 Hi there, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and in this video I'm going to talk about Aristotle's politics, book 3, the first part on the state and the citizen and on the kinds of constitution. Now to give an overall outline of book 3, the first five chapters are devoted to the fundamental definitional issues of what is the state and what is the citizen. Chapters 6 to 8 deal with the various kinds of constitution or government. 9 to 13 deal with political justice, equality and the claims to rule, while chapters 14 to 18 deal with kingship and the rule of law. But this isn't just a random grab bag of topics. Each successive topic builds on the previous ones. So after the definition of the state and the citizen, it becomes apparent that there are many different kinds or classes of citizens, for example, rich and poor. And as a result of there being different kinds of citizens given different access to the offices of state, there are different kinds of constitution or government. And these different kinds of constitution or government embrace different concepts of equality and political justice and rest on different bases of claims to rule. And so in the end, Aristotle considers the specific claims to rule and concepts of political justice and equality that exist in a soul rulership or kingship, and he discusses the relative merits of obeying a person like a king versus obeying the law and the comparative advantages of the rule of law. Now, throughout my discussion, I've been using the translation of Benjamin Joe it the Oxford translation published in 1921, although I've occasionally modified or adapted the translation for clarity. So let's begin where Aristotle begins. What is a state and who is a citizen, as he points out, the one who would inquire into the essence and attributes of various kinds of constitutions or governments. That is, Palateas in Greek, must first of all determine what is a state. And in Greek, the question is, what is a polis? Now, polis is sometimes translated city, sometimes translated say state, sometimes translated city state, and it's related to some other terms that Aristotle immediately invokes and glosses. So the statesman or politikos or legislator, the nomothetes is concerned entirely with the state or polis, especially the politikos because the root of the word statesman just means person who is concerned with the polis. And a constitution or government of Palatea is an arrangement of the inhabitants of a state or polis. But Aristotle points out a state is a composite, like any other whole made up of many parts. These are the citizens who compose it. It's evident then that we must begin by asking who is the citizen or Palateas. Okay, so the fundamental way that the state will be defined in fact depends on how the citizen or Palateas is defined. Now, Aristotle first considers some flawed definitions of the Palateas or citizen, and this is in chapters one and two. So a citizen isn't merely someone who lives in a certain place, for resident aliens and slaves live in the same place, but they aren't citizens. So according to Aristotle, resident aliens, deprived citizens and exiles are all like incomplete citizens. They're not full citizens. And of course, we don't consider them full citizens either. Now, a citizen is not just someone who has the rights of suing other people or being protected when sued by them. And that is because such a right may be enjoyed under the provisions of a treaty or by a resident alien. Again, a resident alien isn't a citizen, but does have rights of suing and being sued. And we could extend these rights by treaty anywhere outside of the state or the city, and we wouldn't thereby deform or change the constitution of the state. Nor is a citizen merely somebody whose ancestors happen to be citizens. In fact, and in practice, a citizen is defined as one to be one of whom both the parents are citizens, or sometimes we go even further back and say that you have to have two or three more ancestors that were citizens. And Aristotle admits that this is a short and practical definition, but it doesn't get to the fundamental issue because we ask the further question, how did this ancestor, how did these parents become citizens? How is this third or fourth ancestor if we push it back that far? How did they come to be a citizen? The words born of a father or mother who is a citizen cannot possibly apply to the first inhabitants or founders of a state. So we have to go back to the first inhabitants or founders of a state to determine the essence of what is a citizen, a polities of a polis. So Aristotle prefers a functional definition of both citizen and it turns out the state. So he says, quote, but the citizen whom we are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense against whom no such exception can be taken. And his special characteristic is that he shares in the administration of justice and in offices. So the citizen is defined by their functions of helping administrate courts and the offices of the state. The citizen of necessity differs under each kind of constitution or government. And our definition, he says, is best adapted to the citizen of a democracy, but not necessarily to other states such as oligarchies or aristocracies, which may exclude some citizens from participating in those offices or in the administration of justice. But the most straightforward definition, he who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state or polis is said to be a polite or citizen of that state. And so a state, a polis just is a body of citizens, he says, that suffice for the purposes of life. And later he qualifies that and explains how the state exists not just for the purposes of life in the sense of survival, but for the sake of the good life. And of course, there are many different conceptions of what the good life is. And that's part of the reason why there are different kinds of constitution. But if according to the definition just given, someone shares in the government, in the administration of the courts or the offices or both, then they were citizens. And so this is a better definition than the one according to ancestry, because we can explain why the first citizens of any state were citizens. And that is because they participated functionally in the deliberative or judicial administration of that state. Now, there's a