Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 048 - Constitutional Conventions - Aristotle's Political Philosophy.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust, online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, Constitutional Conventions, Aristotle's Political Philosophy. No one is likely to confuse Aristotle with Oscar Wilde. He is not exactly known for his wit or fine style. If you're looking for snappy aphorisms in Greek philosophy, you're better off with Heraclitus, author of epigrams like The Road Up Is The Road Down, or even the Oracle of Delphi, where one could read the immortal advice, Know Thyself. And yet, Aristotle did produce his fair share of memorable quotations. There is his insistence that nature does nothing in vain, his observation in the metaphysics that being is said in many ways. In the Ethics, explaining that happiness is a whole life of virtue, and not just virtue exercised for a brief time, he observes that one swallow does not make a summer. But perhaps Aristotle's most famous phrase appears in his work The Politics, when he describes man as a political animal. At one level, this is simply an empirical observation. Humans have a natural tendency to gather together into groups, not only families, but also smaller communities on the order of villages, and ultimately cities. As I have mentioned before, the word politics relates to the Greek word for city, polis. Aristotle, like Plato before him, considers the city-state or polis to be the natural and maximum size for a political community. Of course, both were aware that larger political unions were possible. They knew of the Persian Empire, and closer to home, pan-Mediterranean groups like the Delian League, led by Athens. But when Aristotle talks about political arrangements, he has in mind not the modern nation-state, or for that matter, empires or leagues of nations, he is thinking about cities. Of course, if it is natural for humans to gather together into cities, then calling man a political animal is not merely descriptive. Remember, nature does nothing in vain. So if humans naturally gather together, there must be a good reason for it. Thus, a central question of Aristotle's politics is, what is the city for? The answer to this question should structure our political philosophy. We should also remember that at the beginning of his ethics, Aristotle claimed to be embarking on political philosophy. His ethics and his politics are explicitly presented as connected works. So it is no surprise that for Aristotle, the goal of the city is closely related to the proper goal of the individual. In the ethics, Aristotle told us that happiness is pursued through a life of reason and virtue. In the politics, he will tell us how political affairs can be arranged to facilitate such a life. An appealing consequence of this is that, for Aristotle, the point of political affairs is to promote the good life of all its citizens. A government does not exist for the benefit of those who govern, but for the whole community. Thus, when he classifies the different possible types of political constitution, he contrasts three legitimate types to their perversions. The legitimate types play the role a political constitution is meant to play. They are kingship, aristocracy, and what Aristotle calls constitutional government. Confusingly, he uses the Greek word polytheia both for this third system and for the general concept of a constitution, which applies to all three types. The difference between the three is basically the number of people involved in governing the city. A king rules by himself, aristocrats as a small group of elites, and in a constitutional government the many rule for the good of the city. But in each case we have a genuine political constitution insofar as the purpose in view is the good of the whole community. The three constitutional types become perverted when the rulers look instead to their own good. King's leadership becomes tyranny, aristocracy becomes oligarchy, and constitutional government becomes democracy. As when we discuss Plato's Republic, we are apt to be disturbed at seeing democracy classed as a perversion. But what Aristotle means by democracy is a situation where the largest group in the city, who are usually the poorer citizens, simply wield power for their own advantage. Unlike tyranny, or oligarchy, this involves seeking the benefit of a large number of people, but it is unjust in precisely the way that tyranny or oligarchy is unjust. One group of citizens has simply got power over the others, and is using that power to take whatever it can get. Aristotle didn't need to read Karl Marx to develop an acute sensitivity to the possibility of class conflict. In fact, the idea that the rich and the poor are locked in a struggle for power is prominent in his politics, and not unreasonably, because the tension between these two classes had led to internal conflict in many Greek states. This condition was referred to as stasis, a kind of debilitating civil struggle in which a city turns against itself, rather than devoting its energies to making its citizens happy. So far, so good. It sounds like we would quite like Aristotle advising our own political leaders, which, incidentally, is exactly what he is out to do in the politics. He says many times that he wants this work to be useful for the hands-on task of legislating. On the other hand, as in the ethics, he stresses that practical philosophy must allow for the infinite variety of the situations we face. There can be no universal rules that would allow us to stipulate detailed laws that should apply to all cities. Variations in population, geography, and other factors make this impossible. But still, should we try to arrange a seat in the cabinet for Aristotle, or at least someone who has made a careful study of his politics? If any presidents or prime ministers are listening and would like some advice, I could probably fit that into my schedule. But hang on a minute, there are aspects of Aristotle's politics that will strike us as a bit less charming. I've said that he encourages the city to look after the welfare of all its citizens, but I didn't tell you who counts as a citizen. Aristotle devotes some attention to the issue of what it means to be a citizen and concludes that a citizen is someone who is actively involved with political affairs. Not all citizens will necessarily be running the city at any given time, but they may rotate into official