Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics [Paperback]

Fred D. Miller Jr. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 019823726X | ISBN-13: 978-0198237266 | Publication Date: June 26, 1997

This comprehensive study of Aristotle's Politics argues that nature, justice, and rights are central to Aristotle's political thought. Miller challenges the widely held view that the concept of rights is alien to Aristotle's thought, and presents evidence for talk of rights in Aristotle's writings. He argues further that Aristotle's theory of justice supports claims of individual rights that are political and based in nature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Valuable not only to scholars of ancient Greek philosophy but to anyone interested in political philosophy....This is a superb book on the Politics. No library should be without a copy."--Choice

About the Author

Fred D. Miller, Jr., has been a member of the philosophy department at Bowling Green State University since 1972, and has been Executive Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center there since 1981. He is the Associate Editor of Social Philosophy and Policy and Assistant Editor of the Philosopher's Index. He has held research fellowships at Harvard, at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, at Princeton, and at Jesus College, Oxford; and he has held Visiting Professorships at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, Seattle, and at the University of Waterloo.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 26, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019823726X
• ISBN-13: 978-0198237266
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,231,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A positive assessment of a challenging work on Aristotle, November 28, 1998

By 

Casey Lewis (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Paperback)

Millers' book is a teleological interpretation of Aristotle's Politics. Miller includes a succinct overview of Aristotle's division of the sciences and the virtues, an important subject usually not covered in secondary literature devoted to the Politics. The most controversial part of Miller's thesis is the idea that Aristotle had a theory of individual rights. Miller offers possibly the best defense of this idea ever made, based on his teleological perspective, and is generally successful.

As a graduate student in Greek politics, I think that this is one of the best books ever written on this subject. It will be very challenging for non-specialists, but Miller's clear writing makes difficult concepts understandable. Aristotle's Politics itself is a definite prerequisite. This book is required reading for students of Aristotle.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Don't Want To Live In A State, You Are Either A God Or A Beast, May 10, 2008

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Paperback)

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle. Politics is one of Aristotle's most prescient works that had a profound impact on our Founding fathers.

Nicomachean Ethics (EN) is part of political knowledge. Politics regulates when virtue does not. Laws are created for people who are not virtuous. Polis= "city or state." Humans live in society, so virtue ethics is not just for individual living, community is a shared project for the good. Aristotle starts with his method, a phenomenological attitude. He starts with pairs, male and female, builds up to ruler and subject, master and slave as a natural relationship, the 1st social community thus is the household. Household is an economic relationship and has monarchy of patriarch. Villages are a collection of households with a king. Then you have a Polis, a fulfilled complete community formed from several villages. Self-sufficiency is the mark of a Polis. An organized social relationship is Polis and a reason is being able to take care of needs of life and promote living well. Only in a Polis can you have art, philosophy, etc. All these are actualized in a Polis. Politics is natural to human life. We are meant to be social. According to Aristotle, "If you don't want to live in a state you are either a God or a beast."

Logos= "rationality or language" is what helps us to be political animals. Rational language expands capacity in human life. Since Aristotle thinks the Polis has a telos or an end then the Polis as potential comes even before the household. This is similar to the acorn having the telos to become a mighty oak tree. Politics completes the human condition for Aristotle. Need a Polis to develop other human capacities.

Aristotle's hierarchy. Slaves are a living tool for Aristotle. Aristotle argues that some people are meant to be slaves right from birth. "Born to be ruled." Slavish person does not have enough rationality to rule themselves. Aristotle says not every form of actual enslavement is justified according to him. He justifies the human use of animals as a natural act.

Aristotle now wants to find what kind of government is best. In a Polis citizens have things in common. Aristotle criticizes Plato's Republic, he finds it to be overly controlling. Socrates says the soul has 3 aspects and so does the Polis. The Soul has:

1. Reason
2. Passion
3. Appetite
The Polis has:
1. Philosopher King.
2. Guardians, (military).
3. Commoners.

Both are a hierarchal ordering. Socrates and Plato talk about the state holding all property in common. This includes the state raising children after birth instead of the parents, thus there will be no family clans trying to better themselves over their neighbors. Aristotle criticizes this idea. Aristotle says a Polis is a plurality of people thus people are not all the same and a Polis must accommodate differences in people, which actually makes a Polis better. Aristotle criticizes Socrates and Plato's idea of a Polis needing to have "unity" of people. This is a contrast to the Polis of Sparta. Aristotle says the best way to integrate citizens to the Polis is to allow them taking turns in ruling it. Aristotle believes that holding property or rearing of children in common as in the Republic is wrong no one really loves children like their own and communal property never gets really taken care of. Love is diminished the less nuclear family we are.
Aristotle says you need a mix of private and public property. Thus, the best kind of Polis is a combination of a governing element. Aristotle affirms a constitutional democracy or Polity. A citizen participates in government by definition for Aristotle.

Comparison of virtue and the good citizen. Excellence of virtuous man not the same as a good citizen. There will be few virtuous men, but good citizens just have to follow the law. Aristotle says good political virtue and good moral virtue don't have to go together. "Living finely then most of all is the goal of the city."

Aristotle classifies 3 types of government which occur naturally in nature and 3 types of deteriorations of those governments, they are:

1. "Monarchy," rule by one man a king, this is a top down rule. The deterioration is a "Tyranny," who is a ruler who rules for his own benefit.
2. "Aristocracy," rule by the best few men in the Polis, also this is a top down rule. The deterioration is an "oligarchy,' which he defines as rule of the rich who want to perpetuate themselves.
3. "Polity," All citizens participate in government with a constitution set above them to guide them instead of a king or aristocracy. The deterioration is a "democracy or what today we call mob rule or tyranny of the majority. He calls it rule of the poor.

