"Eudemonia and Virtue of the Individual and the Polis: The Aristotelian Approach" (pages 60-73) (original) (raw)
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ACADEMIC SOCIAL RESOURCES (ASR JOURNAL), 2024
This article aims to reveal the strong interaction between ethics and politics by examining Aristotle's understanding of ethics and politics through the concept of eudaimonia. According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is the ultimate goal of human beings. The most effective means of achieving this goal is through the field of politics. In this respect, Aristotle argues that a social order should be ensured and a virtuous life should be encouraged for the happiness of the individual. Aristotle’s practical philosophy, taking into account the fact that the individual is a social being, exhibits an approach that evaluates morality and politics in an integrity. The fact that David Ross's particular examination of Aristotle's ethics with its social dimensions and his politics with its moral dimensions points to the importance of this idea. In our study, the critical roles of Aristotle’s concepts of phronesis (practical wisdom) and mesos (middle way) in the relationship between ethics and politics are elaborated. In particular, works such as Ethics of Nicomacheus, Ethics of Eudemos and Magna Moralia reveal how these concepts are handled. In this context, especially through these works, Aristotle, on the one hand, reveals the importance of practical wisdom and moderation, which are essential for a virtuous life, and on the other hand, he argues that individuals should contribute to the happiness of others not only for their own happiness, but also by fulfilling the duties of being a zoon politicon being. This view is previously encountered in Plato’s State by emphasising the relationship between the ideal social order, politics and virtue, and in this framework, the idea that moral virtues form the basis of political structures is put forward. Taking this context into consideration, the article analyses how Aristotle’s understanding of eudaimonia shapes both individual and social happiness within the relationship between morality and politics Bu makale, Aristoteles’in etik ve siyaset anlayışını eudaimonia kavramı üzerinden ele alarak, ahlak ve siyaset arasındaki güçlü etkileşimi ortaya koymayı amaçlamaktadır. Aristoteles’e göre eudaimonia, insanın nihai amacıdır. Bu amaca ulaşmanın en etkili aracı da siyaset alanından geçer. Bu minvalde de özellikle Aristoteles tarafından bireyin mutluluğu için toplumsal bir düzenin sağlanması ve erdemli bir yaşamın teşvik edilmesi gerektiği savunulur. Aristoteles'in pratik felsefesi, bireyin toplumsal varlık olmasını da dikkate alarak ahlak ve siyaseti bir bütünlük içinde değerlendiren bir yaklaşım sergiler. David Ross'un bilhassa Aristoteles’in etiğini toplumsal, politikasını da ahlaki boyutlarıyla ele alması, bu düşüncenin önemine işaret etmektedir. Çalışmamızda Aristoteles’in phronesis (pratik bilgelik) ve mesos (orta yol) kavramlarının, ahlak-siyaset ilişkisi içerisindeki kritik rolleri detaylandırılmıştır. Özellikle Nikomakhos’a Etik, Eudemos’a Etik ve Magna Moralia gibi eserler bu kavramların nasıl ele alındığını ortaya koyar. Bu bağlamda bilhassa söz konusu eserler aracılığıyla Aristoteles, bir yandan erdemli bir yaşam için elzem olan pratik bilgelik ve ölçülülüğün önemini ortaya koyarken, diğer yandan bireylerin sadece kendi mutlulukları için değil, aynı zamanda zoon politicon bir varlık olmanın vazifelerini yerine getirerek diğerlerinin de mutluluğuna katkıda bulunmaları gerektiğini savunur. Bu görüş daha önce Platon’un Devlet’inde ideal toplum düzeni ile siyaset ve erdem arasındaki ilişkinin vurgulanmasıyla karşımıza çıkar ve bu çerçevede ahlaki erdemlerin siyasal yapıların temelini oluşturduğu düşüncesinin öne sürüldüğü görülür. Bu bağlamın da göz önüne alındığı makalede, Aristoteles'in eudaimonia anlayışının hem bireysel hem de toplumsal mutluluğu nasıl şekillendirdiği meselesi ahlak ve siyaset ilişkisi dahilinde analiz edilmiştir.
