THE QUESTION OF NATURAL LAW IN ARISTOTLE

Ross J. Corbett1
Abstract: Aristotle continues to be associated with natural law. Some scholars see
this association as untenable; others adhere to Aquinas reading, even if unconsciously. This article departs from both. It restores the plausibility of an Aristotelian
natural law, but concludes that it is ultimately incompatible with Aristotles doctrine.
It is plausible because Aristotle does suggestively point towards it. He does so, however, in order to distance himself subtly from it. He must do so subtly because what he
in fact points to is a confusion associated with the virtue of justice.

This article re-explores the question of the natural law and its compatibility
with authentic Aristotelian thought.2 More than fifty years ago, Harry Jaffa
argued that Aquinas misread Aristotle and that the latters actual statements
about natural right are irreconcilable with anything recognizable as natural
law.3 For some, Jaffa disposed of the question. Others continue to defend
Aquinas (including Jaffa himself, who has revised somewhat his initial position). In many quarters, Aristotle is interpreted through the tinted lens of
Aquinas without regard for this debate. This article is not in any of these
camps. It argues against the obvious implausibility of an Aristotelian natural
law doctrine the better to separate Aristotle from the natural law tradition. A
natural law doctrine is plausibly Aristotelian because Aristotle suggestively,
and in some places quite subtly, points to it. He does so, however, in order to
indicate to a thoughtful reader his rejection of it. The reason for his subtlety in
signalling that rejection becomes clearer once we consider that Aristotles
discussion of justice actually highlights an untenable ambiguity within the
virtue of justice.4
1

Zulauf Hall 415, Dept of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, De Kalb,
IL 60115. Email: rcorbett@niu.edu
2 Parenthetical citations refer to works by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas: CNE =
Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C.J. Litzinger (1964;
repr. Notre Dame, IN, 1993); M = Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. Richard Hope (Ann
Arbor, 1960); NE = Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis,
2nd edn., 1999); P = Aristotle, Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago, 1984); R = Aristotle, On Rhetoric, trans. George Kennedy (Oxford, 1991); ST = Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (2nd edn., 1920; accessed
online www.newadvent.com/summa/). I have altered the above translations at points to
render them more literal.
3 Harry Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism (1952; repr. Westport, CT, 1979),
esp. pp. 16784.
4 For other approaches to the idea that Aristotles discussion of justice constitutes a
critique, see Susan D. Collins, Justice and the Dilemma of Moral Virtue in Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics, in Aristotle and Modern Politics, ed. Aristide Tessitore (Notre
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXX. No. 2. Summer 2009

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R.J. CORBETT

Two sources often referred to in debates over an Aristotelian natural law

will not be thematically treated in this article. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle says
nothing more than that common intuitions about the shape of justice make
appeal to some higher, common law by nature potentially persuasive, and that
such an appeal is a reasonable gamble when the actual law is against you; this
is not an affirmation that such a law actually exists, however.5 Max Salomon
Shellens instead relies on the Magna Moralia as a source of Aristotelian natural law; but, aside from the fact that it speaks of natural justice, not natural
law, Aristotle is probably not its author.6 I will instead focus on Book V of the
Nicomachean Ethics (= Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics) and Book III of the
Politics.
First, I re-establish the plausibility of an Aristotelian natural law. The
famous discussion in NE V 7 is limited to political justice, even though
Aquinas took it to refer to justice, simply. Natural political justice is not a
higher rule by which the positive law may be judged, but is instead a part of
what a particular city says about what is just and unjust. The variability of
political justice by nature does not, therefore, touch upon what is implied
when we ask whether natural right itself is variable.
This discussion does, however, point to, even as its explicit subject differs
from, something that we would recognize as natural right. The content of
Dame, IN, 2002), pp. 10529; Aristide Tessitore, Reading Aristotles Ethics (Albany,
1996), pp. 3547.
5 See Larry Arnhart, Aristotle on Political Reasoning (DeKalb, 1981), pp. 1025;
Max Salomon Shellens, Aristotle on Natural Law, Natural Law Forum, 4 (1) (1959),
pp. 72100, esp. pp. 7581; Leo Strauss, On Natural Law, in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago, 1983), pp. 13746, esp. pp. 13940; Francis Wormuth, Aristotle on Law, in Essays in Law and Politics (Port Washington, NY, 1978), pp. 1426,
esp. pp. 234; Bernard Yack, Natural Right and Aristotles Understanding of Justice,
Political Theory, 18 (2) (1990), pp. 21637; Yack, The Problems of a Political Animal
(Los Angeles and Berkeley, 1993), pp. 1457. This is contested by Fred D. Miller, Jr.,
Aristotle on Natural Law and Justice, in A Companion to Aristotles Politics, ed.
David Keyt and Fred D. Miller, Jr. (Oxford, 1991), pp. 279306, esp. pp. 2801.
6 See Shellens, Aristotle on Natural Law; the Magna Moralia forms only a minor
part of his argument in Der Begriff der Gerechtigkeit bei Aristoteles (New York, 1979).
On the authenticity of the Magna Moralia, see D.J. Allan, Magna Moralia and
Nicomachean Ethics, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 77 (1) (1957), pp. 711; John Cooper,
The Magna Moralia and Aristotles Moral Philosophy, American Journal of Philology, 94 (4) (1973), pp. 32749; Christopher Rowe, A Reply to John Cooper on the
Magna Moralia, American Journal of Philology, 96 (2) (1975), pp. 16072. Bernard
Yacks judgment on the Magna Moralia, questions of authenticity aside, is probably
best: whoever the author or authors of the Magna Moralia may be, their discussion of
natural right differs in a significant enough manner from that found in the Nicomachean
Ethics to undermine its value as an aid to the interpretation of the latter discussion; and
In general, the Magna Moralias treatment of justice departs from the Nicomachean
Ethics precisely on those points where the latter makes its subtlest and most original
points (Yack, Natural Right, p. 228).

