Theory of State by Aristotle

Sharply distinguished from the belief of the Sophists, who regarded state as an historical institution having a conventional origin, Aristotle, like Plato, subscribes to the doctrine of the natural origin of state having an ethical end contained in the principle of ‘good life’. The way he proceeds to trace the biological and economic origins of the state leads to his well-known and profound maxim that man is a social and political animal. This essential character of the state as a natural association and a moral organism has its succinct interpretation in his affirmation that the state and the individuals composing it “form an organic whole, for the state is as natural to man as the family or the clan; it is as natural as water to fish, the medium without which human faculties can never come to their full compass.”
Like Plato, Aristotle advocates the organic theory of state by treating man as essentially a social and political being by nature and necessity. To him, therefore, the source of the origin of state finds place in these natural desires that compel a man to satisfy his economic wants and racial instincts. This very felling drives man toward the family or household whose membership is shared by the free persons, male and female, and the slaves. When efforts are made to lead a better, or still better, life whose wants cannot be satisfied by the family, there comes into being a higher unit called the village. And the state is the name of a bigger unit that is the product of the same process. Hence, state is the collection or assemblage of numerous families and villages whose organization has been effected for the satisfaction of wants and the leading of a civilized life. The state is thus a culmination of man’s achievement and only it membership entails a perfect and fullest satisfaction of his wants and a realization of his aims.
 

The process of state formation thus begins with the individual and through the organization of numerous families and villages finds its culmination in the state. The motivating force behind this process is the set of human desires calling for the satisfaction of economic wants and the realization of ethical purpose-good life. As Aristotle says: “He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; for example, of male and female, so that the race may continue; and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves… The family is the association established by nature for the supply of men’s everyday wants, and the members of it are called by Charondas  ‘companions of the cupboard’ and by Epimenides, the Cretan, ‘companions of the manger’. But when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, then comes into existence the village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a colony form the family, composed of the children and grandchildren, who are said to be ‘suckled with the same milk.’ When several villages are united in a single community, perfect and large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life… Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man by nature is a political animal.
 

If the state finds its origin in human nature and not in convention, it is obviously a natural and not an artificial association. Aristotle has used the Greek word ‘Koinonia’ which, though taken to be identical, is much more than anything like friendship, fellowship, participation, community, communism, share-holding, partnership, reciprocity and the like. It is that sort of organization whose spirit cannot be animated even by the Platonic communism. It all implies a common participation not in mere life but in something higher particularly in thought and conversation. The state is not merely an association, it is the supreme association; it embraces all other associations within its fold. It is a perfect organic whole, while other associations are just its integral parts. It is prior to the village, family and even the individual by virtue of nature, not time, though it has come into being quite afterwards. The family is prior to the state in time, but the state is prior to the family in nature. All the remaining association finds their objective only in the state and, as such, it would be a fallacy to say that man created the state as he wanted to satisfy his material needs like an irrational creature of the universe.
 

It implies that, according to Aristotle, the satisfaction of primary needs and a sustained search for the realization of the ethical ideal are the stirrings in man of that immanent end or idea which is expressed in the state. As Aristotle says: 

“Thus, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part:  for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better… The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the dividable, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore, he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god; he is no part of state.”

 According to McIIwain, the whole idea of Aristotle can be made more intelligible by means of acorn-oak simile. He says: “A things end is its nature. This is Aristotle’s formula for the universe- the growth of ideas from potency into actuality; and the formula applies to the state as well as to the productions of art as of the works of physical nature. Thus, the form of the oak is potentially present in the life of the acorn and determines every state of the development between, but the true nature of hat organism at any state can best be seen in its full unfolding, at the end of the process… As the oak is prior to the acorn, so the state is prior to the family.”

According to Aristotle, man is necessarily good and, as such, it is the function of state to encourage and promote his good qualities. Ideal life is the end of every association and, in this way, the state by virtue of being the supreme association has its supreme and, it is also its important duty to include in man the feelings of leading a virtuous life. In this sense, state is a moral association. Aristotle says: “A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest benefactor. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated form law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.”
 

