BY CONVENTION OR BY NATURE?

For those of us who are sympathetic to Aristotle's ethics, it would be reassuring if his ἄκυρον-claim simply expressed a contingent historical fact about women in fourth-century Greece rather than a view about the nature of the female. The principle of charity therefore may recommend the first version of the ‘convention view’: it makes Aristotle speak the truth. On the first version of the ‘convention view’, (1a), Aristotle makes a straightforward empirical observation when he claims that women's faculty of deliberation lacks authority. Nothing Aristotle says commits him to thinking that women are intrinsically (i.e. psychologically) inferior to men. They are without authority because of an accidental—and hence reversible—social convention. Defending this as a live interpretative option, Arlene Saxonhouse maintains that ‘it is unclear in the text whether this want of authority in the woman's deliberative capacity inheres in the soul itself or becomes manifest in groups of men who would scorn it coming from a woman’ ([n. 6], 208). Aristotle's prescriptions in the Politics do not, therefore, point to a natural hierarchy between women and men. It is just that men will dismiss any woman who attempts to act as politician or lawgiver.

I agree with Saxonhouse that the evidence in Pol. 1.13, 1160a10-15 is insufficient to draw firm conclusions about Aristotle's views, but I believe that the alleged lack of clarity dissipates once we reconstruct Aristotle's argument for the ἄκυρον-claim in light of his discussion of the lack of self-mastery (ἀκρασία) in Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 and his discussion of female softness in History of Animals. Furthermore, contemporary uses of the predicate ἄκυρον in philosophical and legal literature cast light on Aristotle's use, and show that Aristotle has a specific type of psychological weakness in mind. When we bring the pieces of textual evidence together, we will see that Aristotle gives a psychological—and hence metaphysical—justification of gender roles in the household and the state. Although Aristotle sometimes appears to argue in the Politics that women must be confined to the private sphere for pragmatic reasons—it is, he notes at one point, a beneficial division of labour, since someone must look after the house (οἰκία)—he does not in the end think it is arbitrary that it is women who are confined to the house while men are permitted (indeed required) to govern the affairs of the state.

This has repercussions for the version of the ‘convention view’ defended by Marguerite Deslauriers (1b). More specifically, Deslauriers argues that Aristotle's ἄκυρον-claim simply points to the hierarchy between the public and the private spheres: ‘the tasks of women over which they have authority are for the sake of the tasks of men and hence, on Aristotle's view, inferior to the tasks of men’ ([n. 4], 229). Because the household is for the sake of the city, and the city is better than the household (Pol. 1.2, 1252b30-1253a1), ‘Aristotle seems to think’, says Deslauriers, ‘that it follows that rule in the city is better than rule in the household’ ([n. 4], 229). She infers that the deliberative faculty in women is ἄκυρον because it is subject to the authority of the deliberative faculty in men: political deliberation ‘rules’ deliberation in the household. On Deslauriers's view, then, Aristotle's claim about the state of women's deliberative faculties is not a claim about aptitude, but rather an observation about the hierarchical ordering of domains and about the authority of rule in each of a set of subordinate areas (see Eth. Nic. 1.1-7). One striking upshot of this is that Aristotle's assertion of the superiority of men, according to Deslauriers, ‘is founded (…) on a mere stipulation [my emphasis], namely that women have authority only in the household, whereas men have authority that extends to political deliberations’ ([n. 4], 230). It might as well have been the other way around. It is a strength of Deslauriers's interpretation that it mirrors some key principles of Aristotle's thought, viz. his claims about the completeness of ends and the subordination of crafts in Book 1.1-2 of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is certainly true that the deliberative faculty in women operates only in a limited domain, the household, and that this domain, according to Aristotle, exists for the sake of another domain, the city. It is also true that for Aristotle, because the city is better than the household, rule in the former is better than rule in the latter. But I want to resist Deslauriers's conclusion that, consequently, women are not unfit by nature to rule by Aristotle's lights. On her view, the deliberative part of women is without authority because it is for the sake of the man's deliberations. That is all there is to Aristotle's claim.