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231

political justice may vary from regime to regime, but some regimes are better
than others. Political justice by nature as it is found in the best regime, something that Aristotle intimates in the chapters on political justice, would be a
simply true standard of justice. This is treated in the second section of this
article. While the first section largely follows Bernard Yacks portrayal of NE
V 7, albeit with some important qualifications, here I indicate a shortcoming
of his argument.
The possibility of an authentic Aristotelian natural right teaching brings us
to the third section, an examination of what Aristotle says about absolute
kingship in Book III of the Politics. In order for the natural right suggested in
the second section of this article to turn into a natural law, at a minimum, the
best regime must rule by law. It would do so if there were a perfect law. Aristotle implicitly denies that there is.
This article concludes, therefore, by tracing the implications of the best
regimes not ruling by law for what we would call natural right. The political
justice by nature of the best regime hinted at but unstated in the Nicomachean
Ethics has no definite content. It cannot be a standard to which the just man in
any meaningful sense looks. But many of our intuitions about the virtue of
justice rely upon such a standard; as Judith Shklar notes, justice presupposes
rules.7 Aristotle continues to speak about the virtue of justice, but what he
says can no longer be reconciled with all of our intuitions about it. Some
actions may still be better than others, and in this way we might speak of
natural right. But what they are cannot be determined by reference to a
general standard that is applied to the particulars of our choice, unless one
remains within a set horizon that retains something of the character of convention, and therefore of a fiat. Such a horizon cannot be reconciled with the
intensity of our attachment to justice.
The Meaning of Political Justice by Nature
When Aquinas turns to Book V, ch. 7, in his Commentary on Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics, he equates Aristotles distinction between natural and
legal justice with the jurists distinction between natural and positive right;
his ability to do so relies on his equation of political justice with unqualified
justice (CNE 1016). His argument for this equation includes a presumption
that what Aristotle means when he says, we seek what is just in the absolute
sense and political justice (NE 1134a256; Aquinas Commentary translation), is the just sought is justice in the absolute sense, which is political
justice (CNE 1003; italics added). A better interpretation of that passage is
that political justice is not justice, simply, and that we seek both.8 Aquinas
7

Judith Shklar, Legalism (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 109.

For the attempt to distort this distinction by translating to hapls dikaion as absolute justice, see Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, pp. 1334, nn. 9 and 11. Yack
8

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R.J. CORBETT

ability to assimilate what Aristotle says in Bk. V, ch. 7, of the Ethics to what
the jurists say about natural right, and therefore unquestionedly to natural law,
is founded upon a misreading of the text.
Ironically, it is this very misreading that may serve to defend Aquinas from
one (though only one) of Harry Jaffas sorties. For, while Jaffa points to the
limited horizon of political justice, he maintains that what Aristotle says here
directly bears upon what he thinks about something like the jurists natural
right, and thus Aquinas natural law. In a sense, his refutation accords too
much with the refuted.
Because the just by nature is a part of political justice, and because the just
by law or convention is also respected by the just man, Jaffa notes, the general
character of morality will vary from regime to regime. Now if the general
character of morality varies, then the precepts of a universal code cannot
determine what is naturally just for all men everywhere.9 Moreover, Jaffa
notes, Aquinas must falsify Aristotles remarks regarding the mutability of
natural right: Aquinas says that, while an articulation of natural right might
admit of exceptions, the principle that informed that articulation remains
unchanged; but what Aristotle in fact said is that natural (political) right varies
just as much as the legal.10 Again, natural right is too changeable to be amenable
to such things as precept or command.
Yet what Aristotle is discussing here, the thing that is too changeable to
form the basis of an argument for natural law, is not what we would regard as
natural right. It is political right by nature. Moreover, there is one regime,
Aristotle now reminds us, that is everywhere best by nature. This reminder
seems calculated to compel some readers to ask, what would political justice
look like in the best regime, and, more specifically, that part of political justice that is by nature? Such a thing is hinted at, but not mentioned. Importantly, the variability of the principles of natural political right is not stated
with regard to it.
nonetheless maintains that unqualified and political justice are associated rather than
differentiated by Aristotle. The wording of kai to hapls dikaion kai to politikon dikaion
suggests, however, a translation of both unqualified justice and political justice (NE
1134a256; italics added); the touto (in the singular) in the next sentence upon which
Yack relies to say that they are one thing is better understood as the latter. Compare the
translations in Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Joe Sachs (Newburyport, MA, 2002), p. 91;
and Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Irwin, p. 77. See also Tessitore, Reading Aristotles
Ethics, p. 39.
9 Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, p. 181.
10 Ibid., pp. 17981. Leo Strauss criticizes Aquinas for failing to see that even the
principles of natural right can change, but suggests that it would be just to deviate from
even the most general principles of natural right in extreme circumstances, i.e. that such
principles would still be generally valid natural right would not be as mutable as legal
justice; see L. Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 15761; Strauss,
On Natural Law, p. 140.

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So, what is Aristotle talking about when he says that a part of political justice is by nature and that a part is by law? Contrary to Aquinas, the relationship between the two is not one of a general, universally valid precept to the
specific instantiation of it, or of natural to positive law (cf. CNE 101634).
Aquinas position has modern defenders.11
One example Aristotle gives of legal political justice is that a mina is the
price of a ransom (NE 1134b212). The supposed natural law of which this is
a specification, according to Aquinas, runs that a citizen who is oppressed
without any fault on his part should be aided, and consequently that a prisoner
should be ransomed (CNE 1024). Yet this clearly cannot be a rule of general
validity, for a city is not obligated to mortgage itself for the sake of an
oppressed citizen; indeed, we should rather say that a regard for the common
good would more often forbid such an action. So, at best, a general rule might
run that citizens should be aided within reason, and so that reasonable ransom
should be paid, and unreasonable ransom not paid (the more likely target of
Aristotles sample law). But what is reasonable is precisely what is at issue in
such debates: such a natural law seems to provide no guidance at all, at least of
a sort that one could say whether one was obeying or disobeying it (and thus,
the violation of which could be punishable as an act of rebellion; cf. ST III,
Q. 71, A. 6; Q. 87, A. 1; Q. 92, A. 2). Moreover, the one example of something
that is analogous to natural political justice is not of something general which
can be made more particular, but instead of something limited: the right hand
is naturally stronger, but it is possible for everyone to become ambidextrous
(NE 1134b335).
Let us return, then, to what Aristotle says about legal political justice, without appending Aquinas theological project to it. The just things by law do not
in themselves reflect upon the character of the one who does or fails to do
them. I am not a bad person for neglecting the sacrifices of Brasidas, but an
Amphipolitan, once Amphipolis has decided to worship him as a hero, cannot
refuse without some taint to his reputation. We might say that he is unjust
because he separates himself from what the community, or those who speak
for it, says that we all shall now do. We see here the importance of this discussion being limited to political justice: any virtue that is not conducive to sharing in common a life aiming at self-sufficiency (cf. NE 1134a267),
anything that might make a good man a bad citizen in that or any regime, cannot be recognized from the perspective of political justice. There are some virtues to which political justice may be blind, perhaps necessarily so.
11 See Tony Burns, Aristotle and Natural Law, History of Political Thought, XIX
(2) (1998), pp. 14266; D.S. Hutchinson, Ethics, in The Cambridge Companion to
Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 195232, esp. p. 224; W. von
Leyden, Aristotle on Equality and Justice (New York, 1985), pp. 8490; Miller, Aristotle on Natural Law and Justice; F. Miller Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotles
Politics (Oxford, 1995), pp. 749.

