Aristotle on rule of law

Aristotle, Politics

From the Perseus Project: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Pol.+3.1287a

[1287a][1] Our discussion has now reached the case of the king who acts in all matters according to his own will, and we must examine this type of royalty. For the so-called constitutional monarchy, as we said, is not a special kind of constitution (since it is possible for a life-long generalship to exist under all constitutions, for example under a democracy and an aristocracy, and many people make one man sovereign over the administration, for instance there is a government of this sort in Epidamnus, and also at Opus to a certain smaller extent); but we have now to discuss what is called Absolute Monarchy, which is the monarchy under which the king governs all men according to his own will. Some people think that it is entirely contrary to nature for one person to be sovereign over all the citizens where the state consists of men who are alike; for necessarily persons alike in nature must in accordance with nature have the same principle of justice and the same value, so that inasmuch as for persons who are unequal to have an equal amount of food or clothing is harmful for their bodies, the same is the case also in regard to honors; similarly therefore it is wrong for those who are equal to have inequality, owing to which it is just for no one person to govern or be governed more than another, and therefore for everybody to govern and be governed alike in turn. And this constitutes law for regulation is law. Therefore it is preferable for the law to rule rather than any one of the citizens, [20] and according to this same principle, even if it be better for certain men to govern, they must be appointed as guardians of the laws and in subordination to them; for there must be some government, but it is clearly not just, men say, for one person to be governor when all the citizens are alike. It may be objected that any case which the law appears to be unable to define, a human being also would be unable to decide. But the law first specially educates the magistrates for the purpose and then commissions them to decide and administer the matters that it leaves over ‘according to the best of their judgement,’ and furthermore it allows them to introduce for themselves any amendment that experience leads them to think better than the established code. He therefore that recommends that the law shall govern seems to recommend that God and reason alone shall govern, but he that would have man govern adds a wild animal also; for appetite is like a wild animal, and also passion warps the rule even of the best men. Therefore the law is wisdom without desire. And there seems to be no truth in the analogy which argues from the arts that it is a bad thing to doctor oneself by book, but preferable to employ the experts in the arts. For they never act contrary to principle from motives of friendship, but earn their fee when (for instance) they have cured their patients, whereas holders of political office usually do many things out of spite and to win favor; since when people suspect even the physicians of being in the confidence of their enemies and of trying to make away with them for gain, in that case they would sooner look up the treatment in the books.

---

Read more ...

An Aristotelian revival?

John Lunstroth

The increasing popularity of capabilities approach, associated with Sen and Nussbaum, signals a revival of Aristotelianism in the public sphere. I argued in an earlier post this revival has profound implications for “the life sciences.” It also has significant implications for political theory inasmuch as it provides a non-theological basis for thinking of social identity. I am led to make this political statement by a paper by Paulina Ochoa Espejo in which she argues it is not necessary to look to theology for theoretical underpinnings of the state. She is right, but not exactly for the reasons she articulates. There is no question our modern form of corporate sovereign organization has an intimate ideological and temporal relationship with the church (e.g. Berman, Tierney) but in a sense that relationship is accidental, not necessary. Aristotle had already laid the conceptual groundwork on which the church erected its ideology. When the state separated from the church it was on Aristotle’s mostly secular foundation. That foundation serves well as the basis for universal systems of justice such as human rights. 

The capabilities approach (CA) people – Finnis, Sen and Nussbaum – quite clearly identify their idea of capabilities with human rights. There are obvious differences in form, but I think their argument(s) that the reasonable theory of human rights is the CA is very hard to dispute. One may argue human rights are grounded in Christian moral theory, but the architects of the UN system and the International Bill of Human Rights were conscious of the dangers of religiosity and made a powerful effort to be secular. Human rights does not work as a concept unless it is fundamentally secular.

The revival I point to is related to the revival of Aristotelian ethical theory; but, as I said, it is being articulated by people who have significant impact in the political realm, and it is a political revival. The Aristotelian ethics revival (e.g., Anscombe, MacIntyre) plays a role, but the purely ethical investigations are often mixed up with Aquinas. Finnis is not secular, but the theory he articulates in Natural Law, Natural Rights is. I think to speak of Aristotle’s ethics without including his biology and politics, at a minimum, is to miss an important element of his theory of human (and animal) identity. Human identity is political, and its potential is inherent in its biology. The linking of the two deterministic elements (biology and politics) with the individual capacity to make decisions is the ethics. The CA reflects the broader holistic image of the Aristotelian vision.

In my research for this in-depth blog posting, I googled “capabilities approach” (44,900 hits); “human rights approach” (66,700 hits); and “Aristotelian revival” (863 hits).

[end of post]

Read more ...