Contemporary debates over liberal political theory should encourage renewed investigation of the common good, and it is appropriate to begin by interrogating Aristotle's account. Aristotle argues that injustice stands in the way of the common good. Injustice is motivated by both overgrasping for scarce external goods, such as money, honor, and power, and by excessive desires. Aristotle argues that the common good requires a reorientation away from external goods to satisfying activities that do not diminish in the sharing. He sketches an analogical account of familial and political relationships that leads us to wonder what the political conditions are for the common good. Reflecting on these conditions not only points to the strict limits of the common good but also speaks to both sides in debates over liberal theory.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003055400218224

Aristotle on the Conditions for and Limits of the Common Good

The name Syracuse has come to stand as an emblem of the problematic relationship between philosophy and politics. While the sources 1 differ on specifics, we can be confident that Plato visited there at least three times between 387 and 362 B.C. On his first trip, during the reign of Dionysius I, he became acquainted with Dion, the tyrant’s brother-in-law. When the elder Dionysius died, Dion, a devotee of philosophy, apparently contrived for the old man’s son, namesake, and successor to invite Plato back, believing that the young tyrant could be philosophically educated and convinced to lay down tyranny in favor of a new regime based on the rule of law. The plan was defeated, however, by a combination of Dionysius’s dissolute life and opposition by Dion’s enemies at court. Dion was exiled, and Plato returned to the Academy. Dion implored Plato to return to Syracuse on the basis of reports of Dionysius II’s renewed resolution to take up philosophy and by the tyrant himself (who seems to have made some thinly veiled threats against the still-exiled Dion). Plato’s second visit to Dionysius was no more successful than the first, however, and he considered himself fortunate to have escaped with his life. After a meeting at which Plato recounted the events of his final trip, Dion marshaled an expeditionary force, which included volunteers from the Academy, and set out to expel Dionysius II by violence. The effort succeeded, but the new regime was itself riven by faction, and Dion was assassinated in 353. 2 The principal legacy of this ill-starred episode is contained in the letters that have come down to us under the name of Plato, particularly those numbered seven and eight. Scholarly discussion of Plato’s Seventh Letter has usually focused on three questions: the doctrinal content of the letter and its relationship to the doctrinal content of the dialogues; the character of the letter as an apologia for Plato’s Syracusan activities; and the general authenticity of the letter. While the second of these questions focuses cor

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/40238237

The Rhetoric of Philosophical Politics in Plato's Seventh Letter

I respond to Terchek and Moore by investigating the interrelationship of ethics to politics in Aristotle's thought. To this end I defend two claims. First, doing ethics requires understanding politics. Second, politics requires practical wisdom and ethics. Since even the politics wanted by Terchek and Moore requires these virtues, they are wrong to claim that my account of the common good, resting as it does on similar virtues, is impractical and dangerous.

Ethics and Politics: A Response to Terchek and Moore

Treatments of Aristotle's moral-political science have largely disregarded the methodological statements that he delivers as he embarks on his “philosophy of human affairs” in book I of the Nicomachean Ethics. A consideration of these statements, however, lends critical support to the view that Aristotle sought to give the sharpest possible expression to ordinary moral-political opinion. Moreover, apart from revealing the by-no-means ordinary reasons that induced Aristotle to do so (and to do so in contrast to Plato), such a consideration sheds light on the source of the vagueness or ambiguity that defines moral-political opinion as such. Indeed, the methodological statements are perhaps the first entries in the old quarrel of “relevance versus rigor.” And, through them, Aristotle suggests how political scientists today might walk a fine line between “politics,” on one hand, and “science,” on the other, without losing sight of the ultimate tension between them.

The Problem of Political Science: Political Relevance and Scientific Rigor in Aristotle's “Philosophy of Human Affairs”

Title of Document: ARISTOTLE’S TREATMENT OF THE SOCRATIC PARADOX IN THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS Gregory A. McBrayer, Ph.D, 2009 Directed By: Professor Charles E. Butterworth, Department of Government and Politics This dissertation seeks to understand one of the most perplexing statements uttered by the Platonic Socrates, the so-called Socratic Paradox that no one voluntarily does wrong. In such dialogues as the Gorgias and the Protagoras, Socrates famously, or infamously, declared that all wrongdoing is a result of ignorance and is therefore not culpable. While the beginning point for this investigation is Socrates, this dissertation turns for the most part to Aristotle as the first and foremost commentator on the Platonic dialogues, guided by the belief that Aristotle can aid in the discovery of what Socrates’ outlandish assertion means. In Books III and VII of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle takes up the questions on which the Socratic Paradox touches, submitting the so-called paradox to scrutiny in Book VII. While much research has focused on the Socratic Paradox, the contribution of this work is to exploit the intellectual genius Aristotle has brought to bear on this question. Turning to Aristotle will allow us to gain greater clarity into this central tenet of Socratic Political Philosophy.

Aristotle's treatment of the socratic paradox in the nicomachean ethics

This article dissents from the widespread view that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics should be interpreted as a treatise offering a guide to the good life. Careful examination of the way in which Aristotle links dialectical method and practical intent in the general structure of his argument shows that the Ethics should be viewed as a protreptic device for inviting and initiating readers into the philosophic life. Aristotle leaves us not with a set of rules for conduct but with an invitation to continue his search for the human good in our own lives using the paradigmatic inquiry of the Ethics as our guide.

The Protreptic Character of the "Nicomachean Ethics"

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The Protreptic Character of the "Nicomachean Ethics"