The Place of the Polis in Aristotle's Account of Virtue
Aristotle makes an important and unique connection between our moral aspirations and our situation in the world. The notion that our ethical condition is a function of our social and political environment is further elaborated in the Politics, where the moral well-being of citizens is made the direct responsibility of the polis and its representatives. This may seem unusual to the modern reader, for whom the most defensible function of the political apparatus is practical and conciliatory-not moral and evaluative. Yet by Aristotle's account this ethical role of the polis is not merely incidental. The proper place for ethical education is in political institutions, and one's ethical impulses find their most natural expression as the fulfillment of responsibilities in the political community. In this paper I will investigate why it is that the polis is the proper place for the cultivation of virtue, and will argue that when Aristotle speaks of the "good life" in this connection it is owed to the way in which citizens come to identify with their political communities through this ethical education.
Human Rights, Rule of Law and the Contemporary Social Challenges in Complex Societies, 2015
The discussion between these two great streams of the Western political thought, normative and critical philosophies, can't forget its political-philosophical Greek root in the Aristotelian thought. His philosophy defends a path that doesn't adhere to extremes, but focuses on allying logically the ontic purpose and the unforeseeability of the results, which are only likely. In this paper, we address the dialectical movement between the ethical awareness of the individual and the political and legal organization of the excellent polis, in the thought of Aristotle. The man can only fulfill his end as a human being by internalising the heteronomous good expressed in the ethically constituted nomos and by the conscious exteriorization of the good in his own praxis. In short, the man may only become complete while an ethical being as he lives in an ethical community, i.e., a politically and legally organized community.
Problemos
The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of the best constitution given Aristotle’s account of human flourishing articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. There, Aristotle claims that monarchy is the supreme form of constitution. A similar claim is repeated in Politics. The paper argues that these claims sit uneasily with Aristotle’s teleological accounts of the polis, the citizen, and his discussion of the virtues of the citizen and the good man in Politics. Given Aristotle’s philosophical definition of the state as “an association of equals for the sake of the best possible life” and his notion that “the best is happiness, and that consists in excellence and its perfect actualization and its employment”, and Aristotle’s argument on the relationship between the good man and the good citizen, this paper concludes that the best constitution is politeia. Yet, simply to argue so is not enough if we are to rescue Aristotle from his inconsistencies and his claims on “natural inequaliti...
The Meaning of Eudemonia in Aristotle’s Ethics
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology (IJPT), 2014
This paper is concerned with the problem of interpreting Aristotle's conception of eudemonia in his treatise, Nicomachean Ethics which will henceforth be referred to in its abbreviated form as NE. Aristotle said that the ultimate end of humans is eudemonia, a concept whose meaning is not quite clear. We (Dr. Patrick Nyabul and Dr. Joseph Situma) have discussed the conflicting views about Aristotle's doctrine of eudemonia and reached the conclusion that Aristotle was not undecided about the concept's comprehension. We have defended Aristotle from the accusation that he showed a wavering indecision between a comprehensive view of eudemonia and a dominant view. we argue (like W. F. R. Hardie) that Aristotle conceived of eudemonia as consisting in the single dominant end of contemplation and disagree with those authors (like J. L. Ackrill) who attribute to him an inclusive understanding of eudemonia. we support the dominant interpretation of eudemonia but reject the inclusive thesis.
