BENUE STATE UNIVERSITY, MAKURDI

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

NAME:

YIO JOSHUA TERUNGWA

MATRIC. NO:

BSU/MS/BUS/17/8394

COURSE TITTLE:

ELEMENTS OF GOVERNMENT

COURSE CODE:

BSM 306

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION:

Write about Aristotle BC 384-322, St Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274, Niccolo

Machiavelli 1469- 1527 and John Locke 1632 – 1704.Explain their political ideas
and criticism

PRESENTED TO HELEN IKWE

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INTRODUCTION

Politics is phenomenon that been in existence for a very long time. politics has
been existing long before the medieval times. Politics, in every society,
government, and organization plays a very important role. Politics is literally
everywhere and is practiced by almost every individual in one way or the other.
According to Wikipedia, politics is defined as the activities associated with the
governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having
power. This pertains to the all procedures, proceedings that are concerned with the
administration, and the conducting of a country, organization, area or group,
association. A simple definition of politics according to google.com view politics
as the way that people living in groups make decisions. Politics is about making
agreements between people so that they can live together in groups such as tribes,
cities, or countries. ... The study of politics in universities is called political
science, political studies, or public administration. Merriam-Webster defines
politics as the art or science of government, the art or science concerned with
guiding or influencing governmental policy and finally the art or science concerned
with winning and holding control over a government. Webster also views politics
as political affairs or business, the total complex of relations between people living
in society. politics has been researched by many thinkers and philosophers, these
views serve as the yardstick for further thinking and discoveries. These views serve
as the basis for the developments in the world of politics today. Some of these
thinkers and philosophers consist of the following; Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas,
Nicolo Machiavelli, and john Locke these thinkers have made formidable
contributions to the politics phenomenon through their various publications and
postulation of their various political ideologies.

ARISTOTLE BC 384 – 322

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Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to
logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics,
agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student Plato who in turn
studied under Socrates. He was more empirically minded than Plato or Socrates
and is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms.

As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all,
arears of knowledge he touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas referred to him
simply as “The philosopher.” In his lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200
treatises, of which only 31 survived. Aristotle was the first to classify areas of
human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and
ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today.

POLITICAL IDEAS AND CRITICISM

Turning from the Ethics treatises to their sequel, the Politics, the reader is brought
down to earth. “Man is a political animal,” Aristotle observes; human beings are
creatures of flesh and blood, rubbing shoulders with each other in cities and
communities. Like his work in zoology, Aristotle’s political studies combine
observation and theory. He and his students documented the constitutions of 158
states—one of which, The Constitution of Athens, has survived on papyrus. The
aim of the Politics, Aristotle says, is to investigate, on the basis of the constitutions
collected, what makes for good government and what makes for bad government
and to identify the factors favorable or unfavorable to the preservation of a
constitution. Aristotle asserts that all communities aim at some good. The state
(polis), by which he means a city-state such as Athens, is the highest kind of
community, aiming at the highest of goods. The family which is chronologically
prior to the state involves a series of relationship between husband and wife, parent

