SuperTutor
$15/per page/Negotiable
Tannenbaum, Donald
Inventors of Ideas: An Introduction to Western
Political Philosophy Chapter 3 – Aristotle: Endorsing Community
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 1 Aristotle: Plato’s student
• Aristotle became a student at Plato’s Academy and
the years spent with Plato profoundly influenced his
thinking
• Aristotle’s Politics contains his most important
political views.
• If he disagrees with Plato’s Republic on a number of
points, he shares with Plato certain assumptions and
conclusions, such as the importance of education
and the foolishness of a life devoted to power
politics and wealth.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 2 Aristotle’s Politics
• Because he was born outside of Athens, he was ineligible to
become an Athenian citizen; nevertheless, he admired the
Athenian polis.
• In Politics, he notes that “the most sovereign of all”
associations, is directed to the pursuit of the highest good for
all, human happiness or the good life.
– The association that makes the good life possible is the polis.
– The decline of Athens was accompanied by the rise of the
Macedonian army-empire, led by Aristotle’s former student,
Alexander the Great.
– Aristotle’s philosophy in Politics rejects the imperial model of
Alexander.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 3 Aristotle Disagrees With Plato on 2 Points
1. He takes issue with Plato’s political economy, disagreeing
with Plato’s communism for the guardian classes, arguing
that a commonality of families and property is contrary to
human nature.
– It destroys two basic needs all men have, even the wisest:
•
• Family love: one cannot love that which is everyone’s as much as what is
one’s own
Private Property: a modest amount of private property is a natural need
for all men, rulers included.
–
–
– It is essential to each person’s legitimate economic ends, both to secure the basic
necessities of life for oneself and to show kindness to one’s fellows through charity.
The pleasure derived from using property is harmless as long as it is not excessive
or selfish.
Property may be put in private hands, but its use should further the common goals
4
of the community
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community Aristotle Disagrees With Plato on 2 Points
2. Aristotle opposes rule by philosopher-kings.
– Believes practical knowledge, arising from
experience, is a sounder basis for governing. •. The source of Aristotle’s disagreement with Plato
originated in their differing views of what is real.
– Plato believes that reality consists of the eternal
forms found in heaven.
– Aristotle thinks that the real nature of anything
cannot be located outside the object itself.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 5 Aristotle’s Method
• His method of knowing reality is to focus on the
highest end or goal of an object.
– This principal end, called the telos, is what anything
becomes when its growth is complete if it is to develop
fully from its inner nature.
– For example, the telos of an acorn is an oak tree, which
does not yet exist but will exist if the acorn develops
naturally.
– Then, one discovers or “sees” reality in objects.
– Aristotle links forms to experience, bringing Plato down to
earth.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 6 Aristotle’s Method
• Aristotle believes it is natural for man to shape
objects to fulfill basic (or natural) human needs.
– Telos can also refer to what a thing, whether a chair or a
polis, will become when its shaping is complete.
– One can know the end of the polis only after the study
of many actual city-states.
– Knowledge enables one to exercise the unique human
faculty of judgment, for once we know its telos, we can
judge whether any particular object, be it a tree, chair,
man or polis, is good or bad.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 7 Happiness, Values and Human Nature
• To Aristotle, the basis for judging any polis is
its telos, which is human happiness or the
good life.
– He agrees with Plato that this telos is an activity of
the soul, not the body.
– Happiness is not the same as physical pleasure;
rather, it involves the search for knowledge that
leads to wisdom, and it is wisdom that brings men
to self-realization and happiness.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 8 Happiness, Values and Human Nature
• When men set themselves apart from the polis by
satisfying personal concerns, they harm the community.
– Aristotle says they are acting irrationally.
– Leading such a separate life qualifies them as either beasts or
gods, but not humans. • The emotions which express appetites or desires have
an appropriate place in the polis, once they are
controlled by reason.
– Reason exercises this control over appetites when guided by
the principle of the golden mean, Aristotle’s idea of the bet
available guide to the right conduct.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 9 Happiness, Values and Human Nature
• Aristotle believes that almost all things have a good (or
proper) use and a number of bad (improper) ones.
• Excess or extremes in either direction can injure things of
value.
