Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Dynasties Circle podcast. This episode is a conversation with political philosopher Mark Blitz about his new book, Aristotle's Political Philosophy, which treats Aristotle's political thought across the Nicomachean ethics, the politics, and the rhetoric. ah The basic premise of Mark's book is that in those three works, Aristotle manages to uncover and explore the fundamental phenomena which lie at the root of politics, stuff like virtue, happiness, justice, and so forth. Joining me for the conversation is my good friend and theologian, Patrick Jones, and i begin the conversation by asking Mark what he thinks remains most important about Aristotle as a political philosopher. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Speaker: I think basically it's his understanding of the fundamental link between political life or political communities and happiness, human happiness. And then his understanding of, uh, happiness is essentially, uh, found in, ethical virtue and the character that, uh,
Speaker: is comprised by a variety of ethical virtues. That's number one. And then number two is understanding of the fundamental form and ground of political community as the regime or the way of life. I think those two, if one had to pick two, those would be the two fundamental ah bases and and of Aristotle's enduring significance. Another kind of orienting question, I think that some of ah the listeners to this channel might find interesting. I wanted to ask, um you know, you've written a book also on Plato's political philosophy. And I and i was kind of curious, do you think there are any clear ways in which Aristotle
Speaker: maybe surpasses or improves upon Plato, or maybe we could say like, you know, sees an aspect of political life more clearly than perhaps Plato did.
Speaker: you know, I'm not sure that at the end of the day, i would really see that much distance between the two. But when you look at Aristotle's works, it's also clear that the the limits of political life become in a way more obvious so that ah he understands and makes it a point of understanding ah the everyday nature of politics. So if you look at the rhetoric, for example, you see all of the ways in which if you're advising politically or advising concerning a measure or dealing with the judges and and and the judicial system, you get a sense in the rhetoric of how people actually think about politics and how they actually deal with it. And in addition to that, of course, ah Aristotle ah emphasizes more than Plato, ah the limits of political life in terms of the best regime that you could actually seek within your own community and your own your own time. um
Speaker: It doesn't make sense to try to have a political community that the greater force in the community won't won't preserve. So Aristotle really works through all of that ah in much greater detail than than than Plato does.
Speaker: But all that said, I'm not certain that ultimately there's a deep or significant difference.
Speaker: So that's interesting you bring up the issue of the limits of political life. um Because, you know, i was imagining um when you hear the idea that in Aristotle, you know, politics should aim at the good life, the flourishing of its citizens.
Speaker: When you hear that first, you might think, oh, that's, I mean, look what else could it aim at? That sounds perfect. That sounds like ah like, of course, that's true. But then, of course, I was thinking, okay, well, I guess if you think of a sort of modern liberal perspective, I suppose what they would raise concerns about is whether – um Perhaps politics should be more limited than that.
Speaker: In other words, they might point to say, well, okay, maybe there is a human good, but people disagree deeply about what it is. They disagree about religion, family, education, sexuality, wealth.
Speaker: And so the liberal worry, I suppose, is something like, you know, if the government you know officially takes a stand on the highest good, won't it end up surpassing certain important limits and impose you know one faction's view of virtue on everyone else? so I think um every political community has some understanding of what human excellence is and what the conditions of it are.
Speaker: I mean, in a ah in a liberal community, the goal is to protect and secure equal rights, equal natural rights. but That's not really possible unless you advance a certain kind of character, the character that you're required to use those rights and use those rights well. and So in in modern life, you have certain characteristic virtues, responsibility, ultimately, toleration, um industriousness or hard work.
Speaker: a kind of civility, as well as obviously some version of Aristotle's virtues as well. So that's the first basic point. Every community has in mind a certain kind of character which is connected to the excellence that it seeks. And and in fact, that character also becomes necessary for useful political activity itself. You're promoting or advancing or securing a certain kind of character in terms of the purpose of the community. And you're also using that character for the community's own activities. So i think I think all of that is is actually unavoidable.
Speaker: Moreover, in a liberal community where you do have this a large choice of ways of life, um why are you guided by in terms of making that choice?
Speaker: You have to have some understanding of ah what human excellence is what human excellence might be for you, And that's not possible without a certain kind of education. It's not possible without laws enforcing certain kind of activities or favoring certain kind of activities. So there is obviously an important difference between a community whose purpose is to secure equal natural rights and the character connected to it and Aristotle. But it's not a vast difference because a liberal community also needs to advance a certain way of life
Speaker: even in order to secure equal natural rights. And it needs to have some understanding of what human excellence actually is. So I think that that gap is not so great.
Speaker: Another way to say this is that the general term flourishing is a general and empty term until one says something about what its content actually is. And I don't think any community, ours included, can actually avoid that completely.
Speaker: Okay. That's, that's really helpful. Yeah. So just to echo a couple points you're making. So it's like the, the liberal worry about Aristotle might be that, you know, if politics aims at virtue, politics is going to end up coercive. It's going to be paternalistic. It might be oppressive, something like that. And and then the Aristotle, Aristotelian replies something like, well, look, liberalism also depends on virtue.
Speaker: um Rights are not going to like protect themselves, I guess. And so, know, Free institutions, they require citizens with certain habits of character, I guess. And so um and like you said, like for example, the the liberal regime, it seems like, would need citizens who are tolerant, who are civil, law-abiding, that sort of thing.
