Abstract Aristotle maintains that both women and slaves have virtue, but also that their virtue differs from the virtue of free men (Pol. 1. 13, 12599-1260a7). These claims about virtue are connected to the claim that women, children, and slaves are all natural subjects, subject to the authority of free adult men (Pol. 1.3, 1253b4-8; 1.5, 1254b13-20; 1. 12, 1259a37-b4). The naturalness of the subjection is in every case a question of the capacity for practical reason and deliberation. Aristotle claims that this capacity is undeveloped in children, absent in natural slaves, and ‘without authority’ in women (Pol. 1. 13, 1260a7-14). These differences in capacity are the foundation of the differences in the virtue of different kinds of people. At the same time, these differences account for the different relations of rule that obtain between fathers and children, male householders and slaves, and men and women.
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