– For example: for body excess may consist of too much or too little
exercise, food, drink or sleep. • That which is good is not some ideal, as Plato thinks, but a
golden mean between the extremes of excess and
deficiency
– The task of the good polis is to determine the proper mean in
those things it must regulate and to translate that mean into its
laws.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 10 Political Economy
• Political economy, or the interrelation of politics and
economics is as important to Aristotle as it is to Plato.
• Aristotle’s treatment of this relationship also shows one
way the idea of the golden mean works.
– By its nature, economics is merely instrumental, a tool.
– Like food or drink, it can be used either rationally or irrationally.
– It can be a means to the rational end of the polis, which is
happiness, or it can bring unhappiness. • Economics is only concerned with one aspect: the amount
of wealth needed for true happiness.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 11 Political Economy
• Wealth has a proper limit that the higher end
or goal of the polis defines.
• When subordinated to rational politics, wealth
can be put to good use and help the polis.
• If allowed to run to excess, if it appeals to
irrational appetites of citizens in a mad quest
for economic superiority, wealth can corrupt
the polis to the core.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 12 Political Economy
• The most basic kind of good economic activity
is directed toward the use of a product, such
as farming, fishing or shoemaking that its
maker will wear.
– Human labor is applies to raw materials and the
resulting products fulfill a need of the producer
and his family.
• This activity is natural; it is not an end in itself, but it
has use value.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 13 Political Economy
• As families establish villages, trade grows, labor
becomes more specialized and the economy
develops more complexity.
• People begin to make products that they exchange
for good made by others through a barter system.
– Things assume an exchange value in addition to their
use value.
– Exchange is good as long as the exchange value of a
product is incidental to getting a product from maker to
user
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 14 Political Economy
• Further development of society into a polis
introduces money to the economy.
• The role of money is good as long as it is just a
refinement of the barter system, that is, if it serves
as the basis for comparing unlike things being
exchanged and if the most natural (use) value of the
product remains central to the economic process.
• The role of money is harmful when profit becomes
its purpose.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 15 Political Economy
• The most extreme case is when money is invested in
order to make more money, such as the payment of
interest.
– The profit motive introduces injustice and an unlimited
desire for wealth replaces natural limits on human needs. • Aristotle believes material goods are necessary;
people cannot be economically deprived and still
enjoy happiness.
– But the material means to this higher end must not be
allowed to become the ends
– Happiness of the soul is vastly superior to wealth.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 16 Community
• Aristotle focuses on community; Plato, on justice.
• Aristotle thinks of justice as something to be found within an
actual community rather than in an earthly representation
of a heavenly form.
• To be human is, by definition, to be part of a community.
– All communities originate from the need to preserve human life
but have as their ultimate goal the happiness of their members.
– The community that follows the golden mean, avoiding extremes,
provides the necessary conditions for each person’s search for the
good life.
• These conditions include meeting basic material needs as well as
friendship and political stability
• One can hope to find happiness only when living in a community that
provides these conditions.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 17 Community
For Aristotle, there are 3 types of community,
ranked from lowest to highest:
1. The Household
2. The Village
3. The Polis Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 18 Community
Household, Woman, Wife and Slave
• The household originates from biological urges men and women share
with all animals
• Economically, the household is based on production for use by family
members, but it is not based only to satisfy the basic needs of its
members, or mere survival.
– One of its ends is family life, including interdependence between husband and
wife, each of whom has a key role in meeting household requirements.
– However interdependent, husband and wife are not equal.
– Because Aristotle judges them to have superior reason, men dominate, holding 3
roles in the household:
• Father-he must rule his children so they are prepared for life after they leave his
household; female children must be trained to become wives.
• Husband-men must rule their wives permanently; because of their reasoning power, they
are more fit to command and women to obey.
• Master-Aristotle recognizes 2 kinds of slave: Conventional slaves are usually enslaved
19
following a military defeat; Natural slaves lack reason and must be permanently ruled.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community Community
Husband, Wife, Woman and Slave, cont.
• When left to themselves, natural slaves ,are irrational
and unable to manage their own affairs; when the obey
their master’s rational orders they are better off, since
by obeying they participate kin their master’s virtue.
• Aristotle sees all people as part of a natural order,
arranged from top to bottom, based on their ability to
reason.
– As the soul rules the body and reason governs passion, men
must rule women and masters their slaves.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 20 Community
• Village, or social community, originates from a
union of households.
– The village provides a greater degree of protection
and economic self-sufficiency than is possible for any
of its single households.
