THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHICS AND POLITICS IN ARISTOTLE�S POLITICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Marola
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Politics and Ethics, and the Ethic of Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 289-309
Author(s):  
Hans Henrik Bruun
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Personal Preference ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ethics And Politics

This chapter first examines Max Weber’s views on the relationship between ethics and politics. Weber maintained that there is an ineradicable conflict between the ultimate value spheres, each of which has its own inherent logic; consequently, he rejected the idea that politics could build on ethical foundations. Moreover, he pointed to an essential conflict within the sphere of politics between two radically different “ethics”: the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility. A person acting according to the ethic of conviction judges his or her action solely by its intrinsic value, regardless of consequences, and takes no responsibility for those consequences; a person acting in accordance with the ethic of responsibility will not only take those consequences into account but also feel that he or she must accept responsibility for them. Although Weber’s formulations often seem to indicate his personal preference for the ethic of responsibility, it should be noted that he explicitly states that the true vocation of politics presupposes both responsibility and conviction on the part of the politician. This account of Weber’s views is followed, first, by an analysis of contemporary usage of the terms “ethic of conviction” and “ethic of responsibility” and, second, by a discussion of the relevance of Weber’s argument today, on the basis of five concrete cases. The conclusion of these discussions is that Weber’s analysis of the relationship between ethics and politics, and of the ethic of politics, remains as relevant as ever.

scholarly journals Reassembling difference? Rethinking inclusion through/as embodied ethics

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Political Activism ◽  
Relational Ethics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Feminist Writing ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ethics And Politics

This article considers inclusion through the lens of embodied ethics. It does so by connecting feminist writing on recognition, ethics and embodiment to recent examples of political activism as instances of recognition-based organizing. In making these connections, the article draws on insights from Judith Butler’s recent writing on the ethics and politics of assembly in order to rethink how inclusion might be understood and practised. The article has three interrelated aims: (i) to emphasize the importance of a critical reconsideration of the ethics and politics of inclusion given – on the one hand, its positioning as an organizational ‘good’, and on the other, the conditions attached to it; (ii) to develop a critique of inclusion, drawing on insights from recent feminist thinking on relational ethics; and (iii) to connect this theoretical critique of inclusion, reconsidered here through the lens of embodied ethics, to assembly as a form of feminist activism. Each of these aims underpins the theoretical and empirical discussion developed in the article, specifically its focus on the relationship between embodied ethics, the interplay between theory and practice, and a politics of assembly as the basis for a critical reconsideration of inclusion.

scholarly journals ὁμόνοια: The Hinge of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics?

Dialogue ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
THORNTON C. LOCKWOOD
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
Ethics And Politics

Scholarship on the political ramifications of Aristotle’s account of friendship has focused on “political friendship” and has lost sight of the importance of his account of “like-mindedness” or “concord” (ὁμόνοια). Such a focus is mistaken for a number of reasons, not least of which is that, whereas Aristotle has a determinate account of like-mindedness, he has almost nothing to say about political friendship. My paper examines the ethical and political aspects of like-mindedness in light of a disagreement between Richard Bodéüs and René Gauthier about the autonomy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as a work of ethical theory.

scholarly journals HOW STRICTLY DID THE ATHENIAN COURTS APPLY THE LAW? THE ROLE OF EPIEIKEIA

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Positivist Approach

Abstract H. Meyer‐Laurin has claimed that the Athenian courts took a stricti iuris approach to the law and did not take extenuating circumstances into account. Other scholars (Mirhady, Todd) have claimed that the courts sometimes ignored the law and took extra‐legal considerations into account, which was called ‘fairness’ (epieikeia). The essay begins with a careful reading of Aristotle's analysis of ‘fairness’ (epieikeia) in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric and draws on an important essay by J. Brunschwig. Fairness was not a doctrine that attempted to undermine the authority of the law or placed the law of the city in opposition to the unwritten laws or the common law of mankind. Nor did the application of fairness introduce non‐legal factors into adjudication. Rather, fairness dealt with the problem of treating exceptions to the general rule contained in a specific written law. The essay then shows how litigants used arguments based on fairness and how the courts sometimes took extenuating circumstances into account. When Athenian judges swore to decide according to the laws of Athens, they did not just consider the law under which the accuser had brought his case. They could also take into account general principles of justice implicit in the laws of Athens as a whole. In this way, they avoided a rigid positivist approach to law. Finally, the essay sheds some light on the relationship between Aristotle's Rhetoric and the arguments used in the Athenian courts.

