[Boogie_Man]

Is the unstated central thrust of your statement that someone who philosophically supported slavery at a time when it was a widespread practice must necessarily be of average or below average intelligence? If so, I'd argue that you're committing two common missteps I see frequently:

1. Conflating intellectual greatness with moral goodness. These are separate categories.

2. Applying current moral standards to a previous time. You must compare him to others if his time.

Slavery is unquestionably immoral, and it's perfectly reasonable to argue that someone completing philosophical work to support slavery is committing a moral wrong, but you have to keep in mind the society into which this person was enculturated and the time at which he lived.

[optimalsolver]

>must necessarily be of average or below average intelligence

Literally yes. A mind too dense to see he was drafting his arguments in support of whatever happened to be personally convenient.

Considering he had to pen this screed in the first place, we can tell his view wasn't the exclusive one.

[jumpoddly]

For the sake of recognizing a hill I too would be proud to die on, and so you know there are others who feel the same: I agree with you.

I like to think the negative feedback you are receiving is due to the ambiguity, and so, the multitude of definitions for “intelligence” that each of us has.

I know I have met people who others have touted as “intelligent” that I thought were too deplorable to be given such an accolade.

I am with you, one of my measures of intelligence is how one recognizes the collective fate of all life.

Debating such a subject leaves me with too much ire to articulate sufficiently so I will lean on the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr:

> Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

[Boogie_Man]

There are a few reasons why I believe it's important to separate intelligence from moral goodness

The first and most basic is because they are different things, and for the sake of clarity different things should have different words to refer to them.

The second is because it allows us to have intelligent conversations about people who are intelligent but morally bad, or who are unintelligent but morally good. The person with an IQ barely above that of the strict definition of mentally retarded (or below, but questions of agency and responsibly arise so we won't use them in our example) who recognizes the humanity in every person and volunteers at the soup kitchen every chance he gets is morally good for doing so. The 180IQ engineer who manages the highly complex train schedule to keep the extermination camps running at capacity is morally bad for doing so.

The third is because it allows individuals to recognize that blind respect of intelligence which is unguided by morals or wisdom is a fool's errand.

The fourth is because is prevents the moralizing of language from hampering the clarity of language

The fifth is because the conflation of intelligence and morality provides an easy pathway to morally wrong positions. If the messaging is that "evil people are dumb!" and an impressionable individual encounters an intelligent person making a persuasive argument for something which is morally wrong, you've robbed them of a framework with which to engage and combat this person's ideas.

The sixth and final reason is that modification of language in this way hampers our ability to consider the world independent of our societal preconceived notions. I found the previous comments in this chain ironic because the individual who was calling a great (highly intelligent) philosopher a dunce for being unable to see beyond his cultural ethical norms was doing so from a position which is deeply entrenched in his current cultural and ethical norms, i.e. the inherent evils of slavery, the requirement of strict moral purity, the compulsion to attack every perceived positive characteristic of someone who is morally bad in order to devalue them and their intellectual contributions, and the perception of the world as a pitched battle between good and evil wherein righteous indignation should be one's perpetual state.

Now of course I agree with this commentator's ethical preconceptions related to slavery, but that's secondary to the importance of the things I listed above in how I approach Aristotle. I mean no disrespect and I hope this has been helpful in understanding my perspective.

[geye1234]

Great response.

[optimalsolver]

Thanks. It really restores a bit of faith in humanity to know I'm not the only one who views things this way.

[geye1234]

Couple of points:

- I think taking interest on a (full-recourse) loan is a form of fraud. Or rather, it is to fraud what robbery is to larceny. I also think it produces, in practice, ownership in a share of a person, such that it can be usefully compared with slavery. I think I can make good arguments in support of this. But I don't think people who argue otherwise are dumb, or arguing from self-interest; I just think they haven't fully thought through it. You might extend the same leeway to someone widely acknowledge as one of the greatest minds in history.

- Please let me know of any anti-slavery arguments from that period you're aware of.

- Whether acknowledged or not, all anti-slavery arguments use Aristotelian concepts (as will any attempt at rational discourse, or any attempt at discussion of morals).

[fjknifub]

> - Please let me know of any anti-slavery arguments from that period you're aware of.

Just from a point of common sense logic I would have to assume the vast majority of the slaves' arguments on the subject.

Let me just pull up all of the surviving primary sources written by the slaves of the that period... Oh, right.

[geye1234]

What makes you so sure? Slavery was universal across the human race, or practically so, until well into the second millennium AD. Nobody seriously questioned it. A bit like interest-taking now, which is why I brought it up as an example. Borrowers may complain about their monthly payments, but they don't seriously imagine themselves the victims of injustice qua borrowers.

We imagine that "if I lived back then, I'd be against it", but we forget that the past is a foreign country. People thought and acted quite differently.

[optimalsolver]

>such that it can be usefully compared with slavery.

If you think interest on a loan is even in the same world as selling a human being to the highest bidder from an auction block, then we view the world so differently that I don't imagine efficient communication is possible.

>widely acknowledge as one of the greatest minds in history.

I mean, he's simply not.

>anti-slavery arguments from that period you're aware of

Well Zeno [0] for one, and Alcidamas [1].

And I'll say again, the fact he had to pen this screed in the first place shows that his view wasn't the exclusive one. In fact it shows how middling his intellect actually was that he was unable to see past his own time and place, despite the fact that others could.

>all anti-slavery arguments use Aristotelian concepts

This is more like Aristotle's fanboys trying to shoehorn other people's natural insights into his worldview.

[0] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JbscAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Zeno+a...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcidamas

[geye1234]

Whether I'm right, or am an absolute drooling nutcase, for thinking interest-taking (on a full-recourse loan) is immoral is beside the point.

The point is that it would be idiotic of me to think somebody defending the practice was stupid or immoral, when it is accepted almost everywhere and by everyone. Same is true for Aristotle and slavery. Calling him stupid or evil on this account is misguided. Every individual and every age has its intellectual and moral blindspots. See Boogie_Man's comment above, he covers the various problems with this approach more thoroughly than I have.

[optimalsolver]

>Whether I'm right, or am an absolute drooling nutcase, for thinking interest-taking (on a full-recourse loan) is immoral is beside the point

No it most definitely is not. Could you just confirm the following statement is accurate:

It is your belief that interest taking on loans and legalized slavery are a difference of degree, not a difference in kind.

[geye1234]

> It is your belief that interest taking on loans and legalized slavery are a difference of degree, not a difference in kind.

No. They are comparable, and both moral evils, but are different species of action.

But suppose I said yes, then what? It would not affect the argument. Whether I'm right or wrong about interest-taking per se, I would be wrong to believe that people who defended it were wicked or stupid (rather than simply misguided) given its universality. Similarly, regardless of whether Aristotle was right or wrong about slavery per se, you are wrong to believe that Aristotle was wicked and stupid for defending it (rather than simply misguided) given its then-universality.

[Boogie_Man]

Do you feel that Caesar must necessarily have been militarily and politically dense because of the war crimes he committed?

[optimalsolver]

Well I'm sure his final thoughts were along the lines that he wasn't the brilliant mastermind he thought he was.