– It permits production for exchange, while a
household alone is limited to production for use.
– A village also facilitates friendship, which Aristotle
considers a natural requirement for all humans, and
friendship promotes social harmony
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 21 Community
• Polis: the supreme form of community also has the highest purpose of
all communities.
– The end (telos) of the polis is the highest because it involves the entire
population and enables rational men to participate in the political process to
reach a higher degree of happiness and virtue than is possible in smaller
communities.
– As a union of villages, the polis overcomes the limitations of the household and
single village, making it more natural and, therefore, better form of association.
– The polis, however, cannot replace the household or village, each of these
needs to perform their natural functions.
– The end of the polis is the good life, including economic and social harmony
• Economically, it is an autarky: a self-sufficient economic unit requiring neither imports or
exports to satisfy the natural needs of all members.
• Socially, the polis promotes the highest form of friendship-political friendship; the polis
displays a spirit of good will in which all recognize their mutual interdependence in the
service of community goals.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 22 Political Form of the Polis
• Plato favored a form of government dominated by
permanent rulers who govern without law.
– The rule of one, or even a few, Aristotle believes, is more
easily corruptible than the rule of many, • Aristotle says that by giving all free men a role in the
state helps to stabilize the regime, since excluding
some of those fit to participate may lead them to
become enemies of government
– Collective wisdom, brought by the experience of each
citizen, positively impacts the collective task of governing.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 23 Political Form of the Polis
• The collective capacity to build a harmonious polis is superior
to that of one or a few wise individuals.
• In most cases, a just government is a mixed government, one
that takes advantage of multiple perspectives and assigns a
role to each citizen.
• One social reality that can’t be ignored is the class division
between the few rich and the many poor.
– The result is class conflict and a constant threat of instability,
violence and revolution.
– A mix of citizens’ talents can produce a blend of class interests, and
all classes can contribute.
– Aristotle supports both political equality side by side with economic
inequality.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 24 Political Form of the Polis
• In addition to favoring mixed government as the most
stable form, Aristotle makes a strong case for an
important corollary, the Rule of Law.
– The laws rightly constituted should be the final sovereign;
personal rule whether exercised by a single person or body
of persons, should be sovereign only in those matters on
which law is unable to make an exact pronouncement.
– Since it is not certain that those who rule will always be
virtuous, there is risk in giving them complete power.
– Thus, supremacy of the law made by all is better than
potentially arbitrary supremacy of the rulers.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 25 Political Form of the Polis
• Aristotle applies the term constitution to any
form of government.
– It refers to “an organization of offices in a state, by
which the method of distribution is fixed, the
sovereign authority is determined and the
objective is prescribed.
Aristotle’s Forms of Government
Who Rules?
One
Few
Many Good Form of Gov’t.
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Polity Bad Form of Gov’t.
Tyranny
Oligarchy
Democracy Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 26 Power to Rule
• The power to rule may rest with the one, who reserves
decision-making for himself; the few, who exercise
sovereign authority through a council of relative equals;
or the many, who legislate through an assembly.
• All true constitutions have a telos that is just, or in the
public interest of all, meaning that there is a mixed
government in which a number of classes are represented
and the law is supreme.
• A perverted form of government is one dominated by the
private interest of a single ruler or ruling class; the will of
rulers replaces the rule of law.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 27 Power to Rule
• In a monarchy, or kingship, one virtuous person
rules, guided by a law that calls for rotation in office
and directs decision-making to the public interest.
• A tyranny is based on the arbitrary rule of a
permanent despot who is above the law and rules
to suit his personal interest, considered by Aristotle
as the worst form of government, but thinks tyranny
the only form possible for the large states of his
time, the huge army-empires that were threatening
the independence of the Greek City-states,
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 28 Power to Rule
• An aristocracy is rule by the best few, who combine personal
merit and wealth with rule in the public interest.
• In an oligarchy, the few rulers are also wealthy but promote
the interests of their own class above all others.
• Democracy, to Aristotle, is a negative term for a perverted
constitution, serving the lawless greed of the many poor of
free birth who constitute a majority.
– In effect, it is mob rule, but Aristotle thinks it is the least bad of the
three perverted forms of government because it is in the interest
of the greatest number of people than the other two and thus,
most closely approximates the interests of the whole people.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 29 Power to Rule
• Polity, Aristotle’s term for the best possible form
of true constitution, reflects reason and
moderation and is structured to counteract the
potentially destabilizing effects of class
antagonism in any society.
