aristotle the politics and the constitution of athens

Under these rather bare and brute descriptions ethics and politics (in this narrower sense) might seem to have little to do with each other. The other subdivision studies politeiai or constitutions, construed as different ways of organizing government in a city or nation it is presumably viewed as the more obviously or directly political part of politics. Roughly speaking, ethics – as its name indicates – is the subdivision of politics concerned with understanding the habits of character which constitute the moral virtues necessary for human fulfilment. a life exemplifying the moral and intellectual virtues. Only one of Aristotle's many constitutions - The Constitution of Athens -has survived and this is now presented here alongside The Politics so that the student can appreciate both the empirical and the theoretical aspects of Aristotle's political science. Politics so understood is a pursuit or a form of knowledge which has as its aim the achievement of the good for human beings – both individually and collectively, in their cities or peoples.Īccording to Aristotle that good consists in happiness or human fulfilment, which is analysed as ‘activity of soul in accordance with excellence’, i.e. The name for this subject is ‘polities’ and the systematic, drily analytical treatises which have come down to us under the titles of Ethics and Politics deal with different aspects of it. Adoption of this expository strategy is just one index of the fact that for Aristotle ethics and politics are not two distinct even if connected disciplines, but one and the same subject.

Aristotle asserts that all communities aim at some good. For that we need to turn to statements elsewhere in his writings, and particularly at the beginning and end of the Nicomachean Ethics. The aim of the Politics, Aristotle says, is to investigate, on the basis of the constitutions collected, what makes for good government and what makes for bad government and to identify the factors favourable or unfavourable to the preservation of a constitution.

Politics, the legislator, and the structure of the PoliticsĪristotle’s Politics does not itself articulate any consolidated account of how the nature and scope of inquiry into politics are to be conceived.

Aristotle the politics and the constitution of athens