Aristotle’s Politics: Political Animals, Government, and the Meaning of Political Life – Discourses on Minerva
Aristotle famously said in Politics that “man is a political animal.” What did he mean by that? Why is it important? Aristotle’s political philosophy is dependent upon his understanding of human anthropology and ontology, as well as teleology. Unlike today, Aristotle’s statement is not meant to signify that humans should be “politically active,” i.e. activists. Instead, it signifies that man is a social animal who naturally desires community, to be in association with others, and that this desire to be in community and association with others constitutes some level of the good life and brings about happiness.
Just prior to his famous statement that humans are political animals, Aristotle states “We see that every city is some sort of community, and that every community is constituted for the sake of some good, since everyone does everything for the sake of what seems good.” In order to understand Aristotle it is necessary to understand his philosophical anthropology. Philosophical anthropology is the philosophical study of the nature of humans and what it means to be human. Originally, anthropology is a theological discipline first systematized by Judaism and Christianity, but the basic ideas of philosophical anthropology are also seen in commentaries by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plotinus. For Aristotle, humanity’s telos (natural end) is happiness (or eudemonia). Humans also have an innate human nature according to Aristotle, which is hylomorphic (matter + form) in Aristotle’s full account, we can summarize Aristotle’s basic human nature as twofold: a natural desire to be in community, and a want for happiness. Happiness is not experiential, for that is nothing more than materialistic hedonism which denies the Form of happiness (which is an ontological state of being). This is what our nature and end work for: The telos of human nature is social and desires happiness, wherein fulfillment, or happiness, is a product of coming into a community and having relations with others.
Aristotle does not argue that the purpose of the polis, or political community, is for the advancement and unfolding of History (historicism) out of common weakness in some “state of nature,” or for socially engineering a utopia. Aristotle understands the formation of community to be a natural, desirable, and spontaneous event. People, in their natural instincts for want of community, and because of their telos – which is happiness – naturally form community to fulfill their social desires which also brings forth a certain degree of happiness. Ultimately, Aristotle makes the argument that humans cannot be happy as a-social and solitary beings. This is two-fold. First, if human nature is naturally social and communitarian, then to be a-social, atomistic, and solitary is a suppression of humanity’s basic social instincts. Second, it is almost certainly the case that Aristotle is also waging underhanded sleights against the remaining sophists (who advocate pure self-interested advancement in community rather than working together in unity and harmony), as well as the Cynics and Epicureans, who advocate detachment from society (Cynics and Epicureans) and deny ontological happiness and favor fleeting bodily pleasure as the highest good in life (Epicureans).
Since happiness is the highest good in life, as it is humanity’s natural end, so too does political community serve to fulfill this purpose. Aristotle’s take, here, is different from Plato’s. In Republic, especially books V and VI, Plato makes the case that, while political community is a good, it naturally limits the happiness of others. Since order and structure are good, and this is what political community brings, it is desirable even if it restricts some level of happiness. For Plato, politics is entirely a negative. In a community without order, which is the equivalent of the Cave of Opinion, there is no wisdom, no truth, and no happiness. The sophists and nihilists, whom Plato famously rebuts in many of his Dialogues and Republic, run amok, advancing only themselves and advocating the same from among the strongest and most “intelligent” members of society. Chaos ensues. Thus, political order is primarily one to prevent the tyranny of nihilism, sophistry, and pure self-interest. By contrast, Aristotle takes a more positive view of political community. It is a natural product of human life and existence, and it has the ability to help cultivate virtue, the good, and the happy life.
Since the concept of the political is entirely good and positive in Aristotle, the political community, when fully functioning, is a beautiful portrait of the ebb and flow and harmony of pluralism. Each person functions in a different capacity to another. All occupy different levels of the social strata. Each is performing tasks that are best to them, but the rest of the city benefits from this. For instance, the city benefits when soldiers are the best possible soldiers, when farmers are the best possible farmers, when rulers are the best possible rulers, when judges are the best possible judges, when craftsmen are the best possible craftsmen, etc. There is a sense of filial purpose, since family is the building block of political community according to Aristotle, but there is also a sense of the common good because it is natural for humans to desire community and that a fully functioning community helps bring happiness.