The whole idea of Aristotle is contained in these words of Barker: “On all that has been said the natural character of the State inevitably follows:

1. It is natural because it is the conclusion of a process of human development, in which each step is necessary and natural, the outcome not human purpose but of human instinct struggling towards its goal, while the whole is marked by unbroken continuity from beginning to end. As the conclusion of such process, the State is still more natural than any preceding step in the process. The end of a process is more particularly ‘by nature’ as the nearest approach to nature herself: what anything is, when the process of its development is ended, is called (not only its end, but) it’s nature, and the state, as the end of man’s process of development and his nearest approximation to Nature herself, is his nature. It is that for which he has been destined by Nature: the State is natural to him, and he is by nature a member of a State.”
2. Again, Nature always works for the best; and one may convert the proposition, and say, that what is best is the product of Nature. The self-sufficiency which man attains in the state is his summum bonum; the State is, therefore, the best form of life to which he can aspire, and because it is best, it is a product of nature.
3.  Finally, “Nature makes nothing in vain. But Nature has endowed men with a faculty of speech which points to social and ultimately to political life. It follows that Nature destined man for the State, and that the State is natural. In these different ways, and from these different points of view, the natural character of the State is fully vindicated. It is natural as the result of the process of development, wrought by the agency of Nature (though with the co-operation of man): it is natural because it is the best possible: it is natural because Nature who works by purpose, and not idly, gave man speech, and there by destined him for political life.”

The state is not merely an association but an organic compound in which the collection of parts does not create a mere aggregate but leads to a new and higher entity. The individuals, families and villages are the parts of state and every union has a particular relationship between the higher and lower levels. The state is an organic collection of parts which are different from of another in every respect and are also subject to each other. In fine, the state covers within itself all the parts of human association and, as a natural whole, it embraces within its fold all as its component parts. The state thus represents an organic compound having the noble end of moralizing the life of its individuals. Aristotle adds “Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always acts in order to obtain that which they think well. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims and in a greater degree than any other, at the highest good.”

Aristotle’s view on the origin, nature and end of state, as contained in Book I, lay down his natural theory based on the maxim that man by nature and necessity is a social and political animal and the state, though a culmination of his achievement is meant for the sake of good life only. In a wider sense, this theory of Aristotle has other aspects also like economic psychological, physiological, physical, historical, ethical, teleological and rational or intellectual. It is not a mere economic theory based on the necessity of wants; nor is it a mere psychological theory based on an inner urge for sociality or gregarious instincts of mankind; nor is it a mere organic theory in which all parts are inseparable elements of the whole which is, in a certain sense, prior to the parts themselves; nor is it a mere physical theory based on nature’s in differentiation of man from other animals by the quality of speech which makes man’s union with man possible; nor is it a mere historical or evolutionary theory tracing the origin and development of state from its earlier beginning through various stages to its perfection; nor is it a mere ethical theory explaining the origin of state not for mere life but for a moral life, good life and common life, a life which is at once happy and virtuous; nor is it a mere teleological theory of man’s existence telling him the final purpose of his life and the methods and mode of realizing it through the agency of state which represents the highest perfection of human nature. Intellect and reason come forward as geode and lead him to ultimate destination. In this sense, it is also something different form a ration or intellectual theory. In brief, it is much more than all because each one of them represents but an analytical standpoint of Aristotle. Synthetically considered, it is a natural theory because it is the result of so many qualities or tendencies living in nature of the human race. The state is therefore, the direct product of the nature of man exists of the final perfection of the nature itself. Once created by nature, it exists to perfect the nature of man who created it. If was its origin, surely this is ultimate end.
 

