aristotle as her natural function. After all, if it were not for the requirements of sexual reproduction, this particular “deformity in nature” would never have existed. Within the well-ordered society, however, reproduction is not woman’s only function. Unlike the other animals, man does not couple by chance and temporarily, since he “is not only a political but also a householding animal.” For “human beings live together,” Aristotle argues, “not only for the sake of reproduction but also for the various purposes of life; for from the start the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are different.” While it is the man’s function to acquire, it is the woman’s “to keep and store.”39 The necessity of all the things and services provided by the household for daily life, taken together with the assumption that all other classes of people are intended by nature to enable the few to pursue their truly human activities, leads Aristotle to regard the entire conventional division of labor between the sexes as strictly in accordance with nature.
Aristotle’s reaction to Plato’s radical proposals about the family and women is extremely illuminating in this context. In Book II of the Politics, Aristotle argues at great length against Plato’s proposal to abolish the family. He voices three major objections. First, he maintains, though not very convincingly, that the unity which Socrates regards as the supreme good for the polis, and which he aims to ensure by abolishing the private family and making the guardians into one big family, will have the effect of destroying the polis. “It is obvious,” he argues, “that a polis which goes on and on, and becomes more and more of a unit, will eventually cease to be a polis at all.” Rather, it will tend toward being a household, or even an individual.40 Too much unity, or sameness, is very bad for a polis, which “by its nature is some sort of aggregation.” Secondly, and, it seems, contradictorily, he argues that Plato’s proposed extension of the bonds of kinship would have the effect of weakening them so much that they would be worthless. Since men care most for what is their own, Aristotle claims, the result would be the general neglect of people by each other, since no one would have any relatives who cared exclusively for him. Finally, it concerns Aristotle immensely that not knowing who one’s relatives are would lead to an increase in breaches of “natural piety,” in the form of such crimes as incest, parricide, and fratricide. These arguments against Plato are not compelling. The first can be combatted by reference to the fact that there were to be other types of diversity within the ideal state, so that the abolition of the family would by no means result in excessive sameness. Besides, Aristotle’s first two arguments seem to be mutually inconsistent; if doing away with the family would severely dilute the bonds of kinship, how could it at the same time lead to much unity? The third argument seems no more convincing than Plato’s contrary assertion that the formation of all the guardians into one family would result in the extension of the traditional kinship loyalties and taboos throughout the entire ruling class.
However, Aristotle certainly considers himself to have demolished Plato’s case, and continues to regard the private family and household as the only, natural and necessary basis for social life. As was mentioned earlier, it was a central aspect of his philosophical method to begin by discussing previous and especially authoritative views on the subject at issue. Since Book II of the Politics is in large part taken up with the survey of previous writers’ ideas about the abolition of the family, the equalization or communalization of property, and other such radical reforms, it is conspicuous that Aristotle has almost nothing to say about the extremely radical and unorthodox proposals of Book V of the Republic regarding equal education and opportunities for women. Apart from a fleeting reference, he merely comments on Plato’s analogous reference to male and female dogs, which, he had claimed, are an example to humans because they do not adhere to rigid sex roles. Aristotle’s answer, moreover, is virtually unintelligible unless it is recognized that both for him and for Plato, once the issue of the family is settled, that of the role of women is not an independent one. For Aristotle asserts, puzzled by Plato’s ignorance of the obvious, that the analogy is quite unsuitable, since “animals, unlike women, have no domestic duties.”41 It is quite clear that, since he considers himself to have refuted the idea of the community of women and children, he does not even consider it necessary to argue against Plato’s wild ideas about women and their potential as individual persons. Given the family and the private household, women are private wives with domestic functions, and there is no more to be said on the subject.
Aristotle’s assumption that woman is defined by her reproductive function and her other duties within the household permeates everything he has to say about her. Indeed, Aristotle’s entire moral philosophy is much affected by the existence of the hierarchy which he considers to be natural because it is necessary for the attainment of the proper objective of human life. First, all the basic relationships discussed in the Ethics, such as friendship and justice, are perceived as differing radically in their natures, depending on the relative positions in society occupied by the two or more persons involved. Second, none of the basic moral terms, such as virtue, temperance, or courage, are held to be universally applicable, since a person’s position in the human hierarchy, and consequent function, determine the particular type of virtue, temperance, or courage that will be required of him or her. I will discuss each of these two issues in turn.
Because he perceives woman as naturally inferior to man, Aristotle asserts that all relationships between them must acknowledge and, insofar as possible, compensate for this inequality. Political justice, which he regards as the only type that genuinely deserves the name of justice, can exist only between equals, between those who have an equal share in ruling and being ruled, as fellow citizens do. In such a case, it is unjust for equals to be treated in any way other than equally. Where such parity between persons does not exist, however, justice is an entirely different matter, and can only metaphorically be called justice at all. Aristotle seems, however, to have been unsure as to the type of “metaphorical justice” that is properly applied to women. At first, he says that “justice can more truly be manifested toward a wife than toward children and chattels, for the former is household justice; but even this is different from political justice.”42 Subsequently, however, he appears to retract even this concession, comparing justice between husband and wife to that between master and slave (who is certainly a chattel) and to that between the rational and irrational parts of the soul.43 Since he implies at times that a slave is not a human being at all, and he parallels the relationship between him and his master to that of despot and subject, we are left with the impression that, so far as justice is concerned, Aristotle has relegated woman to an altogether subhuman position.
Like the other moral relations, friendship, too, varies in accordance with the respective status of the friends in Aristotle’s social hierarchy. Whereas there can be no friendship at all between a man and a slave qua slave (though paradoxically a man can be friends with the same individual qua man), the friendships between father and children and between husband and wife are categorized as friendship between benefactor and benefited. “The friendship of man and wife …,” Aristotle asserts, “is the same that is found in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance with virtue—the better gets more of what is good, and each gets what befits him; and so, too, with the justice in these relations.”44 The difference between various types of friendship depends both on the respective virtues and functions of the two persons and on the reasons for which they love each other. In all friendships in which the friends are not equal, the love should be proportional to the merit of the two parties, for only if the better is loved more than he loves, will equality be restored.45 In marriage, the husband is, of course, by virtue of his superiority always the benefactor and the more useful partner. As Aristotle’s disciple argues in the Oeconomica, one reason that a wife must obey her husband and serve him sedulously is that “he has indeed bought her with a great price—with partnership in his life and the procreation of children; than which things nothing could be greater or more divine.”46 There is no emphasis placed, in such a context, on the fact that the woman’s entire life is defined in terms of the function she performs for the man. And thus Aristotle concludes that it would be ludicrous for a wife to expect her affection to be returned in a similar way, just as it would be ludicrous for man to expect the same of God; “for it is the part of a ruler to be loved, not to love, or else to love in another way.”47 Friendship and marriage are no exception to the basic principle that relationships must always reflect the respective merits and functions of those who are party to them.
The second relevant phenomenon of Aristotle’s ethics—the variable application of terms and standards—was by no means new at his stage of Greek thought. As A. W. H. Adkins has demonstrated in his illuminating book, Merit and Responsibility, the Greeks from the time of Homer to that of Aristotle, with the notable exception of Plato, had no concept of a single standard of human morality or excellence which might be applied to anyone, regardless of his or her role or position in society.48 Their word of highest praise, arete (excellence or virtue), originated in the commendation of an entirely masculine, noble, and leisured way of life, and could only be used of those who had the wherewithal, in terms of both high birth and their command of material goods and other people’s services, to pursue such a life. As I noted above, in Chapter 1, “woman’s arete” was a relative term, consisting of a set of qualities entirely different from those of men, who alone could achieve absolute excellence. This was the immense weight of custom and opinion that Socrates was combatting, both in the Meno, in claiming the irrelevance of sex to arete, and in the Republic, in implying that sex is no more related to the soul than baldness is. The importance of these passages in the gradual universalizing of ethical values must not be underestimated.
