Every state is a community of some
kind, and every community is
established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order
to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at
some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of
all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree
than any other, and at the highest good. (Politics Book1, 1252a1 ff.)
Some people think that the qualifications of a stateman, king,
household, and master are the same, and they differ, not in kind, but
only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few
is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still
larger number, a stateman or king, as if there were not differences
between a great household and a small state.
The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as
follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when,
according to the rules of political science, the citizens rule and are
ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.
But all this is a mistake, as will be evident to anyone who considers
the matter according to the method which has hitherto guided us. As in
other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should
always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the
whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is
composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule
differ from one another, and whether any scientific result can be
attained about each of them. (Politics
Book1, 1252a9ff.)
He who thus considers things in their first
growth
and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest
view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who
cannot exist without each other; namely of male and female, that the
race may continue (and this is a union which is forms, not of choice,
but because in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have
a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of
natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that which
can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature lord and master, and
that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a
subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same
interest. (Politics
Book1, 1252a25ff.)
When several villages are united in a single complete community to
be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence,
originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing for the sake of a
good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural,
so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing
is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its
nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family.
Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be
self-sufficing is the end and the best.
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and
that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not
by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above
humanity. (Politics
Book1, 1252b28ff.)
Further, a state is by nature clearly
prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of
necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be
destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except homonymously, as we
might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no
better than that. But things are defined by their function and power;
and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have
their proper quality, but only that they are homonymous. The proof that
the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that
the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he
is like a part in relation to a whole. (Politics
Book1, 1253a19)
Richard Kraut on Politics Book1
Kraut's Aristotle Chapter
7
Aristotle knows there were not always
states: they GREW.
Families became large households, which gathered to make villages,
which gathered to make states. They did to live, but they stayed so to
live well.
That development is inevitable (Popperian antennae should be going up).
Aristotle thinks that the state is a particular phase of a cycle
which "starts" with primitive conditions of bare survival, peaks in the
creation of the state, and meets its demise eventually, only to start
again.
The state is the high point,
because it is the only phase in which humans and human society can
develop their full natural potential, their virtues.
The GROWTH of a thing indicates that
it has a nature
for Aristotle. He does not think a city has a soul, but he does think
it grows, because it arises from a feature of our psychology, which is
that we are social animals and a feature of our existence, which is
that we are not self-sufficient for our own bare needs. Thus the city is a result of empirically
verifiable aspects of humans.
The city-state is the best stage,
not because it is the last stage, but because only in it can humans
fully develop. Our desire to live is natural, and so is our desire to
live well, to be excellent. When once we secure the means to live, we
naturally want to be happy, to live well.
But cities are artefacts, made by humans: how can they be natural and
"grow?" Aren't they built? Kraut says, P. 245, "there is no
incompatibility in saying that something owes its existence both to a
process of growth and to human beings." Consider domesticated species.
Cities come from proto-cities, the villages, which come from
proto-villages, the family units, etc. Thus they are different from the
sort of artefact that is made each time "anew." A pot does not become a
pot from being a cup.
Aristotle is here arguing against people like Callicles in Plato's Gorgias.
He held that the life according to nature is not affected by any social
influences. Civic laws are not natural, and cities are not either.
Aristotle is also arguing against the idea that what is natural is
always the same.
Natural cannot mean "free from rational influence or habit,"
because our very urge to rationally control things is itself not the
product of reason or habit. We just are rational and want to exercise
our rationality: it is part of our nature.
Cities and laws are the results of growth, which means they are natural
(physis="growth").
Nature for Aristotle refers to that
which has within itself the origin of change, motion, and stability.
Cities do so, for they grow from smaller social organizations.
Humans are naturally social, i.e. they avoid solitude by and
large. Hence that is one meaning of "political animal." That is the
primary impulse that leads to the formation of societal organizations,
starting with the dyad for reproduction (EN 1162a17: there he says that
the household is prior to and more necessary than the city). We have an
inner drive to form couples, AND it is good for us. The intensity of
our drive to do so is higher than the political drive, narrowly defined
(see next paragraph).
But "political" animal has a narrower meaning: it refers to
the desire to live in a certain sort of community, the one that will
allow us to pursue our highest good. That is the state. Only free men
are political in this way. Sexist and elitist, unforgivably so, but if
you can keep from throwing the baby out with the bathwater, Aristotle
still has good ideas. If you ignore this gross moral blindness, his
thought can adjust surprisingly well to a nonsexist formulation.
Bees are political in that the drive which makes them organise
into social units is the same one that leads humans to form the polis.
They are not fully political, but because their drive is of the same
kind as that which is in us, they can be called political.
Being political means more than just using what the city has
on offer. One must also be active and participate in the political
scene.
7.3 What does Aristotle mean by saying that the city is prior by nature to the household and
to each of us (Politics Book1, 1253a19)? Particularly, doesn't
he contradict what we see him saying a while ago in the Nicomachean Ethics, that the
household is prior to the city?