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In a real sense, the content of political justice by law is arbitrary, and in a

way that we do not normally consider the opprobrium that attaches to a sons
refusal to ransom his father for two minae (if the law allows it) to be arbitrary.12 More than this, legal political justice is arbitrary in a way that the city
can acknowledge is arbitrary, even as it commands that all adhere to it. It is
arbitrary from within the citys self-understanding. And while some say that
all justice is arbitrary, regardless of how the city understands itself, this is not
what any functional community holds. Murderers differ from those who
water their lawns on days set aside for their neighbours, not just in the harm
caused by their crime, but also and most importantly in the moral turpitude required to commit it. It is this sentiment that is captured by saying that
only a part of political justice exists by law, that a part really is according to
nature (why Aristotle calls this part natural will be treated below). Indeed,
the city can coherently say, and must say, that some things reveal defects of
character even if they are not yet illegal. There are some things that are just
wrong, the city says, even after serious reflection. What they are forms the
citys natural political justice.
Tony Burns breaks from Aquinas reading of Aristotle in saying that political justice as a whole corresponds to what we would call positive law, rather
than only legal political justice.13 This had also been urged by Francis
Wormuth, albeit to argue against natural law.14 But this position seems too
narrow. A part of political justice includes some of the reasons legislators
appeal to when proposing changes to what we would call the positive law: the
city can say, and therefore it is a part of political justice, that some things are
just wrong, even though we do not yet have a law against them.
What Aristotle says about political justice by nature, therefore, is more the
introduction to a riddle than the presentation of a doctrine. For, while it has
the same power everywhere alike, independent of its seeming so or not (NE
1134b1920), it is also changeable (NE 1134b2535). Not all morally serious
people would agree that it was originally a matter of indifference whether one
sacrificed a goat or two sheep (cf. NE 1134b22).15 All morally serious people
do agree, on the other hand, that some things are just wrong. The question is,
what are they, and how do we articulate what they are?
I should note that to say that murder is always unjust is of no help: murder
is the unjust killing of another human being (cf. the discussion of theft,
12 See Shellens, Aristotle on Natural Law; Yack, Natural Right; Yack, Problems
of a Political Animal, pp. 1409.
13 Burns, Aristotle on Natural Law.
14 Wormuth, Aristotle on Law, p. 24.
15 Aristotles inclusion of this example implies that the difference between natural
and legal political justice must be more than simply how a good citizen feels about a particular rule of justice: mistakes are possible in differentiating between natural and legal
political right. For a different view, see Yack, Natural Right and Problems of a Political
Animal.

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235

R 1373b3874a17). What we are looking for is an answer to the question,

under what circumstances is killing another human being murder? This would
be a part of natural political justice, but, Aristotle says, it changes. It is nonetheless not arbitrary.
As Jaffa points out, Aquinas invents a number of examples to elucidate just
what Aristotle means by the malleability of natural justice; Aquinas must do
so, for Aristotles own examples, strikingly, have nothing to do with morality.16 There are two examples of things that are by nature in this chapter: fire
and right-handedness. The first, it turns out, is a bad analogy to how a part of
political justice is by nature: reliance on that understanding of what it means
to be by nature leads to our current confusion regarding how natural political
justice can vary. Aristotles point about right-handedness is not that some are
left-handed, a point that would be more in keeping with Aquinas understanding of these passages, but rather that everyone can become ambidextrous. (I
do not pretend to know how left-handedness fits into what Aristotle says.)
Fire had been mentioned earlier, somewhat less problematically, in relation
to the acquisition of virtue.
Hence it is clear that none of the ethical virtues arises in us naturally. For
none of the things that exist naturally are habituated to be otherwise. For
example, a stone, which is naturally carried downwards, could not be
habituated to be carried upwards, not even if one threw it upwards ten thousand times to habituate it. Nor fire, downwards. (NE 1103a1822)

Fire cannot be trained or changed by effort, but ones possession of the virtues
can. And now, importantly, something analogous is said with regard to the
content of natural political justice itself (not just ones possession of the virtue
that inclines one to follow that content). The example of training Aristotle
provides is an augmentation of what is by nature. Changing what is by nature,
here, is not an abandonment of it, like some heathenish tribe whose manners
corrupt nature, nor really a correction of it, like the merciful retraining in
grammar school of those unfortunates who wrote with the wrong hand. But
neither is the change arbitrary, as it would be if what Aristotle meant was that
natural political justice set certain minimal requirements for a decent society,
but which could be met equally well in any number of ways: ambidexterity is
actually better, so long as the right hand is not rendered less dexterous by
strengthening the left.17 Nor is the augmented portion a part of justice by law:
natural political justice itself is changed.
16

Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, p. 180; cf. Strauss, Natural Right and History,
p. 156.
17 Fred Miller, Jr., presents Aristotle as disagreeing, noting his preference for the
right hand over the left in his biological writings; Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights,
pp. 767. Were those discussions relevant here, Aristotle would be saying that men do
corrupt nature in strengthening the left hand; this would not explain why that corruption

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R.J. CORBETT

There is a way to resolve these quandaries while remaining true to both the
details of and the general impression left by Aristotles presentation. Natural
political justice is not some higher justice to which legal justice may or may
not conform. Instead, the things that are (politically) just by nature must be
present in some form in every regimes conception of what is just, but they
will not appear the same in every regime. Nor are all such manifestations
equally good, for there is one regime that is everywhere best. Inferior regimes
are pale reflections of the best regime; they are failed attempts at articulating
what the best regime really does say. For all fasten on to a certain sort of
justice, but proceed only to a certain point, and do not speak of the whole of
justice in its authoritative sense (P 1280a911). To catch sight of the truth
is both difficult and easy. A sign of this is that no one is able to hit upon it
adequately or miss it completely, but each says something on nature
(M 993a30b2). Natural political justice is that part of a citys conception of
virtue which may be dialectically refined in a productive manner it speaks
to something universal, even if it falls short.
Still, and this is what I think Aristotle says in the part of the chapter under
consideration, not everything of justice as understood in inferior regimes is a
pale reflection of the best: there is still political justice by law, even if some of
it passes among some for simply right (e.g. what the gods demand, at least in
terms of sacrifices). And we could say that not everything in the best regime
would be an expression of that regime. Political justice is the whole of virtue
as viewed from the perspective of the city, and it has two parts. One of these
we can continue to be serious about, even as we recognize that much that we,
as good citizens, are serious about is in itself somewhat arbitrary, and so
unworthy of our most intimate concern.
Political Justice by Nature in the Best Regime
The politically just by nature is not the natural law, or even what we could
recognize as natural right. It is a given citys defensible understanding of what
is simply wrong; cities disagree on what this is, but the bare fact of disagreement does not prove that all justice is as conventional as alternate side of the
street parking regulations. Yet some cities are better than others, and one
regime is everywhere best. Natural political justice can be trained, and as it is
probably better to be ambidextrous than to have that versatility in only the
right hand, the implication seems to be that a citys understanding of what is
virtue, what is vice, can be not merely better or worse, but improved. But,
given Aristotles dialectical procedure and the fact that no one is ever completely in the dark at least about things of human concern, if not the categorical extent suggested in the Metaphysics no city would be simply
mistaken about matters of fundamental human importance such that we
would still be natural, while the mention of ambidexterity in the Nicomachean Ethics
suggests that changes to the natural are not against nature.

