Power and wisdom : the craft of ruling in Aristotle's philosophy

The aim of this thesis is to try to answer the question as to how and to what extent the Aristotelian wise ruler will intervene in the life of the political community with a view to making people and communities better, both when he lives in the best and happiest city and when the polis is far away from the ideal conditions. I outline what I take to be a plausible account of political activity, in particular from the perspective of people in power, in the light of the most relevant ethical issues discussed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics: happiness, ethical excellence, wisdom, law, justice and friendship. The idea of power that I intend to emerge is not that of the power of individuals, an exclusive possession of rulers, but of a kind of political activity that requires some kind of involvement of the ruled for its full-fledged actualisation. In the first half of this work (chapters 1-6) I investigate the aims and methods of the art of the lawgiver, mainly with reference to the ideal polis. I begin by treating the issue ')f human happiness as the aim pursued by political expertise, and show a possible way in which individual conceptions of happiness may be reconciled with such an aim. Then, I introduce the issue of phronesis as the faculty enabling those in power to set out what forwards happiness, and try to show its relationship with ethical excellence. The issues of law, justice and friendship I treat as expressions of political wisdom; but I insist on political friendship as the ideal in the light of which a higher kind of justice might be realised in existing political communities. In the second half of my work (chapters 7-10) I illustrate how principles of natural justice are variably instantiated in existing political communities and how their instantiation affects the quality of constitutions. I also investigate the possibility of govemm_ent by wise rulers in imperfect communities and the extent to which Aristotle thinks such rulers may bring about a transformation within them; special regard will be paid to the 'polity', conceived as the outcome of a wise activity of transfomation in bad communities. Chapter IV: The' Other-regarding' Aspect of Universal Justice 115 4. 1: Introduction 115 4.2: Ethical Excellences in Universal Justice: Their Political Nature 117 4.3: Ethical Excellences as Forms of Isotes 126 4.4: Conclusions 137 Part ill: Political Friendship: A Path to Authentic Justice Chapter V: Between Advantage and Ethical Excellence. The Relevance 140 of Friendship in Political Theory 5. 1: Introduction 140 5.2: llOAI'ClICi] <plAza. A Real Form of Friendship 141 5.3: The Double Nature of Political Friendship 151 5.4: Conclusions 163 Chapter VI: Relationships between Political Friendship and Justice 165 6.1: Introduction 165 6.2: Friendship or Justice? A Reading of NE VIII, 1155a22-6 167 6.3: Correspondences Between Levels of Justice and Friendship 175 6.4: Conclusions 186 Part IV: Nature and Convention. Instantiating Natural Justice in Political Constitutions Chapter VII: A Justice in the Making. Nature and Convention in Political Justice 7. 1: Introduction 7.2: How Natural is Natural Justice? Ideal and Conventional in 1:0 <pveJ"l1coJ) 6i1caloJ) 7.3: Conventionality in Natural Justice 7.4: Conclusions Chapter VIII: The Changeability of Natural Justice 8. 1: Introduction 189 189