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19ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
CHAPTER ONE
ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND CLASSICAL DEMOCRACY
Aristotle was born in Stagira in the northeastern part of Greece in the early part of the fourth century BCE. He was raised in a wealthy family and was provided all the privileges and benefi ts of his class position. His father was the physician to the king of Macedonia. Around 367 he joined the Academy of Plato in Athens. After twenty years of lectures, seminars, and research, he became tutor to Alexander the Great. In 335 he formed his own school of philosophy in the public gymnasium named the Lyceum. This chapter will focus on those ideas of Aristotle that were specifi cally infl uential on the development of the theories, methods, and ideals of nineteenth-century European social theorists, including his ethical and political writings on social justice, critique of political economy and unnatural market activities, theory of knowledge and science (episteme, phronesis, and techne), analysis of the virtuous life and political happiness (eudaimonia), and investigation into the social constitution of a democratic polity.1
Aristotle’s dreams of human potentiality and civic happiness were tempered by his sociological awareness of the institutional limits and struc- tural possibilities of Athenian democracy. Dreams were always measured by potentialities, political values by social institutions, and the Athenian imagination by empirical reality. The deep-blue skies of Athens that inspired the mind to soar to unimagined and unimaginable heights of the sublime and the beautiful during the classical period were always restrained by the stark landscape of Attica. The blending together of the worlds of philosophy and social science led Emile Durkheim to the conclusion that this ancient philosopher, along with Plato, was one of the fi rst sociologists.2 To make this argument more precise, Aristotle was the fi rst to examine a variation of the “AGIL” schema, that is, the interconnections among economics, politics, personality development (character, virtue, and cultural pedagogy),
19
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20 DREAMS IN EXILE
and law and social institutions. He saw the complex interweaving between virtue and social institutions, ideas and structures, moral action and politics.3 The discussion of ethics was to be framed by a broader consideration of the legal constitution and moral economy of the Athenian polity. The fi elds of ethics, politics, and economics were to be the integrated basis of a critical moral philosophy of political science, as well as the social foundation for the realization of human nature.
In the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, Aristotle examines the relationship between the good and constitutions, that is, between the vir- tuous life and the political institutions that nurture and sustain it. These two works should be viewed as one joint statement about the nature of the good life. The Nicomachean Ethics begins with an examination of the “function of man,” moral and intellectual virtue, and political happiness, and it quickly opens two paths of analysis. The fi rst is clearly philosophical, as each following book in the work details the specifi c ethical principles of virtue and the common good in terms of practical wisdom, social justice, and the friendship of virtue. The second path is sociological, as Aristotle attempts to give institutional life to his ethical principles. He knew that by themselves, without proper institutional support and protection, social ideals would wither and die. By means of empirical examples and historical research, he delves into the details of the ancient political constitutions of Sparta, Crete, and Carthage; he discusses the various forms of the correct and deviant political arrangements; he examines the democratic polity in general and the Athenian constitution from Solon to Pericles in particular; and he outlines the decline of a moral economy based on friendship and justice into a political economy of class, wealth, and power. The moral ideals of friendship, social justice, and practical knowledge are juxtaposed with their institutional counterparts of a moral economy, correct political constitutions, and ideal democratic polity. Philosophy and sociology are elegantly com- bined in Aristotle to offer the reader a delicate balance between principles and structures, ideals and reality, cultural values and social institutions. It is this very combination of ethical and political refl ection within historical research—a practical science—that may be Aristotle’s lasting contribution to social theory in the nineteenth century.
HAPPINESS AS VIRTUE, NOBILITY, AND REASON
Immanuel Bekker, who was a classicist at the University of Berlin, cre- ated the fi rst modern edition in Greek of Aristotle’s grand works in the nineteenth century. The Nicomachean Ethics examines the nature of virtue (arete), character, knowledge, and justice, whereas the Politics concentrates on the moral economy and political institutions that make the realization of virtuous living and the good life possible. Before Aristotle delves into these
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21ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
issues, he focuses on the simple question of the ultimate telos, or purpose, of human existence. He characterizes this question as “the function of man,” which colors the development of his philosophical, historical, and sociologi- cal analyses. Some have argued that the Nicomachean Ethics deals with the moral life of the individual, whereas the Politics examines the social life. Although this is technically correct, it misses the necessary dynamic that Aristotle is making between the individual and social moments of human life; the two components are inextricably bound together since one without the other is impossible.
Aristotle raises the issue of the central function or activity of man as the crucial question that will permit the philosopher access to the nature of happiness and the highest good for humanity. Every activity, whether it is medicine, military strategy, or the arts, seeks some particular good as its goal. It may be health, victory in war, or the creation of a beautiful piece of artwork. Although Aristotle inquires into these particular activities, he is ultimately searching for the fi nal good in itself. This is the good without qualifi cation or reservation. He begins with a philosophical anthropology based on nature (physis) that grounds his understanding of the law, con- stitution (politeia), and moral economy. He rejects the notion that honor, pleasure, and virtue are ends in themselves, because they are used as means to further the happiness of the individual. He asks: what is that human activity which produces the greatest happiness and is an end in itself—that which is done for no higher good than the activity itself? The continuation of life, nutrition, growth, and perception are not characteristics specifi c to humans, as they are shared by all living animals. Further, Aristotle quickly and unceremoniously rejects the view of the individual that will become the foundation for modern natural rights and utilitarian thinkers. The function of man is to achieve a certain kind of distinctively human life that involves an “activity of the soul which follows or implies a rational principle.”4 Life means more than mere continuance of existence or search for private pleasure or personal happiness. Rather, it involves a rational activity undertaken for the moral perfection of goodness and nobility. Aristotle contends that the fl ute player, the sculptor, and the artist have distinct functions. It is in the performance of their activities according to the highest standards that the good of the activity resides. Whether it is playing a song, creating a frieze, or painting a fresco, the activity of each person expresses the highest good of each function. According to Aristotle, happiness is the fi nal good without qualifi cation; it does not require any further activity or purpose. Being self- suffi cient and pleasant in itself, it is the end of all other action.
That activity, which is so distinctive of human beings in general, is the rational life in search of virtue and happiness.5 It is in the exercise and expression of rational thought and refl ection in a good and noble manner that the defi ning characteristics of human life are to be found. Aristotle
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22 DREAMS IN EXILE
proceeds to take the reader on a journey of profound signifi cance as he outlines before us the nature of a life in pursuit of reason. Some secondary interpreters have stressed the moral autonomy, human dignity, and moral sensitivity within Aristotle’s ethics. Although they are important issues, they must be connected in the end to the profoundly radical political dimension of his discourse.6 Practical reason is not a cognitive capability or philosophi- cal contemplation that is exercised in isolation from others, but rather a political moment of intersubjective dialogue. It is the foundation of human happiness and a democratic polity. Aristotle turns to examine the nature of virtue as both intellectual (episteme, techne, and phronesis) and moral (courage, temperance, truthfulness, friendliness, nobility, honor, and justice). In the practice of virtue, the individual is bonded to the constitutional polity by practical wisdom, deliberative judgment, and social justice. The exercise of practical reason entails individual deliberation, a moral economy, political constitution, and the law. The individual and social elements are analytically distinct for the sake of analysis and clarity, but personality and politics are indistinguishable in reality.
Happiness, then, is the most prized, beautiful, and pleasant activity possible that realizes the full potential of human beings as political animals. It is that which is good and noble in itself, that is, self-conscious, virtuous activity within the polis. The concept that captures the full ramifi cation of this activity is practical reason, which has both a micro and a macro component. Rejecting Plato’s theory of the Idea of the good as the philo- sophical contemplation of the essential truths and absolute Forms, Aristotle views practical wisdom (phronesis) as the nurturing of reason and virtue within the more contingent and empirical process bounded by the political constitution. Action is framed by the historical circumstances and lived experiences of law, tradition, education, and politics. These institutions help create the fi rm and stable “states of character” or moral personality that rationally direct virtuous activity toward the good life. As Aristotle views it, all virtuous action is concerned with pleasure and pain, which are the passions that help motivate us in certain directions and ultimately defi ne our moral character. But the passions are also the reason why certain individuals become bad. Virtue is measured by the rule of pleasure and pain and our reactions to them. In our search for moral excellence and in our reaction to pleasure and pain, character is formed. In some cases, pleasure may force us into disreputable and bad actions, while in others, the avoidance of pain could restrain us from noble and courageous actions. It is for these reasons that culture and education (paideia) are central to the full development of the proper moral character with its appropriate sensitivity to and balance of the passions under the guidance of refl ective moderation and softened temperance. A cultured reason, matured over time and cognizant of tradi- tion, helps the individual navigate carefully through the dangerous and
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23ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
confl icting passions of Scylla and Charybdis. Reason restrains our passions and moderately guides our desires by applying the right rule. Only in this way is moral excellence possible.
Although Aristotle argues that the virtuous act must be pleasurable, pain too may be associated with virtue. Temperance is developed by the avoidance of certain extreme pleasures, while a courageous and noble reac- tion to pain and misfortune can be the basis for happiness and a “greatness of soul.” Happiness is measured by how the noble individual responds to the circumstances of life. Aristotle is aware, however, that in the case of Priam, who watched the fall of mighty Troy from its lofty towers, these circumstances on rare occasions may so totally overwhelm the individual that even a virtuous life cannot result in happiness. Virtue must be a self- consciously chosen pleasurable act undertaken in order to satisfy the state of the soul. But even an excess of pleasure and pain can be dangerous. For the lover of virtue, action is a pleasure which through learning and the law becomes ingrained in the citizen’s character. In Aristotle’s eyes, a person who does not receive pleasure from virtuous activity can never be virtuous. “Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world.”7 It is a way of life that realizes the natural potentiality of human beings by combining the passions and reason.
We become virtuous not by knowing about virtue, but by doing virtu- ous acts. Aristotle outlines the general conditions in which actions become moral: the actor must have clear knowledge of the goals and the proper means of reaching them; he must choose them freely; and the decision must come from his unchanging character. Knowledge, reason, self-determination, moral autonomy, and a virtuous character ground action as morally good. Activities undertaken for different reasons and under different conditions cannot be morally justifi ed. Aristotle summarizes his argument: “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”8
The ultimate goal of practical wisdom is not knowledge but action. Just as the builder and lyre player excel only through continuous work and practice, the virtuous and just develop their abilities through the practice of virtue and justice. Over time this action becomes habituated into the character and values of the citizen. Individual experience becomes institu- tionalized in education, legislation, tradition, and the constitution. Aristotle contends that most people seek refuge in the abstract theory of philosophers in order to avoid the diffi cult task of implementing the principles of reason. He draws the analogy of the patient who freely seeks advice from a physician but who is equally loathe to act upon it. Knowledge offers us consolation and retreat while action requires a transformation of life and character. A life of virtue involves following the intermediate path, avoiding the extreme
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24 DREAMS IN EXILE
vices of excess and defi cit; it is a search for the middle. A moderate life of neither too much nor too little provides the moral guidelines for economic activity and communal participation. Just as in the creation of a great piece of art, any more or less would destroy its perfection. Excess or defi cit of any virtue destroys that virtue and goodness. An extreme of courage, meaning too little or too much, could result in rashness or cowardice, and an excess of temperance could result in self-indulgence or a defi ciency in sensitivity.
How moderation is to be achieved is not through a mechanical mea- surement of the mean, but through accumulated wisdom of the best course of action in particular cases resulting from years of experience and critical judgment. Although acting rationally with moderation is a universal principle, it must be applied in individual cases. The universal rule, the right rule of reason, must be adapted and adjusted to the particular circumstances of the moral situation. Thus, reason harmonizes the universal and the particular in each case. The result is a life of intermediate passions and actions. According to Aristotle, a virtuous life is one characterized by friendliness, generosity, magnifi cence, good temperament, modesty, temperance, truthfulness, cour- age, nobility, honor, and justice. When the goodness of character of moral virtues is joined to the virtue of practical reason and understanding, the result is happiness and a good life.
In the Athenian political community, three major types of persons inhabited the shops and the exciting arena of the agora: philosophers, citizens, and workers. Corresponding to them were three different life ac- tivities—theoretical contemplation (theoria), political activity (praxis), and utilitarian work (poiesis)—with their three corresponding forms of knowl- edge—episteme, or the universal and theoretical knowledge of the philosopher, phronesis, or the practical knowledge and political wisdom of the citizen, and techne, or the instrumental skills and technical knowledge of the artisan and worker. It is around these distinctions that Aristotle develops his theory of ethics and the virtuous life of practical reason. The Nicomachean Ethics is so structured that the central focus of the work involves an examination of the practical wisdom (phronesis) of the citizen in the discharging of his constitutional duties and obligations through political participation within the community. This analysis of practical wisdom is framed by the fi rst few books on the particular nature of happiness and the good life, moral virtue, the good character, individual deliberation, and discursive rationality. This emphasis on the nature of the moral individual is balanced by a discussion of the structural features of the polity which encourage and habituate prac- tical wisdom. These institutions include friendship, citizenship, household economy, and social justice. The Politics develops further this macro-socio- logical inquiry into the correct political constitutions, moral economy, and critique of unnatural wealth acquisition in the market. This relationship between the virtuous life and law is best articulated in the Greek word for
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25ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
deliberation (bouleusis) and the word for one of the main political organs in Athenian politics besides the Assembly and the jury courts, that is, the Boule, or Council of Five Hundred. The distinction between the individual and society disappears in the act of personal refl ection and public delibera- tion, as the citizen expresses his full potential as a rational human being with others in public speech. In the life of the Athenian citizen, equilibrium is established, virtue assured, and practical wisdom achieved. These are the highest aspirations toward which human beings strive and the basis for a virtuous and happy life; they are the fullest realization of human potential and the function of man.
Aristotle’s remarkable achievement is to defi ne the parameters of ethics and the function of humanity in terms of virtue, wisdom, and justice sup- ported and nurtured through the historical and social structures of Athenian law and a moral economy based on the ethical priorities of family, friendship, and citizenship.9 Philosophy and sociology are integrated in a common cause of defi ning the ultimate goals and natural law of the ancient community. Aristotle’s theory of ethics and politics represents the ancient response to the question of the ultimate meaning and purpose of human life. The following subsections of this chapter will outline the philosophical parameters of moral and intellectual virtue by examining the forms of happiness, knowledge, and friendship found in classical Greece. After this analysis, the argument turns to Aristotle’s sociology, with an inquiry into the history and structure of the moral economy, social justice, and best political constitution. Virtue and reason can be given real existence, just as the good life and happiness can best develop within the concrete economic and political institutions of the ancient polis.
The political dimension of human beings, both as an integral part of the defi nition of humanity and as its ultimate goal of perfection and self-suffi ciency, is not an arbitrary construction of a social contract among competing individuals or groups. Rather, it is the essence of humanity to be a political animal. Unlike other living species who associate in groups and even express feelings of pleasure and pain through vocalizations, humans are the only ones who can engage in speech and, thus, exercise reason. Aristotle views the ability to reason in philosophy and in public to be the highest expression of the essence and function of man. Only humans can reason about ethics and politics; only humans can deliberate about the meaning of life; and only humans can talk about the nature of a just society. In this way, humans are capable of living the good life according to the values of moral and intellectual virtue as they are publicly articulated in the agora and Pynx. Speech and reason are, for Aristotle, civic qualities that can be manifested only in the public act of deliberation and discourse. In the end, the state, through which the good life and fullest development of human beings are accomplished, has a natural priority over all other forms of associations
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26 DREAMS IN EXILE
because it is the fi nal end of human existence. Just as the hand and foot act according to the broader purpose of the whole body, the family and village associations are subordinate to the overall design and goals of the political community. Humanity does not just engage in political activity by simply forming constitutions and creating laws; they defi ne their very being, their very essence, by participating in politics. Every social action is simply a supportive activity bound to the ultimate purpose of nature. The end of the good life is public happiness, defi ned as a life of virtuous activity, that is, a moderate, just life based upon human reason. This is what Aristotle refers to as the superiority and beauty of the soul. He concludes Book 1 of the Politics with the comment that the true concern of the economic management of the household is not the acquisition of commodities but the cultivation of human excellence (arete) and the development of the virtue of citizens. Economics for the ancient Greeks is ultimately an ethical science.
