Aristоtle, excerpts frоm The Pоlitics [From Politics Books I аnd II, trаns. with а commentary by Trevor J. Saunders (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995), 2—3. Once again, this is strongly edited for clarity and substance. Background: Remember Aristotle is Greek, and while he is making a very strong and important argument here, think about the possibility that his vision of “man is a political animal” assumes the Greek way of life (the city-state) to be the only way this happens. Could we fit Montaigne’s cannibals (tribal societies) into this ideal, modern Americans (nation-states), or other types of societies? We are also seeing here the importance of the active citizen who participates in the life of the state, or what Aristotle calls other places “the republic”. Text follows: In politics as in other fields, we have to understand things by looking at their natural growth from their beginnings. First, those things that are incomplete on their own and incapable of continuing to exist without each other must unite. For example, (a) the union of male and female, for the propagation of the species (and this is not at all a choice but rather, as we also see in plants and animals, the instinct to leave behind offspring, and therefore part of nature); and (b) those things which are superior by nature and those which are ruled, which again is for the preservation of the whole. For example, those that can use intellect to look ahead are by nature ruler and master to others, while those which have the bodily strength to labor are ruled and are by nature servants. Hence master and servant benefit from the same thing. The family (the home and hearth) is composed of these two associations: one male and female and the other of master and servant. Question: try to connect the family as a ‘natural association’ to conservative politics today. Brainstorm how using your own thoughts! Question: to me, the argument that men and women must unite (biological argument) and seems a lot stronger than the argument that some are meant to be masters by nature and other servants (social argument, based on where you are born, i.e. random). Is this a problem for Aristotle? Could it be fixed? For nature produces nothing without reason and gives to each and everything a proper purpose (telos): for every tool will be made best if it performs just one task. Non-Greeks, however, assign to female and slave the same status, which is a mistake. This is because they do not have that greater association of those who naturally rule in the state, so that the association of male and female becomes confused with those of master and servant. Question: why do you think Aristotle argues that without the state, the other social relationships become confused? That’s a fascinating argument! He may or may not be right, but it’s quite interesting. Try to explain his logic clearly and in your own words! It was from these two associations that the household first arose, and Hesiod was right in his poetry when he said, 'first of all a house and a wife and an ox to draw the plough.' (The ox is the poor man's servant.) So, this association formed according to nature of these needs and purposes is the household, the members of which the other poets call ‘bread-fellows’ or ‘companions’. But one home, one hearth, while sufficient to procreate one family cannot procreate the species, nor provide all the goods necessary for preservation of the household on its own. Thus we need an association of many households for the satisfaction of other than daily needs, and this is called a village. The village seems to be by nature a kind of colony of households—children and grandchildren, brothers, cousins, and of course, this between many different families so they may marry their children to each other and through the division of labor provide other things that are needed from all to each and from each to all. Question: explain how this paragraph expands on the argument from the first paragraph that things that are incomplete on their own must combine. What do you think he means by ‘division of labor’ and what kinds of goods might be necessary? Think about modern economies, what kinds of things do we need in the house, that we cannot produce there? The power of the father in the family is why states were at first ruled by kings (as are some nations to this day): they were formed from persons who were under kingly rule. For every household is under the kingly rule of its most senior member; so too the colonies, because of the kinship. This is what is mentioned in Homer: 'Each one lays down the law to children and wives. ' For they were scattered; and that is how they dwelt in ancient times. For this reason the gods too are said by everyone to be governed by a king—namely because men themselves were originally ruled by kings and some are so still. Men model the gods' forms on themselves, and similarly their way of life too. Question: do fathers ‘really’ have all this power in the family? Have all societies through all time been this way? But the only complete association, which is composed of many villages all together, is the state, which is the only one to achieve complete self-sufficiency. But while it comes into existence for the sake of life, it exists for the sake of the good life, so that individuals may demonstrate their civic virtue and fathers may pass the traditions of the community to their sons. Therefore the state itself exists by nature, since the first associations did too. For this association is their end, and nature is an end; for whatever each thing is in character when its coming into existence has been completed, that is what we call the nature of each thing—of a man, for instance, or a horse or a house. Moreover, the aim, i.e. the end, is best; and self-sufficiency is both end and best. The end of man (telos) is therefore to live in a state, to be a citizen, and his highest nature is therefore political. Only those with reason who can see and act on the common good, and that can take turns ruling and being ruled, should be citizens. This is a relationship of equality where all have the right to speak, and the dignity to be a part of the state. Question: is this ideal of the active citizen liberal, conservative, or both? What do you think? Question: connect this to virtue ethics (we are back to Aristotle, after all), but notice here how he also focuses on the role of the citizen. How is the role of citizen (ruling and being ruled) different from the role of husband-wife, master-servant, or simply embodying the social qualities of your society? For example, what is the difference between being household companions (as Aristotle said above) and being citizens? These considerations make it clear, then, that the state is one of those things which exists by nature, and that man is by nature an animal fit for to be part of the state. Those who by luck or bad fortune have no state are either deprived of their true nature or superhuman; they are akin to the man Homer spoke of as having ‘neither brotherhood, nor law, nor even a home’: because without the protection of the state he is isolated like a pawn in a game of chess, and must always be ready to fight as his life is continually subject to mortal danger. Question: think about the Homer quote here, “neither brotherhood, nor law, not even a home”. Given Aristotle’s argument, how does having a state preserve and maintain these three things? Explain best you can. Machiavelli on the Few and the Many But, someone may object, the means used were extraordinary and almost barbaric. Look how people used to assemble and clamor against the Senate and how the Senate decried the people, how men ran helter-skelter about the streets, how the shops were closed and how the plebs en masse would troop out of Rome—events which terrify, to say the least, anyone who read about them. To which I answer that every city should provide ways and means whereby the ambitions of the populace may find outlet, especially in a city which proposes to avail itself of the populace in important undertakings. The city of Rome was one…when the populace wanted a law passed, it either behaved as I have describes or it refused to enlist for the wars, so that, to placate it, it had to be satisfied to some extent. From: The Discourses on the History of Livy Montesquieu on the Few and the Many There is a kind of hidden war in all cities, but writers only say that these divisions would cause Rome to be lost but nobody sees that these divisions were necessary, that they were always there and that they should always be there…what is called the unity of the political body is something truly equivocal: the real is a union of harmony which makes all the parts, however opposed they may seem, coincide to the common good of society; just as dissonance in music makes the agreement of a chord. From: Considerations of the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline Question: Connect these passages to the distinction between the few and the many. What are Machiavelli and Montesquieu saying about the role of conflict in maintaining the republic? Is it good or bad?