Notes on Ball & Dagger reader
Selection from Aristotle (ca.334 BCE)
Aristotle and the "Middling" Constitution

What questions was Aristotle trying to address?  (Hint:  each of the two parts raises one basic question.)

1. Who should have the supreme authority?  [Book III, Ch. 11]
2. What is the best form of government that can actually be realized, given that people are human and institutions imperfect?  [Book IV, Ch. 11]  In other words, Aristotle was not concerned with creating an ideal system of government but only a practicable one.  (This is in contrast to the idealizations in Plato's contemporaneous work, The Republic.)  Aristotle consistently advocated "moderation in all things";  he did not think perfection was achievable or even a very useful goal.

Note that "supreme authority" can really be interpreted in two ways:

• From whom (or what) does the authority to rule derive?  Whose authorization is needed to say that we should obey a law?  (Note the distinction between legitimacy and mere force.)  For example, in the Middle Ages we had the "divine right of kings"—kings made the law and were given the right to do so by God.  Their authority derived from God.  So treason was not just a crime but a denial of God, and so traitors could be legitimately executed in the most horrible manner.
• How should the law be created?  Who decides what the laws should be?

The two original questions (supreme authority;  form of government) are posed as separate questions, but they seem to have very similar answers.  Once we know the answer to the first one (in both its aspects) we have the answer to the second one.

Notice that these questions are the classic questions of rule.  From whence does authority (i.e., the source of potential legitimacy) derive?  How can this authority be translated into concrete law so as to make people accept these laws as legitimate?

How do we in the United States answer these questions?

• Supreme authority:
  • The citizens as a whole have the supreme authority, at least in the first sense.
  • However, laws get made by representatives, who are elected through an electoral system that in practice selects people with certain characteristics:  lawyers, male, etc.
• How should the law get created?  Same answer as immediately above.

How does Aristotle answer these questions?

First, from whom or what does the authority to rule derive?

Answer:  from all the members of the community.  (Elsewhere in his work Aristotle famously said, "Man is a political animal", meaning that humans were inescapably social in nature.  "Only gods and animals can be solitary.")  The authority of the law derives from the community itself, not from the power of a king or the mandate of a god.

Second, even if the rule is in the name of the community as a whole — pretty revolutionary! —, how should the laws get made?

Let me ask a preliminary question:  why don't we simply have a general assembly in which everyone gathers in some kind of forum (town hall, church, market square, whatever) and decide on laws collectively?

In what terms did Aristotle conceive of the possibility of lawmaking?  Answer:  to him, the issue was a matter of which social class should rule?  (Notice his implicit assumption that it is only one class that should do so.)

What social classes does he see?  Answer:  three:  the upper class, middle class, and lower class.

He has names for rule by each of these classes — well, at least for two of them.  Rule by the upper class he terms "oligarchy" (from the Greek words "oligos" [few] and "archien" [to rule]).  Rule by the lower class (the demos) he terms "democracy".  Rule by the middle class he terms...well, he doesn't have a term for it in this selection, but "polity" is the term he uses elsewhere.

What are the criteria for good rulers?  Answer:  there are many, but it's hard to satisfy them all.  Criteria:  ability to think of the whole community.  Diversity of knowledge, i.e., numeric size.

So who is the best to rule?  The middle class, he says, or at least that city is best which has the most people in the middle class.  The oligarchs are unable to rule without domination, and the demos are unable to think of the community as a whole.

Question:  Why did Aristotle believe that the upper class should not rule?  And why not the lower class?

It is probably relevant to note that Plato, who came from an upper class family, believed in rule by the upper class, while Aristotle, born to a middle class family — his father was a physician —, believed in rule by the middle class.

[Minimal] Lecture notes on Book III, Chs. 11 & 12

What's Aristotle arguing?

What's the central issue for him?  ["Who should govern:  the multitude?  the few best?  a mixture?"]

Why do we need government?

Who should make our laws?  Who should vote?

What are the tradeoffs involved?

Literate.  Educated.  Age limit?

Those who own property.  Those who own property in the district?  The middle class (as Aristotle proposes)?

Citizens

No felons serving time

No felons even if they have served their sentences.

What do we want in a representative?

• Wisdom / experience / prudence / judgment
• Public-spirited, not selfish (either for self or for his personal attachments)
• Able to see others' perspectives & negotiate well;  emotional tolerance
• Able to speak for their own area
• A sense of justice / fairness

22/1/1-2:  "Who should be supreme?"

• In whose name & by whose authority we govern
• Who makes the actual laws.

What does Aristotle mean by the passage on pp.22-23?

Should a state have a wide diversity of classes?

Potential quiz questions:

• Why do Ball & Dagger entitle this selection, "... the Middling Constitution"?

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