"They are slaves." No, they are human beings

Seneca c. 4 BC · c. 65It is not that we have little time, but that we waste much.

What it claims

The slave must be treated as a human being: judged by character, admitted to conversation and to the table, respected rather than feared.

Why

The slave has the same nature as his master and only fortune sets them apart: he deserves the same respect as a human being.

In short

""They are slaves." No, they are human beings" is an argument by Seneca (Letters to Lucilius, 47) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: one humanity). Its claim: The slave must be treated as a human being: judged by character, admitted to conversation and to the table, respected rather than feared. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Letters to Lucilius, 47

Valid with an implicit premise

In Rome, a slave is legally a thing to be bought and sold. Many masters find it shameful to eat with one. In letter 47, Seneca congratulates his friend Lucilius on living on familiar terms with his slaves and explains why: the slave has the same nature as the master, and only fortune separates them. He draws a rule of conduct from this. He does not go as far as calling for the end of slavery: we point this out in the objections.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a world where master and slave share the same nature and differ only by fortune, but where respect depends on something else (birth, city, property): one can then treat the slave as a beast of burden without contradiction.

Valid with P3. P1 and P2 establish a fact: master and slave share the same nature, and only fortune distinguishes them. But a fact is not enough to ground a duty: one must add that this common nature is owed the same respect (P3). Seneca does not state it as a general rule, he assumes it: for the Stoics, every human shares in reason, which makes us "kin" by nature. Aristotle disputes P1, and what is questioned today is the reach of the conclusion: is treating the slave as a human being compatible with keeping him a slave?

Analogy. In a game, lots are drawn for who will be king and who will be servant. No one thinks the servant is less intelligent: it is the draw. Despising the servant means forgetting that on the next round the cards may change hands.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Aristotle (Politics, book I) 330 BC · attacks premise 1

Some people are slaves by nature: they have enough reason to understand an order, not enough to direct themselves. For them, being ruled is beneficial and just, as it is for the body to obey the soul. So nature is not the same in everyone.

Sénèque replies

Sénèque What he writes in the same letter, without naming Aristotle

I will value people not by their duties but by their character: each person gives themselves their character, it is chance that assigns duties.

The debate goes on (our summary) Aristotle himself grants that many slaves are slaves only by law, for instance prisoners of war, not by nature (Politics I, 6). So Seneca's examples (Hecuba, Plato, Diogenes, enslaved by misfortune) do not refute him directly. The real disagreement is over whether there are humans deprived by nature of the reason that directs: the Stoics deny it, Aristotle affirms it.

The Roman masters' proverb (quoted by Seneca) attacks the conclusion

"As many enemies as you have slaves." Slaves are dangerous: they must be held by fear, not admitted to one's table.

Sénèque replies

Sénèque

They are not enemies when we acquire them; we make them enemies.

The debate goes on (our summary) Just before, Seneca supports this answer with a memory: slaves of former times, who could talk with their master, were ready to die for him, whereas those silenced with the whip speak against him. It is an argument from experience, not a proof: the masters could cite revolts, such as Spartacus'.

A limit drawn from the letter itself (noted by historians such as Moses Finley) attacks the conclusion

If the slave is a human being like his master, the logical conclusion would be to free him. Yet Seneca himself anticipates the charge of calling slaves to freedom and toppling masters; his answer shows that he only asks that masters be respected rather than feared. He reforms the way slaves are treated, not slavery.

Sénèque replies

Sénèque What he says of true servitude (same letter)

"He is a slave." But perhaps free in soul. "He is a slave." Will that harm him? Show me who is not one: one is a slave to lust, another to money, another to ambition, all to fear. No servitude is more shameful than the one we impose on ourselves.

The debate goes on (our summary) This answer is precisely what critics hold against Stoicism: by placing true freedom in the soul, it turns legal slavery into a detail. In On Benefits (III, 20, not yet in our corpus), Seneca writes that only the slave's body belongs to the master, his mind remaining free. The idea of one humanity is affirmed there, but with no political consequence; it would take centuries for abolition to be drawn from it. To be fair: almost no ancient author called for the end of slavery, not even those who held it contrary to nature (Aristotle mentions them). On the treatment of slaves, Seneca goes further than most authors of his time.