For Aristotle, however, this is not the case. Although the founders of cities create them for the sake of more comfortable lives, cities are unique in making it possible for people to live well. Any goals, wishes, or desires that they might have are irrelevant; in Kants terms, they are treated as means rather than ends. What were Aristotle's six types of government? A government run by the citizen or people who legally live there. General Theory of Constitutions and Citizenship Supplement: Political Naturalism 4. Understanding any of Aristotles texts means reading it in its entirety, but if you want a book by your side to check cross-references from whichever of his texts you are reading (for example, if the editor of the edition of the. It is impossible to act nobly without acting [to achieve] noble things; but there is no noble deed either of a man or of a city that is separate from virtue and prudence. This is not to excuse Aristotle or those of his time who supported slavery, but it should be kept in mind so as to give Aristotle a fair hearing. In this case, however, the husband does not alternate rule with the wife but instead always rules. And yet the one who first constituted [a city] is responsible for the greatest of goods [1253a29]. The former, Aristotle says, is important both for the household and the city; we must have supplies available of the things that are necessary for life, such as food, clothing, and so forth, and because the household is natural so too is the science of household management, the job of which is to maintain the household. The discussion turns to expertise in household management. The Greek word for household isoikos, and it is the source of our word economics. In Aristotles day almost all productive labor took place within the household, unlike today, in modern capitalist societies, when it mostly takes place in factories, offices, and other places specifically developed for such activity. When making his decision on virtuous or non-virtuous, Aristotle says that a rule of the majority must be non-virtuous in practice because it is too difficult to find a majority who can be virtuous. Liberty, Equality, Power: Aristotle's Critique of the Democratic The reader should keep in mind that if the word constitution is used this does not mean a written constitution of the sort that most contemporary nation-states employ. Politics spans the Bekker sections 1252a to 1342b. Democracy tends to be more stable than oligarchy, because democracies only have a conflict between rich and poor, while oligarchies also have conflicts within the ruling group of oligarchs to hold power. Instead, Aristotle usespoliteia (however it is translated) to mean the way the state is organized, what offices there are, who is eligible to hold them, how they are selected, and so forth. For more detail consult the works listed in the Suggestions for further reading below. Citiesthat are held to be in a fine condition In Book II, Aristotle changes his focus from the household to the consideration of regimes that are in use in some of the cities that are said to be well managed and any others spoken about by certain persons that are held to be in a fine condition (1260a30). One of the important elements of creating a polity is to combine the institutions of a democracy with those of an oligarchy. The ideal regime to be described in Book VII is the regime that we would pray for if the gods would grant us our wishes and we could create a city from scratch, having everything exactly the way we would want it. Those in the first row he referred to as "true forms" of government, while those in the second row were the "defective and perverted forms" of the first three. The translation used in preparing this entry. Here he asks the question of whether the virtue of the good man and the excellent citizen is to be regarded as the same or as not the same (1276b15). But while nature wishes to do this, it is often unable to (1255b3). Robinson is sympathetic to Aristotle but also to his readers, keeping things easy to read while at the same time offering enough detail about Aristotles doctrines to illuminate his entire system and making the interconnections among the various elements of Aristotles system clear. If power is held by the wealthy who rule for their own benefit, then the regime is an oligarchy. Nevertheless, the author succeeds to a very great degree in delivering on the promise of the subtitle, expressing the basics of Aristotles thought in simple language using common examples and straightforward descriptions. In fact they are worse, since they have chosen the life they lead in a way that a knife or an acorn or a horse cannot. Since it is always the case that the poor are many while the wealthy are few, it looks like it is the number of the rulers rather than their wealth which distinguishes the two kinds of regimes (he elaborates on this in IV.4). That Aristotle believes slavery to be just and good for both master and slave in some circumstances is undeniable. Aristotle makes this point several times in thePolitics: see, for example, VII.9 and VIII.2 for discussions of the importance of avoiding the lifestyle of the vulgar if one wants to achieve virtue, and I.13 and III.4, where those who work with their hands are labeled as kinds of slaves. For tyranny arises from the most headstrong sort of democracy and from oligarchy, but much less often from the middling sorts [of regime] and those close to them (1295b39). This is what is called the city or the political partnership (1252a3) (See also III.12). As with the masters rule over the slave, and humanitys rule over plants and other animals, Aristotle defines these kinds of rule in terms of natural hierarchies: [T]he male, unless constituted in some respect contrary to nature, is by nature more expert at leading than the female, and the elder and complete than the younger and incomplete (1259a41). He used two criteria to sort the regimes into six categories. Secondary literature general works on Aristotle, Secondary literature books on AristotlesPolitics. They were liable to prosecution if they were found to have engaged in wrongdoing or mismanagement, and the fear of this prosecution, Aristotle says, will keep them honest and ensure that they act according to the wishes of the democracy. 