The notion of excellence, or arête, factors prominently in Aristotle’s understanding of politics. The “good politics,” fosters virtue, because virtue helps achieve the good life and bring happiness (he devotes time to this in Nicomachean Ethics). Since the polis serves to achieve the same purpose, Aristotle makes the case for political arête, that is – a good politics will necessarily and naturally lead to its citizens cultivating virtue and excellence from among themselves. The State does not cultivate virtue for us, in fact, Aristotle argues that the nature of the State should be one of limitation because a limited State is one that allows its citizens the highest degree of possible happiness – long before Locke, who really isn’t the father of limited government anyways, Aristotle makes the case for limited statism based on natural and teleological philosophy. Thus, as Aristotle writes, “a city is excellent because the citizens who participate in the political system are excellent.”
But now we should devote time to what Aristotle means by advocating for a limitation to the State. For Aristotle, this is reflective of teleology and his doctrine of the mean (or the happy medium). Aristotle is not some libertarian minarchist as some contemporaries like to claim him as. No, his understanding of the proper role and size of the State is related to his understanding of human nature and what it means to be a political animal.
For Aristotle, a State that is too large becomes inefficient, often oppressive, and slips into decay and corruption. All of these things result in the abuse of citizenry, and the limitations of happiness. Yes, too big becomes a barrier for human nature. At the same time, a State that is too small also fails to achieve the consummation of happiness. An ineffective State, one that is too small, is unable to fortify natural law, defend itself from attack, and is prone limitations on happiness – but not for the reasons of a too large of State, which is more top-down limitation, but bottom-up limitation, i.e. too much work and labor, and too much worry, prevents the possibility of leisure, arts, and literature, things which also bring us happiness and needed avenues of releasing stress and other built up problems we accrue over time. Aristotle understands that too much limitation also prevents full flourishing. Thus, the size and nature of the State itself is reflective of the good life, and helps advance the good life.
Thus, when reading Aristotle, one should understand that when he proclaims man to be a political animal, what he really means by that in today’s language is that humans are a social animal. In Aristotle’s time, to be social was to be political – that is, to be a member of the city, the polis, which is the highest community association possible. Politics, in Aristotle’s account, is not about ideology, it is not about the achievement of an end of history utopia, and it is not about “political activism” to achieve a socially engineered result that some people think is what is good and should be universally imposed over all members of society. Instead, it is a naturally occurring and growing process that is related to humanity’s natural desires: sociality and want for happiness. Political community is related to the pursuit of the good life. Everything, for Aristotle, is a reflection of natural law and right – nothing is conventional or socially constructed or agreed upon, it is the natural, organic, and spontaneous reflection of the most basic elements and instincts of human nature.
Lastly, Aristotle’s community that forms from man’s political/social animus is pluralistic. That is, the community is made up of a composite of persons who each have specific talents or roles to play that will allow them to flourish and the city to flourish. It is like a body that has many parts. For a fully functioning body to flourish the eyes, ears, legs, arms, and heart all have to be healthy and working together. The same applies for for the polis. Each person is like a different part of the body. Part of one’s vocational excellence, wherein they are fulfilled as farmer, laborer, or manager, etc., is by becoming excellent in that specific vocation. That is the arête that Aristotle speaks of and what I outlined earlier. When taken in totality, not only do we fulfill our social animus in the city, we become happy through a fully functioning, healthy, and excellent city. Virtue, therefore, becomes an important theme in Aristotle.
Book I
The first thing to know about Aristotle is that he believes that political community is naturally forming and accretes from organic development. Basically, the laws and institutions of a society emerge as the outgrowth of the community and its regime. Thus, Aristotle’s political theories are naturally organic and flow from the bottom up rather than imposed from the top down. While aspects of Aristotle’s theory have traces of social contract theory, his traces of social contract thought are decidedly anti-sophist and not similar to the social contract ideas of Hobbes, Locke, and Spinoza.
For Aristotle, the aim of politics is to established the good life in a well-structured and order society. This will require the cultivation of knowledge and virtue as highlighted in the post explaining virtue ethics listed above. Basically, intelligence and knowledge are critical to Aristotle’s political theory, since knowledge is what helps breed moderation, virtue, and the good life which helps us derive happiness.
For Aristotle, the State is the “most sovereign” association possible. It includes and encompasses all other associations for the purpose of achieving the highest good, which is happiness. Moreover, it is natural – the State is a natural product of humanity’s social animus. What Aristotle means when he says the State encompasses all other associations is that all other associate organizations in society happen within the boundaries of the State. Charitable organizations, religions, and economic associations, all occur within the parameters of a city and Aristotle thinks that their well-being and productivity is dependent upon the State’s well-being and productivity. For example, charitable organizations would have a hard time being charitable when the State is disintegrating. The same goes for religion and economic associations too. A healthy and orderly State, then, leads to the health and order of all other associations. Aristotle finds correlation between how the functions and machinations of a State are to all other organizations, including individuals, within a political community. Again, this means that a virtuous, orderly, and moderate State will contingently produce virtuous, orderly, and moderated people and all such institutions within such a State will reflect and embody that. A disorganized, chaotic, and unvirtuous State will contingently produce unvirtuous, disorganized, and chaotic internal organizations and individuals.
