Autor: Sokolowski, Robert

Buch: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Titel: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Stichwort: Person und Politik: Aristoteles; natürliche - politische Gesellschaft (Vernunft, Gründer); Spannung: Arme - Reiche (Demokratie - Oligarchie); Aristokratie, Tyrannei; Republik (politeia), gemischte Herrschaft; Mensch als politisches Wesen

Kurzinhalt: In a republic, a large middle class—middle in both an economic and an ethical sense—is established between the rich and the poor, and the laws and not men rule, and they do so for the benefit of the whole city, not for any particular part.

Textausschnitt: The human person and politics in Aristotle

181b The classical and unsurpassable definition of the person was given by Boethius early in the sixth century: a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. This definition highlights rationality as the specifying feature of persons; a person is an individual being that is endowed with reason.1 According to this definition, there may be persons—divine or angelic—who are not human beings; they too could be individual entities invested with a rational nature, but of course such persons would not enter into politics. Political life requires body and soul as well as personhood. (Fs)

182a Persons, in Boethius's definition, are individual entities that possess reason. It is the power of reason, with all that it implies, that makes us to be persons. Even when we use the word person in a less technical way, simply to highlight the fact that the individual in question is a human being and should be treated as such, we imply that the dignity he has and the respect he deserves follow from his rationality and not his feelings. It is because he is rational, an agent of truth, that he must be "treated as a person and not a thing." (Fs)

182b Now, human reason and hence human personality are exercised in speech, in science and the search for wisdom, in ethical conduct, in friendship, and in religion, and they are also exercised in a distinctive manner in political life. Political societies are communities specifically made up of human persons. If we are to speak about the human person, our discussion would be sorely deficient if we did not treat the domain of human political conduct and if we did not specify how human reason, in thought and in action, is at work in it. (Fs)

182c It is not just that human beings live together; men live together in families and the kind of extended families we could call villages or tribes. Such communities come about by natural inclination and do not need founders. They are not the outcome of deliberation, reasoning, and argument, as political societies are. They do not have to be conceived in thought before they come into being. Political societies need to be established by acts of reason, and people who succeed in this enterprise bring about a great good for others: Aristotle says that "the one who first established [such a community] is the cause of the greatest goods,"2 because founders make possible for man a civilized and virtuous life, a life lived in view of the noble, the good, and the just, a life in which human excellence can be achieved and the worst in man can be controlled: "For man, when perfected, is the best of all animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all."3 Think of the benefits that millions of people have enjoyed because of the acts of reason hat achieved the founding of the United States of America, most conspicuously, the acts of thinking that took place during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, in the debates during the years that followed, in the ratification of the Constitution by individual states from 1787 to 1789, and at the inauguration of George Washington as the first president in 1789. All these events were exercises of reason, and they in turn followed upon the American Revolution itself, as well as the colonial period that preceded it, when the habits of free political life were established among the people. (Fs)

183a It is an act of reason, and therefore an eminently personal action, to establish a political society. To underline this point, consider the fact that animals also live together, but their association is not the outcome of an exercise of reason on their part. There are no founders in animal societies; Richard Hassing has asked, ironically, "Would Aristotle say that the first founder of chimpanzee society was responsible for the greatest of chimpanzee goods?"4 The question simply does not apply. There are no founders of animal societies. Also, there are no Washington Monuments or Jefferson Monuments in ape or elephant society, because there are among apes and elephants no founders who exercise their reason to establish a society in which reason flourishes. One of the things that reason does when it prospers in a civilization is to acknowledge, by the building of monuments, the founding acts of reason that established the space within which the monuments could be built. This is not to demean ape or chimpanzee or elephant or dolphin society, but to highlight the human difference and the rational character, hence the specifically personal character, of human political association. Political society is established by a determination of the noble, the good, and the just, which is expressed and then desired by reason. (Fs)

183b It is important to note, furthermore, that although political life needs to be established by an act of reasoning, it is not therefore a purely conventional thing. It still remains part of human nature, but of human nature in its teleological understanding, when human life is seen at its best; it is not part of human nature in the genetic, biological sense.5 I doubt that researchers in biology will find a gene that programs for political constitutions or a cluster of neurons that generates them. (Fs)

184a Political life is not only founded by an act of reason; it is also sustained and justified by reason. It is carried on by public discussion, in which reason itself is elevated into a higher kind of life than it can reach in familial and tribal community. In the Politics, Aristotle describes political society as the culmination of human communities. In cities, he says, there are two irreducible parts, the wealthy and the poor, and the shape that political life takes on results from the perennial struggle between these two groups to rule over the whole.6 The tension between the richer and the poorer parts of a society makes up the perpetuum mobile for politics. When the wealthy rule for their own benefit, the city is an oligarchy; when the poor rule for their own benefit, the city is literally a democracy, a rule by the people or the many, since there normally are more poorer than wealthier members of society. Aristotle says that the best outcome for most people in most places at most times, the practically best form of the city generally, is the republic, the politeia, which is intermediate between oligarchy and democracy. In a republic, a large middle class—middle in both an economic and an ethical sense—is established between the rich and the poor, and the laws and not men rule, and they do so for the benefit of the whole city, not for any particular part.7 To live this way is a great human accomplishment. It is a truly exalted exercise of reason for citizens to allow the laws to rule, to have the strength of reason and character to subordinate themselves to the laws, which they allow to rule for the benefit of the whole. Not all people have the civic habits and public vision to let the laws and not their own partisan interests rule over the whole; not all people are immediately capable of being citizens. (Fs)

