Enslaved People, Aliénés , and Gradual Freedom: Condorcet and Pinel on Sensibility

In his 1781 work, Réflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres, Condorcet argued for a gradual abolition of slavery, driven by his concerns about the enduring impact of violence on enslaved people's sensibility. He recognized that "sensibility," or the locus of a person's sensory, emotional, and intellectual interaction with the world, could be severely affected by oppression, a point also emphasized by his friend, alienist Philippe Pinel. While Condorcet proposed a state-regulated transition to freedom for enslaved people, Pinel warned that the damage to their sensibility might be too profound for his treatment to work, paving the way for subsequent racial theories.