DEFENDING MORAL ECONOMY (OIKONOMIKE) AGAINST POLITICAL ECONOMY (CHREMATISTIKE)
Aristotle’s theory of social ethics focuses on the relationship between morality and politics, between virtue and structures. In his subtle blending of empirical and philosophical reason, he concentrates mainly on the social structures that affect and nurture virtuous life. In response to Plato, he is concerned less with knowledge of the forms of virtue than acting in a moderate and temperate fashion. His purpose is to develop the personal dispositions, passions, and social foundations for happiness and a just society. Since his goal is action rather than simply knowledge, he emphasizes the social and political means for promoting practical wisdom. This explains why at the end of his work on social ethics Aristotle explicitly begins to direct his attention toward an examination of the structures of law, constitutions, and justice. In the last paragraph of the Nicomachean Ethics he writes, “Now our predecessors have left the subject of legislation to us unexamined; it is perhaps best, therefore, that we should ourselves study it, and in general study the question of the constitution, in order to complete to the best of our ability our philosophy of human nature.”10 Since the virtuous citizen is by nature political, Aristotle sets out to examine the available empirical and historical evidence about the nature of Greek constitutions, their origins and development. He is specifi cally interested in how they are organized, administered, maintained, and which are the best. Virtuous activity and happiness are possible only within a well-ordered political community; politics structures the way people interrelate, deliberate, and decide the crucial public questions that affect their lives. Reason, freedom, and virtue are always aspects of political life for the ancients, and the structures of politics provide the context in which they are defi ned and developed.
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27ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Before Aristotle introduces his analysis of politics and constitutions in the Politics, he fi rst examines the general nature of a moral economy at the level of the oikos (household) and the polis (state). In this fi rst chapter, he also creates his masterful and infl uential critique of political economy and market exchange. Aristotle’s theory of economics is developed in four chapters in Book 1 of the Politics.
Aristotle begins his study by outlining the natural ways of life through his analysis of slavery, the family, household economy, the historical develop- ment of the state, and the market economy. In each case Aristotle seeks the “natural law” that governs the social relationships within each association, thus examining the interactions between the master-slave, husband-wife, citizens in the state, and economic exchange (metabletike or allage) among polis members. His purpose is to portray the natural forms of family life, property acquisition, market exchange, and political constitutions. Since economics is embedded in and subservient to the general values of the political community, Aristotle’s economics provides the foundation stone for the later development of his theory of law and politics. For him, there are two kinds of natural acquisition of material goods or property: barter (C-C) and limited exchange (C-M-C). Corresponding to them, there are the deviant forms of economic activity, which include market exchange for profi t (M-C-M') and the fi nancial gain of interest (M-M'). The natural forms of property acquisition are based on satisfying the needs of the household and maintaining self-suffi ciency within the family and community. The formal goal of the household (and polis) is economic autonomy by which the family is capable of subsisting on the products of its own agricultural production (autarchy).
The unnatural forms of economy are based on self-interest and eco- nomic gain that undermine the natural forms of social existence in the polis. With unnatural acquisition, the law and constitution are unable to sustain themselves, thereby perverting the functions or goals of man and the state. With the development of a market economy, utilitarian values, and the unlimited accumulation of property, the natural law of the economy is unsustainable, and with it a society founded upon virtue, reason, and de- liberation is unsustainable. More than any other aspect of his social theory, this critique of political economy—market and property—will have enor- mous impact on nineteenth-century social theorists. Aristotle asks whether economic management of slaves, wife, and children within the household is part of household management or whether it requires a different form of knowledge and set of skills than the acquisition of property in an agrarian economy. Recognizing that there are philosophers on both sides of the is- sue, he contends that family and farming are to be seen as part of wealth acquisition, since life and the good life require a fi rm economic foundation. For this reason he moves to a consideration of the nature of property.
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28 DREAMS IN EXILE
Aristotle begins his study of property with an analysis of slavery and then turns to an examination of the natural acquisition of property within the family in household management. In Book 1, chapter 8, he outlines the history of material acquisition by which human beings have obtained the means of sustaining different ways of life. From nomadic living, hunting, warfare, piracy, and fi shing to agriculture, Aristotle investigates the main forms of productive labor. Nature has provided humans with the means of sustenance. Because nature is teleological and formed in such a way that everything has a purpose, it has providentially provided the goods and modes of production necessary for the continuance of human life. “If then nature makes nothing without some end in view, nothing to no purpose, it must be that nature has made all of them [animals] for the sake of man.”11 The goal of productive labor and wealth acquisition is the economic self-suffi ciency for the good life in the family and state, and it is this which is the crucial end of household management. Disagreeing with Solon, Aristotle argues that wealth acquisition and accumulation, as well as the tools of economic administration, have boundaries and cannot be limitlessly sought or acquired. He concludes this section of the Politics with the comment that there must be a “natural kind of property.” By arguing that nature clearly provides for the good life, that there are limits to material accumulation, and that there are natural forms of property, Aristotle provides the conditions for a theory of moral economy (oikonomike) and critique of political economy and un- natural wealth acquisition (chrematistike) in chapter 9.12
Wealth is characterized as the legal control over material goods, property, and slaves, as well as the disposition over administrative tools and skills. According to Aristotle, every piece of property has two functions or uses: consumption and exchange. The fi rst use is legitimate; the second is illegitimate. He offers the simple example of the shoe craftsman. The proper use of the artisan’s work is to create a product for immediate use and the satisfaction of a particular need. But he also recognizes that in classical Ath- ens, the work of the artisan has been applied to exchange in the market for money or other commodities. The latter, for him, is not the fi rst or proper use of the shoe. However, Aristotle immediately qualifi es this position by recognizing that although the exchange of the shoe was not natural in the original household, it became necessary due to the transformation and growth of the local communities. At fi rst, there were only households, and later, because of population growth, other associations were formed, binding families into larger political associations of villages and then the polis. With these larger associations, some form of exchange of material goods was required, since families could not always be self-sustaining units in an evolving and more complex economy. They produced too much of one product and not enough of another. Aristotle is quite clear that this later stage of develop- ment is still natural. The limit to the natural use or exchange of a product
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29ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
lies in the satisfaction of a need. Production and accumulation beyond that limit established by nature are always inappropriate.
In the earliest times, members of different households would share their property and goods in the same way that members within a family share their belongings. This may be the most interesting observation by Aristotle and the most salient point of his economic theory. Economics had a moral function in binding members of the household together for the purpose of sustaining life and living the good life. Goods were originally held in com- mon in the family. As families grew, goods continued to be shared generally within the household and between families on the basis of human need. The primary focus was on the family and on the satisfaction of its fundamental material cares. Economics was embedded in society and did not represent an independent social institution with its own laws and autonomous val- ues. Sharing, human need, and friendship or mutual caring (philia) became the basis upon which economic exchange took place in the earliest Greek associations.13 Since the moral integrity and good of the family were the central ends of the economy, it became an ethical obligation to contribute one’s share in the production process. Contribution, effort, and hard work were necessitated by the moral demands of the family and the satisfaction of its material comfort. They were the result of one’s familial obligations, not the basis for the distribution of goods themselves. Barter compensated for the unequal distribution of the social wealth and attempted to reestablish equilibrium within the community. “Mutual need of the different goods made it essential to contribute one’s share and it is on this basis that many of the non-Greek peoples still proceed, i.e. by exchange.”14 Families with surplus in one product would directly barter for items they lacked. Barter between families within a local village was founded upon the same principle of sharing as that among members of the same household. But as Aristotle points out, barter was based on need and not utilitarian calculation or material desire. Families were bound by a social ethic in which equal exchange was replaced by the fulfi llment of mutual needs and reciprocity. Just as in a family, what members of the community drew from the common store of goods was not measured or calculated; they were simply there for the benefi t of the indi- vidual and the association. Just as there was an obligation to share within a household, so too must households band together to share their surplus production for the common good. The example of exchanging a surplus of wine for corn is offered by Aristotle. “Members of a single household shared all the belongings of that house, but members of different households shared many of the belongings of other houses, also.”15 The obligation to participate in this process is itself based on nature and the broader responsibility to the survival of these communal associations. Aristotle’s theory of the moral economy thus grounds production, distribution, exchange, and consumption in the primacy of ethics and the integrity and solidarity of the family and
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 29 2/20/09 10:41:41 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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0 UN
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30 DREAMS IN EXILE
village community. Only when the self-suffi ciency of the family is threat- ened is the individual use of the goods called into question and potentially limited. Nature strives toward equilibrium, with barter as the means by which it is reestablished in production and distribution. By this means the self-suffi ciency of the family and village is maintained.
This view of an integrated moral economy becomes the basis for Aris- totle’s critique of the unnatural forms of production and wealth acquisition, that is, critique of political economy and chrematistics. Profi t and private interests soon began to facilitate transnational trade (kapelike), exchanging the surplus of one city-state for that of another. The natural link to the community was broken, and wealth acquisition took on a life and purpose of its own. The moral economy was replaced by the commercial trade and fi nancial banking of a political economy in which wealth became the sole end of economic activity. Commercial trade and commodity production replaced material exchange, as the unlimited pursuit of wealth pushed aside the ideals of self-suffi ciency, public happiness, and the common good as the foundation of the political community. Coined money and property became the central focus of human existence, as they were bargained for and accumulated without limit. Aristotle included shipping, transportation, wage labor, and skilled and unskilled labor within his analysis of retail trade. Manual labor is especially interesting. In his study of labor, based on the writings of Charetides of Paros and Apollodorus of Lemnos, he contends that because of its emphasis on physical and repetitive labor, there is a marked deterioration of the body and a development of an ignoble, slavish nature which is least likely to be motivated by virtue or reason.
Virtue, wisdom, law, and happiness—the ground of social ethics—were displaced by class inequality, economic power, political discontent, and market competition. Aristotle describes a forlorn world turned upside down with an inversion of its social dreams and political ideals. Reading the fi rst book of the Politics, one can easily hear the lament for a world that was rapidly disappearing. There is nothing like this form of critical analysis in Western thought until the arrival of nineteenth-century social theory.16 In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle was still in a position to see the remnants of the older and more traditional cultural values and social economy. The public sphere was being transformed into a private marketplace that was ready to trade virtue for vice and justice for profi t. The commodifi cation of economic exchange dissolved traditional community ties, undermined political constitutions, distorted interpersonal relations, and repressed the need for social justice. The economy was no longer morally embedded in the polity, providing the material sustenance for its ultimate natural purpose of developing the human soul in accordance with virtue. The goal now became market success and private wealth.
The heart of economic activity no longer involved an exchange between local neighbors and community farmers attempting to barter for
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5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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31ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
missing items in their household pantry, nor was it even an exchange by citizens in the local market of the agora to supplement their physical needs. It had been transformed into an activity with its own laws, logic, and moral priorities, in which the cultural and political life of the community was turned into an object having a market price. Trade now involved the com- mercial activity of foreigners and merchant capitalists. The natural limits of economic activity were abandoned in favor of unlimited production and accumulation. The original social goals of equilibrium, self-suffi ciency, and the telos of virtue that had given the economy its moral direction were no longer in place. The economy was beginning to take on a life of its own in opposition to its underlying political and ethical values. It metastasized into unrecognizable and unnatural forms. Human needs were transformed into market wants; the community was abandoned for commercial success and the accumulation of profi ts and property; the polity undermined by values antithetical to public virtue and practical wisdom; and happiness and the good life redefi ned as personal pleasure and private happiness. Utilitarian consumption and commercial enterprise distorted the moral obligations of civic friendship and communal responsibility. The shadow of modernity was already visible in the new economic institutions of the ancients—its tragic fate was already set in motion—and Aristotle became the fi rst to sketch the landscape of this new political economy.
With the development of the market economy—expanded commer- cial trade (M-C-M') and interest gathering (M-M')—the very nature and defi nition of virtue became distorted. The political community built upon the moral values of the ancients underwent a remarkable and tragic trans- formation. The highest aspirations of humanity were turned into means for further accumulation of money: moral steadfastness became a demand for hard work and persistence, ethical moderation became market cautiousness, military courage became entrepreneurial risk-taking and confi dence, justice became fair-market price, and practical wisdom became technical calculations of business opportunities and profi t maximization. Virtue itself became the technical basis for a new consciousness of property accumulation and money making. Morality and virtue evolved into the market skills (techne) used for maximizing commercial profi tability and business success. According to Aristotle, “For where enjoyment consists in excess, men look for that skill which produces the excess that is enjoyed. . . . But these people [commercial traders] turn all skills into skills of acquiring goods, as though that were the end and everything had to serve that end.”17 The means had now become the ends of the good life as virtue became a tool for an expanded utilitarian calculus. A political community built upon the self-suffi ciency of the oikos and the polis, human need and friendship, reciprocity and mutual sharing, a sense of communal responsibility and political obligation, and upon dedication to the law and constitution is a different kind of society than that built upon the market, individual consumption, class power, and inequality.
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 31 2/20/09 10:41:44 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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32 DREAMS IN EXILE
Nature is transformed in this quest for riches, as the individual replaces the community, money replaces virtue, and pleasure replaces civic happi- ness. Chrematistics, or unnatural wealth accumulation, distorts the ideals of the political community, turns its economic foundations into a means for property acquisition, and results in the moral inversion of justice and reason. That is, it inverts moral virtue and practical reason by turning them into a means for business success. Virtue becomes simply another technical skill for increasing production and acquiring wealth. It converts human needs into market wants and consumer desires, and it turns the public good into private pleasure; it perverts the ideals of a moral economy and social justice into a political economy for expanded production and profi ts. Ultimately, it subverts the political constitution and law of a democratic polity for the ideals of market commerce and commodity exchange. Aristotle recognizes that production is not production “in the full sense but only through ex- change.”18 The process of production makes commodities readily available only to those who have effective demand, not those who have real needs. In a market economy, this distinction is crucial. Needs may be met within a moral economy, however a market economy demands payment of money to complete the transaction and the vital connection between production and consumption. Those without money, although having strong and un- met needs, cannot satisfy their material defi ciency. The market no longer serves the more profound ethical needs of the polity but only responds to the market incentives of supply and demand. Profi ts motivate economic activity, not self-suffi ciency and reciprocal friendship. Coinage artifi cially limits exchange to those possessing the ability to pay for the satisfaction of their needs. Unnatural economic activity has displaced natural needs and ethical obligations to the family and the polis, and in the process, property and profi ts have redefi ned the function of man.
In this transformed and reifi ed economy, money becomes the telos of humanity. What was originally intended as a mechanism for the convenient measure and circulation of goods turns into a means of profi t making without limit. The foundations of the family and political community weaken, as citi- zens are viewed as exploitable commodities. Justice and politics are displaced by chrematistics and the market in this reifi cation of human relations. The natural law limits to wealth were viewed by Aristotle as lying in the common good along with human need and the self-suffi ciency of the family and the polis. Natural law, articulated in the laws and customs of the political com- munity, acted as the limits on the art of household management and natural growth. “For the amount of property of this kind which would give self-suf- fi ciency for a good life is not limitless.”19 To move beyond the boundaries established by nature is to undermine the foundations for communal life and the constitution.20 The liberty to expand limitlessly one’s material holdings could only result in the loss of personal freedom and public happiness. This is certainly a lesson that was not lost on the nineteenth-century critics of
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 32 2/20/09 10:41:45 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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33ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
modernity. After refl ection on the nature of the moral economy, the next stage in the analysis of Aristotle’s theory of society is a consideration of his view of the values and institutions of social justice.
ANCIENT DREAMS OF RECIPROCAL GRACE AND COMMUNAL JUSTICE
Discussion about the nature of justice is really a deliberation about virtue and the constitution of the state. Since justice is concerned with the full development of citizens within the political community, Aristotle undertakes a more complete analysis of this theme in Book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics. He distinguishes between two broad types of justice: particular and universal. Particular justice focuses on economic issues and the general disposition of the social wealth of the community, on civil and criminal law, and on fairness in market exchange. Thus, its main concern is for the distribution of the public and private wealth of the polis on the basis of merit and need, with its fi nal goal of solidifying the possibilities of universal justice. Aristotle distinguishes among distributive (dianemetikos), rectifi catory (diortho- tikos), and reciprocal (antipeponthos) justice. Universal justice, on the other hand, concentrates on justice as a whole within politics and is concerned more with the overall structure of law and constitution, which provides the political and pedagogical framework for happiness and a virtuous life. Justice represents the institutional context within which the virtuous life is completed. Together these various forms of justice constitute Aristotle’s theory of social justice.