When Aristotle says man is a political animal this means that human nature is instinctively communitarian and social. Humans find greater meaning and happiness by belonging to community. It is only natural. After all, we are social creatures. Thus, Aristotle rejects all solitary, a-social, and atomistic outlooks concerning human nature and society. Aristotle is equally rebutting the cynics and Epicureans through these statements, and through his virtue politics, is also attacking the sophists who agree it is best for humans to partake in social and civil affairs, but not for the end of virtue and teleological happiness.
Aristotle’s theory of language is also important to his politics. The fact that humans are social animals and seek bonding together in community is reflected in humanity’s ability of speech. Speech is meant to bind people together, draw people together, and advance the truth (rather than perpetuate ignorance, e.g. the sophists), and human community in its most natural form is reflected by language. Common language, then, is the basis of political plurality in Aristotle’s account. One will find less happiness in being part of a community of a foreign tongue, foreign traditions, and foreign customs where such a person feels like an outsider rather than a member of the community which fulfills his or her social animus.
Thus, society is prior to the individual in Aristotle’s account. We are born into society, and we are to become members of society. This requires the cultivation of individual virtue, knowledge, and moderation. Humans are meant to live in social communities, the highest reflection thereof is the State.
Aristotle lays forth a historical argument for the state by looking at our social animus and how it develops organically. First there is a union between man and woman which is the family. Thus, family is the basis of all civilization for Aristotle. The most natural association is that which brings difference together for the purpose of advancing and growing the difference that has now been united in union. (This is a sociological extension of Aristotle’s hylmorphism.) Second, from man and woman (which is the family) developed the household (which includes children and family members). Thus, the household is an organic evolution of the union between man and woman. The household also embodies a functioning unit: children were born and therefore posterity is preserved, they become the new heads of the household, they are charged with certain responsibilities and tasks which require knowledge and virtue, but the household also employs others who need to know their role and tasks within the household to make it functioning. Third, from the household (which is rooted in the family) emerges the village. Multiple families lead to multiple households, and these multiple households constitute a village where they form the macro element to social animus while at the same time embodying the micro elements of social animus (i.e. each household will be slightly different from each other based on size, knowledge, and virtue, but they all aim and reflect the same ideal). Finally, the State emerges from a collection of villages which means the State is the largest extension of the household, which is also to say the State is the largest extension and embodiment of the family. Without the family there is no State. It is a simple logical syllogism.
The principal reason for such social structuring is man’s search for a fuller and happier life which animates from his social animus. After all, not only are people made self-sufficient in society, but it is only within the State that man is willing to subordinate to other men on the basis of justice, fairness, and equality. Aristotle makes a very provocative claim to us today by asserting true justice, fairness, and equality – i.e. each getting their just desserts – is only made possible through hierarchy. Which itself is the process of organic evolution and expansion upward. You cannot evolve linearly, that is motion; this is another basic philosophical syllogism. Evolution means growth and expansion upward while motion is latitudinal.
Aristotle then turns to the function of the State. Aristotle, following his doctrine of the mean, asserts that there has to be a limit to the size of the State. This is related to organic evolution in hierarchy rather than latitudinal motion. Latitudinal motion is never ending, but organic development toward an end (telos) implies this is an end to which all things are working toward, and that we can reach it. Thus, Aristotle’s politics is tempered by moderation. There is an ideal size for the State. For instance, a large society (population wise) will need a larger State than a small society would. A large society with too small of a state cannot provide the necessary instruments and resources demanded in a functioning and orderly society. Likewise, a State that is too large (“too big to fail”) becomes clunky, inefficient, and over burdensome.
Aristotle is both a statist and anti-statist. Statism, in political philosophy, does not carry the completely negative connotations that it does today when that term is used. Statism is basically the view that some State apparatus is a fundamental good, and that it is also natural. It is logically demanded by those who believe human nature is social. Aristotle is an anti-statist in the modern usage of the term. That is, he would agree with those who claim that there should be a limit to the State. But the question is what is the ideal size then? Aristotle is not an anarchist or “libertarian,” in other words, but he is also not a liberal or a communist.
