Aristotle On The Deliberative Abilities Of Women Summary

Joseph Karbowski, the author of “Aristotle on the Deliberative Abilities of Women,” starts his work by acknowledging Aristotle’s claim that women should stay out of the Polis was not an uncommon opinion for his time. In the Politics, Aristotle confines women to the household because of their insufficient faculties (435). Many scholars have attempted to close the gap in Aristotle’s reasoning. Karbowski’s goal for his article is to examine what Aristotle could have meant when he claimed that women’s deliberative faculty lacks authority (akuron) that would exclude them from the polis. Karbowski concludes that Aristotle, and many from his time, save Plato, could not separate the biases that stem from tradition from his own rationale. Karbowski reaches this conclusion by not only using Aristotle’s texts to critique two

interpretations scholars have formulated in order to explain Aristotle, but to conjure up his own conclusion.
Before Karbowski dives into the two interpretations, he examines Plato’s view of women.

This is important since Aristotle covers much of Plato’s Republic in five chapters of the Politics and responds directly to some of Plato’s notions about women (440). Plato rejects his culture’s demand that women be confined to domestic duties. He argues that just because women give birth does not mean that they must have different societal roles than men. He supports this claim by comparing it to the expectations of a female watchdog. Female watchdogs are expected to participate in all activities that male watchdogs perform. The fact that female watchdogs give birth does not affect their duties (439). Aristotle directly addresses this argument by saying that it is “absurd” to compare wild beasts to household management to show women should have the same sort of life as men (440). Aristotle believes that nature proves him right. 1. Karbowski uses this argument to show that in Plato and Aristotle’s time, it was very much instilled in the culture that women have different duties than men because of their biological differences, making Plato’s ideas

radical.
Next, Karbowski examines William Fortenbaugh’s case for the first interpretation that women have no authority over their deliberative faculty because of their inability to control their emotion. He writes, “[her] decisions and actions are too often guided by pleasures and pains, so that she is unfitted for leadership and very much in need of temperance (442).” Karbowski raises the concern that this argument does not hold with Aristotle’s claim that both sexes have their own different standards for virtue. More importantly, Karbowski believes, is that this interpretation lacks an explanation for why Aristotle confines women to household, where she does have partial authority, but not in the polis. 2. He argues that either a woman’s emotions exclude her from both the household and the polis or, since one’s virtues must be applied in all aspects of one’s life, she would have to have at least partial authority in both the household and the polis.
The second interpretation Karbowski explores claims that Aristotle meant that women’s lack of authority is the lack of authority over men. Karbowski refers to it as the interpersonal interpretation. He quotes Deslauriers, “[because] the household is for the sake of the city, the city is better than the household, and hence the rule of the former is without authority relative to the rule of the latter (444).” 3. The problem Karbowski has with this justification is that it, again, doesn’t address why the household, by nature, is more suited for women and the polis for men and what that has to do with her deliberative faculty, it only assumes.
Karbowski thinks of a different approach to examine the conclusion that women’s “deliberative faculties are themselves intrinsically limited or deficient (445).” Aristotle writes that men are the “master craftsmen” of the household and women their “assistants” (446). Karbowski points out that the master craftsman and assistant relationship is parallel to a husband and wife relationship that Aristotle would describe. The husband’s role is that of a ruler and educator of his wife. 4. Based on what we know about the dynamics of a typical Greek household, Karbowski writes, this picture fits well (447).
Karbowski sums Aristotle’s views of women to being a “brute assumption” since he believes that only men have the rational skill set needed to rule at the political level. Karbowski goes so far as to say that these assumptions of Aristotle are based on no argument or evidence whatsoever (458). He points out that Greeks would use empirical evidence such as “crooked posture, strong bodies, etc.” to support their enslavement of those individuals (458). Because of such claims, Karbowski points out that 5. Aristotle’s assumption about the deliberative deficiencies in women was most likely based on empirical facts of his time as well. This last premise wraps up Karbowski’s argument and justifies his conclusion that Aristotle’s views about women’s deliberative function would be solely based on cultural norms and assumptions at the time.