Aristotle and citizenship: the responsibilities of the citizen in the Politics

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1 artificialhorizon.org Aristotle and citizenship: the responsibilities of the citizen in the Politics RALPH HARRINGTON Aristotle s Politics is an investigation of how people live in political communities. It is both a practical study of the nature of real states and a theoretical exploration of the form of the best possible state. At the centre of both aspects of the work is the phenomenon of the polis, the self-sufficient political community, the state: and at the heart of the state is the concept of the citizen, for the state is an aggregate of citizens (Politics I: ii, 59 1 ). Aristotle treats the state as he does other natural objects which he sets out to study, basing his analysis on an examination of its constituent parts. The constituent parts of the state are its citizens, and it is their exercise of the responsibilities of citizenship which give the state its existence. Any explanation of the significance which attaches to citizenship in Aristotle s political theory must therefore examine both the basis of citizenship as a fundamental type of human function and the relationship between the fulfilment of that function and the form taken by the phenomenon of the state. The centrality of the citizen in Aristotle s conception of the state reflects his conviction that political society and the state are essentially one and the same. Aristotle begins his investigation of the state with three claims: first, that man is a political animal (Politics I: ii, 59) with an innate impulse towards association with others; second, that the state exists by nature as a result of that human impulse (Politics I: ii, 59); and third, that there are certain human faculties, such as the ability to reason about matters of good, evil, and justice (Politics I: ii, 60) which can only flourish through individuals coming together in political association. It is this intrinsic human drive towards the formation of political society which distinguishes man the political animal from all other animals, who possess no such political character. Clearly, if the origins of the state are so deeply rooted in the fundamentals of human 1 References to Aristotle s Politics and Ethics in this essay, given in round brackets in the text, are to the editions cited in the bibliography and take the form book: section, page number. 1

2 nature, and the qualities of citizenship are in turn at the heart of the nature of the state, then the origins of citizenship must also lie deep within human nature. Aristotle argues in the Politics that the drive towards community, political association and the creation of the state involve more fundamental human characteristics than the mere desire to club together for a common good: At the beginning of this work, when we drew a distinction between household-management and mastership, we also stated that by nature man is a political animal. Hence men have a desire for life together, even when they have no need to seek each other s help. Nevertheless, common interest too is a factor in bringing them together, in so far as it contributes to the good life of each. The good life is indeed their chief end, both communally and individually; but they form and continue to maintain a political association for the sake of life itself. (Politics III: vi, 187) It is thus through the act of political association that man s deep impulse towards community finds expression, and it is through citizenship that political association is enabled to function. Who is a citizen? (Politics III: i, 168) is one of the most important questions Aristotle asks in the Politics; for, while all human beings are impelled by their nature towards the creation of communities, culminating in the ultimate political community, the state, not all of them become citizens of that state as Aristotle conceives it. He draws on his experience of the world as he has observed it to argue that there is no such thing in human society as a consistent rule of citizenship: there is no unanimity, no agreement as to what constitutes a citizen; it often happens that one who is a citizen in a democracy is not a citizen in an oligarchy (Politics III: i, 168). Aristotle s citizen is defined in terms of his eligibility for the offices of state: What effectively distinguishes the citizen proper from all others is his participation in giving judgement and in holding office (Politics III: i, 169). By office Aristotle is not referring only to the chief political, judicial and administrative posts in the state, but any official position held or duty carried out in the service of the state, such as serving on juries and the like. Aristotle takes the type of constitution which he calls democracy as offering, for the purposes of his discussion, the widest general range of such offices and opportunities for duty, but recognizes that other forms of constitution may have differing definitions of citizenship to fit in with their own institutions. Thus the fact that a citizen of Athens is eligible for membership of assemblies and juries that have a permanent place in its constitution gives the notion of 2

3 citizenship there a different significance to that it would possess in Sparta, where such institutions have a more ad hoc existence. But Aristotle is clear that this does not affect the validity of his basic definition: as soon as a man becomes entitled to participate in office, deliberative or judicial, we deem him to be a citizen of that state; and a number of such persons large enough to secure a self-sufficient life we may, by and large, call a state (Politics III: i, 171). Thus, while the specific details of constitutions (and thus of the composition and size of the citizen body) will always differ from state to state, the significance and essential meaning of citizenship as a valid term to describe the status of those who participate fully in those constitutions are, for Aristotle, unimpaired. Both the origins of Aristotle s concept of citizenship and the nature of the functions which Aristotle wishes the citizen to fulfil influence the criteria which he establishes for the possession of citizenship. At the beginning of the Politics, in book I, he has claimed that the real difference between man and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state (Politics I: ii, 60). Furthermore, Whatever is incapable of participating in the association which we call the state is not a part of the state at all (Politics I: ii, 61). Citizenship depends ultimately upon the touchstone of a fully-developed human nature: the capacity to reason. Those who lack this capacity, who are incapable of sharing a perception of justice, good and evil, those who cannot participate in the processes of discussion, deliberation and decision which lie at the heart of human political association, cannot be admitted to the citizen body. This category of non-citizens includes those people who are best suited to the role of slaves: slavery was for Aristotle a natural and necessary institution, and one which he devotes some space in the Politics to justifying. People are slaves by nature, he writes, whose condition is such that their function is the use of their bodies and nothing better can be expected of them and who participate in reason so far as to recognize it but not so far as to possess it (Politics I: v, 68-9). Lacking the ability to reason properly, such people are incapable of carrying out the duties of citizenship; just as they cannot take full responsibility for their own lives, so they cannot be trusted with an responsibility for the collective life of the state. For Aristotle, the same argument applies to women, who by nature are not fully developed rational beings: the deliberative faculty in the soul is not present at all in a slave; in a female it is present but ineffective (Politics I: xiii, 95). Precisely what it is that makes female rationality ineffective compared to male is not made clear: it may be a matter for Aristotle of the supposed inclination of women towards 3