In his ethical and political writings, Aristotle reacts against these heresies of Socrates, and both consolidates and justifies the traditional way of thinking. Having defined the highest human virtue as reason, he constructs a functionalist rationalization of a society in which this highest virtue can be shared in only by those at the top of the class- and sex-determined hierarchy. As Adkins asserts, “Thus Aristotle leaves no hope of establishing any standard for the whole community.”49 Even free males whose work is considered menial are excluded from the possibility of participation in the higher things of life, and what is the case for artisans is, of course, even more the case for slaves, and for women of any class at all. Women’s work is clearly regarded as in no way compatible with the life of excellence.50
What Aristotle does, therefore, is to define the goodness of each thing and each person according to its function; “let it be assumed as to goodness,” he says, “that it is the best disposition or state or faculty of each class of things that have some use or work.”51 His examples extend from a coat, a ship, and a house, to a soul. While it is quite easy for us to accept this functional characterization of the excellence of artefacts, and to agree with Aristotle that “what is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes,” it is jarring to the modern ear to hear the adjectives of commendation which we are accustomed to think of as constant in their meanings, applied differently to different classes of human beings. But for Aristotle, human beings have functions just as much and in the same way as artefacts do, and only those at the very top of the hierarchy have a function which is defined only in relation to themselves and not to others. There are two fundamentally different orders of human goodness. The goodness of the leisured and fully rational men is something absolute, while all the others can achieve only forms of goodness that are relative and inferior. Their goodness is determined entirely by their respective functions, and all these functions are inferior to that of those at the top. Thus, although they cannot attain the higher form of goodness, “even a woman is ‘good’ and so is a slave, although it may be said that a woman is an inferior thing and a slave beneath consideration.”52
Even in the case of the free male citizen, it is “his good discharge of his function” which determines his excellence,53 and in the good polis he will have two sorts of goodness, since because of his constitutional equality with his fellow citizens he must rule and be ruled in turn. He must therefore have “one sort [of excellence] which fits him to act as a ruler, and one which fits him to act as a subject.”54 Women, however, together with all the other persons who are necessary conditions but not parts of the polis, require only the kind of goodness which fits them to be ruled, since this is their natural and permanent role.
All the moral standards applied to woman, therefore, are determined by her function as the bearer of new citizens and the guardian of the household. Since she has a different function from that of the slave, so must her goodness be different, just as the slave’s differs from that of the artisan. Aristotle asserts:
They must all share in (moral goodness), but not in the same way—each sharing only to the extent required for the discharge of his or her function. The ruler, accordingly, must possess moral goodness in its full or perfect form because his function … demands a master-artificer, and reason is such a master artificer; but all other persons need only possess moral goodness to the extent required of them. It is thus clear that … temperance—and similarly fortitude and justice—are not, as Socrates held, the same in a woman as they are in a man. Fortitude in the one, for example, is shown in connexion with ruling; in the other, it is shown in connexion with serving; and the same is true of the other forms of goodness…. To speak in general terms, and to maintain that goodness consists in “a good condition of the soul,” or in “right action,” or in anything of the kind, is to be guilty of self-deception. Far better than such general definitions is the method of simple enumeration of the different forms of goodness….55
Accordingly, throughout his works, Aristotle proceeds to apply distinct moral standards to the two sexes, as well as to different classes of men. He says, for example, that Sophocles’ statement, “A modest silence is a woman’s crown” is “a general truth—but a truth which does not apply to men.”56 Both the bodily and the moral excellences of the two sexes are differently defined. Whereas both require beauty and stature, only the male should have strength and fitness for athletic contests. Whereas both should have self-control, in the male this should be supplemented by courage, but in the female by “industrious habits, free from servility.”57 For what use is courage to one whose occupation must be the care of a house and the provision of food and clothes for her family? Moreover, Aristotle asserts that it is not at all appropriate for a woman to be “manly or clever,” and criticizes Euripides for creating a female character with these unsuitable qualities.58
The only people who need to possess a full complement of reason, Aristotle argues, are those who rule over others. While practical wisdom is necessary in rulers, only “right opinion” is required in women, slaves, and others who are permanently ruled.59 Thus, when he ascribes to the various members of the household different amounts of reason, we are not surprised to find that each has just that portion of rationality that is necessary for the performance of his or her function:
It is true that all these persons possess in common the different parts of the soul; but they possess them in different ways. The slave is entirely without the faculty of deliberation; the female indeed possesses it, but in a form which remains inconclusive; and if children also possess it, it is only in an immature form.60
Why should nature, who makes nothing in vain, have given woman full rationality, when her function does not require it?
