Article Richard Kraut Are There Natural Rights in Aristotle

Are There Natural Rights in Aristotle?
Author(s): Richard Kraut

Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Jun., 1996), pp. 755-774
Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.
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ARE THERE NATURAL RIGHTS IN ARISTOTLE?
RICHARD KRAUT
J. WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN addressing the question raised in my title by

distinguishing two issues: First, does Aristotle have the concept of
natural rights? Second, does he give this concept a central role to play
in his political theory? The first question is one that I have found most
difficult to answer, partly because I am not sure what is involved in
having this concept. Nonetheless, I am inclined to say that Aristotle
does have it. At the same time, I am convinced that the second ques
tion should be answered in the negative: the concept of a right plays
no significant role in his thinking. For this reason, it is not a matter of
great importance to decide whether or not he has the concept. My
thoughts about these issues have been stimulated by Fred Miller's
splendid new book;1 although we disagree, I have benefitted enor
mously from the order he has brought to the study of Aristotle's politi
cal philosophy and from his efforts to show that the concept of rights
plays a central role in it.
Before going any further, something should be said about the
word "natural" that appears in my title. Miller distinguishes two ways
in which rights can be called natural, and holds that Aristotle recog
nizes natural rights in one sense but not the other. First, "natural" can
be contrasted with "conventional," "legal," and "customary." This is the
familiar distinction the Greeks made between physis (nature) and nomos
(law, custom, and so on). Aristotle makes use of the distinction when
Correspondence to: Department of Philosophy, Northwestern Univer

sity, 1818 Hinman Avenue, Evanston, Illinois 60208-1315.
!Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics
(hereafter, NJR) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Miller argues not only that
Aristotle has a concept or theory of rights (though he adds a caveat regarding
the word "theory"; ibid., 90), but also that "rights have a central place in Aris
totle's politics"; ibid., 17.
The Review of Metaphysics 49 (June 1996): 755-74. Copyright ? 1996 by The Review of
Metaphysics
756 RICHARD KRAUT
he contrasts natural and legal justice.2 According to Miller, Aristotle

has a theory of natural rights in the sense that he has a theory of natu
ral justice that serves as the basis for his recognition of rights.3 It is
naturally and not merely legally just that certain people be treated in
certain ways; they have a valid claim, based on natural justice, to such
treatment, and this claim is valid whether or not it is recognized by a
legal system.4 On the other hand, the term "natural right" can also be
used in a second way, to designate a right that is possessed in a state
of nature, that is, at a time prior to the existence of political communi
ties. Miller holds that Aristotle does not recognize natural rights of
this sort, but as he points out, this would not prevent Aristotle from
recognizing natural rights in the first sense. The natural rights Miller
finds in Aristotle are not possessed by all people at all times; rather,
his thesis is that when the polis does come into existence, Aristotelian
natural justice requires that political systems be structured in ways
that recognize the rights of certain human beings. More specifically,
when the polis arises, certain people have a natural right to hold vari
ous political offices and to own property.
Miller makes another important distinction when he warns us not
to assume that all theories of rights must be liberal theories.5 Because
theories of rights have come into their own in the modern period, we
might be tempted to make it definitive of rights that they carve out a
zone of freedom in which individuals are allowed to make their own
decisions and pursue their good as they please (so long as they do not
harm others). According to this familiar conception of rights, others
are not allowed to treat me in certain ways without my permission,
even if they would on balance do me some good. For example, they
cannot interfere with my unhealthy eating habits, even though their
prohibitions would make me better off; I have a right to injure my
body, since it is my property.
It should be obvious from the start that Aristotle does not have
this conception of rights. His ideal city interferes with the lives of its
citizens in all sorts of ways that contemporary rights theorists would
2See Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter, NE) 5.7.1134M8-27.

3 See Miller, NJR, 16-17, 74-9, 88-90, 122-3.
4 For a recent challenge to the traditional reading followed by Miller, see
Bernard Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993), 59, 140-9. I find Yack's argument unconvincing, but
will not address the issue here.
5See Miller, NJR, 91, 115-7.
NATURAL RIGHTS IN ARISTOTLE? 757
find objectionable?for example, by requiring extensive participation

in politics and demanding that all children be sent to public schools.
However, Miller asks us not to infer that Aristotle has no conception
of rights at all, and I am sympathetic to his point. For it would be dog
matic to insist right from the start that the conception of rights with
which we are most familiar in the modern period is the only kind there
can be or ever has been; it begs the question whether Aristotle has a
theory of rights to insist that any such theory must recognize the great
value of freedom. If we want to keep open the possibility that rights
theories have been with us throughout the history of moral philoso
phy, then we must not build liberal values into the very concept of
rights.
This policy of open-mindedness leads to a difficult question: if Ar
istotle has a theory of rights, but one that differs from modern theo
ries, then what is the common core that allows us to recognize these
various conceptions as theories of rights? If liberal values are not es
sential to rights, then we are forced to ask what the essence of a right
is. This question in turn leads to another: why should we think that
there is such an essence? It is the difficulty of this question that un
derlies my perplexity about whether Aristotle has the concept of a
right. I am not sure precisely what we should be looking for when we
ask whether Aristotle has that concept. However, perplexed as I am, I
can still take some comfort. For as I will argue, whether Aristotle has
the concept or not, it plays no significant role in his political theory.
II
Let me explain why I am willing to say tentatively that Aristotle