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237

would learn nothing of virtue by taking what it says seriously.18 And as talk of
better or worse implies a standard of what is good, and therefore best, we
might fruitfully ask what natural political justice would look like in the best
regime, and if that isnt what we mean by natural right.19
Let us return to the opening arguments of Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle begins by reporting what everyone intends to say about justice
(NE 1129a7). That is, their pre-philosophic opinions have already been dialectically refined somewhat. He is not saying that, were we to take an opinion
poll, everyone would say that same thing, let alone what he reports. Everyone
desires to say that justice is a condition of the soul that inclines one to perform
just actions, act justly and desire the just things (NE 1129a610). This is in
some tension with what he says just a few lines further on, viz. we speak of
walking in a healthy manner when one walks as a healthy person would (NE
1129a1617), which implies that the just things are defined by the just mans
inclination, rather than a mans justness by his inclination to them. This tension will prove to be important, as it indicates a puzzle regarding the just man:
his virtue points towards both submission to a standard and superiority to it.
Just and unjust can refer both to adherence to the law and to some other,
trans-legal standard like fairness (NE 1129a32b1). This distinction between
law and fairness might be suggestive of that between law and nature, and so fit
into the legal positivists distinction between law and morality. Aristotle
blocks this move. It fails to take seriously the claims of the law to justice.
What Aristotle means when he says, whatever is lawful is in some way just
(NE 1129b13), is not the Hobbesian virtue of law-abidingness for peaces
sake, but is instead elucidated by what follows. The laws have a goal, and that
goal is also said to be just. They aim at the common advantage of all, or of the
best, or of those who have authority. So in one sense, we speak of the things
that produce and preserve happiness and its parts in the political community
as just (NE 1129b1719). This legislation may be done with varying degrees
of skill (NE 1129b1925), but we fail to see what the law is if we refuse to
acknowledge what it seeks to be. Law aims at complete virtue, at least insofar
as that virtue impacts upon another (NE 1129b257). Aristotle notes that this

18

See Arnhart, Aristotle on Political Reasoning, pp. 1721, 2832.

Bernard Yack tries to head off the argument I make in this section by noting that
Aristotle cannot have believed in the justness of his best regime; Yack, Problems of a
Political Animal, pp. 16670. I have two responses to this argument. First, while this
might be true, it would be a rather concealed component of Aristotles political teaching
and so would not touch upon my thesis that Aristotle points towards the solution promised by the best regime. Second, given Yacks argument that Aristotelian justice is not at
all a state of affairs, I do not see how he can call the state of affairs in the best regime simply unjust.
19

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R.J. CORBETT

is not complete virtue, simply.20 Still, in this sense, lawful encompasses

more than fair, not less (NE 1130b1213).
There is something abstract about what Aristotle says in the opening of
Book V. He passes briefly over the fact that what he says is strictly true only
where the law is laid down correctly (NE 1129b245). This reflects what
Aristotle says in the Politics, that actual regimes are corruptions of correct
regimes (P 1279a22b10, 1296a223), but makes differences among laws
seem to result from differences in legislative adroitness. The question of the
regime, of how legislators conceived of justice in the first place, as opposed to
their ability to bring it about by law, is suppressed. Yet it is this that accounts
for the greatest differences among laws (P 1333b510).
Aristotle eases us into this question in the Nicomachean Ethics. He next
turns to what men might disagree about concerning justice. Before there can
be disputes regarding corrective justice, there must have been an initial distribution to offend. Reciprocity similarly relies on prior claims of ownership.
It is regarding this initial distribution that political disputes arise. This is
because every conception of distributive justice depends upon a prior commitment regarding what counts as real merit, which is to say, what is the most
meritorious way of life, or the best regime (P 1323a1421). For all agree that
what is just in distributions must be in accord with some sort of merit,
although not all mean the same thing by merit, but those who favour democracy mean freedom, those who favour oligarchy mean wealth, others mean
being well born, and those who favour aristocracy mean virtue (NE
1131a259).
Every city says something about justice, indeed, about all the virtues insofar as they relate to other people. The quality of what it says is tied most profoundly to its regime, i.e. to a vision of the most choiceworthy way of life and
thus of complete virtue, simply. Inferior regimes will be guided by a flawed
understanding of human excellence; as a result, their political justice will be
defective, and so their attempts at legislating complete virtue, at least as it
relates to another, in error. If there is one regime that exists according to
nature, then the distributions that it would make the claims of merit it
would recognize, the ways of life it would attempt to foster with its distributions and other laws would be just by nature. This seems to qualify in large
measure as what we would call natural right.
Obviously, such a doctrine is only hinted at by Aristotle. It is a promise held
out by what he does say. The best regime is similarly only a promise. If a city
could reconcile the highest human flourishing with what communal life
demands of its members in their relations with one another, if there were a
20 See Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, pp. 3940; David K. OConnor, The
Aetiology of Justice, in Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, ed.
Carnes Lord and David K. OConnor (Los Angeles and Berkeley, 1991), pp. 13664; and
Tessitore, Reading Aristotles Ethics, p. 36.

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simply good regime, then the promise intimated by taking seriously refined
intuitions about justice, the promise of natural right, could be fulfilled.
It might be helpful to contrast what I have said about natural right with Bernard Yacks position. He sees that what Aristotle says about political justice
by nature does not add up to natural right, or a higher standard of justice than
positive law. Instead, justice is being a good member of the community; his
reading of Aristotle borders sufficiently on moral relativism that he must
defend it from that charge. I would agree, were it not for aspects of what Aristotle says that are de-emphasized in Yacks account.
Aristotle does not speak of what we call natural right but he does point to
it. He calls that part of political justice that does not depend on law or agreement natural precisely in order to evoke promises of what he says in the
Rhetoric is a powerful and persuasive moral trope a common, natural law
(cf. R 1373b118). The relation between nature and convention is one of higher
to lower, and while Yack is right to draw our attention to the fact that Aristotle
is critical of this distinction (cf. Refutations of the Sophists 173a619), Aristotle does nonetheless avail himself of it here. I would argue that he does so in
full awareness of how its presence, no matter what specifically he says about
it, will affect his audience: he takes advantage of its implications. He intimates a higher law, even as what he actually says about natural political right
does not suffice for a higher law. Our longings point towards something absolute, something not contingent upon ones community, and while this in no
way proves that such a thing exists, it does mean that a community-limited
horizon of justice, known to be such, will be unsatisfying. Yack says that this
is all that Aristotle offers; I maintain that he does seem interested in holding
out the promise of something more. At the very least, natural right cannot be a
mere mode of judgment if there are to be just things which a person characterized by the virtue of justice is inclined to choose.
Before moving on, it bears noting that we clearly cannot blame people for
failing to live as citizens in the best regime when they do not. This is not simply because it is unreasonable to condemn a lack of saintly navet, but because
everyone outside that regime, i.e. all of us, simply has not been provided with
the equipment necessary for that kind of virtue most crucially, education
by good laws. It is interesting to note that the problem of blame is the very
next thing addressed in the Ethics, immediately after the intimated political
justice by nature as understood by the one regime by nature.21 There is one
regime that is everywhere best, insofar as it would be better, in a meaningful
sense, for any inferior regime to be capable of it and to possess it, but this does

21

See Tessitore, Reading Aristotles Ethics, p. 40.

