Aristotle
ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)
- Short Bio:
o Born in Stagira – a Greek colony on the Macedonian Coast – he was exposed to different cultural, religious and philosophical influences; never acquired Athenian citizenship; suspected of being a Macedonian sympathizer (he was the tutor of Alexander the Great) he had to flee Athens twice (unlike Socrates). His entire life was “in-between”: in between Greece and Macedonia, between philosophy and science, between VITA ACTIVA (i.e., the active life, the life of public involvement) and VITA CONTEMPLATIVA (i.e., the life of contemplation, the quiet life of contemplation)
o How one strikes the proper balance (MESOTES) between vita activa and vita contemplativa?
o Plato’s disciple for twenty years.
o Founder of Lyceum
o Spirit encyclopedic, he wrote treaties on biology, physics, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, poetics, etc. Only 20% of his works have survived.
- Visions of the state (city-state/polis): ORGANIC (mainly classic) v. INSTRUMENTAL (mainly modern)
- Plato (possible interpretation): neither perfect justice, nor the perfect state is possible ‘in this world’ (of shadows), but this does not mean that perfect justice (the Idea/Form of Justice) does not exist or it should not remain the horizon that informs our quest. (Maybe the perfect state does not exist at all, though – and the quest for such a state will end up in a nightmare!) Aristotle, on the other hand, is more down to earth. He is more concerned with what man can actually do in this world.
- Yet, why does a book on Ethics starts off with political science, on the one hand, and with happiness, on the other one?
Nicomachean Ethics
- The teleological view (not to be mistaken with ‘theology’!). Everything is ‘for something’, some “good” (real or perceived as such? Remember Plato – reality v. appearance). It has an aim, a telos. The telos will reveal the true nature of a thing (the ‘telos’ of the acorn is the oak).
- Every craft, every action is for some good. Many goods are good for something else, but we have to look for the good in itself, i.e., the final good. (A college degree is good, but is it a good in itself or for something else – and if for something else, what? Profession (Beruf/calling) or money? And money is good for what? And so on.
- The most controlling science, the highest ruling science is … political science! Why? And why in a treatise about ethics?
- For Aristotle, EUDAIOMONIA (i.e., the good life, the well-lived one) is both the aim of the state and of the individual. “The good is the same for the city and for the individual, yet the good of the city is apparently greater and more complete”. [NOTE: Remember the Republic!] According to him, the state is not just “for life”, but “for the good life”, the virtuous and noble one.
- Thus, political science is the ruling science, for it rules over all other sciences, education, ethics.
o Think about the fact that all curricula are the result of some “politics of education”: How one should educate the youth? What, how, and how much – require political answers!
o Every science should be in accordance with the subject matter. (One should not require demonstration from a rhetorician, and mere persuasion from a mathematician.)
o Goods appear to be by convention only (foundationalists – anti-foundationalists).
o One should be satisfied with “approximate” answers. “For the educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the subject matters allows”.
o The student of political science should not be too young (lacks experience) – it does not matter whether he is young in years or immature in character.
o The end of political science is action, not knowledge.
- “Let us then begin again” – concentrically circles of inquiry
- The highest of all goods achievable in action is happiness. Yet people disagree about what happiness is. Even the same person might change his mind.
- Induction v. deduction (remember the dialectical line)
- Let’s start from observation (common opinions about happiness).
- Three life-styles: gratification (pleasure), political activity (honor - virtue), study (reason)
o Remember Plato’s tripartition of the soul.
o Vita activa v. vita contemplativa (Aristotle’s own life – in mesotes)
o We love both the truth and our friends, but reverence is due first to the truth – against Plato’s theory of the Forms – The good cannot be some single universal.
o If there are more things “good in themselves” (not for something else), than they should all pertain to the Idea/Form of the Good (no longer goods in themselves).
o An eternal good is no more good than a good that lasts one day.
o Even if there is a Good, it is beyond human reach, while we are interested in the good that can be attained through (human) action.
- The best good is something complete, happiness is complete without qualifications, self-sufficient.
- Yet self-sufficiency is not related with the solitary man, living an isolated life, since man is naturally a zoon politikon. (You cannot be happy when everyone else around you is not).
- If everything is for something, what is a human being for? – The human function is the activity of the soul in accord with reason (or requiring reason) – since reason is what differentiates man from beast. (Remember again the Republic!)
