Transcript The Polis: Origins and Constituents

Politics, Book I:
The Polis
PHIL 2011
2006-07
Aristotle’s Ball of Yarn
Key Ethical & Political Terms:
Virtue
 Happiness (final end)
 Nature
 Polis
 Hierarchy
 Final Cause/End—Telos
These are intertwined like the ball of yarn,
which unravels when one tugs the string.
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Two Ways to Understand Polis
Historically:
 Household: master rules
wife, slaves, children
 Villages: ruled by chief
or king = monarchical;
 City: equal citizens rule
in turns as statesmen:
constitutional rule;
 Each form is natural;
 Different kinds of rule in
different organizations.
Organically:
Body-polis Analogy
The polis is the body, the
whole that is prior to
the parts;
The citizens are the
interdependent parts;
Whole could do w/out
some parts, but parts
cannot do w/out whole.
Therefore:
The Whole is greater than the
sum of its parts.
What are some implications?
Nature of Man
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‘…we must look for intentions of nature in
those things which retain their nature’;
Study therefore the best man, not just
average man (Pol. 1.5).
Man is political, social animal;
Intended by nature for a social life;
Anyone who is not social is ‘either a beast or
a god’ (Pol. 1.2);
Each person contains ruling and ruled
elements (see next slide).
Hierarchy & Its Justification
Ruling
Element
Corresp.
Body part
Man
Master
Husband
Reason
Woman
Mother
Wife
Partial
Reason
Slave
Barbarian
non-Greek
Brain
Brain &
Body
Body
Appetite
Each person’s fundamental
attributes are by nature.
Therefore: Hierarchy is natural.
Master-Slave relationship
(Pol. 1.6)
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Slaves = living tools or instruments
Master should not abuse his authority;
Master and Slave can be friends and
have common interest;
BUT only if relation is natural, not if it is
conventional!
Why?
Actual Slavery
Status
 No rights;
 Property of master, who
could kill or punish in
any way he wished;
 Law required slaves to
be tortured when giving
evidence;
 Manumission (grant of
freedom) rare in ancient
Greece (common in
Rome).
Sources of slaves
 Birth
 Conquest/War
 Criminal conviction; in
Athens this meant being
sent to the silver mines,
where death was
certain;
 The reality was different
from Aristotle’s theory!
Other views of slavery
Sophists: teachers of rhetoric to lawyers
 They taught that slavery is a convention;
 Not a natural institution;
 People become slaves through capture in war
(or birth), but there is no slave by nature;
 It is therefore incorrect to assume that
Aristotle’s review simply reflects the view of
his peers!
 This would be Historicism: reduction of a view
or idea to being simply a product of its era.
Aristotle’s view of conventional
slavery (Pol. 1.6)
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Convention is not necessarily right, it’s just customary
(although ‘a sort of justice’);
E.g. convention that people captured in war may be
made slaves;
Why? Because the cause of a war may not be just;
Aristotle could have added: war itself may be unjust
(he later criticizes Sparta for making war its goal);
Idea of kings (presumably more excellent than
ordinary men) being slaves seems absurd.
Aristotle on Women
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Husband’s “rule over his wife is like that of a
statesman over fellow citizens” (Pol. 1.12).
Women have a degree of governing capacity, i.e. for
child care, but ‘without authority’ (Pol. 1.13);
‘Silence is a woman’s glory’ (Sophocles, quoted in
Pol. 1.13);
Aristotle favors moderate exercise for women;
Women should be much younger than their husbands
(18 for wife, mid-30’s for husband) (Pol. 7.16).
Actual Status of Women
Athens:
 Confined to home:
weaving and child care;
 Allowed outside for
important religious
festivals;
 No sports!
 Forbidden to marry or
have relations with
metics (foreign males);
 Metic women had
greater freedom.
Sparta:
 Young women exercised
in public;
 Participated in sports;
 Did not perform
household labor;
 Responsible for
childcare;
 Old husbands
introduced young men
to their wives for
procreation.
Next time:
Household Management
Two views:
 1) Art of acquiring wealth (a lesser
goal); wealth only a means to an end,
not an end in itself (Pol. 1.8-9);
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-critique of retail trade (Pol. 1.9);
-critique of usury (Pol. 1.10);
2) Art of managing people (‘human
resource management’) (Pol. 1.11-13).