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not give direct guidance to political men.22 So, there is no chance of there
being a Thomistic natural law, a point which Jaffa rightly emphasizes.23
Still, we might wonder, could even the best regime command natural political justice through its laws, and thus make the virtue of justice sufficient for,
let alone compatible with, the attainment of complete virtue, or at least that
part of it that has to do with living with other people? In order for this to be the
case, however, the best regime would in fact have to rule by law. Aristotle
approaches this question starting where Aquinas commentary on the Politics
leaves off.24 It culminates in a discussion of kingship by the superhumanly
virtuous. Is law capable of replacing the extemporaneous judgments of a perfect ruler, such that an absolute king would in point of fact rule by law?
The Absolute King
Aristotles discussion of absolute or total kingship (pambasileia) is problematic for a number of reasons. Aristotle calls kingship the first and most divine
regime (P 1289a40), yet the regime one would pray for (P 1325b389; cf.
1295a2531) in Books VIIVIII of the Politics is not a kingship. Not only
this, but Aristotle opens the Politics with the assertion that political and kingly
rule differ (P 1252a716). Yet the discussion of kingship does not arise pursuant to this end: so far from being distinguished from political rule, kingship
appears as demanded in some cases by the very principles of political rule
itself.
Aristotle also overstates the viability of absolute kingship. Any people so
inferior to the king as to warrant kingly rule (cf. P 1287b3688a32) are probably incapable of recognizing, let alone acknowledging, his superior claim to
rule. 25 On the other side of the equation, the only reward for ruling well is
22

This reading solves the problem that J.J. Mulhern attempts to address; see MIA
MONON PANTAXOY KATA FYSIN H APESTH (EN 1135a5), Phronesis, 17 (3)
(1972), pp. 2608.
23 Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, pp. 1824.
24 See Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Politics, trans. Richard Regan (Indianapolis, 2007); the commentary ends at Book III, ch. 6. Book III, ch. 7 begins the discussion of the best regime, which initiates a cascade of discussions from the principles
underlying each regime, to who should rule, to the question of what the best regime does
when faced with someone incommensurably superior to all of its citizens.
25 W.R. Newell takes the people in such circumstances to be simply degraded, rather
than incommensurably inferior to the king. That is, absolute kingship would be justified
only when the people were incapable of ruling themselves, not when one man was preeminently superior to a multitude otherwise capable of governing itself. See W.R. Newell, Superlative Virtue, Western Political Quarterly, 40 (1) (1987), pp. 15978. Bernard Yack begins by noting the question of relative difference, but ends with language
suggestive of absolute degradation among the people; Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, pp. 857. I can find no place in the Politics where Aristotle describes circumstances
such as Newell does.

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honour and reverence (NE 1134a35b8; cf. 1129b2730a8), while the sort of
human being motivated primarily by honour will necessarily disdain the
praise of those over whom he is suited to be king (cf. NE 1124a1016). The
people seem to belong to the barbarism of societys founding, the king, to the
refinement of its decadence.26 Whereas Aristotle sees that the Spartan and barbarian models of kingship actually exist, and various sources suggest to him
that the Greeks formerly had dictators and heroic kings, he provides no example of there ever having been an absolute king (as opposed to a tyrant).
The question of what kind of kingship the exceedingly virtuous have a
claim to leads to a discussion of whether it would be better for the best man to
rule or the best law. Since this question requires that we preserve the best
mans virtue, the issue is whether the perfect ruler would rule by law, and
therefore whether there can be a perfect law. It is raising this question that
seems to have been the serious goal of Aristotles problematic discussion.27
In place of an answer to this question, we get what can be described only as
an explosion of anti-monarchic sentiment. Book III, ch. 16, of the Politics
contains six objections to absolute kingship (P 1287a823, 1287a2332,
1287a32b5, 1287b58, 1287b811, 1287b1118) followed by a summary of
those objections (P 1287b2536). We cannot blithely attribute these arguments to Aristotle (except his response to the sixth, P 1287b1825). Some,
like the first, simply miss the question entirely: its premise is that a city comprises equal persons, while the permissibility of kingship arises precisely
because that equality might not be present. Others directly contradict Aristotles views as stated elsewhere. The third objection, for example, counters
the argument for kingship by analogy to the arts; there it was argued that to
rule in accordance with written [rules] is foolish in any art, and consequently
the best regime is not one based on written [rules] and laws (P 1286a1015).
Yet those engaged in the arts, like doctors, it is now noted, do not pervert their
judgments on account of partiality; if they did, we would insist that they
healed according to written rules (P 1287a32b5). This contention assumes
that good character can be used for evil, something Aristotle denies (NE
26

Robert C. Bartlett, Aristotles Science of the Best Regime, American Political

Science Review, 88 (1) (1994), pp. 14355, esp. pp. 1489; Leo Strauss, The City and
Man (1964; repr. Chicago, 1978), p. 37.
27 For other reasons that have been given for why Aristotle examined absolute kingship, see Ronald Polansky, Aristotle on Political Change, in A Companion to Aristotles Politics, ed. David Keyt and Fred D. Miller (Cambridge, MA, 1991),
pp. 32345; Thomas K. Lindsay, The God-Like Man versus the Best Laws ,
Review of Politics, 53 (3) (1991), pp. 488509. Especially implausible is Hans Kelsens
assertion that Aristotle intended to buttress ideologically the Macedonian conquest of the
world; see H. Kelsen, The Philosophy of Aristotle and the Hellenic-Macedonian Policy, The International Journal of Ethics, 48 (1) (1937), pp. 164; this is rebutted in David
Keyt, Aristotles Theory of Distributive Justice, in A Companion to Aristotles Politics, ed. Keyt and Miller, pp. 23878.

