“Man is by nature a political animal.” – Aristotle
Laws of Nature
In his work The Politics, Aristotle makes several arguments meant to explain, praise, or criticize the prevailing social structures of his time. In the first book of The Politics, Aristotle makes many arguments with regards to the polis and its various components. There are four main points that we will cover: First, that man is a socio-political animal, second, that the polis is a political partnership that allows its citizens to partake of the good life, third, that the rule of the master over the slave is justified, and fourth, that the rule of the husband over the wife is naturally ordered.
The first book of The Politics provides us a view of Aristotle’s preferred philosophical method. Aristotle operated from the assumption that the universe is a rational arrangement, with each portion of the whole performing a necessary function in keeping overall order. To analyze an existing structure, one must first look into its origins, and then into its specific characteristics. Then, using reason, one will be able to determine for what purpose anything exists.
Man as the Political Animal
There is no denying that man is a social animal; no one person to live a full life without the participation of others. A corollary to this is that every social animal is necessarily a political animal as well. Every form of interaction that we have with others is in effect a political event.
Man, because it is the only animal gifted with rational speech, is the only entity able to communicate truth, justice, and goodness to his fellows. As Aristotle says,
Nature does nothing in vain; and man alone among the animals has speech. . . . Speech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful, and hence also the just and the unjust.
There is, of course, a reason why men can communicate such things, and it is to share with their fellow human beings, and therefore enable each other to live a life of goodness. Like his predecessors Plato and Socrates, Aristotle argued wholeheartedly for a life lived in accordance to virtue. In fact, happiness is to be defined as the proper activity of the soul in relation to unchanging, eternal virtue. This emphasis on ‘acting the part of the good man’ certainly echoes of what Socrates taught during his life and up to his death.