Continuing to development his political theories, Aristotle stops to comment on the three natural forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutionalism. All three are based on the family model. The constitutional model refers to the household and where all persons are nearly equal to each other, yet there are those who retain household rights and responsibilities, which then extends to the citizenry. Basically, the constitutional model is the model that seeks to balance many families living together. The monarchial model is ground in the rule of the father over his children, and father (head of the household) over his subjects. He may delegate responsibility to his children to have some sway over the subject servants, but the father is still top dog so to speak. The monarchial model sees the civil political as one big family rather than many families. The aristocratic model is, essentially, rule of the best families. In this sense, aristocracy is closer to democracy or constitutionalism in the sense that the most well-managed, efficient, and productive filial households will produce the heads who lead the society.
Thus, Aristotle shows how all politics is also rooted in the family and evolved from the family. Different societies developed along these three lines for various different circumstances, but Aristotle would have argued that each is reflective of the priority of the values and conditions of said society. A society that values family-family equity would be more democratic. A society that values the stewardship of the father would be more monarchial. There are also possible environmental and historical reasons for these developments too.
Aristotle talks about property, slavery, and labor division too in Book I, but I would wish to address his concept of private property moreover than his views on the division of labor and monopolies. Aristotle gives a defense of property because he sees property as being part of the natural condition. Property is akin to kith and kin. One does not claim children that are not biologically his own, and so this principle extends to our relationship to land and property. The point of Aristotle’s defense of property is also one of rootedness. Just as one would be connected to his family for the roots of biology, one is also attached to land for reasons of rootedness in the land. The land is where one was born, raised, nurtured off of, worked, and has now been entrusted stewardship with.
Property is the basis of survival. Humans cannot survive without working the land. Thus, property as linked to survival, which leads to health and well-being – which are contingently related to happiness – is why Aristotle argues property is natural, “natural property” as he writes. However, Aristotle does not see property as license for exploitation and endless acquisition. Again, this is rooted in his hierarchal metaphysics and politics. The happy mean is found even in property. Again, latitudinal motion leads to the need of endless consumption, including the endless consumption or acquisition of land, whereas the virtue politics and hierarchal metaphysics of organic evolution through the mean would entail a limit to property. Thus, as Aristotle claims, property must be limited by how much a family needs to live well. The unnatural form of acquisition of property occurs when we engage in commercial life for pure profit. Sorry guys, Aristotle is not a capitalist because he is aware of a commercial driven mentality as leading to atomization, non-connectedness to land and people, and that one is driven purely for material acquisition and is no longer functioning as a social animal. We can read into that what we want about today’s world and politics in many ways.
On this note, this is not to say there should be no commerce as people at the Acton Institute would charge. Aristotle is not arguing that there should be no commercial aspects to political economy. However, he is saying that commercial economic livelihood has its place in society too, but it is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Again, absence the hierarchy means the unlimited expansion of the free flow of commerce – there is nothing to rein it in or put a check on it. Aristotle’s comments about the division of labor reflect the same ruminations about right size and so forth.
Book II
Moving into Book II, Aristotle critiques unrestrained collectivism as being unnatural. He argues that collectivism entails the elimination, or abolishment, of the family. Too much unity is also a bad thing because that reflects too much monism and is a rejection of pluralistic hylomorphism. Aristotle argues that this is unconducive to happiness.
Aristotle goes through a lengthy critique of the ideal political society that was proposed to us in Plato’s Republic. The basic gist of the argument is that too much collectivization, too much unionization, and too much “common ownership” destroys the ideal size, is unconducive to happiness, and detaches people from their roots – whether it is to land or even to family. Collectivization has little value in other words. This is because Aristotle is not a materialist or an economist, thinking that material comfort is the purpose of human life. Aristotle is a hylomorphist; life is not reducible to materiality which is the logical foundation one needs to advocate for collectivism.
The gist of Book II is rather self-explanatory seeing that is Aristotle’s critique of “utopian” politics centered on the ideal of collectivization. The heart of Aristotle’s critique is metaphysical and ontological. As already stated, such a politics and life is oppositional to human nature and would be unconducive to teleological happiness and flourishing. Second, in the universalism of collectivism pluralism is destroyed. Related to this is Aristotle’s critique of monistic metaphysics, but one should expect this from someone who holds to a pluralistic metaphysics (Aristotle’s hylomorphism). Third is how collectivism is opposite of the process of organic growth and evolution from the family to the limited and regional State that he laid out in Book I.