Speaker: um So it can never really be morally neutral, I guess, is the essence of that um reply there. Yes, that's what I'd say. You can't be or pretend to be completely morally neutral, even in a regime which does obviously ah allow a greater degree of choice among a much greater degree of people than you would see in Aristotle or even in the kind of democracies that Aristotle and Plato as well discuss. So i would that's the point I would make, yes.
Speaker: sort of falling in this line of thinking. One of the things that, as I read the book, um kept sort of jumping out to me is the aristocratic character of Aristotle's um philosophy of the human things that um he he does identify, as you said in your opening remarks, um ah really human perfection as the goal, as the goal of life as such, but also as a goal of politics, though politics might have certain limitations. um So ah one of my questions kind of following on what what Sam just asked is to deploy the Tocquevillian distinction between aristocratic and democratic centuries. It seems to me that one issue we might face when trying to apply Aristotle's political philosophy in our current context is precisely...
Speaker: this um aristocratic character of his thought that that um beyond any specific notion of the human good that he might advance that that perhaps certain people in modernity would reject, there is simply this idea of kind of the the noble or the beautiful as the goal of human life.
Speaker: And as Tocqueville and others remind us, in democratic centuries, this this kind of ideal of the noble tends to get lost. Well, I would say two things about that. If you look at the the content of um ah nobility and the beautiful in Aristotle, you have ah ethical virtue and intellectual virtue.
Speaker: And the ethical virtues in Aristotle, the 10 or 11 or them, are all recognizable today you might conduct yourself somewhat differently than might in the in the concrete working out and choice of the proper virtuous action, um have different kinds of situations and choices, but the virtues themselves are all recognizable. So that what everyone would say about the aristocratic,
Speaker: ah that understanding of human excellence still rings true and is available. ah So I think that's a central thing to say. Similarly, intellectual virtue or the full life of the mind, difficult as it always is to pursue, ah nonetheless has a certain a certain power in terms of understanding it as a full use of of human abilities and faculties. And then finally, prudence or practical wisdom.
Speaker: You know, practical wisdom is central in Aristotle. It's central for using the the virtues. It's central for political judgment and understanding more broadly.
Speaker: that hasn't gone away either. It's in a way sometimes overshadowed by bureaucracy, by legalism, but in the making of concrete decisions, and even in the thought about what laws one ought to make, that remains important. So I would say that, uh,
Speaker: the democratic world has not eliminated, not merely the importance of, but the recognizability of the importance and and beauty of of virtue and the the the kind of thinking necessarily connected to it.
Speaker: um I'd say that would be the argument I would make generally speaking about about that issue. ah Throughout the book, you you make mention of sort of um democratic versions of Aristotelian virtues. And I was wondering if you could just comment a little bit on on what you mean by that, that there's a permanence of the Aristotelian account of ethical virtue, but there's a sort of democratic form of these virtues that um are in play in liberal regimes. Yeah.
Speaker: Look at the two, um in a way, highest or most significant of the ethical virtues in in the basic listing in books three and four. um and We don't quite have magnificence in his sense.
Speaker: um But we do have philanthropy. Philanthropy is more general. it's It's directed more obviously to certain kind of activities. It's meant to serve ah certain democratic ends or venues which are commonly attended. um music, art, and so on.
Speaker: It's connected, obviously, to those who not just have great wealth, but often have made great wealth, which is not exactly Aristotle. But nonetheless, it's it's a democratic version of something one can see.
Speaker: Similarly, great pride or greatness of soul. um Obviously, you have equal natural rights it's today. So you won't have that kind of ah understanding of the propriety of ah thinking that you ought properly to have such, let's say, political honor or political power.
Speaker: um Nonetheless, in order really to use your rights properly, you ought to be responsible. You ought to take things on and bring them to a successful conclusion. And ultimately, the more you conceive of yourself that way, ah the more significant you will attempt to be politically. But nonetheless, it's within a world in which others have, in a certain sense, an equal claim.
Speaker: Aristotle recognizes some of those issues as well as he works through the various claims to rule. So looking simply at those two peak virtues, you can see that what I would call the democratic or modern versions of them, they're still basically Aristotelian, but they start differently, they have somewhat different ends and different different directions. That's what I had in mind, at least for those those virtues, which are the peak ones.
Speaker: oh yeah yeah One thing I also want to say, it's important in Aristotle, much as one talks about virtue um and excellence politically, to recognize his recognition of the fact that any political community needs to meet its basic necessities. It begins a necessity, it deals with necessity, is is place where war is ever present. That's obviously the case among the the Greek cities. So Aristotle is very attentive to all of those kinds of issues.
Speaker: The goal is not simply to meet necessity, but it's a necessary condition of any kind of excellence that you do that as well. So Aristotle is hard-headed about all of those things. And you can see that even in the way in which he begins his discussion of the best possible political community in books ah seven and eight of of the politics. So that's important as well, and so that one doesn't have some view of Aristotle as up in the clouds. He's precisely not up in the clouds. He's very down to earth, but also someone who understands what is beautiful. Right, right.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, so that's very important that like he's ah very attentive to these... like basic things such as, you know, every city has to deal with food, ah property, security, defense, and that sort of thing. And so he's not naive about like the kind of material conditions um that are um important, you know, for a political community to thrive. um But I guess like it is it is the key that that's not the ultimate purpose. So even if, you know,
Speaker: I mean, does he has a kind of famous saying, something about like the city being for the sake of life, but it exists for the sake of the good life, something to that effect. So, um yeah, could you elaborate on that? So it's like, it's just, so it's like... um It is an aim that that the the proper or the the good city has is to secure those material needs. But on the other hand, like the ultimate aim kind of springs beyond that. It's something beyond that. It has to do with virtue and the good life, I guess.