difficulty about revolutionary states and their citizens and the identity of their citizens and the identity of those states. So Aristotle says there's a greater difficulty in the case of those who have been made citizens after a revolution, as by Kleisthenes at Athens after the expulsion of the tyrants. For he enrolled in tribes, many medics, both strangers and slaves. So medics are resident aliens, both foreigners and slaves were allowed to participate in judicial and other offices of the state by the Democratic actions of Kleisthenes. And so there's a question, should these slaves and strangers and medics be considered citizens? And Aristotle says, well, the doubt in these cases is not who is a citizen. Okay, so it's clear that if he extended to them the functional ability to participate in the offices or in the courts, then they were citizens. The question is ought to they they have been made citizens. And this is the question that all debate surrounds. Should resident aliens, manual laborers, slaves, foreigners and so forth to what extent ought they to be citizens, which again is the question to what extent ought they to participate in the judicial and deliberative administration of the state. This relates to a further question, whether a certain act is or not the act of a state, because if the state fundamentally changes its form, changes its kind of constitution, you can ask, is that still the same state? As Aristotle says, what ought not to be is what is false. Now there are some who hold office and yet ought not to hold office, whom we describe as ruling but ruling unjustly. And the citizen was defined by the fact of his holding some kind of rule or office. He who holds a judicial or legislative office fulfills our definition of a citizen. It is evident therefore that the citizens about whom the doubt has arisen must be called citizens. So whether or not we think they ought to be citizens and whether or not they ought to participate in judicial and deliberative administration of the state in so far as they do, they are citizens of that state. But again, what are the identity conditions of the state itself? We may know who the citizens are by who actually participates in the political offices and the courts, but under what conditions does the state say the same? So if the constitution changes, for example from an oligarchy or tyranny into a democracy, does it remain the same state? And Aristotle relates this to a further general difficulty on what principle shall we ever say that the state is the same or different? Of course, not just on the basis of it being the same place. That would be a very superficial view, which considered only the place in its inhabitants. For the soil and the population may be separated and some of the inhabitants may live in one place and some in another, but it still constitutes a state if they both administrate the same judicial and deliberative bodies. A further related difficulty. When are men who are living in the same place to be regarded as a single city? What is the limit? It's not just an issue of being surrounded by the same city wall, because you might surround all of the Peloponnes by a wall and some so called cities like Babylon are so large that they seem to have the compass of an entire nation, not just a city. And then a further related difficulty to this. Again, shall we say that while the race of inhabitants as well as their place of abode were made the same, the city is also the same, although the citizens are always dying and being born. As we say that rivers and fountains are the same, although the water is always flowing away and coming again. Or shall we say that the generations of men like the rivers are the same, but that the state changes. So actually a classic metaphysical issue about the identity conditions of anything, including a body of water like a river always being in flux. You can't step twice or maybe even once into the same river. Can you inhabit the same state? Ever. What makes it the same state since all of its citizens are constantly changing, either because they're dying or because new ones of them are being admitted or demoted as citizens. Here's Aristotle's solution. He says, what determines the identity of a state is its constitution. And he draws comparisons to a chorus and to musical mode. Since the state is a partnership and is a partnership of citizens in a constitution when the form of government changes and becomes different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer the same. Just as a tragic differs from a comic chorus, although the members of both may be identical. So again, a functional definition, you could have the same actors performing quite different works, one a tragedy, the other a comedy. And we would describe the performance as being different according to these ends tragic or comic. And what determines the identity of the performance is not just the members that make it up, but whether, for example, it ends in a wedding or a funeral will determine whether it's a comedy or a tragedy. And another comparison to a musical mode in this manner, he says, we speak of every union or composition of elements is different when the form of their composition alters, for example, a scale containing the same sounds is said to be different, accordingly as the Dorian or Phrygian mode is employed. So again, same basic elements of sound, but arranged differently or divided differently, we have different scales or different modes. So we look to the end point and the use and the result of those modes to determine their identity and name them accordingly, not to the identical elements of sound that make them up. So if this is true in this analogy works, then it's evident that the sameness of the state consists chiefly in the sameness of the Constitution, and it may be called or not called by the same name, whether the inhabitants are the same or entirely different. So again, you might say, for example, that the United States of America is the same state, because it has had the same Constitution, and until the Constitution is overthrown and replaced with another one, it will remain the same state. But once it is overthrown and replaced with another one, then it will have to be considered different, even if the same citizens exist in it and have the same functional role in its offices and courts. And Aristotle points out