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and child, masters and slaves. Aristotle regards the slave as a piece of life property
having no existence except in relation to his master. Slavery is a natural institution
because there is a ruling and a subject class among people related to each other as
soul and body; however, we must distinguish between those who are slaves by
nature, and those who become slaves merely by war and conquest. Families
combine to make a village, and several villages combine to make a state, which is
the first self-sufficient community. In his doctrine of state, Aristotle also objected
to the communal ownership of wives and property as sketched by Plato in the
Republic. According to him, this view rests on a false conception of political
society. For the state is not a homogeneous unity, as Plato believe, but rather is
made up of dissimilar elements. The classification of constitutions is based on the
fact that government may be exercised either for the good of the governed or of the
governing, and may be either concentrated in one person or shared by a few or by
many. Aristotle went further to outline what he called the ether true forms of
government: monarchy, aristocracy and constitutional republic. The perverted
forms of these, according to Aristotle are tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. The
difference between the last two is not that democracy is a government of the many,
and oligarchy of the few; instead, democracy is a government of the poor, and
oligarchy of the rich. Popular government in the common interest Aristotle calls
“polity”; he reserves the word “democracy” for anarchic mob rule. If a community
contains an individual or family of outstanding excellence, then, Aristotle says,
monarchy is the best constitution. But such a case is very rare, and the risk of
miscarriage is great, for monarchy corrupts into tyranny, which is the worst
constitution of all. Aristocracy, in theory, is the next-best constitution after
monarchy (because the ruling minority will be the best-qualified to rule), but in
practice Aristotle preferred a kind of constitutional democracy, for what he called
“polity” is a state in which rich and poor respect each other’s rights and the best-
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qualified citizens rule with the consent of all.it should take particular care to
exclude from government all those engaged in trade and commerce; “the best state
will not make the “working man” a citizen; it should secure morality through the
educational influences of law and early training.

CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Aristotle’s theory of state has been variously criticized. The first criticism against
his theory of state is it is totalitarian in character. His concept of the state is all-
embracing. The individuals in his state have no separate status. They are
completely merged with the state. Its organic nature reveals the totalitarian feature.
If the individuals are separated from the state they will lose their importance as the
separated parts of human or animal body lose their activity. Critics are of view that
this contention of Aristotle about the relationship between the state and individuals
is unacceptable.
Secondly, in Aristotle’s theory of state, associations or communities have no
separate importance or position. The state or polis embraces all other communities.
They owe their existence to the state. It means that all the communities are merged
in the body of the state. It implies that the polis has absolute control over all
communities. He observes” all forms of community are like parts of political
community”. It is now quite obvious that both the individuals and the community
are integral parts of the polis. This view of state is anti-democratic. We do not
regard individuals or associations as mere appendix parts of the state. In modern
times, the community plays the important part in the field of developing the
personality of individuals.
Thirdly, it is not true that the state or polis is the greatest manifestation of supreme
good. It aims at some good no doubt but not the supreme good. By supreme good

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he means complete human good, the good life of all members of the polis as
distinct from the lesser goods or partial welfare of the individuals. In real life, the
state in no capacity can mold or determine the character of individuals in an
absolute way. The state has a role, but it shares with numerous other communities.
By denying giving importance to the community, he has done injustice to it. When
he says that the polis is the manifestation of supreme good, he wants to assert that
it is an institution of supreme authority. The state, in practical life, is never the
holder of supreme authority.
Although Aristotle does not talk about sovereignty in its absolute sense, his
analysis indicates that he had developed a fascination about absolute nature of
sovereignty. The absolutist character of a state is always inimical to the balanced
development of human personality. In spite of these criticisms something needs to
be said in support of his concept. According to Aristotle the state is not the product
of any contract. It is natural. This does not mean that man has no role behind the
creation of the state. The evolution of man’s consciousness and intelligence has
helped the creation of state.
It has not been made by certain individuals all on a sudden. Efforts of centuries lie
behind the creation of a state. This is the evolutionary theory of state. It is also
called the scientific theory.

Family, community and state—all are perfectly natural. We all agree with this
contention of Aristotle. Even modern thinkers are of opinion that the state is the
final form as a political organization.

THEORY OF SOVEREIGNTY
First of all, sovereign power may be vested in the people as a whole. But this
possibility has not been approved by him on the ground that numerical majority
may create injustice in the state. Majority people will be inclined to distribute the