As in his refl ections on law and constitutions, Aristotle begins his consideration of justice with the empirical. That is, he starts with the com- monsense beliefs about the nature of justice in the everyday world. He asks, “What do we mean by justice?” The fi rst characteristic of justice is that it is an aspect of virtue and a refl ection of the character of just individuals. He then examines the different meanings of justice and the “unjust man,” as well as the differences between actions which are unjust and those that are unfair. He concludes that justice, considered as a part of virtue or virtue in a particular action, is concerned mainly, though not exclusively, with equality, fairness, and economic distribution of the common goods of the household and the polis. This is what he refers to as particular justice. In these cases, the just must be both law-abiding and fair. A just man is one who avoids the injustice of acting according to the moral wickedness of self-indulgence, cowardice, or anger. Alternately, justice is not simply another kind of virtue or even the greatest of virtues. Rather, Aristotle views justice, in the wider sense of political justice, as the completion of virtue as a whole, since it integrates all the different forms of virtuous action and results in the full perfection of the citizen in the public realm. A just society is one which facilitates the creation of laws which encourage the development of just
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 33 2/20/09 10:41:46 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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34 DREAMS IN EXILE
individuals and political happiness, as well as a virtuous attitude toward others. This is what Aristotle calls “the exercise of virtue as a whole” for the common good. Although he begins with a review of the general disposition of character and the complete form of virtue, Aristotle is quick to shift away from the abstract and philosophical consideration of a virtuous community to a more detailed analysis of the social conditions which facilitate that kind of political association. This initial general refl ection on the nature of justice as a whole is a preparatory move in his more detailed analysis of particular justice and his consideration of the underlying fairness of the institutions that organize the economy and distribute the material products of society. Aristotle views the relationship between particular and universal justice as that between the part and the whole.
The fi rst form of particular justice is distributive justice, which centers on issues of fairness and equality. It involves the relative and proportional relationship between individuals and the ethical allocation of the economic and social benefi ts of society. The main issue is the distribution of public property and offi ces within the polis. How are the public wealth, communal booty, economic prizes and imperial rewards of conquest and treaties, collec- tive economic enterprises in silver mining and grain trade, political offi ces, and social honors to be shared among the citizens? To avoid any internal social unrest and confl ict, Aristotle suggests that they should be divided among the citizens equally. But the question remains: according to what ethical criterion is the equal distribution to take place? Who are equals in the ancient polis? The answer comes quickly to Aristotle. Distribution of the common honors and social wealth of the state among its citizens should be based on the measurement (axia) of merit or status. This response is pro- vocative but does not easily resolve the problem. It only offers us a direction for further inquiry. In Book 3 of the Politics, Aristotle will emphasize the political dimension of distributive justice—the sharing of political power, honors, and administrative offi ces—and its relation to the social contribu- tion of the individual to the common good. Here it is a question of who is a citizen and who should participate in key public offi ces, the Assembly, the Council, and the law courts.
According to Aristotle, public awards and common possessions are to be distributed to full citizens justly in accordance with the communal standard of merit. The latter is defi ned differently according to the social context and constitutional arrangements of the polis organized around democratic, oligarchic, or aristocratic principles. Merit and citizenship are characterized in a democracy by the activities of the freeman, in an oligarchy by the status of wealth and power or noble birth, and in an aristocracy by the accomplishments of virtue and moral excellence. Injustice involves an unequal and unfair arrangement in this process, whereby unequals are given equal treatment and rewards. Equality, on the other hand, is the intermedi- ate condition between persons and things that determines the proportion in
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 34 2/20/09 10:41:48 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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35ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
which honors, offi ces, and property are to be distributed among individuals. In this way human dignity is ensured and maintained. In different societies equality will be defi ned differently between individuals. In a democracy, it will be universal among citizens, but in both an oligarchy and an aristocracy, equals will be limited by particular claims to wealth or virtue. Equals are those who participate as equal citizens in defi ning the law and legislating within the political process. Thus, the issue of merit in distributive justice, though initially defi ned in the discussion of particular justice in Book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics, is closely tied to the broader issues of law and the correct constitutions of a democratic polity, monarchy, and aristocracy in Books 3 and 4 of the Politics. In these famous portions of Aristotle’s work on ethics, distributive justice is related to the defi nition of citizenship and equal participation within different forms of political constitutions.
Distributive justice is defi ned in terms of the correct mathematical bal- ance between equal citizens, although it may not necessarily be an equality of abstract numbers. Aristotle is not always clear, but he seems to suggest that distribution is just, not if everyone gets a specifi c equal amount or number of goods but if everyone gets goods in proportion to their perceived status within the community. Person A will be awarded prize B and person C will be awarded prize D. The proportional relationship between the persons and their awards is determined by an institutional community standard. As Aristotle says, “The conjunction, then, of the term A with C and of B with D is what is just in distribution, and this species of the just is intermediate, and the unjust is what violates the proportion.”21 Justice is geometrically proportional and communally relative to the political status or merit of each individual established by the cultural principles and institutional relation- ships of the constitution. Injustice violates these proportions and principles by giving unequals equal amounts and equals unequal amounts. In this process, one person has too much and another has too little of the good. Aristotle likens this form of justice to the manner of redistribution of the common funds found in an economic partnership. Proportionate distribution is determined on the basis of initial contribution to the business enterprise. The more one person invests, the more that person receives from the fi nal dispersal of the profi ts.
The second form of particular justice is rectifi catory or corrective justice. It, too, is concerned with equality, redistribution, and the application of a correct mathematical proportion to rebalance the effects of unjust actions in the area of civil and criminal law. Its purpose is to rectify injuries result- ing from unjust behavior in economic transactions involving the voluntary sale or purchase of goods, loans, pledges, deposits, and other activities of economic exchange. It also responds to injuries resulting from involuntary interaction between individuals, such as theft, adultery, poisoning, assault, murder, robbery, or abuse of slaves. The law abstracts from consideration of the specifi c character of the individuals involved in the transaction and
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 35 2/20/09 10:41:49 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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36 DREAMS IN EXILE
deals only with the particular nature of the injury under consideration. Whether the people involved are moral or evil, good or bad is irrelevant to the resolution of the legal transgression. The judge, who treats everyone involved in the lawsuit with equal respect and concern, attempts actively to return the situation to the way things were before the economic transgres- sion or personal injury. By intervening in the situation, he thus attempts to mitigate the advantage resulting from the unjust action, reestablish a lost equality by penalizing the advantage of the aggressive party, and reward the disadvantaged with damages. This, too, requires a redistribution of goods or action. In cases involving personal injury and violence, the pain and suffering are redistributed to establish justice and rebalance inequality.
Rectifi catory justice is the intermediate or mean between loss and gain, greater and less, or good and evil. The extremes are moderated to establish the natural balance that existed before the injustice took place. It is a variation of one individual having too much and another having too little. Aristotle was critical of pleonexia, or the state of greediness and the passionate desire of wanting more goods than others. With fair judgments, equality is restored, the original share is reestablished, the initial immoderate advantage of one person over another is negated, and the arithmetical proportion is reaffi rmed. According to Aristotle, the judge (dicastes) is one who takes the original two equal parts as they were before the infraction and proceeds to judge and bisect (dichastes) the whole amount. In this way, he redivides and redistributes the illegal advantage by adding to one and subtracting from the other. Justice here involves an intermediate and arithmetical proportion by which the original relationship is reconfi rmed. It does not involve any other type of redistribution based upon the broader needs of the citizen or community. Aristotle summarizes this type of justice by writing, “But when they get neither more nor less but just what belongs to themselves, they say that they have their own and they neither lose nor gain.”22
The third form of particular justice is reciprocal or commutative justice and expresses the natural fairness within economic exchange between farmers, workers, artisans, and foreigners (metics).23 Unlike the use of common goods within a household and the mutual sharing (metadosis) between households, Aristotle now considers economic activity between citizens in the agora. If love and kindness are the basis of exchange among family, friends, and neighbors, he searches for the basis of exchange among citizens and strangers in the city market. As he fi rst considers the issue, he asks whether the idea of reciprocal justice refers to the returning of pain and injury. He states the ethical position of both the Pythagoreans and the mythical Rhadamanthus, found in the work of Hesiod, who argue for justice as “suffering-in-turn” or retaliation of wrong-doing. Aristotle quickly rejects these passionate and negative positions and begins his analysis with a refl ection on the role of the Temple of the Graces in economic exchange.24 It is reciprocal justice and mutual sharing which in associations of exchange are responsible for
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 36 2/20/09 10:41:51 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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37ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
providing communal solidarity and social obligations which integrate the parts and hold the city together (summenousin). This is to be the foundation of economic exchange in the urban marketplace. Prices are determined on the basis of reciprocal proportion and not precise equal return.
As in the case of particular justice, economic relationships are embed- ded in a complex web of ethical obligations and political goals that preclude exchange itself from setting the moral principles for the economy or polity. Similar to Aristotle’s standards for economic allocation based on merit and the common good in his analysis of distributive justice, the defi nition of terms is open to public debate. What he means by proportional requital or economic reciprocity is not always clear. The same set of questions reappear: what are the ethical and political standards for the correct or just proportion in a market exchange, and are they the same as the standards for merit and distribution of public goods? What is the relationship between the public and private within the polis, and is this a real distinction in classical antiquity? If Aristotle is setting out to answer the question of the ethical foundation for social solidarity and the distribution of material goods within the community, he does not provide sure footing in his response. Ultimately grace is translated by him into the institutional form of need and friendship, and it is these two ethical norms which are institutionalized in economic exchange.
The Temple of the Graces was a religious institution intended to re- inforce the need for economic justice. It was located on the Acropolis, but there were also smaller roadside shrines throughout Athens to remind the people of the need to be generous to others who had shown kindness and generosity to them. Aristotle sees these shrines as important reminders to encourage proportional reciprocity and kindness in economic exchange. He says, “This is why they [the Greeks] give a prominent place to the temple of the Graces to promote the requital of services; for this is characteristic of grace—we should serve in return one who has shown grace to us, and should another time take the initiative in showing it.”25 The Temple serves as an expression of the objective memory and ethical standard for the direction of the economy. Exchange is not to be based on market prices, profi ts, economic advantage, supply and demand, subjective desires, or marginal utility. Rather, economics is simply a means to maintain the all-important social solidarity that integrates the community for its common efforts and pursuit of happi- ness. Grace, gift-giving, and hospitality, rather than chrematistics and money accumulation, are the foundation for economic exchange among citizens in the market.26 Exchanges do not result in a balanced and equal exchange of one good for another. It always results in one side of the exchange receiving a little more since its original goal was kindness and not profi ts. After the exchange is completed, the recipient of grace should seek opportunities to return the favor or gift at another time by initiating a similar kindness. If grace and gratitude are to facilitate economic exchange and reciprocal justice, what is the original reason for this kind of economic activity?
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5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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38 DREAMS IN EXILE
Aristotle delves into the idea of proportionate return in more detail in order to uncover the real bases of material exchange in the city. The exchange is now between skilled and unskilled workers, as well as between artisans and metics who inhabit the center of urban life in the ancient polis. Aristotle sets up his famous model of exchange between a house builder and a shoemaker. If A is the builder, B the shoemaker, C a house, and D a shoe, what is the basis for the exchange of so many pairs of shoes for a house? How are shoes and a house to be made equal so that a fair exchange is possible? This has been at the heart of a debate in Western thought from the ancients down to the present day. How are the two commodities made commensurable so that they could be exchanged fairly? This concern for proportionate equality is diffi cult, especially in a market where goods to be exchanged are the product of different types of work and workers. There are differences in the quantity and quality of the workmanship, the time expended in labor, and the status of the workers—farmer, artisan, and doc- tor, or freeborn and slave, or citizen and foreign resident. Some artisans work harder and are more effi cient, while others are more concerned with detail, quality, and beauty. There are goods produced which satisfy our basic physical needs and others which contribute to the public good.
What is the mechanism by which these different individuals and different products are mixed in exchange and made comparable and equal to produce a proportionate equality between them? Social worth, quantity, and quality deserve some measure of consideration in the determination of price.27 Tradition passed down within the community accomplishes this over time. In the end, it is grace, articulated by Aristotle as need and friendship, which navigates these differences and makes exchange possible, equal, and fair. Need is similar to wants in that they both express some aspect of hu- man survival. However, the former is a natural aspiration to the fulfi llment of a material, aesthetic, or ethical defi ciency, while the latter are subjective desires connected to the market and a competitive economy. Needs are those things which are necessary for life and communal well-being—the good—while wants are artifi cial and contingent drives open to manipula- tion and distortion by wider market forces and advertisement. Needs differ from subjective wants and desires because they refer to physical, ethical, and political requirements for the continued existence and self-suffi ciency of the household and the polis. They are not connected to the subjective basis for market activity because the latter can be artifi cially stimulated and unnaturally maintained. These subjective wants are more closely connected to unnatural property acquisition that Aristotle considers in the Politics. Needs are the natural and moral conditions necessary for the fulfi llment of a virtuous and good life; they are the physical and spiritual side of the powers and capabilities of social beings which promote the avoidance of excess. There are personal and communal dimensions to human need,
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 38 2/20/09 10:41:54 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
0N P A CN I PP Q , ,
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39ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
which is the foundation for reciprocal justice in ancient Greece. On the other hand, need limits physical desires and market exchange because they are tied to the natural requirements and suffi ciencies of the individual and the body politic. Need connects the individual to the community, the constitution, and the law, and thus it is an essential building block of the polis.28 Desires separate the private from the public and pursue the former at the expense of the latter. Finally, human need is a natural part of physi- cal life and an organic part of the broader life and self-suffi ciency of the community. Aristotle was the fi rst to note the possible disappearance of the political sphere resulting from its displacement by economic freedom and the accumulation of property.
Karl Marx, in Capital, was critical of Aristotle’s approach to this par- ticular topic, but he admitted that the market economy and capitalism had not fully developed to the point where Aristotle could have been expected to appreciate how abstract and surplus labor and economic organization provided the solution to his problem of the commensurability of commodities. But is Aristotle incorrect, or is he merely raising a different set of questions than those offered by Marx? Marx focused on the conditions for the possibility of commodity exchange in an unnatural and exploitative political economy. Aristotle, on the other hand, asks questions about the nature of natural or virtuous exchange among citizens. Marx concentrated on the mechanism or means of exchange in a capitalist economy. Aristotle focuses on the telos or end of exchange in an ideal ancient economy. He forcefully states that without the reciprocal equality of goods, there will be no exchange. He sidesteps the question of commensurability briefl y by stating that it is money which provides part of the solution to the problem.
According to Aristotle, money is an artifi cial convention introduced to help solve the problem of comparability and commensurability. It is the means by which different commodities are measured, problems of excess and defect in exchange are adjusted, and a quantitative price is given to material goods. Money ensures a sense of moderation in which one person does not get too much or too little in the process. Shoes, food, and house, are made equal and proportional in the market. This response by Aristotle has led some to assume precipitously and incorrectly that the market is the ultimate arbiter of differences. All differences between quantity, quality, work, and status of the participants in exchange, all differences between persons and things are overcome through the means of the monetary calculation of prices. Money provides the objective criterion and ratio of equation between different objects of exchange. Nothing too much or too little is the standard of appropriate reciprocal proportion provided by communal law and tradi- tion. Money provides a greater sense of security since it permits the deferral of exchange and consumption into the future when they are needed. The Greek word for money (nomisma) has the same etymological foundation as
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 39 2/20/09 10:41:55 AM
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0N P A CN I PP Q , ,
0 UN
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40 DREAMS IN EXILE
the word for law (nomos) because money is created by consensual agreement as the legal standard of measurement between different products. Only then will reciprocity work and the shoe and house become equitable by some objective basis of exchange. Money is the means that facilitates exchange by producing equality and commensurability in the urban market. It permits the craftsmen of a bed and a house to exchange their products with each other or for money. However, money is only the objective and institutional measure of goods that makes things equal by convention. What is the real basis for the conventional agreement? What social force underlies money and makes solidarity within the community possible?
In Aristotle’s economic theory, it is human need which provides this underlying basis for equality and measurement.29 After considering money as the refl ection and measurement of equality and proportion in the market, after considering money as the technical means by which exchange is made possible, he writes, “Now in truth it is impossible that things differing so much should become commensurate, but with reference to need (chreia) they may become so suffi ciently. There must, then, be a unit and that fi xed by agreement (for which reason it is called money).”30 Human need underlies money and tradition, and need is ultimately what creates the possibility and guidelines for exchange; it is need, as Aristotle has already stated, which holds the city together (summenousin). (In Book 8, Aristotle will add the galvanizing force of friendship to need as that which integrates the various elements of the city.) Goods, status, and people are not made equal by money, since the latter only expresses the ruling consensus of law and tradition. This is done by mutual need. Money and price are simply the objective representations of these needs, and being artifi cial conventions they have no autonomy or independent existence beyond them.
