Even looking solely at Aristotle’s writings on moral responsibility, the individual cannot be completely separated from the society surrounding him. The voluntariness of acts and character virtues are not the only factors determining responsibility in Aristotle’s theory. In addition to these, it is significant how the action of the citizen relates to the political action of the state. As Delba Winthrop describes it, political responsibility is formed from action, which is defined by civic virtues related to the ends of political action of the state that the citizen inhabits.208 (Winthrop 1975, 417–418.) In moral
philosophy, this viewpoint is much less explored than that of moral responsibility and its properties. For example, in political theory the Politics is used more often as a source. Ignoring the Politics is not necessarily the correct move to make if an encompassing picture of Aristotle’s moral theory is wanted. The Nicomachean Ethics concludes by remarking that the subject of the Politics is to be discussed next. In the Politics, Aristotle continues the explication of the requirements for the good life. The aim of political science, the city state, proves to be an essential agent in realising the good life. Both ethics and political science are part of the same whole, “practical sciences”. The separation of the two schools was amplified later in the process of editing Aristotle’s writings. Before this, the texts of both books were most likely lecture notes of the school of Lykeion.209
Before looking at virtuous action of the citizen, it is appropriate to clarify precisely what state and citizen mean: the state is part of nature in Aristotle’s theory. (See Nichols 1992, 15–17.) For this reason, the principle of teleology affects the state as well, and it has its own ends. Virtuous action by an individual citizen directs the political action of the state towards its political end (see Winthrop 1975, 407).
Aristotle defines “citizen” through the state in the Politics: “But a state is composite, like any other whole made up of many parts—these are the citizens, who compose it.” (Pol. III 1, 1274b39–1275a1.) The relationship between the whole and its parts describes Aristotle’s essentialist view of the individual.210 Even if the traits of the individual cannot be used as such to
separate the particular or the person, they are enough to distinguish the person from other forms of life. These traits may be identical between several
208 Delba Winthrop’s 1975 article “Aristotle and Political Responsibility” discusses the
responsibilities of the citizen and their relationship with the political action of the state, while Mary P. Nichols’ Citizens and Statesmen (1992) complements Winthrop’s view by looking at the various relations between different parts of society and how responsibility functions in these complex social settings. Nichols is a political theorist rather than a philosopher, but her work on Aristotle’s Politics is useful and excellent, and is used a summary and a commentary on the most important subjects in that work.
209 See Juha Sihvola’s notes of Politikka (Aristotle 1991), 221–222. 210 See Aristotle, Metaphysics, X 10, 1075a11–26 for comparison.
people. The city state was the world the citizen of ancient Greece inhabited, as well as a determining factor which gave meaning to the citizen himself. Citizenship as an essentialist trait was equated by Aristotle with “being a political person”. (See Winthrop 1975, 410 & 413.)
Since good citizenship is implicitly determined by the consistent relation between personal character virtues of the citizen and by his civic virtues, Aristotle thus differentiates the virtues of a good man, which were examined above, and virtues of a good citizen. The former are not necessarily in line with the latter (Pol. III 4, 1276b34–35). The virtues of the citizen are determined by how the actor realises action appropriate to his role within the society. Each role has its own set of civic virtues: the ruler has the virtues of a ruler, the soldier the virtues of a soldier, the farmer the virtues of a farmer, etc.
Aristotle can be interpreted to mean that political responsibility is equated with good citizenship. In this case, however, the action of the state is emphasized: the state is like a choir of which the citizen is a member (Winthrop 1975, 418). Based on this, one could assume that action of a good state would require that each citizen act according to his roles as far as possible (see Pol. 253).
It is good to keep in mind that the ideas expressed in Politics are impossible to apply to the contemporary setting (Nichols 1992, 169). In Aristotle’s society, only the Hellenic class with ownership status had citizenship (see Pol. 243). In addition to inequality between the sexes, slavery was a given. Aristotle, in spite of efforts to discuss free men and slaves, and their minds and bodies systematically, did not criticize this situation outright. By this point at the latest, as he happened to extend his incomplete conception of human nature to slaves as well, his view became indefensible (see Pol. I 5, 1254a21–23). As a result, he had to discuss natural slavery, and so his prejudices against ”barbarians” were infused into his political theory (See B. Williams 1993, 110–115).
