Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Saturday, February 13, 2021

Aristotle on Acquittal and the GOP cult of Trump

But we must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.[1]

The mere establishment of a democracy is not the only or the principal business of the legislator, or of those who wish to create a state, for any state, however badly constituted, may last one, two, or three days; a far greater difficulty is the preservation of it.  The legislator should therefore endeavor to have a firm foundation according to the principles already laid down concerning the preservation and destruction of states; he should guard against the destructive elements, and should make laws, whether written or unwritten, which contain all the preservation of states.[2]

The conclusion is evident: that governments which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.[3]

Aristotle, Politics, circa 350 BC

 



[1] Aristotle, Politics, tr. Benjamin Jowett in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, intro. C.D.C. Reeve (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), p. 1217 [Book IV, Chapter 8].  See also Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of the Peace, ed. and tr. Annabel Brett (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 69,70 [Discourse 1, Chapter, Section 6].  Unfortunately not all of Marsilius’s references to Aristotle here match up with the translator’s references to Aristotle. Hence I am unable to locate in Politics the statement: “There is no profit if sentences are passed about what is just, but these are not carried through.”  Marsilius finished The Defender of the Peace in the year 1324.

[2] Aristotle, Politics in Ibid., pp. 1270,1271 [Book  IV, Chapter 5]

[3] Ibid., p. 1185 [Book III, Chapter 6]


No comments:

Post a Comment