more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 5245

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness ]

Full Idea

People expect either to return evil for evil, or good for good, and if this is impossible no exchange can take place, and it is exchange that holds people together.

Gist of Idea

Society collapses if people cannot rely on exchanging good for good and evil for evil

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1132b34)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.183

A Reaction

This is not far from a Thomas Hobbes contract view of society, with someone being needed to enforce the justice of contracts. Many societies, though, seem to have survived despite being riddled with injustices.

The 23 ideas with the same theme [what distinguishes humanity from other animals]:

7506 God made man in his own image [Anon (Tor)]
5245 Society collapses if people cannot rely on exchanging good for good and evil for evil [Aristotle]
5265 Even more than a social being, man is a pairing and family being [Aristotle]
2803 Man is by nature a political animal [Aristotle]
2820 People want to live together, even when they don't want mutual help [Aristotle]
22586 Only humans have reason [Aristotle]
12281 Man is intrinsically a civilized animal [Aristotle]
21396 Man is distinguished by knowing conditional truths, because impressions are connected [Stoic school, by Long]
3065 Humans are naturally made for co-operation [Aurelius]
4855 If people are obedient to reason, they will live in harmony [Spinoza]
19756 Humans are less distinguished from other animals by understanding, than by being free agents [Rousseau]
21412 Humans are distinguished from animals by their capacity to set themselves any sort of end [Kant]
21435 Man is both social, and unsociable [Kant]
6934 Man is not a particular being, like animals, but a universal being [Feuerbach]
6936 The essence of man is in community, but with distinct individuals [Feuerbach]
5275 Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels]
5292 Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels]
21992 Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels]
7166 Man is above all a judging animal [Nietzsche]
20740 Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno]
2558 Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty]
4365 We are distinct from other animals in behaving rationally - pursuing something as good, for reasons [Hursthouse]
20356 Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson]