Rationality, Ethics, and Politics: From Aristotle to Nietzsche
Practical Rationality
Its aim is action. Human action has two dimensions:
- Single-dimension, reflecting on ethics.
- Collective dimension, which deals with politics.
Both dimensions are essential because the human being as an individual seeks the good in their actions, and in turn, their actions are inseparable from those done with others. This relationship between ethics and politics arises because humans are social by nature. Politics is the way that life in regular society is organized.
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
The hedonistic theory and Aristotelian ethics are teleological, i.e., based on the concepts of happiness (eudaimonia) and purpose (telos).
Happiness and Purpose
All human beings want to be happy, and this happiness is presented as the supreme good to achieve. To the Greeks, happiness was linked to the proper goal of human beings. According to Aristotle, the proper goal of man is contemplation, that is, the exercise of rationality, and happiness is closer to knowledge than the pursuit of bodily pleasures. According to Aristotle, happiness and purpose go together through virtue, and a good habit is one that avoids excess and defect and seeks the middle ground between the two.
Emotivism: Hume’s Moral Theory
For Hume, morality is based on the feeling of approval to be taken after an action. Reason is not only unable to determine our behavior but is also unable to judge behavior. This conception implies a break with the previous philosophical tradition that drew the distinction between good and evil in the exercise of human reason.
Kantian Ethics
Kant’s ethical theory derives from his theory of knowledge. We do not know the thing itself, but the thing modeled on the structures of human subjectivity. Kant rejects so-called ethical materials, where on one side you have certain assets and on the other hand certain rules. These goods and rules are the ethical content of materials. Kant proposes a formal ethic to decide the rightness or wrongness of an action and argues that the foundation of morality must be independent of the empirical. Morality must be based on reason.
Categorical Imperative
Human beings have a desire to adhere to the dictates of moral law, so this law takes the form of an imperative, and this mandate should be categorical, i.e., is imposed on our will absolutely. The categorical imperative was formulated thus: Act only according to that maxim that you want to become, at the same time, a universal law.
The Three Postulates
The Kantian law is promoted in three postulates. They are nominated because they are the condition for the moral law and good.
- Liberty: The condition for the moral law.
- Immortality and the existence of God are the conditions of possibility of the realization of good.
Freedom, immortality, and God are not mere chimeras to Kant but moral requirements.
The Nietzschean Superman
Nietzsche’s philosophy is the way of truth from myth to the lie about reason. In his work, he describes the time started by Socrates and Plato as the victory of the Apollonian over the Dionysian. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy staged a perfect balance between these two opposing forces. After the death of God, Nietzsche’s superman arrives, free of God and science, as a successor to that God. It is a type of human being presented as a creator of new values favorable for life.
Political Ideal
Political Theory in Greece
Man is by nature a social being. The social nature of human beings is not interpreted in ancient Greece in a negative way. “The common good is above the individual good.” The virtuous life must govern life in society, giving two-way application.
Political Theory in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Thomas Aquinas endorses the basic tenets of Greek political theory. In the Renaissance, philosophical questions about politics are more focused on instrumental issues. But the idea of the common good is still present in major Renaissance authors.
Political Philosophy in the Modern Era
The philosophy at this time involves the separation and distinction of the political space from other areas such as morality and theology. This separation resulted in the social contract theory: social life arises from a compact between men. Through this process, there is the collapse of absolute monarchy, which gave way to a parliamentary form of government.
Hobbes
Hobbes argues that the origin of life in society is natural human selfishness. His vision of man is summarized in his statement that man is a wolf to man. This situation mimics the need for a contract so that natural human selfishness does not end with itself. Hobbes hopes the monarch’s role in making that commitment is met.
Locke
Locke argues that society is the result of a covenant between men. In the state of nature, man lives in a state of freedom and equality with two rights: the right to private property and the right to punish. The solution, according to Locke, that human beings would find is the covenant by which each would relinquish the power to punish to a legitimate power and reserve the right to private property. Locke also argues for the separation of powers as we understand them today: legislative, executive, and judicial. The independence of these powers is essential in a democratic system today.