The Plan and Intention of Aristotle's Ethical and Political Writings
1991
My objective here is to reconstruct the plan of Aristotle's exposition of political science ipolitike) in his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, and to show that this plan reveals certain fundamental but unnoticed features of his philosophical intention. First I demonstrate, on the basis of numerous programmatic but unfulfilled forward references in the extant Politics, that Aristotle planned to complete this work in certain promised "discourses on the regimes" (Pol. 1260b8-20) by reconsidering his accounts of moral virtue, education and household management from the perspective of the different forms of regime and the divergent ends each promotes. Secondly, I explore the philosophical intention of this plan of politike, arguing that Aristotle's enquiry remains fundamentally incomplete without this reconsideration. His aim of providing the statesman with the knowledge of "legislative science" necessary to apply the teaching on the human good presented in the ethical writings, I suggest, requires this promised account of the way in which the moral virtues vary according to the ends promoted by the different forms of regime. Our enquiry will help to clarify the philosophical significance of Aristotle's conception of "ethics," as tradition has come to know it, as political science.' *This paper has a long history: I first conceived many of the views here presented when I studied Aristotle's political thought with David O'Connor in 1984, and I remain indebted to him for much valuable discussion over the years. This paper was first presented at Duke University in December 1988, as part of a lecture series on Aristotle, and a subsequent version was read to the seminar in Traditional and Modem Philosophy at The University of Sydney in September 1990. I am grateful to these audiences, as well as to Michael Frede, Phillip Mitsis and A. E. Raubitschek, for helpful suggestions. Particular thanks are due to my late colleague in Chapel Hill, Friedrich Solmsen, who helped to shape my thinking on this subject through much stimulating discussion. It is an honor to dedicate the final result to his memory. In recent years three valuable studies on this subject have ap(>eared: E. Trepanier, "La politique comme philosophic morale chez Aristote," Dialogue 2 (1963) 251-79; S.
Aristotle’s notion of common good
Conhecimento & Diversidade, 2018
Aristotle is one of the greatest political philosophers of Greek history. In his book, Politics, we read about Aristotle's political treatise. His notion of the common good is depicted in his effort to portray what the ideal state should be. They could be inferred from his organization or arrangement and functions of the component parts of the state. Here, Aristotle made it explicit that man is made to live in the society and not in solitude. It is pertinent that man lives in a society, hence the name zoon politikon, that is, political animal or political being. It is from the natural origin that the state is later formed; that is from the family, the village, then many villages and finally the state. But the state is ordered to be self-sufficient. The current political challengings in the world can be addressed reasonably with the philosophical ideology of Aristotle. This paper intends to reveal this Aristotlean ideologies as a possible remedy to the current political problems in the world.
Aristotle's ethics and contemporary political philosophy: virtue and the human good
Twenty-first Century Society, 2006
This paper addresses recent attempts in political theory to interpret Aristotle's account of the human good, eudaimonia, and uses it as a foundation for political philosophy. Nussbaum defends 'perfectionist political liberalism' on the following interpretation of Aristotle: the term 'human good' refers to the capabilities of each person, and conceptions of the good are incommensurable. For MacIntyre's 'tradition-dependent communitarianism', standards of rational action that direct us towards eudaimonia must be embodied in practices, and one can pursue the good only by conforming to practical standards of excellence. I describe Gadamer's position as 'radically undogmatic communitarianism'. He assumes that the human good is attained by openness to otherness and through suffering. This paper defends a fourth position, 'non-relative communitarianism', which is based on the idea that the human good is 'good without qualification for humans'. Community can be an arena in which to develop and exercise virtue, in particular, practical wisdom and justice. However, political philosophy must have a non-relative basis, and it must guarantee respect for persons. The concept of 'good without qualification for humans' provides a tradition-independent standard for the analysis of different communities, and also, experiences of harm.
A Critical Analysis: Is Aristotle’s Understanding of Eudaimonia Credible?
Philosophy International Journal
The essential thought of Eudaimonia prescribes for an intellectual platform in Greek philosophy towards the ultimate happiness in human life; hence, it necessarily intends to emphasise a vast array of moral components such as voluntary actions, internal goods and external goods, capacities and cognitive functions, practical reason, as well as mindfulness or sensory awareness. In addition to these prominent features of Eudaimonia, it certainly demonstrates a few contextual meanings: satisfaction, inner contentment, well-being, and wholesome. In fact, it has commonly been assumed that there appears to be a significant ground for the eternal essence of human life, too. Then, this analytical article explores to what extent the Aristotelian attitude of Eudaimonia could be credible? With regards to this debatable issue, I will, arguably, discuss very limited findings in terms of theoretical and pragmatic applicability of Eudaimonia: the central thesis of Eudaimonia, the analysis of De Anima, the discourse of the mean alongside the role of phronesis. However, due to practical constraints, this paper cannot provide a comprehensive overview of Aristotle's understanding of Eudaimonia.