Overview of Aristotle's "Politics"

Read this article for an overview of Aristotle's Politics. Aristotle describes how the ethically educated person, who has a proper character has an obligation to participate in their government (city-states in Aristotle's time). The moral health of one's city-state depends on the moral health of all the individuals who live in it and who participate in its political process. Because the city-state has such an interest in the moral health of each citizen, the government does have the right and the obligation to set laws that can be described as "paternalistic", laws that help people to control their own behavior even in private. In this sense Aristotle can be contrasted with modern day libertarian ethics.

Book I

In the first book, Aristotle discusses the city (polis) or "political community" (koinōnia politikē) as opposed to other types of communities and partnerships such as the household (oikos) and village. The highest form of community is the polis. Aristotle comes to this conclusion because he believes the public life is far more virtuous than the private and because men are "political animals". He begins with the relationship between the city and man, and then specifically discusses the household (oikos). He takes issue with the view that political rule, kingly rule, rule over slaves and rule over a household or village are only different in size. He then examines in what way the city may be said to be natural.

Aristotle discusses the parts of the household (oikos), which includes slaves, leading to a discussion of whether slavery can ever be just and better for the person enslaved or is always unjust and bad. He distinguishes between those who are slaves because the law says they are and those who are slaves by nature, saying the inquiry hinges on whether there are any such natural slaves. Only someone as different from other people as the body is from the soul or beasts are from human beings would be a slave by nature, Aristotle concludes, all others being slaves solely by law or convention. Some scholars have therefore concluded that the qualifications for natural slavery preclude the existence of such a being.

Aristotle then moves to the question of property in general, arguing that the acquisition of property does not form a part of household management (oikonomike) and criticizing those who take it too seriously. It is necessary, but that does not make it a part of household management any more than it makes medicine a part of household management just because health is necessary. He criticizes income based upon trade and upon interest, saying that those who become avaricious do so because they forget that money merely symbolizes wealth without being wealth and "contrary to nature" on interest because it increases by itself not through exchange.

Book I concludes with Aristotle's assertion that the proper object of household rule is the virtuous character of one's wife and children, not the management of slaves or the acquisition of property. Rule over the slaves is despotic, rule over children kingly, and rule over one's wife political (except there is no rotation in office). Aristotle questions whether it is sensible to speak of the "virtue" of a slave and whether the "virtues" of a wife and children are the same as those of a man before saying that because the city must be concerned that its women and children be virtuous, the virtues that the father should instill are dependent upon the regime and so the discussion must turn to what has been said about the best regime.