PERSON IMPACTED THE COURSE OF WORLD HISTORY.

Person Impacted the Course of World History

Person Impacted the Course of World History

In my opinion Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and arguably the most influential in world history. The Aristotelian tradition has had an enormous impact on the history of Western philosophy and political thought over the last two millennia. Moreover, Aristotelianism is a living tradition. There are political philosophers writing today who believe that Aristotelianism provides a vital resource for those seeking to address contemporary political problems in the age of globalization.

The Political Thought of Aristotle

The most significant of Aristotle's works for political theorists are his Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics. Of particular interest are Aristotle's view of human nature, his analysis of the concept of justice, and his commitment to the principle of constitutional government and “the rule of law.”

Human Nature and Ethical Life

At the very beginning of his Politics, Aristotle asserts that man (anthropos) possesses an essential nature. According to Aristotle, man is by nature a “social and political animal” (zoon politikon). What Aristotle means by this is not simply that human beings are naturally gregarious. Rather, in his view, man is an ethical being—one that is destined to live an ethical life (Jaffa, 1952).

There are two dimensions to ethical life as Aristotle understands it. The first is that an ethical life is a virtuous life, one devoted to the cultivation of the virtues. The discussion of this lies at the heart of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Indeed, the emphasis that Aristotle places on these virtues has led many contemporary Aristotelians, notably Alasdair MacIntyre, to characterize his views by the label “virtue ethics.” The second, which is more directly relevant to political theory, is the emphasis that Aristotle places on the importance of just one of these virtues, justice. For Aristotle, an ethical life is above all else a life of justice (Hittinger, 2003).

Aristotle known for his Ethical Life and Justice

Aristotle's account of justice in his Nicomachean Ethics has never been bettered and is still in use today. Aristotle distinguishes between justice in general and justice in particular. He explains the meaning of the concept of justice in the latter sense by reference to the notion of equity. Broadly speaking, for Aristotle, justice in this sense is a matter of treating like cases alike and unlike cases differently.

Aristotle goes on to consider two areas in which this view of justice has an application, which he refers to as the spheres of rectificatory justice and of distributive justice, respectively. In the first of these, it is assumed that all those concerned are citizens of a particular city-state or polis. They are, therefore, equals in the eyes of the law. This presumed equality is something that each citizen ought to respect in his dealings with his fellow citizens. If he does not in fact respect his fellow citizens as his own equals, for example, by committing an act of murder or theft, then he ...