ERIC KARL NICHOLAS M.

AGUILAR
2013-19082
October 21, 2016

Virtue Politics in Modern Democracies and Legal Systems

The role of the state and the attainment of justice within the state has always been a
question for most political scientists. More recent political theories would stress that the role,
ultimately of the state is the protection of its citizens- be it economic, political or social. Thinkers
of the Social Contract Theory would attest to this by arguing that people lose some freedoms
under the social contract, but would expect order and physical protection from the state
(Hobbes, 1651; Locke, 1689; Rousseau, 1755). For Aristotle, however, the role of the state and
the attainment of justice within the state is based on the citizens of the state; that justice is
attained within the state when citizens attain a happy life. And this happy life, according to
Aristotle, can only be achieved from living according to virtue (Bowdon, 2015). This paper is a
critique to Virtue Politics and will argue that the theoretical bases of Aristotle’s virtue politics are
not separated from the modern assertions on the role of the state- whether it is economic,
political or social role. This is to say that Aristotle’s conception of virtue are theoretically parallel
to modern conceptions of law and social values.

Aristotle’s conception of the Telos- the idea that everything has a purpose and that the
analysis of objects must be an analysis of their Telos, is the premise of his assertion on the role
of the state. He argues that the purpose of the state is to ensure the greatest happiness of its
citizens, and it is through living the life of virtue that the happiness can be attained. Aristotle
asserts that “A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible.
What is best happiness and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete
employment of it” (Bowdon, 2015). In contrast to the household and the village, which Aristotle
categorizes differently old are the component parts of a state and have the purpose of ensuring
economic sustainability and security.

Justice as Virtue

In the critique of Aristotle’s Virtue Politics, it is important to ask what kinds of virtues the
state should promote to its citizens, and how should the state promote such.

Virtues are fundamental components in Aristotle’s works. Virtues provide people the
practical actions so that they can pursue in achieving the virtuous life, and since the life of the
Polis is dependent on its citizens, the citizens should therefore live virtuous lives to make the
Polis virtuous (Anthony, 2010; 4)

In Aristotle’s Ethics (cited by Anthony, 2010; 9), a person must practice virtues until the
virtues develop into habits, so that honing these actions will lead individuals to the highest good.
This is in consonance to modern theories of Laws of the state. Laws, through their ability to
constrain and sanction individuals, are more than just sets of prices but also serves to convey a
society’s norms of behavior. Notable examples include interpretations of symbolic contents of
laws on sexual behavior, drinking or smoking in public, religious displays, and flag burning
(Benabou and Tirole, 2011; 17).

Benabou and Tirole further explains this by arguing looking at empirical evidence: the
repeal of Mandatory-voting laws in Switzerland led to statistically significant declines in turn-out.
This means that laws raise compliance of one’s own moral duties (2011; 17). Laws on sexual
behavior, attraction to vices, and the like are laws that promote values of austerity and simple
living. Laws on religious displays and flag burning promote respect and allegiance. These
values are in the state’s interest to propagate, and through starting from sanctions-based
propagation, people are able to develop these values because of compliance (Benabou and
Tirole, 2011; 17-20). This is a probable start for the development of habits- habits that aim to
internalize the values that the state wants.

It is in this idea that Aristotle’s Virtue Politics maybe nuanced in modern-day systems of
state laws: the state propagates moral virtues through systems of laws, and it is in the virtues of
the law, and the compliance to the law that people can live justly.

The second contention, however, is the justification on the state’s imposition of moral
virtues. For Aristotle, the state becomes strong in its plurality of ideas (Jowett, 1994; 16), but on
the contrary, Aristotle also proposes that the state must propagate virtues for the people to live
justly. The theoretical contention therefore is, should the state allow people to be as they are
and live in plurality, or should the state coerce individuals just so they can live up to their vision
of a happy life?

Isaiah Berlin (1958) provides an answer to this question in his Two Concepts of Liberty.
Berlin provides two concepts of liberty: Negative Liberty is the extent to which we are free from
interference; that is, the area or realm that a person or a group can enjoy without being coerced
by another person, group, or government, citing Hobbes, “A free man is he that….is not
hindered to do what he has a will to.” (Bowdon, 2015; 61). Positive Liberty is “to be conscious
of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, and bearing responsibility for my choices and able
to explain them by reference to my own ideas and purposes” (Bowdon, 2015; 61). Positive
Liberty is being free to the extent that the person believes it’s true, but “enslaved to the degree
that (he is) made to realize that it’s is not” through the state’s vision (Bowdon, 2015; 61).

Berlin stands on the first idea, because he believes that coercion itself gives the state
the license to “bully, oppress, torture individuals in the name and on behalf of their real selves.”

A key element in understanding this contention is looking at the element of choice. In a

pluralist world which Aristotle would very much envision, people are allowed to choose who they
are or who they want to be- whether it’s virtue, ideology or way of life. As Berlin would re-echo
from Imannuel Kant, there is no entity higher than that of the individual, and it can never work
when people are treated as a means toward an end (because people are means themselves). If
people are allowed to choose who they want to be and reach a pluralist existence (which
Aristotle would support, saying that similars do not constitute a state), then the state’s imposition
of virtues would not be justified.

To break this seemingly deadlock contention from Aristotle, it is important to look at what
he means by virtue and what these virtues really are. Aristotle, in Ethics (cited by Anthony, 2010;
15), asserts that the acquisition of virtues must be “mean relative to us”, so there is no precise
“mean” that people should follow. This is under an assumption that citizens are “prudent
persons” which he means “(a prudent person) is thought to be one who is able to deliberate
well-concerning what is good and expedient for the person and the kinds of things which are
good and expedient for living well” (Anthony, 2010; 14).

By this assertion, it would sum up Berlin’s two types liberty, and proves why Aristotle’s
Virtue Politics is deemed important amidst his support for plurality. In the two types of liberty,
one chooses to be whom he wants, and the other is transformed to whom he ought to be, in the
vision of the state. The state naturally has its own vision, its normative state of existence: a life
of justice where everyone enjoys their rights and are virtuous. The state endorses virtues that
would move itself and its people to the direction of virtue and happiness. Amidst this seemingly
“coerced” notion of endorsement, it still remains to the individual how he chooses to internalize
these virtues, because the individual citizen is a prudent person.

Conclusion
 In modern democracies, states recognize the individuality and the freedoms of its
citizens on how they want themselves to be. Amidst its respect for diversity, the modern state
has to ensure that in the process of enjoying these freedoms, justice will still be upheld. Justice
is best upheld when individuals internalize virtues that lead towards justice: equality, respect
and even austerity. It is through laws that these virtues are internalized by the state- which
Aristotle would call “Virtue Politics.”

Reference List

Anthony, Kyle Brandon. “Aristotle and the Importance of Virtue in the context of the Politics and
the Nichomachaean Ethics and its relation to today”. Honor’s Thesis. Bucknell
University Digital Commons. Bucknell University (2010)

Benabou, Roland and Jean Tirole. “Laws and Norms”. NBER Working Papers, Working Paper
no. 17579. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge: MA. (2011)
accessed
October 2016 from www.nber.org

Bowdon, Tom Butler. Aristotle: Politics. In “50 Politics Classics”. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Finland (2015)

________________. Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty. In “50 Politics Classics”. Nicholas
Brealey Publishing. Finland (2015)

________________. The Social Contract Theorists: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau”. In “50
Politics Classics”. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Finland (2015)

Jowett, Benjamin. “Politics by Aristotle”. Internet Classics Archive by Daniel C. Stevenson, Web
Atomics. Classics.mit.edu