does have the concept of a natural right. My reasons are different
from the ones that Miller advances. For I think there is some basis for
attributing to Aristotle the view that all human beings have a natural
right to be treated in certain ways, and that they possess this right
both within the polis and in pre-political conditions. There are, in
other words, Aristotelian natural rights in both senses of "natural"; by
contrast, Miller holds that the rights Aristotle recognizes are not pre
political, although they are not merely conventional.
We should remind ourselves that although the kind of justice that
Aristotle is most interested in is political justice?the kind that governs
758 RICHARD KRAUT
the polis?he also uses the concept of justice so broadly that it applies
to other groups, including associations that came into existence prior
to the development of the polis. Before there were political communi
ties, people formed families and possessed slaves. Aristotle recog
nizes that the concepts of justice and injustice apply to those pre-po
litical relations; for he notoriously argues that the master-slave
relation is based on justice when the master really does possess a cer
tain kind of superiority and the slave has a natural inferiority. The jus
tice of this relationship holds whether it exists within or without polit
ical communities.
We can say, then, that according to Aristotle one would be com
mitting an injustice and wronging a natural master if one tried to inter
fere with his efforts to acquire a natural slave or if one tried to take his
slave from him. If someone is naturally free it is fitting for him to own
slaves, and others owe it to him not to undermine his efforts to ac
quire what naturally ought to belong to him. It accords with justice
that he should own slaves; or, to switch now to talk of rights, we
might say that according to Aristotle the master has a right to own
slaves. Here it may seem innocuous and unobjectionable to move
from an assertion about the justice of owning slaves to a claim about a
right to own slaves. If other people owe it to a natural master to re
frain from interfering with his ownership of slaves because his superi
ority makes him worthy of being a master, then why not also say that
he has a right to acquire and possess slaves?6
Notice, too, that according to Aristotle there are certain other
ways in which natural masters ought not be treated even in pre-politi
cal circumstances. If you are naturally free, then others owe it to you
6 Miller recognizes that according to Aristotle there are "non-political

forms of justice" (NJR, 84), but he takes NE 5.7.1134b 18-19 to mean that
"natural justice is ... inherently political" (ibid., 122; cf. 74-5). This is why he
refuses to attribute to Aristotle the idea that there is natural justice and injus
tice in a state of nature. However, the passage cited merely divides political
justice into natural and legal parts; it does not rule out the possibility of natu
ral justice outside the polis. At 5.6.1134a29-30 (cited by Miller, NJR, 86), Ar
istotle takes political justice to be primary, and other forms of justice to be
related to it by similarity; but this allows him to hold that natural justice and
injustice exist prior to the formation of the polis. He must hold this, since he
claims that whenever a natural slave serves a natural master, slavery is both
advantageous and just; see Politics 1.5.1255al-3. It would be implausible to
take Aristotle to mean that slavery accords with justice only within the polis
and not outside it. And why should such justice not be called natural when
master and slave are natural?
to recognize your status and not to treat you like a slave: they must
not try to enslave you; and if you have done nothing harmful to others,
they must not humiliate, assault, or kill you. We might put this by say
ing that one's position as a free person gives one a right not to be
treated in these ways. We cannot call this a human right, because it
does not follow merely from one's humanity and does not belong to all
human beings. Nonetheless, it is a natural right both in the sense that
such noninterference is grounded in one's nature as a free person and
is not a mere convention, and in the sense that it exists prior to and
outside the political community.7
If these points are accepted, then there seems to be a significant
similarity between Aristotle and a rights-theorist like Locke. Both of
them think that one's status as a free person and one's full possession
of reason entitle one to be treated in certain ways by all others: one is
not to be assaulted or enslaved, and one must be allowed to retain
one's property. This is a restriction that applies as much in a state of
nature as it does in civil societies. Of course, Locke rejects Aristotle's
theory of natural slavery; for Locke, all human beings whatsoever are
owed the treatment that Aristotle thinks is owed solely to those who
are naturally free.8 However, why should we not describe this differ
ence by saying that according to Locke all adult human beings have
rights, whereas according to Aristotle all free adult human beings have
rights?
I will now go one step further and suggest that we can even find
in Aristotle the idea that all human beings have, by virtue of their hu
manity, certain rights. At one point in the Politics, he holds that one
must not hunt human beings for the purposes of eating or sacrificing
them, but must only hunt edible wild animals.9 So even a slave is to be
7Although Miller focuses on political and property rights, he also at

tributes to Aristotle the thesis that certain human beings have a right not to
be treated with violence and disrespect; Miller, NJR, 280-98. I do not see
how Aristotle could believe that insolent treatment is contrary to natural jus
tice when it occurs among members of a polis, but not otherwise. Of course,
political rights cannot be possessed when there is no polis; but the basic re
straints certain people owe each other do not presuppose political institu
tions.
8 Those who are in a state of nature are "all equal and independent" The
Second Treatise of Government, chap. 2, sec. 6. The conditions under which
slavery is permissible are treated in chapter 4, but no one is a natural slave.
9See Politics 7.2.1324b39-41.
760 RICHARD KRAUT
given a degree of protection: slave though he is, his humanity entitles

him to be treated in certain ways. Why should we not say, then, that
here Aristotle shows that he has not only the concept of a natural right
but also the concept of a human right?
Ill
I turn now to political rights. Should we take Aristotle to be say