Thus, Aristotle has established the standards of physical, mental and moral excellence in woman according to the functions she performs for man. To be the best of women, she must have many qualities, such as quietness and modesty, that are undesirable in a man. On the other hand, she must not have many qualities, such as manliness, strength or cleverness, that are required of a good man. Having prescribed for the two sexes separate and frequently conflicting standards of excellence, however, Aristotle proceeds to weigh perfection in woman against perfection in man, and to conclude that woman, even the best possible woman, falls short.
In the Eudemian Ethics, it is asserted that “the state of human character called human goodness is of two kinds.” “Let us assume,” Aristotle continues, “that man is one of the things that are excellent by nature,” and he concludes that man’s form of goodness is “good absolutely,” while that of the others who are not excellent by nature is good only relatively—“only good for that thing.”61 The two examples chosen to illustrate this are the goodness of a man as compared with that of a woman, and the goodness of a gifted man as compared with that of a dull one. In each case, the latter is clearly an inferior kind of goodness. This same point is repeated several times in the other works—for example, in the Rhetoric, when we are told that “virtues and actions are nobler, when they proceed from those who are naturally worthier, for instance, from a man rather than from a woman.”62 What has happened is that Aristotle arrives at the conclusion that woman is inferior to man by a completely circular process of reasoning. Because he perceives woman as an instrument, he has assigned her an entirely separate scale of values, and then he measures her against the scale of male values, and finds her inferior. But the functionalist treatment of women is itself founded on the assumption of the Aristotelian hierarchy, in which woman is “naturally” placed in an inferior position.
Aristotle’s view of society as rigidly hierarchical, patriarchal, and functional allows him to “prove” things about its various classes by drawing on assumptions that already presuppose the things he claims to prove. If it were not for his initial assumption that the free and leisured male is the highest of mortal beings, there would be no grounds from which to argue that all other members of the human race are naturally defined by their functions in relation to him. Objectively speaking, there is no more evidence for the proposition that women are intended by nature to reproduce men than that men are intended by nature to beget women (as the Amazons may have argued in their version of the Politics).
Aristotle determines that woman is inferior by considering the functions she performs and the relevant qualities she manifests in Athenian society. This was a society, however, in which she was thoroughly disadvantaged and oppressed—a society dominated by men, in which her role and all the qualities valued in her were dictated by men. Aristotle is not interested in the qualities of women apart from this context. Thus, in spite of his expressed beliefs in the power of the environment to shape and alter the human character and abilities, he is no more interested in applying these beliefs to women than in applying them to slaves. Except for the free and leisured man, Aristotle is not interested in the potential of any living being, but only in those “natural” and “naturally inferior” characteristics which enable each person to perform his or her proper function in the social system which has his approval and which he sets out to justify.