To some scholars, Aristotle seems to be making the argument that the basis for the natural economy in the city is either determined by legisla- tive practice and traditional obligations or by the economy itself. The state or the market decides the correct and fair proportion between objects of exchange. Some modern interpreters of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics even claim that it is not money but subjective demand and desires that provide the incentives to engage in market exchange and that the principles of the law of supply and demand are also applicable to the ancient economy. They have attempted to treat Aristotle’s moral economy as an expression of modern economic theory with its emphasis on money, price, subjective demand, and the market. But this only distorts Aristotle’s theory of moral economy and economic justice while repressing the truly radical nature of his critique of the market and political economy. These interpretations also run counter to the context of the argument in which Aristotle began his study of reciprocal justice. There the ideals of communal grace and shared
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 40 2/20/09 10:41:56 AM
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0N P A CN I PP Q , ,
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41ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
kindness provided the basis for exchange of material goods. Money and tradi- tion are the objective facilitators of market exchange—they make it happen smoothly—but that which reduces all differences to an equitable relationship is need. Human need (chreia) is the basis for barter among families, friends, and citizens because need does not require everything to be made precisely equal. Grace and kindness require only a relative or proportional equality in the marketplace, since the goal of the economy is never a one-to-one utilitarian exchange or calculated accumulation of money. Its actual origins lie deep within the Homeric values of hospitality and gift-giving and the classical Greek ideals of self-suffi ciency, virtue, and happiness.31 Mutual sharing on the basis of physical need, ultimately measured and defi ned by money, is the cornerstone of the ancient economy. The ethical and political implications of these criteria are profound for the development of Aristotle’s broader theory of moral economy and social justice.
Aristotle concludes his analysis of reciprocal justice with a summary of his defi nitions of the just and unjust. Justice involves actions which are “intermediate between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated; for the one is to have too much and the other to have too little.”32 Human need places natural limits on the economy. It avoids excesses and promotes mod- eration because it is tied to the material limits of self-suffi ciency in a moral economy. Injustice is what is excessive and beyond moderation because it upsets the proportional balance among neighbors and citizens. Even justice could turn into injustice if it was excessive and too much was given to one’s neighbor and not enough to one’s own family. Thus, excessive liberality and benevolence would destabilize the natural equilibrium of the household and political community. This summary of Aristotle’s theory of economic justice represents a powerful indictment of the structures of political economy which allow the market and property acquisition to become excessive and unjust, because they undermine the natural balance and harmony within the pol- ity. Class inequality, poverty, and excessive economic and political power are destructive of a stable moral economy and a good and just society. In the end, however, the basis for reciprocal justice lies in human need and friendship. Reciprocity in exchange is always subsidiary, for Aristotle, to the broader moral and intellectual needs of the community for political justice, that is, the organization of the constitution and law around greater political participation within the judicial, legislative, and public offi ces of the polis. Reciprocity is not an end in itself but a necessary prerequisite in a moral economy designed to ensure self-suffi ciency in the household and the polis for a life of civic virtue, public deliberation, and policy judgment in daily government and the affairs of state. It is only this form of activity which will realize the moral and political function of man as an “activity of soul in accordance with virtue.”33
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5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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42 DREAMS IN EXILE
FRIENDSHIP OF BROTHERS AND COMMONWEALTH OF CITIZENS
Having completed his analysis of the forms of particular justice, Aristotle next turns his attention to an examination of universal or political justice. The study of justice here is disappointing and disjointed, quite possibly because it is less an analysis than an introduction to a more complex understanding of the question. Political justice is not simply a part of the classical discourse on the topic, but rather is “virtue entire” because it deals with the structures of society and the ultimate goals of humanity. If economic justice in the form of distribution and reciprocity provides the material foundation for the development of the polis, political justice is whole and complete because it permits the free exercise of practical wisdom, moral and intellectual virtues, and civic friendship and deliberation. In its widest terms, this kind of justice demands an inquiry into the nature of the best form of political constitution and the rule of law. It is the whole of justice since it frames the complex set of social relationships and character formation of the individual and allows for the creation of a virtuous life in a total commitment of citizens who are free, equal, and dedicated to each other. At this point in his analysis in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is concerned with the rise of political tyranny, the disproportionate distribution of the good, and the maintenance of equal shares of honor and goods based on merit. Toward this latter end, he says that justice can only exist when citizens are governed by law and have an equal share in ruling and being ruled. Only by these means do citizens avoid problems associated with the rule of a self-interested tyrant.
Shifting ground at the very end of Book 5, Aristotle turns to consider a variety of different themes when refl ecting upon the nature of justice: the distinction between justice as nature and as convention, the role of delibera- tion and judgment in just action, and the importance of equity (epieikeia) in applying universal standards of law in particular cases. What integrates these three themes is the importance of human freedom, intellectual creativity, and practical knowledge in acting justly. In the end, this short section in Book 5 is only a brief introduction to the consideration of the central elements of political justice—the nature of critical judgment, public discourse, and political wisdom in the good life and the role of friendship and solidarity in exchange and politics. It is to these areas that we now turn. Aristotle argues that besides human need, friendship is the other major ingredient in holding society together in dialogue and exchange. This is why two of the ten books of the Nicomachean Ethics are devoted to examining the various forms of friendship and their role in creating the conditions of social soli- darity by providing the moral glue that binds individuals in responsible and moral obligations to each other. This is what Aristotle calls “the friendship of brothers.”
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43ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Friendship is a moral virtue that brings individuals together in a common brotherhood and call to noble action. In thought and action, the other person is the fi rst object of consideration. Benefi cence in peace and courage in war are natural responses to the perceived needs of others. Life becomes meaningless without friends, even for the most successful and wealthy. Friendship is such a natural expression of human life that Aristotle refers to it as a human need. It is a partnership and mutual love that provides the opportunity to be kind and generous, to secure property, to offer solace in times of misfortune and grief, to help educate the young, to protect the old and weak, to nurture practical wisdom, and to encour- age noble and virtuous action. “To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other.”34 Friendship is a natural relationship of mutual respect and trust grounded in familial love and protection and the love of one’s fellow citizens. It is appreciated by politicians and lawmakers because it is based on mutual recognition and goodwill, thus creating a strong sense of centripetal responsibility to others that counteracts any internal social discord and political factions. “Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than justice.”35 Consensus built around issues within the community is similar to the shared opinion of friends.
There are three kinds of friendship corresponding to the three kinds of objects of love, that is, love of others for their utility, for their pleasure, and for their virtue and character. Only the last form of love is the perfect kind as it is directed at the love of the good in others and for the good of others. There is an element of natural goodwill and care for the other. Friendships based solely on usefulness or pleasure are impermanent and last only as long as the contingent purposes themselves. True friendship is based on the best state of character and involves goodness and love which are permanent and pleasant. This form of friendship is a steadfast commitment for its own sake; it is rare; and it involves familiarity, time to develop, trust in each other, mutual love, and virtue. Aristotle concludes that only good men can be true friends. Bad men use friendship as a means to accomplish a perceived contingent advantage of commercial profi t, usefulness, or tem- porary pleasure. They do not encourage or admire the good in themselves or in others. True friendship, based on awareness and self-conscious choice of the good without qualifi cation, is also pleasant and desirable, but these are not the primary reasons for companionship. Delight in each other, pleasant company, love of the noble, and appreciation of the personality of the other are the grounds for a lasting friendship among equals. On the economic side of friendship, generosity and sharing are its central elements. “Friendships involve equality; for the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same things for one another, or exchange one thing for another.”36 Aristotle refers to this kind of friendship between companions
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 43 2/20/09 10:42:01 AM
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44 DREAMS IN EXILE
as the “friendship of virtue.” He recognizes that there is another kind of friendship which involves more inequality and disproportionate merit and power of those involved: the friendship of father and son, elder and younger, husband and wife, and ruler and subject. Their expressions of love and friendship are based on different functions in life and different priorities and goals. Each individual involved in these unequal friendships receives different benefi ts and disproportionate gifts. The good should receive more love and benefi ts from the relationship in proportion to their merits. This is the same standard of equality that exists in distributive justice. If the inequality between these individuals becomes too great, the possibility of friendship may become impossible. A friendship of virtue among brothers demands equality and love.
This discussion of friendship leads Aristotle to his real interest in public friendship among citizens and social justice. It is here that the full implications of the ancient role of friendship for the economy and polity become clear. Aristotle even writes that friendship is more important than justice, because it precedes justice as the basis for economic and political order and stability. Between friends there is no need for justice. Without the immediate and passionate binding of love between friends, there is a danger that justice becomes merely the technical application of dispassionate laws and formal duties. But when justice is founded upon the ties of friendship, there is an unbreakable unity that joins individuals together in a common cause and commonwealth. Friendship and justice have much in common, as both are concerned with similar intersubjective issues and are shared by the same individuals. Yet Aristotle seems to be making a more radical argu- ment: friendship is the ultimate bond that provides the solidarity for civic virtue; it is the necessary condition for a just society. Justice holds political and economic associations together based upon proportional equality and distribution of merit. Friendship involves a more immediate equality based on love and companionship that ultimately permits justice to function. Justice seems to supplement friendship when distance and inequality replace the intimacy of family and friends; it is less grounded by familial love and tied more to a friendship of companions and comrades bound by the virtue, equality, and mutual respect of civic friendship and reinforced by tradition, law, and political participation.37
Aristotle is well aware that within the various forms of association in the community—economic, military, and political—the organizational principle should be that of friendship. Justice provides the structures within which the various constitutions and associations are formed, but it is friendship which offers the ethical guidelines and moral principles that direct their interpersonal interaction. Friendship is not simply a class of expanded household interaction, an earlier and less developed form of social justice, or even an intimate private experience that offers continued
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45ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
subjective comfort and affection in a harsh world. Aristotle’s position has more radical implications for both economic and political theory, since it is upon friendship that the political and economic community ultimately rests. He places great weight on the proverb, “What friends have is common property.” With the examination of the nature of political and economic justice, it is the common bond of friendship which cements the citizens’ sense of moral responsibility and obligation to others within the polity. Goods are exchanged, wealth is accumulated, and public honors are dis- tributed on the basis of a belief in the expanded ethical principles of the household. Although Aristotle rejects Plato’s argument in the Republic for the common ownership of property among the warriors, his treatment of distributive and reciprocal justice assumes a common bond regarding public and private wealth. Property is private, but there are ethical and political aspects of ownership that must be guided by a friendship among citizens and a general commitment to virtue and the common good. The forces produced by these moral obligations are very powerful and similar to the imperatives of a common responsibility within the household. Property is privately owned, but there are real public obligations within this form of commonwealth. Friendship turns wealth into a communal responsibility to act with generosity and love toward one’s fellow citizens, since in the end “friendship depends on community” and “brothers and comrades have all things in common.”38 Aristotle is aware that the claims of justice within a household and among fellow citizens are different; they refl ect the different ends of the oikos and the polis.
Friendship is the foundation upon which a just society is built. As there are different types of friendship, there are also different forms of political constitutions which correspond to them. This typology is helpful for it sets the stage for Aristotle’s analysis of a just society as a friendship of brothers bound together by passion and reason and moving toward the common good of a noble and virtuous life. The social forms of that life are articulated within a moral economy and a democratic polity. As already discussed, there are three forms of friendship: utilitarian, sensuous, and virtuous. So, too, there are three forms of corresponding constitutions: monarchy, aristocracy, and democratic polity. All forms of association within ancient Greece were only parts of a larger whole composed of the political community, and to that extent friendships refl ected the wider values and structures of the state. For Aristotle, then, the paternal friendship of superiority between a father and son refl ects the disproportional relationship found in a monarchy; the familial association of a virtuous and good man and his wife refl ects that of an aristocracy; and the fraternal association of equal brothers refl ects that of a democratic polity. In this way, a monarchy is based on the friendship of a father, an aristocracy on the friendship of a husband, and a democratic polity on the friendship of brothers. Friendship in each case is different and
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46 DREAMS IN EXILE
based on the merit or worth of the parties involved. On the other hand, these political forms can transform into deviant constitutional regimes. If the rule of the father is overbearing, we get the perverted constitution of a tyranny and slavery; if the husband is oppressive and disrespectful to his wife, we get an oligarchy; and if the brothers are licentious and leaderless, we get a chaotic democracy.
Although it appears at fi rst to be just another formal exercise in the academic prerogative of expanded and rhetorical analyses, the outline of the different typologies of constitutions and friendships has a very important role in the overall design of Aristotle’s philosophy of ethics and politics. The central issue for Aristotle is that, in the end, constitutions are based on various forms of friendship (and justice) that hold the communities and their associations together in a unifi ed whole. It is these friendships that provide the underlying ethical principles that guide and legitimate the state and economy. Therefore, the moral guidelines for the ideal constitution, social justice, and a moral economy will be the ethical principles underlying the polis. For reasons we will discuss later in this chapter, Aristotle will focus most of his attention in the Politics on the democratic polity and its principle of the collective sharing of virtue within a friendship of brothers. Aristotle’s position is clear: “The friendship of brothers is like that of comrades for they are equal and of like age, and such persons are for the most part alike in their feelings and their character.”39 This familial relationship among brothers and comrades also refl ects the ideals of a democratic polity whose ultimate goals are equality and fairness in the decision-making process in which citizens take turns ruling and being ruled. This kind of friendship is forged in living together with a common education, shared life experiences, and a similarity of age. The reciprocal love of the immediate household is extended to a larger family of associations based on a continuity of time and place. Social, political, and military comrades are brought into the extended web of brothers, cousins, and other relatives. Citizenship virtues of honor, courage, and nobility begin to be defi ned by familial feelings of mutual love, respect, and generosity. Economic and political associations look more like familial arrangements than legal conventions and artifi cial compacts. These relationships between family, friends, and citizens help explain much about the distinctive character of Aristotle’s economic and political philosophy.
Since friendship may be based on an equality of brothers or an inequality of fathers, husbands, and gods, so too may political regimes be based on equality or inequality. Aristotle does not get into a discussion at this point in his analysis about the correct and worst forms of governments. For this we must wait until Book 2 of the Politics. He is only concerned at this point about making a clear connection between friendship and constitutions, since the former explains for him the nature of solidarity in economic and political associations. Friendship is the civic virtue that
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5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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47ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
integrates the ethical principles and social institutions together to form the ancient polis. The foundation for universal and particular justice, the distribution of public and private goods, the importance of reciprocity and mutual sharing, and the care about satisfying human needs all rest upon the quality and intensity of friendship. Without friendship, the economic and political foundations of the best constitution become impossible; without friendship there is no constitution. This is what makes both moral and intellectual virtue and public happiness possible. This is thus the reason the discussion of friendship occupies such a prominent place in Aristotle’s analysis between justice and politics.
Toward the end of Book 8, Aristotle’s analysis of the types of friend- ship returns to an earlier discussion about the appropriate form and moral standard of economic exchange, this time between friends and strangers, between persons who are equal, and between persons who are unequal. He distinguishes between different types of material exchanges based on friend- ships of equivalency, superiority of status or moral worth, and human need. If possible, the equivalent or a little more should always be returned in a market situation, especially if the interaction is not between friends. Someone should never benefi t from an exchange between nonfriends. Aristotle does qualify this, however, by saying that equivalency is the basis for exchange when possible. If there is a dispute over the amount of the exchange, the benefi t or advantage to the receiver should be the key factor in deciding the appropriate or just price. When there is an exchange based on a friendship of inequality between a superior good man and another, the better man believes he should get more, but Aristotle is quick to point out, More of what? The good man expects to receive more honor, while the inferior man expects to receive more material help. Human need is the criterion for this form of exchange between unequals. Aristotle comments, “But the man who is in a state of need and inferiority makes the opposite claim; they think it is part of a good friend to help those in need.”40 Honor and virtue are to be given to the superior, while material gain is the prize of the inferior. An exchange between equals in different households comes closer to direct barter as they are equal in virtue and need; exchange between unequals in the market is an interesting and complex relationship because it refl ects the differences in a more developed society. Between friends, the market presents an opportunity to exchange goods and reaffi rm the relationship; it is not an opportunity to take advantage or make a profi t. Balance and equilibrium among the citizens should be the guiding principles here.