In this direction, Sir Fredrick Pollock offers a fine explanation. He says that, according to Aristotle, a state “Is a community, and every community exists for the sake of some benefit to its members (for all human action is for the sake of obtaining  some apparent good); the State is that kind of community which has for its object the most comprehensive good. The State does not differ from household, as some imagine, only in the number of its members. We shall see this by examining its elements. To being at this beginning, man cannot exist in solitude; the union of the two sexes is necessary for life being continued at all, and a system of command and obedience for its being led in safety. Thus, the relations of husband and wife, master and servant, determine the household. Households coming together make a village or tribe. The rule of the eldest male of the household is primitive type of monarchy. Then we get the State as the community of a higher order in which the village or tribe is a unity. It is formed to secure life; it continues in order to improve life. Hence, and this is Aristotle’s first great point, the state is not an affair of mere convention. It is the natural and necessary completion of the process in which the family is a step. The family and the village community are not independent or self-sufficient; we look to the State for an assured social existence. The state is a natural institution in s double sense: first, as imposed on man by the general and permanent conditions of his life; then it is the only form of life in which he can do the most he is capable of.”
 

Aristotle’s views on the organic nature of state are markedly different from the Plato. We have already seen that while the latter believes a term of “oneness” and ‘uniformity’, the former thinks in terms of ‘variety’ and ‘diversity’. It is one of the points where the students criticize his teacher in Book II of Politics thus “The error of Socrates (Plato) must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and the state, but in some respects only. For there is a pint at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into union, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot,” however, such a view of Aristotle is both like and unlike a modern conception of the unity of state. Barker aptly suggests: “The whole conception of the state as a moral being living the same life as the individual and moving towards the same end, is a conception like and yet unlike modern conceptions of the state. To us, too, the state is a communion of men united to one another, because they have a common interest in the same object: to us, too, that object must ultimately be nothing else than the best object that men can attain. However, men may talk of the defense of life and property as the object of the state they will inevitably act in common for the highest object which they can individually conceive whether consciously or unconsciously. Men cannot limit themselves to acting in group, especially in a group like the state in only one way they must necessarily act there in as many ways as they can act all. On the other hand, while Aristotle expected a political group to be righteous, and to make its members righteous as the condition of its own righteousness, we only expect it to make for righteousness, to the extent to which group action can do so; and that extent seems to us determined by the limits which the need of moral spontaneity sets to the automatism involved in state action.”
 

In fine, Aristotle offers a teleological explanation of the origin, nature and end of state. It is the factor of necessity that creates the family, then the community and, finally the polis (state). We should also examine the purpose behind it. Beyond utility (necessity) lies a  higher end- possibility of good or moral life. A Barker says: “Man as a member of the State is materially self-sufficing; within that association he finds every material want supplied; nor is he dependent on any external person or body of persons for any satisfaction of such wants. But if the State began in life, it exists of serve good life- a life of noble actions: and if it was once only an economic association, it now also a moral community. Necessity taught man to make a state for life’s sake: the State once created, the elements of supererogation- elements not absolutely necessary, but making for the beauty that lies beyond utility-naturally developed… To Aristotle, indeed, the process appears not so much a broadening of human interests, as a supplementing of human defects; but fundamentally his conception is the same-man finds his full self in the State. In the developed city he attains all things- life; society (or common life); morality (or good life). What he particularly finds- and what is the real truth of the state and its essentially a communion of households and villages in a moral life—in a complete and self-sufficing existence.”

It shows that Aristotle’s natural theory of state stands on two premises:

1. The state is natural, because it has grown form associations which are in themselves natural. If household and village are natural, then the state is also natural.
2. The state is natural, because it is self-sufficient. It is an organic whole in which body is prior to its part. The state is final cause, its end is to make good life possible.

