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Aristotle: Implications of his Political Views

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What does Aristotle have to say about politics? How does this relate to his ideas about ethics, education, family life, etc.?

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This solution explains the implication of Aristotle's political views on his ideas about on ethics, education, and family life, to name a few.

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1. What does Aristotle have to say about politics? How does this relate to his ideas about ethics, education, family life, etc.?

The following points relate to this question.

1. Aristotle does not regard politics as a separate science from ethics, but as the completion, and almost a verification of it. The moral ideal in political administration is only a different aspect of that which also applies to individual happiness.

2. Humans are by nature social beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in itself leads us to social union. The state is a development from the family through the village community, an offshoot of the family. Formed originally for the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists afterwards for moral ends and for the promotion of the higher life. The state in fact is no mere local union for the prevention of wrong doing, and the convenience of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the protection of goods and property. It is a genuine moral organization for advancing the development of humans.

3. The family, which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a series of relations between husband and wife, parent and
child, master and slave. Aristotle regards the slave as a piece of live property having no existence except in relation to his
master. Slavery is a natural institution because there is a ruling and a subject class among people related to each other as soul to body; however, we must distinguish between those who are slaves by nature, and those who have become slaves merely by war and conquest. Household management involves the acquisition of riches, but must be distinguished from money-making for its own sake. Wealth is everything whose value can be measured by money; but it is the use rather than the possession of ...

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