Lecture 18 - Aristotle - Justice and Virtue ARISTOTLE, THE POLITICS A short overview of the reading: Many rights-oriented philosophers believe that distributive justice is not a matter of rewarding virtue or moral desert, and that the measure of a just society is not whether it produces virtuous citizens, but whether it provides a fair framework of rights within which individuals can pursue their own values. Aristotle (384-322 BC) rejects both of these beliefs. He believes that justice consists in giving people what they deserve, and that a just society is one that enables human beings to realize their highest nature and to live the good life. For Aristotle, political activity is not merely a way to pursue our interests, but an essential part of the good life. BOOK ONE Part I - Politics to be divided into simplest elements But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, as will be evident to any one who considers the matter according to the method which has hitherto guided us. As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ from one another, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each one of them. Part II - Woman and Man, Woman and Slave, Family In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest. Now nature has distinguished between the female and the slave. For she is not niggardly, like the smith who fashions
the Delphian knife for many uses; she makes each thing for a single use, and every instrument is best made when intended for one and not for many uses. But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female. The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men s everyday wants. The Village - when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled with the same milk. And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood. The State - When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; Man is a Political Animal above the rest - Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.
The State is a creation of nature and prior to the individual - But things are defined by their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the same name. (A hand without a body is but a stone hand.) The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not selfsufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. Principle of order in a political society - If man have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society. Part III - Woman and Man, Woman and Slave, Family The parts of household management correspond to the persons who compose the household, and a complete household consists of slaves and freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in its fewest possible elements; and the first and fewest possible parts of a family are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children. We have therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and ought to be: I mean the relation of master and servant, the marriage relation (the conjunction of man and wife has no name of its own), and thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has no proper name). And there is another element of a household, the so-called art of getting wealth, which, according to some, is identical with household management, according to others, a principal part of it; the nature of this art will also have to be considered by us.
Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and being an interference with nature is therefore unjust. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind. Part IV - Property and Slaves Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring property is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man can live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with necessaries. And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the workers must have their own proper instruments for the accomplishment of their work, so it is in the management of a household. Now instruments are of various sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a ship has a lifeless, in the look-out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an instrument for maintaining life. And so, in the arrangement of the family, a slave is a living possession, and property a number of such instruments; and the servant is himself an instrument which takes precedence of all other instruments. As production and action are different in kind, and both require instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action. Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of; for the part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to it; and this is also true of a possession. The master is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him. Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another s man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another s man who, being a human being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor. Part V - Intended by nature to be a slave
But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind. Part VI In some sense virtue, when furnished with means, has actually the greatest power of exercising force; and as superior power is only found where there is superior excellence of some kind, power seems to imply virtue, and the dispute to be simply one about justice (for it is due to one party identifying justice with goodwill while the other identifies it with the mere rule of the stronger). If these views are thus set out separately, the other views have no force or plausibility against the view that the superior in virtue ought to rule, or be master. Others, clinging, as they think, simply to a principle of justice (for law and custom are a sort of justice), assume that slavery in accordance with the custom of war is justified by law, but at the same moment they deny this. For what if the cause of the war be unjust? And again, no one would ever say he is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave. Were this the case, men of the highest rank would be slaves and the children of slaves if they or their parents chance to have been taken captive and sold. Wherefore Hellenes do not like to call Hellenes slaves, but confine the term to barbarians. Yet, in using this language, they really mean the natural slave of whom we spoke at first; for it must be admitted that some are slaves everywhere, others nowhere. The same principle applies to nobility. Hellenes regard themselves as noble everywhere, and not only in their own country, but they deem the barbarians noble only when at home, thereby implying that there are two sorts of nobility and freedom, the one absolute, the other relative. We see then that there is some foundation for this difference of opinion, and that all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves and the others to be masters: the one practicing obedience, the others exercising the authority and lordship which nature intended them to have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both; for the interests of part and whole, of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is a part of the master, a living but separated part of his bodily frame. Hence, where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true. Part VII