duties and must at least participate in the political process. Thus, in a tyranny, nobody in the city apart from the tyrant is truly a citizen, by Aristotle's definition. Only the tyrant has a say in the running of the city, and the tyrant's welfare is pursued to the exclusion of everybody else. So, men must pass a high standard in order to qualify as citizens. They must be ready to help govern, and they can qualify because of their nobility, their wealth, or their virtue, depending on the constitution. For instance, an aristocracy puts a lot of emphasis on nobility and wealth. But no matter what constitution we are talking about, Aristotle assumes that it will be men alone who can pass the standard and be citizens. Plato had argued in the Republic that women can perform all the same activities as men, even if not equally, and that there must therefore be women guardians and rulers in the ideal city. Aristotle has already said in his ethics that men and women cannot share perfect friendship, because women are inferior to men. Now, in the politics he goes further, saying that the rational power in women lacks control or authority. Women need men to tell them what to do, since they are by nature unable to regulate their own affairs properly, never mind the affairs of the city. Obviously this is not Aristotle's finest hour, but wait, it gets even worse. In this same part of the politics, the opening book, in fact, he launches into his notorious discussion of slavery. As you probably know, slavery was a pervasive phenomenon in the ancient world. It was very common for warfare to involve the enslavement of conquered peoples, and a wealthy Greek or Roman household would typically include slaves who did menial, and even not-so-menial, tasks. In Aristotle's account of slavery, we see the downside of his fidelity to common opinion and empirical research. He seems to think that, since slavery is such a widespread phenomenon, it must be explained philosophically, and his explanation sounds uncomfortably like a defense of the indefensible. Even this, though, is perhaps letting him off too lightly. After all, Aristotle is willing to reject received opinion when it suits him, and he is aware that rejecting slavery is an option because he mentions a view held by some others, according to which all slavery is unnatural. But he has no truck with this ancient abolitionism, and instead adopts what he no doubt sees as one of his characteristically moderate middle positions. He argues that some people are what he calls natural slaves, and that it is not only permissible to enslave such people, but actually the right thing to do. A natural slave is, as he puts it, a living tool, and is in an even worse condition than a free woman when it comes to conducting his own life. It is good for the slave to be owned, just as it is good for a woman to be dominated by her husband or father. On the bright side, this does lead Aristotle to criticize some Greek practices of enslavement. It is wrong, on his view, to enslave those who are not natural slaves. So putting whole Greek cities into bondage after victory in war is definitely not acceptable, given that many who live in that city will not be natural slaves. These are people whose souls make them fit to be citizens participating in a political community, not mere tools of other men. Plato made a similar point in the Republic, exhorting the Greeks to stop enslaving one another but also saying that those outside the fold of Greek society, so-called barbarians, were fit for enslavement. Aristotle agrees, remarking for instance that everyone who lives in Asia is a natural slave. He connects this to climate, in a way familiar from the Hippocratic corpus. There too it is said that one's character is affected by one's environment. It just so happens, according to Aristotle, that the climate of Greece is perfectly temperate, so that the Greeks tend not to be naturally slavish. It follows that barbarians cannot really engage in proper political arrangements since they do not have the souls one would need to engage successfully in such arrangements. And indeed, he says bluntly that among the barbarians no one is a natural ruler. Their cities are communities of slaves. Clearly, this is Aristotle at his most repellent. Still, it's worth noting that his views on women and slavery hang together with more attractive views he holds on other topics. For instance, in his Ethics he has argued that the happy life is a life lived in accordance with reason, a conclusion many find plausible. Aristotle's ideas about women and slavery are simply a corollary of this, given the empirical claim that such people are not fully endowed with reason. Such people will be better off if someone who is fully rational takes charge of them. When Aristotle comes to discuss his vision of the ideal political arrangement, we find the same ideas in play. He doesn't really get around to this until Book 7 out of the 8 books of the Politics. The last two books are almost like a miniature version of the Republic, a work Aristotle has been engaging with explicitly throughout the whole of the Politics. He agrees with very few of Plato's recommendations, but does take over the Republic's agenda of topics. He not only discusses defective types of city and the situation of women, but also the nature of the ideal city and how education would work in such a city. On these topics, Aristotle again makes clear that he is writing for real legislators. One can imagine him thinking of a reader who is for instance charged with drafting a legal code or settling a colony somewhere on the Mediterranean coast. Here you might recall that, according to legend, Heraclitus was asked to write laws for his home city of Ephesus, and the great sophist Protagoras was appointed by Pericles to legislate for a new colony. So, Aristotle provides plenty of detail, despite his strictures about universal pronouncements in the practical sphere. For instance, he recommends that the city have easy access to the sea, and that it should build defensive walls. Regarding political arrangements, in the ideal case there will be a group of excellent men who serve as citizens and share in governing the city. They will attempt to create the conditions needed to achieve a happy life. For instance, the citizens should have plenty of leisure, not least to engage in philosophy, though these same citizens may also need to serve as soldiers, much as Plato had recommended. Now Aristotle is