Aristotle has wandered away from the question posed at the beginning of III xv. All these discussions about the relations between monarchy and law seem to have been concerned not with absolute but with ‘legal’ monarchy – a subject which he professed to have put aside in order to consider ‘absolute’ monarchy. To this he now returns, repeats something of what he said at the beginning of Chapter xv, and then once again discusses the authority of the law and the authority of the individual. It looks as if there may have been at one time a double set of Aristotle’s notes; yet although xv and xvi overlap a good deal, xvi does contain a number of new points, notably: (a) That law is in some sense a ‘mean’. Aristotle was in general inclined to think of virtues as means between extremes (see Nicomachean Ethics, II vi–ix), and we have here evidently an attempt to extend the analysis to law. From the drift of his discussion, it looks as if he thought of law as a mean in the sense that it constitutes a compromise between unfettered personal discretion on the one hand and slavish adherence to written rules on the other (cf. Plato, Laws 875d ff, 925–926a). Or is his point simply that law is a mean in the sense that it is impartial? (b) That law is in some sense ‘natural’. Again, Aristotle does not discuss the point at length. The argument seems to rest on the natural equality of men, which entitles them all to a share of ruling according to some agreed and hence ‘legal’ system of alternation.
However, it should be noted that the entire chapter is written rather confusingly: ostensibly, at any rate, it is an account of the arguments of certain anti-monarchical polemicists, and it is not clear precisely where Aristotle’s own comments, if any, begin and end.
1287a1 We must now turn to consider our next subject, the king whose every act is in accordance with his own personal volition. For the king who is ‘subject to law’ does not, as has already been said,1 amount to a form of constitution, because perpetual generalships may exist in democracy or in aristocracy or in any other constitution, and it is not unusual to put one man in sovereign control of the whole administration – witness the government of Epidamnus and, to a lesser extent, of Opus. But we are now speaking of ‘absolute’ kingship, meaning by that one whereby the king rules over everything according to his own volition.
1287a10 There are some who hold that it is not even in accordance with nature2 that one man should be sovereign over all the citizens, when the state is made up of persons who are alike. For, they say, those who are by nature alike must get the same natural justice and deserts; and so, if it is bad for the health of unequal persons to have equal food or clothing, this is also applicable to honours; and the converse also is true. Justice therefore demands that no one should do more ruling than being ruled, but that all should have their turn. So we are back again with law, for organization is law. It follows therefore that it is preferable that law should rule rather than any single one of the citizens. And following this same line of reasoning further, we must add that even if it is better that certain persons rule, these persons should be appointed as guardians of the laws and as their servants. Offices there must be, they say, but it is not just that there should be only one man in office, at any rate where all men are alike
1287a23 Again, though there are matters about which the law appears incapable of giving a decision, in such cases a human being too would be unable to find an answer. It is in order to meet such situations that the law expressly educates the officials, and empowers them to decide and to deal with these undetermined matters to the very best of their just judgement.3 Moreover, it allows for amendments to be made, wherever after experiment a new proposal is thought to be better than the established practice. Therefore he who asks law to rule is asking God and intelligence and no others to rule; while he who asks for the rule of a human being is importing a wild beast too; for desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.
1287a32 Another argument is that which employs an analogy with medicine or other professional skills, and alleges that it is a bad thing to practise medicine according to written rules, it being preferable to call in those who possess the skills. But this analogy is false. The doctor does not do anything for friendship’s sake that is against his rational judgement: he cures his patient and takes his fee; but people in offices of state usually do all manner of things to show favour or disfavour. If you suspected that the doctors had been bribed by your enemies to make an end of you, then you would naturally prefer to get treatment according to written rules. Again, doctors when ill call in other doctors to treat them, and trainers other trainers when they themselves go into training – on the principle that it is impossible to give true judgement when their own interests and their own feelings are involved. So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean. Further, customary laws influence us more crucially,4 and in more crucial4 matters, than written laws; so that though a man, as ruler, is less fallible than written laws, he is no less fallible than customary laws.
1287b8 Of course, if a man is the only ruler, there will be much that he cannot easily supervise; he will therefore need to have several other officials appointed by him, so what difference does it make whether they were there at the beginning of his rule or were appointed subsequently by him in virtue of his position as sole ruler? Besides, if, as has been said before, a sound man has a right to rule because he is better, then two good men are better than one. Hence the expression ‘Let two go together’, and Agamemnon’s prayer, ‘Would that I had ten such counsellors.’5
1287b15 In our own day too the officials (for instance judges) have the sovereign power to give decisions about some matters on which the law is not able to decide. But it is universally agreed that where the law is capable, it is the law’s rule and decisions that will be best. But there are things which can and others which cannot be included in laws; and it is the latter that give rise to difficulties and raise the old question: Which is preferable, the rule of the best man or the rule of the best law? Among the matters which cannot be included in laws are those which are the subjects of deliberation. Yet they6 do not deny the inevitability of such decisions being taken by a man; they merely say that there should be not one man only but many.
1287b25 An individual ruler, if he has been well educated by law, gives good decisions; but he has only one pair of eyes and ears, one pair of feet and hands, and it would be a paradox if he had better vision in judgement and action than many men with many pairs. Monarchical rulers, as we see even in our own times, appoint large numbers of men to be their eyes and ears, hands and feet; for such people as are friendly to themselves and to their rule, they make sharers in it. If they are not friends, they will not act according to the monarch’s intentions. On the other hand if they are friends, both of the monarch and his rule, then, since a friend is equal and similar, if the monarch thinks that these men ought to rule, he thinks thereby that equal and similar persons ought similarly to rule.
These, roughly stated, are the contentions of the opponents of kingship.