Analyzing Aristotle’s Critique Assignment ESSAY

Analyzing Aristotle’s Critique Assignment

Essay Question: In Book 2 of the Politics,
Aristotle offers a critique of the communal life that Plato suggest the
Guardian class must live if justice is to be realized in the ideal city. Write
an essay analysing Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s political prescriptions. Do
you think that Aristotle misunderstood Plato’s communalism?

Instructions:

1. Only Use book 2 of politics as a source.

2. Directly answer the question

3. Draw some comparisons and contrasts, the exent of it

4. Any similarities?

Sample Answer format:

“For Aristotle, virtue or arete
refers to the characteristic excellence of man (Aristotle assumes only men are
capable of fully developed virtue). Virtue is displayed in actions that are
seen to be noble or admirable. Such virtuous actions are described by Aristotle
in The Nicomachean Ethics as consisting of a mean: “Virtue…is a state
that decides, consisting in a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined
by reference to reason.” Acts that
display courage or generosity or modesty are thus virtuous because they are
said to lay between the extremes of excess and deficiency in behaviour.
However, there is no single set of rules a person must follow to exhibit virtue
according to Aristotle. Rather, virtue is something of a relative concept.
Virtue is relative to the person who is acting, and to the circumstance in which
he finds himself when performing particular acts. At the same time, it is not a
wholly relative concept because Aristotle insists that the decision as to what
is the appropriate act a person should commit to is something to be determined
by practical reason—not what someone feels is right for him. Practical reason
is gained through education and experience. Concretely, a person trains himself
to become virtuous by continually performing virtuous acts so that the
inclination to carry out such acts becomes part of one’s character. Thus, in
the final analysis, virtue is a function of character—the predisposition to act
virtuously.

Aristotle links virtue to politics through
his observation that man is by nature a political animal. Men are naturally
suited to live together in a polis, the purpose of which is to make possible
the good life. For that reason, the type of political regime one lives in is
crucial to whether or not virtuous characters can flourish. The regime best
suited to a life of virtue is one where an aristocracy of virtuous men rule. If
that is not possible, a second-best regime, a middle-class polity, is practically
best, for even if men performing truly noble deeds will be rarer in such a
regime, the fact that the majority enjoy only moderate wealth means that they tend to be free from the arrogance that characterizes the
rich and the envy that characterizes the poor. Such a middle way is at least
conducive to political stability and with political stability, ordinary virtue
can still find a home.

Machiavelli’s concept of virtu departs
significantly from the Aristotelian conception. Machiavelli talks about virtu
in two different contexts: the virtu of a prince who is able to seize and
maintain power and the virtu of citizens in a republic. In both cases, virtu is
seen as a purely political quality. For a prince, virtu means force, skill,
cunning—attributes necessary to succeed in a world where power is the only
currency that everyone recognizes. A prince displaying virtu is one who knows how
to adapt to necessity and how to use violence effectively and economically. A
virtuous prince is one who must be prepared to abandon ordinary moral
constraints in order to obtain his objectives. And he must be prepared to
challenge whatever bad fortune he confronts. Virtu for a prince means being
audacious.

When
he speaks of citizen virtu, by contrast, Machiavelli refers primarily to their
abiding love of liberty which conditions them to sacrifice their own immediate
self-interest in favour of a common good—that common good being securing a
political space free of tyranny.

In
comparing Aristotle and Machiavelli on virtue, the one thing they hold in
common is that both see virtue not as a set of rules but as something exhibited
practically in response to concrete circumstances individuals find themselves
in. But their differences are far greater. For Aristotle, living a life of
virtue is part of living well. Virtue has an unmistakably moral connotation.
For Machiavelli, by contrast, virtu is a purely political concept. It is used
to describe the attributes needed for success in the world of power
politics—success measured, on the one hand, by the ability of a prince to seize
and maintain power, and, on the other hand, by the ability of the people to
resist tyranny. In neither case does virtu resemble a moral quality of
individuals, but rather it is that which allows one to succeed in politics.

On
the face of it, the Aristotelian and Machiavellian conceptions of virtue in
politics seem to converge when the former discusses the advantages of a polity
(a mixed regime) and the latter extols a republic (an institutionalized
balancing of the ambitions of the rich and poor). While their political
prescriptions may be similar, they are offered for different reasons. Aristotle
favours a polity because of the stability it provides which allows for the
practice of ordinary virtue. Machiavelli is partial to republics because they
are the grounding for liberty which he understands as a political rather than a
moral value.”

Analyzing Aristotle’s Critique Assignment ESSAY

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