– Polity mixes quality and quantity and merit and
wealth with numbers, giving the balance to the many
but effective control to a virtuous middle class that
exercises sovereign authority in the public interest
under law.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 30 Power to Rule
• A stable polity requires the presence of a large middle class,
combining those who compose the poorer segment of the
wealthy class with the richer segment of the lower class.
• In the middle, this aggregate class is able to blend the
perspectives of the rich and the poor to reflect the mean.
– The size of the middle class must be large enough to enable it to
politically dominate the polis so that neither extreme segment,
rich or poor, can take control. • In the Republic, Plato says that participation by the masses
should consist of only obedience to the authority; Aristotle
sees politics as a task involving rotation in political office for
virtually all citizens at some time.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing Community 31 Political Change
• Aristotle looks for the reasons of political decline,
and because all states have weaknesses, they are
only partially able to reach their highest potential
due to such corrupting factors of ignorance,
passion and absence of sufficient virtue among
the populace.
– Recognizes that deterioration is inevitable.
– If citizens understand the sources of political
weakness, they can control the pace of decline.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 32 Political Change
• One fundamental cause of decline in a good polis is
conflict over justice in any society marked by extremes of
wealth.
– This conflict both indicates and helps to intensify the loss of the
mean, the organic harmony necessary to sustain government.
• Citizens are excessively concerned with well being rather than the polis
as a whole
• Law then merely guarantees rights rather than setting forth mutual
obligations. – The rich face the poor, with the middle class squeezed out.
– The next likely stages in this decline are violence and revolution. Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 33 Political Change
• Aristotle knows that even the best laws and
institutions and a mixed class system do not
ensure a stable polis.
– Supporting the institutions and practices of the sound
state is the spirit of the constitution.
– If this spirit is allowed to decay, the polis surely
degenerates.
• Prevention of decay requires that citizens always act with the
public interest in mind.
• They must respect the letter and spirit of the law, even in the
most trivial matters.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 34 Political Change
• Education teaches moderation and willingness to
sacrifice for the common good.
• Beyond what children learn at home by example
from their parents, education is the job of the state.
– Education prepares men for citizenship, for sharing
political decision-making, for ruling and being ruled in
return.
– Education is lifelong, as citizens learn from virtuous
others and from the laws of the just polis.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 35 Political Change
• Aristotle even tells rulers of corrupt regimes how
they can retain their power.
– He anticipates Machiavelli when he advises tyrants, who
rule the least stable governments of all, how to slow the
inevitable decline of their regimes.
• He urges them to divide and conquer their people, create a
strong spy system to alert the opposition and neutralize those
who threaten their power.
• Tyrants should encourage class hatred, even warfare, between
rich and poor.
• Subject must be kept strangers to one another at all times.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 36 Political Change
• Aristotle says that while manipulating the populace
behind the scenes, the tyrant should appear to be a
monarch simultaneously.
– He should not flaunt his wealth but instead, erect great
public works for citizens to admire and to provide
continuing employment for the poor.
– He should appear formally religious by openly worshipping
the gods and observing conventional rites and practices, for
this leads the general public to think that he is not unjust,
whatever his regime’s oppressive actions.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 37 Observation
• Aristotle, like Plato, emphasizes the superior role of
the collective and the relatively inferior position of
the individual.
• Both focus on an organic community in which politics
pervades all individual and social activities.
• They share a vision of universal order which spells
out the place of each virtue in a totally harmonious
scheme of human life.
– Justice, true freedom and happiness can be had through
participation in a good polis.
Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 38 Observation
• Aristotle and Plato both reflect a temperament that is conservative,
elitist and characteristically ancient.
– Like Plato, he recognizes that change is inevitable and that there is always the
possibility of revolution.
• He wants to delay these as long as possible, opposed as he is to violence and
supportive as he is of education in order to maintain political stability and effect
gradual change. – Both are elitist, agreeing that some people are by nature superior to others.
– Both believe that ideals are real and more important than material things.
– Both believe that reason is the “engine” propelling us to judge any polis and
providing people with the necessary criteria for making political judgments. Tannenbaum Chap 3 - Aristotle: Endorsing
Community 39
Attachments: