Abstract
In this chapter I explore the possibility that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics are parts of a unitary project of investigation. I propose that Aristotle’s pivotal goal is to supply the addressees of his works with adequate theoretical understanding of both the most relevant principles for a good human life and the strategies through which these values are to be effectively realized. The project worked out by Aristotle is ultimately of political nature, given that the education of people to virtue is best carried out by means of an expertise of political kind. Then, I explore some aspects of Aristotle’s theory of friendship and propose that his notion of “political friendship” conceptualized in books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics can be adopted as an adequate conceptual tool for an exploration of some relationships between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Although political friendship is mostly based on utility, the best possible realization of such an ideal is patterned on the model of friendship between equally good persons who share an interest in virtue. I argue that political friendship can be instantiated in various forms and degrees in political reality, even when concrete examples of it fail to approximate its level of perfection. More specifically, I contend that such an ideal finds expression in those constitutions that assign equal opportunities of political participation to people equal in civic and human worth. Such communities include not only the most perfect in absolute (which I take to be constituted by good citizens that prove at the same time good men in the Aristotelian sense), but also forms of government of inferior level, which allow rule in relays for people of average virtue. In the light of the possible applications of political friendship in Aristotle’s Politics, I will conclude that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics complement each other in a variety of ways and offer reciprocal philosophical buttressing. More to the point, the Politics seems to offer a suitable terrain for a fluid and dynamic interaction of concepts which, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is instead more inclined to handle separately.
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Notes
- 1.
In this paper I shall assume that the Magna Moralia, although having possibly been written by a Peripatetic author, conveys authentically Aristotelian views. On the thorny issue of the supposed Aristotelian fatherhood of the Magna Moralia (and the relevant secondary literature) see for instance Bobonich 2006, 12–36; cf. Fermani 2008, xcviii-cv.
- 2.
Cf. Brouwer in this volume.
- 3.
ἡ πολιτική ἐπιστήμη. See e.g. Pol 1.1 1252a15–16, 2.8 1268b34–37.
- 4.
τἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν.
- 5.
For a detailed treatment of the issue see Lord 1981, 460–462; cf. Reale 1991, 381 and Fermani 2008, lxxxix.
- 6.
As Lord 1981, 461 states, of all the works mentioned in the catalogues of Aristotle’s writings, the Politics and (in some catalogues) the Physics are described as a “course of lectures”. See Bodéüs 1993, 85 and 179, n. 2, who translates the very early title given to the Politics in the first catalogue, i.e. πολιτική ἀκρόασις, as “oral presentation on political questions” (No. 75 Diogenes Laërtius and No. 70 Hesychius in Düring 1957, 45 and 85). On the distinction between esoteric and exoteric works in Aristotle see Strabo, Geographica 1.13; cf. Ammonius, In Aristotelis Categorias commentarius 4.18 Busse, who all maintain that the esōterikoi logoi were written transcripts of oral discourses, whereas the exōterikoi works were written dialogues. An alternative criterion of differentiation between esoteric and exoteric logoi is supplied by Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 7.5) and Aulus Gellius (Attic Nights 20.5.1–6), who maintain that the acroamatic works dealt with natural philosophy and logic, whereas the exoteric works would have dealt with issues of rhetoric, ethics, and politics.
- 7.
See for instance Natali 2001, iii.
- 8.
See Irwin 1985, xxi; cf. Düring 1966, 32–36. Lord 1981, 461 suggests: “In any case, it makes sense to suppose that the treatises served also, or even primarily, as reference works which were treated to some extent as the common property of the school and were available for the use of students”. A similar contention is made by Susemihl 1900, 1508–1509, who maintains that Aristotle’s texts were not mere oral lessons but rather expositions of such lessons into books for the school.
- 9.
As Lord 1981, 461 points out, this possibility is regarded by most scholars as unlikely, given the high quality and uniformity of style of the treatises. Furthermore, referring Kenny 1978, 215–220 and Ross 1924, xxv-xxvii, Lord 1981, 475 n. 2 claims that works like the Magna Moralia are regarded as transcripts made by Aristotle’s students. Cf. A. Fermani 2008, cli.
- 10.
See Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 20.5.4, who explains that Aristotle regularly lectured to advanced students of the Lyceum in the morning, while in the afternoon he would give lectures to a wider audience.
- 11.
