Aliens and moral anarchy from Aristotle’s point of view. Helsinki. 2018
2018 INTERNATIONAL MEETING
| Helsinki, Finland |
Meeting Begins: 7/30/2018
Meeting Ends: 8/3/2018
First of all, I want to thank to the
organizers of this Panel Citizens and Aliens in Greco-Roman world included in the Conference of the
Biblical Society and particularly to Maijastina Kahlos who accepted my proposal
for this Panel.
When thinking
about Citizens and Aliens in the Greek-Roman world having as a point of
reference the situation in Europe nowadays, it seemed to me that generally
speaking, the present historical period has certain features, which are similar
to those Athens was living in the fourth century B.c.
At that period Athenian
society experienced a strain between the maintenance of the values and the way
of living enrooted in their peculiar idiosyncrasy and the acceptance of customs
resulting from the influence of different cultural ambits, which could become a
potential attack to their own cultural identity.
The democratic
political system centred on the ‘polis’ went to a crisis in its highest point.
New and more realistic projects foretelling different social and cultural
horizons began to appear. The Athenian citizens developed a critical attitude
towards the democratic postulates of the preceding period and began to value
other forms of government not strictly democratic.
Aristotle
alarmingly verifies two simultaneous phenomena, the instability of the Greek
political life and the moral anarchy and concludes that the second one is the
cause of the first one and consequently he considers that the remedy for this
situation is to teach a better way of life. According to Aristotle the
plenitude of morality is born in the state and it must be there, in the
community and in the living together, in the social ambit, where man perfectly
and completely fulfils himself and where good develops into a greater scale.
This reflection gives birth to a whole corpus of political thought where he
offers some proposals as a solution to the ideological, moral crisis of his
epoch.
We are going to summarize
this political, moral theory, starting from the theoretical and general
proposal that questions the possibility of living together and we will continue
reviewing and analyzing his conception of law and what he proposes to Athenian
rulers. Finally we will mention the rule Education in the shaping of the idea
of citizenship. Aristotle symbolizes the culmination of a doctrine in which the
political thought is linked with the moral and educational theories and, being
located at the end of an epoch, his proposals reflect a deeper content of
thought and experience.
Aristotle, who
bases all his philosophical theory on experience, states that (Pol.1263a15)
‘in general, to live together and share in any human concern is hard’ (...) and
sets an example as simple as the associations of people travelling together in
which most of them fall to quarrelling, ‘because in most cases they annoy each
other over ordinary, everyday matters’. In spite of being hard, living together
is necessary because (Pol. 1253a28-30) ‘the impulse towards this kind of
association exists by nature in all men’, and ‘whoever is incapable of
associating or has no need to because of self-sufficiency is either a beast or
a god’. Therefore ‘even without needing the mutual help, men tend to living
together and they join together by participating in the common warfare’,
because ‘man is a political animal by nature’ (Pol. 1278b19).
Aristotle, who
has based on nature the man’s social characteristics, goes a step further and
deduces that an individual is becoming incomplete without the state, for the
individual is linked to the state as a part to the whole and the whole is
superior to the part by nature. If the relationship between the state and the
individual person is established because of nature, man will acquire his
perfection in his relationship with society and society will be shaped
according to the characteristics of human nature and not against them. Human
nature is completed within society and incomplete without it.
Admitting the
possibility and the necessity (φύσει) of living together means to accept the
characteristics which shape a society which is formed by different individual
persons: (Pol. 1261a17) ‘It is clear that if
the process of unification advances beyond a certain point, the city will not
be a city at all for a state essentially consists of a multitude of persons.
And if unification is carried beyond a certain point, the city will be reduced
to family and family to individual, for the family is a more complete unity
than the city, and the single person than the family; so that even if any
lawgiver were able to unify the state, he must not do so, for he will destroy
it in the process. And not only does a city consist of a multitude of human
beings, it consists of human beings differing in kind. A collection of persons
all alike does not constitute a state’.
