EDUC 17 Reading Assignment # 1

Politics
Frederick Copleston, SJ
The State (and by State, Aristotle is thinking of the Greek City State), like every community, exists for an end. In the case of the State this end is the supreme good of man, his moral and intellectual life. The family is the primitive community that exists for the sake of life, of the supply of mens everyday wants, and when several families join together and something more than the mere supply of daily needs is aimed at, the village comes into existence. When, however, several villages are joined together to form a larger community that is nearly or quite self-sufficing, there comes into existence for the bare ends of life, but it continues in existence for the sake of the good life in any full sense, and Aristotle insists that the State differs from family and village, not merely quantitatively but qualitatively and specifically. It is only in the State that man can live the good life in any full sense, and since the good life is mans natural end, the State must be called a natural society. (The Sophist were therefore wrong in thinking that the State is simply the creation of convention.) It is evident that the State is a creature 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 above humanity or below it. Mans gift of speech shows clearly that nature destined him for social life, and social life in its specifically complete form is, in Aristotles view, that the State is a self -sufficing whole, neither the individual nor the family are self-sufficient. He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. The Platonic-Aristotelian view if the State as exercising the positive function of serving the end of man, the leading of the good life or the acquisition of happiness, and as being natural prior (to be distinguished from tempore prior) to the individual and the family, has been of great influence in subsequent philosophy. Among Christian mediaeval philosophers, it was naturally tempered by the importance they rightly attached to individual and family, and by the fact that they accepted another perfect society, the Church, whose end is higher than that of the State (also by the fact that the nation-State was comparatively undeveloped in the Middle Ages); but we have only to think of Hegel in Germany and of Bradley and Bosanquet in England, to realize that the Greek conception of the State did not perish along with Greek freedom. Moreover, though it is a conception that can be and has been, exaggerated (especially where Christian truth has been absent and so unable to act as a corrective to one-sided exaggeration), it is a richer and truer conception of the State than of, e.g. Herbert Spencer. For the State exists for the temporal well-being of its citizens, i.e., for a positive and not merely for a negative end, and this positive conception of the State can quite well be maintained without contaminating it with the exaggeration of Totalitarian State mysticism. Aristotle horizon was more or less bounded by the confines of the Greek City-State (in spite of his contracts with Alexander), and he had little idea of nations and empires; but all the same his mind penetrated to the essence and function of the State better than did laissez-faire theorists and the British School from Locke to Spencer. In the Politics, as we have it, Aristotles treatment of the family is practically confined to discussion of the master-slave relationship and to the acquisition of wealth. Slavery (the slave, according to Aristotle, is a living instrument of action, i.e., the aid to his masters life) is founded on nature. From the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. It is clear that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these slavery is both expedient and right. This view may well seem to us monstrous, but it must be remembered that the essence of Aristotles doctrine is that men differ in
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intellectual and physical capacities and are thereby fitted for different positions in society. We regret that Aristotle canonized the contemporary institution of slavery, but this canonization is largely a historical accident. Stripped of its historic and contemporary accidentals, what is censurable in it is not so much the recognition that men differ in ability and adaptability (the truth of this is too obvious to need elaboration), but the over-rigid dichotomy drawn between two types of men and the tendency to regard the sla venature as something almost less than human. However, Aristotle tempered his acceptance and rationalization of slavery by insisting that the master should not abuse his authority, since the interests of master and slave are the same, and by saying that all slaves should have the hope of emancipation. Moreover, he admitted that the child of a natural slave need not himself be a natural slave, and rejected slavery by right of conquest on the ground that superior power and superior excellence are not equivalent, while on the other hand the war may not be just a war. Nevertheless, in itself, this rationalization of slavery is regrettable and betrays a limited outlook on the part of the philosopher. In fact, Aristotle rejected the legitimacy of the historical origin of slavery (conquest), and then proceeded to give a philosophic rationalization and justification of slavery! There are, in general, two distinct modes of acquiring wealth, and an intermediate mode. i. ii. The natural mode consists in the accumulation of things needed for life by, e.g., grazing, hunting, and agriculture. Mans needs set a natural limit to such accumulation. The intermediate mode is that of barter. In barter, a thing is used apart from its proper use, but insofar as it is employed for the acquisition of the needs of life, barter may be called a natural mode of acquiring mode. The second, and unnatural, mode of acquiring wealth is the use of money as means of exchange for goods. It seems very odd to us that Aristotle should condemn retail trade, but his prejudice is largely determined by the ordinary Greek attitude towards commerce, which was regarded as illiberal and unfit for the free man. Of importance is Aristotles condemnation of usury, the breeding of money out of money, as he calls it. Money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. This, literally taken, would condemn all taking of interest on money, but Aristotle was probably thinking of the practice of money-lenders, or usurers in our sense, who make victims of the needy, credulous and ignorant though he certainly found a rationalization of his attitude in his doctrine about the natural purposes of money. Cows and sheep have a natural increase, as have fruits -trees, but money has no such natural increase: it is meant to be a means of exchange and nothing else. To serve as a means of exchange is its natural purpose and if it is used to get more wealth merely by a process of lending it, without any exchange of goods for money and without any labour on the part of the lender, then it is being used in an unnatural way. Needless to say, Aristotle did not envisage modern finance. If he were alive today, we cannot say how he would react to our financial system, and whether he would reject, modify or find a way round his former views.