Contrary to Deslauriers, I think Aristotle has reasons for this particular assignment, reasons that rest on claims about the natural characters of men and women.Footnote ¹² It is only in this light that we can come to understand his claim that ‘almost all things rule and are ruled according to nature’ (φύσει πλείω τὰ ἄρχοντα καὶ ἀρχόμενα, Pol. 1.13, 1260a9). The deficient authority of women does not derive from their contingent standing vis-à-vis others.

Reading Aristotle's remarks about women in the context of the overarching argument of Pol. 1.13 helps to bring this out. Consider Aristotle's initial remarks about boys. Aristotle does not think that the boy's rationality is ‘incomplete’ or ‘immature’ because the boy stands in a contingent relationship of dependency to his parents. It is not because the boy ought to obey that his deliberative capacity is incomplete; rather, it is because his deliberative capacity is incomplete that he ought to obey. In the same way, a natural slave—a tool with a soul—does not lack the ability to deliberate because the master does it for him. Rather, his master deliberates for him because the slave lacks the deliberative part. Treating the hierarchy between master and slave as an artificial social arrangement that could in principle be reversed would furthermore erase Aristotle's distinction between natural and unnatural slaves. In both the case of boys and that of slaves, the deficiency that explains hierarchy is internal to the soul. It is an intrinsic feature of the child (in his current state) and the natural slave (in his permanent state) that their capacity for rational deliberation is wanting. We would therefore need special argument to show that Aristotle means to treat the case of women differently. In the absence of countervailing considerations, the presumption should be that Aristotle thinks there is something amiss with women's deliberative faculty, even apart from social and political circumstances.

In the next section, I will argue that Aristotle's claim reflects standard Greek assumptions about the relationship between the capacity for self-rule and the capacity for ruling others. Because a woman's deliberative capacity fails to prevail over non-rational emotions, she cannot rule herself. If she cannot rule herself, she is unfit to take command over others. As W.W. Fortenbaugh observes, lack of intrapersonal rule entails incapacity for interpersonal rule.Footnote ¹³ Drawing on Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 and History of Animals 8, I shall argue that Aristotle's version of this claim turns on women's susceptibility to be governed by emotions involving pain (fear in particular) rather than excessive desire for pleasure. It is women's fearfulness and susceptibility to grief and pain that makes them unfit to rule. A ruler must be capable of issuing commands that are obeyed, and if women cannot even issue authoritative commands to themselves, then they are not fit to issue them to others. If this is right, Politics 1.13 does not argue that women lack the intellectual capacity to reach the right decision through deliberation. What women lack is the ability to reliably transform their decision into action.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

The relationship between self-rule and suitability for other-rule is a central topic in Plato's Socratic dialogues. Recall the argument of the Gorgias, where Socrates presents his ideal of self-mastery as a counterpoint to the ideal of self-indulgence propagated by Callicles. Callicles submits that it is impossible to be happy if one is ‘enslaved’ to anyone at all—least of all to oneself. The happy life is the life of a tyrant, who ‘allows his appetites to get as large as possible’ and who does not restrain them (491e). Against this ideal of principled overreaching, Socrates champions the life of self-mastery and moderation. Being self-controlled and master of oneself means ruling the pleasures and appetites within oneself. There is no stability in a soul ruled by appetites, since the part of our soul in which our appetites reside is open to persuasion and shifts back and forth. Only the self-controlled person, who rules the appetites within himself, is a fit ruler.