By means of this proportional sharing of honor and wealth in the process of exchange, friendship, along with the polity, is maintained and prospers. Disproportionality of merit and status is balanced with a disproportionality of human need. Both parties are satisfi ed as both get exactly what they seek. “For friendship asks a man to do what he can, not what is proportional to the
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 47 2/20/09 10:42:06 AM
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48 DREAMS IN EXILE
merits of the case.”41 Earlier in his analysis of friendship, Aristotle made the statement that love was the main characteristic of friendship. Love between friends searching for virtue and utility is what supports the larger demands of the ancient Greek polity. In the end, Aristotle concludes that the model for the good man in market exchange should always be the natural relation- ship between friends. In cases where there is a disproportionality of virtue or wealth, the real basis for economic transactions should be the natural friendship between a father and son where the latter cannot always repay in equal amounts. Exchanges between people are ordered differently according to the worth of the persons involved. Thus, transactions involving parents, brothers, comrades, and superiors are treated differently and the return gift or price is adjusted accordingly. Since the friendship of brothers will be used as the guideline for a moral economy and best political constitution in the Politics, it is important that we notice that Aristotle maintains that between brothers and comrades “one should allow freedom of speech and common use of all things.”42 He concludes his analysis of friendship with a statement that will eventually be picked up in the nineteenth century by Karl Marx. Each group of friends will spend their lives together in a range of activities in which they share the values and loves that bring them closer together as friends, including drinking, gambling, athletics, hunting, and the study of philosophy.43
Ideally, exchanges should appear fair to both parties and, if this is not possible, the recipient should set the price. The appropriate price between dissimilar citizens is publicly articulated in the form of money, which refl ects the ideal values of the political tradition and convention. In the end, economic relationships between similar and dissimilar parties are measured in terms of how they affect the common good. This is the ultimate foundation of the constitution and of social justice, and it is the basis for our understanding of the nature of the moral economy and the good life of nobility and virtue. According to Aristotle, friendship and virtue are human needs, along with the physical needs that we associate with the economy; it is not just material goods which are to be shared among friends, there is also to be a “sharing in discussion and thought.” This idea of human need as referring to friendship, reason, and deliberation naturally leads Aristotle to a discussion of reason, practical knowledge, and the best political constitution. It is friendship that facilitates both economic exchange and rational discourse.
PRACTICAL WISDOM AS DELIBERATION AND DISCOURSE
As the moral virtues modulate the citizen’s passions and desires by applying the freely chosen right rule of reason and the intermediate mean between excess and defect, they form learned habits over time. In this way desires are rationally controlled. On the other hand, the intellectual virtues sys-
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5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
0N P A CN I PP Q , ,
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49ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
tematically offer the rational options for the fi nal ends of the good life. In the search for the good, moral and intellectual virtues are integrated. In Book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle breaks intellectual virtue down into fi ve distinct operations of the mind and their corresponding kinds of knowledge: scientifi c (episteme), art (techne), practical (phronesis), philosophic (sophia), and intuitive reason (nous). Since both philosophic and intuitive knowledge are aspects of scientifi c knowledge, Aristotle and the later traditions emphasize the fi rst three forms of knowledge with barely a mention of the last two. Science is the theoretical knowledge of philosophical contemplation (theoria) which seeks invariant and eternal objects and universal truths. It has knowledge of the nature of the divine and requires a distance and removal of the philosopher from the act of investigation, that is, it requires a theoretical objectivity as it searches for the essential truths. This quest for the universal and unchanging aspects of reality (episteme) is found in Aristotle’s works on physics, metaphysics, and mathematics. The methods applied in scientifi c knowledge are induction and deduction grounded in fi rst principles. The former begins with the im- mediacy of empirical evidence and rises through the rational accumulation of facts to universal conclusions; the universal is implicit in the particular. Deduction begins with the universal derived from experience in order to reach necessary conclusions about the particular. Conclusions reached by both methods of demonstration connect experience and reason in order to arrive at universal and necessary results. This is the knowledge of the philosopher who contemplates the ultimate truths and causes of being. The fi rst principles of science cannot themselves be scientifi cally demonstrated or known; they are self-evident truths and are independent of all empiri- cal evidence. They represent the basic truths upon which rests syllogistic reasoning. “Our own doctrine is that not all knowledge is demonstrative: on the contrary, knowledge of the immediate premises is independent of demonstration.”44 Philosophical wisdom combines the fruits of intuitive reason and scientifi c inquiry. According to Aristotle, it is the most perfect form of knowledge, as it is always in search of eternal truths about an unchanging reality. Demonstration and syllogistic inference provide the methods of scientifi c inquiry in philosophy.
Quite different from science and philosophy is the technical knowl- edge (techne) of the artist and artisan who focus on production or making (poiesis) based upon preconceived ideas about the fi nal product. This form of utilitarian knowledge examines the contingent world of everyday life that is in a continuous process of coming-to-be and passing-away. As with philosophical contemplation, the knowledge of the artisan may be taught and learned. Technical knowledge is not a passive skill but intervenes in the world by transforming it according to administrative ideas and social blueprints. Aristotle summarizes the essence of practical reason (phronesis)
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50 DREAMS IN EXILE
as “the quality of mind concerned with things just and noble and good for man.”45 This third form of knowledge, which can neither be demonstrated nor instrumentally controlled, neither contemplated nor made, and neither proven nor produced, involves practical reason and deals with the variable world of moral and political action. This distinction between acting and making will be important for later philosophers in discussing the nature and role of political and social theory.46 Practical knowledge is different from the other forms of knowledge because it cannot be learned or taught, is not based on preconceived rational designs or intuitively grounded fi rst principles, nor can it be used as a means to a formal end. This knowledge is not derived from demonstration and logic or from technical success and social pragmatism. It is derived from dialectical reasoning about opinions that are generally accepted. In practical knowledge, demonstration and domination have been replaced by deliberation (bouleusis) and action (praxis). Aristotle summarizes these distinction when he remarks, “Practical wisdom cannot be scientifi c knowledge or art; not science because that which can be done is capable of being otherwise, nor art because action and making are differ- ent kinds of things.”47 The knowledge of practical wisdom is applied to all forms of ethical activity about bodily health, friendship, wealth production, and so forth within the household, economy, legislature, and polity, and is concerned with the good and virtuous.48
By the nature of its subject matter, its objects of inquiry, and its logic of analysis, practical reason cannot offer us universal truths or absolute knowledge about the world. Its ultimate goal is an excellence in deliberation and “a kind of correctness.” Aristotle quickly points out that the correct- ness found in practical knowledge shares nothing in common with realism, that is, with a correctness of knowledge or truth. The moral and political opinions it generates, the resolve to act justly and virtuously, and the quest for happiness and moral perfection produce a different type of wisdom than that found in science or philosophy, which correspond to nature and essential realities. Ideas do not refl ect an objective reality to which they correspond, creating universal truths. Practical wisdom, along with moral virtues, results in a rational decision to act justly. The goal is not truth, being, reality, or God but rather the good. Thus, Aristotle says that “excellence in delibera- tion will be correctness with regard to what conduces to the end of which practical wisdom is the true apprehension.”49
This form of correctness consists of an excellence of deliberation by which the citizen understands the fi nal end, or universal, and its dialectical relation to the particular situation. In this way, the citizen realizes the fi nal end by choosing and acting upon the appropriate means to the end given the nature of the particular. This form of wisdom represents the ability to deliberate about the good life in general, the universal, and then to act upon it in the concrete, the particular. Deliberation and equity share the same concern for the relationship between the universal and the particular.
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51ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Knowledge without particulars is not wisdom; knowledge without action is not moral. Aristotle refers to the case of a person who knows about the health-producing properties of meat but does not know about the nature of particular meats. Just as that person will not be able to produce health, the individual who may know about political science, the true function of man, and the ultimate goal of happiness but who does not possess the lived experience of the particular is not wise. So too with the man of praxis. To accomplish practical wisdom is an acquired taste, not a learned truth. Practice requires particulars as the way to approach and realize the uni- versal. The universal good establishes the ultimate limit to action, but the particular gives historical and social context, guidance, and resolve. In this way, deliberation mediates between the means and the ends, the particular and the universal, as it makes real that which is only an abstract idea and a contingent possibility.
Aristotle insists on a number of occasions that practical wisdom is achievable only after years of experience and accumulated knowledge. This accounts for how rare this form of knowledge is, especially among the young. “The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars, which become familiar from experience, but a young man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives experience.”50 This concern for the relationship between the universal and the particular has already been considered by Aristotle at the end of the Book 5, where he discusses the question of equity and the equitable judge. As friendship is superior to justice, so too is equity, because both are means by which the ideals and principles of justice are applied in an informal and immediate manner. Equity is not legal justice but the correction or modifi cation of justice in a judicial setting. By the application of judicial prudence by the judge, the law, as a universal, is rationally adapted and applied to particu- lar cases under review. This approach shows sensitivity to the relationship between the law and its application. The latter is not formal or oppressive but appreciates and understands the contingent facts of the case and how they relate to the universal. Aristotle uses the example of a case that is not covered by the law. In these circumstances, the judge must act as a legislator by asking the hypothetical question: what would the legislators have written if they were present and could consider the issues involved in this particular case? In this problem of legal hermeneutics and interpretive understanding of the universal law of the polis, the judge recognizes that the law can never be absolute but must be retranslated and reconfi gured to fi t the exigencies of the particular legal situation. The law must be equitably and fairly applied. “And this is the nature of the equitable—a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality.”51
Although the law is universally applicable in the abstract, it must be altered slightly to fi t the indefi nite particulars of the case. In its abstraction, the law is too general and too rigid to be universally applied. There are
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52 DREAMS IN EXILE
instances when the law cannot be executed as it is presently represented. At this point Aristotle makes reference to the example of the leaden rule and Lesbian architectural molding. Architects on the island of Lesbos have the skills necessary to adjust the fl exible rod in the measurement of the curves of fl uted columns on the stone molding. The law must be like the metal ruler of Lesbos and adjust itself to the contours and distinctive pat- terns of the legal case under consideration. Legal understanding must keep the principles of the law intact while at the same time making them ap- propriate and applicable to the particular. Martha Nussbaum, in The Fragility of Goodness, has emphasized this point by stressing the process of percep- tive discrimination in moral judgments. The goal of moral wisdom is not knowledge of universal principles for a deductive formulation of appropriate courses of action. Rather, the law should be viewed as a summary of legal precedents acquired over time; they are rules of thumb and summaries of good judgments that must be incorporated into the case with a sensitivity and subtlety acquired through mature judgment and years of public experi- ence.52 As in the case of the Lesbos ruler, there must be an adaptability to the particularities of the moment and sensitivity to any changes in the contours of morality and politics that cannot be predefi ned or anticipated by the universal measure of the law. Nussbaum writes, “There is, thus, room for surprise, room for both the cognitive insecurity and the human vulner- ability that the Platonic scientifi c concept is seeking to avoid.”53 Flexibility to changes in the particular and recognition of the fragility of the universal help make the application of law to particular situations more open to sensitive adjustment and reassessment. Nussbaum reiterates Aristotle’s characteriza- tion of practical judgments—indeterminacy, mutability, and indefi niteness of moral rules—which make problematic their unmediated application to the circumstances of the particular moment. Aristotle makes this point very directly in the Nicomachean Ethics:
The cause is that such wisdom [phronesis] is concerned not only with universals but with particulars which become familiar from experience. . . . while practical wisdom is concerned with the ultimate particular, which is the object not of scientifi c knowledge but of perception—not perception of qualities peculiar to one sense but a perception akin to that by which we perceive that the particular fi gure before us is a triangle.54
Here the discernment of practical perception refers to a responsiveness and intuitive sensitivity to the blending of the universal law to the particular case under consideration.
Prudence or practical knowledge (phronesis) considers more than moral action and the relationship between the universal and the particular.55 It is
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53ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
much more than personal refl ection and individual moral action, since it also involves ethical and political decisions which can neither be scientifi cally demonstrated, philosophically contemplated, technically known, or socially engineered. The concept of bouleusis implies both deliberation and discussion. General deliberation about virtue and the good is the manner by which this form of knowledge is acquired and ethical and political actions (praxis) are undertaken. The fi nal ends are considered and the means appropriate for reaching these ends are applied. The goal of this form of knowledge is never knowledge for its own sake but rather virtuous activity. Just as we have seen in Aristotle’s analysis of the good life, happiness, and justice, and also in the case of the relationship between morals and politics, the types of issues that practical knowledge considers moves beyond the personal into the public arena of the common good. Refl ective deliberation about the good is concerned only with the contingent world of our particular moral experiences and opinions, not with the world of pure theory or contemplation (episteme). It mediates between the universal articulated in the shared values and communal norms of the law and moral tradition, and its appropriate application to particular situations involving action (praxis). It should be noted that the relationship between the universal and the particular in Aristotle’s theories of knowledge and judicial equity represent the beginning of a long philosophical tradition that evolves into the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, Heinrich Rickert, Max Weber, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. This is the tradition of critical hermeneutics and interpretive sociology.
According to Aristotle, moral deliberation entails the different mo- ments of self-conscious understanding of the utterances of others (sunesis), forgiveness or sympathy (suggnome), and mature judgment (gnome).56 For understanding and judgment to be effective, they must be realized in concrete moral action (praxis) within the deliberative process of the political arena. But there has to be a clear understanding of the meaning of what others say and intend before action can take place. There must, therefore, be a sympathy or feeling for others in order to appreciate and understand one’s particular situation, that is, the public statements, intentions, and meaning of others and the possible appropriate actions to be undertaken. Aristotle states that understanding is a form of learning that “is applicable to the exercise of the faculty of opinion for the purpose of judging of what someone else says about matters with which practical wisdom is concerned—and of judging soundly, for ‘well’ and ‘soundly’ are the same thing.”57 Understand- ing appreciates the immediate circumstances and varied opinions since it examines only that which can be deliberated and judged. For understand- ing to take place, there must be a common bond based on mutual caring (philia) and sympathy.58
In fact, there is a common linguistic ground in gnome (judgment) and suggnome (sympathy) that lies in the sympathetic understanding of others.59
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For Aristotle, sympathy or moral sensitivity involves a judgment with others as to the right course of action. Judgment is always with others and on behalf of others. It is the ability of the virtuous man to be able to take the role of the other by empathetically projecting himself into the other’s situation. Ronald Beiner, in Political Judgment, views this as the basis for friendship and citizenship within a just society. He holds that to appreciate the nature of understanding, we must keep in mind the connections among judgment, forgiveness, and sympathy.
We see now that the answer must reside in the capacity of the prudent man, the phronimos, not just to judge, but at the same time to judge-with (as among citizens)—judgment guided by shared concern, informed by reciprocal involvement in situations held in common. In this sense, sympathetic understanding and capacity for forgiveness are essential moments of any judgment upon human affairs, and all authentic judgment contains within it the potential- ity for judgment-with.60
The understanding refl ects upon those subject matters that are part of a critical deliberation in which practical judgments about the social world are made. Understanding requires a self-consciousness about how the universal and particular, law and judgment, and tradition and the present intersect in a critical awareness of the nature of the good. Being connected to the state by bonds of citizenship forms a strong sense of political community, history and tradition of social justice, solidarity of friendship, and respect for the institutions of a constitutional government. Aristotle says that understanding is a “faculty of opinion for the purpose of judging of what some one else says about matters with which practical wisdom is concerned.”61 Understanding engages other citizens in a public discourse about matters relevant to the political community, interprets the meaning of their statements, evaluates the relevance of their ideas to the issues at hand, and makes judgments about their adequacy. First, other persons must be understood in any discussion, and then their opinions judged on the basis of the adequacy of their un- derstanding of the good life and their concrete policy proposals to reach it. Since practical wisdom deals with good men, the intentions and rationality of the other must surely be considered when measuring the weight of their arguments, the seriousness of their purpose, and the wisdom of their ulti- mate intentions. Deliberation and judgment are not isolated states of mind. Rather, they occur within an open engagement with other equally committed citizens searching for the good in a free and equal political dialogue. Similar to issues raised with judicial equity, those engaged in serious dialogue must consider the hermeneutical moment as crucial to the appreciation of the meaning and intentions of others. This is what Aristotle means by “judging
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55ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
soundly.” There is a fascinating synthesis here within Aristotle’s theory of deliberative understanding of legal hermeneutics and politics. This theory of sympathetic understanding, deliberative reason, and critical judgment will have important implications later for Weber’s theory of social understanding, intentionality, and practical action.
Although this section on practical wisdom and understanding is brief, it offers tantalizing suggestions that call out for further analysis. Aristotle comments that judgment must be sympathetic and adds that it also must have “the right discrimination of the equitable” both to know the law and to know the relevant application of the universal. This places the understanding squarely in the area of the universal and particular, of law and its applica- tion. The equitable judge must not be mechanically rigid or oppressively tyrannical when applying abstract and formal legal principles to particular situations. Equity and justice demand an understanding of the circumstances as well as a fl exibility and sensitivity of application. “For understanding is neither about things that are always and are unchangeable, nor about any and every one of the things that come into being, but about things which may become subjects of question and deliberation.”62
With political deliberation, citizens must judge on the basis of their knowledge of the constitution, of the good life, and how particular deci- sions will support those desired goals. In both equitable legal decisions and public deliberations, sympathy is what connects the abstract and the concrete, the universal and the particular, in a fair and reasonable manner. Equity and understanding share the same methodological approach as well as the same sympathetic relationship to objective reality, whether that real- ity is a constitution, a law, a public debate, or a political decision. Legal and political hermeneutics are both engaged in a critical examination and interpretation of objectivity. Past decisions and documents articulated in the law codes and expressed in the statutes of criminal and civil law are part of a common heritage shared by all members of the polis. They are part of a living community of shared cultural values and respected traditions that are in a continuous process of evolution and evaluation. No laws, traditions, or interpretations are unchanging or eternal. This is why Aristotle continuously makes reference to their variable nature throughout his work, and this is also why they must be applied sensitively and carefully, why they must be sympathetically understood and judiciously interpreted. The hermeneutics of law, practical wisdom, and discursive understanding cannot be reduced to scientifi c inquiry or absolute truths. They are judicial and political opinions that mature and change over time through experience and practice. They are something learned in perception, not scientifi c theory with its belief in universal objectivity. They are forms of knowledge and wisdom acquired in action by which the passions of youth are constrained and the refl ection and judgment of maturity nurtured.