The previous remarks are quite enough to show that the rule of a master is not a constitutional rule, and that all the different kinds of rule are not, as some affirm, the same with each other. For there is one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature free, another over subjects who are by nature slaves. The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head: whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals. The master is not called a master because he has science, but because he is of a certain character, and the same remark applies to the slave and the freeman. Still there may be a science for the master and science for the slave. There is likewise a science of the master, which teaches the use of slaves; for the master as such is concerned, not with the acquisition, but with the use of them. Yet this so-called science is not anything great or wonderful; for the master need only know how to order that which the slave must know how to execute. Hence those who are in a position which places them above toil have stewards who attend to their households while they occupy themselves with philosophy or with politics. But the art of acquiring slaves, I mean of justly acquiring them, differs both from the art of the master and the art of the slave, being a species of hunting or war. Lecture 18 Can a University define its social purpose any way it wants to, and then define admissions policy to meet that criteria? Challenge: Is there a principle distinction between the invocation of the social purpose of the university today, in the diversity rationale, and the invocation of the social purpose of the university (Texas in the 1950s - We prepare lawyers for law firm jobs, and no law firms are hiring Negroes. ) or (Harvard in 1930s - We prepare students for Presidency and political careers, and no Jews go into those types of jobs. ). Answer: In the 1950s and 1930s it was about exclusion, and today it is about inclusion. The earlier policies had an element of malice or judgment built into them about blacks and Jews. So, as long as an institution uses people as valuable to its social purpose, and so long as it doesn t judge them maliciously as intrinsically less worthy. But, doesn t that concede that all of us, when we compete for positions, are we not being used (not judged) in a way that has nothing to do with moral desert? Question: Who wants to detach justice from moral desert that goes well beyond equality? Kant and Rawls Question: What is their reason? Tying justice to moral virtue is going to lead away from freedom (from respect of people as free beings).
To assess their shared assumption we turn to a political philosopher who disagrees with them - (who explicitly ties justice to virtue and merit and moral desert) - Aristotle. Aristotle s Questions: What is justice? It is giving people their just deserts, proper due or fit. It s a matter of figuring out a person s virtues and their appropriate social roles. Aristotle s Questions: What is a person s due? What are the relative grounds of merit or desert? Aristotle: That depends on the sort of things being distributed. Justice involves two factors: things and the people to whom the things are assigned. In general, we say that persons who are equal should have equal things assigned to them. But equals in what respect? Aristotle: That depends on the sort of thing we re distributing. Question to Aristotle: To whom should the best flutes go? The best flute players, the richest man, the music lover, etc.? Answer from Aristotle: The best Flute Player Question 1 to Aristotle: Why? Answer 1 from Aristotle: Because they are the best in the relevant sense - he/she can make the best use of the flute s purpose. Question to Aristotle: Is it just to discriminate in allocating flutes? Answer from Aristotle: Yes, all justice involves discrimination. What matters is that the discrimination be according to the relevant excellenceaccording to the virtue relevant to having flutes. It would be unjust to discriminate on some other basis. Question 1 again to Aristotle: Why should the best flutes go to the best flute players? Answer 1 again from Aristotle: The best flutes should go to the best flute players because that s what flutes are for - to be played well. The purpose of flute playing is to produce the best music, and those who can produce the best music should have the best flutes.
Looking to the goal or end - in Greek goal or end = telos of the thing. TELEOLOGICAL REASONING: Reasoning from the telos, goal or end All of nature was understood to be a meaningful order, and what it meant to understand nature, to grasp nature, to find our place in nature was to inquire into and read out the purpose or telos of nature. Affirmative Action disagreement from the telos: What the proper, appropriate end of a university education consists in. SELF-TEST QUESTION 1 Which of the following philosophers hold that justice is a matter of rewarding or honoring virtue or moral desert? a) Rawls.b) Nozick.c) Aristotle. d) All of the above.e) None of the above. EXPLANATION a) Incorrect. Rawls distinguishes between moral desert and legitimate expectations (what one has a right to expect once the rules of society are in place) and argues that justice should not be based on virtue or moral desert. b) Incorrect. Nozick argues that justice is a matter of respecting rights, not rewarding or honoring virtue or moral desert. For example, if you become rich because your wealthy uncle decided to leave his fortune to you, Nozick would say that you are entitled to that money, even if there is no sense in which you deserve it. c) Correct. For Aristotle, justice is a matter of giving people what they deserve, a matter of figuring out the proper fit between persons with their virtues and their appropriate social roles. d) Incorrect. Answers (a) and (b) are incorrect. Neither Rawls nor Nozick believes that justice should be based on virtue or moral desert.