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1129a1117). Aristotle does not associate himself with the arguments in this
chapter; rather, those who argue against absolute kingship say roughly these
things (P 1287b356).28
Book III, ch. 17, opens by denying that the objections from the previous
chapter are categorically valid. Yet, they were categorical in their condemnations of absolute kingship. This means that those arguments are false; others
like them may have some merit. The arguments of P III 16 rely on a number of
different, and sometimes incompatible, premises. The truth of any one of
these would result in a categorical de-legitimization of absolute kingship.
Since Aristotle allows that it may be legitimate, he must reject all of these premises. Let us therefore examine them.
The first premise is a denial of such diversity among human beings in their
possession of virtue as could ever justify absolute kingship. We have already
seen this at work in the first objection (cf. P 1287a823). It is also present in
the fifth, which runs: as every ruler would require subordinates, why not have
these selected from the beginning (P 1287b811)? In other words, why the
hierarchy? This question of course presumes that a sufficient number of people exist in the city to fill these offices who would not benefit from authoritative superintendence and that there is no one in the city who could provide that
superintendence. The sixth objection says that, if it is just for the excellent
man to rule, the rule of two excellent men would be better (P 1287b1118).
Yet the question of whether one man should have absolute authority arises
because the city under consideration has not cultivated this cornucopia of
excellent men. These objections would be relevant only if the astronomical
range among human beings presupposed by the legitimacy of absolute kingship did not in fact exist.
Related to this is a second premise: it is that justice is adequately known
by every law-abiding citizen. Consider in this regard the second objection
(P 1287a2332). It begins by asserting that, where the law is incapable of
providing a determinate answer, neither could a human being; the proof of
this is that the laws educate men for such legal failures, suggesting that what a
human being cannot do is provide a determinate answer without having been
educated by the laws.29 The double sense in which the law is used here is
made explicit in the fourth objection: Further, laws based on customs [eth]
are more authoritative, and deal with more authoritative matters, than those
based on written [rules]; so if it is safer for a human being to rule than laws
28 Bartlett, Aristotles Science, p. 145; R.G. Mulgan, Aristotles Political Theory
(Oxford, 1977), p. 83; Newell, Superlative Virtue, p. 173; Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, p. 183.
29 That the magistrates are to be guided by the most just decision, the oath sworn by
jurors, might suggest the sorts of things that the law cannot cover, as conceived by the
ones making this argument; cf. R 1354b1315. It seems a stretch to conclude, as Lindsay
does, that Aristotle intends this to be a veiled reference to Socrates trial and judgment;
see Lindsay, The God-Like Man, p. 504.

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based on written [rules], this is not the case for laws based on custom
(P 1287b58). The higher law or standard by which codified laws and magisterial discretion are to be guided is identical with the sense of the community it is a custom (ethos).
A third premise is that justice is not all that complicated. Consider again an
aspect of the second objection. It concludes with an oft-quoted encomium to
law: One who asks law to rule, therefore, is held to be asking god and intellect alone to rule, while one who asks man adds the beast. Desire is a thing of
this sort; and spiritedness perverts rulers and the best men. Hence law is intellect without appetite (P 1287a2832). That is, the problem in politics is not
that the statesman faces difficult moral dilemmas to which there are no simple
solutions: the problem is not that the intellect does not know, but that it does
not rule. One need only bracket off spiritedness and desire, let the intellect
shine through, and it is as though the god governed us. Justice is not an intellectual virtue in any sense, nor does it require it. Or, at most, a wise judge is
an able determiner of obscure facts, like Solomon deciding a custody dispute
(cf. 1 Kings 3:1628).
A fourth premise is the general and unconquerable depravity of human
beings. It is clearly apparent in the passage from the second objection just
quoted, where even the best men are corrupted (rather than elevated) by
their spiritedness and desire. It is also present to some extent in the fourth
objection. It is probably true that in any political society laws based on custom
will be more authoritative than written statutes, just as its political justice
will always find more robust expression in the spirit of the laws than in their
letter. Still, even a minimal degree of reflection shatters the parochial delusion that the more authoritative laws are simply perfect. The fourth objection therefore concludes that it is safer for custom to rule than a human being
(P 1287b7). Human beings, educated by custom to custom, can judge the adequacy of written laws well enough, but they cannot move beyond that
law-bred moral horizon. Human wisdom necessarily falls short of the wisdom
of the ancestral laws; this is true not only of most people, but of everyone,
without exception for the excessively virtuous.
The fifth recurring premise is that there exists a perfect law, something we
have taken to calling a natural law. Of course, many of the objections speak
simply in terms of the law. The lessons the law teaches in the second objection that enable citizens to act when the law is silent are said themselves to be
law in the fourth customary law. In this way, the objections might seem
to manifest an ignorance of a point made several times in the course of the
Politics. In the midst of a debate between an oligarch and a democrat, for
example, Aristotle allows that one might perhaps assert that it is bad for the
authoritative element generally to be man instead of law. He immediately
rejects this suggestion, however: But if law may be oligarchic or democratic,
what difference will it make with regard to the questions that have been

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raised? For what was said before will result all the same (P 1281a348).
Aristotle reminds us of this several times (P 1282b113, 1289a1315,
1289a205). This problem disappears, of course, if we take this to be the law
of the best regime, together with an assertion that its law would be simply
good. In any event, the law appealed to in this chapter must have an absolute
validity to bear the argumentative weight lain upon it. This law appears to be
precisely what I have argued is intimated in the Nicomachean Ethics.
I should note that the boundaries between these premises are not sharp. The
third objection, for example, concludes that what men seek when they seek
justice is impartiality, or a common measure (P 1287b35); this is contrasted
with the arts, suggesting that men do not seek expertise. This could be because
most men raised in decent society are decent judges or because judgment is
relatively unproblematic, or both. Similarly, human beings may be roughly
equal because the laws adequately educate all, or because justice requires so
little education. We could form chains among them: all are equal because all
are educated because it is easy to learn because it involves nothing more than
the suppression of the appetite because appetite opposes obedience to the perfect law, or some other sequence. I should also note that not every objection in
the chapter shares each premise: some deny the existence of a perfect law, but
insist upon democratic equality, for example.
Aristotle associates these premises. They are not unrelated. I say this
because what we get in P III 16 is a kind of psychological profile of hostility
towards whatever it is that justifies in some cases absolute kingship. Aristotle
draws this profile for us. The objections are often off-topic or employ bad
arguments such as is characteristic of passionate speech. It is a contrived outburst of moral indignation. It is, therefore, meant to be revealing precisely
because it is so plausibly spontaneous.
Some details about the chapters confused character are in order. Aristotle
himself attacks the sixth objection (that if the rule of one excellent man is
just, two would be better): the question, he says, is whether the rule of the
best law is more choiceworthy than the rule of the best man, yet this objection
celebrates democracy (P 1287b1925). The outburst affirms both the inherent
goodness of man such that all are capable of exercising authority and the
baseness of man such that no one could ever be trusted with real authority.
The first objection contains the syllogism: justice demands rotation in
office, rotation in office is a law, therefore justice demands the rule of law
(P 1287a1520). The questions which the inevitable failure of law occasions
involve who should have extralegal authority and whether law is merely a
poor approximation of the rule of the most virtuous; the first objection tells us
to conceptualize those men who do rule as law-guardians and servants of the
laws (P 1287a202), apparently without regard for whether they guard and
serve the laws lawfully or not. The fourth objection asserts that human beings
can never be so wise as the ancestral laws, which means that these laws must