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This common approach in legal hermeneutics and public deliberation is the basis for Aristotle’s theory of practical knowledge (phronesis) and discursive rationality. The meaning of a particular text as legal document or public statement is something that the understanding must unravel. Its interpretation unfolds through the placing of the text within a broader understanding of the common traditions and customs. In this way the particular is examined as part of a much longer unwritten document by which the meaning of the text is to be interpreted. Political understanding is also something that is not given but develops in the course of public dialogue. This is why education and pedagogy are so important to Aristo- tle. Only in this way are ideas formulated and critical responses recognized and understood. The understanding and sympathetic judgment focus on those objects which are the central concern of political wisdom. There is an intriguing comment by Aristotle that the intuitive reason involved in practical knowledge is what highlights the particular through perception. Why this particular is chosen, why this question or issue is the object of consideration and interpretation, cannot be justifi ed. It is the result of an unexplainable intuition. Understanding and judgment assist only after an object is chosen for consideration and discussion.63 The wise citizen has a special insight into what is important, what is worthy of consideration, and what course of action is to be taken. None of these can be objects of demonstration, logical proof, or theoretical knowledge. The ability to pick out the particulars in thought and action results from the maturation of experience and the development of a critical eye.
Aristotle believes that this ability arises only from the actual practice of politics and engagement in public deliberation. Only practice makes practical, as only age constitutes wisdom. Practical wisdom combines an intuitive reason acquired over years of maturation and education in which the universal is distilled from the particular experiences rather than imposed upon them as is the case with moral episteme and techne. It is an intuition of reason that reconciles and balances the ideal of goodness within the particular circumstances demanding heroic excellence, strength of will, and just action. In this cognitive and political process of deliberation, it is virtue and character which motivate and guide the individual to the correct choice of means within the ultimate principles proffered by practical wisdom.64 All individuals seek happiness, and it is through the integration of moral and intellectual virtue that this is accomplished. Practical wisdom presents the individual with the rational options available to reach the state of well-being. Aristotle often offers contradictory statements about whether this wisdom deals with means and ends or only the technical means themselves. The latter he refers to as “cleverness.” From the perspective of his entire work, he seems in general to accept the idea that the union of moral virtue and practical wisdom dialectically shapes both the ends and means, as well as providing the courage and nobility to take the right action. Reason gives
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57ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
us both the insight as to the available options and the foresight as to the nature of the good life. Practical reason encompasses the whole of virtue, because all the other virtues imply the exercise of this form of rationality. The good requires the presence of both practical reason and moral virtue, since the former initiates the rational principle and the latter the capacity and strength to act rationally. Knowledge without action is not practical or wise. A wise individual will possess all the virtues, not just a select few. This is best summarized by Aristotle at the very end of Book 6 when he says, “Choice will not be right without practical wisdom any more than without virtue; for the one determines the end and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end.”65
More than knowledge alone is necessary for practical wisdom. This also requires a special state of character which predisposes citizens to act on their knowledge of virtue and of the good. Aristotle never tires of reas- suring the reader that the accomplishment of knowledge by itself does not represent practical wisdom. This occurs only when knowledge leads to moral action. Without virtue, knowledge is ineffective and useless. The same is the case for those who possess a knowledge of health and the art (techne) of medicine but do not know how to apply them. Without the application of the particular to the universal in hermeneutics and politics, there is no understanding or judgment; without the application of moral knowledge to the world, there is no practical wisdom, no purpose to human life, and no natural limitations to the application of technical knowledge, the art of commercial trade, or the acquisition of property.66
Deliberative reason develops through a slow process of moral education and accumulated experience in politics. By weeding out the bad or inappropri- ate experiences, citizens begin to learn a wisdom founded on trial and error, a growing sensitivity to public need and the common good, knowledge of tradition and the law, and an acquired awareness of moral and social issues. It is an experiential capacity to know and to act upon the good. Logical demonstration and production destroy that which is different and essential to practical knowledge. Aristotle contends that Pericles is a fi ne example of a man who had this kind of knowledge, since he was someone who “can see what is good for [himself] and what is good for men in general.”67 Practical wisdom includes a wide range of social experiences, including knowledge of the personal good, household management, ethics, legislation, and politics. Aristotle further divides politics into judicial and deliberative. Whereas judicial politics deals with the universal in terms of creating law and constitutions, deliberative politics considers the application of the universal to particular circumstances. This concern for reason and application, the universal and the particular, follows the earlier consideration of the principle of equity found at the end of Book 5 on the theory of universal justice.
Being neither gods nor beasts, human beings realize their dignity and sovereignty only within the activities of the polis. Practical knowledge is not
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58 DREAMS IN EXILE
only the basis for individual moral action and decision about the future, but develops its real potential for human excellence through political participation within the legislative, judicial, and executive activities of the government. It is really a form of political wisdom and discursive rationality.68 In fact, Aristotle states that practical wisdom and political wisdom are the same state of mind.69 This represents a direct challenge to and critique of Plato’s political philosophy of the republic and theory of essential Forms. It was Plato who wished to combine episteme and techne into phronesis, that is, universal knowledge and utilitarian science into political philosophy by engineering the republic and technically applying universal forms to the administration of politics. In this way, philosophical wisdom could be joined to productive knowledge, making for an ideal, if not utopian, society. The ideal political form could be made into reality at the direction of the philosopher-king. Politics could be reduced to political architecture and social design. In the end, the universal could be made real by means of instrumental rationality, not by practical or deliberative action.
The individual good is inextricably bound to the common good, moral action to social justice, and practical deliberation to political participation. Since deliberation based on understanding and judgment always takes place in the political arena, it is a form of public discourse and political action. It is with the natural rights tradition of Hobbes and Locke, Kant’s moral philosophy of practical reason and the categorical imperative, and the advent of Enlightenment liberalism that the political dimension of deliberation is fi nally displaced by modern theorists; it is then that the public, along with natural law, disappears among the ruins created by political economy. Although Aristotle does not directly discuss the issue of ethical objectivity, his critique of Platonic essentialism develops into a political epistemology grounded in discursive rationality and public discourse.70 Law, hermeneutics, and politics entail a common method and interpretive understanding of the changing historical moment. The philosophical analysis of practical wisdom, political deliberation, and discursive rationality now leads in Aristotle’s work to a consideration of the structural features of political constitutions and the best government, since the former ideals are realized only in and through the latter institutions. Knowledge and reason require actual structures and constitutions to be made real. Political philosophy is transformed by the requirements of the subject matter itself into a social theory of deliberative democracy.
CLASSICAL DEMOCRACY IN HERODOTUS, PERICLES, AND THUCYDIDES
The fi rst extant reference to Greek democracy occurs in the second half of the fi fth century BCE in the work of the famous historian of the Persian wars, Herodotus. In The Histories, he speaks about the distinctive characteristics of
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59ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
democracy (demokratia) or power of the people (demos) through the person of Otanes, a Persian nobleman who plotted against the Magi, pretenders to the throne of the Persian Empire. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus and king of Persia, died in an accident, and a pretender to the throne secretly assumed the identity of the king’s brother, Smerdis. Otanes and six other conspirators attempted to expose the pretender. After the plot succeeded, Darius became king, and it was he who would send his tremendous armies against the Athe- nians at Marathon in 490 BCE. Ten years later, his son, Xerxes, seeking to avenge the earlier defeats, would hurl his fl eets and armies at Thermopylae and Salamis with similar results. After the original hoax of the king’s steward was discovered and the reins of government seized by Otanes and his fellow conspirators, a general council was held among the Seven about the appropriate form of government to replace the oppressive tyranny of the false king. The discussion focused on three possibilities: the best democracy, best oligarchy, and best monarchy. Otanes spoke fi rst, defending democracy:
What about majority rule, on the other hand? In the fi rst place, it has the best of all names to describe it—equality before the law. In the second place, it is entirely free of the vices of monarchy. It is government by lot, it is accountable government, and it refers all decisions to the common people. So I propose that we abandon monarchy and increase the power of the people, because everything depends on their numbers.71
Democracy, for Otanes, is thus founded upon the principles of equality, self- determination, public responsibility, and the common good.
Alternately, according to Otanes, monarchies lead to oppressive be- havior, no matter the moral quality or nobility of the king. This form of government creates only the conditions for absolute power, arbitrary license, and nonaccountability to the governed. Virtue is no protection against the power of the king, since, in the end, he turns to an excess of “arrogant abusiveness and envy.” Monarchy produces a society of sycophants and slaves. It turns against ancient customs, undermines the family, and destroys judicial and legal protections. The next speaker agreed with Otanes’ critique of monarchy but argued that a democratic mob would be more violently despotic, uninformed, and destructive of traditional values. He instead argued for an oligarchy consisting of the best men who would make the best deci- sions. Finally Darius, who would eventually be made king, rose to defend a monarchy. Oligarchy, he said, produces internal confl icts and personal feuding among the ruling elite. If the best man is king, his domestic and foreign policy would be coherent and wise, not splintered and incoherent. Oligarchy results in factionalism, while democracy leads to corruption. For Darius, both systems of government logically end in a monarchy as an
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 59 2/20/09 10:42:22 AM
5 0 NPEU 3 ND 2 1N I 2T , 9 A R N D : A 2PE P PE 0 PQNU : E NU :P P R N PU C S = NG 7N 7N 8Q P 2? G 0 PN EPP , ? G PN N MQ P I ? PP Q A P P .A 41-
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60 DREAMS IN EXILE
escape from their own internally produced irrationality and crises. After the debate, a vote among the Seven was taken, and Darius’s view of monarchy won. Herodotus used Otanes’ speech to voice the political options available at the time, as well as to illuminate the distinctive aspects of Athenian democracy as isonomia (political equality) and isegoria (freedom and equal right of speech). It would certainly not have been lost on Herodotus that Athens would eventually bear the brunt of the new Persian monarchy with its desire to expand its empire and pacify its colonies. Athens will be the constitutional government that has the spirit to resist.72
Thucydides develops similar political themes on classical democracy when he writes about the fratricidal confl ict of Greece in the second half of the fi fth century. During the winter of 431 BCE, at the end of the fi rst year of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the Athenians gathered outside the walls of the city for a public funeral honoring those who had died in the war. As was their ancient custom, the most gifted and recognized citizen of the city was chosen to speak before the assembly of relatives and grief-stricken citizens to offer praise and honor to their fallen friends and comrades. This moving account of the war and Pericles’ oration in defense of Athenian democracy has been handed down to us in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.73 As Thucydides recounts, Pericles climbed the platform and looked over the hushed crowd. To their palpable surprise and wonder, he begins not in the usual manner of honor- ing the bravery of the fallen soldiers, but by talking about the ideals for which they courageously surrendered their lives. He self-consciously breaks with tradition as he defends the indomitable spirit of the Athenians, their remarkable political constitution (politeia), and their admirable democratic ideals. This oration provides Pericles with the opportunity to express publicly the distinctiveness of classical Athenian democracy, its institutions, and its principles. Throughout his speech he emphasizes what he believes are the unusual political qualities of the Athenian people—their equality, freedom, self-determination, tolerance, and their communal bonds of civic friendship. Pericles declares that the people in general are highly committed and well- educated in public issues; they are also respectful of alternative opinions. Because these are the values they so admire, service to the commonwealth in politics and in the military are highly valued. Popular sovereignty and a participatory democracy are the remarkable qualities of this society that will hold its citizens together in times of future crises. This is what produces happiness and distinguishes the Athenians from their neighbors. With a self-assuredness designed to stir the crowd, he proclaims that it is because of these very virtues that the Athenians will ultimately prevail over the Lacedaemonians from the South.
Speaking in this manner, Pericles attempts to energize his compatriots and allay any fears about the future course of the war. It is also apparent that
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61ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
he intends his message to be heard by the Spartans and their allies. To the political ideals of the Athenian people, Pericles adds their love of beauty and wisdom, art and philosophy—characteristics that make Athens great and prosperous. Sensitive to the martial virtues and military preparedness of the Spartans, he contends that the real deciding factor in determining the fi nal outcome of the war will be the Athenians’ love of politics, architecture, sculpture, painting, drama, science, mathematics, and theoretical contem- plation. In fact, neither art nor philosophy would make the citizenry soft and unprepared for the rigors of the suffering that certainly await them in the spring and possibly many springs to come. Just the opposite is the case. Their love of proportion, harmony, and beauty is what makes them strong in the face of adversity; it is what will prepare them for the suffering that might otherwise undermine their courage and dampen their resolve. Pericles argues that it is their very culture and political institutions that will save them from a tragic fate.
Stating the obvious, he claims that Athens has a distinctive political system among the Greek city-states. Reinforcing the position of Herodotus, Thucydides contends that the Athenian constitution is a democracy, which he characterizes as a free and open government for the whole people, and not just for a minority of its citizens. Everyone is equal before the law, and those chosen for special positions of public authority are picked not on the basis of aristocratic birth or family wealth but because of their per- sonal ability and accomplishments. Equality and freedom are the defi ning characteristics of democracy; these principles are based on mutual trust and respect among the citizens. Thucydides is following the path of Herodotus in his description of classical democracy. It is a self-government in which the major decisions of war and peace, taxation, property, and citizenship are decided by the citizens themselves.
Pericles adds another element, the rule of law, since in Athens laws are created by friends and comrades. While praising political equality, he is quite aware of the existence of economic inequality. Structures of class and poverty are not, however, to be a hindrance to any participation in the democratic process. It is interesting to note how long ago this discussion occurred and how relevant it is for us today. This issue of the relationship between eco- nomics and politics, class and democracy, will also be at the heart of social and political theory for well over the next two millennia. It certainly will occupy much attention by Marx and John Stuart Mill.74 Pericles continues his speech by maintaining that laws are designed especially to protect the poor and oppressed in society. Privilege is to be used carefully, not extravagantly as a sign of social distinction or as an exercise of power. The Athenians are aware of their history and the potential dangers of social discord caused by economic confl ict and personal envy. It is Pericles’ view, then, that property ownership should not interfere with the social bonds of the community.
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62 DREAMS IN EXILE
Mixing pride with grief, courage with anxiety, and the reality of death with the dreams of reason, Pericles reminds his fellow citizens of the great- ness of their city and the importance of the relationships among economics, politics, and friendship. Although Athenians have strong commitments to their family affairs, it is to the affairs of state that they are truly born. This general involvement of citizens in the government and public discussions about social policy ultimately defi nes the nature of Athenian democracy. Decisions that affect the community as a whole are to be made by the whole. Communal deliberation also permits reason to modify and modulate any inappropriate and dangerous passions that could negatively infl uence public policy. Pericles emphasizes this point, because Athenian virtue and courage fi nally rest on reasoned decisions within the political community and not on a blood lust for war. Athens did not undertake the war with Sparta lightly or irrationally. Through long and refl ective deliberations, the citizens made a clear decision for this course of action. It is the public na- ture of this process that will ensure continued bravery on the battlefi eld. By implication, on the other hand, their enemies rushed into the war without consideration of its real consequences. As a result, they will not be able to sustain their military losses for long. Bravery out of ignorance produces neither good policy nor strong resolve. Pericles then proceeds to expand the idea of political freedom to include self-determination within the private lives and personal feelings of his fellow citizens. Both the public and private spheres are to be respected. “We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law.”75
Pericles next directs his rhetorical gaze onto Athenian friendship, its importance as a civic virtue, and its relevance to the economy. Stressing the difference between gifts and debts, he argues for a natural economy that does not produce debtors or class antagonisms but friends and citizens. “We make friends by doing good to others, not by receiving good from them . . . When we do kindnesses to others, we do not do them out of any calculations of profi t or loss.”76 Relationships between friends should be based on goodwill, liberality, and kindness—not on a feeling of indebtedness or gratitude. Economic exchanges should be made to further increase the bonds of friendship, not to acquire more wealth or produce more servitude. The economy should not be in a position to threaten the political sovereignty or stability of the community. Each citizen is “rightful lord and owner of his own person” in the private and the public spheres and accomplishes this with “exceptional grace and exceptional versatility.”77 This is the clas- sical defi nition of freedom. Sovereignty lies within the communal assembly as it deliberates about the key issues of the day. Anything that endangers personal and civic friendships must be rejected as dangerous to society as a whole. Although the remains of the fallen are interred in the tomb, it is Athens—its institutions, and its collective memory expressed in its architec-
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63ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
ture, philosophy, and literature—where the fi nal resting place of its glorious and valiant citizens is to be found. Their actions remain alive in the public speech and collective consciousness of the community.
