Aristotle's Politics
The Political Association
All associations aim at some good; and the association which is supreme of all will pursue the aim most, and thus be directed to the highest of goods. This most sovereign and inclusive association is the polis, as it is called, or the political association . . .
The final and perfect association, formed from a number of villages, is the polis, an association which we say may exists for the sake of a good life. . .
The State is Natural
It is evident that the polis belongs to the class of things that exist by nature, and that man is by nature intended to live in a polis. He who is without a polis, by reason of his own nature and not some accident is like Homer wrote: "Clanless and lawless and heartless is he."
The man who by nature is unable to join the society of a polis at once plunges into war; he is like a solitary checker piece . . .
The reason man is meant for political association, in a higher degree than bees or other animals, is clear. Nature, according to our theory, makes nothing in vain; and man alone is furnished with the faculty of language. The making of sounds to indicate pleasure and pain belongs to animals in general. But language serves to declare what is advantageous and what is not, and therefore serves to declare what is just and unjust. Man alone possesses a perception of good and evil, of just and unjust, and other similar qualities; and it is association in these things which makes a family and a polis. . .
The polis is above the family and the individual in the order of nature, since the whole comes necessarily before the part. If the body is destroyed, there will not be a foot or a hand. . .
We thus see that the polis exists by nature and that it is prior to the individual. Individuals, not being self-sufficient when isolated, many up the many parts dependent on the whole. The man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political associations, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the polis, and must be therefore either a beast or a god.
The man who first constructed this association was the greatest of benefactors. Man, when perfected, is the best of animals; when isolated from law and justice, however, he is the worse than all. A man without virtue is a most unholy and savage being. Justice belongs to the polis; for justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the aim of the political association.
Answer the following questions according to Aristotle's thinking.
1. What is the purpose of associations for Aristotle? Why does he consider the polis the perfect association?
2. Why is man by nature intended to live in a polis?
3. What role does language play in political association according to Aristotle? Explain.
4. Why must the polis stand above the family and the individual?
5. Why is man outside the polis a beast or a god?
6. What makes man the worse of beasts? What makes him the best?