In this chapter I explore the possibility that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics are parts of a unitary project of investigation. I propose that Aristotle’s pivotal goal is to supply the addressees of his works with adequate theoretical understanding of both the most relevant principles for a good human life and the strategies through which these values are to be effectively realized. The project worked out by Aristotle is ultimately of political nature, given that the education of people to virtue is best carried out by means of an expertise of political kind. Then, I explore some aspects of Aristotle’s theory of friendship and propose that his notion of “political friendship” conceptualized in books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics can be adopted as an adequate conceptual tool for an exploration of some relationships between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Although political friendship is mostly based on utility, the best possible realization of such an ideal is patterned on the model of friendship between equally good persons who share an interest in virtue. I argue that political friendship can be instantiated in various forms and degrees in political reality, even when concrete examples of it fail to approximate its level of perfection. More specifically, I contend that such an ideal finds expression in those constitutions that assign equal opportunities of political participation to people equal in civic and human worth. Such communities include not only the most perfect in absolute (which I take to be constituted by good citizens that prove at the same time good men in the Aristotelian sense), but also forms of government of inferior level, which allow rule in relays for people of average virtue. In the light of the possible applications of political friendship in Aristotle’s Politics, I will conclude that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics complement each other in a variety of ways and offer reciprocal philosophical buttressing. More to the point, the Politics seems to offer a suitable terrain for a fluid and dynamic interaction of concepts which, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is instead more inclined to handle separately.

Perfect Friendship in the Political Realm. A Philosophical trait-d'union between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics?

Irrera, Elena
2017

Abstract

In this chapter I explore the possibility that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics are parts of a unitary project of investigation. I propose that Aristotle’s pivotal goal is to supply the addressees of his works with adequate theoretical understanding of both the most relevant principles for a good human life and the strategies through which these values are to be effectively realized. The project worked out by Aristotle is ultimately of political nature, given that the education of people to virtue is best carried out by means of an expertise of political kind. Then, I explore some aspects of Aristotle’s theory of friendship and propose that his notion of “political friendship” conceptualized in books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics can be adopted as an adequate conceptual tool for an exploration of some relationships between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. Although political friendship is mostly based on utility, the best possible realization of such an ideal is patterned on the model of friendship between equally good persons who share an interest in virtue. I argue that political friendship can be instantiated in various forms and degrees in political reality, even when concrete examples of it fail to approximate its level of perfection. More specifically, I contend that such an ideal finds expression in those constitutions that assign equal opportunities of political participation to people equal in civic and human worth. Such communities include not only the most perfect in absolute (which I take to be constituted by good citizens that prove at the same time good men in the Aristotelian sense), but also forms of government of inferior level, which allow rule in relays for people of average virtue. In the light of the possible applications of political friendship in Aristotle’s Politics, I will conclude that the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics complement each other in a variety of ways and offer reciprocal philosophical buttressing. More to the point, the Politics seems to offer a suitable terrain for a fluid and dynamic interaction of concepts which, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is instead more inclined to handle separately.
2017
Aristotle’s Practical Philosophy. On the Relationship between His Ethics and Politics
129
155
Irrera, Elena
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/656007
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