Value and virtue is related to Aristotle’s critique as well. Collective ownership is of little value and is also impractical. Any piece of property owned by all is of little value and practicality because one doesn’t have much attachment to it, and can always shove responsibility off to others since he or she knows they’ll be taken care of anyways from the collective lot. Thus, the ideal of collectivization is also a product of unintelligent and unwise people – it is too excessive in nature which reflects a fundamental lack of understanding not only about politics, but of human nature, but also of the natural world itself.
After criticizing collectivism Aristotle begins to theorize about various political regimes to see which form of government would be ideal (the Cretan, Spartan, and Carthaginian regimes). We do not need to go into the nitty gritty details of each individual examination, but Aristotle ultimately concludes that the constitutional model is the ideal model of politics. It best reflects pluralism and the relationship of many families together and living in harmony together. It allows for limited private property, which demands the individual and individual families to cultivate wisdom and ethos for themselves and their lot – the actualization of practical wisdom put into action (which is phronesis). At the same time, it binds the households together in community and keeps the sociality of human nature, while also preserving the distinctness therein.
The Three Forms of Government: Books I, II, and IV in Context
It would behoove us not to look at one of the most famous parts of the Politics, Book IV, in conjuncture with Aristotle’s other political ruminations in Books I and II, where Aristotle analyzes, in some depth, the three forms of government and what they become when perverted. Monarchy, in its ideal form, again, is reflective of the fatherly subject ruling and caring over his family and household. The common good is seen as being embodied in the father (e.g. the monarch). As we all probably know, tyranny is the end result of perverted monarchy.
That tyranny is the end result of perverted monarchy is meant that tyranny is the rule of a single tyrant. A perverted constitutional government is not tyrannical, by definition, it is a “democracy” according to Aristotle. For Aristotle, the problem with monarchy is that it entrusts the common good and filial life to the singular. While beautiful and having affection in its own right, the danger of falling into tyranny is ever present. Just because you had a good king doesn’t mean his son is going to be a good king. Monarchy has no built in mechanisms to avoid the slip into tyranny. It is all at the discretion of the father, and “father knows best.”
Aristocracy, as rule of the few, is really rule of the best families. All virtues, practices, family lineages, and wealth are considered, but the end judge is practicality and efficiency. Aristotle doesn’t like aristocracy because of its implicit rest upon materialistic metaphysics to determine its politics. Too much practicality exhausts itself in the material and the material reigns. The result of aristocracy descending into oligarchy is the struggle between the pluralists and the materialists. The aristocrats, or best family men, who still adhere to hylomorpism, defense of virtue, wisdom, and family legacy and lineage, are the ones who defend the aristocratic order. Those aristocrats who have become corrupt to only seeking material goods as being virtuous make wealth the only arbiter for rule. No more virtue, wisdom, or family lineage is taken into consideration. The end result is the commercialized State that Aristotle warns against in Book I.
Moving onto constitutionalism, which is Aristotle’s preferred form of government after all of his studies, the constitutional model best reflects the realities of family life and pluralism which gets incorporated into the constitution and promulgated by law. It is has the most mechanisms and laws that promote wisdom and virtue. However, constitutionalism’s perverted form is democracy. Democracy is not a benign and wonderful political form in Aristotle’s thoughts. For Aristotle, democracy is the perverted form of constitutionalism when collectivism rears its ugly head. The downfall of constitutionalism is the push for collective egalitarianism. There is no more push for wisdom and virtue, but the unleashed reign of the passions. Furthermore, democratic government becomes inefficient, grows in bureaucratic control, and becomes excessively large as it has to become large in order to “appease all.”
That said, while democracy is bad, Aristotle thinks the drawbacks of democracy is not as bad as in oligarchy (commercialized politics) and monarchy (instability and destruction of common good by a single person). The drawback of democracy is that it becomes chaotic, disorderly, excessive in size, and inefficient, but this is the easiest form of deformed government to bring back to the mean. Why? To rein in an oligarchy, which is the result of commercialization – which also means it is the result of materialization in metaphysics – one must engage metaphysically with oligarchy, extolling the importance and truth of metaphysical and ontological pluralism. This is difficult because few people are actually wise in any society. And those who have accumulated such great material wealth and power will not give it up so easily. Monarchy’s problem is more of the fact that any given ruler can “get unhinged” so to speak. Aristotle, contrary certain advocates of monarchy today, actually thinks monarchy is inherently unstable rather than stable. Its longevity is not a product of its stability, but a product of the power of humanity’s filial nature. Democracy, on the other hand, neither embraces materialism nor rejects hylomorphism. It is the result of people becoming unhinged and followers of their passions and emotion. For various reasons, Aristotle does think it is easier to control passions and emotions through basic education and a restoration of private property landed laboring which teaches hard work, self-control, and practical virtues.
