Ancient philosophy is of course hardly the most important issue right now, and most of my tweets are on other topics—but for those interested, here's the part of Agnes Callard's piece that I find most misleading. 1/

Callard says Aristotle is just being empirical: that is, just describing what he sees around him. Aristotle, she suggests, sees that some people are enslaved, and so he says, as an alien visitor might, "I guess in this society some people are considered inferior." 2/

What's weird about this is that it conflicts with something Callard herself said in her very first paragraph. Aristotle doesn't just register the existence of slavery, or say that his culture condones it; he defends it. He offers new arguments for it. 3/

So in what sense should we think of Aristotle as being just an empiricist? 4/

Sure, he isn't necessarily trying to convert people to the cause of slavery. But he is still adjudicating whether it is or is not just—as though he were a Supreme Court judge in 1896 deciding whether segregation is lawful and just. That's not what an empiricist does. 5/

Maybe Callard could say that the alien visitor isn't just noting that women are considered inferior, but expressing that as its own view. 6/

But if that's the case, then I see no reason not to take offense at the alien. Wouldn't we protest that it had no reason to think that? Aren't alien anthropologists supposed to be smart? 7/

For more on why Aristotle's argument is a bad one, see this excellent thread. (tl;dr: if owning a slave were like having a child, the owner would strive for the slave's well-being and development, not just use the slave as an instrument.) 8/ https://twitter.com/FreyChristopher/status/1285703050896838664?s=20https://twitter.com/FreyChristopher/status/1285703050896838664?s=20https://twitter.com/FreyChristopher/status/1285703050896838664?s=20

There are of course complexities around Aristotle's claims, including the fact that slavery in Ancient Greece was not based on race, and that Aristotle calls *some* slavery unjust... 9/

...but surely we can agree that Aristotle is offering a defense of (some) slavery, as Callard says in the first paragraph, and not just being an empiricist, as she says later. 10/

None of this is to take a stand on whether or not Aristotle should be "canceled." But whatever your views, I hope you aren't persuaded by this part of Callard's argument. /end

PS Thanks to @heideggrrrl and @nathangoldman for their insights, and HT again to @FreyChristopher for the excellent thread cited above.