This week, I am looking at Aristotle’s Politics, probably the most important book on political philosophy from the ancient world. Aristotle’s views are important, not only in their own right, but because they profoundly influenced the greatest of the Middle Age philosophers, St. Thomas Aquinas, through which Aristotle has continuing influence in Roman Catholic and other intellectual circles today. Pragmatists have appreciated Aristotle’s approach to politics when compared with the idealism of Plato. A generation of contemporary ethicists and political philosophers, such as Alister McIntyre, have been influenced by Aristotle’s virtue approach to politics and ethics in attempting to address modern nihilism. In other words, Aristotle is worth reading.
Aristotle was born in Macedonia. His father was a court physician for Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II of Macedonia. Aristotle lived beyond the reign of Alexander, who was his pupil for a time. When Alexander died, his empire was divided, and the parts were eventually incorporated into the Roman Empire. As a result of repercussions of Alexander’s death in Athens, Aristotle was forced to flee in order to avoid the same fate that overtook Socrates—an untimely death.
Aristotle’s work is the concluding achievement of Classical Greek civilization. Aristotle, unlike Plato, does not begin by attempting to outline a perfect society but by describing the various kinds and types of polities with which he is familiar. In this sense, Aristotle is a “bottom up” inductive thinker. His reasoning is careful and his recommendations measured. As a result of his approach, his politics is easier to follow than that of Plato.
A modern reader will find aspects of Aristotle’s thought troubling. He defends the institution of slavery, despite misgivings. His notion of the family places males in control of family life. He is dismissive about the capacities of women. Like Plato, Aristotle inherits the ancient martial Greek ideal from the Iliad that forms part of his understanding of politics differently than that of a modern person. Nevertheless, his work is illuminating and important.
Types of Governments
The most famous observation in Aristotle’s Politics is his division of governments into three basic types: the rule of one (monarchy), the rule of the few (oligarchy), and the rule of the many (democracy). Each of these types have a corresponding decadent form: tyranny for monarchy, oligarchy for aristocracy, and mob rule for democracy. Each form in its positive embodiment tends to deteriorate into its negative form. Historically, each of the six governments has existed and continues in some form to exist today.
Graphically, one might picture Aristotle’s description as follows: [1]
| Good Form | Decadent form | Comment |
| Monarchy | Tyranny | Rule by one |
| Aristocracy | Oligarchy | Rule by the able |
| Moderate Democracy | Mob Rule | Rule by the many |
The American founders, and especially Madison and the most important framers of our Constitution, were familiar with Aristotle and with his concerns for Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Mob Rule. One reason why the notion of Separation of Powers was important to them was the desire to block the emergence of tyranny, oligarchy, or mob rule.
On the other hand, the framers of the Constitution were aware of the need for a strong executive, wise and experienced counsel, and representation of all. Their initial way of assuring the positive aspects of Aristotle’s categories was the Presidency (strong executive), the Senate (wise counsel chosen by local leadership), and the House of Representatives (democratic representation). One might add that a wise federal court system is an aristocratic feature of almost every system of government, since all governments must have laws.
The Social Foundation of Government
Aristotle understood that the development of political structures is contextual and the precise nature of a sound polity will differ from city/state to city/state. Like Plato, Aristotle sees the family as the original political unit of society. After the family, small villages composed of the descendants of a single family evolved. In Aristotle’s mind, when villages gather together to form a single society, one has the best possible form of government. Such a society is on a human scale. In addition, such a society protects the family as the foundation of all healthy human society. The city/state and empires evolve from the smaller units that preceded them.