The question for us is whether our “democracies” are really constitutional, or more oligarchic. Or perhaps a weird combination of both with the oligarchs using the mob as their avant-garde?
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Nevertheless, Aristotle’s political philosophy has been deeply influential and remains so to this day. It is rooted in rootedness itself, both with regard to tongue, land, and family. His political theory is something deeply conservative in the views concerning closed society, hierarchy, and organic evolution with the aim of teleological happiness, happiness, and virtue being the end result of politics. There is a happy medium to every aspect of political life, and all economic associations have their specific place within the natural order of the politeia itself. This aids us toward our end, which is teleological and ontological happiness and flourishing.
At the same time, because of Aristotle’s insistence on the need of education and virtue as being integral to politics, his political theory is value-negative. In essence, politics has the tendency to get worse rather than better. There are many forces that threaten political stability and virtue: passion, emotion, the unwise, sophistry, commercialization and capitalization, atomization, the unruly mob, the king or queen, self-obsessed materialists, the collapse of education and wisdom (i.e. an unphilosophical society), and so much more. That said, Aristotle does think politics is something natural and this extends to the State itself. It is all a reflection of our social animus.
Aristotle’s political views have much to offer. Even within Book I and II, I have but covered the bare bones reading and take away. His theory of labor division is captivating and thought provoking. The lines one can draw with his opposition to commercialization can be wrought out in many ways, and we can easily see that as a continued critique of political sophistry. Additionally, Aristotle’s views concerning political hierarchy and our social animus can lead to many thought provoking questions and contemplations. For instance, is he right that limited government and proper private property rights are only possible in metaphysical hierarchy? Does latitudinal and motional metaphysics, like those reminiscent of the liberal theorists of the 17th century, mean the endless acquisition and growth of State power and rape of the natural world as Aristotle suggest and implies? The reason for reading such classical works is precisely this: not only have these texts shaped the world, our history, and our inheritance, they still demand engagement, lead to thought provoking questions, and unleash the mind in its pursuit of truth, knowledge, and wisdom.
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Now we can turn to something more implicit in Aristotle: Political Dialectic. Aristotle’s political theory is grounded in two principal cornerstones: that man is a political (or social) animal, and that the end of human existence is happiness. Thus, humanity’s essential social character cannot be separated from his existential character. The separation of humanity from society will not produce the happiness he seeks. Likewise, a politics that does not produce arête (excellence) and other associated virtues that come with knowledge will also not sufficiently produce the happiness that he seeks.
Moving into a more focused summary of Aristotle’s political thoughts as it directly relates to human happiness and the concept of the political, politics, for Aristotle, is an art. It is a craft. It cultivates excellence. It demands knowledge. It demands, in other words, reason. Politics is the art of the reasonable because the reasonable would lead to happiness. (Politics is not the “art of the possible,” whatever that means – which is nothing more than a quietist justification for “the ends justify the means.”) As Aristotle also famously retorted, reflecting his own intellectualism, “the Law is the rational.” But what, then, is the main problem of politics?
The simple answer is knowledge and virtue, since the two go together in Aristotle. Cicero, for instance, goes on and on about the crisis of education – specifically moral education – as it pertains to the breakdown of constitutions and their devolution into anarchy and tyranny. Cicero drew from Aristotle, and Cicero’s comments that “the very nature of public affairs often defeats reason” is essentially Aristotelian even if Aristotle doesn’t use that phrase. Thus, the struggle of politics is the unitive struggle for knowledge by which virtue follows.
For Aristotle, art – in all of its forms, especially in phronesis (practical wisdom of daily work and living for particular people) – points to the Law. Law is fundamentally a dictate of reason for Aristotle. That art points to Law means that Law embodies prudence. Prudence is the highest manifestation of the dictate of reason because prudence is the ultimate embodiment of knowledge of the mean. Without prudence one doesn’t really know – one is either given entirely over to the control of emotion and passion which leads to excess, or one has not cultivated habit from what he knows which leads to deficiency and lack of arête. The two extremes represent the two poles that tug at humanity: unrestrained desire (excess) which is ultimately is the root of the lack of knowledge, or lack of habitual action which is more a reflection of the suppression of our social animus. The former is associated with recklessness, itself unreasonable, while the latter is associated with what St. Augustine calls the incurvatus in se – or the inward curve to the self, which is essentially an atomized individualism where one only cares about oneself and is therefore suppressing his social animus which equally leads to catastrophic problems for man and also society.
