Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy: On the Relationship between His Ethics and Politics

193 Pages·2017·2.06 MB·English

by  Emma Cohen de Lara

Emma Cohen de Lara · René Brouwer
Editors
Aristotle’s
Practical
Philosophy
On the Relationship between His Ethics
and Politics
Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy
Emma Cohen de Lara • René Brouwer
Editors
Aristotle’s Practical
Philosophy
On the Relationship between His Ethics
and Politics
Editors
Emma Cohen de Lara René Brouwer
Amsterdam University College University of Utrecht
Amsterdam, The Netherlands Utrecht, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-319-64824-8 ISBN 978-3-319-64825-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64825-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954370
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
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Contents
1 Introduction ............................................... 1
Emma Cohen de Lara and René Brouwer
2 Aristotle’s Politics: Ethical Politics or Political Realism? .......... 13
Emma Cohen de Lara
3 Aristotle’s Politikos: Statesmanship, Magnanimity,
and the Rule of the Many .................................... 35
Patrick Overeem
4 Justice in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics ........................ 51
René Brouwer
5 A Distinction with a Difference: Aristotle’s Division
of Particular Justice and Its Practical Significance ............... 65
Andrei Poama
6 Is Human Virtue a Civic Virtue? A Reading of Aristotle’s
Politics 3.4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
L.K. Gustin Law
7 Between Friendship and Self-sufficiency. The Possibility
of “Human Flourishing” in the Relationship Between
Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics: A Multifocal Approach ............ 119
Arianna Fermani
8 Perfect Friendship in the Political Realm.
A Philosophical Trait-d’Union between
the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics ........................... 129
Elena Irrera
v
vi Contents
9 How Political Are Virtue and Happiness?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Micah Lott
10 A Political Interpretation of Aristotle’s Ethics ................... 171
Brian J. Collins
General Index ................................................. 187
Index Locorum ................................................ 189
Chapter 1
Introduction
Emma Cohen de Lara and René Brouwer
In the twenty-first century ethics and politics are used to refer to two distinct disci-
plines that are usually studied in separation of one another. Aristotle, however, dis-
cussed ethics and politics together as part of practical philosophy that is concerned
with good action. Indeed, modern commentators have pointed out that Aristotle
does not delineate a separate discipline called ethics but that there is only one sphere
of political expertise that has the human good as its end.1 At several points in the
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle indeed explicitly connects the study of ethics and
politics. In the early parts of the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that students of
politics should study virtue in order to make their fellow citizens good and obedient
to the laws (1.13 1102a7–9). Near the end of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
explicitly transitions to the Politics by proposing that the next topic to be examined
is that of legislation, since “legislators ought to stimulate men to virtue” (10.9
1180a6–7). He continues by listing many of the topics, such as the causes of preser-
vation and destruction of states and the question of the best regime, that are addressed
in the Politics (10.9 1181b16–23).
The connections between the texts thus invite the reader to read the Ethics and
the Politics in parallel with one another.2 Interestingly enough, in modern scholar-
ship this has not always been common practice: philosophy departments have
tended to claim the Ethics, whereas in the social sciences the focus has been on the
Politics. This changed in the early seventies and eighties, when scholars such as
1 Cashdollar 1973, 146, Vander Waerdt 1991, 232, Bodéüs 1993, 40.
2 We use Ethics here to refer to the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) and the Eudemian Ethics (EE), even
though most contributions in this volume focus on the Nicomachean Ethics.
E. Cohen de Lara (*)
Amsterdam University College, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
R. Brouwer
Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1
E. Cohen de Lara, R. Brouwer (eds.), Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64825-5_1
2 E. Cohen de Lara and R. Brouwer
Cashdollar, Adkins, and Bodéüs challenged the disciplinary separation when it
comes to studying Aristotle’s texts, arguing that in order to do justice to Aristotle’s
philosophy both texts should be read together. As a result, over the last few decades
an increasing number of scholars have studied the texts in tandem, either reading the
Ethics as part of Aristotle’s political science broadly understood or reading the
Politics with Aristotle’s ethics as the foundation. The texts were increasingly seen to
be complementary.