- ‘The human good proves to be activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and indeed with the best and most complete virtue’. (260) Moreover, it must be in a complete life (being happy every now and then won’t suffice).
- Goods: (1) external; (2) of the soul; (3) of the body. + Goods: (a) in possessing; (b) in using/acting.
- How can one than sketch “the good”? Can’t do exactly, but only in accordance with the subject matter.
- Everyone finds pleasure in what he loves most (money, wisdom, justice, virtue, etc.)
- For the lovers of virtue, there is no pleasure to be added (in order to make them happy), because performing virtue is a pleasure in itself.
- AGAINST Plato: However, happiness needs external as well! One cannot be happy if one live in misery, one is sick, a slave, etc. – But these externals are beyond our control! (good fortune).
- So, is happiness acquired by (a) learning, (b) habituation, (c) some other form of cultivation (learning and habituation are forms of cultivation)? Or is (d) divine fate or fortune, i.e., beyond our control?
- Is happiness acquired by learning, or habituation, or by some other form of cultivation? Or is the result of some divine fate, or even of fortune? Since it is an activity (of the soul in accord with virtue) IT IS NOT the result of fortune!
- Since the goal of political science is the best good, most of its attention is devoted to the character of its citizens, to make them good people who do fine actions! (A statesman can be more persuasive than a philosopher, but he has to know what he is doing. – see later on Cicero).
- A horse or a child cannot be happy, for they lack reason!
- One cannot judge a life as happy until it ends, but even then is difficult, for what happens next in his family might still affect the dead (Remember Antigone!) – p. 262
- On the other hand, one cannot judge based upon someone’s good fortune – for it is not the result of his actions (not his merit). True happiness has to be deserved!
- Constancy: A happy character will keep his character regardless of his fortune (see later Cicero’s ‘constantia’) – As a result he will be as little as possible affected by his fortune.
- Blessed as human being can be/is!
- Is happiness praiseworthy or, instead, something honorable? (What is the difference?)
o We praise something as a good in relationship with something (‘for something’, not ‘in itself’): we praise a runner for being good at running. We should not praise the gods, but congratulate them, admire them as being blessed! Happiness is not praised because it is a good in itself (godlike) – unlike ‘justice’ who is praised (because it is for happiness)! (Against Plato!). Thus, happiness is honorable because it is a good in itself.
- Since the cultivation of virtue (and thus, of happiness) is proper to political science, it follows that “the politician must in some way know about the soul”!
- Plato’s tripartition of the soul becomes a bipartition, which turns to be a quadripartition!
o The irrational part is divided in two: the non-human (plant-like), and the part with appetites and desires (animal-like?) which shares somehow in reason: is informed by reason. Men have desires and appetites that animals don’t. (We can be worse.)
o The rational part is also divided in two sub-categories: one has reason fully, in itself (virtues of thought – wisdom, comprehension/understanding, prudence); one has reason by listening to reason (virtues of character – gentle, temperate, etc.)
- Virtues of thought can be learned. Virtues of character are the result of good habits (require time). (Book II) But both require experience and time! (That’s why a youngster cannot be a student of political science )
- “A stone by nature moves downwards, and no habituation could make it move upwards” – but we, humans, are in mesotes– we can move either downwards or upwards. “And so the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit”. (p.266) – see later Hume
- Correct habituation distinguishes a good political regime from a bad one.
- Virtue as mesotes, between extremes
- “About” the same thing, yet not “for” the same thing.
- Constantia/constancy – one cannot be unaffected or undisturbed by pleasure and pain without the proper qualifications: being unaffected in the right or wrong way, at the right or wrong time, and the added qualifications! (See later in Early Christianity the difference between ataraxia and isihia!)
- Virtue and vice are ‘about’ the same thing (pain and pleasure) but not ‘for’ the same thing.
- 268 – doing the right actions (temperate) is not enough; one has also to be in the right state (if you do good actions unintentionally, it is no justice): one must know what are the right actions; one must decide on them for themselves; one should maintain a firm and unchanging state (yet see above – about constancy)
- Virtue is not a feeling, nor a capacity, but a state – what sort of state? A state that makes a human being good and makes him perform his function well.
- Virtue is in mesotes, between excess and deficiency.