However, this theory of Aristotle on the origin, nature and end of state may be subjected to certain lines of attack:

1. This theory heavily relies on the factor of nature and necessity and ignores several other factors like consent, force, religion and the like that have definitely played their part in the evolution of political community, Really speaking, state is the creation of not any one particular factor but of many factors and, for this reason, politics must base itself on the biological and anthropological sequences and its psychology must be broader than the starting point of philosopher like Aristotle, Hobbes and Bentham. No longer, it is possible to erect a theory of state or society in a single tendency like sociability, fear, pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, or an limitation or consciousness of any kind. A simplified and self-contained human nature has broadened into a confluence of tendencies and potentialities going back to animal life on the one hand and touching almost superhuman rights on the other.
2. While Aristotle builds up the state out of its elements like individual, family and the village, he says nothing about the pre-historical phase of human existence. Hence, the natural theory of Aristotle misses the support of historical and anthropological evidence and, for this reason, it lacks prescriptibility. It is also contended that Aristotle’s obsession for dividing the whole into its parts is logical rather than historical in view of the point stressed by Jowett that he (Aristotle) does not investigate the origin of state but only divides gens into species, or a larger whole or forms, into lesser parts or units of which it is made up.” Likewise, Barker criticizes Aristotle for ignoring historical method and instead following genetic method.
3. The organic theory of Aristotle makes the individual nothing but a member of the political community without having any independent existence. His dictum that men ought not to believe that this belongs to themselves, but they all belong to the state of which they are parts, smacks of a pattern of life where the individual is reduced to the position of a mere cog in the machine. It is obvious that, like his teacher, Aristotle forgets that, apart from having the membership of the political community, the individual has a free will and a personality of his own that must receive full expression. Such a view ignores the existence of social tension and contradictions, or what Marx said, the facts of ‘class struggle’. Such an aggirmation of the organic conception, as done by Aristotle, “inexorably leads to regimentation of the society. No wonder the organic theory has generally been invoked by those in power to camouflage the conflict-ridden nature of the society and present their interest as those of the society and present their interest as those of the society at large. Instead of aiming at rationally resolving the interests and conflicts in the society, the organic theory disguises them and distracts attention from them.”
4. Being an ardent advocate of the organic theory, Aristotle makes a wrong distinction between the integral and contributory parts of the state. As we shall see later, while studying his views on slavery and citizenship, we are struck by the fact that, like his teacher, he excludes artisans, traders and all manual laborers form the share of privilege of citizenship, because they have no time to take part in deliberative and judicial functions of the state. Likewise, his idealization of the slavery (whereby treats slave just as an irrational being meant for serving the household of the freemen like a living tool) militates against the very spirit of the organic theory of state. A true organic theory must provide for adequate development and welfare all parts of the whole and must not sacrifices one part for another. Obviously, the position of Aristotle in this regard is incompatible even with his own fundamental doctrine that man is a rational creature and the state exists for the sake of good life only. Thus, the organic conception, in fact, makes the state an exclusive group and reduces other to the level of means, to be exploited by the group forming the state demands self-abnegation from the members, it also makes the state a carrier of collective selfishness and men who renounce their private interests of the sake of the city now fulfill in in an organized way in exploiting the subject population and even reducing others to subjection.
5. Above all, Aristotle gives a metaphysical complexion to a quite simple formulation. It would have been enough, had he said that family is the first and state is the last stage in the evolution of social institutions with village in the middle. However, the real purpose Aristotle seems to be to jump over from this simple formulation to axiomatic that the state is an organic entity and since only the privileged few have the valid title to run its affairs, the unprivileged many are bound to obey the dictates of their rulers. The entire framework is latticed by the mystical cord of ‘good life’. Obviously, the empirical observations Aristotle “are bound by his metaphysical framework.”

It may, however, be added that, while criticizing Plato’s conception of the unity of state, Aristotle draws very close to his teacher in his final affirmations. Like his teacher, he lays down that the nature of state “is moral and man is distinguished form beast by his power of seeing the difference not only between things beneficial and things harmful, but also between just and unjust, right and wrong. Any association of human beings, whether it is large or small, household or city must be of this kind”. Thus, in Aristotle’s view, the State ‘is natural and necessary to man; in the rational order it is even prior to the individual man, since man cannot live a complete or tolerable life apart from the State.”