Aristotle continues the classical Greek interest in detailing and con- touring the nature of the democratic polity. He is credited with producing 158 historical and theoretical works on political constitutions, of which the only surviving treatise is The Athenian Constitution.78 Written between 332 and 322 BCE, it outlines the social history and institutional development of the political values and legislation of Athenian democracy from Solon and Cleisthenes to Ephialtes and Pericles. Aristotle traces the evolution of classical democracy through the changes of its main political institutions of the Assembly (Ekklesia), Areopagus, Council of 500 (Boule), and jury courts (Dikasteria). These political institutions carried on the crucial legislative, executive, and judicial functions of Athenian society. At the beginning of the sixth century BCE under the archonship of Solon, new reforms were introduced that would change Athens forever by helping to set it on a path of democratization. Reacting to the disturbing crises of rising class inequal- ity, poverty, debt slavery, and social discord, Solon, who had been chosen specifi cally to resolve these problems, instituted many desperately needed political and constitutional reforms. According to Aristotle, he was an im- partial moderate who, caught between the demands of the aristocrats and the needs of the poor, attempted to steer a course between the classes for the benefi t of communal accord. In the process, he weakened the power of the oligarchy and strengthened the democratic elements in the constitution.79
Solon initiated agrarian reform by “shaking off the burdens” (seisach- theia) of the poor, implementing new constitutional policies such as forbid- ding loans on the security of persons that could end in slavery, cancelling private and public loans, dissolving the ordinances of Draco, and creating four new classes based on their wealth: aristocracy (pentakosiomedimnoi), cavalry (hippeis), hoplite warriors or rankers (zeugitai), and laborers (thetes). In this new timocratic system, public offi cials were appointed by lot from the three propertied classes, with the most important offi ces going to the highest class. The nine archons and treasurers came from the highest class. To the Areopagus, the political organ of the oligarchy, Solon gave the re- sponsibility to guard and enforce the laws and constitution, deal with the city’s daily affairs, and punish criminals and those conspiring to overthrow the government. He also formed a new Council of 400 (100 selected from each tribe), changed the law so that the legal right of retribution lay in the hands of the state, and increased the power of the jury courts by placing in them the right of appeal in public and private legal matters. He created a mixed constitution with power shared among the different competitive groups. In addition to these reforms, Solon also undertook commercial reforms by changing measures, weights, and coinage.
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64 DREAMS IN EXILE
The wealthy aristocrats had hoped that Solon would make only minor adjustments, further ensuring their positions of wealth and power, whereas the poor had hoped for a more radical redistribution of property. Solon at- tempted to follow a middle path that would maintain the general distribution of property but offer the poor some protection against a rapacious aristocracy and include them in the democratic process. Although public offi ces remained open only to the propertied classes, after the reforms the lower classes were provided new legal protections against economic exploitation and debt slavery, and at the same time they were permitted to participate in the Assembly and jury courts. Democratic rights were expanded, and the institutions of political power were thrown open to the laborers and poor for the fi rst time. The aristocratic monopoly over the Assembly and jury courts was ended as a new era in democracy began. As Aristotle writes, “For when the people are masters of the vote they are masters of the state.”80 He credits Solon with establishing “traditional Athenian democracy” by balancing the constitution among the competing class interests. He accomplished this by having the oligarchy control the Areopagus, the aristocracy the public offi ces, and the people the local courts.81 In this way each major group was represented in the political institutions that shaped their everyday lives. Solon left Athens immediately after instituting these reforms; peace between the classes held briefl y, but civil disagreements ensued not long afterward.
The temporary truce between the classes eventually broke down, and open confl ict erupted when the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons seized power for about thirty-six years. With the overthrow of Pisistratus’ son, Hippias, Cleisthenes assumed the archonship of Athens and began to reestablish a new social harmony and democratic order. For George Grote, the famous nineteenth-century ancient historian, it was during the rule of Cleisthenes and Pericles that Athens truly became a democratic society.82 Like Solon, Cleisthenes started to remake the Athenian constitution, fi rst by weakening the infl uence of the oligarchy and by changing the structure of the tribes from the traditional number of four to ten. Each was to be organized around a deme, or local community, consisting of members from the three geographi- cal areas of the Athenian city-state: the coast, the city, and the countryside of Attica. This would break down old family and kinship loyalties and shift traditional political obligations by forming new and more democratic alliances based on the geography of the local deme. Citizens were no longer named after their father’s family but after their local deme. It was the goal of Cleis- thenes to create an entirely new political organization which would increase the participation of a wider range of citizens in running the government. He also transformed the membership in the Council to fi fty members from each tribe, forming what became known as the Boule, or Council of 500.83 Finally, he introduced the law of ostracism, which was judiciously used to prevent despotism and to exile aristocratic members of the community who
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65ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
were former friends of the tyrant Pisistratus and his family, or individuals distrusted for their power. Aristotle, in both the Politics and The Athenian Constitution, recognizes the importance of these acts and the positive effects they had on the evolution of Athenian democracy.
During and immediately after the Persian War, the power of the Areopagus was reestablished because of its prominent role in defending the state against invaders from the East. For the next seventeen years, the Areopagus controlled the direction of the Athenian state as it moved to become a powerful maritime empire in the Aegean. The political world began to change with the rise of Ephialtes, who, as the new “champion of the people,” started to dismantle the power of this oligarchic institution and its control over the constitution. Many of its members were brought to trial on corruption charges, and its control over the constitution was dis- solved. Its powers were given to the other more democratically controlled institutions. Finally, it was Pericles who produced more democratic changes by continuing the erosion of the power of the Areopagus, building Athens’ naval power, and introducing payments for service on the jury courts and stipends for military campaigns. As a result of these changes, there was an increase in political freedom and popular sovereignty, since more citizens began to engage in public affairs and local administration. Because of their importance in maintaining Athenian naval supremacy, the people continued to gain more authority in local government.
After the death of Pericles, however, things began to deteriorate until 411, when there was an oligarchic revolution that was not long in duration. Classical democracy was soon restored and remained intact for about the next 100 years until it was overthrown in 321 by the Macedonians. This dismantling of democracy occurred about two years after the death of Alex- ander and one year after that of Aristotle. Although they were incorporated into the Macedonian and Roman Empires, the ancient dreams of democracy would live on in the romantic appropriation of the Athenian spirit by the social theorists of the nineteenth century. With the core values of ancient democracy fi rmly rooted in popular sovereignty and self-determination, they would later provide the all-important framework for a critical analysis of the economic and political institutions of modernity.
CONSTITUTION AND LAW IN THE IDEAL POLITY
Aristotle continues the discussion of the nature of constitutional democracy in ancient Greece in the Politics. He raises the issue in the context of his analysis of the correct forms of political constitutions for Greek city-states. Constitutions are the formal structures and institutional arrangements for the distribution of political offi ces and honors, the implementation of social justice, the determination of sovereignty and laws, and the defi ning of the
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66 DREAMS IN EXILE
good life and civic happiness as the end of the polis. As we have already seen in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states, though not very precisely or in much detail, that the objective standards for measuring equality, justice, and the fair distribution of private and public wealth among its citizens rest in the nature, organization, and principles of the political constitution. If one were to change the constitution, the nature of citizenship and justice would also change. This, in turn, infl uences the standards for the economic and political distribution of its social goods. It is, therefore, important to turn to the issue of the political structure of classical antiquity, its laws and constitutions. Limitations placed on full citizenship and the right to political participation are determined by whether the political community is governed by the one, the few, or the many. Aristotle argues that the correct forms of government are those organized around a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a polity or good democracy. Corresponding to them are three historically deviant forms: tyranny, oligarchy, and a false or extreme democracy. With these latter forms of government, rulership is grounded in the personal rule of an oppressive monarch, the wealthy, or the rabble. The key distinction between the two formal types is that the correct forms of government are based on a concern for the common good and are not oriented toward the accumulation and protection of wealth or private interests.
Aristotle spends more time in the Politics detailing the nature of the democratic polity than the other types of government, since this is his political ideal. He says that the primary principle of this form of govern- ment is liberty, which he defi nes as “ruling and being ruled.” This is only one component of liberty, to which he adds that “the democratic idea of justice is in fact numerical equality, not equality based on merit; and when this idea of what is just prevails, the multitude must be sovereign, and whatever the majority decides is fi nal and constitutes justice. For, they say, there must be equality for each of the citizens.”84 Justice in a polity consists of equality, freedom, and popular sovereignty. As was the case for Pericles, this also entails a private dimension in which citizens live the way they would like. The implication is that liberty is a household right so long as there is no interference with the primary principles of democracy or the rights of others. Equality of citizens undermines the importance of wealth and noble birth as primary factors in politics. These ideas are juxtaposed to the slave who is never free and cannot exercise any self-determination. To emphasize these very points in Aristotle, Ernest Barker has written: “That all should share, and all share equally, in the rights of government, may well seem an adoption of democratic principles; and one is tempted to speak of the Aristotelian ideal State as an idealized democracy, in which there is an equal distribution of property, and all are equal in material things . . .”85 The deviant forms of government express the dependency and nonrationality of slavery. If the absolute ideal is not to be ruled by others since there is
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67ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
always a danger of losing individual liberties, the most pragmatic alternative is to alternate ruling and being ruled. To accomplish this end, a democracy offers a certain structure of participation that allows its citizens to take part fully in the legislative, judicial, executive, and administrative functions of the government.
Just as all citizens must participate in the decision-making process, the elected offi cials must be drawn from the people. Offi cials are not to be directly chosen or hand-picked, but are to be drawn by lot from the masses; there is to be no property qualifi cation, but Aristotle does include the provision that this applies only to the lesser administrative positions in the community. Those requiring fi nancial, military, or engineering skills would be chosen from a small list of individuals. Once chosen by lot, individuals may not turn their offi ces into professional or hereditary positions. Aristotle stresses the importance of job rotation as a means of counteracting the rationalization and bureaucratization of politics. Offi ces are usually held for short periods of time, and once the term limits are up, citizens cannot hold the same offi ce again, at least not immediately. Power lies in the assembly of citizens, not in birth or wealth. The jury courts occupy a central place in the polity, since they adjudicate all legal confl icts, especially those relating to the constitu- tion, public funds, contracts, and public accountability in offi ce.
Sovereignty rests with the whole population of adult male citizens. It is through this body, affi rmed through its actions (praxis) in the Assembly and the Council, acting as the executive body of the Assembly, that the voice of the general will is expressed. The Assembly is the main legislative body, and offi cials have the function of carrying out its decisions and laws. Rotation in offi ce and the alternation between ruling and being ruling are two crucial principles in a democracy. To permit all citizens to exercise these rights, Aristotle contends that payment for services in the Assembly, the Council, the law courts, and the offi ces is necessary so long as it is not too lavish. Aristotle is aware of the dangers that money produces. On the other hand, payment is necessary if all, especially the poor, are to be allowed the free time to participate in this life-affi rming role.
A change in the nature of the political constitution results in a change in the nature of virtue, justice, and citizenship. In Book 3 of the Politics, Aristotle traces the relationship between the character of the citizen and the social forces of the constitution. “A citizen, therefore, will neces- sarily vary according to the constitution in each case.”86 This connection between character and constitution will certainly be important later for Weber’s dialectic between personality (Persönlichkeit) and the course of life (Lebensführung) found in his theory of rationalization. Aristotle defi nes the citizen as someone who has a share in honors and actively participates in the deliberative and judicial offi ces of the state. Citizenship requires and permits participation in the administration of the domestic and foreign affairs
SP_MCC_CH01_019-078.indd 67 2/20/09 10:42:36 AM
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68 DREAMS IN EXILE
of state. While ruling, the citizen engages in rendering public judgments and in holding offi ce. In this way discursive rationality, deliberative reason, and practical wisdom all converge in the activity of the citizen. The central characteristic of the good man and the good citizen come together in the exercise of human reason among fellow citizens and friends. Throughout his work, Aristotle points out that those who cannot develop these capabilities for rational discourse, or who do not have the free time to do so, cannot be real citizens. “The best state will not make the mechanic a citizen.”87 Aristotle thus excludes from citizenship manual laborers, skilled mechanics, and those engaged in trade and commerce because their occupations are manual and slave-like. An aristocracy is built on the principles of merit and virtue, while an oligarchy is based on wealth. In neither case will mechanics and hired laborers be admitted as citizens.
At this point in his analysis, Aristotle argues that not everyone who is functionally necessary for the state’s survival should be a citizen. Yet he never clarifi es whether his later arguments in favor of the payment for pub- lic service to the poor transcends these limitations. Are the limitations on participation based on occupation and nature, or are the limitations based on education and leisure? Only the latter can be amended by adjustments in the best constitution. The virtue of a good citizen is derived from a maturation process by which he learns rulership by an alteration of participation and work. Education is a form of political experience in which the participants learn over time how to rule others. The analogy of being a cavalry com- mander is offered as an instructive illustration of this point. One is not born into a leadership role, but one becomes a commander only after years of experience as a cavalry soldier or a leader of a company or battalion. In a similar way, the form of knowledge of a statesman is developed not through theoretical or technical knowledge but through the cultivation of political wisdom through accumulated experience. In Book 1 of the Politics, there is another hint at Aristotle’s position. Here he fantasizes about the possibility that tools would themselves possess the ability to work without the need for masters or slaves. Machines would work and produce by themselves. This he likens to the Homeric myths of the statues of Daedalus and the tripods of Hephaestus, which, although human constructs, were so life-like that they eventually moved on their own and entered the assembly of the gods. Aristotle appears to leave open the imaginative possibility that there will be social and technical mechanisms that eventually do away with manual labor. Since there are several types of constitutions, there are several types of citizens.
The nature of citizenship is also tied back into the function of man as a political animal. There is a fundamental human need for community and political fellowship that goes well beyond the desire for military alliances, commercial treaties, and social contracts to protect property. These utilitar- ian devices help ensure mutual defense, commercial exchange of food and
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69ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
material goods, prevention of injustice, protection of property, promotion of self-suffi ciency, and even the facilitation of natural affection, but they do not make citizens virtuous or just. These pragmatic justifi cations for the social contract will be taken up by modern social and political theorists in their discussions of natural rights, property, and the legitimation of social institutions.88 The ancient tradition, however, views society as having other goals and purposes. “So we must lay it down that the association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions.”89 The fi nal end of the state is the good life (eudaimonia), a noble and virtuous life among fellow citizens engaged in rational dialogue about the future course of events. It is a community based on equality defi ned by the constitution. Justice is the giving of equal honors, offi ces, and rewards to equals. Injustice, as we have already seen, is the giving of equal rewards to unequals. In different constitutions, equality will have different meanings. Only in a democratic government will equality, along with honors and justice, be more evenly distributed among the population. Justice is thus relative to the type of constitution that organizes people’s political lives.
Having considered the purpose of the state, Aristotle next turns to refl ect on the sovereignty of the state. This short section, along with his analysis of citizenship, offers interesting clues to his position on this question. He rejects sovereignty being limited by noble birth, wealth, and poverty because these have a tendency to impoverish and dishonor large numbers of people. Aristotle has already questioned whether the concept of citizenship is applicable outside of a constitutional democracy. Now he asks whether sovereignty has any meaning when it is reduced to a rule by the one or by the few. These inquires have set up the heart of the argument in Book 3 that involves a considered defense of democracy that will be examined in the next section of this chapter.
Aristotle asks, in Book 4, What is the best constitution for the majority of the population which does not depend upon the accidents of either birth or natural ability? He argues that only in a constitutional democracy based on moral and intellectual virtue, moderation, social accord, friendship, and class compromise will the best constitution and happiness be attainable. Returning to the Nicomachean Ethics, he reminds the reader that the virtuous and rational life involves moderation, or a middle path between extremes. He applies the same criterion to constitutions, as he seeks a moderate and mixed constitu- tion that combines elements of democracy and oligarchy. “For this reason, it is a most happy state of affairs when those who take part in the constitution have a middling, adequate amount of property.”90 The moderate constitution falls between the extremes of a false democracy with rule by the poor and an oligarchy with rule by the rich. There is a close relationship between the best constitution and the best form of property distribution, since the latter is important both for the self-suffi ciency of the household and for the maintenance
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70 DREAMS IN EXILE
of social stability and harmony within the state. In this way, the arrogance and injustice of the powerful and wealthy and the wickedness of the poor are avoided. Since the wealthy are too engaged in chrematistical and commercial activities, and the poor are too focused on simply surviving their apparent fate, Aristotle reasons that the moderates are most inclined to participate in the political process. The wealthy class, inspired to arrogance and crime, has no desire to surrender any of its power or submit to the rule of the other classes. In turn, the poor, lacking in honor while being too subservient and wicked, have not been properly acculturated into the positive values of virtue and political participation. In their attitudes toward politics, the wealthy have a tendency to turn into tyrants and the poor to act as slaves.