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property of the rich among themselves. Although this act is justified by law it is
unjust. A tyrant may use force against the interest and wishes of the majority. But
force cannot be the permanent feature of the state. Nor has it any moral basis. The
third alternative suggested by Aristotle is that few wealthy persons may be allowed
to exercise the sovereign power. Here again the greedy wealthy persons with the
help of absolute power will plunder the property and wealth of many.
This is unjust. In the fourth place, the good should rule. In that case, only the good
will dominates the majority and the latter will be deprived of access to state
authority. The fifth alternative, that one man, the best, should rule, is no better, by
making the number of rulers fewer we still leave larger numbers without official
standing. The Greek philosopher has solved the problem by saying that the
sovereign power shall be vested in the hands of the people in general and not in the
hands of few men. It may be that every one of the many is wise and capable of
ruling but when all people assemble together and take decision collectively, their
decision is much better and wiser than the decision of a single wise man. For
where there are many people, each has some share of goodness and intelligence.
That is why the general public is better judge of works of music and poetry. But
Aristotle is not satisfied with this solution. Although the collective judgment is
wiser than the individual judgment, the fact remains that the inferior will rule the
superior. Aristotle apprehended such a possibility and there was reason behind
such apprehension. In many city-states there was popular sovereignty which could
not function properly. In ultimate analysis, laws must govern the society and guide
the behavior of all men and officers. But where the laws are not rightly framed,
people individually and collectively will rule.

Laws, framed according to the constitution, are right and just. Therefore, first of
all, the constitution must be of the right type and any deviation will be unjust.

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Aristotle was aware of the consequences of the rigidity of law. It may result in
injustice. But more injustice will appear from other methods.

ST THOMAS AQUINAS 1225 – 1274

St. Thomas Aquinas, the chief spokesman of medieval scholasticism, was born at
Aquino, a tiny place near Naples and from the name of the place he received the
title Aquinas. But he is better known as Thomas and his thought is known to us as
Thomism. He belonged to an aristocratic Italian family which had connections
with European kings and emperors. In order to be a church father and to devote his
life to the cause of Christianity and study he surrendered his title “Count.” He
joined the Dominican Order at the age of nineteen and for this purpose he had to
fight his family. He studied in Naples, Cologne and Paris and in the last-mentioned
place he delivered several lectures on philosophy and theology. At the age of forty-
eight he died. St. Thomas Aquinas was a voracious reader and voluminous writer.
He wrote about seventy books on various subjects and sizes. He was called in his
time an encyclopedia. In his literary works Thomas has, with an astute mind,
summarized the scholastic philosophy. The most spectacular contribution of
Thomas to scholasticism is “the incorporation of Aristotelianism into Christian
thought. Both Augustine and Thomas helped the development of the church
doctrine.

POLITICAL IDEAS AND CRITICISM OF ST THOMAS AQUINAS

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

St. Thomas Aquinas’ ideas on the nature of human political organization are
contained mainly in his treatise De Regimine Principium that was addressed to the
King of Cyprus, either Hugo I (1252-1267) or Hugo II (1235-1284). Some further
reflections are included in his main work the Summa Philosophiae. For Thomas,

