A Few Reflections on Aristotle and the Political

 

A Few Reflections on Aristotle and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  Some views on Aristotle: “Moreover, he thought that such knowledge [of human actions] is the necessary prerequisite for politics because politics has as its end the making of virtuous citizens.”

 

                  “For Aristotle, the science of politics was the architectonic science, the master science, because its end, the good for man, is employed in directing political affairs and is ultimately directed at the education of citizens…. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient merely to live. Man must live well, that is, live as a human moral agent. As the science of human action, political science enables man to fulfill this aspiration.”

 

                  So: Humans aspire to live well; that is, to live as “human moral agents.” To fulfill this aspiration, humans turn to political science, to politics because “politics has as its end the making of virtuous citizens.”

 

                  And, of course, this assumes that “virtuous citizens” are “human moral agents.” But Aristotle explicitly denies this identification when he asserts that a good person is virtually always distinguishable from a good citizen or that it is almost never the case that a good citizen is also a good person. Being either a good person or a good citizen seems to be a choice humans have to make. Does political science as the architectonic science, the master science illuminate that choice? Or does political science so understood obscure the necessity of making that choice? It could be that understanding politics as architectonic, as commanding is in fact not illuminating, but blinding. And it is a blindness that often leads to fanaticism, the fanaticism of living well as “human moral agents.” Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice.

 

                  So: What was Aristotle doing? Could it be that he was – as he did with regard to slavery or to the origin of the polis – laying out the conventional wisdom, the citizen’s or the political wisdom in order to expose its flaws? As some have argued, Aristotle does adopt the conventional or citizen’s view of politics, but he does so to expose it, and not to endorse, embrace, or affirm it.