In the same sense
it is stated that (Pol. 1261b30) ‘while in one way it is admirable, but
impossible, that all should say the same thing, in another way it is not at all
conducive to concord’. A state without multiplicity is (Pol. 1263b32) ‘a state
that will arrive at a point where in a sense it will not be a state (…). It is
as if you were to reduce concord to unison or rhythm to a single beat’.
Aristotle has always in mind in his statements the criticism about
egalitarianism proposed by Plato in The Laws and The Republic as
an ideal solution to the political problems. Therefore he insists upon the
acceptance of diversity as a fundamental principle for society.
Therefore, agreement (ὁμονοητικόν) must be
based on an acute sense of difference among the interests of each person, which
has to be reasonably reconciled. And for this purpose man has at his disposal,
also by nature, the faculty of speech, which enables him to dialogue and which
reveals the moral awareness about what is just or unjust, good or bad, and that
moral awareness serves as a basis for the support of society: (Pol.1253a)
‘The reason why a man is an animal fit for a state is obvious (…) Nature does
nothing pointlessly, and man alone among animals possesses speech (…) speech
serves to make clear what is beneficial and what is harmful and so also what is
just and what is unjust’. The use of speech involves that what is just and what
is unjust is established according to previous deliberation and persuasion.
Aristotle wants to point out that, while on the one hand animals act and react
automatically, having a tendency towards what is pleasant as something
beneficial with no reflection; on the other hand men consider, debate and
choose alternatives which distinguish what is pleasant from what is beneficial.’
Here we deal
with one of the matters that the west civilization owes Greece most, the Art of
Rhetoric. Persuasion (πείθος) was considered the essential element of a
civilized society. Dialogue is the first basis on which the interlocking of a
plural society is supported.
Another matter
to which he dedicates his attention at different moments and which is also
essential in order to avoid the social lack of equilibrium generated by
violence is to establish, on the one hand, limits to the acquisition of wealth,
and on the other hand, to use money to create a public welfare. He writes: (Pol.
1257b32) ‘it seems evident that necessarily there is a limit of any riches, but
in practice we see that the opposite happens. Since all men that trade increase
their fortune limitlessly... (39). Some people believe that that is the
function of economy and they end thinking that you must keep or increase your
fortune indefinitely. The cause of this disposition is the eagerness for living
and not for living properly’.
Wealth that is
considered in the Rhetoric (1361a23) as a part of happiness, falls in
the Ethics (EN 1120a5) within what must be subjected to a moral
norm “articles of use can be used either well or ill,
and he who uses a thing best is he who possesses the virtue related to that
thing; therefore that man will use riches best who possesses the virtue related
to wealth’. In this sense he also considers usury a deviation from what
is natural, since (Pol. 1258b4) ‘in it, gain comes from the money itself
and not from what it was invented for’. He also warns against two vices
concerning money (EN 1121b 20) ‘deficiency in giving and excess in
taking’. And he urges the ruling class
to study a way for the citizens to achieve a relief as far as primary needs are
concerned and so the ruling class would back the dedication to a moral
activity, to the state affairs and consequently the citizens would live in
freedom and in peace.
A third
potential factor of instability is violence -uprising
and crimes- which is generated by inequality of property within the people's
classes, which produces a poverty atmosphere
in which some people lack the necessities, and they suffer from cold and
hunger, while in the outstanding classes violence is generated by the search of
honours, and in everybody ‘by the keen desire of enjoying and satiating their
wishes, for, if their wishes go farther than what is necessary for their
appeasement they will break the law... The greatest crimes are committed
because of excesses and not because of necessities’.
This plural
society (Pol. 1263b35) ‘it is necessary to make it common and one
through education and the person who did intend to introduce education and who
believed that through this the state would be sound, should think to put it
straight by habits, philosophy and laws’.