See Gauthier and Jolif 1970, Dirlmeier 1960, 189. According to Bien 2000, 219 ethics and politics would rather represent two distinct spheres of inquiry, although he specifies that the disciplinary distinction at stake is neither fundamental nor absolute (given that ethics has political implications and political issues contains ethical underpinnings). For a more detailed treatment see Cashdollar 1973, 146 n. 2.
- 12.
- 13.
See for instance Vander Waerdt 1985, 77.
- 14.
εἰ γὰρ καὶ ταὐτόν ἐστιν ἑνὶ καὶ πόλει, μεῖζόν γε καὶ τελειότερον τὸ τῆς πόλεως φαίνεται καὶ λαβεῖν καὶ σῴζειν: ἀγαπητὸν μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἑνὶ μόνῳ, κάλλιον δὲ καὶ θειότερον ἔθνει καὶ πόλεσιν. The translations of the Nicomachean Ethics quoted in this paper are taken (unless differently specified) from Broadie and Rowe 2002.
- 15.
ψυχῆς ἐνέργειά τις κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν τελείαν, NE 1.13 1102a5–6. On Aristotle’s specification of εὐδαιμονία as “the human good” (τὸ ἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν) see in particular NE 1.7 1098a16–18, where such a good is described as “activity of soul in accordance with excellence and if there are more excellences than one, in accordance with the best and the most complete” (ψυχῆς ἐνέργεια κατ᾽ ἀρετήν, εἰ δὲ πλείους αἱ ἀρεταί, κατὰ τὴν ἀρίστην καὶ τελειοτάτην).
- 16.
ὁ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν πολιτικός.
- 17.
δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ ὁ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν πολιτικὸς περὶ ταύτην μάλιστα πεπονῆσθαι: βούλεται γὰρ τοὺς πολίτας ἀγαθοὺς ποιεῖν καὶ τῶν νόμων ὑπηκόους. Cf. Eudemian Ethics 1.5 1216a23–27, where Aristotle speaks of the one who is “truly politician” (ἀληθῶς πολιτικός). Such a politician, unlike those who are not really so and embrace political life for the sake of money and gain, is one who chooses on purpose fine actions for their own sake (τῶν καλῶν ἐστι πράξεων προαιρετικὸς αὐτῶν χάριν).
- 18.
See e.g. NE 5.1 1129b20–24, where Aristotle, by discussing the topic of justice, claims that laws demand actions in accordance with virtue (such as courageous and moderate acts) and forbid those in accordance with vice (such as deserting one’s post in the army or committing adultery).
- 19.
τάχα δὲ καὶ τῷ βουλομένῳ δι᾽ἐπιμελείας βελτίους ποιεῖν, εἴτε πολλοὺς εἴτ᾽ ὀλίγους, νομοθετικῷ πειρατέον γενέσθαι, εἰ διὰ νόμων ἀγαθοὶ γενοίμεθ᾽ ἄν. ὅντινα γὰρ οὖνκαὶ τὸν προτεθέντα διαθεῖναι καλῶς οὐκ ἔστι τοῦ τυχόντος, ἀλλ᾽εἴπερ τινός, τοῦ εἰδότος, ὥσπερ ἐπ᾽ ἰατρικῆς καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ὧν ἔστιν ἐπιμέλειά τις καὶ φρόνησις.
- 20.
Bodéüs 1993. Cf. Cashdollar 1973, 148: “Politics investigates human excellence and happiness (NE 1.13 1102a5–15), which studies the human soul in so far as it is necessary in order to understand excellence (NE 1.13 1102a16–24)”.
- 21.
2003, 10–11.
- 22.
See e.g. NE 6.5 1140a25–27, where it is said that the characteristic of a practically wise person is to be able to deliberate well about the things that are good and advantageous to himself.
- 23.
This aspect is stressed by Frede 2013, 16, who states that statesmanship in Aristotle’s thought cannot avoid dealing with ethical matters, especially if we read the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics as parts of a whole political investigation.
- 24.
This feature of Bodéüs’ account is developed by Vander Waerdt 1985, 80.
- 25.
See Gerson 1987, 205: “The good in politics is not different from the good in ethics in the way the good for a species of animals is different from the good of an individual animal”, who thus implies that Politics, unlike the Nicomachean Ethics, investigates individual cases.
- 26.