In the case of Callicles, intemperance reflects an unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. But it is also possible to give oneself over to pain. That women are overpowered by pain is implied in Socrates' reaction to Xanthippe's grief in the Phaedo. Phaedo tells Echecrates that, when he and Socrates' friends entered the Athenian prison, they found Socrates released from his chains ‘and Xanthippe—you know her—sitting by him, holding their baby’. He reports that, when Xanthippe saw them, ‘she cried out and said the sort of thing women usually say’ (Phd. 60a). Later in the dialogue, Socrates admonishes his weeping friends not to act like women (117d-e). The attitude of the true philosopher, who sees death as the aim of his philosophical practice, is thus effectively contrasted with the attitude displayed by women. Women weep and grieve, men face death with equanimity. The same point appears in Republic Book 10. Socrates here chastises Homer and the tragedians for portraying heroes giving long lamenting speeches beating their chests. Many people enjoy this kind of thing, and ‘give themselves up’ sympathizing with the hero. By contrast, when we suffer private losses, ‘we pride ourselves if we are able to keep quiet and master our grief’, says Socrates, ‘for we think that this is the manly thing to do and that the behaviour we praised before is womanish’ (Resp. 10, 605d).

Like Socrates, Aristotle maintains that women are particularly prone to be overcome by feelings of pain—fear, grief and timidity. Consequently, women are easily dispirited, and less likely to act on their decision. This is a qualified form of ἀκρασία, which Aristotle labels softness, μαλακία.Footnote ¹⁴ In Book 7 of the Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes two species of ἀκρασία, one which he calls weakness (ἀσθένεια, 1150b19), and another which he calls impetuosity (προπέτεια, 1150b19). The weak ἀκρατής knows what is best, decides on it, but fails to do what he thinks he ought because he is overcome by his desire for bodily pleasure. The impetuous ἀκρατής, by contrast, never reaches the right decision (προαίρεσις) at all, since he fails to deliberate, and consequently acts for the sake of pleasures that he generally thinks he should resist.

Both species of ἀκρασία concern pleasure. However, although Aristotle treats pleasure as the paradigmatic domain of ἀκρασία, he also recognizes that there is such a thing as qualified ἀκρασία with respect to pains, and this is softness. It is ‘an inability, reluctance or refusal to undertake necessary pains and burdens’.Footnote ¹⁵ The soft person lacks endurance in the face of pain, and is therefore susceptible to irrational grief and fear of future evils—even when he judges that he ought not to be controlled by these emotions. Aristotle states flatly that ‘the female is distinguished from the male by softness’ (7.7, 1150b16). This is not simply a claim about women as Aristotle happens to find them, but a claim about ‘female’ as opposed to ‘male’ character. Thus, for Aristotle, softness is a defining feature of female psychology. Any man who displays softness is thereby effeminate (indeed μαλακία is sometimes translated with ‘effeminacy’). Aristotle maintains that softness is hereditary in Scythian kings and in people who ‘trail their cloaks to avoid the labour and pain of lifting it, and imitate an invalid’ (Eth. Nic. 7.7, 1150b4-6). Soft people tend to be cowards—they lack spirit. In his discussion of bravery, Aristotle contrasts bravery with μαλακία, arguing that, while the brave person stands firm because that is fine and because anything else is shameful, the coward dies for the sake of erotic passion or to avoid poverty or something painful. ‘For shirking burdens is softness (μαλακία), and such a person submits [to death] to avoid an evil, not because doing so is fine’ (Eth. Nic. 3.7, 1116a12-16).Footnote ¹⁶ Women have a similar flaw. They would make poor heads of state—indeed, poor defenders of the city—since they are incapable of εὐπραξία (‘acting well’), which is the goal of political action.

Displaying εὐπραξία requires doing courageous and wise acts because they are fine. Owing to softness, women are likely to be fearful and easily deterred in dangerous situations, and they lack the perseverance and self-mastery required for effective rule, whether the subject is their own emotions or the affairs of the state. This will reveal itself as a failure to implement their decisions. Aristotle maintains that prudence is prescriptive (ἐπιτακτική, Eth. Nic. 6, 1143a8), but the decrees that women issue are likely to be overridden by emotion. Either she impetuously flees or shrinks back in the face of danger, not pausing to deliberate (call this ‘impetuous softness’), or she does pause to deliberate, and reaches the right decision, but is subsequently overwhelmed by feelings of fear such that she abandons the decision once made (‘weak softness’). According to Aristotle, then, women either fail to consider their convictions or they lack the courage of their convictions. Even if they make the right decisions, they do not reliably follow them. And if they succeed in standing firm, it will be for the wrong reasons, not because doing so is fine.