ing that certain human beings have a right, based on natural justice, to
participate in political affairs? Before we turn to the text and to
Miller's interpretation of it, we must observe, by way of example, a
preliminary point about our concept of rights. Suppose we are trying
to decide whom to invite to address a conference. To be chosen as a
speaker is both an honor and a responsibility, so we want to find peo
ple who deserve recognition and will perform well. Now, the point I
would like to make is that none of the candidates that we consider has
a right to be invited as a speaker?even if one of them is most deserv
ing. If we pass over the most meritorious candidate because we fail to
recognize her accomplishments, we can be said to have done her an
injustice. Nonetheless it would be wrong to say that we owe her an in
vitation, that we have a duty to invite her, or that she has a right to be
invited. At most, what we owe her is fair consideration; but we do not
owe it to her to choose her as the speaker. For when someone's rights
have been infringed or violated, then it is appropriate for those who
are at fault to make amends or offer some compensation or apology.
Clearly, however, compensation or apology would be inappropriate in
this case.
Perhaps the inappropriateness of speaking about a right in this
example has to do with the comparative nature of our task. In decid
ing whom to invite, we not only consider individual qualities but also
make comparisons. In fact, no matter how qualified one individual is,
that settles nothing, because others might be even more so. By con
trast, the natural rights of individuals are possessed solely on the basis
of individual qualities, and comparisons are irrelevant. If someone
has a natural right to impartial treatment, it is because he himself has
a certain property?namely, his humanity?that entitles him to such
treatment; we do not have to withhold judgment and see whether oth
ers have that quality to a greater degree, before we decide whether or

not he has the right in question.10
If this point about the concept of rights is correct, then we should
not describe Aristotle as holding that certain people have a right,
based on natural justice, to participate in public office. For he thinks
that the question of who should rule should be answered by consider
ing which candidates best qualify, and which qualities are most salient
to political life. Offices are honors and therefore should be given only
to those who deserve them; since they are to be used for the common
good, they should be occupied by those who are in the best position to
contribute to the good of others. Certain people deserve to rule, and it
is naturally just that they be given positions of power and honor.11
However, as we have seen, it does not follow from this that they have
a right to rule. So we should not move from the fact that Aristotle has
a theory of the just distribution of political power to the conclusion
that he takes certain people to have a right to rule.12
We should also recall that according to Aristotle it is appropriate
to allow certain people to participate in governing the city, not be
cause each of them is individually qualified to make good political
judgments, but because as a group they can contribute usefully to
public deliberation. In some way or other, their individual deficien
cies are canceled out when they operate as a collective deliberative
body.13 This feature of Aristotle's thought makes it especially difficult
to read him as a defender of individual rights. For even if we
10 For a fuller discussion, see Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving (Prince
ton University Press, 1970), 55-87, especially 86.
11 This feature of Aristotle's thinking is especially prominent in Politics
3.12-13; note especially the analogy he makes in 3.12 between assigning the
best flutes to the best flute-players and awarding political offices to qualified
citizens.
12Miller tries to address the point I am making on p. 98 of NJR. He
agrees that "someone can deserve a job . . . without have a 'right' to it." But
he points out that Aristotle applies the concept of justice (to dikaion) to dis
putes over property, and claims that in these cases the question to be decided
by the judge is not who deserves it but who has a right to it. I do not think
this adequately addresses the problem with which I am concerned. Miller
thinks that Aristotle attributes natural political rights to certain persons and
must therefore confront the difficulty presented by the fact that for Aristotle
political offices should be filled by those who best deserve them. Pointing
out that property rights are not for Aristotle a matter of desert does not ad
dress this difficulty. (I will turn to the topic of property rights later.)
13See Politics 3.11.1281a42-b7, b24-31. It may be objected that in these
passages, Aristotle is merely recording a common opinion, and that he does
762 RICHARD KRAUT
adopted the thesis that someone who is individually qualified to rule

has a right to rule?a thesis I think we should reject?that would not
secure the conclusion that everyone whom Aristotle is willing to in
clude as a member of a political community has an individual right to
participate in politics. When we consider each such person on his
own, what we find according to Aristotle is that his individual merit is
too small to make him a good citizen.14
IV
I would now like to point out that if we do wish to describe Aris

