Interpretation

A JOURNAL loF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Spring 2002 Volume 29 Number 3

241 Quentin P. Taylor Public Deliberation and Popular

Government in Aristotle's Politics

261 Susan D. Collins The Problem of Law in

Aristotle's Politics: A Response
to Quentin Taylor

265 Jules Gleicher On Plutarch's Life of Caesar

"Mathematici"

281 Laurie M. Johnson Bagby v. "Dogmatici":

Understanding the Realist Project

Through Hobbes

Book Reviews

299 Kalev Pehme L'atheisme, by Alexandre Kojeve

311 Mark Lewis and Prophets, Lawyers, Philosophers

Harrison Sheppard and Civilians: Storm over the

Constitution, by Harry V. Jaffa

331 Harry V. Jaffa Response to Lewis and Sheppard

Interpretation
A JOURNAL XOF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Sprhifi 2002 Volume 29 Number 3

Quentin P. Taylor Public Deliberation and Popular 241

Government in Aristotle's Politics

Susan D. Collins The Problem of Law in Aristotle's Politics: 261

A Response to Quentin Taylor

Jules Gleicher On Plutarch's Life of Caesar 265

"Mathematici"

Laurie M. Johnson v. "Dogmatici": 281

Bagby Understanding the Realist Project Through

Hobbes

Book Reviews

Kalev Pehme L'atheisme, by Alexandre Kojeve 299

Mark Lewis and Prophets, Lawyers, Philosophers and 311

Harrison Sheppard Civilians: Storm over the Constitution, by

Harry V. Jaffa

Harry V. Jaffa Response to Lewis and Sheppard 331

Copyright 2002 by interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of the contents may be reproduced in any form

without written permission of the publisher.

ISSN 0020-9635
The Problem of Law in Aristotle's Politics:
A Response to Quentin Taylor

Susan D. Collins
University of Houston

In his article "Public Deliberation and Popular Government in Aristotle's

Politics." "progenitor"
Quentin Taylor seeks to defend Aristotle as a of the liberal
tradition and, in this way, to respond to accusations that Aristotle's thought is
dogmatic, reactionary, hierarchical, and authoritarian. Professor Taylor's defense
"progressive" "democratic"
of Aristotle relies on a and reading of the Politics,
book 3. chapters 1 1 and 15, and book 4, chapter 14. On the basis of this reading,
deliberation"
Professor Taylor discovers in the Politics a "doctrine of political

consistent with many "modern conceptions of democratic rule or representative

democracy." "inclusion"

Among the principles this doctrine comprises are and

"balance": the inclusion of all classes with a view to political stability, and the

balancing of class interests with a view to justice. Indeed, with some additional

help from Aristotle's discussion of polity and the "middle

constit

Mr.
Taylor suggests that Aristotle and the American Founders share many ideals,
including "[Aristotle's] unequivocal commitment to the rule of law and not men

(bk 2, chap. 2; bk 3, chap. 11; bk 5, chap. 7), his repeated equation of justice with

the common good (bk 3, chaps. 6, 7, 12, 13), his definition of constitutional rule
equals'

as 'a government of freeman and (bk 1, chaps. 7, 12; bk 3, chap. 4), and
7)."
his implicit doctrine of popular sovereignty (bk 3, chaps. 1, Based on his
own admittedly partial reading of the Politics, Mr. Taylor is encouraged by the

number of parallels between Aristotle and the American Founders to conclude

not only that we can find in Aristotle a "progenitor of the liberal-democratic-

tradition,"

republican but also that "viewed against the balance of the Politics, the
anom
supremacy'

doctrine of 'collective is neither an aberration nor an

Without denying that Aristotle articulates many democratic principles or even

that within specific contexts, he proves willing to defend these principles, I

would like to focus my response to Mr. Taylor on a problem his acknowledged

agenda obscures: the problem of law. The discussion of this problem is the

culmination of Aristotle's investigation in book 3 and offers a new perspective on

what Mr. Taylor seeks to defend: the collective superiority of the many. In brief,
Aristotle's treatment of justice in book 3 of the Politics and, more broadly, of

ruling and the regime, leads to a searching analysis of the limits of law. This

interpretation, Spring 2002, Vol. 29, No. 3

262 Interpretation

analysis underlines that law is bound by the principle of equality democratic,

oligarchic, or aristocratic on which it is grounded. In its quest for justice un

derstood as the common good, it is true, the law must take account of different
interests"
"class or "the advantage of the city as a (1283b40-42). but it
can never accommodate an interest that fundamentally threatens its own principle
"interest"

of equality, even if this would constitute the best vehicle for the law's
remedy. This difficulty is as much a problem for democracy, however just or
"exclusive"

inclusive, as it is for more regimes such as oligarchy and aristocracy.

To put this problem in terms Mr. Taylor uses: Even should one demonstrate the
"democratic"

superiority of deliberation, showing, for example, that this delib

aggregation"

eration involves a "synergistic of the "virtue and prudence of dis

individuals,"
crete one is nonetheless confronted by difficulty
the with which

book 3 culminates. This difficulty is that law is always a reflection of a regime,

and both the regime and law, by their very nature, are grounded in a principle of
equality that has only a partial claim to justice and yet must be absolute in
political authority. (Since I can offer a mere sketch of this difficulty, I refer the

reader to the related discussions of W. R. Newell, "Superlative Virtue: The

Politics,"

Problem of Monarchy in Aristotle's Western Political Quarterly 40

Man'
[March 1987]: 159-178; Thomas Lindsay, "The 'God-Like versus the
Politics."