And, yet, even though the connections between Aristotle’s texts are explicit, it
cannot be said that there is a smooth relationship between them. The Nicomachean
Ethics is a treatise dealing with human happiness, virtue, pleasure, and friendship
and seems to postulate the contemplative life as superior to the active, political life.
The Politics offers a classification of different political orderings – the best ones, the
most practical ones, and the most prevalent ones – and even though the best regimes
and laws are aimed at the development of virtue, Aristotle oftentimes appears to
operate with the understanding that politics is concerned with power, ambition and
self-interest instead of noble public action. The Nicomachean Ethics offers political
expertise but, nevertheless, political considerations are mostly absent. And the
Politics contains no systematic account of how to relate the doctrine of the Ethics to
the divergent ends promoted by the various regimes or of the practical use the law-
giver is to make of this doctrine when legislating. There seem to be too many ten-
sions, omissions, gaps and even contradictions between the texts to allow for an
easy association of ethics to politics in Aristotle’s thinking.
In other words, reading the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics together opens up
the question of whether and how the texts relate to one another. Scholarly interpreta-
tions range from understanding both texts to be fundamentally interrelated – we
may call this the unity-thesis – to understanding both texts to be in tension with one
another on important points – we may call this the separation-thesis. In this intro-
duction, we argue that further reflection on the question is warranted and show how
the contributions in this volume work towards the end of clarifying the
relationship.
As already mentioned, both Cashdollar and Adkins have done much to affirm the
unity-thesis. According to Cashdollar, Aristotle conceived of the political art as a
pedagogical art. Hence, political inquiry was naturally directed towards understand-
ing happiness and ways to make progress towards this goal, positioning the Ethics as
a natural subject for understanding politics.3 Adkins focused on the “function-” or
ergon-argument in defining the relationship between the Ethics and Politics, which
would “bind[s] together Aristotle’s ethical and political thought.”4 Adkins argued
forcefully that both texts should be read together: “I do not deny that there are differ-
ences of emphasis between the Ethics and Politics, nor that these may create some
serious philosophical problems; but for the understanding of Aristotle’s ethicopoliti-
cal thought, the resemblances and continuities are much more important”.5
3 Cashdollar 1973, 146.
4 Adkins 1984, 47
5 Adkins 1984, 30.
1 Introduction 3
Richard Bodéüs also favours the close relationship between the texts, arguing
that the “unity of purpose … clearly governs the elaboration of the two Ethics and
of the Politics”.6 In his interpretation, the Ethics provides the ethical principles for
the organization of the communities in the Politics, and both texts are addressed at
the lawgiver (nomothetēs). The unity of purpose is defined by understanding each
text as providing additional insights for the lawgiver who aims to make the mem-
bers of the city good and just. Following Bodéüs in important respects, David Keyt
and Fred Miller argue that Aristotle may have disentangled ethics and politics by
writing separate texts, but there is no attempt to substantively disconnect them. Keyt
and Miller find in the standard of justice the linchpin that holds the texts together:
“Both Plato and Aristotle are intent on finding a standard of justice by means of
which all the various forms of government may be ranked, and both maintain that a
primary aim of a just government is to produce just men and women”.7
Supporting the unity approach, Malcolm Schofield provides one of the most
accessible accounts of the relationship between the Ethics and Politics. Schofield
argues that the Politics constitutes Aristotle’s “project of ethical politics”.8 In his
reading, Aristotle considers man to be a political animal who flourishes by develop-
ing moral and intellectual virtues on account of participating in the life of the city.
Moreover, the lawgiver is meant to promote happiness by developing laws and cus-
toms that train the virtue of the members of the polis. What it means to flourish as a
human being is articulated in the Ethics, while the laws and life of the city are
developed in the Politics.