As it has been suggested by Garver, the idea that philosophical reflection is ultimately designed to actively promote the human good should not induce us to neglect that the argumentative structure of both works follows a path of theoretical investigation. He makes this point with reference to the sphere of Aristotelian ethics as well as to that of rhetoric, whose practical aim, persuasion, is premised on a properly speculative reflection that is valuable in itself.
- 27.
See Vander Waerdt 1985, 80, who claims that the outline at NE 10.9 1181b12–24 does not introduce the extant Politics. Moreover, Vander Waerdt points out that the Politics seems to present more philosophical connections and continuity with the Eudemian Ethics than with the Nicomachean Ethics. I do not think, however, that such a view forestalls the possibility that there is a continuity and even reciprocal complementarity between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, especially if we consider, as I do, that the Nicomachean Ethics offers a philosophically refined (and by no means incompatible) treatment of the issues laid down in the Eudemian Ethics. On the issue of the thematic unity of Aristotle’s ethical works point see Fermani 2008.
- 28.
For a detailed illustration of the dialectical method and an illustration of the most relevant interpretations of the issue see Irrera 2012b, 107–117.
- 29.
Another relevant passage in which ἡ φιλία is regarded as a “fine” and not a necessary or useful good is NE 8.1 1155a28–31, where it is said that “not only it is necessary, it is also a fine thing”. However, the moral beauty involved in the passage does not seem to allude to a supposed intrinsic value of friendship; it rather hints at a virtue able to generate honourable achievements for those who possess it and a positive assessment of such persons by external observers.
- 30.
“Friendship between decent people (ἐπιεικῶντες) is decent, and grows in proportion to their interaction; and they even seem to become better by being active and correcting each other; for they take each other’s imprint in those respects in which they please one another – hence the saying ‘For from good men good things come’”.
- 31.
The translation by of the Eudemian Ethics I adopt in this paper is by here is by Rackham 1951.
- 32.
With regard to political competence, Aristotle generally makes use of the expressions ἡ πολιτική, ἡ πολιτική ἐπιστήμη and ἡ πολιτική τέχνη.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
τελεία δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἡ τῶν ἀγαθῶν φιλία καὶ κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν ὁμοίων: οὗτοι γὰρ τἀγαθὰ ὁμοίως βούλονται ἀλλήλοις ᾗ ἀγαθοί, ἀγαθοὶ δ᾽ εἰσὶ καθ᾽αὑτούς. My own English translation of the passage. For this translation I have benefited from Fermani’s 2008 translation.
- 36.
Cp. the opening lines of Book 7 of the Eudemian Ethics, at 1234b22–23, where friendship is described as a function (ἔργον) of political expertise.
- 37.
See also Brouwer’s chapter.
- 38.
See NE 10.9 1180a2–11, where Aristotle explains that the upbringing and patterns of behavior of people must be ordered by the laws, “for most people are more governed by compulsion than talk, and by punishments than by what is fine”. Cf. NE 10.9 1179b11–13, where he says that “most people are not of the sort to be guided by a sense of shame but by fear and not to refrain from bad things on the grounds of their shamefulness but because of the punishments”.
- 39.
On this point see e.g. Schollmeier 1994, ch. 4. It should be noted that Schollmeier believes that the virtue of justice is in itself altruistic. On my view, this is not the case, given that Aristotle simply confines himself to claiming that justice is an allotrion agathon (an “other regarding good”) without suggesting that such a good is wished for the sake of the other.
- 40.
πολιτικὴ δὴ φιλία φαίνεται ἡ ὁμόνοια, καθάπερ καὶ λέγεται: περὶ τὰ συμφέροντα γάρ ἐστι καὶ τὰ εἰς τὸν βίον ἥκοντα.
- 41.
On the problem of friendship with oneself, which in NE 9 is treated as a kind of inner harmony between reason and the part of the human soul that listens to the logos, Price 1990, ch. 4.
- 42.
On the aspect of the distinctive stability of friendship see EE 7.2 1238a11–12, where friendship is opposed to volatile goods like wealth.
- 43.
My translation.
- 44.
ἔοικε δέ, καθάπερ τὸ δίκαιόν ἐστι διττόν, τὸ μὲν ἄγραφον τὸ δὲ κατὰ νόμον, καὶ τῆς κατὰ τὸ χρήσιμον φιλίας ἣ μὲν ἠθικὴ ἣ δὲ νομικὴ εἶναι. Γίνεται οὖν τὰ ἐγκλήματα μάλισθ᾽ ὅταν μὴ κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν συναλλάξωσι καὶ διαλύωνται. Cf. EE 7.10 1242b31ff.