According to Aristotle, the family is the fundamental unit of any sound society. He thinks that natural parents are the best persons, indeed the only citizens who can and will properly raise their children. He thinks that those philosophers that advocate that all children in a society being in common are engaged in foolishness. As Aristotle aptly observes: “Let each citizen then in the state have a thousand children, but let none of them be considered as the children of that individual, but let the relation of father and child be common to them all, and they will all be neglected.” [2]
Aristotle believes that the evolution of the city/state was a natural result of the human social impulse. Human beings are by nature social animals. [3] Aristotle quotes Homer for the view that a human being who is without a society, without a social surrounding, without a family, is really not fully human. People who grow up without a healthy family influence are inevitably at least somewhat antisocial, quarrelsome, and socially irrational. Those who grow up without a family or in seriously dysfunctional families lack the fundamental emotional and moral qualities needed for a sound society. Thus, it is important for to protect and properly structure human family relations. We might not agree with the precise way in which Aristotle suggests that families be structured, but his insight remains valid.
The Importance of the Middle Class
Although Aristotle appears to prefer a form of aristocracy, he actually speaks favorably about a mixed form of government containing elements of all three of his basic types. He recognizes that this kind of government is difficult to achieve without a strong, vibrant middle-class. Without a strong middle class, there is a tendency for governments to degenerate into either oligarchy or mob rule.
This is a feature of Aristotle’s thinking that contemporary Americans also need to consider carefully. Over recent decades, the American middle class has consistently shrunk as a percentage of the population. During this same period, American society has developed attributes of a kind of oligarchical rule. Under these circumstances, a vibrant democracy is difficult to maintain.
Moral Foundation of the City/State
Another feature of Aristotle’s thinking that deserves consideration is the importance of moral qualities in leaders and in society as a whole. Aristotle does not believe any form of government can succeed unless its leaders and citizens are properly educated and have the requisite skills to make wise decisions. Without literacy, judgment, and understanding of public policy, and a respect for the foundations of a society, a stable government is impossible to sustain.
Aristotle is a realist concerning human nature and human weaknesses. Human beings are flawed; and therefore, all human endeavors are flawed, including human governments. Therefore, it is not enough for those who would have a good government to concentrate of human potential. There must also be a dispassionate examination of the reality of the human situation.
Aristotle’s views of politics are related to his ethics in a fundamental way: ethics is related to politics, and politics related to ethics. Aristotle did not separate, as modern thinkers are inclined to do, the practical art of governing (“real politik”) and morality (“idealism”). Because human beings are social, there can be no division between politics and morality. As indicated earlier, the state exists because families gathered together to provide a kind of secure life impossible without social intercourse. Sound morals can only arise in sound families and societies, and sound government, can only arise where there are sound human beings. Governments, when they are good, make a good life possible for individuals. No government can endure if it is led by the violent, the immoral, or the unjust.
This is yet another aspect of Aristotle with contemporary relevance. As I have mentioned before, modern politics, and especially since Marx, has been dominated by the hope of an earthly paradise in which all the problems of human society and history are solved and a just society achieved once and for all. In this sense, modernity is platonic. Wisdom and attention to the reality of the human situation argues for another approach, embodied in Aristotle’s thought: slow, wise progress founded in an appreciation of human weaknesses as well as human potential.
The Role of Education in the Good Society
It logically flows from Aristotle’s views of the family, raising children, and the importance of character, that the education of citizens and leaders cannot be ignored. Aristotle does not believe, as moderns often do, that education is the be all and end all of human advancement. Education alone cannot create neither good citizens nor wise legislators. Thus, “…whosoever shall introduce any education, and think thereby to make his city excellent and respectable, will be absurd, while he expects to form it by such regulations, and not by manners, philosophy, and laws.” [4] Aristotle understood the limits of education, but nevertheless recognized its importance, especially for a functioning republic. [5]
The problem with relying upon education for the stability of society is that education alone cannot form character. This is particularly true for modern “value free” education. Unfortunately, our American system of education not only does a poor job of transmitting the history, traditions, and moral values of our society, it too frequently consciously or unconsciously undermines them. The problem of political violence in our culture is exacerbated by a kind of nihilist education, particularly prevalent in the liberal arts, that undermines all belief in the reality of love, beauty, truth, justice, goodness, courage and the other virtues. Aristotle, however, recognized that a stable state of whatever kind required leadership and citizenry educated in the history, traditions, virtues, and values of the society.
