Trevor Allis

SYBA Phil II
Notes/Aristotle

Aristotle’s Perspective on Women

1. Introduction: Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a man of versatile interests having produced a body
of work covering diverse areas as logic, politics, poetry, biology, psychology, meteorology,
physics and metaphysics. Though he studied at Plato’s Academy for some 20 years or so his
general philosophical orientation and tenor was markedly different from Plato in that it was
less speculative and more empirical. This needn’t be surprising given that Aristotle’s father was
the physician to the then King of Macedonia from who he must have developed a healthy
respect for empirical observation.
The Politics and Generation of Animals contain philosophically significant references to
Aristotle’s account of the status of women. The central thesis of Book I of Politics in Aristotle’s
words is as follows: “the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules,
and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.” It is instructive to
note here that Aristotle’s view stands in stark contrast with Plato’s proposal – in the Republic -
that women should be allowed equal participation with men in the administrative, educational
and political affairs of the state. Aristotle, on the other hand, maintained that political
governance is no ordinary job as it demands, above all, the exercise of the noblest and highest
part of human faculty, namely, the rational faculty; and in his view women fall short in the
exercise of rationality.
The work on Politics is essentially an examination of the different forms of government but he
begins by declaring that the best and highest form of human community is the political
community - polis (the State) which is composed of several villages which in turn are comprised
of several families. A family in turn is an association of husband, wife, their children and slaves.
The husband is the head of the family and his relationship to other members is always one of
ruler to ruled; however, each relation involves a different type of rule. Aristotle identifies three
relationships:
1. Master-slave: the rule of master over slave is despotic;
2. Husband-wife: the rule of husband over wife is political (or constitutional);
3. Father-child: the rule of father over children is monarchical (or royal)
No account of the nature of these relationships can be complete without mentioning the two
fundamental principles (assumptions) that shape, and possibly determine, the direction of his
entire philosophy. First is the teleological conception of nature according to which everything –
animate as well as inanimate - in the universe has a purpose or goal or end (telos) which is
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determined by that thing’s essential nature; the thing’s telos is its good; everything in nature is
thus arranged in the best possible way such that it ‘moves’ toward the fulfillment of its telos
and thereby the realization of its good. For example, the telos of a watch is to show the right
time; or, the telos of a explosive is to explode, et. He held that the same is true of natural things
like the growing of an acorn into an oak. The second is the theory of human psychology (or as
commonly expressed, the nature of the soul). Psychologically speaking, every individual (human
being) is constituted of three parts but each is present in different degrees in different people:
[a] appetitive part: biological needs and desires;
[b] spirited part: the emotions, feelings, etc. and
[c] rational part: the capacity to employ intelligence and rationality.
Now, returning to the issue at hand, Aristotle argues that the type and nature of relationship in
the three cases mentioned above is determined by the degree to which any of these parts of the
soul are predominant in the individual. Let’s look at each of these relations in turn.
2. Master-slave relation. In examining the master-slave relation Aristotle’s purpose is to justify
slavery. He thought some people are born slaves and therefore (given the principle of teleology)
it was in their interest that they be treated as such. The nature and status of the slave may be
summarized as under
(i) slaves are merely and only means to an end, mere living tools (like domestic animals) that are
necessary in order for the family to remain in existence; slaves are property (i.e. objects) of the
master;
(ii) slaves have no interest of their own apart from that of the master’s; i.e. they has no intrinsic
value – only extrinsic value – thereby they are not even human;
(iii) therefore, the appropriate rule of the master over slave is purely despotic.
On what basis did Aristotle arrive at this view? He bases the above account on the theory of the
soul. Aristotle says, the slave is devoid of the faculty of reason [though he possesses the other
two – the feeling element in meager proportion while the appetitive is fully developed and
predominant] but can apprehend what is rational; that is to say, he has the minimally necessary
amount of reason to understand and obey only the commands of his master but otherwise he is
completely devoid of the deliberative and authoritative function characteristic of reason. [Note:
here Aristotle is guilty of inconsistency: either the slave is or is not capable of reason; so, if the
slave lacks the rational faculty altogether then strictly speaking he should be unable to even
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SYBA Phil II
Notes/Aristotle

