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Articles

Willing Slaves

by Richard Taylor

Epictetus is quoted as saying, in his Discourses,

“Whenever a man can be hindered or compelled by another at will, assert with confidence that he is not free. Do not look at his grandfathers and great grandfathers and search whether he was bought or sold, but if you hear him say ‘Master’ from the heart and with feeling, then call him a slave, though twelve fasces go before him.”

This passage burned itself into my consciousness and memory decades ago, and has influenced a considerable part of my life. It would, I believe, be centuries before another philosopher would make a similar point, when John Stuart Mill wrote, in his essay ‘On Liberty’

“He who lets the world, or his own part of it, choose his plans of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the apelike one of imitation.”

To appreciate the depth of this passage we need to do two things; first, to place it in the context of the Stoic philosophy which Epictetus’s so perfectly embodies, and second, to get a clear understanding of the meaning of slavery.

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