The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought

364 Pages·1993·2.85 MB·English

by  Bernard Yack

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Problems of a Political Animal
Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought
Bernard Yack
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley • Los Angeles • London

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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1993 by
The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yack, Bernard, 1952-
The problems of a political animal : community, justice, and conflict in Aristotelian
political thought / Bernard Yack.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-08166-8 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0-520-08167-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Aristotle—Contributions in political science. 2. Community. 3. Justice.
4. Social conflict. I. Title.
JC71.A7Y34 1993
320'.01'1—dc20 92-23296
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

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In memory of Judith Nisse Shklar (1929–1992)

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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Political Community as a Term of Distinction 6
Distorted Images of Aristotelian Politics 10
Interpretive Approaches 18
1. Community 25
The Communal Animal 27
The Forms of Friendship and Justice 33
Aristotelian Community and Modern Social Theory 43
2. Political Community 51
The Defining Characteristics of Political Community 53
The Political Animal 62
The Ancient Polis and Modern Political Communities 71
Appendix. Monarchy and Political Community 85
3. Political Teleology 88
The Naturalness of the Polis 90
Politics and the Good Life 96
An Anthropocentric Universe? 100
The Good Life in Imperfect Political Communities 102
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4. Political Friendship 109
Neither Brothers nor Comrades 110
The Dangers of Political Intimacy 118
Political Friendship and the Inconveniences of Political Life 122

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5. Political Justice 128
Political Justice and Reciprocity 133
Natural and Conventional Right 140
The Subject of Justice 149
General and Distributive Justice 157
A Political Conception of the Common Good 166
6. The Rule of Law 175
What Is Law? 178
Adjudication 184
A Political Conception of the Rule of Law 194
7. Class Conflict and the Mixed Regime 209
Class Conflict in Ancient Greece 210
A Political Understanding of Class Conflict 215
Perceived Injustice and Class Interests 218
Political Friends, Class Enemies 224
The Mixed Regime and Political Justice 231
Appendix. "Political Revolution": A Missing Aristotelian Category 239
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8. The Good Life in Political Context 242
Moral Character in Political Context 243
Misfortune and the Asymmetry Between Praise and Blame 251
Moral Conflict in Political Context 259
9. The Good Life in Extrapolitical Context 268
How Good Is the Aristotelian Good Life? 269
The Tensions Within a Good Human Life 277
Conclusion 281
Bibliography 285
Index of Citations from Aristotle's Works 301
General Index 305

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Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of arguments presented in chapters 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9 have appeared in articles published
in The Review of Politics 47, no. 1 (Jan. 1985): 92–112; History of Political Thought 12 (1991): 15–34;
Political Theory 18 (May 1990): 16–37; and Soundings 72, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 607–29. I'd like to
thank these journals for allowing me to alter and reprint portions of these articles.
I owe a great debt to all those friends and colleagues who read parts of this book as it developed over
the years and who shared their insights with me. I'd especially like to thank Peter Euben, William
Galston, Harvey Goldman, Jack Gunnell, Don Herzog, Stephen Holmes, Bernard Manin, Harvey C.
Mansfield, Jr., Martha Nussbaum, Stephen Salkever, Arlene Saxonhouse, Lauren Schulz, Gary
Shiffman, Judith Shklar, and Jeffrey Stout.
It has been my great good fortune in life to be able to share my ideas with Marion Smiley. In good
times and bad, her extraordinary intelligence and intellectual honesty have been my constant inspiration.

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Introduction
The shared sentiments and commitments that constitute a community are often the source of its deepest
conflicts. Anyone who has lived in a family rather than merely longed for a home knows that all too
well. Strangers may cheat you, but only brothers or sisters, comrades or colleagues can betray you. In
the end, intense and ugly forms of distrust and conflict are part of the price we pay for the pleasures of
communal life.
Aristotle, unlike many of his contemporary followers, is deeply aware of the special conflicts associated
with human communities. The intensity of our conflicts, he notes, increases with the closeness of our
relationships. Anger is something that individuals "express more strongly against their companions,
when they think they have been treated unjustly…. Hence the sayings 'Cruel are the wars of brothers'
and 'Those who love extravagantly will hate extravagantly as well.' … And it is reasonable," Aristotle
concludes, "that this should happen. For, in addition to the injury, they also consider themselves robbed
of this [companionship]" (Politics [hereafter Pol.] 1328a10).1
Critics of modern liberal democracies often invoke Aristotle's understanding of political community
when they complain that our political
1. See Aristotle, Rhetoric 1379b2 and Nicomachean Ethics 1160a3, for similar remarks. Like Georg
Simmel, Aristotle is familiar with "the wholly disproportionate violence to which normally well-
controlled people can be moved within their relations to those closest to them"; G. Simmel, Conflict,
43–44.

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