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Western Political Thought

Notes teleological sense. It represented the whole with the individuals as its parts, for the individuals
were not self-sufficient. The state tamed the savagery in human beings and made them just:
Man is thus intended by nature to be part of a political whole, and there is therefore an
immanent impulse in all men towards an association of this order ... . Man, when
perfected, is the best of animals; but if he be isolated from law and justice he is the
worst of all. Injustice is all the graver when it is armed injustice; and man is furnished
from birth with arms (such as, for instance, language) which are intended to serve the
purpose of moral prudence and virtue, but which may be used in preference for
opposite ends. That is why, if he be without virtue, he is an almost unholy savage
being, and worse than all others is the indulgence of lust and gluttony. Justice (which
is his salvation) belongs to the polis; for justice, which is the determination of what is
just, is an ordering of the political association.
Aristotle pointed out that the state evolved from lower associations. The first association was a
household or the family, which arose to satisfy an individual’s biological urges and everyday
wants. A cluster of households became a village, and a group of villages constituted a political
community or the polis. Each of these—household, village and the state—indicated different levels
of self-sufficiency or autarchy.
... the final and perfect association, formed from a number of villages ... (is) the polis—
an association which may be said to have reached the height of full self-sufficiency, or
rather we may say that while it grows for the sake of mere life (insofar, and at that
stage, still short of full self-sufficiency), it exists (when once it is fully grown) for the
sake of a good life (and is therefore fully self-sufficient).
The nature of an association was in its end, namely self-sufficiency, which meant not only the
satisfaction of economic needs, but also the realization of the full human potential. This was
possible only within the polis. The polis was the most sovereign and inclusive association offering
a framework for a full and true life.
... the polis belongs to the class of things that exist by nature, and that man is by nature
an animal intended to live in a polis. He who is without a polis, by reason of his own
nature and not of some accident is either a poor sort of being, or a being higher than
man: he is like the man of whom Homer wrote in a denunciation: clanless and lawless
and heartless is he.
Both Plato and Aristotle regarded the polis as a complete form of reality. They zealously stressed
its self-sufficiency and self-governing characteristics, projecting it as their political ideal too. Aristotle
specifically stated that a polis should be large enough to guarantee self-sufficiency, and small
enough to ensure good government. He defined a state as “a union of families and villages in a
perfect and self sufficing life by which we mean a happy and a honourable life”.
3.3 Nature of Happiness

Having stated that good was the purpose of every community, Aristotle identified good as
happiness. In the Ethics and the Politics, he was “concerned with the practical science of human
happiness ... . The Ethics shows us what form and style of life are necessary for happiness; the
Politics what particular form of constitution, what set of institutions are necessary to make this
form of life possible and to safeguard it”. The pursuit of happiness was clearly a human function,
and referred to a soul’s activity. Like Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was concerned about tending
one’s soul with a view to attaining happiness.
Happiness represented activity, the quest for excellence. In order to do things and do them well, to
prosper and to flourish, certain skills were needed. Excellence led to success. Whether in pursuit of
moral virtue or in the exercise of reason, happiness was in a life of activity or activities that were

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