Speaker: Yes, it's certainly, that's right. I mean, the the aim of the city is not simply to meet necessity, but necessity has to be met. And the fact that you have to meet necessity also has something to do with the proper distribution of political rule.
Speaker: um You need those who provide goods, but especially you need those who fight in the wars. So that um much as human excellence to the degree to which you could achieve it is your goal in a political community ah you understand both your limits in doing that because of the situation you face, who are the, what's the greater power, what kind of community can you have? And you see the limits because the necessities need to be met. So um it's an important point to remember that. So that also, however, one can see the possibility of, of, of, of a height and of a nobility,
Speaker: and of human excellence as as the real political goal. Meeting necessity is not the only thing, but it's a significant thing. Yeah, you have this ah nice, maybe read a little a couple sentences from your book. Three elements that stand out are the modern emphasis on necessity, the further related overemphasis on economic causality,
Speaker: I think of like Marxism there and the later emphasis on facts such as ethnicity and territory. So, so I guess like,
Speaker: Maybe with respect to those things, mean, I wonder what you would say about the ethnicity and territory, but the idea is that, yeah, maybe they have some kind of role, but we don't want to overemphasize them. It's almost like politics is a kind of harmony of different things and you have to make sure it's balanced properly. And maybe in today's time, there's an overemphasis on material necessity on economics, but um Anyway, i don't know if you want to comment on that. One of the purposes of of of the book was to ah argue and then try to make good on this claim that the basic phenomena of political life have been understood by Aristotle and Plato as well. and that that forms the ground for understanding all political life later as well. That's in a certain sense what this term a occlusion is meant to say. You can cover it up, but those basic phenomena are still there.
Speaker: um Aristotle pays some attention to different nations or different nationalities. Aristotle pays obviously, as we've just said, some real attention to economic activity, but he doesn't make economic facts the basic causes.
Speaker: ah He does not understand kind of continued acquisition as a goal of a political community. he doesn't believe that a political community should be based on a particular kind of ethnicity in the sense that each should have its own community.
Speaker: And he certainly doesn't believe that serious ethnic differences override questions of virtue or excellence or are limited to them.
Speaker: Each of those elements we discussed is in his discussion. He discusses all those matters. He accounts for all those matters. It's not as if somehow it took the modern world to see that these matters have some significance, but they're not the decisive matters. They're not decisive causes.
Speaker: They're not the decisive ground of justice. You need to see them and understand them, it seems to me, in terms of how they deviating away from the basic phenomena that are first outlined in Aristotle. So that's basically the overall claim that I would make. Aristotle would not be in favor, obviously, of a community which is open to unlimited economic acquisition and all that that and all that that means. Aristotle would not be open to a community that somehow argued it needs to have its own place because of its ethnic separateness. Aristotle is not someone who supports a world state.
Speaker: So he's thinking, he thinks about all these matters, but understands them differently. And again, I would say the best way to understand these matters is on the basis of first seeing the central phenomenon politically and ethically that Aristotle outlines.
Speaker: This seems like it might be an opportune moment to just have you um detail what a regime is for Aristotle, because that was your second point in terms of what does Aristotle contribute that's perennial. And it seems like the the things that Sam was bringing up as not sufficiently constitutive of political life, Aristotle's response would be it is precisely the regime which is constitutive of political life. And I think that sometimes when people read the politics and see the regime as a kind of distribution of offices, the the sort of modern mind will see that as a mere procedural sort of architecture. But clearly that's not exactly what Aristotle means by a regime. So maybe you could just say a word on on how Aristotle understands the regime and why it's of primary importance for politics. Yeah, sure. um You know, for a long while, the the standard translation of politia, which is the word you translate regime,
Speaker: if you choose to, was constitution. you know And when one does that, one had in mind this kind of series of procedures or even mechanical procedures.
Speaker: um But in ah Aristotle, the regime is what forms the substance of the community. It's the fundamental form or shaping.
Speaker: And a form or shaping is itself directed towards a certain end, right, or a certain ah completion or a certain excellence. So it's best, I think, to think of the regime as the whole way of life of a community, but looked at primarily from the political point of view.
Speaker: ah What is the purpose of the laws? Well, it's to advance a certain understanding of human excellence and human character, a better or a worse understanding. So that's something that one can develop by looking at the particular regimes, aristocracies, oligarchies,
Speaker: democracies and so on. So the fundamental structure politically is oriented ultimately to producing a certain kind of character and advancing a certain understanding of human happiness and human excellence. That's why it's fundamental.
Speaker: Sometimes when people emphasize the regime, they forget the rest of it, however. They forget the fact of the importance of the material facts as we were as we've been discussing them.
Speaker: that limits very much the kind of regime you have. um So that ah you can't forget what it is that a form is forming, but the form structures, the offices structures, the activities, but ultimately in the service of an understanding of human excellence and the whole way of life connected to that.
Speaker: So the regime is the fundamental, is the fundamental fact that sometimes um For those who've mentioned Tocqueville, who know Tocqueville, if you think of the old regime, what he means by a regime there, one gets some some some sense of it as well. It's much broader than some of the contemporary and statements about regime where you just in fact are talking about someone's ruling as opposed to another person's ruling. It's much broader than that. Way of life in many ways is a good way to think of it, though one needs to think of way of life in terms of the political part of it, the making of laws and so on.