iii.

Aristotle, as one might expect, refused to allow himself to be carried away by Platos picture of the ideal State. He did not think that such radical changes as Plato proposed were necessary; nor did he think that they would all, if feasible, be desirable. For instance, he rejected the Platonic notion of the crche for the children of the Guardian-class, on the ground that he who is a child of all is a child of none. Better to real cousin than a Platonic son! Similarly, he criticized the notion of communism, on the ground that this would lead to disputes, inefficiency, etc. The enjoyment of property is a source of pleasure, and it is of no use for Plato to say that the State would be made happy if the Guardians were deprived of this source of happiness, for happiness is either enjoyed by individuals or it is not enjoyed at all. In general, Plato aimed at excessive unification. Aristotle had no sympathy for the accumulation of wealth as such; but he saw that there is a need, not so much of equalizing all property
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as of training citizens not to desire excessive wealth and, if any are incapable of being trained, then of preventing them acquiring it. The qualifications of citizenship are taken by Aristotle from the practice of the Athenian democracy which was not the same as the modern democracy with its representative system. In his view, all the citizens should take their share in ruling and being ruled by turn, and the minimum of citizen-rights is the right to participate in the Assembly and the administration of justice. The fact that Aristotle considered it essential for the citizen to sit in the Assembly and in Law Courts, led him to exclude the class of mechanics and artisans from the citizenship, for they had not got the necessary leisure. Another reason is that manual toil deliberalizes the soul and makes it unfit for true virtue. In Books Seven and Eight of the Politics, Aristotle discusses his positive view of what a State should be. i. The State must be large enough to be self-sufficing, but not so large that order and good government are rendered impracticable. In other words, it must be large enough to fulfil the end of State and not so large that it can no longer do so. The number citizen requisite for this purpose cannot of course be arithmetically determined a priori. ii. Similarly with the territorial extent of the State, this should not be small that a leisured life is impossible (i.e., that culture is impracticable) nor yet so large that luxury is encouraged. The city should aim at mere wealth, but at importing her need and exporting her surplus. iii. Agricultural labourers and artisans are necessary, but they will not enjoy citizens rights, only the third class, that of the warriors, will be citizens in the full sense. These will be warriors in youth, rulers or magistrates in middle-age and priests in old age. Each citizen will possess a plot of land near the frontier (so that all may have an interest in the defense of the State). This land will be worked by non-citizen labourers. iv. Aristotle, like Plato, attached great importance to education and, again like Plato, he considered it to be the work of the State. Education must begin with the body, since the body and its appetites develop earlier than the soul and its faculties; but the body is trained for the sake of the soul and the appetites for the sake of reason. Education is therefore, first and foremost, a moral education the more so because the citizen will never have to earn his living by work as husbandman or artisan, but will be trained to be, first a good soldier, and then a good ruler magistrate. This emphasis on moral education shows itself in Aristotles views concerning pre-natal care and the games of the children. The Directors of Education will take all these matters very seriously, and will not consider the games of the children and the stories that are told them as things too insignificant for them to attend to. The State exists for the good life, and it is subject to the same code if morality as the individual. As he puts it, the same things are best for individuals and states. Reason and history both show that the legislator should direct all his military and other measures to the establishment of peace. Military States are safe only in war time: once they have acquired their empire, they rust away like iron and fall. Both Plato and Aristotle, in their preoccupation with the fostering of a truly cultural political life, set their faces against imperialist dreams of military aggrandizement. End -

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