Written
legislation is, in Aristotle thought, the goal of political science, because it
guarantees the common good of citizens (πολιτείαι τὸ κοινῇ συμφέρον σκοπούσιν)
(Pol. 1279a) ‘It is clear then that those constitutions that aim at the common
advantage are in effect rightly framed in accordance with absolute justice,
while those that aim at the rulers' own advantage only are faulty, and are all
of them deviations from the right constitutions; for they have an element of
despotism, whereas a city is a partnership of free men’.
He refers in the
Rhetoric to written law as (Rh 1368b5) ‘particular law (ἴδιον) in
accordance with which a state is administered’, and creates a contradiction
between this and ‘general law’ (κοινόν) that would be (Rh 1368b5) ‘the
unwritten regulations which appear to be universally recognized’, ‘the general
idea of just and unjust in accordance with nature, as all men in a manner
divine, even if there is neither communication nor agreement’ (Rh
1373b7).
This
qualification of general, common and natural that we have seen as specific of
unwritten law, is -in many texts- also considered as an essential feature of
written law. Because he considers that legislation, on the one hand, must be
thought to be good by all mankind, just for the fact of them being human. On
the other hand, written law must be indeterminate, excluding pretensions to cover
every single case to which it could be applied, and leaving enough room for
freedom.
Because of this
vagueness and lack of precision, laws can and must be changed from time to time
and be modified when new circumstances appear, when seeking (Pol. 1269a 2) ‘not the traditional
but the good’. The lack of precision is replaced by Equity. Equity
is the concept that regulates the application of the law to a particular case.
Aristotle defines equity (τὸ ἑπιεικές) (Rh 1374a17) as ‘justice that
goes beyond the written law’ and as the criterion for considering legal (or
fair) what is not established so, by written law. What lies beneath this
consideration is the belief that over what is legal; there exists a supreme
justice that only by accident must be codified in written laws and due to its
restrictions must be complemented by equity.
Another concept
that Aristotle deals with, and which is closely bound to Equity is that
of Proportionate Reciprocity. Aristotle asks himself in a more realistic
way than Plato did in The Laws, whether laws, as rules that even out
social differences, must treat each citizen in a similar way or if, on the
contrary, different citizens must be treated in a different way. His answer is
that, in principle, as it is shown in Nicomachean Ethics (1131b35) ‘the
just (…) is the equal (...) and the unjust the unequal’ and that in consequence
(EN 1132a5) ‘the
law must treat the parties as equal’.
However, he is
aware that people and matters sometimes are similar and sometimes not. And
therefore they must be treated differently. The formula of equilibrium between
equality and diversity is what he calls Proportionate Reciprocity (EN
1132b24) ‘Reciprocity however does not coincide
either with distributive or with corrective Justice (…) In many cases Reciprocity is at variance with
Justice (...) But in the interchange of services Justice in the form of
Reciprocity is the bond that maintains the association: reciprocity, that is,
on the basis of proportion, not on the basis of equality. The very existence of
the state depends on proportionate reciprocity’.
Inequality,
although necessary, must not be arbitrary. It must always be justified whatever
the reasons may be. Equity appears again as the main criteria of
justice, because it decides in every single circumstance what is reasonable or
not, seeking always a balance between the tendency to find equality and the
justification of inequality.
Law is general,
as we have just seen and as a consequence, law is rational. There are many
different faces of this rationability of the law. First of all, Aristotle
stresses that law, as a rule that regulates human behaviour, was born from
wisdom, from practical experience of what can be thought of, as moral not only
for a single person or for a particular case but for most people in most cases.
As he says in the Ethic (EN 1181a11) ‘it would appear that those who
aspire to a scientific knowledge of politics require practical experience as
well as study’.
Furthermore law
is a rational principle that eliminates passion and subjective feelings, as it
is said in Pol. 1272b6 ‘it is better that these things should take place
according to law and not by the will of men, for this criterion is not safe’
and in this sense, referring to the use of law in courts, he says in Rhetorics
(1354b) ‘The member of the public assembly and the dicast have to decide
present and definitive issues, and in these case love, hate, or personal
interest is often involved, so that they are no longer capable of discerning
the truth adequately, their judgement being obscured by their own pleasure or
pain’.