Speaker: So it is, I think, the fundamental a political ground and, if you like, category in Aristotle's understanding. Yeah, just to go further on, you know, what is included in the regime or way of life and what is not included in it. So it seems like, you know, ah guess like certain cultural phenomena might not be included in what Aristotle understands as the regime, um like, i don't know, like favorite foods, clothing style, you know, entertainment taste. um
Speaker: I don't know, just, or maybe even the written constitution itself might not be um part of the regime. Whereas it seems like the regime has a lot to do with like, maybe like normative questions. i' Like what counts as success?
Speaker: What ought you to do with your leisure time? um What habits the law... Yeah, well, I think it the regime, especially once it's there for a while, has an enormous effect ah on one's understanding of of human excellence and the ways of life one ought to choose, right? What is praiseworthy? and and and and should be chosen. And it it will even have some real effect on these other matters you mentioned as well, the kinds of homes you'd be permitted to build, how one ah yeah the entertainments one might have, but it it isn't going to control those things simply because that you have ah a substance, a country which is there, which it's which it's forming. but
Speaker: Regime nonetheless can have this enormous this enormous effect. Aristotle also believes you know that there are, to begin with, six regimes, um democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, monarchy, aristocracy, and better democracy. But then as he develops things, has a much more inclusive or subtle breakdown of types of democracies, of regimes which are neither exactly democracies nor oligarchies, middle middle class regimes or polities and so on.
Speaker: And the key question in all these regimes is who rules, right? Who rules and who has a share in ruling? So the central book of the politics, book three, tries to work through the justifications for, but also the limits of, the claims to rule of the many many or the majority, the wealthy and the virtuous. When you've worked those through and you see what ah any of these regimes is directed towards, you see the enormous impact it will have, at least over time, but not
Speaker: you know complete and utter impact over all sorts of of matters. So it is extremely important. And some of what we have in mind with this term culture, though it's sometimes not clear what exactly we have in mind with this term, um would be included in a regime and what a regime is actually directing one's one towards. Because the key question is always what is human happiness and how is a political community directed towards enhancing its understanding of that?
Speaker: So that will cover a lot of territory, but not all things. Do you want to maybe elaborate a little bit, give us some sense of what the ideal regime would look like?
Speaker: Well, Aristotle works through ah partially his discussion of the best regime. um Ideal is always one of these, it's a term we now use all the time, but it begins really with idealism and Kant and so on. So, um,
Speaker: It's not one of Aristotle's terms exactly, but as we use it, one sees where one goes with that. um He develops this in book seven and eight, but seven but it the politics breaks off fairly early in book eight, so you don't see it all worked out, but you can get a real understanding of it in um in book three.
Speaker: And then as you connect it to some of what's also in in um book seven and eight of the politics. The best regime would be one which as much as one could is directed towards producing human virtue and human excellence and would be guided by human virtue and human excellence.
Speaker: You can call it a kind of aristocracy if you like. But any good regime also needs to be moderated by the other claims to rule, the claims of those who produce wealth, the claims of those who defend the community.
Speaker: So in practice, it needs to be moderated. But the key direction is always the rule of the excellent, and the rule of the virtuous. And then in book seven and eight, Aristotle discusses a bit education, territory, and all of these other matters that are fundamental as well.
Speaker: Aristotle also characteristically, and this goes back to really the first points we were discussing, Aristotle also characteristically discusses all sorts of regimes which are the best you might have in decent circumstances.
Speaker: So his second best regimes and his third best regimes, which in a certain sense um imitate the way in which virtuous choice itself is to be measured.
Speaker: um a mean as people sometimes say, and ah a middle-class regime, not by choice, but in a certain sense out of its own desires and interests,
Speaker: is measured. So it's a good regime in practice, but itself it's fairly rare if you don't have a middle class, which you often would not, certainly as he's considering it. He's also interested in regimes where there's a gradation from rich to poor for the same reason. It's a somewhat measured regime. So Aristotle works all these through, but the guideline is a regime directed in its laws and in its education to human virtue.
Speaker: So you could call it ah an aristocracy, though never again a pure aristocracy because there's a reasonable claim to have some share in rule, which comes from others as well.
Speaker: So one of the things that ah the more I myself encountered Aristotle's politics that struck me was that he seems to have a preference for aristocracy over monarchy.
Speaker: So the discussion of monarchy and the politics seems to be, if I recall correctly, rather limited to sort of primitive cities. So he gives a sort of account of different kinds of monarchy and says, well, these sort of ah belong to earlier times, really.
Speaker: it almost looks like slightly pre-political conditions. um So I was wondering. um Maybe I'll frame the question this way. um ah One could say that because there is a first cause of the whole, um and because politics is in some way supposed to image the order of the whole, it makes sense for there to be a single first principle of the polity. Therefore, monarchy is the best regime. That's an argument that appears, for example, towards the beginning of Aquinas' De Reino.
Speaker: But Aristotle, on the other hand, seems to think that aristocracy is perhaps better because it allows for political rule, ruling and being ruled. So I was just wondering if you could um if you could comment on the way Aristotle thinks about monarchy versus aristocracy. Sure. I mean...
