A ‘Political Animal’ Dr. Andy Mansfield

The Polis Polis (‘city-state’): C6 BCE Greece Zoon politikon – ‘political animal’ for the polis Community to transform individual Citizen vs. Barbarian Acropolis, Athens

Aristotle’s Politics ‘The state is a creation of nature, and that man is by his nature a political animal’, I, (7) Man requires society Needs law, justice, virtue, reason & goodness Two elements of Polis: (i) Slavery: master (soul/ cause) & slave (body/ effect) (ii) Oikos (Household)

The Citizen (Book III) Citizen: someone who ‘has a share in the administration of justice and the holding of office’, III. Civic Virtue: to be able to rule and be ruled (obey) Good Life: men living together for common interest + community has full power & jurisdiction

Types of Government Kingship – Tyranny Aristocracy – Oligarchy Polity – Democracy ‘Ideal Constitution’: All citizens possess moral virtue and contribute to polis = excellence & happiness Mixed constitution = (aristocracy, oligarchy and polity) – [despised democracy]

Aristotle’s Ethics All things have a function (ergon) = virtue Humans special function = Reason (logos) Happiness (eudaimonia) = live according to reason/ wisdom (sophia) 2 Forms of wisdom = practical (phronesis) [statesman] & intellect (nous) [philosopher]. Virtue to follow wisdom & live well – (in the polis) Philosopher is superior

Rejecting Aristotle Aquinas & Natural Philosophy dethroned Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) – a shaken world Scepticism & the Individual The Material World St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 74)

Humanising Human Nature Influenced by Reformation & Amerindians Social life about survival No natural sociability Security & Self-Preservation Man left to own devices (law) Hugo Grotius (1583 - 1645)

Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) Atheism: separating man from God Sociability a ‘superficial view of human nature’ Self–preservation & fear = civil society Laws of nature are not metaphysical

Hobbes’ De Cive (1642) ‘Man to Man is a kind of God … [and] an arrant Wolf’, Dedication. God when individuals, & wolf when in groups Man is not Sociable, & all Men are Equal 3 Key Passions (negative view): (i) Fear (ii) Vainglory (iii) Competition

State of Nature & Government ‘Nature hath given to every one a right to all’, I, x ‘[T]he naturall state of men, before they entr’d into Society, was a meer War’, I, xii The ‘first and fundamentall Law of Nature is, That Peace is to be sought’, II, ii ‘The submission of the wills of all those men to the will of one man, or one Counsell’, V, vii

A Reductionist View ‘Profoundly unsettling’ negative view of humanity Denis Diderot (1713 - 84) ‘Profoundly unsettling’ negative view of humanity Removed sympathetic elements of human nature: (Shaftesbury’s sympathy) Reductionist: simplified and focused on egotism

Pufendorf’s Sociability Moral ‘Intelligence’ People sociable & dependent ‘In the State of Nature, every Man must rely upon his own single Power; whereas in a [State], all are on his side’ - Whole Duty of the Citizen (1673), II, ii. Samuel von Pufendorf (1632 - 94)

C18 Sociability David Hume (1711 - 76) Adam Smith (1723 - 90)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 78) Acknowledged Hobbes’ view of natural right Man not just a higher mammal Attacking Mandeville – humans sociable & capable of virtuous behaviour

Rousseau’s State of Nature Humans are sociable Primitive society is virtuous – (compassion) Two Arts of ‘Corn and Iron’ Unnatural: rank, inequality & leisure Inequality due to competition (like Hobbes) Amour de soi and Amour-propre Pursuit of power and state-building = hostility Noble (Savage) Amerindians

Cosmopolitanism More to life than Rousseau’s ‘cow-like’ existence Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) More to life than Rousseau’s ‘cow-like’ existence Nations are aggressive by nature Cosmopolitanism: trade, (republican) rights and peace