FEMALE AND MALE CHARACTER IN HISTORY OF ANIMALS

If Aristotle's statement about female softness had been restricted to the scattered remarks in Eth. Nic. 7.7, we could be excused for treating them as inconsequential. They are not, however, isolated remarks. Aristotle expresses similar thoughts in his biological works. A striking passage in the History of Animals 8.1 casts light on his treatment of women in Pol. 1.13:

Aristotle adds:

The passage confirms Aristotle's observations in Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 that the female is distinguished from the male by softness.Footnote ¹⁸ Women's natural character, which displays the characteristics of the female to a greater extent than that of any other female animal, is to be softer than men, less spirited, and more impulsive, but also ‘more difficult to rouse to action’. In a striking reversal of prejudice, Aristotle also claims that the female character is more adept at learning (μαθηματικώτερον) than the male. Aristotle never suggests that women are less intelligent than men, whether in practical or in theoretical matters. Nor does he suggest that they are less adept at finding means to their ends—indeed he suggests the opposite. Female duplicity would seem to be grounded partly in keener intelligence. In claiming that women lack deliberative authority, then, Aristotle most likely does not intend to argue that the deliberative part in women lacks smarts. Rather the deficiency is one of execution.Footnote ¹⁹

The contrast between deliberative excellence (εὐβουλία) as a purely intellectual virtue and prudence as an executive virtue entails, inter alia, that the ability to find the right means to the right ends is not enough to be prudent. One must also act on what has been decided.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle compares the akratic person to ‘a city that votes for all the right decrees (ψηφίσματα) and has excellent laws, but does not apply them’. These people are subject to Anaxagoras' taunt: ‘the city willed it, that cares nothing for laws’ (Eth. Nic. 7.10, 1152a21-3).Footnote ²⁰ Aristotle here has the weak ἀκρατής in mind, the man who abandons the right decision under the sway of his desire for pleasure. But formally the description also applies to men who suffer from softness, and by extension to the female sex.Footnote ²¹ Women may deliberate well, form the right general principles, and decide appropriately about particular cases. But it does not matter in practice, since they shrink from enacting their plans. When Aristotle says that the deliberative part of a woman's soul is ἄκυρον, then, we should take him to mean that their decrees do not reliably guide their action. What reason asserts is not what desire pursues (see Eth. Nic. 6.2, 1139a25), contrary to what happens in prudent agents. It is an interesting consequence of this view that Aristotle does not think that women are poor at deliberating because they cannot find means to ends, or because they are incapable of adjudicating between different courses of action. The deficiency is not intellectual, if we think of practical intellect as a purely cognitive faculty. The deficiency, rather, lies in the strength of their intellects in guiding action in the face of countervailing forces in the soul—especially feelings of fear. As we will see, this equality between men and women in the capacity for practical reasoning allows Aristotle to maintain that the husband's rule over his wife is political rather than kingly—it is based on equality rather than superiority. But it is not equality in every respect—in particular, it is not equality in executive power.

LACK OF AUTHORITY: PRECEDENTS FOR ARISTOTLE'S USE OF ΑΚΥΡΟΝ

Authors attempting to establish the sense of Aristotle's claim at Politics 1.13 have been remarkably uninterested in looking for linguistic parallels to Aristotle's use of ἄκυρον in contemporary or near-contemporary sources. If we can find a clear pattern of the use of ἄκυρον in texts with which Aristotle would have been familiar, then we have some reason to suppose that Aristotle uses the term in a similar way, to the extent that he does not offer a technical definition. To support my interpretation, I will consider a handful of texts that originate in the Academy or the Lyceum.

