Vander Waerdt, P. A. (1985). The Political Intention of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy. Ancient Philosophy 5 (1):77-89.
Aristotle's moral philosophy forms part of his comprehensive political science, but contemporary scholars have generally neglected the relation of his ethical writings to the Polities. Richard Bodeüs' purpose in his important study, Lephilosophe et la eite, is to restore Aristotle's moral philosophy to the political framework in which it was conceived and presented. He refutes the widely ifoften tacitly held assumption that Aristotle's ethical works expound an 'autonomous moral science' (Gauthier and Jolif 1959, ii:1, 1-2, 10-12), and he argues that the purpose of political science is practical rather than theoretical: to provide the actual or potential statesman with the training in legislative science necessary to legislate well. The account of legislation and forms of regime provided in the Polities, Bodeüs argues, is intended to enable the statesman to put the teaching on human eudaimonia advanced in the Nieomaehean Ethies into effect. This thesis is certainly correct, being supported as it is by extensive and unambiguous evidence, but it is not so original as Bodeüs claims, for he unfortunately has overlooked the two most important previous discussions of the subject (Trepanier 1963, Cashdollar 1973; also Flashar 1971, Koumakis 1979), each ofwhich anticipates his thesis. But Bodeüs' study is the most comprehensive to date, and his iHuminating and detailed examination oftheevidence is particularly welcome in view ofthe failure of much contemporary scholarship to understand the political intention of Aristotle's moral philosophy.
To consider this problem properly one would have to give more thought than Bodeüs apparently has done to the difficulties Aristotle faced in presenting his teaching on political science. In the first place, political science has three components-that which studies the individual, the household, and the city-each of which Aristotle found necessary to treat in partial independence from the others. In his extant writings Aristo tle does not explain how these components ofpolitical science are related to each other, although EE 1218b12-16 is suggestive:
So that the good itself would be this-the end ofthe goods prac .ticable for man. And this is the good that comes under the supreme ofall the practical sciences, which is political science and economics and practical wisdom; for these states differ from the others in the fact that they are supreme (whether they differ at all from one another must be discussed later on).
These comments concerning the philosophieal motivation ofAristotle's presenta tion of political science have the merit of explaining its structure as attested by the evidence collected above and ofsuggesting how the doctrinal teaching ofthe ENon virtue and education is fundamentally incomplete without the reconsideration sup plied by the Politics. Both points are essential ifone is to recognize that Aristotle's conception ofthe inquiry ofthe ENas political science shapes not merely his presen tation but his doctrine as weIl. In failing even to raise the question ofhow the teaching ofthe ENis incomplete without the Politics Bodeüs robs himselfofthe strongest evi dence against the notion that Aristotle's moral philosophy represents an 'autonomous moral science'.
Bodeüs relates the EN to the Politics as end to means in Aristotle's doctrine ofprac tical wisdom, claiming that the former provides the statesman [정치인] with knowledge of 'lebien humain (ordre de la fin)' and the latter with knowledge of 'les regimes constitu tionnels (ordre des moyens)' (79-80, 118-121, 221-225).
Bodeüs는 니코마코스 윤리학을 정치학과 목적과 수단의 관계로 연결시키며, 전자는 정치가에게 '인간의 선(목적의 질서)'에 대한 지식을 제공하고 후자는 '헌법적 제도(수단의 질서)'에 대한 지식을 제공한다고 주장합니다(79-80, 118-121, 221-225)
Of course the statesman's view concerning the best way oflife for his city will depend upon his view ofthe best way of life for the individual (cf. vii 1-3). But he certainly does not use his knowledge oflegislation simply as the means to attain the end fixed by his knowledge ofthe human good, for he legislates, in the first instance, in conformity to the ends promoted by his city's regime (the full significance ofthis point would be clearer ifwe'possessed the 'discourses on the regimes'). In fact, Bodeüs does not seem to have formulated cogently the problem at stake: how will the statesman use his knowledge ofthe eudai monia ofthe individual in laying down laws to foster eudaimonia in the city? What use will he make of the teaching ofthe ethical writings?
In a proper investigation one would have to consider the relation between the vir tues and the various regimes, that is, the particular character each regime promotes (cf. Rhet. 1365b21-1366a16; Pol. 1310a12-18, 1337a14-18; 1309a36-39, 1276b30-33, 1284a1), as weIl as the double teleology whereby the statesman in preserving a regime also seeks to turn it toward the good life (see pp. 86-88 below). But to refute Bodeüs' end-means model it suffices to raise the question ofthe relation between the best way of life for the individual and for the city: if the city is capable only of an analogue of the highest activity of the individual (cpLAoaocp(cx 9E.Wp'Y}'tLxr)), then the best way of life for the city and individual will diverge, and even in the case ofthe best regime the statesman will not simply attempt to establish the best way oflife for the individual; in the case ofinferior regimes, obviously, the question ofhow the statesman will employ his knowledge ofthe ethical writings is even more complex. Bodeüs wholly assimi lates Aristotle's inquiry into character to political science, denying it any autonomy at all; thus in attempting to demonstrate the 'caractere politique de I'entreprise' of the EN(80-92) he claims, for example, that 'la eite n'est pas une idee, mais une rea lite, a laquelle on doit assimiler le bien de tous et de chacun' (89) or 'meme dans ce qu' il a de moins politique-et de plus noble-a savoir son intelligence contempla tive, l'homme reste encore resolument tributaire de la politique' (88). These are typi cal examples of a tendency which culminates in the radical identification of moral virtue with citizen virtue (224). Bodeüs can hold such views only by consistently dis regarding the tension between the city and man which necessarily arises from the fact that man's highest end and perfection lies in the non- or trans-political activity of theoretical contemplation (cf. Strauss 1964, 25-29, 49). He might have avoided these errors had he considered how the statesman will be guided in legislating in the best regime. Does the philosophy to which it is dedicated coincide with that ofthe individual described in EN x?
Bodeüs assumes them to be identical (e.g., 88n47, 137n1, 224), although it is diffi cult to believe that he has given the matter serious thought. This misunderstanding would have been avoided had he read Lord's cogent demonstration that the account of the best way of life for the individual and city in Politics vii 1-3 abstracts from the question ofthe best way oflife for the individual, the philosophicallife, and deals with it only in relation to the question ofthe best way oflife for the city (see Lord 1978; Vander Waerdt 1985b). The city is capable only ofan analogue ofthe best way of life of the individual, for the philosophy to which the best regime devotes itself is not theoretical contemplation but rather the leisured culture which constitutes the closest approximation to the philosophical life possible on the level of politics.
To explain the intention informing Aristotle's presentation of political science one would have to explain why Aristotle had to treat the individual, the household and the city indepen dently of and in partial abstraction from one another, but Bodeüs seems content to argue that the ENis a political inquiry without ever seriously considering why Aristotle chose to present his teaching on political science in separate treatises and what principles unify his exposition ofthe three components of political science. Consequently he never makes tolerably clear the precise sense in which the ethical writings are a political inquiry.