A Political System as Evolutionary and Adaptive
Plato, as mentioned in a previous blog, has a static view of the good society. His search is for an unchanging ideal. Aristotle has an “evolutionary” notion of society. He recognizes that change and adaptation is inevitable and necessary. Thus,
Nor is it, moreover, right to permit written laws always to remain without alteration; for as in all other sciences, so in politics, it is impossible to express everything in writing with perfect exactness; for when we commit anything to writing we must use general terms, but in every action there is something particular to itself, “which these may not comprehend; from whence it is evident, that certain laws will at certain times admit of alterations. [6]
Despite this acknowledgement of the need for laws to change because of changing circumstances, Aristotle does not think it wise to change existing laws without good cause:
“For a law derives all its strength from custom, and this requires long time to establish; so that, to make it an easy matter to pass from the established laws to other new ones, is to weaken the power of laws.” [7]
The wise legislator is both willing to change laws when necessary and reluctant to do so without good cause.
There is a balance to be drawn between the conservative impulse to maintain the status quo and the liberal impulse to change things. A wise leader and government manages the pace and degree of change with the goal of adapting the system to change as well as creating necessary and important change.
Teleology and Political Ideals
This aspect of Aristotle’s thought coordinates with his teleology. Aristotle believed that things tend towards their proper end, including human society. Modern thought tends to be interested only in material causes, powered by a kind of evolutionary faith that those who succeed are those favored by the path of survival of the fittest. Both ideas are important to consider and combine in one’s thinking.
However true in the arena of biological evolution, is a flawed approach to politics and human life. As I like to observe, “If the human race destroys itself in a nuclear holocaust, it will turn out that cockroaches and sharks are the fittest because they might survive.” Because we are conscious beings, created in the image of God, human beings have the capacity to create and form a future inspired by faith, hope, love, fortitude, truth, justice, and temperance. Thus, no purely mechanistic or evolutionary approach to human society can succeed—in fact it is doomed to create foolishness and suffering, as Communist and “Social Darwinist” regimes clearly show.
Aristotle’s approach to government begins with the “teleological” goal of a society in which people can achieve the ends for which they were naturally created—the good life. This aspect of his thought needs to be recovered in a post-modern form. Going back to an observation of a couple of weeks ago, C.S. Peirce divided evolutionary growth into three kinds: chance, order, and love. This love part he called, “agapistic” evolution. The notion that a kind of self-giving, justice-loving, truth-seeking, preserving and adapting, love may be part of the evolution of the world allows the observation that human societal evolution needs to be guided by a kind of agapistic search for a good society in which all can achieve their potential. This, however, is the subject of a future blog.
Copyright 2020, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved
[1] I have chosen “Moderate Democracy” for the good form of democracy that Aristotle calls, “Polity” and “Mob Rule” for the decadent form Democracy, because Aristotle’s language is so much different than modern language. He uses “Democracy” for the unbridled rule of the masses, often irrational, moved easily to violence, and imprudent. He uses “Polity” for the form of government we would call “Republican Democracy”
[2] Aristotle, Politics: A Treatise on Government Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/politics-a-treatise-on-government/id395545349(downloaded September 7, 2020). Aritotle is dismissive of Plato’s radical and unworkable ideas concerning marriage, family, and child-raising. The parts of the Politics in which this is discussed contains some of his most acerbic comments.
[3] If Aristotle’s most famous idea is the division of kinds of political systems, his most famous quote is, “Man is a social animal.”
[4] Aristotle, “Politics: A Treatise on Government.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/politics-a-treatise-on-government/id395545349(downloaded September 7, 2020).
[5] This aspect of Aristotle’s thinking is also relevant to the modern “regulatory state.” Regulations are necessary as a part of government, but they cannot by themselves create the character and circumstances in which a good society develops and endures.
[6] Aristotle, “Politics: A Treatise on Government.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/politics-a-treatise-on-government/id395545349(downloaded September 7, 2020).
[7] Excerpt From: Aristoteles. “Politics: A Treatise on Government.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/politics-a-treatise-on-government/id395545349 (downloaded September 7, 2020).