The Constitution of the Athenians (Athenaion Politeia 68.4) describes the voting procedure in the Athenian court of law. Here ἄκυρον and κύριος are technical terms referring to effective and ineffective ballots. Jurors vote by placing the ballot that is to count (the one that is κύριος) in a bronze urn, while they discard the non-effective one (which is ἄκυρον) in an urn of wood. The pierced ballots are for the plaintiff, while the solid ones are in favour of the defendant. The wooden urn thus ends up containing the non-effective ballots, the ballots that fail to hold sway and are ‘without authority’. Since The Constitution of the Athenians was compiled in Aristotle's own school, we should expect him to be familiar with the terminology.

We find a parallel use of ἄκυρον in Plato's Crito, where Socrates maintains that he would render the laws and the whole city powerless, were he to escape from prison. The Laws rhetorically ask: ‘Do you think it is possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts are rendered powerless (ἄκυροι) and set at naught by private individuals?’ (50b4).Footnote ²² Where laws have no force, the city cannot persist, since the enforcement of laws is what preserves a political community. Laws are ineffective if the decisions of the courts have no practical consequences. As Christopher Bobonich remarks, ‘neither Socrates’ disobedience (nor general disobedience) would take the verdict off the books or render it legally void; what it would do is make it the case that the verdict, although present and persisting, would not determine what actually happens'.Footnote ²³ Plato expresses a parallel view in the Laws, where the Athenian Stranger observes that ‘[w]here the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own (ἄκυρον), the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state’ (Laws 715d2-7).Footnote ²⁴

In Plato's Protagoras, Socrates argues that ‘the measuring art’ has a power similar to that of law in the psychological realm. It makes the power of appearance ineffective (ἄκυρον):

If we weigh pleasures and pains on a pair of scales, we will not be deceived by appearances to prefer an inferior alternative, but will act in accordance with our knowledge of the best. Conversely, if we lack ‘the measuring art’, reason lacks authority, since we are likely to abandon our convictions in the face of false appearances. This vacillation is due to ignorance, which by Socrates' lights is the true cause of the affliction that the many call ἀκρασία. Aristotle's use of κύριος in the Ethics reflects this use. When he likens the akratic agent to the city that has good laws and passes good decrees, but fails to act on them, he suggests that his rational part is without authority (ἄκυρον).Footnote ²⁶ The ideal, then, is to be governed by reason. Aristotle repeatedly refers to the controlling principle of action or character as τὸ κύριον (for example, Eth. Nic. 1113b32; 1114a3, a32, b32; 1139a18; 1147a26, b10; 1163a23). It is whatever rational principle determines the quality of our action or the state of our character. The deliberative part in women is ἄκυρον because it fails to control something it ought to control, namely our actions.Footnote ²⁷ We therefore see a consistent pattern of employment of τὸ ἄκυρον across The Constitution of the Athenians, Crito, Laws and Protagoras, and this is continued in Aristotle's Politics. In describing a law, decree or proposition as ἄκυρον, these texts suggest that they fail to prevail and result in action. In so far as Aristotle holds that prudence (φρόνησις) is prescriptive (ἐπιτακτική, Eth. Nic. 6.10, 1143a9), and that the prudent person reliably does the right thing for the right reason, an executive deficiency is incompatible with a well-functioning deliberative part.Footnote ²⁸ Prudence is not just the ability to draw reliably the right inferences; it requires being disposed to act on your decisions and to stand by them even in the face of fear or pain or other discomforts. As Aristotle underlines, ‘The prudent person acts [on his knowledge]’ (Eth. Nic. 7.2, 1146a7). One needs the right state (ἕξις) to do this reliably, a state concerned with decision (ἕξις προαιρετική, 1106b36; 1139a22) that is ‘firm and unchanging’ so that it reliably produces right action for the right reason (see Eth. Nic. 2.4, 1105a32-3).

SILENCE IS A WOMAN'S GLORY

If we accept that women's deliberative faculty is without authority, and that they cannot develop the same virtues as men (the ‘complete’ or ‘full’ virtue that requires prudence, Eth. Nic. 6.13), we are faced with a puzzle. Women are human, and must therefore share in a rational principle. Consequently, it would be strange to deny that women can develop virtue. But if a fine nature can be found in both women and men, why should one of them rule and the other obey? Aristotle responds to the puzzle by maintaining that the free subjects in a household display their own virtues by following the commands of the most perfectly rational member, the male. He thinks that the constitution of the soul presents a model for this kind of hierarchy (Pol. 1.13, 1260a4-19).