Drawing upon analogies of artisans and other works, and taking into account Aristotle’s condemnation of latitudinal commercialization, he shows the problem of why art itself is not the rational but can only be a sign of the dictates of reason. The artist paints, and while he has this gift and ability, it does him no good unless he is in community. The phronesis that he has cultivated by a coming to understand the nature of beauty and then applying that knowledge to creating masterful works of arts, can only lead to a limited happiness unless he is able to share with others. Likewise, the carpenter suffers the same problem. He can craft a great chair, but it is better to be able to extend this gift unto others. Thus, to fulfill their natural desire for happiness, as well as to continue cultivating their own practical excellence, people come into community with one another to fulfill the two cornerstones of Aristotelian ontology: social animus and happiness.
The problem now becomes one of prudence, or moderation. In this community there is a dialectical confrontation between the artist and the carpenter. This must be regulated by Law. If not, then the latitudinal confrontation goes on and on and one without end. That is to say, there is no teleology at all. There cannot by an end to latitudinal metaphysics – it is, by its own definition and thought process, a complete denial of nature itself and the ends to which natural is directed through final cause (teleology). This is the problem of commercialization for Aristotle, we begin chasing after something outside of us. This is, of course, a result of ignorance of nature and being, but it primarily an ignorance of nature and being because such a view presupposes unlimited acquisition as what is good for humanity. But unlimited acquisition cannot be satisfied. It does not lead to prudence (or moderation) it only ever leads to more self-seeking gain. It is, once again, the inward curve of deficiency whereby man is also (implicitly) detaching himself from society.
This is also Aristotle’s critique of the Epicureans and other hedonists. He disagrees with them on their fundamental materialist ontology and metaphysics. The experiential, which is what bodily hedonism entails, denies soul, and in denying soul, it denies knowledge since soul is principally mind. At the same time, it also denies hylomorphism. It rejects, in its own materialism, the unity of form and matter by only embrace the matter.
Thus, we are at endless war with ourselves as we chase after fleeting happiness that can never be satiated because hedonism requires no cultivation of virtue and prudence, which is to also say it requires no pursuit of knowledge at all. It is also individualism writ large within a materialist framework as I’m only ever out for myself and use others to try and derive happiness – but at every level of this philosophy of life I’m confused since (1) I seek happiness (which is an implicit recognition that happiness must be part of nature and is therefore within you), (2) I don’t understand this nature by principally seeking happiness in things outside of myself, and (3) in seeking happiness outside of myself I implicitly recognize the other part of my nature which is social animus. The glue that brings this all together is philosophy from which prudence is understand and in this understanding the cultivation of excellence can begin whereby I move toward the mean either from previous deficiency or excess.
We can add then, the fourth confusion in that even the Epicurean hedonist still embodies his fundamental natures of want for happiness through social animus even though he goes about all the wrong ways of seeking happiness because he has fundamentally denied knowledge in his materialist ontology. I must have a balance of self-happiness with social happiness. Thus, I do, in fact, need prudence which comes from knowledge which is the dictate of pure reason. Until I am at rest with my nature – and all that my nature is – I can never truly be happy (or virtuous and knowledgeable for that matter), which is to say I need to have a harmony of my hylomorphic nature, a harmony of knowledge and virtue, of knowledge leading to action. We can see, then, in Aristotle, why knowledge becomes important. Without proper knowledge we are left confused and unhappy, at war with ourselves which is not only at war with our nature but also the end to which nature aims for.
Prudence and moral virtue go together then, as should be clear from reading Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, prudence and moral virtue are infused together as part of our hylmorphic nature. Prudence is principally contained in the form (knowledge) while moral virtue is contained in matter (through actions in the material world). The best life, then, is the life that is completely devoted to understanding (form) and from this understanding virtue is acted out upon in the world (matter). This is why the struggle of knowledge is also the struggle for virtue – they are integrally intertwined in our hylomorphic nature. You cannot have one without the other.
