Aristotle's Politics and political theory

This is a summary of CCW Taylor's chapter 'Politics' in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle.



Aristotle's ethical and political treatises form a unity: we've said this several times, but it bears underlining: they are not separable in the way that many modern discussions of political theory are separable from discussions of ethical theory.

That is because, according to Aristotle, both ethics and politics are practical enterprises which both aim at determining what the good life for a human being is and pursuing it. Politics is about the aspects of the good life that arise as a consequence of the fact that human beings' natures can only be fully developed within the community called a polis, while ethics is about other aspects of the good life. Aristotle does not speak of the limits and extent of the authority of the state exercising coercive force on its members as political scientists of today do. Rather, he thinks the human good is the fundamental goal of the state (or ought to be) and the citizens' participation in government is partially constitutive of the activity that is the human good.

Aristotle's view of the good life can be seen in terms of activity in widening circles: first, one's activity in the circle of one's own person, then one's household, then one's polis. Many virtues require interaction with others, such as generosity, temperance, justice. Political activity is the broadest stage on which virtue can unfold (today, we would perhaps add "national" and "global" circles, but the principles might remain the same). Although Aristotle knew of other political entities, such as kingdoms, empires, etc., he held that the polis was the arena in which human potential for excellence could most fully unfold. Aristotle says that the polis comes to be for the sake not just of survival, reproduction, self-sufficiency, etc., but rather for the good life.

The notion of the polis as the natural end of political organizations and that humans are naturally suited for polis life is problematic, however, because the notion of "natural" that he is using is problematic.  His theory is that organizations originally arose as part a natural process to fulfill needs for survival, reproduction, and self-sufficiency, none of which, however, inevitably lead to a polis (witness the many other organizational models in Aristotle's own time), and none of which inevitably lead to the good life. Taylor makes the point that it may be that the polis is a goal of human organization, but it may be a non-natural goal (as flying is for humans). In general, Taylor seems to be pointing out that the polis may be artificial (i.e. not specified by human nature) and there may be other forms of organization that provide humans with an opportunity for the good life. If Aristotle is right that the polis is the only best goal of human nature, then modern societies almost uniformly deprive humans of successful human lives. That seems preposterous. Perhaps we can salvage Aristotle's enterprise by loosening up the concept of the polis: as good Aristotelians, we will be saving Aristotle's spirit, but jettisoning the letter of his writings.

There is a tension in Aristotle's thought. He is torn between two ideas (the first of which Aristotle expresses clearly and forcefully, but Taylor insists that he rejects):
  1. The individual is a part of the polis as a hand is part of a body: it exists for the body, and the body exists for the soul. The hand (or the body) cannot exist separately from the body (or soul), and the good of the hand (or the body) is limited to its making the proper contribution to the body (or soul). According to this idea, the individual's good is limited to contributing to the polis, and the individual has no good of its own. This amounts to totalitarianism: the individual's good is subordinate to the greater good and is limited to his or her contribution to the state. Individual : state : : slave : master.
  2. The relation of individual to state is that the individuals must freely accept the rule of the state and the state must have the good of those individuals as its goal. The good of the individual is prior (conceptually, in importance, etc., not in time) to that of the state, because the good of the state is defined via the good of its members. What is more, the state is not to impose its rule even for the good of the individual: that is because the good of the individual (virtue) requires that the individual autonomously direct his or her life by practical reasoning. See Metaphysics 982b25: "a free man is for his own sake and not for the sake of another."
In spite of 2, Aristotle still held that the most rational decision that individuals can make is to promote the good life for the whole community, not just for the individual. This is in keeping with the idea that we should make sacrifices for the various groups we belong to: what thinking about Aristotle has led me personally to think: we are perhaps not as 'individual' as all that.

The good life for the individual "requires participation in the government of a self-governing community": not participating means giving up the direction of important parts of one's life and so compromising the exercise of one's deliberative capacities (i.e. the exercise of one's virtue). BTW, our 'representative' style of democracy clearly does not fulfill this part of Aristotle's ideal (but perhaps things like town meeting or neighborhood assemblies or serving on a school board do).

