History of Political Thought

October 15th

Aristotle

-slavery
-teleological - from the Greek telos=purpose, goal

The Nicomachean Ethics (dedicated to Aristotle's son)

Two types of actions
-actions that are just a means to accomplish a different goal (the purpose is not
in itself)
-actions (goals) that are desirable into themselves (they are themselves the
purpose)
Typically, our goals are means of achieving other goals.
Aristotle believes that there is at least one goal that is always a goal in itself and
could never be reconstructed as a mean towards smth else: to be happy.
Happiness as eudaimonia is the ultimate goal of human action.

The concept of supreme happiness is built in the first book of A's P.

The state is a community and like the separate individuals, each community
strives to achieve a certain goal. The supreme goal of a community = the happy
life. The state is seen through a teleological perspective.
In a sense, this concept of the state is not the sum of its parts. The parts of the
state justify their existence only as a part of the whole, of a general structure.
Hence Aristotle's striking assumption that the man is a political animal (zoon
politikon) because it is destined to live in a state. Other political animals: the
bees. The state pre-dates individual existence.
The state (polis) as a collection of families.
The family = the simplest and most natural form of human community, an
answer to the most basic need of the individual. (to live behind an image of
itself)
Inside the family - the analysis of the relationships of authority - natural
hierarchy.
oikos (Greek) = family, household
the domain of the oikos: the head of the family, woman, children, servants/slaves
(the extended family)
despot = the head of the family (originally, in Greek) - enjoys an authority that is
mainly natural - he rules over people that are more or less servants (they are
not free)
the leader of a city rules over free men, therefore his authority isn't and cannot
be natural in this sense.
familia (Lat.)
the Greek despot becomes the Roman pater familias or dominus.
The authority of a dominus is natural, whereas the authority of a rex is political.
**dux (duke) - originally, a military term
Slaves are slaves because they are born slaves, they are not born citizens, they
cannot govern themselves and are destined by nature to be governed by others.
However, Aristotle says that exists another kind of slavery, not based in nature
but in convention, i.e.: when a slave is bought or taken by force and dragged into
slavery. The slavery based on convention is not right. When slavery is based on
nature, it should be accompanied by a feeling of friendship between the master
and the slave.
The Roman term for slave = servus, servii (sometimes translated as servant).
The transition from servus to sclavus (in the European Medieval vocabulary)
happened because the slaves were from today Bosnia & Hertzegovina and were
of slav origin.
Similarities between the oikos and the familia:
-they were composed the same (father, mother, children, slaves/servants)
Differences between the oikos and the familia:
-the Roman legal conception of the family was much more complex than the
Greek one
-the power of the pater familias

Roman Law
- legal professions - the main difference between Greeks and Romans
- Greeks didn't have professions
- in the Roman world jurists existed and legal texts had an immense authority in
political matters
- from 450 BC (The Law of the 12 Tables) to 530 AD (Justinian's Corpus Juris
Civilis) we have a period when legal thinking and political thought were joined at
the hip.
- Corpus Juris Civilis contained the Digest of Justinian which is used in courts
even today (i.e.: the Scottish law is a product of the influence of the Roman Law)
- The Roman Law makes a sharp distinction between private law and public law.
- Private law - interests of the individual and/or of the family
- Public law was mainly concerned with the interests of the state.
TO READ: Bruno Leoni - Freedom and the Law
- Private law:
-children had an inferior state, like slaves => the pater familias could even
sell his children into slavery three times
-the new master could set a slave free => a free citizen, without being
under the authority of the father
-the word testament comes from the ritual of a father recognizing a son or
a daughter by touching his testicles
-the pater familias enjoyed an absolute right of disposition over the new
infant - life or death right (exposition: if you refuse to accept the child as being
yours immediately after birth, you would abandon the child in the woods)
-the Latin legal and political vocabulary was extremely complex
-"imperium" (Lat.) = power of the supreme majesty which was basically a
power of life and death.
- Senate - "senatus" - the Roman Senate was not exactly a body that
would make laws
- candidate <= someone would stand up for being elected and start
campaigning; in order to distinguish himself, he would wear a white toga, called
"toga candida"
- president - "presidere" = to stand in the front row
- prince = the first among citizens in a republic

Polibius
-Greek by birth
-a history of the Roman Republic
-died around 120 BC
-attempted to describe the nature of the Roman Constitution
-the Roman Constitution = a mixed constitution; there is a number of institutions
or groups that somehow check one another and keep a balance - the secret of
the liberty and longevity of the Roman Republic, according to Polibius
- belongs to a group of hystorians, along with Tacitus, Snelonius, Titus Livius,
who described the functioning of the Roman state or even the pathology.

Cicero
-died in 43 BC
-his conception of the orathor
-De Officiis (On duties)
-politics was mainly direct politics = interaction
-politics focused on the analysis of the behaviour of people, especially the leader
-the art of public speaking
-"lex" <- reading the laws in front of an assembly
-cornerstone of the legal and political thought: the distinction between two
species of law:
-natural - not made by man;
-Digest of Justinian: "the law of nature is common both to man and
animals";
-it's in the nature of things
-needs not to be written
-"the law of nature is written in the heart of man with the finger of
God"
-is universal (not restricted to a single city, polis, state, unit)
-civil (positive, municipal)
-tpically written
-made by man (typically by a legislator)
-not universal (depend on circumstances, are restricted to one state
or city)
-the civil laws should be based on or at least not contradict natural laws
(i.e.: the abuse of power contradicts the human nature)

Seneca
-died around 65AD
-Senator, tutor of Nero
-Stoic philosopher (focus on the character)
-Neostoicism (popular)
-people lived in a higher law that is a natural law; Seneca believed in a universe
that was basically unfolding in a rigorous way, that causes and effects follow one
another in a very strict order - a divine plan - a hidden harmony, so that the best
we could do is basically to accept it != blind acceptance.
-writings where he gives direct political advice both to the rulers and to citizens
(subjects): De clementia, De beneficiis
-De clementia = On mercy;
-mercy in a political and social sense
-the quality of a supreme ruler;
-a ruler who participates in an expanded sphere of justice and goodness,
and this is achieved through the means of mercy.
****rules: -merciful (goal to achieve smth higher than justice: goodness) - the
ruler is able to give life
-lawful
-unlawful
-De beneficiis = On benefits
-moral focus
 -analyses acts of generosity and discovers that benevolence is a key
virtue
-key problem: how to acquire generosity? Answer: selflessness - acquiring
virtue by giving away things (time, effort etc)
-the ruler himself should behave in a benevolent way