Speaker: Yes, he does discuss kingship to some degree in the terms in which you you used it. If you had someone of preeminent virtue, and that also means preeminent in relation to everyone else in the community, as well as preeminent as such, it's hard to make an argument that they should not that they should not rule. um But would you ever have someone of such preeminent virtue in anything beyond the earliest times, if you even had it then? I think it's highly unlikely. And therefore, ah what you will actually seek, if you could have it, which is itself difficult, is something like an aristocracy. Aristotle also puts this in terms of the rule of the one best as opposed to the rule of law, because law is always given its generality going to be somewhat imperfect in relation to the particular decisions you would make or equity in particular instances. So, an aristocratic rule of law with some possibility of ah developing the law or let us say even deviating from it in the direction of equity, would I think be in practice the regime that you would seek.
Speaker: But a monarchy simply would require such preeminence in virtue that it's actually in a way unlikely that the regime altogether would be terribly good because you would have to see all the rest as ah as fairly as as fairly low.
Speaker: um So that that's that's what I would argue. i mean, Aristotle's, ah it God in Aristotle doesn't create or shape in any event.
Speaker: Whereas a monarch or even the degree to which you would try to have some monarchical principle together with aristocracy. um a monarch would never, even in that sense, completely shape.
Speaker: And also, as you indicated, you have the other claims to rule, not mere excellence. You ah don't give others sufficient honor, as he would say, if you don't give them some of the honor of rule.
Speaker: So when you look at all of that, some form of modified aristocracy, with law, which is able to be in a certain sense more reasonable sometimes than particular choice.
Speaker: That's I think what would he he would prefer in general. Nonetheless, when you're working things through completely, it's hard not to say that if you have someone with simple preeminence and virtue that you should restrict them in any way. So he works through all of those possibilities and arguments, I'd say.
Speaker: So when it comes to aristocracy, it seems like, okay, if the idea is to um you know put people in power who are the most virtuous, um you know so the regime um that would be best for Aristotle, I guess, would be the regime that um is directed as much as possible toward yeah human virtue and excellence. And so I guess it would try to put into power those who are most virtuous, most excellent, if i understand it correctly.
Speaker: um Well, some them might think, well, you know, actually the best way to do that is through a democratic form. In other words, they might think, if you think of democracy as like a ah mechanism by which to ah set up rulers for ourselves, it's like you might think, well, the bet the way we're going to get the most virtuous persons, people working in office is by having, you know,
Speaker: all the adults, uh, citizens, you know, um, do, do a vote like that's going to be the best method. Um, or someone else might think, yeah, like we're a theocracy and we, we're, and we're also an aristocracy because the idea is that this is going to be the best way to get the most virtuous, uh, in positions of power. So anyway, I guess my point is like,
Speaker: So would some people, like if you're a theocrat, would your position then just be like, oh, theocracy is the best form of, or is the way you achieve an aristocracy. Or if you're more of like a contemporary Democrat, maybe you would say, oh yeah, like the way to achieve an aristocracy that, you know, the rule of the virtuous is through more democratic means. um So anyway, is this making any sense here? you Yeah, sure.
Speaker: As for theocracy, that's not something Aristotle would support because of especially and first of all of its limits on thought. you know At the end of the day, there's something or perhaps many things that need to be believed and can't be seriously questioned, whereas philosophy in the philosophic life ultimately has to put everything into question. So Aristotle does not support theocracies, though his best regimes have have priests, though I think they're limited in their power, and they certainly don't belong to a universal religion.
Speaker: So I think that Aristotle would not favor any any kind of theocracy or therefore agree that a theocratic claim to virtue or excellence in and of itself would be correct.
Speaker: Aristotle does see, however, a certain way in which choice by all of us or the many or democratic choice can have some place in choosing excellence.
Speaker: He doesn't deny that completely. So there is a ah place for that, but it's not a sufficient ah way to try to bring about the rule of the excellent pi because the democratic understanding of excellence wouldn't ultimately be sufficient.
Speaker: um So the excellent need somehow to ah make their own way or belong to a a constitution, a regime founded in a way by someone someone such as Aristotle. If you look at the American regime, um the original electoral college was meant to ah be much more restrictive in who's actually making the choice for this fundamental position of the presidency.
Speaker: senators were chosen by state legislatures. Another way, whether it worked or not, to try to bring about a greater degree of excellence.
Speaker: But ultimately, everything rests on the people and therefore democratically. so There's no naivete about the way that the fact that or the hope or the wish that the people in general will always choose the most excellent.
Speaker: There are structural ways in our country in which one attempts to advance the possibilities of the of the election of those with more prudence and ah excellence of character, while also recognizing the important place of the people, even in making some sensible choices. I think Aristotle is is aware of all of that and and gives the the people generally a serious place.
Speaker: But choice by people, by the many, by the majority, ah can't simply take the place of the self understanding of the excellent and ah their understanding of the need for a certain kind of virtue and excellence and prudence in political life. So I'd say all those things, including what I said at the beginning about about theocracy.
Speaker: So just real quick. So it's interesting. You talk about like a democratic understanding of excellence. I think you said something to that effect, I believe. And that's kind of interesting to me because it's like, you might think of like, wait, is democracy just a like,
Speaker: like a way of um structuring the mechanism by which you put someone in power. In other words, it's like, how could how could an understanding of excellence be democratic? Like what could that mean? Because it's like to some ears, I feel like democracy just describes like a method for- The people ah people generally certainly could understand if those who rule them or govern them are corrupt, are tyrannical,
Speaker: are incompetent or at least failing incompetence. ah That does not require always ah a high degree of subtle and sophisticated understanding, but it means that they are recognizing or we recognize um ordinary corruption, ordinary injustice, ordinary incompetence, ordinary lack of prudence, And that's a significant part of making concrete political judgments about who the next round of rulers should be in an ongoing democracy or even in a regime which has democratic elements, but not simple democratic elements. That's significant. and it has something to do with an understanding of basic ah human virtue or human excellence in various in various matters. And it has something to do with ah the ability to see something of political prudence, has it worked or has it failed?