'Best Laws': Politics and Religion in Aristotle's Review of Politics 53

[Summer 1991]: 488-509; Robert C. Bartlett, "Aristotle's Science of the Best
Regime,"

American Political Science Review 88 [March 1994]: 143-154. All

Bekker and chapter references are to the Politics [Oxford Classical Texts] unless

otherwise noted. Translations are my own).

Showing more fully the relevance of this problem to Mr. Taylor's reading of

the Politics requires a sketch of the main points leading up to the conclusion of
book 3. The opening
city?"

question of book 3, "What is the is pursued by first

identifying the city's essential part: the citizen. The citi/en, Aristotle argues, is
one who has the authority to participate in an office of deliberation or decision
(1275M8-19), is to say one who shares in the honors of ruling (1278a34-
which

36; cf. 1281a31). As we learn both here and in the Nicomachean Ethics, these
"equality"

honors are distributed in accord with the consistent with the principle

of merit of each of the different regimes: "democrats say it is freedom; oligarchs,

virtue"

wealth; others, noble birth; aristocrats, (NE 1 131a2629). It is in book 3

of the Politics that Aristotle sorts through the various claims of merit, most

importantly the claims of the two most common regimes,

democracy and oli
"authoritative"
garchy. He insists that the truly ground upon which to settle the

dispute among the claimants is the true end of the city: living well, which he
defines as a life of "noble (1280a25, 1280b39-1281a4). By the true
standard, then, the principle of merit associated with
aristocracy, virtue, is the
most authoritative claim to rule. Yet, while virtue may have the most authorita-
 The Problem of Law in Aristotle's Politics 263

tive position in this dispute, Aristotle emphasizes also that all claims are partial,
since every regime, which must settle the question of in
rule accord with its own
principle of merit,
necessarily excludes other just claims to rule (1280a7-25; bk
3, chap. 10 all; Mr. Taylor briefly notes this difficulty but seems untroubled
by
it). Even if, as Professor Taylor might object, the regime should represent a
"judicious
mixing"

of these principles, it would nonetheless be a reflection not of

the most authoritative claim, or of the best simply, but of this
very mixing. It is
worth noting, however, that inasmuch as the democratic claim to rule turns into
a claim about the superior virtue of the multitude as a it seems to
collectivity, as

do in both Aristotle's account and Mr. Taylor's ( 1286a24-b7), the proponent of

democracy concedes the aristocratic claim and must therefore concede the su

perior right to rule of the few or the one should they prove to be of truly superior

virtue.

Aristotle first solves the problem that every regime is grounded in a specific
"just"
principle of equality by recourse to the practice of ostracism (bk 3, chap.

13). But as he proceeds to conclude the investigation of book 3, he arrives at the

question of whether "it is more advantageous to be ruled by the best man or by

laws"
the best (1286a7-9). Because law is a reflection of the regime indeed, the
law"
arrangement of equals ruling and being ruled in turn is "already ( 1287a 16-
18; see also bk 3, chap. 10) it also represents only a partial claim to justice. The
problem, however, is not simply that the law represents a specific principle of

equality, but also that law itself, by its very nature, falls short in a fundamental
mean,"

respect. For by its very nature, law "seeks the which is equality (1287b4-

5). To seek the mean is to seek justice in one sense, but to fail it in another.

Aristotle finally asks whether one who is so preeminent as to have no equal can

be governed by law (bk 3, 16-17). In answering this question, Aristotle

chaps

now rejects the solution of ostracism and observes that "it is left only for a person
simply"

of this sort to be obeyed, have turns but (1288a28-

and to power not by
29). No regime or law, one might say, can do justice to such a person. Aristotle
says next to nothing here about who such a person may be or about the nature of

his superior virtue. Nonetheless, the difficulty that Aristotle raises at the end of

book 3 helps us to see that the question of the superiority of one regime over

another leads to the more fundamental question of the limits of law or politics

simply. This vantage point offers a range of sight that a democratic reading of his

thought cannot provide, and it is one from which we are better able to evaluate

the very position that such a reading seeks to defend.

That Aristotle is willing to think through each of the claims to rule, to give
each its proper due, while also seeing the limits of all of them is testimony to his

political seriousness and his open-mindedness. It is possible also to say that

Aristotle's seriousness about the question of justice is the reason he may rightly
be seen as a friend of the liberal tradition and as congenial to many of the
264 Interpretation

held the American Founders. His however, is the

principles by open-mindedness.

he be be the proponent, let the progenitor, ol

reason cannot finally said to alone

regime. In fact, I have argued, a democratic reading of Aristotle s Politics.

any
whether that reading defends his thoughts as progressive or attacks it as reac

tionary, narrows rather than broadens the scope of his thought. If 1 am correct in
this argument, for which I have offered only a preliminary defense, then Aris

totle's democratic defenders and his democratic accusers may yet be persuaded

to read him from a new, if at first perplexing or strange, perspective.