Aristotle therefore rejects Socrates' view (expressed in the Meno) that the virtue of men and the virtue of women are the same. The courage of a man, says Aristotle, is shown in commanding, while the courage of a woman is shown ‘in obeying’ (Pol. 1.13, 1260a20-3). Aristotle consequently warns that we should not rest content with speaking in generalities, defining virtue simply as ‘good disposition of the soul’, for that definition fails to be informative. If we want to know what a woman's virtue is, then we should instead take our cue from Sophocles' Ajax, who remarks that ‘silence is a woman's glory’, when Tekmessa attempts to dissuade him from foolish action (Soph. Aj. 293, cited at Pol. 1.13, 1260a30). Aristotle here affirms a conventional view of women's virtues—she should treat her husband as master and commander, though not of a despotic sort. Her husband's leadership is not grounded in his absolute superiority, as in the relationship between master and (natural) slave, but rather in the fact that his commanding faculty is authoritative—he does not shrink back. The justification, then, makes reference to a natural difference between the souls of men and women—the rational part in women is less able to push its will through.

Aristotle's use of Ajax's words has puzzled critics. For it is far from clear that Sophocles' play describes the type of marital hierarchy that Aristotle recommends. In the play, Ajax wants to slay the Achaeans as revenge for their tricking him in the contest for Achilles' armour. Blinded by Athena, he kills some sheep instead, and commits suicide when he realizes his mistake. As several critics note, there is some irony in the fact that Tekmessa had the better case—Aristotle could hardly have chosen a worse quotation to support his case for women's lack of deliberative authority. Even Ajax recognizes Tekmessa's ‘foresight’. Why, then, should Aristotle cite Ajax's admonition to justify male mastery in the household? Presumably, Aristotle is more interested in what Ajax has to say than who is saying it—for, as Sophocles notes, ‘silence is a woman's glory’ is a stock phrase. Indeed, versions of the saying occur in Aristophanes' Lysistrata 519, in Euripides' Heracles 476 and in Xenophon's Oeconomicus 7.30. Aristotle may simply have wanted to cite reputable opinions on the matter, and inadvertently stumbled over a case where received wisdom was put under pressure. Alternatively, we may treat Aristotle's reasons for citing Ajax as rather more subtle. For in the passage immediately preceding Politics 1.13, Aristotle introduces his discussion by noting that, ‘although there may be exceptions to the order of nature, the male is by nature fitter for command than the female’ (τό τε γὰρ ἄρρεν φύσει τοῦ θήλεος ἡγεμονικώτερον)’ (Pol. 1.12, 1259b2-3). Aristotle may have chosen Ajax's rash words to Tekmessa to illustrate a general truth that admits of exceptions: men as a rule are better at enforcing their decisions than women. The existence of women with foresight does not alter this fact. Nor is this challenged when husbands are blinded by the gods and lose their ability to think straight. Ajax was ill-advised not to listen to Tekmessa's wise counsel, and his words were inappropriately chosen and directed at her, but they still express a general truth: men are fit to command while women are not. Therefore, women should hold their tongue when men reject their advice—even when they are right.

The passage thus demonstrates Aristotle's commitment to stating general truths—truths that hold normally (ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ), if not under exceptional circumstances. These are the truths that are relevant for political science, not truths about exceptions. Aristotle is not willing to take the radical step that Socrates takes in the Republic, namely to allow exceptional women a role in government, for the role of political science is not to make room for exceptions but to identify a constitution that is based on proper comprehension of relationships that obtain usually and normally.