Speaker: So I think that's that's significant and it means that democracy is not simply something which you have or recognize because you bow to the necessity of ah economic matters and military matters, but also because you recognize the understanding of virtue and therefore the existence of virtue of character.
Speaker: in so many people. It's also the case, as I said, in in our democracy that ro one requires for the actual ah use reasonably of one's own natural rights, certain character.
Speaker: You need responsibility, toleration, industriousness, civility, versions, as we said, of Aristotle's virtues as well. So there's a possible height to democracy.
Speaker: You know, democracy in Aristotle There's good and there's bad. So it's the third of the best. And then the the better practicable regimes um can look significantly, though not simply, democratic as well. So without being Pollyannish about it, ah there's nonetheless some significant understanding of human excellence, recognition of human excellence, recognition of the failure, obviously, of human excellence,
Speaker: that people in general can have. They can, as Aristotle himself sometimes says, and this is something which exists in the Greek cities, audit, in the broad sense of audit, the results and activities of the current regime.
Speaker: Yeah, that was very helpful. um And ah a component of Sam's earlier question sort of brought this following question to mind. On page 167, you talk about ah essentially the, well, what you just mentioned, that that that um there needs to be the preservation of a role for reason within the political community. And I was wondering if I, I'm just gonna read a section here real quick.
Speaker: um On the top of page 167, the city and its regime as the base for all our common sense understanding need an orientation to what is at once uplifting and restraining. And in practice, this means a broad orthodoxy, even when it is limited by toleration, what we today often call Judeo-Christian virtue.
Speaker: But this orthodoxy should not be so encompassing that it restricts natural excellence. This is why in Aristotle's regimes and in the best regime, priests exist, but also why they are not independent, but belong to the city and are elderly, and why he suggests that piety should or need not become silliness.
Speaker: So I wrote in my margins here Ratzinger, actually, because this is a theme in the work of Ratzinger and Benedict, this later Benedict XVI, that um faith and reason, this is not exactly how you're putting it here, but um that faith and reason purify each other. um But I'm just wondering if you could comment on...
Speaker: the sustainability of the Aristotelian view of politics in light of um revealed religion and particularly a universal revealed religion and one that um makes priests um not subordinate to the city.
Speaker: not necessarily having a theocratic position relative to the city, but not subordinate to the city in the manner of Aristotle. So in what in what way might Aristotelian politics, political philosophy be ah be maintained under those conditions? um Does it put pressure on on the Aristotelian understanding of politics? um It's often argued and that modern political philosophy, especially if you argue that it begins with Machiavelli,
Speaker: it It's an attempt to deal with precisely that issue. and it deals with that issue, however, by launching modernity.
Speaker: out launching a certain understanding of truth, a certain understanding of nature, a certain understanding of acquisition, a certain understanding of virtue as well. So that it is that response that is really the first great response to the issue that you raise.
Speaker: The difficulty is, how can one still, I think, within modern political life, restore some of what one sees in Aristotle, again, by reminding oneself that what Aristotle is discussing are the basic phenomena before then they get to some degree occluded.
Speaker: i think it does mean that that one needs to pay attention to ah restricting the pretensions politically of anything that seeks to be and claim to be universal truth.
Speaker: That means universalistic political communities as well as universalistic religious communities. And to look for the ways in which um human virtue and human excellence can be advanced or at least secured ah through faith, but then especially ah to leave serious room for the understanding of things as they are naturally a prior to modern thought and modern science. So it it means elevating as much as one can, liberal democracy, while seeing and continuing to see the importance of ah a number of political communities, different political communities, as opposed to a simple and dominant world community. um And the possibility for doing this is grounded in the fact that what Aristotle and Plato as well are discussing and what they've uncovered are, I would argue, natural truths. So they will always have some power if one allows them to.
Speaker: That's what I would say, generally speaking. Yeah, I mean, ah lower down on the page, you you make the comment that um that religion plays an essential role in human self-elevation.
Speaker: It seems to me that one one point you want to make is that we ought not to say religion religion should have no place in human affairs, um that that might actually be something contrary to human greatness, but at the same time that perhaps ah religion does not resolve all of our political questions, all of the sorts of questions we've been talking about um regarding regimes. Is that ah an accurate presentation of your...
Speaker: Yes, I would actually, I would say that, and I would also say, or try to argue that there's our natural grounds of self elevation, natural grounds of, of revering of human beings, in some sense, equal natural rights in the strictest sense are of that sort. So I think on the one hand, one seeks to see the natural grounds and therefore the reasonably understandable grounds of the possibility of human height, because if there are no natural grounds for it, it's it's not ultimately there.
Speaker: um But then also see that those natural grounds oughtn't to be distorted by, but nonetheless could work together with our faith. So that would be my my my general argument or hope, if you like.