26 DEMOCRATIC MOMENTS that IS based on law a popular leader does not arise, but the best of the citizens preside; but where the laws are without authority, there popular leaders arise. However, it is also important to read Nicomachean Ethics in order to fully understand Aristotles political project. Third, thePolitics as we have it appears to be incomplete; Book 6 ends in the middle of a sentence and Book 8 in the middle of a discussion. It is perhaps easiest to understand what atelos is by looking first at objects created by human beings. But if Aristotle was lecturing from these writings, he could have taken care of these problems on the fly as he lectured, since presumably he knew what he meant, or he could have responded to requests for clarification or elaboration from his students. The tyrant, on the other hand, rules solely for his own benefit and pleasure. Aristotle says atEthics 1094b14: Problems of what is noble and just, which politics examines, present so much variety and irregularity that some people believe that they exist only by convention and not by nature.Therefore, in a discussion of such subjects, which has to start with a basis of this kind, we must be satisfied to indicate the truth with a rough and general sketch: when the subject and the basis of a discussion consist of matters that hold good only as a general rule, but not always, the conclusions reached must be of the same order. Aristotle does not believe that the noble and the just exist only by convention, any more than, say, the principles of geometry do. Of course, so can the rule of a king or a tyrant. However, keep in mind that Aristotle believes that human life has a telos and that the political community should provide education and laws that will lead to people pursuing and achieving this telos. For equality is the same thing [as justice] for persons who are similar, and it is difficult for a regime to last if its constitution is contrary to justice (1332b25). If, then, there are indeed several forms of regime, it is clear that it is not possible for the virtue of the excellent citizen to be single, or complete virtue (1276b27). This may at first seem wise, since the unequal distribution of property in a political community is, Aristotle believes, one of the causes of injustice in the city and ultimately of civil war. Third, only the nobly born hold public office, but the law rules. Consider some examples of partnerships: business partners share a desire for wealth; philosophers share a desire for knowledge; drinking companions share a desire for entertainment; the members of a hockey team share a desire to win their game. He thought that the Greeks had the good traits of both the Europeans (spiritedness) and Asians (souls endowed with art and thought) because of the Greek climate (1327b23). It should also be in the right geographical location. There are several ways to mix oligarchy and democracy, but The defining principle of a good mixture of democracy and oligarchy is that it should be possible for the same polity to be spoken of as either a democracy or an oligarchy (1294b14). (So at 1258b1 he agrees with those who object to the lending of money for interest, upon which virtually the entire modern global economy is based). No matter who the majority is, be it the impoverished or the wealthy, they look out for their own interests and ignore the interests of the minorities. Here, however, his interest is in the best regime given the opportunity to create everything just as we would want it. Learning the subjects that fall under the heading of productive knowledge, such as how to make shoes, would be degrading to the citizen. It seems somewhat unusual for Aristotle to be advocating a form of welfare, but that is what he is doing, on the grounds that poverty is harmful to the character of the poor and this harms the community as a whole by undermining its stability. For the polity (or any other regime) to last, the part of the city that wants the regime to continue must be superior to the part not wanting this in quality and quantity (1296b16). Doing so would require far more governmental control over citizens than most people in Western societies are willing to allow. Good citizens must have the type of virtue that preserves the partnership and the regime: [A]lthough citizens are dissimilar, preservation of the partnership is their task, and the regime is [this] partnership; hence the virtue of the citizen must necessarily be with a view to the regime. According to Aristotle, democracy is that form of government in which the poor who constitute the majority, are supreme. Here the linkage between speech and reason is clear: the purpose of speech, a purpose assigned to men by nature, is to reveal what is advantageous and harmful, and by doing so to reveal what is good and bad, just and unjust. If a law does not fit well with the principles of the regime, although it may be an excellent law in the abstract, the people will not believe in it or support it and as a result it will be ineffective or actually harmful (1269a31). Aristotle therefore spends a great deal of time discussing these two regimes and the problem of political instability, and we will focus on this problem as well. How we might tell which people belong in which group, and what Aristotle believes the consequences of his beliefs about slavery ought to be, are more difficult problems. That this may well require us to act differently than the good man would act and to believe things that the good man knows to be false is one of the unfortunate tragedies of political life. According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or final end. To convey this, some translations use the word city-state in place of the worldpolis. Although none of us today lives in apolis , we should not be too quick to dismiss Aristotles observations on the way of life of thepolis as irrelevant to our own political partnerships. Having described the basic parts of the city, Aristotle returns in Chapter 3 of Book I to a discussion of the household, beginning with the matter of slavery, including the question of whether slavery is just (and hence an acceptable institution) or not. Aristotle also reminds us of the importance of the middling element for maintaining the regime and making it long-lasting; instead of hostility between the oligarchs and democrats, whichever group has power should be certain always to behave benevolently and justly to the other group (1309b18). This lack of knowledge and skills then becomes evidence to reinforce the original belief that they are inferior. Also, if this kind of power is left in the hands of men rather than with the laws, there will be a desperate struggle to control these offices and their benefits, and this will be another cause of civil war. This is not to say that the law is unbiased. For many if not most people in such societies, the pursuit of wealth without limit is seen as not only acceptable but even admirable. The citizens of a particular city clearly share something, because it is sharing that makes a partnership. Human beings alone have the ability to speak, and Aristotle says that we have been given that ability by nature so that we can speak and reason with each other to discover what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, and what is just and unjust. Indeed, Aristotle says that when the master can do so he avoids labor even to the extent of avoiding the oversight of those who must engage in it: [F]or those to whom it is open not to be bothered with such things [i.e. As Aristotle writes, "For tyranny is sole . Third, Aristotle distinguishes between practical and theoretical knowledge in terms of the level of precision that can be attained when studying them. For Aristotle, however, expertise in business is not natural, but arises rather through a certain experience and art (1257a5). We do not need to spend much time on these, for Aristotle says that in his time there are many persons who are similar, with none of them so outstanding as to match the extent and the claim to merit of the office that would be required for the rule of one man on the basis of exceptional virtue that characterizes monarchy (1313a5), and tyranny is inherently extremely short lived and clearly without value.