Aristotle is well aware that the middle constitution has important implications for his theories of distributive justice and private property. That is, there are crucial economic and institutional arrangements that best express the middle path between social extremes. Blending together ideas found in Books 4 and 6, we see a more complex view of the distribution of private property and economic power within the polis based on the delicate balance between private and collective property. While the emphasis in the Politics is on the nature of political constitutions and collective participa- tion, scattered throughout the work are references to the question of the economic organization of the community. Aristotle writes, “It is essential that the citizens should have ample subsistence.”91 The best constitution should include an economic arrangement that fosters virtue and happiness by forming a system based on the proper mixture among private property, common property, common meals, and collective subsidies to the poor for the purchase of their own agricultural farms or businesses. The appropriate distribution of property, as well as harmony between the classes, should be based on the ethical principles of equality, fairness, and mutual need.92 In the end, Aristotle seeks an economic moderation that ensures ample suste- nance and social welfare for all citizens within the polis—certainly enough for a virtuous and happy life. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder or having no independent means of subsistence should be encouraged and fi nancially subsidized to attain a moderate level of independence in order to participate more fully in the public sphere.
Although private property is neither an absolute nor a natural right, it is viewed by Aristotle as a practical measure to ensure the private space for personal development and pleasure, greater effort and effi ciency, and more individual responsibility, generosity, and self-restraint for the maintenance of land and property. Economic distribution is rooted in the primary ethical values of political participation and power-sharing within the democratic polity. When necessary, private property is to be supplemented by some form of common property. Aristotle goes so far as to say that half the property of the polity should be private and half public. The common property is to
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71ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
subsidize public worship and liturgies and the common meals. While private property is an important legal form of ownership, it must be supplemented by a greater concern for the practical legitimacy and functional stability of the political community. Property is to have the same role in society as exchange and distribution. Aristotle augments private property with the no- tion that it must have a dimension that permits its common use. Although he disagrees with Plato’s ideal republic based on the common ownership of the guardians, he does maintain that “there should be a friendly arrange- ment for its common use, and that none of the citizens should be without means of support.”93 As already discussed and repeated here, according to his principle of justice, those in need have a right to share in the agricul- tural produce of the land. Among friends all things are held in common. Aristotle is clear that this is not an abstract ideal but an empirical state of affairs where there is a common use of private property among friends. This principle, in turn, must be supplemented by wise laws and educated habits in order to be extended to all citizens.
Human need creates a right to the common use of property. According to Aristotle, in some places in Greece part of the land is reserved for the production of material goods for the family and part is reserved for friends. He offers the example of Sparta, where there is a common use of slaves and farm animals. Even on a journey, a traveler may expect to be fed in a stranger’s home. Other examples of the common sharing of land come from the Carthaginians and the Athenians, who require that the wealthy pay for public meetings to ensure a more general and democratic participation. In Tarentum the common use of property is permitted, especially for the benefi t of those who have none. In each case, this was done to ensure the loyalty of those at the bottom of the economy. Nussbaum, in an important and insight- ful break with mainstream interpretations of Aristotle’s political theory, has referred to Aristotle’s ideal polity as a “social democracy” having much in common with present-day Scandinavian governments. Economic exchange and property distribution are secondary to the primary concern for democratic participation by the citizens. Distributive and reciprocal justice involve those economic arrangements that further the ideals of public life, civic brother- hood, political virtue, rational discourse, and self-realization. The economy is deeply embedded in the political community and has no separate ethical principle or functional prerequisite independent of these broader social goals. Aristotle blends together the ideals of Plato’s theory of common property and Phaleas’ egalitarian constitution based upon an equality of distribution and human needs. From this perspective of an embedded economy, there are no transcendent natural rights, no autonomous mechanics of the market, and no logic of an independent economy in ancient Greece.
Only in a mixed constitution are friendship and mutual sharing the real foundations of the polity. Aristotle exclaims, “The superiority of the
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72 DREAMS IN EXILE
middle constitution is clear also from the fact that it alone is free from factions.”94 Because there is a much larger number of citizens to draw upon for the public offi ces and honors, there is greater legitimation and stability. Other forms of government have a tendency to fall into tyranny and slavery. Social factions and political discord are the norm in class societies based on animosity and envy. There is an historical tendency for economics to trump politics and for class antagonisms to destroy democratic institutions. Politics becomes simply the spoils of war in a competition of classes. To further justify his argument, Aristotle stresses that the great lawgivers, such as Solon, Lycurgus, and Charondas, have come from the middle class.
Finally, in Book 7 of the Politics, Aristotle returns to a theme discussed earlier in both the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics, that is, the relationship between friendship and property. Aristotle reiterates the notion, though he never fully develops it in either text, that there is another moral compo- nent to property. Although it is privately owned to facilitate productive use and household responsibility, property should also be viewed as a common inheritance for a common use. This distinction between ownership and use will be important for later developments in natural law theory during the Middle Ages. Friendship and human need have a stronger moral claim to the use of property than legal ownership. This provides the justifi cation for reciprocal justice, economic exchange, and self-suffi ciency in the polis. Without it, personal and civic friendships are diffi cult to maintain. However, in order to balance the classes institutionally, Aristotle recommends that in the best constitution all citizens should be involved in the election to of- fi ces, public scrutiny, and law courts, while the most important offi ces are to be fi lled on the basis of property qualifi cation. In this way, the democratic and oligarchic elements are balanced. Also in this way, offi ces will be fi lled by the most competent and educated people but chosen and scrutinized by the majority. Sovereignty will remain with the assembled populace in the Assembly and Boule.
COLLECTIVE JUDGMENTS AND DISCURSIVE RATIONALITY IN CLASSICAL DEMOCRACY
Of particular importance in Aristotle’s Politics is the connection between his theory of the correct political constitutions and his theory of classical democracy. Along with his general analysis, another equally important con- nection exists between his ideas on practical wisdom and an ethic of public discourse, that is, between science and politics. The basis for his political de- fense of constitutional democracy lies in the overall moral values of expanded equality, freedom, and the good life; his defense of practical knowledge lies in communal deliberation, political participation, and public reason. Politics without a constitution and laws, without the means to integrate virtue and
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73ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
action, leads to philosophical abstractions and universal theories (episteme), not to political wisdom and practical action. In Book 3, Aristotle outlines the correct forms of government, whereas in Book 4 he begins with an analysis of political theory and practical knowledge, reconnecting with Book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics. It provides an intriguing interplay between politics and epistemology. Is Aristotle’s theory of knowledge and intellectual virtue expanding our appreciation of the best polity, or is he using the concept of practical wisdom to justify a particular type of political community that encourages the widest possible form of political action and citizenship? Aristotle’s justifi cation of a democratic polity thus lies in both politics and epistemology, as both moral virtue and intellectual phronesis.
Aristotle claims that democracy is the best form of government because it promotes virtuous action and collective wisdom, social stability, better judgments and opinions, increased participation and friendships, greater contribution of the majority, justice and the common good, rationality and moderation, and respect for the law.95 In his defense of democratic sover- eignty, he maintains that the mass of people, due to its collective wisdom, may just be better than the enlightened few. In the same way, a feast to which everyone contributes is better than one supplied by a very wealthy benefactor. Individually the participants may not have the virtue or practical wisdom of the best citizens. However, Aristotle contends that collectively they constitute a more perfect moral character and intelligence. The mass is better at judging a work of poetry and music because they are able to bring a wider perception to the work of art. The collectivity in its constitution takes on a quality of life quite different from that of particular members. In effect, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This represents the superiority of the mass over the best few. As they congregate in the Assem- bly, the Council, and the law courts, as they deliberate and judge about the key issues of state, and as they refl ect about what is best for the common good, this communal experience results in greater wisdom than any single individual could achieve.
Aristotle reminds his audience that Solon had given the people the power to choose their offi cials and the right of scrutiny (eisangelia) of their accomplishments in offi ce. But should they have this power of sovereignty and evaluation? Should not the task of running the government be left in the hands of political experts and skilled technicians? This technical knowl- edge (techne) could provide the utilitarian skills that would be superior to the communal practical wisdom of the assembled citizens. Just as the sick seek out the skilled physician, the captain of a ship looks for a competent navigator and an athlete a skilled trainer, so too the body politic should look to a political elite to run the government. Aristotle’s response is that “each individual will indeed be a worse judge than the experts, but collectively they will be better or at any rate no worse.”96 Although a carpenter will
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74 DREAMS IN EXILE
be a better technician or a house builder a better contractor than the new owner, it is the latter who will ultimately be a better judge of the quality and construction of the house. The multitude will share better opinions because the collective will be able to draw upon the technical knowledge of experts, as well as the communal traditions and wisdom acquired by years of political participation in the organs of government.
Aristotle has already considered the nature of phronesis in Book 6. The considered opinions of the assembled citizens are formed through their col- lective experience as they examine, judge, and deliberate in the open spaces of the public sphere. Aristotle still voices reservation that the inferior should have such sovereign power over the superior individuals. In a constitutional democracy, there will be a blending of classes and a balancing of ability. The masses, many of whom have little or no property, will participate in the democratic institutions of decision making, whereas the superior individuals will occupy the higher positions in the military, treasury, and government, where a high property qualifi cation is required. This mixture of classes and constitutions will create more harmony and social stability. Aristotle also argues that it is not the individual who rules, but the organization of the Assembly and courts. “So it is quite just that the mass of the people should be in sovereign control of more important things since people, council, and law-court all comprise many persons.”97 The constitution and the law are sovereign. The universal principles of the law must be adjusted to fi t the circumstances, and this is the role supplied by the collective memory and political traditions manifested through the people engaged in public discourse. When the noble and the common are compared, the collectivity is superior to the one or the few sound men. Aristotle’s view of democracy relies on his appreciation of the relationship between politics and pedagogy. Political participation is the most important form of moral education in the classical world. From this perspective, the multitude does possess the ability to nurture and broaden its moral and intellectual development under the best constitution.
Sovereignty and leadership are predicated on the superiority of indi- viduals to whom equal honors and rewards are to be given for the benefi t of the whole community. After Aristotle raises the question of the criteria for determining sovereignty, he asks it again in the context of justice and leadership. Just as the best pipe players should be given the best instruments to improve the overall quality of the music, so too in politics. Benefi ts and offi ces should not fl ow to individuals simply on the basis of their birth or wealth. Judging oligarchies and even aristocracies as too limited, he broad- ens his argument to include the notion of contribution to the community. People must be judged and rewarded on the basis of merit measured by their contribution to the virtuous life and social justice. The majority contribute the most to the whole in terms of military strength, fi nances, wealth, and
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75ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
moral virtue by the sheer preponderance of their numbers. “For surely, whether their claim to sovereignty over the citizen body rests on wealth or on virtue, it remains true that against their arguments the multitude will have some justice on their side.”98 Aristotle asks if there are those who are so above the average citizen, then quite possibly they should rule over all others. But he is equally quick to point out that these individuals should rightly be considered divine rather than mortal beings due to the rarity of their existence. He at fi rst appears to side with the monarchists and aristocrats but immediately takes it back, since this is not a real or likely scenario.
The superiority of birth or virtue is very rare, and these individuals are generally not superior to the average citizen.99 In fact, the opposite may be true, and this is the reason for the creation of ostracism and the communal response to those who tyrannically reach too far for power. Too much power in the hands of a single individual produces a disharmony of proportion that is out of balance with the functional need for social stabil- ity. For a shipbuilder or chorus master, all components of their fi nal product must be in proportion and in service to the whole. Ostracism is the political mechanism which is designed to reestablish harmony for the common good when one individual or group becomes immoderate and disproportionate. The fi nal argument in favor of a democracy as the best constitution is that the majority are less corruptible than the one or the few. Aristotle offers the analogy of a large body of water which is diffi cult to pollute because of its size. Honesty and control over passions are more easily exercised by the majority of good men and good citizens than single individuals, who are more prone to swings of emotions and moments of irrationality, corruptibility, and dishonesty. Aristotle clearly has trust in the functions of government and the strength of law in a democracy, which tend to inhibit the importa- tion of nonrational judgment into the decision-making process. In a very subtle fashion, he has joined elements of both democracy and aristocracy, or majority rule and rule by the virtuous few, into his view of constitutional democracy. To emphasize his point even more, he presents a short history of constitutional evolution in order to show the social implications of ground- ing a constitution on kingship and oligarchy. Because they logically lead to tyranny and false democracy as the competition for wealth and power corrupts both individuals and institutions, they cannot be the best forms of government. A true democracy does not commit these errors but fosters a collective virtue greater than any individual could have.
The last few chapters of Book 3 are devoted to a study of kingship as one possibility for the best constitution. As in the case with democracy and aristocracy, Aristotle defends and then criticizes this form of government. After an initial exasperation and frustration with determining Aristotle’s ideal political community, it becomes clear that he rejects the notion of a utopian ideal that is independent of the social and historical conditions of
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real city-states and constitutions. At the beginning of Book 4 of the Politics and the start of Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics, he connects practical wisdom and political science. The search for the political ideal cannot be made into a technical science (techne) or a theoretical ideal (episteme). Wisdom adapts to the concrete and particular circumstances of real life as it connects with history and social reality. Aristotle rejects the idea that political science can deal with objective reality, pure theory, or a contempla- tive ideal of the best constitution. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he formulates the issue in the following manner:
[F]or precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fi ne and just ac- tions which political science investigates, admit of much variety and fl uctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature . . . We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better.100
Political science is a practical science which investigates political or- ganizations and the good life only roughly and in outline. It is an historical science of the particular and contingent; it is not a theoretical science of universal laws and eternal political ideals. Aristotle criticizes a political sci- ence that seeks knowledge of the best political constitution whether that is knowledge of the absolutely best or knowledge of the best possible under the circumstances. If political science is a phronesic science, then it investigates the actual and real circumstances to uncover the minimally achievable and realistically attainable political knowledge. Toward this end, Aristotle adapts the constitutional typology or ideal types of Book 3—monarchy, aristocracy, and democratic polity—to the demands of practical knowledge and social reality. Political pragmatism seeks knowledge that is immediately applicable to actual reality. It starts from the given political institutions and traditions, saving what it can and changing what is appropriate to improve. This in- volves political renovation and slow evolution rather than the creation of entirely new political constructions from an ideal form; it requires wisdom and sensitivity as to what is salvageable and what is not worth saving. As we have already seen in our analysis of phronesis, this form of knowledge is acquired through political experience and years of participation in the political process to determine the positive and negative elements in the constitution. “Practical wisdom enables one to discern both which laws are best and which of them suit each constitution. For one ought to lay down laws to fi t constitutions (as indeed is always done), not constitutions to fi t
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77ARISTOTLE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
laws.”101 This requires a more subtle fl exibility in determining the nature and makeup of constitutions in reality. It is this form of practical knowledge which nineteenth-century social theorists will respect and admire.
Political science moves away from the ideally perfect to the actual, away from pure theory and philosophical contemplation to practicality and action. Knowledge is acquired through action (praxis) which then informs practical wisdom. The latter, in turn, is a result of collective deliberation and communal judgment. Aristotle contends that the constitution and law are sovereign, since the majority exercise wisdom in particular determina- tions of legal equity in civil and criminal cases and in sound economic and political judgments in public policy.102 A polity is a living organism express- ing a dialectic between its constitution and its laws, formal principles and practical applications. The ideal does not exist, cannot be engineered by technical rules, and is not owned by a particular individual (philosopher- king) or political elite. Implicit in Aristotle’s critique of Platonic rationalism and Sophist utilitarianism is his view of citizenship and freedom, as well as his rejection of both monarchy and aristocracy. Neither form of polity is able to provide a proper foundation for discursive rationality, collective wisdom, and practical reason. Only in a democracy are the personality and institutional conditions met which could realize this view of knowledge and wisdom in the public sphere. Under these conditions, a democratic polity has the distinct advantage of developing into an aristocracy of virtue and discourse. In the end, the ultimate condition for the best constitution lies not in a universal principle of sovereignty or ideal government but in the actual possibilities inherent in the collective rationality of the existing polity. The ideal comes from the rational dreams of its own citizens expressed in public speech and made permanent in written laws. In his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics Aristotle offers us a discourse ethics grounded in a political theory of civic friendship and virtuous participation and in an economic theory of household management, property distribution, and social economy.
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