Aristotle does a good job of looking at states and how they can be corrupted. Aristotle's concept of political justice and what is the best concept. What does justice mean? Not necessarily equality for all. Not all people are equal. He implies sometimes it is unjust to treat people equally. Justice is not necessarily equality for all; sometimes it would be unjust to treat all people equally. Politics is rated high by Aristotle as a human good. Education is a central feature of political life for Aristotle. "But we must find the relevant respect of equality or inequality; for this question raises a puzzle that concerns political philosophy." First, because someone is unequal on hierarchy that means better than others like more virtuous. This is like "distributive justice" who gets what goods. Do you give the best flute to the best flute player which is based on merit or to the richest or best looking person? Aristotle says inequality should tip towards those who earn it on merit. His concept of equality and inequality is based on merit. Another philosopher coined a famous formula for this based on Relevant Respect:

P= Person, Q= Quality, C= Context.
It would be just to treat P1 + P2 equally or unequally if P1 + P2 are equal or unequal in Q (quality) relevant to C (content). This is a formula on how to treat people relevant to goods. This is context dependent. Allot of empirical work to be done before we use the formula.

People who fight wars control politics in the Polis. The more people who have weapons in a civilian army is a guarantee that a small group of people will not take control of the government and democracy grows, like our 2nd amendment, this is a historical perspective of the idea that works.
Democracy spreads power to citizens a bottom up structure. Expertise in relation to politics. Many professions we tend to defer to the experts for judgment, physicians, lawyers, etc. Plato's Republic does this with his advocacy of Philosopher king running government. Aristotle says the judgment of the many combined as acting as one is better then a monarch or a few wise men to run the government. In principle, pooling of multiple people to run Polis is good. Politics by nature is a communal effort so you should use all the people's expertise. Aristotle is against letting experts running the Polis they are not always the best of judges. The best judge of the function of a house is the owner, not the builder. In addition, Aristotle says there may not really be any such thing as a political expert, like a philosopher king. Aristotle advocates for a constitutional democracy a written set of laws to protect Polis from a tyranny of the majority. "Law is reason unaffected by desire." A government of laws not men. A living being as the last word is not good.

Role of education in politics. Politics is coming together to foster human development and happiness for community, citizens, and improving human life like education. Aristotle says it should be public education.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

6 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weekend at Bernie's, July 27, 2001

By 

"philebus" (Westport, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Paperback)

Miller would like to reclaim Aristotle for the modern world. In order to accomplish this task Miller has decided that he must ignore certain blatantly obvious factors in Aristotle which clash with the way we live today. This is most obvious in his poorly argued decision to attribute a theory of rights to Aristotle. Miller cites but ignores the fact that the language of rights did not appear until around the 13th century. He also ignores the context in which that language appeared. Instead, Miller choses to rely upon an abstract definition of rights by a 20th century academic, apparently not bothering to notice the problem of relying upon the definition of an accepted entity to prove that entity's existence at a point prior in time. In other words, Miller commits the logical fallacy of assuming the consequent to prove the antecedent eg. "a theory of rights contains x,y, and z"; "Aristotle speaks of x,y, and z therefore Aristotle must have had a theory of rights". There is an additional problem with Miller's attempt to argue the existence of rights in Aristotle: the definition he relies upon is so vague as to allow us to claim that both the Torah and Hammurabi's Code contained a theory of rights. As there is no credible evidence that such a thing ever existed within those documents this procedure is absurd. Furthermore, Miller's "defense" of his "hypothesis" amounts to little more than two or three footnote citations of other professors' works with the unilluminating claim that these articles are enough to answer the obvious questions regarding his approach. He does nothing to "refute" the readings of Strauss, Macintyre, or Irwin but sniff and shuffle some papers.

What Miller ultimately concludes is that Aristotle did not believe in pre-political right but only in a particular type of political or civil right which depended entirely upon the constitution of the polis. Since Aristotle *never* used the language of rights the best we can state is that Aristotle believed that the constitution of a polis gave its citizens both *priviledges* and duties. As the existence of the polis preceeds and superceeds the existence of any of its members it is silly to claim that citizens possess "rights". Since law tries to mimic justice and give to each his own as his ability warrants, there is no place for a "right" which would override the claims of justice embodied within the law. One could ask, "why make such a fuss since what Aristotle said regarding the claims of justice because it sounds alot like what we say when we speak of rights?" It is important to be clear about these things because a certain amount of Aristotle's politics is based upon his understanding of nature and the cosmos. Everything within the cosmos operates according to a set order except for the relations between men. Nature should be our guide since it appears to guide everything else but nature is silent about the proper role of man. For Aristotle, law is the attempt to complete the work of nature by taking it as a guide. There are no "rights" in nature so it would have been absurd for Aristotle to invent such a fiction. Aristotle choses to emphasize the constitution of the polis because it mimics on a human scale the order of the cosmos.

To be fair, the book starts off quite promising and it is only when Miller begins his descent into the morass of rights that things deteriorate. One can read this work and learn a little bit about Aristotle but, in the end, it is not a terribly good exposition of what he wrote. Miller paints us a portrait of the dead philosopher dressed in some rather bad beach wear and pretends that this is still the profound thinker who dominated medieval philosophy for 1,000 years. The final chapter of the book attempts to defend the relevance of Aristotle for today by using the language of the modern university and its obsession with -isms. This may be a way to gain tenure but it makes for poor scholarship.