totle's political thought in the vocabulary of rights, we should recog
nize that these rights are considerably less stable than those that fig
ure in modern theories. They are unstable in that they can be lost far
more easily than the natural rights with which we are most familiar.
To see this, consider that in Aristotle's ideal city older citizens are for
bidden to hold high office because their minds have deteriorated.15
The assumption that lies behind this arrangement is that those who
rule should be qualified to contribute to the common good, and they
should be relieved of their political responsibilities when they no
longer possess the requisite qualifications. Hence if we wish to say
that the members of Aristotle's best community have certain rights,
not endorse it. Although I cannot defend my interpretation here, I think that
Aristotle does in fact accept this common opinion. On my reading, he thinks
there is some legitimate basis for including skilled workers as members of
imperfect cities, and that this is not merely a strategy for achieving stability.
14 To address this problem, we might speak instead of a group right
rather than an individual right: those who are individually undistinguished
might be members of a group that has a right to power, even though no mem
ber of the group considered on his own has such a right. However, I take
Miller to be claiming that Aristotle has a conception of individual rights and
that everyone who ought to be a member of the political community has a
right as an individual to share in power. The term "individual rights" is used
from the start (see Miller, "Preface and Acknowledgments," in NJR, vii), and
Aristotle is repeatedly described as a kind of individualist; ibid., 17, 114, 138,
193-6, 198-9).
15See Politics 7.9.1329a30-4; cf. 7.12.13314b-6 for the separate sites of
common meals for rulers and priests. Aristotle criticizes Sparta for giving
certain officials life tenure because, he says, the mind grows old; Politics
2.9.1270b35-1271al. Rhetoric 2.14.1390b9-ll says that the mental prime of
life occurs at 49.
we must add that those rights are held only for a period of time and
are then lost.
Notice how much more stable the rights of modern theories are:
For example, although it is commonly said that the right to life is lost
by those who violate the same right of others, no modern theorist
holds that in order to retain the right to life one must use one's talents
to benefit the community. The underlying idea behind this conception
of the right to life is that the conditions under which one possesses
rights must be undemanding. For the value of having rights, as we
conceive them, lies in having some protection from the demands of
others; a modern right carves out a zone in which one is relieved of
the task of having to contribute to the common good. Accordingly, if
the conditions under which one possesses a right are extremely de
manding, then the moral significance of the right diminishes. (Imag
ine how shocked we would be, for example, by the proposal that if
one fails to become a person of exemplary virtue, one loses one's right
to life.)
This should lead us to ask the following: If Aristotle has a concep
tion of rights, how stable are they? In the ideal city, high political of
fice is taken away from citizens only when their mental abilities de
cline with age. Here the right to rule lasts most of a lifetime, and
citizens can be assured that if they obey the laws, their political rights
will not be taken away prematurely. But what of the more common
cases? How robust is the right to rule in imperfect cities? To develop
an answer to this question, we should recall that Aristotle favors a re
quirement that citizens have a moderate amount of property;16 only
those who are wealthy enough to purchase their own military equip
ment should be entrusted with significant civic responsibilities. Fur
thermore, he advocates frequent adjustments in the property require
ment, and as a result those who qualify as citizens one year may find
that they no longer qualify the following year, and lose their civic
rights.17 There is a world of difference between the stability of the
16See Politics 4.13.1297M-2.

17At Politics 4.13.1297b 1-6 Aristotle favors a variable property qualifica
tion: it must be large enough to make the citizen population exceed the non
citizen population (cf. 6.6.1320b22-8). At 5.6.1306b9-16 he notes that the
qualification must be increased as the general level of prosperity grows; this
will exclude those whose personal wealth does not keep pace with general
economic development. At 5.8.1308a35-bl0 he notes with approval that
some cities assess the wealth of citizens periodically (every year or every few
764 RICHARD KRAUT
modern right to life and the instability of the Aristotelian right to par
ticipate in civic affairs.
The next point to be noticed is that citizenship depends partly on

an arbitrary convention: in some cities, one can be entered on the roll
of citizens only if both of one's parents are citizens; elsewhere, it is
sufficient that only one parent be a citizen. Aristotle believes that the
choice between expansive and exclusive criteria for citizenship de
pends on the need to increase or decrease the size of the citizenry;
there is no one criterion that is valid for all situations.18 Consider,
then, a child whose father is a citizen, but whose mother is not. Does
he have a right based on natural justice to be a citizen? Aristotle's an
swer must be that he cannot complain of being treated unjustly if he is
not allowed to be a citizen. Whether or not he is granted this status
depends on what policy will best promote the common good.
Now consider, however, a child both of whose parents are citi
zens. Does Aristotle think that by virtue of his parentage he has a
right based on natural justice to be a citizen? I suggest that his answer
must be no, because he believes that whether one deserves as a mat
ter of justice to be a citizen ultimately depends not on one's parentage
but rather on one's own abilities and personal qualifications. He takes
for granted the widely accepted and extremely useful convention that
allows the children of two citizen-parents to enter the citizen rolls at a
certain age; he assumes that it would disrupt family relations if chil
dren did not regularly become citizens, and he takes the family to play
an essential role in moral education. However, this leaves open the
possibility of children who are appropriately enrolled as citizens even
though they lack the qualities they need to be good citizens. They
years) and adjust the citizen rolls accordingly; cf. 5.3.1301a21-5, 5.7.1307a27
9. Note, too, that even if someone is legally permitted to enroll as a citizen, a
city may attach significant financial disincentives to doing so; 4.13.1297a24-9.
18At Politics 3.2.1275b22-34 Aristotle notes that ancestry cannot serve
as a universal criterion of citizenship and is used by cities merely as a conve
nience. At 6.4.1319b6-18 he notes the democratic device of lowering the an
cestral requirement in order to increase the citizen rolls, but advises against
taking it to an extreme.
ought to be admitted as citizens, because doing so is part of good pub

lic policy; but if they were denied citizenship on the grounds that they
are not qualified, they could not complain of being treated in a way
they do not deserve.
This leads me to conclude that on Aristotle's theory, the question
of who is to be made a citizen is in most circumstances a matter of
convention, convenience, and strategic planning. He does not think of
the world as being naturally and sharply divided into two distinct
types: those who have a right to be citizens and to participate in politi
cal affairs, and those who do not. Of course, there are a few people of
exemplary virtue who clearly ought to be allowed to play a political
role. However, even these people do not have a right based on nature
to be citizens of whichever city they choose; they can only be citizens
of that city whose laws grant them citizenship. At the other extreme,
there are those whose disqualifications are so severe that they ought
not to be citizens of any city. The vast majority of people in the Greek
world fall between these two extremes: they are capable of a limited
degree of virtue?either on their own or in combination with others?
and their credentials for admission to citizen status do not clearly
qualify or disqualify them.19 These people cannot be said unambigu
ously to have a right based on natural justice to be citizens, for the
best kind of justice, the kind that prevails in the ideal city, would ex
clude them.20 So if they are granted citizen status, that is because a
qualified sort of justice can be achieved and the common good can
best be promoted if they are included, at least temporarily. I am
doubtful that the best way of describing this morally ambivalent situa
tion is to say that these people have a natural right to become citizens.
190n the paucity of excellent men, see Politics 3.7.1279a40-b2, 5.4.

1304b5; it is this paucity that underlies Aristotle's willingness to grant citizen
ship to those who are less than fully qualified. I take Aristotle to be saying at
3.11.1281bl5-31 that some (for example, unskilled workers) should never be
enrolled as citizens, whereas others (for example, farmers and artisans) can
perform basic civic functions well but should not be selected for high office.
20See Politics 7.9.1328b38-9 for Aristotle's distinction between being
unconditionally just and being just-relative-to-one's political system. The
background to this distinction is the discussion of the difference between be
ing a good person and a good citizen (3.4): it takes less to possess the virtues
that make one a good citizen of a certain community than it does to be a vir
tuous person simpliciter. (This should not be taken to mean that being a
good citizen is not a worthwhile accomplishment.)
766 RICHARD KRAUT
VI
Miller holds that Aristotle recognizes not only political rights but
property rights as well, to which I now turn. Aristotle of course has a
theory about the role land, slaves, and other possessions should play
in the life of citizens and their community. His theory of the good
holds that in order to engage in virtuous activity over a long period of
time, one must possess external equipment, and possessions (in mod
eration) are part of that equipment. Furthermore, he argues against
Plato's proposal that property be held in common.21 He also distin
guishes between natural and unnatural ways of acquiring property.22
Nonetheless, I believe that he is not guided by the notion that people
have a right to property based on natural justice.
Let us begin by reminding ourselves that according to Aristotle
most people do not make good use of the goods they own. This is be
cause they do not have practical wisdom: they do not understand the
proper ends of human life, and so do not know what use to make of
their property or wealth. Therefore, although money, land, and the
like are goods, they are not good for these people.23 Furthermore, he
holds that many goods are acquired in a way that is contrary to nature:
the point of their acquisition is unlimited increase rather than neces
sary exchange.24 So let us imagine someone who has no wisdom con
cerning the use of his property and who has acquired excessive hold
ings merely for the sake of acquisition. We take away some of his
property: does Aristotle think that we have violated his natural rights?
Certainly, we have taken away something that according to law is his.
Thus we have done something contrary to legal justice. Nevertheless,
we are asking about natural rights based on natural justice. Have we
violated a natural right he has to the particular piece of property we
have taken from him? If his acquisition of that property was contrary
to nature, could it be contrary to natural justice to take it away from
him?
These doubts can be reinforced if we bear in mind that we cannot
attribute to Aristotle a theory of rights that makes rights independent
21 See Politics 2.5.

22 See Politics 1 8?10
23See NE 5.1.1129b3^6, 5.9.1137a26-30; Eudemian Ethics 3.1. 1228M9
22, 7.2.1235b31-5, 7.2.1236b35-1237a3, 8.3.1249al2-13; Politics 7.13.1332al9-25.
24See Politics 1.9.1257b25-1258al0.
of the good. If Aristotle has a conception of individual rights, those

rights must exist because they serve the good of the individuals who
possess them. Hence, if someone has a right to be treated in a certain
way, this must be because doing so promotes his good, and because it
is bad for him if we fail to treat him that way. However, in the case we
are imagining, taking away someone's possessions does nothing to un
dermine his good. So there seems to be no theoretical basis that
would allow Aristotle to say that in this case theft violates someone's
natural right.
At the same time, it would be absurd to take Aristotle to mean
that it is permissible for us to steal from those who lack moral virtue.
If one steals from a bad man, that is still theft, and one is doing him an
injustice.25 But the fact that one does him an injustice does not neces
sarily mean that one is violating a right he has. What we can say in
stead is that in this case what makes theft unjust is the harm it does to
the community. Civil stability would be undermined if people took
from each other with impunity. There can be no order without laws
that protect property, and such order would not be achieved if citi
zens, each acting on his own, were allowed to make decisions about
who may own what.
The point I am making can be clarified if I appeal to a general re
mark that Miller makes about rights and duties. He says: "If, as in the
Mosaic code, I have a duty not to covet my neighbor's ox, it does not
follow from this alone that my neighbor has a right against me not to
covet his ox. For my duty may stem from a commandment from God
and be a duty to God to perform or refrain from an act involving my
neighbor."26 My claim is that there is a similar lack of correlativity be
tween a duty and a right in the case under discussion. Although there
is a duty not to take away the possessions of a bad person, and it
would be unjust to do so, this is not because the bad person has a
right that we refrain from doing so. For there is nothing in Aristotle's
philosophy that would secure his claim to such a right. By hypothesis
this person's good is not served by his excessive possessions. It is
rather the good of others that is being promoted when we refrain from
taking away his property: the security and order that are needed in the
community would be undermined if there were no laws that protect
26SeeJV?5.4.1132a2-6.
26MiUer, NJR, 95.
768 RICHARD KRAUT
property. So we have a similar situation to the one Miller describes

