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Single Idea 19841

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 1. Slavery ]

Full Idea

There are some unfortunate circumstances where one's liberty can be preserved only at the expense of someone else's, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only if the slave is completely enslaved. Such was the situation in Sparta.

Gist of Idea

Sometimes full liberty is only possible at the expense of some complete enslavement

Source

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.15)

Book Ref

Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.199

A Reaction

Rousseau wrote just before the moment when it was seen that slavery in European empires might be abolished, but he was not in the forefront of thought on this one. Greek philosophy would probably never have happened without slavery.

The 29 ideas with the same theme [allowing workers to be unpaid and owned by others]:

21047 Aristotle thought slavery is just if it is both necessary and natural [Aristotle, by Sandel]
21358 Natural slaves are those naturally belonging to another, or who can manage no more than labouring [Aristotle]
17227 Slavery is a disgraceful crime [Spinoza]
19923 Slavery is not just obedience, but acting only in the interests of the master [Spinoza]
19870 If you try to enslave me, you have declared war on me [Locke]
19883 Slaves captured in a just war have no right to property, so are not part of civil society [Locke]
19913 A master forfeits ownership of slaves he abandons [Locke]
20000 Slavery is entirely bad; the master abandons the virtues, and they are pointless in the slave [Montesquieu]
20003 Slaves are not members of the society, so no law can forbid them to run away [Montesquieu]
20006 The demand for slavery is just the masters' demand for luxury [Montesquieu]
19775 People must be made dependent before they can be enslaved [Rousseau]
19784 Enslaved peoples often boast of their condition, calling it a state of 'peace' [Rousseau]
19785 If the child of a slave woman is born a slave, then a man is not born a man [Rousseau]
19841 Sometimes full liberty is only possible at the expense of some complete enslavement [Rousseau]
19847 We can never assume that the son of a slave is a slave [Rousseau]
21783 State slavery is a phase of education, moving towards a full culture [Hegel]
21784 Slavery is unjust, because humanity is essentially free [Hegel]
22776 Slaves are partly responsible for their own condition [Hegel]
21789 Slaves have no duties because they have no rights [Hegel]
21486 Poverty and slavery are virtually two words for the same thing [Schopenhauer]
5285 Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels]
22670 Slavery undermines the morals and energy of a society [Tocqueville]
24134 There is always slavery, whether we like it or not [Nietzsche]
14819 Slavery cannot be judged by our standards, because the sense of justice was then less developed [Nietzsche]
23158 Slavery began the divorce between the work and the purposes of the worker [Russell]
23811 If effort is from necessity rather than for a good, it is slavery [Weil]
23868 The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil]
7353 The Pharisees undermined slavery, by giving slaves responsibility and status in law courts [Johnson,P]
18649 If everyone owned himself, that would prevent slavery [Kymlicka]