The fact that Aristotle treats the vast majority of people as instruments, and condemns them to a necessarily less-than-human existence, has been treated in various ways by students of his works. A few, even at this point in time, feel no compulsion to take issue with the way in which he disposes of either women or the majority of men. Harry Jaffa, for example, is content merely to summarize what Aristotle says about women, and actually seeks to justify his argument that there are natural slaves.63 At the other extreme, John Ferguson, in his recent book on Aristotle, points to “the extraordinary mixture of sound scientific observation and grotesque class prejudice” which resulted in the philosopher’s teleological conclusions about all relations within the household. Ferguson realistically suggests, moreover, that “those who reject Aristotle’s view of the political inferiority of ‘servants’ and women must be sure that they do not suffer from residual prejudices and are offering an equality that is practical as well as theoretical.”64
Ferguson’s attitude, however, is exceptional among scholars of Aristotle. A number of them, in more recent years, have indeed felt impelled to dissociate themselves from the arguments for slavery. W. D. Ross, for example, says, “What cannot be commended in Aristotle’s view … is his cutting of the human race in two with a hatchet.”65 No one, Ross objects, can be legitimately treated as both a tool and a man. He objects, too, to Aristotle’s regarding the class of mechanics as merely a means to the existence of the polis and the happiness of its privileged class. “Society cannot,” he argues, “in fact be split into two parts of which one is merely a means to the welfare of the other. Every human being is capable of a life worth living for itself.”66 In the middle of all this dissent, however, Ross upholds Aristotle’s defense of the family against Plato, and points out his recognition of it as “a natural and normal extension of personality, a source of pleasure and an opportunity of good activity.”67 Nowhere does he recognize that Aristotle’s “family” involves the treatment of women as mere means to the welfare of men, or that this “natural and normal extension” of the man’s personality entails the obliteration of the woman’s. Compared with the opportunities available to Plato’s female guardians, the Aristotelian household can hardly be regarded as “a source of pleasure and an opportunity of good activity” for its female members. Because of his own prejudices, Ross does not see that this other cutting in half of the human race, according to sex, is just as indefensible as that separating master and slaves.
Similarly, D. J. Allan, though he praises Aristotle for his “breadth of vision” and his “humanity,” does acknowledge that his ideal polis does not appear to be “perfect” from the points of view of either the slave or the artisan.68 He too, however, completely ignores the fact that Aristotle relegates women to a similar condition. Third, G. E. R. Lloyd also is critical of Aristotle’s antiegalitarian ideas about slaves, workers and barbarians. Asserting that Aristotle was, in these areas, hardly if at all in advance of contemporary opinion, he concludes that “the effect of his work was to provide some sort of rational justification for some deep-seated Greek prejudices.” He simply summarizes, however, without comment, Aristotle’s belief in the natural superiority of males to females.69
What may initially seem to be a coincidental lack of perception on the part of these scholars becomes totally intelligible in the light of one very significant fact. A large part of Aristotle’s “social teleology”—that is, his functional treatment of most men—is no longer acceptable. Given the development, beginning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of modern concepts of equality and the rights of man, it is no longer regarded as justifiable to designate some men as by nature the instruments of others, or to set up different moral standards for different classes. Thus, those who wish to redeem Aristotle’s political and moral philosophy as a whole are obliged either to go out of their way to argue anew for his treatment of slaves and workers, or else explicitly to dissociate themselves from this part of his thought, in order to free the remainder from its taint.
By contrast, the perception and treatment of women in purely functional terms has remained so prevalent that these intelligent scholars have not felt the need to argue against Aristotle’s disposition of the female sex. In fact, it is fairly clear that they are unable to see that the injustice of his treatment of slaves, women and workers is all of a piece. The continuing existence of a double standard of values, which has replaced Aristotle’s multiple one, allows them to regard his treatment of women as far more rational and defensible than his treatment of the majority of men. The birth of modern egalitarianism by no means brought with it the demand for the equal treatment of women, as the following analysis of Rousseau’s thought on the subject will demonstrate.