when he uses the example of the Mosaic law. That law says that I
should refrain from taking from X because I owe it to God to restrict
myself; similarly, Aristotle's political theory assumes that I should re
frain from taking from X not because doing so will harm him, but be
cause it will harm others.
Miller notes at one point Aristotle's frequent warnings against the
general confiscation of the property of wealthy people, but I think he
gives the wrong explanation for Aristotle's criticisms when he says
that "the property owner has a claim of justice, a right, against other
citizens which is violated by . . . confiscation."27 The problem with
this explanation is that it mislocates the source of the injustice done
to the rich. In taking away the excessive wealth of the rich, the poor
are not doing them any real harm. By Aristotle's own standards, they
don't need that much money or land. Nonetheless, as Aristotle em
phasizes throughout his discussion of the rich and the poor, both par
ties to the dispute harm themselves by their hatred of the other. The
poor and the rich need each other, if either group is to form a stable
constitution that can achieve a modicum of good. So when confisca
tion is condemned, this is because such takings will only prolong and
intensify class hatred; but the rich do not have a claim based on natu
ral justice to their oversupply of holdings.
None of this is incompatible with the obvious point that accord
ing to Aristotle all citizens should have property. In his ideal commu
nity each citizen owns a moderate number of possessions, because
this is part of the equipment needed for a happy life. But he does not
need the concept of rights in order to affirm this thesis. The ideal
community is one in which every citizen's good is served by political
institutions, and that is why every citizen has some property. It
should also be kept in mind that in an ideal community each citizen's
control over his property is highly restricted. Aristotle thinks there
should be a specific distribution of property: each citizen should have
some land on the outskirts of the territory and another plot of land
close to the civic center.28 It follows that citizens will not be allowed
to sell either of their two allocations, for this would upset the proper
distribution. If a private possession is something its owner is free to
27Miller, NJR, 329.

28See Politics 7.10.1330al4-25.
sell or give away, then the parcels of land owned by the citizens of the
ideal city are not truly private.29 One might say that they have their
own land in the same way that certain members of a university have
their own library carrels: this is their own private space and is not
available to others for the asking, but nonetheless it is not their prop
erty. In the city that is based on perfect justice, land is private in just
this sense. In less than ideal cities, the ownership of property is regu
lated not by some scheme of individual and natural rights, but by the
general need for stability and order.
VII
I would now like to consider what I think is Miller's most impor

tant argument for attributing a conception of rights to Aristotle. He
calls our attention to Aristotle's thesis that a correct political system
must be designed to promote the common good. He argues at great
length that we should understand Aristotle's conception of the com
mon good to include a guarantee that no citizen's well being is to be
diminished for the sake of increasing the well being of others. In
other words, to aim at the common good is not to aim at the maximi
zation of the sum of individual goods. For if that were Aristotle's goal,
he would think it justified to diminish or even completely ignore the
good of some in order to maximize the sum of goods. Instead his as
sumption is that to aim at the common good is to arrange matters so
that each and every citizen is as well off as he can possibly be.30 If this
is an accurate account of Aristotle's conception of the common good,
then each citizen can be said to have an inviolable right to be treated
by his fellow citizens in a way that maximizes his own well being.
29As Miller notes (see NJR, 312, 322-3), Aristotle says that a possession
is one's own (oikeion) if it is up to one whether or not to sell it or give it
away; see Rhetoric 1.5.1361a21-2. So, on Aristotle's own definition, not all
possessions ought to be entirely one's own. In chapter 9, Miller takes Aristo
tle to be arguing in favor of property rights, where property rights are taken
to include the right to give away or sell (p. 310); but he overlooks the need to
restrict this right in the ideal city. I think it is fair to generalize and say that
Aristotle is willing to restrict ownership of property whenever doing so
would serve the common good.
30 See especially chapter 6 of NJR, where Miller argues that Aristotle is
concerned with protecting strong rights claims in the sense that "the interest
770 RICHARD KRAUT
Here I partly agree with Miller and partly disagree. What' he is

right about is this: Aristotle holds that civic institutions must not ig
nore the good of any group of citizens or any individual citizen. The
task of the city is to promote the good of each citizen; the laws and the
rulers cannot simply write off some of them, even if doing so would
increase the well being of others. We might call this the principle of
nonexclusion. It should be contrasted with the much stronger princi
ple that Miller attributes to Aristotle, according to which no citizen is
required to make even a modest sacrifice in his own well being, even
if such a sacrifice would contribute greatly to the good of others. We
might call this the principle of maximizing individual happiness.
Notice how weak the principle of nonexclusion is. It holds that if
someone is a citizen, then civic institutions must be designed to pro
mote his good to some degree. This does not forbid a city from chang
ing its civic requirements so that some people lose their citizen status.
We have already seen that Aristotle thinks that sometimes cities
should make such changes. Since the right to be a citizen can be
taken away, there is no permanent right to have one's well being pro
moted by a city. Surely Aristotle's reason for thinking that certain
people should be taken off the citizen rolls is that doing so promotes
the good of others.
When Aristotle says that rulers must promote the common good,
I take him to mean that they should not run the city in a way that
merely promotes their own good and no one else's.31 Furthermore,
there may be an ideal of impartiality built into his conception of the
common good: the city should be designed so that it not only serves
the well being of all citizens, but does so equally; no group of citizens
is to be singled out for special attention. For an example of the kind
of special attention Aristotle is rejecting, we can recall the passage in
Plato's Republic in which Socrates says that he is not designing civic
of the individual may not be sacrificed in order to advance the interests of