Thus, it also becomes pertinent to understand what the nature of a city is – since the city is the highest calling and manifestation of social animus which necessarily means it is tied to happiness which we have just situated as the result of prudence and moral virtue. The city is the collective society of individuals who have cultivated practical wisdom (the low order of prudence) that are now bound together through the high of prudence which is civil law which regulates all actions and, through the dictate of reason, directs all activities toward the end of moral virtue from which happiness flows. Law is fundamentally and unequivocally hierarchal then, as any law that embraces latitudinal ideals can never cultivate virtue and never be truly rational since it fundamentally denies the first principles of human nature and nature more generally. The city, then, is like a collection of families or households bound together in common cause. This becomes the common good that Cicero identifies as necessary for any republic.
The common cause of the city is also the common cause of all persons, namely happiness – which is why happiness is the highest good. As Leo Strauss notes in reviewing Aristotle, “The highest good of the city is the same as the highest good of the individual. The core of happiness is the practice of virtue and primarily of moral virtue.” You can think of the city in a pyramid where the top is moral law which the regulated side of the pyramid (which has form) is the Law that pushes up toward that top goal. The wide base of the pyramid is the multifaceted nature of the city with all of its different peoples and their practical practices which sustain their livelihoods but also allows them to cultivate their own virtues to derive happiness. In this sense, like so many other ancient philosophers, Aristotle sees plurality as only being possible in a hierarchy of difference. Difference, by definition, is plural. Sameness, which is what monism entails in oneness, cannot, by definition, be pluralistic.
Therefore, each particular person strives for happiness from his practicality and through the cultivation of his phronesis. This is where Aristotle pivots to an understanding of envy and why democracy is a perverse form of constitutionalism (which is to say democracy destroys the Law of Reason which promotes virtue and returns us to the abyss of non-virtue). Democracy is the rule of the poor and the envious, those who have not cultivated practical wisdom or virtue, and therefore hold those who do in contempt. Rather than lift themselves up, they would rather drag those above them down. This is the politics of resentment. Democracy was, in Aristotle’s eyes, fundamentally anti-intellectual and non-virtuous by its very own definitions and practices.
Democratic “rights of man” of universal rights, so to speak, are the equivalent to universalist ethical egoism which devolves law and politics to the lowest common denominator in all persons: self-survival and nothing more than this. Self-survival does not require knowledge or virtue, it only requires brute strength. Democracy is the greatest reflection of brute strength because it is the coming together of large masses of ignorant animals – “brute animals” – united in “action.” The “man of action” which Aristotle speaks of in Book VII of Politics is the activist animal united with his legion of cohorts who, in their envy, tear down the wisdom, virtue, and success of others in their folly. They strip others of their happiness, and remain unhappy themselves since they are not virtuous and knowledgeable people.
The struggle of politics is more than just the struggle for virtue in Aristotle. Cicero draws extensively from Plato and Aristotle, but many of Cicero’s ideas which he puts to pen and paper are implicitly contained in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics. The struggle of politics is, in fact, the struggle for virtue, but in it being the struggle for virtue it is the struggle for wisdom and knowledge. It is the struggle for embodying and living out one’s hylomorphic nature which seems to be at war with itself: “flesh and spirit” to use the language of St. Paul, between the virtue of the flesh (matter) and the wisdom of the spirit (form) that unite together and produce the virtuous happy man at peace with his nature and with those around him in his sociality. This is precisely why Christians and Hellenized Jews sought to integrate Aristotle with their ideas too – they are essentially the same just communicated through different prisms.
Aristotle differed from Cicero insofar that Cicero’s cycles of constitutional evolution/devolution are cyclical. Aristotle’s art of political dialectic is wholly hierarchal. It goes up, or it goes down. Only a wise and virtuous city is the happy city, which is to also say it is the city with the happiest of citizens. An unwise and unvirtuous city is the tyrannical city; it is the city that is at war with itself and members of itself – it is the chaotic and unorderly city that doesn’t even permit for basic living as it is at war with itself.
For Aristotle, dialectical struggle is not as Hegel and Marx envisioned. It is not “us” vs. “them,” per se, it is myself vs. myself, it only becomes “us” vs. “them” when I reject my own nature and give up on the internal struggle for wisdom and virtue and lash out at others who are wise and virtuous – but upon whom I craft accusatory blame on to justify my envy. In this sense Aristotle’s politics is not all dissimilar from Plato. The dialectical nature of politics in Aristotle is the struggle for knowledge and virtue (high end) from which happiness is derived, and insofar that this is the peak that politics seeks, politics is also the struggle against all things that would drag such a politics down into the abyss of ignorance, egoism, and the Cave of tyranny.