AMASIS' FOOT PAN

My defence of the ‘natural’ view indicates that there is a natural hierarchy between women and men. But there is a further obstacle to overcome before my defence is complete. For, as I noted initially, Aristotle also maintains that the rule of husband over wife is political rather than kingly. Aristotle distinguishes between rulers who are equal to their subjects and rulers who are superior to their subjects. In kingly rule, like that of a father over his son, the ruler rules the ruled on account of the ruler's superior rationality. The rule of the rational over the non-rational parts of the soul is of this kind (Eth. Nic. 1.13)—one ‘has reason to the full extent by having it within itself’, another ‘shares in reason in a way’ by ‘listening to reason as to a father’ (Eth. Nic. 1103a4) (this is the part ‘with appetites and in general desires’). Later in the Ethics, Aristotle refers to the deliberative and decision-making part of the soul, τὸ ἡγούμενον, as a ‘king’, and it is clear that the rational part is superior to the non-rational.

This type of rule should be contrasted with political rule, which indicates equality between ruler and subject.

What, exactly, is the point of Aristotle's reference to King Amasis of Egypt? King Amasis (i.e. Ahmose II, 570–526 b.c.) was a pharaoh of modest origins. If Herodotus is to be believed, his subjects initially failed to respect him. To change their minds, Amasis took a foot pan, a lowly domestic object that he used to wash his feet, and fashioned an idol of a god out of it. The subjects subsequently revered the idol. Amasis thus taught them that, although he, like the foot pan, was of modest origins, they should respect and obey him now that he was king.

The story seems to indicate that the hierarchy between husband and wife is not one of intrinsic value, but rather of conventional roles. It thus calls into question the idea that Aristotle posits a natural division of labour between men and women. If he does not posit such a natural hierarchy, then it seems that proponents of the ‘convention view’ may appeal to the analogy to show that there are no intrinsic psychological differences between men and women. After all, the point about Amasis is that he is not an aristocrat—he is equal to the men he rules. When Aristotle describes the relationship between husband and wife as political, he would likewise seem to suggest that no party is naturally superior to the other. In the city, Aristotle takes this type of equality to show that it is best for all that they take turns ruling and being ruled. Thus, citizens alternate in these roles, and whoever happens to hold political office is entitled to honours not because he is intrinsically better than the people who honour him, but because he provides a service, frequently onerous, that benefits the subjects. Still, Aristotle nowhere envisions taking turns heading the household, and he dismisses the proposal that women should take part in political and judicial deliberation. What, then, are we to make of Aristotle's appeal to the story of Amasis? Does Aristotle really think, like Plato, that women can possess sufficient amount of gold in their souls that they, too, could be transformed into capable leaders of the state, and that their exclusion from the political sphere is rather based on an arbitrary division of labour—men being raised to take part in public affairs and women to manage private affairs? If so, the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle does not run deep—Aristotle would merely challenge Plato's claim that it is in fact beneficial for the state to assign citizens their roles based on individual aptitude rather than on gender.Footnote ²⁹ But reading the story in this light subverts the point Aristotle is trying to make. While acknowledging that women and men are more or less equal in their rational abilities, Aristotle still credits Amasis with superiority in one respect: he knows how to push his will through. Amasis may be made from the same material as his subjects as far as his rationality is concerned. But he has something that they lack: strong executive powers. Those who read Aristotle's reference to political rule as an admission of the basic equality between the capability of men and the capability of women take the story of Amasis' foot pan to show that the general is equal to his subjects, but commands their respect because of an arbitrary role he has assumed. I take the story to teach us something else. Amasis is not king because someone has to do it, but because he is a spirited general, prepared to grab power and keep it. His clever use of the foot pan only reinforces the point.

Despite appearances, then, Aristotle's position is consistent. He can claim that women are deficient with respect to their deliberative part, which is without authority, since their rational part fails to hold sway. He can also argue that the rule of husband over wife is political rather than kingly. His position is coherent, since equality is always equality in some respect. I have argued that, although Aristotle thinks that women and men are equal in rational abilities, they are unequal in their ability to put decisions into action. Men are masters and commanders, women are not. Women waver by nature, men do not. Therefore, men rule over women in the city and the household.