Between ethics and politics: Gramsci's theory of intellectuals

Modern Italy ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Martin
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Revolutionary Party ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ethics And Politics

SummaryThis article examines Gramsci's theory of intellectuals in the light of Bauman's distinction between ‘legislators’ and ‘interpreters’. By distinguishing descriptive and prescriptive dimensions to Gramsci's theory, it is possible to see a tension between the dual ethical and political functions that he attributes to ‘organic intellectuals’. In the one, Gramsci effectively deconstructs the intellectual's role as the bearer of universal knowledge, while in the other he reconstructs that role through an emphasis on the revolutionary party. It is argued that the tensions in Gramsci's theory stem from his attachment to a peculiarly modern conception of the relationship between intellectuals, culture and the state.

scholarly journals Translation as an Ethical Relationship between Ethics and Politics. An Interpretive Reading of Emmanuel Levinas

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Mădălina Guzun
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Question ◽  
The Third ◽  
Dual Relationship ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interpretive Reading ◽  
Ethics And Politics

The otherness of the other, considered as foreignness, is deeply intertwined with the problem of translation and with the one of morality. How can the two of them be brought together based on the work of Emmanuel Levinas? The main question which leads my analysis is the following: does morality limit itself to the relationship with another person or does it concern society in its entirety? In the thought of Levinas, ethics is placed on the side of the dual relationship with the other, while the presence of the third institutes the realm of politics. At first glance, the two dimensions contradict each other, for the first one is characterized by infinity, overabundance, and love, while the second one comports a dimension of finitude, measure, symmetry, and justice. Yet these two domains always exist contemporaneously, each of them needing the limitation brought by its counterpart. How is their relationship to be thought? I will argue that the answer can be found within the domain of translation, understood as an essential asymmetry that is both harmonic and disruptive.

The Conclusion of the Guide of the Perplexed in View of the Conclusion of The Nicomachean Ethics

AJS Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-347
Author(s):  
Assaf Malach
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
The Core ◽  
Significant Addition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Guide Of The Perplexed ◽  
Core Issues

One of the well-known conundrums of the Guide of the Perplexed, found in its last chapter, pertains to Maimonides's contradictory presentation of the hierarchy of human virtues and perfections. This article draws attention to a parallel between the paradox posed by the closing paragraphs of the Guide and the contradiction found in the concluding paragraphs of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a parallel that has never been noted by students of Maimonides. The intention here is not to make a categorical statement about Maimonides's position on the core issues of the relationship between the intellect and the moral virtues. Rather, it is to shed new light on the unexpected structure of the last chapter, and thus also provide a significant addition to the important debate about Maimonides's position on these issues.

Sternberg and Dietrich

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
German American ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Josef Von Sternberg ◽  
At Home ◽  
Ethics And Politics

James Phillips’s Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle reappraises the cinematic collaboration between the Austrian-American filmmaker Josef von Sternberg (1894–1969) and the German-American actor Marlene Dietrich (1901–1992). Considered by his contemporaries to be one of the most significant directors of Golden-Age Hollywood, Sternberg made seven films with Dietrich that helped establish her as a style icon and star and entrenched his own reputation for extravagance and aesthetic spectacle. These films enriched the technical repertoire of the industry, challenged the sexual mores of the times, and notoriously tried the patience of management at Paramount Studios. Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle demonstrates how under Sternberg’s direction Paramount’s sound stages became laboratories for novel thought experiments. Analyzing in depth the last four films on which Sternberg and Dietrich worked together, Phillips reconstructs the “cinematic philosophy” that Sternberg claimed for himself in his autobiography and for whose fullest expression Dietrich was indispensable. This book makes a case for the originality and perceptiveness with which these films treat such issues as the nature of trust, the status of appearance, the standing of women, the ethics and politics of the image, and the relationship between cinema and the world. Sternberg and Dietrich: The Phenomenology of Spectacle reveals that more is at stake in these films than the showcasing of a new star and the confectionery of glamor: Dietrich emerges here as a woman at ease in the world without being at home in it, as both an image of autonomy and the autonomy of the image.

Aristotle on Knowing One’s Own Character

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-170
Author(s):  
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Relationship

The chapter addresses the question of the relationship between self-knowledge and virtue. It extracts an account of self-knowledge from Aristotle’s remarks about magnanimity and truthfulness in the Nicomachean Ethics, and explains how magnanimity in the form of self-knowledge acts as an ‘adornment of virtue’ by reinforcing our inclination to choose virtuous acts for their own sakes. Self-knowledge, it turns out, is confined to the virtuous: only the virtuous person knows her own decision for action, while the akratic becomes temporarily ignorant of her decision, in failing to attend to it and its affirming function. The vicious person, meanwhile, does not perceive or know the true quality of her actions or motives, being in error about their value. This chapter defends an account of Aristotelian self-knowledge as necessarily encompassing practical nous rather than simply theoretical nous.

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