it is quite another question, whether a state ought or ought not to fulfill engagements when the form of government changes. So if there's a revolution, should they fulfill agreements made by the previous kind of Constitution, he doesn't give an answer or have an elaborate discussion of that question since his goal here is to establish the identity conditions for a state. The next question is whether the virtue of a good person, so an ethically good person's virtue, and the virtue of a good citizen, a citizen of some state, whether that's the same. As he puts it, there's a point nearly allied to the proceeding, whether the virtue of a good man and a good citizen is the same or not. And the basic answer he seems to give, according to a number of different proofs or a number of different explanations, is that it is not the same, that the virtue of the good person and the good citizen are not usually the same. And so he draws an analogy to sailors. Citizens like sailors are members of a community. Sailors have different functions. For example, there are rowers, pilots, lookouts, and their virtue as sailors relates to their particular function. So it's different to be a good rower than to be a good pilot than to be a good lookout person, etc. But all of these have the same common goal, safety and navigation. So citizens have different functions, but they also have a common goal, the salvation of the community, a community which is the Constitution. So that analogy suggests that the virtue of each of those good persons will be different, but their virtues as a citizen of the community will be the same. And so the first full answer he gives is that the difference that might arise between common goals indicates that they are different. Since there are many kinds of constitution, democracies, oligarchies, aristocracies, etc., it's clear that there must be many different common goals. Because each constitution has a different common goal like promoting wealth and the power of the few for oligarchies or protecting those with freeborn status in a democracy. Those are completely different goals. Thus there must not be a single one but as many different kinds of virtue of a good citizen as there are kinds of constitution. So aristocracies, democracies, oligarchies, kingships all have different common goals. And so the good citizens in each of them will be different and so different from each other. But the good man per se, ethically good man, Aristotle says, possesses a single complete virtue, something in the ethics he just calls complete justice. Hence he now says it is evident that the good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man. So the good man will always have complete justice but a good citizen for example under an oligarchy might be somebody who generates a lot of wealth. But generating a lot of wealth is not the same as perfect justice and so the virtue of a good person and of a good citizen would not be the same. He also says that specific goals differ so even under the same constitution the function or jobs of each of the citizens is different and different virtues apply to each. So the virtue of a good carpenter or a good banker is not the same as that of a good soldier or a good politician. Thus again the virtue of a good person which again is not multiple like this but singular must be different from that of a good citizen. For me to be a good citizen I have to be a good teacher or a good soldier or a good politician but that's very different from being a good person which has to do again with this singular all encompassing virtue of justice. Now he gives yet another answer to this pointing out that the virtues associated with ruling and being ruled differ. So the virtue of the good person is presumably a kind of ruling so ruling over one's slaves ruling over one's children ruling over one's wife taking your turns and ruling in the political realm etc. But the virtue of a good citizen is not just a kind of ruling but it's also a kind of being ruled and being able to be obedient when other people legitimately rule. There is a rule of another kind which is exercised over freemen and equals by birth a constitutional rule which the ruler must learn by obeying as he would learn the duties of a general or cavalry by being under the orders of a general of cavalry or the duties of a general of infantry by being under the orders of a general of infantry and by having had the command of a regiment and of a company. It has been well said that he who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. The two are not the same but the good citizen ought to be capable of both. He should know how to govern like a freemen and how to obey like a freemen. These are the virtues of a citizen. So the virtue of a ruler must include practical wisdom. The virtue of the ruled really need not include practical wisdom but only true opinion so that they follow the orders of the ruler that has practical wisdom. But the virtue of the good person includes the virtue of the ruler in all of these different ways that we've described. But the virtue of the good citizen includes the virtue of both the ruler and of being ruled or obeying. Thus the virtue of the good person and that of the good citizen are not the same. There is no very democratic consideration there about why the virtue theoretic account of the good person produces a different result than the theoretical account of what makes a good citizen. And what's key to the latter especially or maybe only in a democracy is not only that one has mastered various ways to rule and order other people but one has also mastered how to follow and obey them when the other rule is legitimate. But Aristotle also seems to argue that in the ideal state the virtue of a good man and a good citizen would be the same. And the crucial passage is this one. He says the same question may also be approached by another road from a consideration of the best constitution. If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men and yet each citizen is expected to do his business well and must therefore have virtue still in as much as all the citizens cannot be alike the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. One must have the virtue of the good citizen thus and thus only can the state be perfect but they will not have the virtue of a good man unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good. So