Some time ago, I taught a “History of Western Philosophy” night course in Ashton Community School here in Cork. One student was particularly insightful in his questioning. During the lecture on Socrates, he remarked that if Socrates was indeed a moral genius he should surely have opposed slavery. While most Athenians would have been baffled by any suggestion that a society could function without the use of slaves, surely Socrates, the true philosopher, should have been able to distance himself from the values of his particular society of birth and take a more objective, and accordingly more truly moral, attitude on the issue.
On the night, I believe I fudged the question, but perhaps because the issue has, in fact, no simple straightforward answer.
Firstly the term “slavery” when used in the context of Ancient Greek or Roman culture refers to a very different entity to when used in the context of 17th to 19th century western imperialistic culture. There was a racist pseudo-philosophical justification for slavery as practiced in the recent modern era that did not exist in the Greek world. 20th century Nazism, with its ludicrous notions of the differences between the human and human-like races, has strong analogies with the idea that Black people are “naturally” subservient to other “races”, especially the white “race”. A large 19th century sculpture in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris portrays four human “races” with the Negroid race in chains, suggesting that this was the natural order.
A slave in the ancient world of Socrates was just as white as his master. He had, perhaps, been on the losing side of some war and been captured. Bad luck, but it could happen to anyone. While some extremely aristocratic individuals might have entertained fanciful notions of Olympian gods in their family tree, the master of a slave would not, in general, delude himself that he belonged to a different species to that of his slaves. The distinction between a slave and his master was more like a distinction of class than of species. This was class distinction of an extreme nature perhaps, but class distinctions frequently are extreme. Egalitarian societies do not exist in practice, except, perhaps, briefly during revolutionary and transitional periods in society that often tend to end in tyranny. While an ancient Greek slave owner might have had an awareness of the humanity of his servants that was considerably less present in, say, a 18th century Jamaican plantation, the essential human problem here is not slavery versus freedom in some absolute sense but one of degrees of freedom and the tendency of humans in positions of power to abuse this power. Consider the degree of contempt a high-ranking officer in the “First War” would have for the working class cannon fodder under his command, “free” though they all were.
The conception of slavery as forced, and unpaid, labour is important to the modern mind. While coinage existed in the ancient world, this was not money in the modern sense. Many “free” individuals would work simply for their keep. Especially in the Roman world it was not unknown for a slave to rise to high office, perhaps in the civil service, enjoying prestige and a degree of luxury. The head of a Roman household had the legal power of life and death over all the members of his household, both citizen and slave. Either instance here would outrage our modern conception of appropriate respect for human dignity.
For a modern Westerner to suggest that Socrates was guilty of failure of moral insight for not opposing slavery is to be unfair. Socrates, if we are to believe Plato, opposed the idea of an egalitarian type of society because of its tendency to produce mob rule. Socrates unjust execution by the Athenian democracy was, to Plato, a prime example of this evil, and democracy leading to mob rule and then tyranny occurred with frequency throughout Greek civilization. Within the context of the society in which Socrates existed to oppose slavery and not to endorse a communism of sorts would have seemed strange, contradictory even.
I am a “wage slave” like very many. I have no complaints. I am dubious of tales of joy and fulfillment through work by the highly salaried. The “pound in the pockets” of such individuals arrives in much the same way as mine does. The myth of Tantalus in Hades, eternally reaching for a fulfillment that eternally escapes him, tells of the terrible poverty of the excessively wealthy.
Could freedom be achieved by sudden and enormous wealth, such as in a huge Lotto win? Or would this only be the freedom to live a feckless and meaningless life? This would of course be so without appropriate self-discipline. And, of course, we need this in any case.
Are any of us really free? I ask you.
Brendan Burke MA (Phil) Cork 7th July 2006