display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 5245 | Society collapses if people cannot rely on exchanging good for good and evil for evil [Aristotle] |
| 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. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1132b34) | |
| 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. |
| 5265 | Even more than a social being, man is a pairing and family being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Man is by his nature a pairing rather than a social creature, inasmuch as the family is an older and more necessary thing than the state. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1162a20) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 5133. It seems that the family fulfils the most basic human function, but that political life arises from the next level of function, which is a combination of friendship and the wider needs of a family. |
| 5133 | Man is by nature a social being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Man is by nature a social being. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097b10) | |
| A reaction: A famous idea traditionally translated (e.g. by Irwin) as "man is a political animal", but Thomson's translation seems better. Aristotle presumably means that man lives in a 'polis'. This is the natural function that gives the moral virtues.Cf Idea 5265. |
| 86 | A bad political constitution (especially a tyranny) makes friendship almost impossible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In societies with perverted political constitutions friendship is little found; in a tyranny there is almost no friendship. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1161a29) | |
| A reaction: See 'Politics' for more on this. He wants a benign circularity between friendship and the good society. Friendship facilitates the good society, which in turn fosters friendship. I like it. |
| 5140 | Political science aims at the highest good, which involves creating virtue in citizens [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The end of political science is the highest good, and the chief concern of this science is to endue the citizens with certain qualities, namely virtue and readiness to do fine deeds. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1099b29) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core of modern communitarianism, which is much more paternalistic than is normally acceptable in a liberal democracy. Freedom is downgraded, and there is an assumption that legislators are generally wiser than citizens. |
| 21046 | The aim of legislators, and of a good constitution, is to create good citizens [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1103b03), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 08 | |
| A reaction: I always admired the UK Race Relations Act, which made certain sorts of racism illegal, quite a long time before many of the population grasped the point. The legislation educated the citizens. |
| 5241 | We hold that every piece of legislation is just [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is prescribed by legislation is lawful, and we hold that every such ordinance is just. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1129b12) | |
| A reaction: This sounds astonishingly conservative, and doesn't seem to allow for the possibility of bad laws (even those made by tyrants, let alone those made by a misguided democracy). The basis is, presumably, society as a 'natural' institution. |
| 87 | Democracy is the best constitution for friendship, because it encourages equality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendships are most commonly found in democracies, because the citizens, being equal, have much in common. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1161b09) | |
| A reaction: He also implies that friendship promotes democracy, presumably because friends prefer to be equals. |
| 5260 | Friendship holds communities together, and lawgivers value it more than justice [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Friendship seems to be the bond that holds communities together, and lawgivers seem to attach more importance to it than to justice. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155a23) | |
| A reaction: An interesting aspect of the Aristotelian view of society which we now call 'communitarian'. Even lawgivers should be concerned with friendship (how?). There is 'such a thing as society', because friendship networks overlap. |
| 5264 | Friendship is based on a community of sharing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The proverb 'friends have all things is common' is quite right, because friendship is based on community. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1159b30) | |
| A reaction: Thus communism is a kind of sentimental dream that everybody will be friends. The aspiration of all good people should be to spread the boundaries of the networks of friends to be ever more inclusive. This is the new left-wing of politics. |