e) Incorrect. Answer (c) is correct. QUESTION 2 Imagine that you are a parent trying to determine to which of your three children you should give a flute: Child A says that the flute should be given to her because she is the best flute player. Child B says the flute should be given to him because he will get the most enjoyment from it. Child C says that the flute should be handed to him because he has no other toys to play with. According to Aristotle s account of distributive justice, who should have the flute? a) Child A. b) Child B.c) Child C.d) Child A or B.e) The answer is indeterminate. QUESTION 3 What does it mean to engage in teleological reasoning? a) You reason from behind the veil of ignorance to determine the just allocation of that good.b)you reason about justice by working back and forth between your considered convictions about particular cases and moral principles that seem reasonable.c) You reason from the purpose or telos or goal of a thing to define a just allocation of that good. d) All of the above answers are correct.e) None of the above answers are correct. LECTURE 19 - Aristotle - The Good Citizen After studying modern theories of justice that tried to detach considerations of justice and rights from questions of moral desert and virtue. Aristotle disagrees with Kant and Rawls, and he argues that justice is a matter of giving people what they deserve. Aristotle s central Idea of Justice: In reasoning about justice and rights, we have unavoidably to reason about the purpose or end or telos of social practices and institutions. Yes, justice requires giving equal things to equal persons, but equal in what respect? Aristotle says to answer this we must look to the end or telos or essential purpose of the thing we are distributing. But it s not so easy to dispense with teleological reasoning when we think of political practices and social institutions. It s hard to do without teleology when we think of Ethics, Justice, and Moral argument. Examples to bring out the force of Aristotle s claim: 1. Politics - How should offices, how should political rule be distributed?
2. PGA case as to whether a disabled golf player should be allowed to use a golf cart during a tournament. Both case bring out another feature of Aristotle s Teleological way of thinking about justice. When we use teleology, we sometimes argue about the end purpose of a social situations, and when we have those disagreements, we are not just disagreeing about who gets what (distributive questions), but also an honorific question. What excellences of persons will be honored. Debates about teleologic ideas are also debates about honor. Politics When we discuss distributive justice these days, we re mainly concerned with the distribution of income, and wealth and opportunity. Aristotle took distributive justice to mean the distribution of honors and offices. These are Aristotle s questions. Who should be a citizen? Who should rule? How should political authority be distributed? How did he answer these questions? In line with his teleological reasoning, Aristotle says we first have to look into the purpose or telos of politics. Politics, for Aristotle, is about forming good character. It s about cultivating the virtue of good citizens. It s about the good life. The end (telos) of the state, the end of the political community is not mere life, it s not economic exchange ONLY, or security ONLY. It s realizing the good life. If this is the end (telos) of the polis, then we can derive from that distributive justice, and who should have the greatest measure of authority. Those who contribute the most to an association of this character, namely an association that aims at the good, should have a greater share in the rule and the honors of the polis because they are in a position to contribute most to what a polis is all about.
But why does he say that participation in politics is somehow essential to living a good life? Why isn t it possible for people to live perfectly normal lives, moral lives without participating in politics? Aristotle s Answers: 1. It s by living in a polis, and participating in politics do we fully realize our nature. a. It s only in a polis that we can exercise our distinctly human capacity of language (to deliberate about right and wrong, the just and the unjust). b. The political community exists by nature, and is prior to the individual - not prior in time, but in purpose. Human beings are not self-sufficient living by themselves, outside a political community. But why can we only exercise our faculty of language in political community? 2. Political deliberation, being a citizen, ruling and being ruled, all of this is necessary to virtue. a. For Aristotle happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. b. Every student of politics must study the soul, because shaping the soul is one of the objects of legislation in a good city. c. Why is it necessary to live in a good city to live the virtuous life? Aristotle says, virtue can only be learned by practicing (by exercising) the virtues. You can t learn virtue by reading a book, as you can t learn cooking by reading a recipe book. By doing, one gets in the habit of discerning the particular features of a situation. i. Aristotle says: The only way we can acquire the virtues that constitute the good life, is to exercise the virtues, to have certain habits inculcated in us. And then, to engage in deliberations with other citizens about the nature of the good. That s what politics is ultimately about. Thus, Pericles, earns the honorific of having the dominant say because he has this virtue well-established as does the finest flute player have his necessary virtues. d. The link between: i. Right and justice on the one hand, and figuring out the telos or the purpose of a social practice on the other. ii. The purpose of a social practice or a game is, and the question of what qualities should be honored. iii. The link between teleology and honor-based principles of distributive justice.
SELF-TEST QUESTION 1 According to Aristotle, distributive justice is mainly about the distribution of... a)... income.b)... wealth.c)... offices and honors. d)... opportunities.e) None of the above. QUESTION 2 According to Aristotle, what is politics about (what is the purpose or telos of politics)? a) According to Aristotle, politics is about forming good character/ cultivating the virtue of citizens/realizing the good life. b) According to Aristotle, politics is only about accumulating wealth.c) According to Aristotle, politics is only about ensuring security.d) According to Aristotle, politics is only about protecting individual natural rights.e) All of the above are correct. QUESTION 3 Aristotle's argument about the distribution of offices/political authority... a)... has a teleological character.b)... has an honorific dimension.c)... makes use of the idea of the veil of ignorance.d) a) and b). e) b) and c). LECTURE 20: Aristotle: Freedom vs. fit Aristotle: Debates about teleologic ideas are also debates about honor. Part of the purpose of golf is not just to amuse spectators. It s recognizing and rewarding a certain kind of athletic excellence. Whereas, Justice Scolia says, There is a difference between a sport and a mere spectacle. A sport, a real athletic sport, is about appreciation and not just amusement. The difference is that a sport is a practice that calls forth, and prizes, and honors certain virtues, certain excellences. The people who appreciate those virtues are the true fans, and for them it is not a mere amusement, and that means it is always possible to make sense of a debate about what feature of a sport is essential to it. If justice is about fit, fitting persons to roles, matching virtues to the appropriate honors and roles, does it leave room for freedom? Main Objection to Aristotle s Teleological Argument for Justice
If certain social roles are fitting or appropriate to me, where does that leave my right to choose my roles, my life purposes for myself? Rawls rejects teleological reasons for social justice because they threaten the equal basic rights of citizens. Aristotle s defense of slavery - for slavery to be just two conditions have to be met. 1. It has to be necessary for the community as a whole to function. i. In his society, he said, it was necessary, because if some citizens must go to the assembly and debate social issues and thus realize their true natures, then there must be some who take care of their menial tasks. Therefore, slavery is necessary for the life of the polis. 2. There also have to be some people who are fit and it is just that they be the slaves. i. Aristotle says that there are some people who are meant to be ruled. They can recognize reason in others but they can t partake of it. ii. But some argue that some of the Athenian slaves were put into slavery because they were captured in a war, and not because that lack reasoning skills. Aristotle agrees that these slaves have been coerced. Coercion is an indicator that it s wrong because it s unnatural. Arguments to Aristotle 1. What if we can t agree on the fundamental purpose or telos of our shared public life? Then how can we base social justice on the telos, or end that it consists in? i. So, modern political views and constitutions believe that justice and rights should not be based on any conception of the good or the purposes of the social life, but should create a framework of rights that should leave people free to live by their conceptions of the good, their conceptions of the purposes of life. 2. What if a person is well suited to a role, but wants to go in a different direction? This goes back to the notion of freedom. i. Kant and Rawls think that precisely because people disagree in pluralist societies about the nature of the good life, we shouldn t try to base justice on any particular answer to that question. ii. If you tie justice to a particular conception of the good, if you see justice as a matter of fit between a person and her roles, you don t leave room for freedom. iii. To be free is to be independent of any particular roles, or traditions, or conventions that may be handed down by my parents or my society. To decide between Aristotle and Kant/Rawls (these two broad positions), we need to determine: 1. Whether the right is prior to the good. 2. What it means to be a free person (a free moral agent). Does freedom require that I stand toward my roles, my ends and my purposes, as an agent of choice or as someone trying to discover what my nature really is?