sounding fairly reasonable again, except that we must remember that, as in the Republic, this ruling class will depend on the presence of many laborers and farmers to keep the city going. And of course there will be slaves and women as well, who will be excluded from the benefits provided by the ideal city. That's the optimal solution, but it isn't how things usually go. Aristotle prides himself on being a realist. One gets the sense that he finds Plato's exclusively utopian project faintly ridiculous, however much he also indulges in a description of the best possible city at the end of the politics. Before getting to the ideal case, he spent a lot of time discussing politics in the real world. If we are interested in understanding the political dynamics that prevail now, perhaps with a view to improving legislation, rather than starting from scratch, we will want to study the cities that already exist. I've mentioned before the ancient report that Aristotle and his students collected a large number of real constitutions for cities, and he is clearly drawing on this material, as he alludes frequently to how they do things down in Sparta or Carthage. From this mass of information, Aristotle concludes that the basic types of constitution are the ones already mentioned, kingship, aristocracy, and constitutional government, with the constant threat that these may turn into the perverted versions which look to the interests of the rulers rather than the community. Since Aristotle assumes that his ideal city is usually going to remain just that, an ideal, he also describes the best arrangement that will be practical in usual circumstances. This brings us back to the opposition between rich and poor. In a pure aristocracy or oligarchy, the rich and well-born run the show. In a pure democracy or constitutional government, it is the majority of the free men, who are usually less wealthy, who call the shots. Aristotle sees both arrangements as excessive. He reminds us that for the individual person, virtue is a mean between extremes, as he showed in the Ethics. The same will be true at the level of the city. What we want is an arrangement that serves the interests of both the rich few and the poorer majority. So how can we achieve this intermediary solution which Aristotle calls a mixed state? Aristotle's recommendation will sound familiar to anyone who follows British or American politics, empower the middle class. The citizens who are neither rich nor poor, but in the middle, should occupy the most influential roles in the city. Of course, one might wonder why the middle class is necessarily going to look to the benefit of all the citizens. Certainly nowadays, some worry that the middle class might impose heavy taxes on the rich, or withhold much-needed support from the poor. But Aristotle seems to assume that the interests of the middle class will naturally form a kind of compromise between the interests of the rich and the poor. Of course, this might not happen in every case, but it's not implausible that the interests of this class would overlap with the interests of both rich and poor. Now I know what you're thinking. What about Alexander the Great? Aristotle was the tutor of the greatest conqueror of the ancient world, a man who was revered as a god in his own lifetime and taken as a model of leadership by kings and emperors for centuries to come. Yet this advice about the middle class sounds like it could have been written by Tony Blair. If we were hoping Aristotle would allude specifically to the Macedonian royal family, we will go away from the politics disappointed. But he does say something relevant to such a remarkable political animal as Alexander. In the midst of his discussion of the various political arrangements, he pauses to consider a case where a small group, or single man, possesses excellence that outstrips the rest of the city put together. If such a superhuman ruler were to appear, Aristotle thinks, the right thing would be for everybody simply to submit to him. Objecting to this would be like objecting to the rule of Zeus. Clearly, this is, to put it mildly, an exceptional circumstance. But it does highlight an assumption Aristotle has been making throughout. Political power is naturally apportioned to those whose gifts make them fit to wield it. At one level, this is a neutral observation. The reason democracies arise is that the majority are formidable when they work together, simply in virtue of being so numerous. The reason oligarchies arise is that wealth is a source of political strength. But Aristotle is also saying that this is how things ought to be. If a man is excellent, he should help run the city. And if a whole group brings military or economic strength to the table, it's only right that they should wield a corresponding degree of power. As with Plato, Aristotle's political ideas spring from deep convictions about justice. But he does not have in mind anything like our modern idea of human rights. He's happy to shut women and natural slaves out of political life because they cannot contribute anything. The justice he has in mind has more to do with reciprocation. Those who make the city strong should have a say in the decision-making. In Aristotle's political philosophy, excellence is both the source of political legitimacy and the fruit of the polis. The more excellent men live in a city, the better the city will be run, and the more we can call the city a success. Its purpose was, after all, to produce excellent men, men who are happy according to the standards of his Nicomachean ethics. This is why his ideal city is simply a city of excellent citizens supported by an underclass of women and laborers who cannot achieve excellence but whose lives are improved by living under good rulers. This condition serves as the final end of all cities, the ideal towards which real legislators should work. But, as I've said, Aristotle thinks of himself as a realist. He wants to provide not only rational argument about political affairs but also the tools for persuading people to change their beliefs. He recognizes that less-than-perfect reasoning, and also emotion, play a major role in our practical lives and in any real city. This interest in political and social affairs is expressed not only in the politics but also to other famous works, the rhetoric and the poetics. I hope I can persuade you to join me for a discussion of both, next time on the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.