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the formation of human communities is already grounded in the rational nature of
man. In contrast to all other animals that are equipped by nature with cognitive
faculties that are adapted to their specific needs and their specific form of life,
humans possess only the ability to obtain a mere general knowledge of their natural
environment and the things that populate it .2 The interaction of human beings with
particular objects and their local environment is made possible by reason. Reason
enables man to apply the general principles of his acquired knowledge to the local
situation. Since it is not possible for a single human being to exercise this
capability adequately for every aspect of human life, the need for cooperation and
division of labor emerges. This cooperation is rendered possible because humans
are in possession of speech that enables the communication of the contents of their
thoughts from one human to another. The necessity for cooperation also entails the
necessity of organisation and administration because without the latter the
cooperation would disintegrate into random parts. Reason then demands not only
the association of humans into communities, but also the installation of an
administration or a government.
Thomas regards monarchy as the best form of government. However, he
distinguishes monarchy sharply from tyranny: The activity of a monarch is
oriented solely towards the common good, while a tyrant acts according to his
private interest. Here the problem of the treatment of a tyrannical ruler arises. Shall
tyrannical rule be tolerated? Shall one obey the commands of a tyrant, especially if
he demands the commitment of criminal acts or acts contrary to the divine will?
In contrast to St. Augustine, whose position in this matter is, as we will see, more
radical, Thomas thinks that the order that is established by a tyrannical regime is
more preferable than absolute disorder. In a longer passage in the Summa, Thomas
argues that obedience is a cardinal virtue. 3 from this it follows that obedience
towards an unjust ruler is imperative, as long as his orders are not in direct
9
opposition to virtue itself, or to God, i.e., as long as they do not incite someone to
sin. If this, however, is the case, then at least passive disobedience is imperative –
even at the cost of one’s own life –, and it seems that this disobedience can also in
some very special cases justify tyrannicide. 4 If, however, the arbitrariness of the
tyrant is limited to mundane affairs - if for example he forces his subjects to labor
or demands their wealth - then passive disobedience is facultative. According to
Thomas, the only possibility to dispose legitimately of an unjust ruler is to do this
within the framework of an institutional order, either by forcing him to abdicate, if
he has been appointed by popular vote, or by filing a charge against him at a higher
instance, e.g., the emperor or God. From the above it can be concluded that
Thomas regards the nature of the state and of political rule from an Aristotelian
holomorphic point of view, i.e., as the result of the interaction of a formal and a
material principle. The state is conceived by Thomas as an analogy to an
Aristotelian substance, i.e., a living being. In this analogy, the ruler represents the
position of the soul and the people that are ruled by him represent the position of
matter that is organized by the soul to the individual organism. The soul of the
ruler is the formal cause of two substances, of his own existence as a human being
and of the state that he has been appointed to shape and rule.

CRITICISM

sense is itself a matter of common sense. Yet it wants a word of explanation,

because we have so long taken such matters in a very uncommon sense. For good
or evil, Europe since the Reformation, and most especially England since the
Reformation, has been in a peculiar sense the home of paradox. I mean in the very
peculiar sense that paradox was at home, and that men were at home with it. The

10
most familiar example is the English boasting that they are practical because they
are not logical. To an ancient Greek or a Chinaman this would seem exactly like
saying that London clerks excel in adding up their ledgers, because they are not
accurate in their arithmetic. But the point is not that it is a paradox; it is that
paradox has become orthodoxy; those men repose in a paradox as placidly as in a
platitude. It is not that the practical man stands on his head, which may sometimes
be a stimulating if startling gymnastic; it is that he rests on his head; and even
sleeps on his head. This is an important point, because the use of paradox is to
awaken the mind. Take a good paradox, like that of Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Give
us the luxuries of life and we will dispense with the necessities." It is amusing and
therefore arresting; it has a fine air of defiance; it contains a real if romantic truth.
It is all part of the fun that it is stated almost in the form of a contradiction in
terms. But most people would agree that there would be considerable danger in
basing the whole social system on the notion that necessaries are not necessary; as
some have based the whole British Constitution on the notion that nonsense will
always work out as common sense. Yet even here, it might be said that the
invidious example has spread, and that the modern industrial system does really
say, "Give us luxuries like coal-tar soap, and we will dispense with necessities like
corn." So much is familiar; but what is not even now realized is that not only the
practical politics, but the abstract philosophies of the modern world have had this
queer twist. Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody's
system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody's sense of reality; to
what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense. Each started
with a paradox; a peculiar point of view demanding the sacrifice of what they
would call a sane point of view. That is the one thing common to Hobbes and
Hegel, to Kant and Bergson, to Berkeley and William James.

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NICOLO MACHIAVELLI 1469- 1527

Machiavelli was the first thinker who freed political science or theory from the
clutches of religion and morality. He was not interested in high moral or religious
principles. His main concern was power and the practical or political interests of
the state. It would be the primary concern of the prince in particular and
government in general to protect the interests of state. In this connection R. N.
Berki writes: “He is also renowned for being exceptionally outspoken and candid
in his views, writing with a clinical detachment or sometimes even cynicism about
issues. Such as the use of violence and deception in politics”. In other words,
Machiavelli was the first thinker who took an unequivocal stand in regard to the
relationship between religion, morality and virtue on the one hand and politics on
the other. He adopted a very clear stand about politics, religion and morality.