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have a non-human origin; yet what is at stake is whether the rule of Zeus
would be preferable to that of Zeuss law, or whether the one is as good as the
other. Aristotle boils down the argument against absolute kingship to the
assertion of democratic equality and competence, an assertion supported by
another syllogism (P 1287b2935). Kings make for themselves subordinate
ministers, and these are in effect co-rulers. Yet because a king would rule
over them and not have them be insubordinate, they must be his friends. But,
if they are friends, and a friend is someone similar and equal, then the king has
revealed his adherence to the principle that those who are similar and equal
should rule similarly, and thus demolishes his own title to rule! Only someone
insensitive to the seriousness of philosophic inquiry or incensed by where
Aristotles inquiry has led, grasping for any sort of rebuttal at all, could offer
such an argument.
The chapter also fails to contain certain very reasonable objections to absolute kingship, a forgivable oversight if absolute kingship is Aristotles stalking horse. Such a king, for example, has authority over all matters, as though
the city or nation were his personal household (P 1285b2933), and yet the
city is not a large household (cf. P 1252a716). This has lead Thomas Lindsay
to deny that absolute kingship is a kind of regime;30 yet Aristotle is explicit
that, unlike the Spartan mode of kingship, it is (P 1286a59). We might ask
whether the subjects are to be considered along the same lines as wives, children, or perhaps even as natural slaves (cf. P 1259a37b17). Whatever the
model, none could complain of the kings injustice, since they would not be fit
subjects of justice (NE 1134a24b18). Insofar as the city should educate to
virtue, the perpetual minority of the kings subjects seems a harm to them.31
Of course, these objections regarding the perpetual minority of the subjects
and the strangling of virtue it entails might also be levelled at rule by a perfect
law, in that the exercise of prudence or practical wisdom about what is good is
replaced by deductive reasoning about what would be obedient; Aristotles
true target is the status of such a law, not to establish the goodness of absolute
kingship, and so he need not raise these issues.
Book III, ch. 15, concludes by suggesting that the question is between the
best ruler and the best law, and therefore the existence of a perfect law. This
issue is present in Book III, ch. 16, and Aristotle rebukes the sixth objection
for forgetting this. Book III, ch. 17, opens with a conclusion that would be
possible only if all of the objections in this chapter relied upon false premises.
This fact alone suffices to prove that Aristotle could not have believed in the
existence of a perfect law, and a fortiori natural law.
30 Lindsay, The God-Like Man, p. 495. Cf. Patrick Coby, Aristotles Four Conceptions of Politics, Western Political Quarterly, 39 (3) (1986), pp. 480503, esp.
pp. 4923 and n. 21; Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, pp. 857.
31 See Coby, Four Conceptions; Yack, Problems of a Political Animal.

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Yet this conclusion should strike us as somewhat incomplete. After all,

why not say such a thing? By contrast, he denies in various places each of the
other four premises of the objections in this chapter. For example, the second
objections misanthropic and ascetic judgment on spiritedness and desire contradicts Aristotles subtler view of the passions. Spiritedness is also the root of
affection, for example (P 1327b3828a3). Larry Arnharts examination of the
Rhetoric has shown that the passions do not simply corrupt reasoning.32 Yet,
while Aristotle does not promote the view that all men are equal or that justice
does not require intellectual virtue, he does seem rather committed in the Politics to getting his readers to wonder about, and take seriously, the question of
natural law, just as his talk of the relationship between law and justice and his
intimations of natural political right in the best regime do in the Nicomachean
Ethics. Moreover, that Aristotle denied the existence of a perfect law does not
tell us why he did so.
I can offer only some provisional thoughts on this second question. Aristotle summarizes the chapter with democratic platitudes and the brazen sophistry quoted above; the platitudes run, every ruler judges finely if he has been
educated by the laws (P 1287b256), and many people see, judge and act
better than one, just as one sees better with two eyes, judges better with two
ears, and acts better with two hands. (I note the fact that one judges better with
two ears only if judging correctly is a matter of correctly hearing. This is plausible only if the principles of judgment are clear and relatively available, poor
judgment proceeding only from a poor appreciation of the facts; even moral
perversion is silently dropped.) He says that the arguments of those who
argue against absolute kingship are roughly or essentially (schedon) these
(P 1287b36). It seems that the belief in a perfect law is just an expression of
whatever moral hopes cause one to assert that democracy is simply just, as
that belief drops from Aristotles summation. Law is divinized, and when the
absurdity of this position is shown, the objection falls back upon equality, just
as law was the response to the kings inequality. Oligarchs and aristocrats
may be pulled by these same hopes, but Aristotles presentation implies that
they find fuller expression in what democrats are compelled to say in order to
justify the indiscriminant sovereignty of the people. This should not be surprising, given the number of contemporary theorists who argue for intimate
links between democracy and the rule of law. The reliance of a perfect law
upon these false hopes is enough to show that it does not exist. Aristotle is no
democrat.
This is of course an inadequate treatment of this issue. It is the description
of a general outline of Aristotles refutation of natural or perfect law theory. A
fuller appreciation would have to include a psychology of democratic man
that shows how the intuition that there is a perfect law is tied to hostility
towards absolute kingship, the general equality of free citizens, and the
32

Arnhart, Aristotle on Political Reasoning.

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simplicity of justice, let alone why this intuition is the expression of democratic hopes, rather than those hopes being the expression of a belief in a perfect law. Such an appreciation would also have to explain why such
sentiments betray a personal defect, rather than democratic prejudices being
a sign of human excellence. A subversion suggestion from the Nicomachean
Ethics, reminiscent of Glaucons accusation in Book II of Platos Republic,
also seems relevant here: we desire an alternative to rule by a human being
(the mss. have this alternately as law or reason) because it seems that ruling justly is to have more regard for anothers good than for oneself, unless
one is willing to forego numerous good things for the sake of honour and reverence. That is, the praises heaped upon law and justice have their source in
the suspicion that the tyrant is not simply mistaken about the good life (NE
1134a35b8; cf. 1129b2730a8). I do not know enough to do these questions
justice.
Suffice it to say that Aristotle cannot have believed in anything like a natural law. The best ruler is superior to the best laws. We are still left with the
question why Aristotle does not openly deny that there is a perfect law, especially as he denies the other four recurring premises of P III 16. Indeed, he
seems to foster a belief in the existence of the law he denies exists. The implication of this denial is more radical than that justice cannot find perfect
expression in law it is that much of what people say about justice is at odds
with a clearsighted understanding of human excellence.
The Limited Horizon of Justice
We cannot say that the best regime rules by law, even if we can still judge
whether it would be better for this or that city to be ruled by law in this or that
circumstance. While Aristotle provides arguments against absolute kingship,
his conclusion is nonetheless an endorsement of its potential rightness. Such a
conclusion would not be possible if the arguments of Book III, ch. 16, of the
Politics stood confirmed.
The reason that we cannot say that the best regime is ruled by law is because
human beings are extremely malleable. Human nature may be steady, in that
its perfection remains the same, but the realization of those potentialities may
occur to astonishingly different degrees. There is nothing about the human
animal that necessarily prevents it from possessing the traits that make one fit
for a sort of slavery that Aristotle says would be in accordance with nature; on
a brighter note, there is also nothing that keeps it from the heights necessary to
be a fit absolute king.33 The absolute king is not necessarily a god, let alone the
Divine of the Metaphysics, as Thomas Lindsay suggests, even though what
33 As P.A. Vander Waerdt notes, Aristotles discussion involves many of the objections one would have to Platos philosopher-kings; see P.A. Vander Waerdt, Kingship
and Philosophy in Aristotles Best Regime, Phronesis, 30 (3) (1985), pp. 24973.