4 emotionalism rather than rationalism, or their inability to impose their authority upon men, perhaps arising ultimately from their relative physical weakness. For Aristotle, citizenship is thus both the fullest expression of human social existence, and the essence and sine qua non of the state s existence. It is through the political activity of the citizen body that the offices of the state are filled, state duties carried out and state functions made possible, whatever the constitutional form taken by any particular state: The constitution of a state is the organization of the offices, and in particular of the one that is sovereign over all the others. Now in every case the citizen-body of a state is sovereign; the citizenbody is the constitution. Thus in democracies the people are sovereign, in oligarchies the few. (Politics III: vi, 187) The great responsibilities inherent in citizenship are for Aristotle not an imposition upon a natural state of human existence but are rather entirely in accordance with nature. Citizenship is nothing less than the fullest fulfilment of human potential in terms of the good life. In this respect, as throughout Aristotle s Politics, the essence of citizenship lies in active participation. The citizen is not merely an inhabitant of the state, nor simply a member of a politically privileged class. He (and, as explained above, the citizen for Aristotle is always a he), as citizen, is the essence of the state s ability to achieve the greatest measure of happiness and virtue as a human community. For this to be the case, the citizen must have the leisure to devote himself to the educative cultural pursuits which facilitate his understanding of virtue. Aristotle is therefore strongly of the view that the citizens must not live in mechanical or commercial life. Such a life is not noble, and it militates against virtue. Nor must those who are to be citizens be agricultural workers, for they must have leisure to develop their virtue (Politics VII: ix, 415). A state that cultivates virtuous citizenship must thus have an elite whose members have the leisure both to develop their own virtue and to participate fully in political life. Thus there is more to the state and its role than simply functioning as an associative framework serving the common interests of its people and fulfilling the human desire for community. In Aristotle s political science, the state has a purpose: to enable its citizens to enjoy the greatest degree of happiness, and acquire the fullest measure of virtue. The best state will fulfil this purpose, permitting the members of its citizen body to obtain the possession of areté, goodness, and phronesis, practical wisdom. In the Ethics, Aristotle wrote that the end of political science is the highest 4

5 good; and the chief concern of this science is to endue the citizens with certain qualities, namely virtue and the readiness to do fine deeds (Ethics I: ix, 81). In the Politics he makes the same point with specific reference to the form of the best state : our object is to find the best constitution, and that means the one whereby the state will be best ordered, and we call a state best ordered in which the possibilities for happiness are greatest (Politics VII: xiii, 428). The statesman must have knowledge of virtue if he is to guide the state towards the goal of virtue, for the true statesman is thought of as a man who has taken special pains to study [the nature of virtue]; for he wants to make his fellow-citizens good and law-abiding people. Furthermore, Legislators make their citizens good by habituation; this is the intention of every legislator, and those who do not carry it out fail of their object. This is what makes the difference between a good constitution and a bad one (Ethics II: i, 92). If the citizens are to respond to the aims of the state in this respect, they too must have a knowledge of virtue. The laws and the education system of the state must be shaped in such a way as to ensure that they are capable of enabling for its citizens the attainment of the highest level of goodness, happiness and virtue. A virtuous cycle underlies Aristotle s conception of the ideal state: a citizen body cultivated in virtue and in turn cultivating virtue through the exercise of their citizenship. BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Aristotle The Ethics of Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson, revised by H. Tredennick (London: Penguin, 1953; rev. edn. 1976) The Politics, translated by T. A. Sinclair, revised by T. J. Saunders (London: Penguin, 1962, rev. edn. 1981) Other works Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) Michael Davis, The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle s Politics (Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield, 1996) J. D. G. Evan, Aristotle (Brighton: Harvester, 1987) G. Huxley, On Aristotle s best state, History of Political Thought, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1985), pp

6 Curtis N. Johnson, Aristotle s polity: mixed or middle constitution?, History of Political Thought, vol. 9, no. 2 (Summer 1988), pp David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr, A Companion to Aristotle s Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) Carnes Lord, Education and Culture in the Political Thought of Aristotle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982) Richard G. Mulgan, Aristotle s Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) F. Rosen, The political context of Aristotle s categories of justice, Phronesis, vol. 20, no. 3 (1975), pp Ralph Harrington All rights reserved. This essay can be reproduced for individual research and for educational purposes only. No other reproduction permitted without the prior permission of the author. No commercial use permitted. 6

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