185a This triad of oligarchy, democracy, and republic is the core of Aristotle's Politics; the entire work pivots around this triangle. I would also make the stronger claim that what Aristotle is describing here is the truth of human political life, and not just his opinion or a description proper to his time and place. He is presenting the "mobilities" of political life, and the various solutions and deviations that are proper to it. What he describes goes on even now, so long as we continue to have a political life. Aristotle is describing politics as a human thing, as a human possibility, not just as a historical fact. If we fail to see this, it is because we ourselves have become incapable of recognizing human nature and have fallen into historical story-telling instead. (Fs) (notabene)

185b Aristotle also discusses monarchy and aristocracy, in which one man or a few virtuous men rule for the good of the whole, and these two forms serve as a kind of norm for what all cities can be.8 Because they admit only a few people to rule, however, they may not be possible once societies become very large (Aristotle admits this limitation),9 but they must be kept in mind as part of how we design and live our politics: when the laws are made to govern, they should rule as virtuous agents would rule. Also, there is an important qualification in his definition of aristocracy. Aristotle says that aristocracy can be defined in two ways. You have an aristocracy, first, when the virtuous rule because of their virtue (the virtuous become the establishment, the politeuma), or second, when whoever is ruling exercises his or their rule for the sake of what is best for the city and its members.10 Because of this second definition of aristocracy, there can be an aristocratic component to every form of constitution, including a republic. (Fs) (notabene)

186a On the margin of all these forms of political life stands tyranny, the catastrophic disaster that is always there lurking as the threat to political life. It is the ever-present sinkhole on the margin of politics. It will always be there; nothing we can do can definitively exclude it as a possibility. In tyranny there is no longer any political life, but only servile subjection to a ruler or rulers who rule for their benefit alone, without any virtuous guidance or purpose. To be ruled tyrannically is incompatible with human nature.11 (Fs)

186b In Aristotle's view, the best kind of political community will be made up of elements from all the good regimes: there will be monarchic, aristocratic, and popular elements in the various parts of the government. This variety will provide a kind of tensile strength for the city. Each type of city has its own proper political virtue: even the deviant regimes, such as the oligarchic and the democratic, try to shape the people in the city to fit the constitution, and for this reason every city is concerned not only with economic matters, public safety, and defense, but also with the virtue of its people.12 This conformity of the upbringing with the constitution will happen as a matter of course in every political society, but all the regimes have to be measured by the standard of the virtuous man, and the more closely the virtue of the city approximates that of the good man, the agent of moral truth, the better the city will be as a human achievement. (Fs) (notabene)

186c And what is common to all cities in which there is a political life—in opposition, for example, to tyranny, where there is none—is the fact that people do argue about who should rule, that is, they argue about what kind of virtue will set the tone for the city. People who claim that they should rule are trying to do more than just get themselves into the public offices; first and foremost they are also trying to establish a certain way of life, one that they embody, in the community that they want to rule. There always are "culture wars" in political life. Oligarchs, for example, want to live according to the principle that if we are different in one respect, that is, in regard to wealth, we are different absolutely and should be treated as such. The "virtue" in oligarchy is measured by the possession of wealth. Democrats, on the other hand, want to live by the principle that if we are equal in one respect, that is, in regard to liberty, we should be considered equal absolutely, and "virtue" for the extreme democrats is the ability to do whatever you wish, the liberty to satisfy any impulse; that is the kind of life they promote.13 When people argue that they should rule, they are exercising their reason; this particular exercise of it is higher than the exercise one finds within the family or the village, where such argument about rule does not take place, just as foundings do not take place. Because it is reason that makes us persons, the people engaged in political life are acting more fully as persons than they are able to do in their families and villages. They strive to project and embody a form of human life; they do not just deal with the necessities of life. (Fs) (notabene)

187a It is also the case that there is no one form of the city that is the best absolutely everywhere. Much depends on the population, the circumstances, the lay of the land, the history of the people, and other things. Aristotle distinguishes four senses of the best in politics: first, the best "as we might pray for it," when all the circumstances are favorable (we may not be able to implement this best form, but we must keep it in mind); second, the best in particular circumstances; third, the best that we can achieve when are faced with a city that is already established; and fourth, the best for most people in most circumstances (effectively, this is the republic).14 Political excellence for Aristotle is therefore flexible, adaptable, and analogous, not univocal. It is the outcome of prudential, not mathematical, reason. (Fs) (notabene)
187b Aristotle's description of political life is not relativized by history. It expresses the political possibilities of human nature, and it is as true now as it always was. Aristotle's Politics formulates the substance, the ousia of political life better than any other work that has ever been written.15 (Fs)