Axia and its basis in Aristotle’s political philosophy

The focus of this paper is on the criteria for the distribution of honour (e.g. one’s claim to share in the constitution) and honours (e.g. offices or marks of distinction) that Aristotle illustrates and critically discusses in his political philosophy. I shall examine both Aristotle’s descriptive approach to the different ways timē and timai are distributed in different constitutions and his normative approach to how they should be distributed in a just constitution. In the light of this analysis, I shall put forward two main claims – one concerning Aristotle’s notion of axia and the other concerning contemporary mainstream notions of ‘merit’. I shall suggest that axia be understood, first of all, formally as a criterion by which honour and honours are distributed in different constitutions. On the other hand, its substantive definition (that is, its content or its basis) varies greatly, being based on, for example, wealth in oligarchies, freedom in democracies, and civic excellence in Aristotle’s ideal constitution. Next, I shall show that Aristotle’s discussion of axia has the potential to contribute to contemporary debates on merit by shedding critical light on the main assumptions of mainstream accounts of meritocracy. Specifically, I shall claim that Aristotle’s discussion provides us with good arguments against (i) the idea that ‘merit’ is a natural moral concept, and (ii) the idea that merit is about competition.