NICOLO MACHIAVELLI POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND CRITICISM

In his theory of nature and succession of the forms of government, presented in the
first chapters of the Discourses, Machiavelli makes use of the Greek historian
Polybius and his idea of anacyclosis. Machiavelli is among the first, in the early
modern world, to use the recently rediscovered Book VI of Polybius’s Histories,
and certainly ‘the first to appreciate Polybius as a political thinker’. He accepts
some of Polybius’s ideas, and yet he deeply modifies them and ultimately rejects
some of the most important consequences of his philosophy of history, especially
on questions of predictability and chance. Polybius defines anacyclosis as the
natural and necessary cycle that happens inside every state, where the different
forms of government – monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and their corrupted
forms tyranny, oligarchy and ochlocracy – follow each other in an endless rhythm.
This endless cycle of birth, life and death of each form of government happens for

12
natural causes (kata physin), following a biological law of development and
corruption. The concatenation of birth, development and death is in fact not only
irreversible, but also predictable for the wiser observer of histories. The destiny of
every political form is included in its very origin since the beginning, and forever
determined according to this law. Machiavelli’s use of Polybius’s theory is
remarkably original, insofar as he accepts the circular structure of historical time,
but radically rejects the rigid necessity underlining the idea of a biological law.
After having summarized Polybius’s idea on the cycle of forms of government,
Machiavelli ruins the certitude based on a narrow naturalistic ground, by
maintaining that it is while revolving in this cycle that all republics are governed
and govern themselves. But rarely do they return to the same governments, for
almost no republic can have so long a life as to be able to pass many times through
these changes and remain on its feet. But indeed, it happens that in its travails, a
republic always lacking counsel and forces becomes subject to a neighboring state
that is ordered better than it; assuming that this were not so, however, a republic
would be capable of revolving for an infinite time in these governments

CRITICISM OF NICOLO MACHIAVELLI POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Many critics of Western political thought prefer to call Machiavelli as the child of
Renaissance. W. T. Jones says “Machiavelli was the child of Florence and of the
Renaissance. All the qualities which characterize his city and his age appear in his
own personality”. An important aspect of Renaissance is that, coming under its
influence, man began to judge and value everything, especially politics, in a new
light. Even they scanned the values such as morality, justice, religion. In the
Middle Ages man was mesmerized by the church, Pope and, above all, by religion.
He had no independent thinking power.

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JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

John Locke (1632-1704) presents an intriguing figure in the history of political

philosophy whose brilliance of exposition and breadth of scholarly activity remains
profoundly influential. Locke proposed a radical conception of political philosophy
deduced from the principle of self-ownership and the corollary right to own
property, which in turn is based on his famous claim that a man earns ownership
over a resource when he mixes his labor with it. Government, he argued, should be
limited to securing the life and property of its citizens, and is only necessary
because in an ideal, anarchic state of nature, various problems arise that would
make life more insecure than under the protection of a minimal state. Locke is also
renowned for his writings on toleration in which he espoused the right to freedom
of conscience and religion (except when religion was deemed intolerant!), and for
his cogent criticism of hereditary monarchy and patriarchalism. After his death, his
mature political philosophy leant support to the British Whig party and its
principles, to the Age of Enlightenment, and to the development of the separation
of the State and Church in the American Constitution as well as to the rise of
human rights theories in the Twentieth Century.