others"; NJR, 193; cf. 16, 137). On Miller's reading, Aristotle thinks it is never
necessary to require even a small sacrifice for the sake of others, because
"the ends of individuals are compossibly realizable, i.e. ... it is possible for
every member to attain perfection without impeding anyone else from doing
the same"; ibid., 199.
31 The concept of the common good is introduced in order to distinguish
between correct and deviant political systems: the former aim at the good of
all citizens, whereas defective systems aim only at the good of those in
power; see Politics 3.7.
institutions for the greatest possible happiness of the rulers; rather,

the city should promote the happiness of everyone.32 Here Plato com
mits himself to saying that it would be appropriate to make rulers
somewhat less well off, if doing so were the only way for the city to
promote the good of its other members. The philosophers would have
to settle for moderate rather than maximal happiness, if this sacrifice
were the only way for the city to provide a moderate amount of happi
ness to others.
Miller's principle of maximal happiness holds that such modest
sacrifices cannot be required; his proposal is that according to Aris
totle a citizen's rights are violated if civic institutions require him to
make even a small sacrifice in his well being. This is an extraordinar
ily strong conception of rights; in fact, it is doubtful that any political
community could accept it and survive. It is essential to any stable co
operative arrangement that some be willing to make moderate sacri
fices for the sake of others. We have already found good reason for
doubting that Aristotle accepts such a strong principle. For we have
seen that he allows cities to deprive citizens of their political powers
simply because this serves the good of the other citizens. So here we
have a case in which a very significant loss is imposed for the good of
others. Admittedly, the person who suffers the loss is no longer a citi
zen, so it might be claimed that strictly speaking this example does
not show that it is permissible to make citizens (that is, those who re
main citizens) worse off. But surely if Aristotle favors one kind of sac
rifice?the kind that deprives someone of citizen status?it would be
morally arbitrary for him to disapprove of a different kind of sacri
fice?namely the kind that moderately and impartially diminishes a
citizen's happiness.
Let me give another example of how it can come about in Aris
totle's system of thought that someone may have to accept a sacrifice
of well being. Consider a situation in which one member of a commu
nity so exceeds all others in virtue that he deserves to be their king
and sole ruler. In this extraordinary case, Aristotle says, he alone
should rule.33 As Miller might put it, that outstanding individual's
presence in the community requires that all others lose their natural
right to rule. Notice, however, that in this case their loss of the right
to rule is not necessarily in the interest of everyone without exception. It
32 See Republic 420b-421a.

33See Politics 3.17.1288al5-32.
772 RICHARD KRAUT
might in fact be contrary to the good of the king to rule. If he has

philosophical abilities and interests, then it would be best for him to
lead a contemplative life; if he spends all of his time ruling?as he
would have to, since he would be the sole ruler?he would have no
time at all for philosophy. Here we have a situation in which natural
justice calls upon one person to have less of a good than he otherwise
might have, in order that others should have a better life. The king
must take on for himself the entire burden of ruling so that others can
live a life of leisure.34
Perhaps it will be thought that even the principle of nonexclusion
implicitly recognizes that there are natural rights: since the principle
holds that no citizen's good can be ignored, in effect it says that every
citizen has a right to be served by other citizens. Of course, one may
lose one's citizenship, but it might be said that so long as one occupies
this office, one has the right to have one's good promoted by other
members of the community.
My reply is that although Aristotle certainly believes that rulers
should promote the good of all the citizens, it does not follow that this
is because the citizens have, at least temporarily, a right to have their
good promoted. An analogy with the crafts, on which Aristotle so fre
quently relies, may help: Medicine studies and aims at human health in
general, and is not restricted in its goal to the health of those who
practice medicine. However, this is not because those who are ill
have a right to medical treatment; rather, it is because every practical
branch of knowledge aims at some general good. Similarly, Aristotle
thinks that the art of ruling is aimed at the good of the whole political
community, not merely the part of it that rules. However, we should
resist the temptation to think that this commits him to saying that
each citizen has a right to the beneficence of rulers. Just as the princi
ple that doctors should heal the sick does not entail that the sick have
a right to treatment, so the principle that rulers must benefit all parts
of a city does not mean that each citizen has a right to receive bene
fits. The principle of nonexclusion, which says that every citizen is to
be benefited, does not rest on a conception of political rights, but
merely reflects Aristotle's general way of thinking about crafts.
34 Can the person who has extraordinary virtue refuse to accept the king
ship? As Miller points out (NJR, 250), Aristotle does not recognize this "lib
erty right"; refusing to rule is not an option. See Politics 2.9.1271al 1-12; cf.
4.9.1294a35-bl, 4.13.1297al7-20.
VIII
I have now completed my argument that Aristotle's political