There is a tension in Aristotle between theoretical activity and political activity: the life of science and the life of political action. Aristotle held that scientific activity is superior to political activity. Nonetheless, Aristotle can reasonably claim that a full life must include both. Thus Aristotle's citizens will not choose between a life of political activity and a life of science: they will choose a life that includes both, because of their nature, which requires that they take part in a community (the polis).

When it comes to discussing types of governments, Aristotle's enterprise has two conflicting aspects:
Hence parts of the Politics aim to describe the various modes of government which Aristotle knows about and to classify them. Other parts aim to analyze which form of government is best and why. At times he describes the best ideal polis with no attention to whether it is practicable, and at other times he speaks of making the best out of whatever government happens to exist. In books 7-8, he is mainly discussing the ideally best government, while in 4-6, he is discussing the best government given people's current situations.

The polis is a community of citizens, and a citizen is one capable of the deliberation and judgement required for government.
Political rule for Ar. is ideally exercised by free and equal subjects (1255b20) with a view to promoting the common interest (1279a16).

Types of government are distinguished by who does the governing. Each type has an ideal form in which government is for the good of the community and a form that deviates from the ideal in that government is in the interests of those who govern.
Aristotle's highest ideal form of government is, paradoxically, a total monarchy in which one supremely virtuous person rules and controlls all. That is an ideal that Aristotle presumably never saw in actuality: it takes a human of superhuman virtue, one who towers above fellow humans in terms of virtue. Why this is ideal is hard to say: in fact, it seems ideal only if the other members of the community are subhuman (incapable of rational deliberation), for otherwise their virtue will be constantly compromised. We might note that Aristotle was the tutor of that man whose great accomplishment was subduing his known world named Alexander the (not so) great.

In a community with free and equal citizens, however, the only sort of monarchy that is tolerable is one in which the monarch is subject to law: Taylor calls that a form of magistracy. The 'king' is the top magistrate, but the laws are the supreme authority and the community members are subject to the law. (remember we saw that already in Nic. Eth.)

Rule by the few is, ceteris paribus, similar to monarchy.

A useful distinction, however, is that between a system of rule that has indefinite terms of office and one that has limited terms of office. In a system of rule that has limited terms, it seems it may be possible for many to exercise their virtue, just not at all times. There may also be a virtue in following, however, which may be required to lead, and so one's virtue has space to unfold even when one is not in office: think of past presidents?

The best government makes the best life available to its citizens: but which ones? All of them? Only some of them? Who are citizens/who are not? At 1324a23, A says "it is clear that the best constitution is that organization by which everyone, whoever he is, would do the best things and live a blessed life."

But there are problems, for scientific activity requires leisure, and not everyone can be at leisure all the time. Someone needs to do the work that creates the capacity for leisure. Does everyone have to divide their time between work to provide basic necessities and leisure, or do some get leisure while others work for it? Who deserve what? The problem is that Aristotle's communities may face a situation in which the majority of their members are precluded from various virtues so that a minority can be virtuous.

Aristotle seems to think that slaves (supplied by barbarians), resident aliens, and those who are not intelligent enough to be elite are the ones who will provide the means for the elite to be virtuous. Aristotle gives no convincing argument that those members of the community would be better off serving the interests of the elite. He needs to do that.

A strong tenet of A's ideal involves citizens taking turns ruling and being ruled (1332b26): including all members of the community would seem to strengthen that, but Aristotle does not opt for that. That makes Aristotle's ideal an exploitative system.

Wealth plays a role in all sorts of government in various ways: the rich few in power favor policies which maintain that power; the poor many in power favor policies which maintain their power (think of the "Old Oligarch" pseudo-Xenophon which we read). Aristotle knew that such things are matters of degree, but there are typical traits of democracies and oligarchies which involve wealth: democracies pay citizens to perform civic duties, have no property qualifications for office, and select magistrates by lot, while oligarchies have property qualifications for holding office, elect magistrates, and penalize for non-performance of civic duties.

On the practical side (i.e. when he was not musing about the absolute ideal monarchy, which is actually most of the time), Aristotle favored a mixed democratic-oligarchic regime, but he does not specify the precise manner of mixing. He did, however, say that the best practicable type of government was one whose community had a predominant middle class. He claimed that the government by a middle class favored the common interest most: he did not analyze why that was so.