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN LOCKE

Locke’s political philosophy is divided into two discernible eras – his Oxford
period (1652-66) and his Shaftesbury period, when he was employed by Lord
Anthony Ashley-Cooper (later Earl of Shaftesbury) from 1666-1683 through his
final years following Shaftesbury’s death. The ‘two Lockes’ are somewhat
distinguishable and should certainly be born in mind, even if one were to
concentrate solely on his Two Treatises, and ignore his earlier thinking.
Nonetheless, the Treatises, written in his later incarnation should be read not just

14
as classics in their own right but as the mature culmination of Locke’s political
philosophy into an original and insightful theory of government, power, property,
trust, and rights, for there are Lockean continuities in his political thinking that
reach back into his earliest political sketches. For example, scriptural exegesis used
to support his political ideas, and his fear of violence (national and towards him
and his friends), uncertainty, war, and accordingly of any doctrine or behavior that
could lead to unsettling anarchy or persecution.
In a century of religious and civil wars, Locke understandably sought to
explore the limits to toleration that a state should permit its citizens in their choice
and manner of religious expression and worship. Toleration and how men ought to
lead their lives are two central themes to Locke’s entire political philosophy, yet it
is remarkable, if one approaches his works from the Two Treatises, how politically
conservative and accepting he was at Oxford both of the Restoration and Charles’s
later Act of Uniformity. The Two Tracts were penned on the occasion of the
Restoration of the Monarchy, in which Puritans hoped for continued toleration for
their practices and beliefs as they had enjoyed under Cromwell.
Locke’s Two Tracts on Government (1660 and 1662), not published until the
20th Century, form a reply to his fellow student at Christ Church, Edward
Bagshaw, who had published and argued for religious authenticity and a rejection
of the state’s attempt at religious uniformity, and whose friends and pupils had
stolen priests’ surplices in reaction to what they (rightly) perceived as a political
shift towards religious uniformity. Bagshaw was a Presbyterian who was in general
agreement with Locke’s thesis but who vehemently disagreed with the
Anglicanisation of religion that the Act required. Locke begins with how
disruptive the religious “scribblings” of the age have been to his country, pens
causing “as much guilt as their swords.” While acknowledging his respect for both
authority and liberty, Locke prefers to steer a middle path observing that liberty
15
may “turn loose to the tyranny of a religious rage,” unless its outward form is
subjected to the state’s jurisdiction – that is, religious dissent should be subservient
to the need to secure the peace, and thus the people ought to accept the religious
policy of the presiding regimes.
In forming a Commonwealth, Locke argues, in strong Hobbesian echoes, a man
should give up his liberty to the magistrate, “and [entrust] the magistrate with as
full a power over all his actions as he himself hath.” Avoiding any discussion of
the divine right to rule (which he later takes up in the Two Treatises), Locke claims
that the magistrate ought to be the sole judge, even if elected by the people, of
‘matters indifferent’ – i.e., the form and manner in which a people worship. Not
only should such matters be given up to the wisdom of the magistrate but the
people are also obliged to obey. Christ commanded obedience, he notes, and after
all, the magistrate looks to the public welfare, while the individual citizen seeks
only his own interest. Implicatively, self-interested pursuit in resolving ‘matters
indifferent’ would lead to clashes were they not put in the hands of the magistrate –
the ruler.
CRITICISM OF JOHN LOCKES POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Hume’s criticism of self-interested pursuits. Some actions we deem moral, Locke
remarks, can be personally costly – such as generosity and friendship, and while
private profit may enrich some at the expense of others, “justice in one does not
take equity away in another.” Similarly, if all were to pursue their own interest that
would imply that the individual would judge his own affairs and that can only lead
to chaos, fraud, violence, and hatred.
CONCLUSION
Politics, an essential social phenomenon which plays a great role in the
administration, of a group, area, people, organization has been researched by many
scholars, thinkers, political enthusiasts. The various views and discoveries of these
16
thinkers represent what we refer to politics in the world today. Politics is socio
political phenomenon which the great minds have research and postulated many
ideas and philosophies to its effect. These ideas, some of which over time have
proved useful or abortive as the case may be through various critics and
interpretations by political thinkers, political scientist and theorists who have come
long after the likes of Aristotle, nicolo Machiavelli, St Thomas Aquinas and John
Locke. The ideas of these great minds represent the stepping stone of whatever we
regard as politics, political practices and or political science today. They have
contributed immensely to the study and development of politics over time and all
over the world.

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