The existence of
written law prevents that personal considerations of politics, bound to
passions and hates, can prevail in a court. For the same reason law is
objective and incorruptible. It is a rational measure or a principle of reason.
So it is said in Politics (1287a19) ‘It is
preferable for the law to rule rather than any one of the citizens, 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’.
From the notions
of rational principle and system of order as characteristic attributed to the
law, we easily reach the conclusion that law has a moral purpose: a good
legislation doesn’t just guarantee the rights of the citizens, but also it must
try to make them just and good (ποιεῖν ἁγαθοὺς καί δικαίους Pol.1280b8) ‘any
state that is truly so called and is not a state merely in name must pay
attention to virtue; for otherwise the community becomes merely an alliance
(…). And the law is a covenant or (…) a guarantee of men's just claims on one
another, but it is not designed to make the citizens virtuous and just’.
Definitely, laws
guarantee that man achieves his own objective. And political science, that
teaches politicians how to elaborate just laws, contributes to this objective,
which is, as it is said in the Ethics (EN 1179a 35) ‘Virtue in its
various forms, and also Friendship and Pleasure’.
But in order to
guarantee the successful co-existence of a diverse community and the observance
of laws designed for the common good, the state should pay special attention to
education. ‘The greatest of all the means spoken of to secure the stability of
constitutions is (…) a system of education suited to the constitutions. For
there is no use in the most valuable laws, ratified by the unanimous judgment
of the whole body of citizens, if these are not trained and educated in the
constitution’ (Pol. 1310a). As Plato, so Aristotle considers that school
is mainly the place where future citizens may acquire good taste and mould
their character. Leading their instinct towards what is noble and moving them
away from what is harmful.
The fact that
men are political animals by nature does not imply that their ability to adapt
to social life is innate. On the contrary, they need to acquire it gradually
through education. Aristotle projects on the person what he had established for
the government. In the last book of the Politics, Aristotle develops a
complete educational plan for the different skills that he considers necessary
to be able to lead a life of leisure and to reach the ultimate aim of
happiness.
Aristotle's
conceptions are not a result of theoretical speculation somehow connected to
society at the time, nor does he intend to give prescriptions in order to solve
the actual problems of fourth-century society. They may be understood as an
exposition of a series of principles reflecting a generalised way of thinking
at the time, which Aristotle brings together and systematises in a persuasive
way.
He faces a new
social order: the acceptance of the imperial horizons of Alexander the Great,
capable of destroying the political values produced by fifth-century Athenian
society. These values include the use of debate, of deliberation and persuasion
as the main bases for establishing human relations, the search for peace as the
ultimate goal of education and living together, the guarantee of the citizens'
well-being, the foundation on which personal happiness can be established.
His realism
makes him stray from Plato's theoretical approaches, paying attention to the
possibility of preparing the ground for the peaceful coexistence of Greeks and
non-Greeks. Political science—in the three fields we have discussed— cannot
confine itself to securing the polis' right order, ignoring the government of
neighbouring populations. It must deal with the bases for establishing a system
to live together, and for agreement between people. Thus Aristotle gives birth
to a new way of understanding identity and of conceiving politics without
renouncing the values that are considered intangible. Aristotle stresses the
natural need (φύσει) and the actual possibility of living together; he also
considers an education for peace as something bound to human nature, not as a
characteristic feature of Greek culture. He tries to minimise the importance of
the contents of the law and insists on the fact that it must be general (κοινὸν)
and suit actual needs, stressing that written law must change from time to
time. He gives importance to agreement (ὁμονοητικόν), equity (ἐπικεία) and
proportionate reciprocity as means of dealing with what is different, and he
considers it important to educate citizens so that they can become good rulers.
https://www.academia.edu/37489067/Aliens_and_moral_anarchy_from_Aristotles_point_of_view
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