Indeed, in different ways, most scholars today presuppose that the texts are com-
plementary. They argue that either the Politics should be read in light of the Ethics,
or the Ethics should be read with the Politics in mind. Richard Kraut, for example,
states that Aristotle’s “political thought depends crucially on his ethical theory”.9 He
argues that the Ethics and the Politics follow in a logical progression with the for-
mer establishing the foundation of politics and the latter providing the further details
that allows his examination of human well-being to be put into practice.10 Gisela
Striker reverses the relationship and argues that the Ethics should be read in light of
the Politics. The Ethics is “part of a larger enterprise”.11 A person becomes a better
moral agent not merely on account of understanding the virtues but, especially, on
account of living in a city where legislators seek to promote virtue and establish
civic friendship amongst the citizens.12 According to Striker, the key to the relation-
ship lies in the fact that “like Plato, Aristotle considers the law as a means of moral
6 Bodéüs 1993, 3.
7 Keyt and Miller 1991, 1. Höffe 2001, 13 also argues that Aristotle develops a normative founda-
tion for both ethics and politics in the Nicomachean Ethics, but stresses that Aristotle understood
ethics and politics as separate disciplines of equal importance.
8 Schofield 2006, 310.
9 Kraut 2002, vii.
10 Kraut 2002, 4.
11 Striker 2006, 138.
12 Striker 2006, 136–7.
4 E. Cohen de Lara and R. Brouwer
education”.13 Dorothea Frede likewise prefers a reading of the Ethics that is framed
by keeping Aristotle’s aim of the statesman as moral educator in mind.14
Even more recently, Adriel Trott likewise confirms the close connection between
the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics by arguing that Aristotle explicitly indi-
cates in both texts that reason or speech (logos) is natural to human life. Reasoned
activity fulfills and perfects us as human beings and, in an analogous way, the city
fulfills itself by political deliberation. On Trott’s account, even Aristotle’s under-
standing of the variety of regimes and the causes of revolutions in the middle sec-
tions of the Politics can be read as an attempt by Aristotle to increasingly bring the
different regimes closer to his conception of a political community that aims to
include all who have the capacity to deliberate in the constitution.15
At the same time, the consensus about the harmonious relationship between the
Ethics and Politics remains inconclusive and even those who support the unity-
thesis tend to offer critical reservations. Richard Kraut, for example, cautions that
we should “not dogmatically assume that Aristotle’s philosophy forms a unity, that
we look for change and perhaps even conflict in his writings – is one that students
of the Politics must take seriously”.16 Adriel Trott adheres to the unity-thesis but
acknowledges the lack of a systematic relationship between the texts. Hence, she
admits, understanding the relationship requires a certain level of “reconstruction”
and of reading the texts “creatively”.17 Other scholars point out that Aristotle in the
Politics does not fully accomplish what he promises in the final sections of the
Nicomachean Ethics and argue that Aristotle had intended to add a discourse on the
regimes that would articulate the way in which the virtues, education, and laws vary
according to the divergent ends promoted by the different regime.18 This would
confirm the unity-thesis but not without a certain level of speculation about what
Aristotle could have written but did not.
Apart from offering critical considerations, there are other scholars who seri-
ously challenge the extent of the interconnectedness between the texts. This way of
reading the Ethics and Politics, supporting the separation-thesis, goes way back to
the late nineteenth century, when Wilhelm Oncken articulated the problem of the
middle sections of the Politics. These middle sections, as Oncken argued, convey a
more empirical and scientific account of politics that sits uneasily with the norma-
tive idealism of the remainder of the text. Oncken’s thesis is that Aristotle added
books 4–6 after completing books 7–8. Books 7–8 introduced the best regime based
on virtue but Aristotle, so argues Oncken, came to realize that the best regime was
really a “castle in the sky” that demanded too much from the virtue of the average
person.19 Aristotle, therefore, wrote the middle sections in order to introduce the
13 Striker 2006, 138.
14 Frede 2013, 16.
15 Trott 2014, 172.
16 Kraut 2002, 183.
17 Trott 2014, 12.
18 Vander Waerdt 1991, 231; cf. Frede 2013, 33.
19 Oncken 1875, 220–5.