Speaker: Yeah, and this this is kind of going in the same direction. yeah I was thinking, we kind of started off, I tried to articulate you know a little bit of what the sort of left-leaning pushback might be to Aristotle. And I was trying to think, you know what is the more right-leaning or at least certain type of right-leaning pushback might be? And I was thinking, you know I think some people are kind of convinced that, hey, you know, in contemporary times, it seems like we're kind of in a situation of like really profound moral collapse, you know, and it it seems like and it's tempting to think, you know,
Speaker: when society drops revelation or something, it it looks like, you know, it's not, we're not becoming calmly rational or virtuous. Instead, it's like we're rushing headlong toward confusion and, and family breakdown and loneliness and technological domination and like the desecration of the human being. It's like, it's, It doesn't seem like we're elevating the human being. um And so so someone might be thinking, all right, so what happened is that we kind of dropped the category of revelation and that's no longer really you know believed by so many people today. And and ah things really went to ah badly in the moral sphere or something. And so anyway, someone might think, okay, so what that suggests
Speaker: is that you know natural reason, it really needs revelation, and maybe even like religion needs to stand above the city in some sense. so um So anyway, I'm just kind of curious, like that sort of religious kind of integralist type direction, like what do you think of that sort of um argument?
Speaker: So, you know, so which revelation? Whose revelation? i mean, is it is it that one would prefer radical Islam to natural human excellence? I certainly wouldn't.
Speaker: So I think... i think the substance is significant and the substance of the connection between um Aristotelian virtue and excellence, natural excellence, but also the kind of natural height of every human being that you see in equal natural rights and and the virtues connected to liberal democracy. That connection is an extremely important and significant connection. But simply to talk about revelation,
Speaker: and the theocratic um is, ah I don't think, a good thing. Because if you look at the substance of many claimed revelations, it's not something where the governance by such a view and those who dominate such views um is a good thing.
Speaker: On the contrary. Yeah. Would you say that there... ah because sort of one one claim would be that revelation as such sort of forecloses the possibility of philosophy. So whenever there is a kind of publicly recognized, even if not politically established revelation,
Speaker: well, there's going to be a kind of limitation of natural reason and of natural excellence. Do you think that that is just a sort of necessary quality of revelation or are there revelations, claims to revelation that provide more of a space for natural excellence? um Sure. I mean, at the end of the day, um Philosophy is about questioning and therefore everything needs to be needs to be questioned, though that doesn't necessarily require the full making public of all of one's questions. Can there be ah revelations whose substance is more in accord with natural excellence? I think that's clearly so. But the standard, at least as I understand it,
Speaker: would be the reasonable understanding, not the other way around, not does a reasonable understanding or a claimed reasonable understanding accord with revelation, but rather the other way around. So that's how I would see things, um though obviously not how everyone would see things.
Speaker: Yeah, this is sort of why I why i why i thought of Ratzinger's quote here, um which he which he he reiterates this in several places, that in one sense, um I think he agrees that he wants to argue, for example, that Christianity is rational worship, and he's quoting Paul there. And so he wants to say that Christianity yes, Christianity has to be sort of purified and stands up to the examination of reason.
Speaker: At the same time, he adds um that faith performs a kind of ah purifying function upon reason as well. So, um I mean, this has always been a kind of... ah rich and complex thing to consider that Ratzinger says. So it seems like he would hold kind of both. You do not just make the revelation the criterion of truth to the neglect of reason. At the same time, revelation is is um is actually, I think for Ratzinger, yeah, he uses the term purifying, but you might also say elevating. So I don't know if you have a thought on on that kind of approach to this question. um
Speaker: I guess, you know, my approach or thought is always, again, what is natural elevation? What is, if you like, natural purification to a certain degree? How far can you go with that?
Speaker: I think in certain ways is again, i equal natural rights is a certain kind of elevation and ah human excellence and human virtue is ah is is ah is a true elevation. so That would be for me the basic argument. How far can one go with that naturally?
Speaker: Can faith truly support that and where does it truly support that? And then connected to that, what exactly would one have in mind with with purification? There are many ways you can talk about a kind of purification, which which is a an excess, if you might say, of passivity, part in a way maybe of what the modern thinkers were concerned about. You can also, however, think of purification as a kind of orientation to the degree possible towards reason.
Speaker: But again, looking at Aristotle, practical reason and and ethical virtue is the proper way of dealing with our passions and the goods we seek, not about something that's itself completely without a body. So it would depend on on the substance, really, of of of elevation, of elevation of reverence, ah of of purification. And I would, of course, look at it from, first of all, of course, from the the standpoint of what reason can say about things. It seems like, um you know, philosophy might be kind of necessary ah for the city because it then the city might kind of like mistake its own conventions and its myths and its whatever, its passions, the kind of, for you know, for the ultimate truth about human excellence. Like you need a sort of –
Speaker: part of the city that's sort of questioning things on a fundamental level. ah But on the other hand, right, isn't there like a concern about philosophy, um like disrupting the city to some degree, like, if it's questioning everything, um you know, it seems like you might end up losing a set of like authoritative opinions by which like the city organizes itself or something. um so I don't know. Do you have any, you want to comment on that? Like issue of like, there also being a sort of potential, perhaps like some kind of danger to philosophy in some ways.
Speaker: Sure. I think that argument is is a correct argument, especially when you think of the political community as a religious community, because political communities and need to take certain things in practice for granted.
Speaker: And the philosophic life is one in which nothing fundamental is taken for granted. And at some time or other, there will be a clash. and Let's say, for example, a clash in terms of where will the best of the young men and women go to what will they devote themselves? Will they devote themselves to what the community thinks is most important or will they devote themselves to what one might say is most important intellectually or philosophically or in other areas?