understand the dictates of his master; on the other hand, if he does obey the master it follows
that he has some understanding and therefore not entirely devoid of reason! Aristotle
conveniently ignores these inconsistencies in his view.] Not only do slaves lack the capacity to
reason altogether, they have under developed emotions and feelings but robust bodily desires
and appetites. Consequently, a slaves’ character is determined by his bodily needs and desires.
This allows Aristotle to conclude that slavery is a natural thing and not based on force. But more
importantly, it allows him to argue that slaves are born with capacities ‘in order’ to perform a
slave’s function (telos); the fulfillment of the slave-function is the fulfillment of the slave’s being,
the realization of his good.
The nature of the ‘rule’ changes in important respects when the master exercises his rule over
his wife and children: they are not slaves, therefore free; they are not treated as having only
instrumental value, therefore not property.
3. Father-Child relation. The master in this relation is expectedly the father, his actions are
exercised in the child’s interest not those of himself. The father-child relationship Aristotle
describes in the following way, “the rule of the father over his children is royal, for he rules by
virtue both of love and of the respect due to age, exercising a kind of royal power… a king is
natural superior of his subjects but he should be of the same kin or kind with them, and such is
the relation of elder and younger, of father and son.” [Politics, p.19-20] His children have all
three faculties of the soul which makes them, unlike slaves, fully human and entitled to respect
as individuals of independent value. But their faculties are underdeveloped and incomplete, and
so children are dependent upon their father’s authority and judgement in all matters. Aristotle
thus takes the familiar position that the immaturity of children requires them to be disciplined
for their own good just as a king knows the needs of his subjects and acts always in the interest
of their good.
4. Husband-wife relation. Aristotle declared that the man (i.e. husband) possesses all three
parts of the soul but arranged, so to speak, in a manner where the rational element
predominates and is in full control over the other two; as a result, a man’s personality and
character is always governed by reason, deliberation and intelligence. Although women possess
the three faculties, according to Aristotle, the rational part is less developed in comparison to
men while the emotional part is fully developed; as a result women’s personality, actions and
character are determined by emotions and feelings. Now, since the faculty of rationality is
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important in ruling and because this faculty is predominant in men they are not only fitted to
rule and command over women, children and slaves but also superior to them. It is not that
women lack virtues like temperance and courage but Aristotle is quick to clarify that “the
temperance of a man or of a woman, and the courage and justice of a man or of a woman are
not the same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying.” [Politics,
p.21]
Having contrasted the psychological character of man and woman, Aristotle proceeds to
describe the relationship (the rule) between husband and wife as political or constitutional.
Political rule normally involves alternation of ruling and being ruled only among free persons
who are all equals: no free person deserves to be excluded from having a chance to rule. This
clearly implies that the wife is free as her husband and in a sense his equal. It follows that the
wife has a natural and legitimate right to rule and be ruled in the family. Despite regarding the
wife as free and equal to the husband, Aristotle denies that it is appropriate for a wife to
literally have a share in ruling. He now says that the principle of equality which is allowed under
political rule cannot in fact be extended to all aspects of life; in particular, it cannot and should
not be extended into the domain of the family because it would endanger the organization and
preservation of the family. He is candid in his hypocrisy in saying that women’s equality with
men is one of outward form only for the husband’s rule over his wife is permanent!
Though the husband may rule over the wife and the wife is always subject to the husband’s
authority this does not in itself mean that the wife’s interests are wholly subordinate to the
interest of her husband in the same way as the interests of a slave are subordinate to those of
his master.
5. The Biological argument of inferiority of women. Not only is the principle of teleology
operational in the social and political domains of human life the same is true, Aristotle observes,
in the domain of human biology. In Generation of Animals Aristotle appeals to the teleological
conception of nature and argues that since nature has designed male and female organs
differently they have different natural functions. Biologically speaking, Aristotle observes that
the natural function of female is childbearing while that of the male is to beget offspring. On
the basis of this he asserts that women are biologically inferior to men. His so-called rational
scientific justification for this view was a result of his study of the human procreative process.
Aristotle believed that heat was the fundamental element in the perfection of animals and
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therefore of humans. The more heat a creature produced the more perfect of a being it was! He
believed that women were “colder than men,” so obviously they were less perfect than them as
well. In the procreative process Aristotle provides a stark characterization of males and females.
(1) The male is the giver of life, he provides the soul – wherein resides the principle of
reason, the female provides the material conditions for the growth of life. Woman is
only needed to be the soil, while the male is the sower thereby implying that the role of
the male is significant in comparison to that of the female;
(2) Females are females because of an inability, namely, the inability to produce sperms
(because it lacks the heat to do so) which is the source of life; this so-called ‘fact’ led him
to regard women as incomplete compared to men, and in a manner of speaking a
woman is an ‘unfinished man’ or ‘imperfect male’;
(3) In the process of reproduction the female is passive and receptive while the man is
active and productive;
(4) After fertilization the embryo that grows in the warmest part of the womb develops
more fully and quickly and thus becomes a male. The embryo that develops in the
colder part of the womb lacks the heat and thus becomes an imperfect female.
Almost everything that Aristotle says about women’s biology is known to be factually false and
the reasoning employed in ‘deriving’ their inferiority status and role is utterly fallacious.
Aristotelian view of women is obviously not in sync with the real lives of men and women in the
21st century. Although it may sound implausible that people would actually take these ideas
seriously, throughout the Middle Ages society accepted these views of women as reliable.
All this should not distract us from another pleasant aspect of Aristotle’s vision of the
relationship between man and woman.

Reference:
R.G. Mulgan Aristotle’s Political Theory pp.38-52
Aristotle Politics (selections from Book I)