thought does not assign a central role to the concept of natural rights,
and would like to return to the question whether he even has that con
cept. I argued earlier that he does, but now I would like to explain
why I am uncertain about this.
To begin with, we can now see that one of the examples I used is
questionable. I attributed to Aristotle the belief that a natural master
has a right grounded in natural justice to acquire and possess slaves.
More recently, however, I argued that at least in many cases Aristotle's
reason for thinking that theft is wrong has to do not with a person's
right to possess whatever he has but with the general harms that are
brought about when people do not feel secure in their possessions.
One's status as a free person does not entitle one to have as many
slaves as one decides to acquire; but in political communities, it is
wrong to deprive someone of his slaves, even when he has too many,
because of the harm this would do to the community. Would Aristotle
appeal to that same consideration to argue against theft in pre-politi
cal communities? We simply do not have enough information to answer
the question, for Aristotle has little interest in these primitive conditions.
What of assault, enslavement, and similar ways of wrongfully
treating free persons? Can we attribute to Aristotle the idea that it is a
violation of their rights to be treated in these ways? Surely he would
say that unless one is deserving of punishment, it is contrary to the
good of any free person to be assaulted or enslaved. Similarly, he
seems to hold that it is always wrong to hunt other human beings for
food. Should we therefore attribute to him the belief that every hu
man being has a right not to be treated in these ways?
Certainly we can see the similarity between these ideas of Aristotle
and the ideas of later rights theorists. The problem, however, is that
Aristotle makes so little use of them in his political and moral thinking
that it is uncertain what attributing the concept to him amounts to.35
35 We could confidently say that Aristotle has the concept of a right if he

explicitly held that no human being should be hunted for food even in cases
where it would maximize the good to do so. But of course he says no such
thing. We are left to wonder if he has thought about the question whether
one should refrain from hunting people even if doing so accomplished maxi
mal good. All we have from him is the thought that no one should be treated
in this way. That is what a rights theorist would say?but does this mean that
774 RICHARD KRAUT
It is obvious that Locke has the concept of rights, because he uses the
word and it does real work in his political theory. However, Aristotle
does not have any word that divides up the moral universe in roughly
the way our word "rights" does. He undoubtedly has the concept of
justice, but none of the varieties of justice that he explicitly distin
guishes matches our notion of respecting someone's rights. So per
haps all that can be said in favor of the idea that Aristotle has the con
cept of rights is that there is a similarity between some of his claims
and later claims made by philosophers who have full-scale theories of
natural rights. Whether the similarity is strong enough to warrant say
ing that he has a concept of rights may be a question too vague to war
rant a decisive answer. By reviving and proposing an answer to the
question, "Are there natural rights in Aristotle," Miller has made a
great contribution to our understanding of the Politics. Yet here, as
so often happens in philosophy, insight into the complexity of a ques
tion may be the best we can achieve.36
Northwestern University
Aristotle has the concept of a right? We might reply that it is essential to the
concept of a right that rights are not to be infringed merely in order to maxi
mize the good, and that anyone who does not express this thought does not
have the concept. But as I said earlier, I am suspicious of this essentialism.
If Locke fails to express the thought that rights are not to he, infringed merely
in order to maximize the good, does that show that he does not have the con
cept of rights? We are sure that he does have the concept, even though we
may have no idea whether he expresses this thought. It would be equally
questionable to say that no one should be credited with the concept of a right
who fails to hold that when rights are infringed compensation is due. (Note
that Aristotle never hints that those who are legitimately taken off the citizen
rolls are due compensation.)
361 am grateful to John Deigh for his criticism of an earlier draft.

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Are There Natural Rights in Aristotle?

Author(s): Richard Kraut

J. WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN addressing the question raised in my title by

Correspondence to: Department of Philosophy, Northwestern Univer

he contrasts natural and legal justice.2 According to Miller, Aristotle

2See Nicomachean Ethics (hereafter, NE) 5.7.1134M8-27.

find objectionable?for example, by requiring extensive participation

Let me explain why I am willing to say tentatively that Aristotle

6 Miller recognizes that according to Aristotle there are "non-political

7Although Miller focuses on political and property rights, he also at

given a degree of protection: slave though he is, his humanity entitles

I turn now to political rights. Should we take Aristotle to be say

ers have that quality to a greater degree, before we decide whether or

adopted the thesis that someone who is individually qualified to rule

I would now like to point out that if we do wish to describe Aris

16See Politics 4.13.1297M-2.

The next point to be noticed is that citizenship depends partly on

ought to be admitted as citizens, because doing so is part of good pub

190n the paucity of excellent men, see Politics 3.7.1279a40-b2, 5.4.

21 See Politics 2.5.

of the good. If Aristotle has a conception of individual rights, those

property. So we have a similar situation to the one Miller describes

27Miller, NJR, 329.

I would now like to consider what I think is Miller's most impor

Here I partly agree with Miller and partly disagree. What' he is

of the individual may not be sacrificed in order to advance the interests of

institutions for the greatest possible happiness of the rulers; rather,

32 See Republic 420b-421a.

might in fact be contrary to the good of the king to rule. If he has

I have now completed my argument that Aristotle's political

35 We could confidently say that Aristotle has the concept of a right if he

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