Kraut thinks that in order to find what Aristotle means, we
have to make use of all the things he says at and around 1253a19. He
ultimately argues that the city is prior in the sense that the good of the city is a more important
and honorable good
than that of the household, the village, the couple, or the individual.
A good citizen will consider the good of the city first, and then the
smaller units, until he gets to his own good. That is the PRIORITY list
for the good citizen, and that is what Aristotle means by prior. A
truly virtuous person's thinking and deliberation will be structured as
follows: consult the interest of the state first, then the next largest
unit, then the next largest, until she gets to herself. She will shape
her life so that she can consult the communal good first, and so that
her own good does not conflict, or conflicts as little as possible
with, the communal good.
There are other senses of prior: viz. that used in the Nicomachean Ethics in the statement
above.
If there is conflict between the good
of the individual and that of the state, the state's good ought to win.
That does not mean that that should happen in every social organization
of a certain size: Aristotle is not blind to the fact that some
"states" are mistaken about the good. They are administered not for the
communal good, but for the good of a certain individual or element
within them. In that case, a conflict between those in charge and an
individual may not be a conflict between the communal good and the
individual's good.
Aristotle is operating from general principles here: the good of ANY whole has priority over
that of one of its parts.
If an individual human be separated from the polis, she
does not necessarily die, as a separated hand does, but she cannot
fulfill her highest function any longer, that is, she cannot be
virtuously active to her full potential in the absence of the city. In
that sense, the analogy with a hand is right: a severed hand cannot
fulfill its function, and the fact that it is dead is rather beside the
point.
Some individual humans can become too powerful for the good of
the state, and so Aristotle approves of ostracism, although he
acknowledges its great potential for abuse.(1284b).
Aristotle also thinks that individuals are "of the state,"
which gets translated as "belong to the state." The point is that an
individual is not free to decide to act in their own interests against
the communal interest: the individual
is bound to consult the interests of the state. That turns out to be in
the ultimate interest of the individual. The
good of the individual consists in the good she does for the community,
just as the good of a hand consists in the good it does for the body.
As to the unity of
the body politic, Aristotle rejects Plato's efforts at unity via
holding partners and property in common. He thinks that there will of
necessity be diversity and unity, and unity is not to be pursued in
every area.
Kraut Chapter 8
Slaves by nature. We will never get over being astounded and outraged
at Aristotle, not least because he has been so influential, but it is
worth rationally asking some questions. Why did Aristotle think there
were slaves by nature? Who are they? and other things.
He knew about the concept of abolition, so he has little
defense that his culture never even let the concept occur to him
(1253b20: "others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is
contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave and freeman
exists by convention only, and not by nature; and being an interference
with nature, it is therefore unjust."). He even thinks that those who
say that slavery is unjust
tout court are right in a way (1255a4-5: "but that those who take the
opposite view have in a certain way right on their side, may be easily
seen. For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. there is
a slave or slavery by convention as well as by nature.").
He thinks that some people by nature should be ruled by other people.
He thinks that others by their nature should be rulers.
He thinks that the form of rule should be slavery.
He thinks that slavery is mutually beneficial to the ruled and the
ruler.
He thinks that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with slavery.
Kraut, P. 278:
"Why did he not see what is obvious to us today? The answer I wish to
give is that his justification of slavery rested to some degree on the
limited empiricial evidence available to him, and the false premises on
which he relied were not ones that could easily have been refuted by
his contemporaries. Although nothing could be further from my agenda
than to defend slavery, I believe that Aristotle's framework for
thinking about this subject was internally consistent and even
contained a limited amount of explanatory power. It was a coherent way
of looking at the social world that could not, at that time, have
easily been undermined by armchair theorizing."
The thing which Slaves lacked is the ability to reason as
normal humans (1254b22). The Slave shares in reason in that he can see
it but he does not have it (ibid.). There are two parts in the soul, at
least: the part that has reason, and the part that can listen to
reason, but need not. No other animals have either of those two parts.
So Slaves are rational but only in a limited way.
The Slave lacks the bouleutic function, the faculty of
deliberation about ends. The Slave may deliberate about means.
"The slave has no deliberative faculty
at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has,
but it is immature." "Hence the ruler ought to have excellence of
charac ter in perfection, for his function, taken absolutely, demands a
master artificer, and reason is such an artificer; the subjects, on the
other hand, require only that measure of excellence which is proper to
each of them. Clearly, then, excellence of character belongs to all of
them; but the tenmperance of a man and of a woman, or the courage and
justice of a man and of a woman, are not, as Socrates maintained, the
same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in
obeying." 1260 a
Kraut thinks Aristotle means that the Slave cannot have the
intellectual excellence of a craftsperson nor the ability to deliberate
about the good life.
Aristotle saw the political institutions of the peoples around Greece,
and saw that the people were either primitive politically and in terms
of
crafts, or subservient and ruled by tyrants. He thought that was due to
the climate, which created conditions for rationality. That is so
obviously wrong: what of the children of Persians and Europeans who
were born in Greece. They should have been able to change. What of the
Greeks at an earlier stage in the cycle that lead to the state? Were
they Slaves?