- 45.
δυναμένῳ δὴ ἀνταποδοτέον τὴν ἀξίαν ὧν ἔπαθεν καὶ ἑκόντι ἄκοντα γὰρ φίλον οὐ ποιητέον.
- 46.
ἐν δὲ ταῖς κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἐγκλήματα μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, μέτρῳ δ᾽ἔοικεν ἡ τοῦ δράσαντος προαίρεσις: τῆς ἀρετῆς γὰρ καὶ τοῦ ἤθους ἐν τῇπροαιρέσει τὸ κύριον. A similar point is made in NE 8.4 1157a20–22. Cf. 8.6 1158b9 and EE 7.2 1237b24–26.
- 47.
As Frede 2013, 15 suggests, the two aspects are the goal of a sound education in the polis.
- 48.
Cf. NE 8.9 1159b26–27: “Friendship and justice have to do with the same things, and involve the same persons. For in every kind of sharing community there seems to be a specific kind of justice, and also friendship”. The issue of the relationships between justice and friendship has been the object of a stark controversy, especially with regard to a supposed cause-effect relationship between the two values. Just to mention two different positions, Newman 1897–1902, vol. 2, 392–393 argues that friendship is the consequence of the establishment of justice, whereas Stewart 1892, vol. 2, 262–264 holds the reverse position.
- 49.
καθ᾽ ὅσον δὲ κοινωνοῦσιν, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτόν ἐστι φιλία: καὶ γὰρ τὸ δίκαιον. Καὶ ἡ παροιμία “κοινὰ τὰ φίλων,” ὀρθῶς: ἐν κοινωνίᾳ γὰρ ἡ φιλία.
- 50.
See Saunders 1995, 55. On Saunders’ view, Aristotle will progressively use κοινωνία in a “stronger” sense, that is, by emphasizing aspects of loyalty and reciprocal commitments between citizens.
- 51.
A κοινωνία is a way of sharing values, methods goals (see e.g. Mulgan 1977, 16, Finley 1973, 152, Yack 1993, 28. The term κοινωνία, which is etymologically related to κοινός (“common”), implies that all of its members share something, such as a good and something choiceworthy by individuals.
- 52.
It is worth remembering that, at NE 1.2 1094b4–9, Aristotle handles ἡ πολιτική (τέχνη) in terms of an expertise that employs the practical expertise that remain, and furthermore legislates about what one must do and what things one must abstain from doing. Its end is the human good, which is said to be the same for a single person and for a city, although the good of the city “is a greater and more complete thing both to achieve and to preserve: for while to do so for one person on his own is satisfactory enough, to do it for a nation or for cities is finer and more godlike”.
- 53.
On this function of κοινωνία see Joachim 1951, 250.
- 54.
As Yack 1993 maintains, communicative interaction within a community is not alien from conflict and divergence.
- 55.
As Irwin 1990, 75 notes, the partnerships and crafts subordinated to the political community and competence are for the sake of happiness, but do not aim directly at happiness. By contrast, the political community is directly focused on happiness as its end – which is what “makes the city the comprehensive association concerned with the comprehensive end”.
- 56.
Translation here is from Lord 1984.
- 57.
See Politics 3.5 1278a2, where Aristotle explains that not every person indispensable to the polis can be regarded as citizens.
- 58.
See for instance Politics 1.1 1252a20–23; cf. 3.1 1274b39, where it is said that “the city belongs among composite things”.
- 59.
As Schütrumpf 1991, 390 notes, two lines of investigation are pursued by Aristotle: one concerns the origin of the polis and the other its constitutive elements. These lines often intersect each other.
- 60.
See Politics 1.13 1260a12, where the slave is said to be wholly lacking the deliberative element (τὸ βουλευτικόν). This is not to say, however, that natural slaves are not attributed mental competence and autonomy to perform their practical tasks. See Kraut 2002, 285.
- 61.
The idea of a partnership established with a view to mutual advantage fits well the view of Isaac 2004, 171) who states that Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery is part of an effort “to fit the slaves into his model of a just and workable polis”. See also Kraut 2002, 277–290, who defends to some extent that theory as “internally consistent” and endowed with “a limited amount of explanatory power” (278).
- 62.