Speaker: On the other hand, There are various ways to deal with that issue. and In Aristotle, um the split is less visible than it is, let's say, in Plato's Republic where you have both the coming together but and also the arguments about about the split. Aristotle in various ways,
Speaker: ah tries to show philosophies in a certain sense useful, not useful in the way of modern technology or modern science, but useful in various areas. And the heart of book three of the politics, where he actually will use the term political philosophy in a sense,
Speaker: is to adjudicate these disputes to rule um among those who seek honor or virtue, on the one hand, wealth and freedom as the only three grounds for rule. And Aristotle adjudicates that and shows what's so in each of them. So he and his work does something along the lines of what you were first laying out.
Speaker: Doesn't change the fundamental split. But it's not a split which needs to be completely difficult or dangerous at every moment, nor a split which means that the philosophic understanding might not be, in fact, concretely useful in various ways. I mean, our own political community is obviously very much connected to the thought of Locke.
Speaker: of Montesquieu and other thinkers as well. So that's what I would say about that. And in Aristotle himself, I think that split is less obvious and visible perhaps than it it is in Plato or in the apology and the the death of Socrates. Although, you know, he lived till he was 70, probably could have gotten himself off if if he'd chosen to do that as as well. That's helpful. Yeah, I'm kind of sensitive to time here, and but I wanted to ask you something we touched on maybe briefly earlier, but you know in our time, I think parts of the political right are sort of increasingly um interested or maybe, i'm not I'm not sure if that's the right word, but increasingly concerned or interested in ethnicity as like a source of political unity. And it seems like in Aristotle, like,
Speaker: some kind of unity is definitely um needed in a city. You know, ah we're we're supposed to be more than just like a collection of individuals, you know, contracts,
Speaker: markets it It seems like he wants a more robust unity than that. um But it seems like he would not go in for the idea that like the type of unity we need is is like an ethnic unity. um it's it's Instead, it has to do with like a regime or laws or anyway. um So I was just kind of curious, like.
Speaker: Would you want to comment on that? I mean, we already have a little bit, but I'm just, you know, on what's mistaken, like, what what what is the kind of unity we really do need? And why is it not ethnic unity?
Speaker: I think ah when Aristotle discusses his best regime and in other places, he does discuss those issues a little bit and has a certain view of the the general, but obviously not universal for each member, characteristics of various ethnicities.
Speaker: But it's also the case that in book two of the politics where he discusses what at least are generally thought to be the best concrete current actual regimes, Karth is very high on the list. and Carthage is not a Greek is not is not a greek city.
Speaker: You need obviously a devotion to the here and now. You need a devotion to your own and your family's happiness and excellence in this particular place. You need a devotion to the principles of the place as they've actually worked out concretely where you are.
Speaker: So that is not ethnicity, but it's also not simply an abstract general agreement to principles. It's a devotion to the principles as they have played out in this particular place with these particular goods, with these particular virtues, um and with these particular opportunities that are actually that are actually given.
Speaker: so Given that, you don't have a need for, nor has the United States ever had a need for a particular ethnicity, though it kind of began in in in certain in certain ways.
Speaker: So all of that concreteness is very important, but it needn't be ethnic concreteness. One last question, if that's all right, on my on my end. And i was I was wondering if you could just explain to us what Aristotle means by political philosophy.
Speaker: ha
Speaker: Well, it's he doesn't it's it's not a definition. It's it's it's a see it's what the substance ah ah that political philosophy is directed towards. Political v philosophy is fundamentally the attempt to understand what justice truly is, and therefore to understand the various forms of government in terms of justice. And justice has many elements, but the distribution of proper rule, that's I think the first subject of political philosophy. And then the related subject of course is what the rule is for, happiness, a particular understanding of human happiness and human virtue. So political science, generally speaking, in Aristotle comprises both the ethics and the politics.
Speaker: Political philosophy is therefore the attempt to understand as reasonably as one can, those subjects that I just laid out. It's basically, if you want to understand happiness and the right form of rule or justice as so crucial, you might even say it's the attempt to philosophically understand the human things broadly.
Speaker: That's what I'd say it is for Aristotle. That's what I'd say it is in truth. Yeah, and it's interesting though, because it's like, mean, this goes kind of circles back to what you said related to philosophy, but it's like, on the one hand, it seems like we need political life, like you were just saying, requires real attachment to the here and now to the particular into the concrete, you know, citizens, they need to be devoted um to a particular city, to a people, its laws, um its history, its way of life. But on the other hand, it's like, it we also have the philosophical question of justice itself. And it seems like we should be devoted above all what
Speaker: what is what genuinely is justice and we should be devoted to that and be willing to sacrifice like our concrete commitments, uh, for, um, whatever true justice is. So I guess, i don't I'm just thinking like, it seems like there's a kind of interesting tension in politics between, ah the concrete political loyalty and then a sort of,
Speaker: Yeah, philosophical devotion to the just itself, you know, um what is truly just, I guess. There's always a tension between love of one's own and love of what is good.
Speaker: And in this case, love of what is just. But that tension is a tension. It's not complete devotion to one's own, whether good or not, nor could it be devotion to simply some free-floating principle.
Speaker: in political terms, at least. So both the good and one's own to make one's own as good as one can. In the circumstances that would be the political direction or human. Great. Well, thanks so much, Mark, for coming on. ah Just to say again, ah the the new book is Aristotle's Political Philosophy, an inquiry into the Nicomachean ethics, politics and and rhetoric. um Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, Mark.
Speaker: Thank you. My pleasure.