SELF-TEST QUESTION 1 According to Aristotle s teleological way of thinking, which of the following considerations would be of primary importance for determining whether Casey Martin should receive a golf cart? a) Will giving Martin a golf cart be pleasing to spectators who can now watch him play?b) Will giving Martin a golf cart encourage more handicapped people to play the sport?c) Is it just for the state to dictate the rules of private institutions, such as the PGA?d) Does the majority of PGA officials oppose granting Martin the cart?e) Is walking the golf course an essential feature of the sport? QUESTION 2 How might Aristotle respond to the claim that people should be free to choose their own ends rather than be guided to being virtuous by the political community? a) Even though most people can learn virtue by themselves, certain people need guidance from others.b) Even though good families can inculcate virtue, some families fail. For this reason, the state should step in to guide citizens in good life choices.c) If people live together peacefully while following their own desires, then the need never arises for the state to say what is virtuous and what is not.d) In order to exercise meaningful choice, citizens must acquire virtues made possible only by participation in politics. e) The regime in which one lives has the final say about the true nature of the good life. Therefore, people should not be free to decide for themselves what counts as virtuous. QUESTION 3 According to Aristotle, under which condition(s) is slavery just? a) The slaves were aggressors in an unjust war.b) Slavery is necessary for the community as a whole to function and there are some people for whom being a slave is the just or the fitting or the appropriate condition. c) The slaves do not rebel or manifest dissatisfaction with their condition.d) The slaves are non-greeks, treated decently, and treated according to law.e) All of the above. QUIZ 5 QUESTION 1 According to Aristotle, the cultivation of moral virtue arises through... a)... nature.b)... practice. c)... luck.d)... prayer.e) All of the above are correct. You have used 1 of 1 submissions QUESTION 2 Which of the following best represents Aristotle s view about the role of morality in politics? a) Morality has no place in politics. Not only is it immoral to try to legislate morality, but it is impossible to do so. Morality is about intention or motive, and the state cannot affect the motives of its citizens. Only the individuals themselves can determine their motives. b) Morality will always play some role in politics, but only regarding questions about basic rights. c) Encouraging and fostering a virtuous citizenry is
the primary purpose of the state. d) While it is always best to have virtuous citizens, the state itself should remain non-judgmental and take no position on which ways of living are best. e) All of the above are correct. You have used 1 of 1 submissions QUESTION 3 Sometimes we disagree and argue about what the telos or the purpose of a social practice really consists in. According to Aristotle, when we have those disagreements what's at stake is... a)... only who will get what.b)... whether the social practice helps maximize pleasure overall.c)... only what excellences of persons will be honored.d)... not just who will get what but also what qualities, what excellences of persons will be honored. e) None of the above. You have used 1 of 1 submissions QUESTION 4 According to Aristotle,... a) the individual is prior to the polis (the political community).b) morality is about the maximized aggregate of pleasure minus pain.c) the polis (the political community) exists by nature and is prior to the individual. d) distributive justice is a matter of what would be chosen behind a veil of ignorance.e) All of the above. You have used 1 of 1 submissions QUESTION 5 Casey Martin was a golfer on the PGA Tour who, due to an illness, needed a golf cart to move around the course. After being denied permission to use a cart, Martin sued the PGA. Many of the players on the tour objected to the suggestion that Martin should be allowed to use a cart. Which of the following objections to Martin s being allowed to use the cart is an expression of teleological reasoning? a) Walking the course is part of the game. If you allow Martin to ride a cart, he really isn t playing the game anymore. b) If Martin does not have to walk the course, he will have an unfair advantage. c) The PGA is a private organization. The courts should not tell a private organization what to do. d) (a) and (b).e) (a), (b), and (c).