It is interesting that, in NE 8.11 1161a34-b8, Aristotle says that there is neither justice nor friendship towards inanimate things, nor is there any towards an ox, or even a slave qua slave. There cannot be friendship with a slave because master and slave have nothing in common, although in a different respect Aristotle concedes that a master can be friend to a slave insofar as the slave is a human being (on the two ways of looking at friendship between master and slave see Price 1990, 178) As I believe, the above mentioned passage is not incompatible with the idea (stated in Politics 1.6 1255b7–13) that masters and slaves can have a utility friendship. In the passage of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appears to stress the mere functional aspect of the above mentioned relationship, as well as the lack of shared interests and equality between master and slave in relation to intellectual abilities (which is why there cannot be proper friendship, especially in comparison to Aristotle’s view of perfect friendship as a partnership between people equal in virtue). Differently from that passage, the one in the Politics emphasizes the existence of a bond of collaboration rooted in a convergence of aims (i.e. the good organization of the household and the survival of the slave).
- 63.
Cf. EE 7.1 1238b15–17: “These then are three kinds of friendship; and in all of these the term friendship in a manner indicates equality, for even with those who are friends on the ground of goodness the friendship is in a manner based on equality of goodness”.
- 64.
See Frank 2005, 138, who speaks of “true aristocracy” as a regime in which no citizen can be excluded from political participation, given that “the class of actual and potential citizens is the same”. On the concepts of “actual citizen” and “potential citizen” see Ober 1998, 340–342. Unlike actual citizens, potential citizens are not politically active, although possessing the requisites for the performance of political tasks.
- 65.
On the distinction between an alliance and a city in this passage of the Politics see Pezzoli and Curnis 2012, 181. Pezzoli explains that the comparison between the two kinds of community aims to highlight the plurality of activities that are generally performed in the polis (cf. Pol 7.8 1328b20–23, 4.4 1290b23-1291b13), against the human homogeneity that characterizes an alliance.
- 66.
See also Brouwer’s chapter in this volume.
- 67.
Irwin 1990, 83.
- 68.
Aristotle’s treatment of aristocracy in the Politics is complex. Not every aristocracy is grounded in asymmetry of virtue between rulers and ruled, given that, as it seems, the Politics makes room for a view of the ideal polis as an aristocracy in which government is exerted in relays. By contrast, an example of an aristocracy in which rulers are superior to the ruled is Pol 4.7 1293b1–7. On the issue of (the various kinds of) aristocracy see Irrera 2015.
- 69.
Cf. NE 8.10 1160b32–35: “The community formed by man and wife is clearly of an aristocratic kind; for the man rules on the basis of worth, and in the spheres where a man should rule; those where it is fitting for a woman to rule he gives over to her”. See also EE 7.3 1238b23–25, in which the relationship between husband and wife is regarded as different from the one between father and son. For the latter resembles a partnership between beneficiary and benefactor, whereas the former one between ruler and ruled. Although the relationship between husband and wife is regarded as similar to the one that qualifies aristocracy, it is not a friendship between equals (as well as, after all, it happens in various forms of aristocratic cities. Some of these, i.e. constitutions that might be called “aristocracies of virtue”, although grounded on the ruling power of authentically virtuous men, do not attain the level of perfect virtue of a city like the ideal one, in which every citizen is supposed to be an equally good man). Such aristocracies, in their best conditions, are constituted by a partnership of virtuous rulers and persons endowed with some degree of good moral qualities (without being themselves fully virtuous).
- 70.
The equality at issue here is “arithmetical”, being different from the “proportional” (see for instance NE 5.8 1134a27–28). Proportional equality, instead, is the condition on which the distribution of goods and offices according to a certain worth is effected.
- 71.
Although the rule of the multitude is the object of discussion here, it ought to be noted that Aristotle’s investigation does not specifically concern the nature of democratic constitutions. On this point see Johnson 1990, 71, who claims the focus of his argument is simply the idea that the rule of imperfect people may produce more benefits than the rule of a few perfect people.
- 72.
For a detailed list of the main arguments in favor of the rule of the many see Bookman 1992, 1. Cf. Johnson 1990, 71.
- 73.
For a detailed explanation of this analogy see Nichols 1992, 69–72 and Kraut 2002, 402–404.
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Irrera, E. (2017). Perfect Friendship in the Political Realm. A Philosophical Trait-d’Union between the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics . In: Cohen de Lara, E., Brouwer, R. (eds) Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64825-5_8
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