The question raised at the beginning of this book, ‘Which is the most desirable kind of life?’, has not yet been answered in detail: the preliminaries just referred to are still in progress and continue to the end of iii. So far, the ‘happiness’ (eudaimonia) of both state and individual has been shown to be inseparable from the ‘good’ life and therefore from virtue. On ‘happiness’ see the Nicomachean Ethics I, where in Chapter xiii it is defined as ‘an activity of the soul according to perfect virtue’.
Aristotle now asks, is the happy life one that is busy and active in public affairs, or is it contemplative and philosophic? Little is said of the latter option; the main purpose of the chapter seems to rule out of consideration one view of the active life, namely that it should be directed towards enabling the state to aggrandize itself by conquest and mastery of neighbouring states. He lists some states which encourage military virtue above all (cf. Plato, Laws init.), and in an anthropological spirit mentions some devices they use in order to do so. He then attacks such an attitude by a number of arguments of which perhaps the most interesting is from the ‘ladder of nature’: no doubt some animals are naturally intended for forcible exploitation by us, e.g. those we hunt for food – but not our fellow-men. War, he maintains, is a means of defending the good life; it is not the good life itself.
1324a5 It remains to ask whether we are to say that happiness is the same for the individual human being and for the state, or not. The answer is again obvious: all would agree that it is the same. For those who hold the view that the good life of an individual depends on wealth will likewise, if the whole state be wealthy, count it blessed; and those who prize most highly the life of a tyrant will deem most happy that state which rules over the greatest number of people. So too one who commends the single individual on the basis of his virtue will also judge the more sound state to be the happier.
1324a13 But there are still these two questions needing consideration: (a) Which life is more desirable, the life of participation in the work of the state and constitution, or one like a foreigner’s, cut off from the association of the state?1 (b) What constitution are we to lay down as best, and what is the best condition for the state to be in (whether we assume that participation in the state is desirable for all or only for the majority)? The first question was a matter of what is desirable for an individual; the second belongs to political theory and insight, and we have chosen to examine it now. The other question would be merely incidental, this second one is the business of our inquiry.
1324a23 Obviously the best constitution must be one which is so ordered that any person whatsoever may prosper best and live blessedly; but it is disputed, even by those who admit that the life of virtue is the most desirable, whether the active life of a statesman2 is preferable to one which is cut off from all external influences, i.e. the contemplative life, which some say is the only life for a philosopher. Both in earlier and in modern times men most ambitious for virtue seem generally to have preferred these two kinds of life, the statesman’s or the philosopher’s. It makes a considerable difference which of the two is correct, because we must, if we are right-minded people, direct ourselves to the better of the two aims, whichever it may be; and this equally as individuals and collectively as members of a constitution. Some hold that to rule over one’s neighbours in the manner of a slave-master involves the greatest injustice, but that to do so in a statesmanlike way3 involves none, though it does mean making inroads on the comfort of the ruler. Others hold pretty well the opposite, namely that the life of active statesmanship is the only one worthy of a man, and activity springing from each of the individual virtues is just as much open to those who take part in public affairs under the constitution as to private persons. That is one view, but there is also a set of people who say that the only style of constitution that brings happiness is one modelled on tyranny and on mastery of slaves. And in some places the definitive purpose both of the laws and of the constitution is to facilitate mastery of the neighbouring peoples.
1324b5 Hence, even though in most places the legal provisions4 have for the most part been established on virtually no fixed principle, yet if it is anywhere true that the laws have a single purpose, they all aim at domination. Thus in Sparta and Crete the educational system and the bulk of the laws are directed almost exclusively to purposes of war; and outside the Greek peoples all such nations as are strong enough to aggrandize themselves, like the Scythians, Persians, Thracians, and Celts, have always set great store by military power. In some places there are also laws designed to foster military virtue, as at Carthage, where men reputedly receive decorations in the form of armlets to the number of the campaigns in which they have served. There used also to be a law in Macedonia that a man had to be girdled with his halter until he had slain his first enemy; and at a certain Scythian feast when the cup was passed round only those were allowed to drink from it who had killed an enemy. Among the Iberians, a warlike race, the tombs of their warriors have little spikes stuck around them showing the number of enemy slain. There are many other such practices, some established by law and some by custom, among different peoples.
1324b22 Yet surely, if we are prepared to examine the point carefully, we shall see how completely unreasonable it would be if the work of a statesman were to be reduced to an ability to work out how to rule and be master over neighbouring peoples, with or without their consent! How could that be a part of statecraft or lawgiving, when it is not even lawful5 in itself? To rule at all costs, not only justly but unjustly, is unlawful, and merely to have the upper hand is not necessarily to have a just title to it. Nor does one find this in the other fields of knowledge: it is not the job of a doctor or a ship’s captain to persuade or to force patients or passengers. Certainly most people seem to think that mastery is statesmanship, and they have no compunction about inflicting upon others what in their own community they regard as neither just nor beneficial if applied to themselves. They themselves ask for just government among themselves; but in the treatment of others they do not worry at all about what measures are just. Of course we may be sure that nature has made some things fit to be ruled by a master and others not, and if this is so, we must try to exercise master-like rule not over all people but only over those fit for such treatment – just as we should not pursue human beings for food or sacrifice, but only such wild animals as are edible and so suitable to be hunted for this purpose.
1324b41 Surely too a single state could be happy even on its own (provided of course that its constitution runs well), since it is possible for a state to be administered in isolation in some place or other, following its own sound laws: the organization of its constitution will not be directed to war or the defeat of enemies, for the non-existence of these is postulated. The conclusion is obvious: we regard every provision made for war as admirable, not as a supreme end but only as serving the needs of that end. It is the task of a sound legislator to survey the state, the clan, and every other association and to see how they can be brought to share in the good life and in whatever degree of happiness is possible for them. There will of course be different rules laid down in different places; if there are neighbouring peoples, it will be part of the legislative function to decide what sort of attitude is to be adopted to this sort and that sort, and how to employ towards each the proper rules for dealing with each. But this question, ‘What end should the best constitution have in view?’, will be properly examined at a later stage.6