Aristotle's Politics by Eugene Garver;

Author:Eugene Garver;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

VIII. STOPPING FACTIONS VERSUS

PRESERVING THE CONSTITUTION

Before discussing the rhetorical dimensions of the project of Book V as arts of appearance, I want to point to a serious philosophical problem. The asymmetries between knowing the causes of destruction and knowing how to preserve constitutions come from the fact that factions are unlimited in the means they choose to overthrow the constitution, and so amenable to a causal analysis, while, as we saw, the statesman is limited to means that improve the constitution through fortifying the constitutional ēthos, even sometimes at the expense of doing as one likes. The bar against deception is only the most obvious limitation. Insurgents and those who want to keep power have different ends. “The aim of the tyrant is the pleasant, that of a king, the noble” (V.10.1311a5), but “the ends [of the assailants] are also the same for tyrannies and kingships as for constitutions.”

Since V.10 is at pains to insist that “the things that happen within kingships and tyrannies are much the same as those we have described as happening within constitutions” (1310a41), I assert the generalization on Aristotle’s behalf: good constitutions aim at the noble, deviant constitutions aim at the advantage of the rulers, but all insurgents—even those who justly revolt because of dishonor—aim at honor or profit (V.2.1302a31–33). They might have high-minded motives, but in the narrow sense of a final cause, only honor and profit, not virtue, can be the ends of revolutionaries. Those who aim at overthrowing a constitution, no matter how good they are, and no matter how bad the constitution is, must aim at these lower ends, even if the whole point of overthrowing the constitution is to establish a better one. To succeed in overthrowing the constitution, they have to deliberate toward the ends of honor or profit. We therefore have a paradox that goes to the heart of Aristotle’s thought. States can be good or bad. People can engage in faction justly or unjustly. And yet insurgents always have low motives, while defending the constitution can at least possibly be a noble activity. Its nobility does not depend on the quality of the constitution it defends, but the quality of actions it employs to defend whenever constitution it is given.

Making stability into a political end and a mark of a good constitution is still odd, though. Duration can measure motions, but not activities. One motion could be better than another if it lasts longer. Since activities are complete at every instant, how long they last is not part of their nature or value. And yet instability can be a sign that a regime is a bad one; the longer a constitution lasts, the better it must be. “For a constitution to be structured simply in all respects according to either sort of equality is bad. This is evident from what happens. For none of these sorts of constitutions is enduring” (V.1.1302a2–4; see too VI.5.1320a1–3). The statesman’s job in Book V is defined in IV.1 as “considering both

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