ARISTOTLE'S POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY

My explanation of Aristotle's exclusion of women from politics posits that, since women are psychologically incapable of self-rule, they are ill-equipped to rule others. This gives the psychological theory pride of place in Aristotle's theory—it explains the political arrangement Aristotle prefers, rather than vice versa, as defenders of the ‘convention view’ would have it.

In the Ethics the rational part of the soul is said to ‘command’, whereas the non-rational ‘listens to reason and obeys it’ like a respectful son (Eth. Nic. 1.13, 1102b29-1103a). Aristotle thus reverts to paternal metaphors (father/son) when he describes the functions of the rational and non-rational parts of the soul. In the Politics, he observes that ‘[t]he soul rules the body with despotic rule (δεσποτικὴν ἀρχήν), whereas the intellect (νοῦς) rules desires (τῆς ὀρέξεως) with a political and kingly rule (πολιτικὴν ἢ βασιλικήν)’ (Pol. 1.5, 1254b5-6). I take Aristotle to argue that intellect rules non-rational desire (θυμός and ἐπιθυμία) with kingly rule, and rational desire (βούλησις and προαίρεσις) with political rule. The latter are desires that do not conform to rational decrees by yielding to them, but rather by embodying these decrees and being intrinsically rational, just as women are intrinsically rational. For Aristotle, then, political as opposed to kingly rule is appropriate where the subject is intrinsically rational, rather than rational only by standing in the right relation to the rational part of the soul. Kingly rule is therefore appropriate where the subject can ‘listen to reason’ and comprehend its orders, but cannot (yet) determine the right way to act for himself. Political rule is appropriate where the subject can deliberate and make decisions for himself or herself. Turn-taking in ruling is only appropriate, however, where the subject also is appropriately governed by his own reasons so that his decisions are enacted. Therefore, Aristotle denies that women and men should take turns in exercising authority.

Interestingly, Aristotle also employs constitutional metaphors in describing what happens when the deliberative part of the rational part of the soul reaches a decision:

Once a decision has been made, the king communicates his decision to the people. It is striking that Aristotle here uses Homeric kingship to explain the function of the deliberative faculty—if it works well, the people will follow its command. We have already seen that, just as kings are by nature fitter to rule than their subjects, Aristotle thinks men are by nature fitter for command than women (φύσει ἡγεμονικώτερον, 1259b3-4). Women may reach the right decision but, like kings with seditious subjects, their commanding part fails to force its will through.

This conception of female practical rationality may have seemed appealing to Aristotle precisely because he reverts to political metaphors in describing the proper order between different parts of the soul. A woman cannot govern others because she lacks a fully functioning kingly part of the soul, and therefore cannot even rule herself. It is therefore hard to free oneself from the suspicion that Aristotle is guilty of circular reasoning. The metaphors that Aristotle employs in describing the different parts of the soul are already inherently gendered. They invoke political systems that Aristotle thinks are inappropriate for most cities; nevertheless, he admires them as best in the abstract. Therefore, the Homeric model of kingship that Aristotle invokes makes it easier for him to omit giving an explicit justification for excluding women from positions of rule, whether inside or outside the household. The constitution of the soul is kingship, of the kind depicted in Homeric poems, and the typical Homeric king is not a woman. Ajax, not Tekmessa, is the model for the commanding part of the soul.

To the extent that each person ‘is’ his rational part most of all, Aristotle would have had to imagine women as Homeric kings to allow them a fully functioning rational part of the soul. But like most of his contemporaries, he cannot—they do not fit the mould. This means that Aristotle's psychological theory is already profoundly political. Therefore, he cannot appeal to his psychological model as a neutral theory to justify particular political arrangements, since he has already infused political ideas into his psychological theory. In thinking about the deliberative part of women, then, Aristotle falls back on unexamined assumptions about women's fitness to rule. This means that a central contention in Aristotle's account of the household, and hence of the state, is in need of a new defence. At this point, the psycho-physiological theory of the History of Animals helps provide an answer.Footnote ³⁰