here in the local context of politics 34 the argument is used to support the conclusion that the virtue of the good citizen and the good man is not the same. But later at the very end of this book so in the next lecture in this series in politics book three chapter 18 this same argument is referred to to show that the virtue of the good man and the citizen is necessarily the same in the perfect state. It's just that this perfect state where everyone is simultaneously as good as possible doesn't actually ever come into existence. It's only a sort of ideal and it's an important ideal because it determines how people should be educated and habituated as we will see. But it is not Aristotle recognizes the fact of the matter that there is ever a situation where all citizens of a particular state are good. And yet it's possible that they it's possible to imagine that they all could be good and it's possible to train them as if all could be good and to educate them as if all could be good. Now which classes are allowed to be citizens because we've had a clear definition of citizen but that raises the question of who in fact gets to participate in the functions of state like in the courts and the assembly and the other offices. So Aristotle asks is he only a true citizen who has a share of office or is for example the manual laborer to be included if they who hold no officer deemed citizens. Then not every citizen can have this virtue of ruling and obeying for this man is a citizen and if none of the lower castes are citizens in which part of the state are they to be placed for they're not resident aliens nor are they foreigners. So manual laborers are important to the state the working class is important to the state no state could exist without them. The question is are they therefore to be considered citizens that is people who have a function in administrating the judicial or deliberative functions of the state. And Aristotle's position is that those who are merely necessary to the state are not necessarily citizens of it. So for example children are necessary to the state if the state is to have any future and foreign visitors are necessary to the state if we're to have trade for example and resident aliens and of course women are necessary to the state. And what about manual laborers and slaves they are no doubt also necessary to the state at least manual laborers if the state can exist without slavery and Aristotle does not think that it can. But surely the state cannot exist without manual laborers but again should they be citizens just on account of the fact that the state cannot exist without them. Well it depends on the kind of government so in an aristocracy manual laborers are not citizens. Why because no one Aristotle thinks can practice virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer. So an aristocracy is supposedly government by the virtuous but it's not possible to cultivate virtue unless you have an extensive education. And if you're a manual laborer and so you're poor and have to work with your hands for a living then you don't have time to cultivate the virtues that afford political power in an aristocracy. In oligarchies of course these mechanics or manual laborers are also not citizens because an oligarchy is government by the rich and these people cannot be rich. But in some democracies they are allowed to be citizens. For example on the basis of weak ancestry requirements you can be a citizen if you are one or both of your parents were citizens. And you the family may have passed into poverty and so now you're manual laborers but you still meet the ancestry requirements. So you're a citizen so you're allowed to participate in the judicial and deliberative administration of the state. Now Aristotle thinks that they should be excluded so getting to the question not who is a citizen but who should be a citizen. Aristotle thinks that manual laborers and mechanics people who work with their hands should be excluded because it is impossible that they should be educated sufficiently for virtue and thus they shouldn't be given political power over other citizens. So in summary children are not considered citizens women are not considered citizens and we're not even in this country until a little more than 100 years ago slaves are not considered citizens. And in ancient Athens even manual workers were not considered citizens. So it's possible to have a democracy even without any of these participating if you give equal terms of ruling and being ruled to free born adult male people who have a high enough education and enough time to cultivate virtue. If they make decisions equally then in so far as they do you have a democracy. Now the next question Aristotle takes up is is there only one form of constitution or government or are they many. In order to answer this he digresses into a consideration of what the purpose of the state is before we said that it suffices for life but now he qualifies that the purpose is not only survival but also the good life. Quote man is by nature a political animal and therefore men even when they do not require one another's help desire to live together. Not but that they are so they are also brought together by their common interests in proportion as they severally attain to any measure of well being. This is certainly the chief end both of individuals and of states and also for the sake of mere life in which there is possibly some noble element so long as the evils of existence do not greatly over balance the good. Mankind meet together and maintain the political community and we all see that men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune seeming to find in life a natural sweetness and happiness. So the real purpose of the state is that we have something of that natural sweetness and happiness and we want not just life and liberty but the pursuit of happiness is crucial to the existence of a state. But this passage makes it clear that that doesn't have to be, for example, a rich existence. It doesn't have to have a lot of wealth. For example, it merely if it's able to provide for survival and a little bit of comfort, then that will be enough for people to want to continue on. But as he points out, a constitution is something different than this. And that's why there are several kinds of them. So a constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially the highest of all the magistracies. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state and the constitution is in fact the government. For example, in democracies, the people are supreme, but in oligarchies the few. And therefore we say that these two forms of government are also different and so in the other cases. Now, according to Aristotle, legitimate authority, legitimate political authority is always in the common interest of both the ruler and ruled. So consider the relationship, for example, of ruler and ruled that holds between husband and wife or father and child. According to Aristotle, the husband rules over his wife, the father rules over his child, the father also the master also rules over slaves in the household. Now, according to Aristotle, each of these relationships exists for the sake of the common interest between the ruler and the ruled. So a husband's ruler for his wife isn't only for his own benefit, but is for her benefit. And a father rules over their children, for example, not letting them play in the street, not just for his own sake, but for their sake as well. And the relationship between a master and slave also exists for the exact same thing. It's like the relationship between a doctor and patient or teacher and student or coach and athlete. All of these relationships exist for the sake of the common good between the ruler and ruled. And so in politics, when the state is framed on the principle of equality and likeness, the citizens think that they ought to hold office by turns. And so sometimes ruling, sometimes being ruled. The conclusion is evident that governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice and are therefore true forms. But those which regard only the interests of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of free men. Now, this leads to Aristotle's classification of the types of constitution. As we've just said, you can have a political arrangement where people rule in the common interests of both the rulers and the ruled. And this will be called a correct form of constitution. And we will call it a corrupt form of constitution if the rulers rule not in the common interests of the rulers and the ruled, but in the interests only of the ruler. Now, we may also distinguish soul rulers or rule by one rule by just a few people or rule by many, and there will be both a corrupt and a correct form of constitution of each of those kinds of rule. So starting with the correct form of rule by one, we call a kingship and the corrupt form of kingship is a tyranny. That is, again, rule by one in their own interest, not in the interest of the ruled. A true kingship requires that the king, though he's a sole ruler, rules not only in his own interest, but also in the interest of the subjects. Rule by a few, the correct form we call aristocracy or strength or power of the virtuous people, the corrupt form of this oligarchy, rule by the few. Aristocrats supposedly rule not only in their own interests, but also in the common interests of their subjects. Whereas oligarchs pervert this process and corrupt it and rule only for their own sake, not for the sake of those they rule over. Now, as for rule by many, the most familiar form is, of course, democracy. But Aristotle considers that a corrupt form of government because he views Democrats as ruling, though they're the many, in their own interests. That is, in the interests of the poor, and so they unfairly treat and take possessions from the rich and take political power from them and redistribute it to themselves in their own interests, not in the interests of all those they rule over, including the rich. But Aristotle thinks that there is theoretically a correct form of the rule by many, and that he calls Politea, or constitutional government. Now, that name is the name of that species of government is the same as the generic name of all kinds of government, because kingships, tyrannies, aristocracies, oligarchies and democracies are also Politeas in the sense of being constitutional. But we also have a specific kind of government that we call constitutional, and that's a kind of democracy that incorporates also oligarchic, or, if you will, aristocratic elements. And so that the constitutional government rules, not only in the interests of the many poor, but also in the common interests of the few rich. And many of these points are made clear in the next chapter eight, where Aristotle explains the corrupt forms of constitution tyranny is a monarchy or soul rule, exercising the rule of a master overall political society. The monarchy is when men of property have the government in their hands and democracy the opposite when the indigent or the poor and not the men of property or the rulers. But that explanation needs to add, as we've just done, that the tyranny is a monarchy exercising the rule of a master over political society in his own interests and not in the common interests of the governed. That is when men of property have the government in their hands and rule in their own interests of the rich and not the many poor and democracy is when the poor, not men of property are rulers, but then that they rule in the interests of the poor and not in the common interests. So democracy in general is the government of many in oligarchy of the few, but of course it's theoretically possible that the many could be rich. And what if they are and they rule with this still be a democracy and what if the few just happened to be poor and they ruled with this then still be an oligarchy. Aristotle says that the real difference between a democracy and an oligarchy is poverty and wealth wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be fewer many, that's an oligarchy and where the poor rule, that's a democracy. So if you want to understand Aristotle's ancient concept of democracy, it is rule by the poor in their own interests. And it is everywhere the case that the many are poor, and the few are rich, no exception to that then or now. And so we can think of democracy as the government of the many poor and oligarchy as government of the few rich, both in their own interests. So that completes our discussion of the kinds of Constitution, why there are many different kinds of Constitution, what a Constitution is, and what a citizen, and what a state is. Thank you.