- Having the right feelings at the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way.
- But not every action or feeling admits of a mean. You cannot commit adultery with the right woman at the right time and in the right way Furthermore, “there is no mean of excess and deficiency, and no excess or deficiency of a mean”! (p. 270)
Politics
- I – S: The NE – virtues (individual), Politics (the constitution of the city-state/polis) that will promote virtue, hence happiness.
- Historical (though “natural”) development of the state: family (addresses the biological, material needs); village (addresses the societal needs); the state (the proper fulfillment of any human being).
- Hence, the city-state/polis is prior in nature to the village, the family, and even the individual. It is the telos, i.e., the final aim.
o Teleology - think about the car and the assembly line or the argument of creationism.
o “It comes to be for the sake of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well” (eudaimonia)
- Why? Because man is fundamentally a political being (zoon politikon) – and this is so because man is endowed with speech. Through speech, man is able to conceive and to discuss the notions of ‘right and wrong’, ‘justice and unjustice’. (Remember the First Stasimon from Antigone!)
- The human condition is an in-between condition – between beasts and gods (neither beasts nor gods need political communities). [Q: Mesotes, again?] He can go either way. Hence, the republican interest in educating the citizenry. Laws are not sufficient. The constitution is not sufficient. You need laws and a constitution able to educate, to form a certain type of citizenry (a virtuous one).
- Slaves by nature and by convention
- Who did X? the city-state or the ruler(s)? (Iraq or Saddam Hussein? The United States or the president? Russia or the Soviet Union?)
- Who should be called a citizen? Resident aliens (remember that A. himself was a resident alien)
- [See Jus soli and jus sanguinis]
o “Someone who is eligible to participate in deliberative and judicial office”.
o “To rule and be ruled in turn” – above all in a democracy, and may be possible in other constitutions, but not necessarily” (380)
- A state is not a geographical location, nor any collection of people. It is its constitution.
- Food for thought: If a constitution really does what it means, i.e., constitutes a state, can we talk about the same stateafter a constitutional change? Think about Iraq, but also about The United States under the Articles of the Confederation and the Constitution. What is the difference between a ‘good man’ and a ‘good citizen’?
o The good man expresses the complete virtue.
o A good citizen must have the ability both to be ruled and to rule.
o The good man and the good citizen are the same only in one sort of city-state.
- Ideal regimes v. the best regimes/constitutions according to the circumstances; corrupted regimes. You have to look first and foremost to their telos: What are they for? Are they for the common good or for some personal or factional interest?
o Kingship – Tyranny
o Aristocracy – Oligarchy
o Politeia/polity/constitutional/mixed regimes – Democracy
o Note that while Kingship is the best of the good regimes (yet highly improbable), its corruption version, tyranny is the worst of the corrupted forms. In a similar vein, ‘democracy’ is the lesser evil from all corrupted regimes. Why?
- The difference between equality and equity. The main problem is that people translate one sort of equality into another (same with inequality).
- P. 386 – The instrumental vision of the state is not enough to make a city-state a proper city-state. (necessary, yet not sufficient) Not for the sake of living, but for the sake of living well. (eudaimonia).
- MESOTES – trying to find the middle ground between extremes (in this case, between oligarchy and democracy); hence the important of the “middle class”. [Keep in mind that politeia is not some mechanical mixture between oligarchy and democracy. Instead, it should look to the oligarchs as if it is an oligarchic regime and to the democrats as if it is a democratic one while being qualitatively different from both.]
- Advantages and disadvantages for: being ruled by ‘professionals/specialists’ v, being ruled by the wisdom of ‘the many’ (pp. 387-89).
o Bringing together what is scattered in the right proportions (right mixture).
o Sometimes you can be a good judge of a product even if you don’t know the craft.
o Elections – in order to fulfill their role, i.e., to elect the best ones – should be done by experts! (Only someone who knows music can recognize a great talent.)
o The importance of having the right person in the right office with the ability of interpreting the laws according to the circumstances, for laws cannot foresee everything.
o Hence, the importance of wisdom, comprehension, and prudence (practical wisdom).
- Therefore, who deserves to be a citizen, ruling and be ruled in turn ? [Note: Remember the distinction between directdemocracy and a representative democracy. Also, remember our previous discussions about jus soli and jus sanguinis,altogether with their practical implications.]