The virtues of the citizen did not, Aristotle thought, depend on personal virtues. What followed from this was that a good citizen was not necessarily a good person. An exception to this rule was the rulers, who Aristotle thought to have the pre-requisite virtues of a good person, in order to excel in their role (see NE I 4, 1095b4–7). The ruler is required to have a developed faculty of practical reason, whereas this ability for deliberation is not essential for an ordinary citizen. Additionally, the ruler is required to understand the subjects’ position, as Aristotle writes “he who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander” (Pol. III 4, 1277b7–16). Only the mastery of his own profession is required of a regular citizen.
Aristotle’s theory states that when acting according to the virtues of the ruler, i.e., when the ruler is in fact good, he advances the political action of the state toward its political end. Political responsibility is realised in his case, because his action is concurrent with the political action of the state. As an interpretation of Aristotle, political responsibility means that the action of
the individual advances the action of the state of which he is a part toward its end.
As in the ideal case of the citizen advancing the end of the state, ideally the state aims to further the well-being of its citizens (NE I 7, 1097a15– 1098b9 & I 13, 1102a5–10). In this sort of state, the citizens’ action as an individual would further the state’s objective to serve its inhabitants best. This is how the acts of the citizen related to state’s action determine the overall civic political responsibility. As Aristotle writes:
We maintain that the true forms of government are three, and that the best must be that which is administered by the best, and in which there is one man, or a whole family, or many persons, excelling all the others together in excellence, and both rulers and subjects are fitted, the one to rule, the others to be ruled, in such a manner as to attain the most desirable life. We showed at the commencement of our inquiry that the excellence of the good man is necessarily the same as the excellence of the citizen of the perfect state.211 (Politics III
18, 1288a32–39.)
Governments include units ruled by one, many or several. Additionally, Aristotle divides these into governments directed towards the end of the well- being of its citizens and those directed at the end of procuring benefits for its rulers. Ideally then, the best political aim of a state is eudaimonia, which translates into flourishing or happiness. There can be more than one ruler and ideal governments are called monarchies, aristocracies and polities according to their number, whereas degraded ones are called tyrannies, oligarchies and democracies.
Democracy was seen by Aristotle as the worst government, governed by many, probably because he shared his teacher Plato’s opinion. Plato was shocked in his time by the execution of Socrates, a verdict determined by democratic decision. According to Plato, governments degrade from better government to worse in the following order: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. (Plato, 2007, VIII, 544d–562b & IX, 587c). The division into democracy and polity is made by Aristotle, and is
211 It is worth considering how this important quote has been translated: the translation by
Jonathan Barnes from the 1984 edition is used here: “We showed at the commencement of our inquiry that the excellence of the good man is necessarily the same as the excellence of the citizen of the perfect state.” In contrast, Barker and Stalley translate Aristotle in the 1998 Oxford edition as “We have also shown, at the beginning of our inquiry, that the goodness of the good man, and that of the citizen of the best city, must be one and the same.” Benjamin Jowett’s version in the Random House 1943 edition however reads “We showed at the commencement of our inquiry [n76] that the virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the citizen of the perfect state.” Virtue, excellence and goodness have been used throughout the years as synonymous with each other.
determined by the main beneficiary of the government, be it the rulers or the citizens.
How then does responsible action differ between the governments? In good governments, the responsible acts of the individual tend to manifest themselves as politically responsible action as well, meaning that interpretations of responsibility for action, responsibility for character and political responsibility are most closely aligned within monarchies, aristocracies and polities; the benevolent government types.
In states with degraded governments, the situation is more difficult to describe (see Nichols 1992, 87). In these cases, the virtuous action of the individual may very well advance the well-being of its citizens, but from the view-point of the state it can conflict with the ends of the state’s political action. In this way it is possible to identify situations through Aristotle’s theory wherein actions interpreted by just moral responsibility would seem praiseworthy, but would seem blameworthy when the action of the state is included in the big picture.
Whether the state of the government is tyranny, monarchy or democracy, it affects the whole as virtues affect individuals. Tyranny and other degraded forms of government are analogous with vices and lead to weakened state action in that the acts of the citizens are not directed at their own well-being. This means that the acts of states with degraded governments do not achieve their ideal end, the well-being of its inhabitants, and that an individual acting virtuously otherwise might be considered blameworthy if they were acting against the state’s political end. Read this way, Aristotle feels almost modern, and is of great interest as such. As a down-side reading Aristotle thus takes rapid steps toward speculation and beyond the boundaries of our present inquiry. Therefore for now it suffices to point out that it is important to recognize the extended circumstances applying to Aristotle’s theory, and that the matter will not be pursued further here.212
212 More detail on this can be found in the previous article on the subject by the author (Kaila