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Aristotle says about it would also apply to beings greater than man.34 Yet it is
not necessarily greater than every man. The political consequence of this is
that there is no reason or, better, no guarantee that one law would be
appropriate for all within a community, and certainly not for all of mankind.
The species is not so neatly categorized by nature into children, the retarded,
the insane, and a great homogenous mass called the normal, among whom no
differences of an ethically interesting sort may be discerned.35
There may chance to be the sort of rough equality and capacity in any given
city that would justify what Aristotle calls political rule. But there may not,
and there is no guarantee that its past presence has been maintained. Even if
there is a foundation for justice in a particular city, there is no necessary foundation for it in any given city. The truth lends itself to dangerous rhetorical
possibilities in every city.
In the Politics, Aristotle says that there is law only among those who are
roughly equal (P 1284a1113). A more stark conclusion follows from the
Ethics. Political justice, the sort of justice that might give rise to natural right,
itself holds only among those fit for a political partnership with each other;
while something like justice might hold with respect to others, relations with
them are actually governed by self-love (NE 1134a24b18). This puts the
point to the final chapter of Book V: there is no injustice towards oneself (NE
1138a4b11). The condition that inclines one to perform just actions, act
justly, and desire the just things (cf. NE 1129a69) is not the source of how
one practises complete virtue in relation to another in these cases (cf. NE
1129b257). In modern parlance, it is not a question of rights or duties.
Aristotle does not say that justice is supreme among the virtues, only that it
often seems to be (NE 1129b2730). We are now in a position to say that justice seems supreme because its scope is overstated. It is complete virtue in
relation to another . . . with whom one is joined into a political community,
and even then only as understood by that community. The seriousness with
which the just man takes such things would be warranted by natural right,
which would prescribe complete virtue in community with another as understood by one who knows what complete virtue really is. But again, it would
not prescribe dealings with those too flawed for citizenship in the best regime,
i.e. most people. The hypothetical natural right towards which the Ethics points,
but which is unstated there, in the absence of a law to govern everything within
34

Lindsay, The God-Like Man. See also Bartlett, Aristotles Science; Mulgan,
Aristotles Political Theory, pp. 867; R.G Mulgan, A Note on Aristotles Absolute
Ruler, Phronesis, 19 (1) (1974), pp. 669; Strauss, City and Man, p. 37. W.R. Newell
does not think that Aristotle pushes the argument this far, instead focusing on whether a
multitude such as we are likely to encounter would rule better than a single human being
such as we are likely to encounter; see Newell, Superlative Virtue, esp. pp. 1724.
35 Bernard Yack recognizes that this is our primary disagreement with Aristotle, but
notes the dispute more than he provides evidence that most people are roughly equal; see
Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, pp. 13940.

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the city with the best regime, would not have a definite content. Its existence
is implied by the need for such a content in order for justice not to be a limited
and somewhat ambivalent virtue. Natural right of this sort does not exist.
I noted earlier an ambiguity in the relation of the just man to the just things.
Justice is the condition of a soul that inclines one to perform just actions, act
justly and desire the just things (NE 1129a610). One may or may not respect
it, or have an inclination favourable to it, but the content of justice remains the
same. On the other hand, we speak of walking in a healthy manner when one
walks as a healthy person would (NE 1129a1617). If we see a healthy person walking in an unusual way, we must admit that such can be the gait of a
healthy person; if we see a just man commit shocking acts, we must admit that
such can be the conduct of a just man. Justice both submits to and transcends a
standard of right.
Bernard Yack resolves this tension by identifying Aristotle solely with the
latter position, denying that there is a just state of affairs by which a community may be judged.36 This solution requires that we discard some very
deep-seated intuitions about justice, and we might legitimately wonder just
how many such intuitions we may discard before we must acknowledge that
we are no longer speaking about justice, or that the subject of the discussion
shares only the name of something valued by most people.
In favour of Yacks reading is of course the fact that there is no natural law
in Aristotle, and what natural right there is lacks determinacy such that the just
mans virtue could be defined as an inclination to be guided by it. Yet Aristotle
does not follow Yack in his conclusion: he retains the ambiguous description
of justice that Yack seeks to render coherent and, thus, to simplify. Aristotle
has no difficulty in correcting the understanding of justice of those who hold it
to be equality, by contrast: and it is, but for equals and not for all
(P 1280a1112) or of those who hold it to be inequality (P 1280a1213).
He maintains the position that justice needs rules, even as he denies that such
rules exist by nature, even as he notes that a part of what is said about justice
points towards a different understanding of human excellence.
The virtue of justice cannot be practised hermitically; it involves how one
treats members of ones community. It therefore relies upon an ideal of good
citizenship: one nurtures ones citys regime and loves it for being good.
Reflection reveals that some things that a good citizen honours as being just
are simply conventional, but seriousness demands that there nonetheless be
some things that are just by nature. The self-understanding of the just man
must point, just as Aristotles discussion does point, beyond the politically
36 Yack, Problems of a Political Animal, pp. 14957. Yacks discussion is focused
more on what we might call social justice: a societys justness depends upon the sort of
deliberations that went into forming its conception of justice, not whether that conception corresponds to some predetermined state of affairs. It is unclear what this means for
the virtue of an individual who must take part in these deliberations.

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R.J. CORBETT

just by nature and towards natural right. If we follow this train of thought and
accept that the just man in fact has a care for natural right, the virtue of justice
seems more cosmopolitan, descriptive of the good man, simply, but it is nonetheless reliant upon such a standard; the perpetual and constant will to render
to each one his right (ST IIII, Q. 58, A. 1) is sensible only by reference to
such a right. The absence of that cosmopolitan standard, the particularity of
all right, denudes the virtue of justice. This is true even though parts of what is
said about justice point towards a more comprehensive, less limited conception of human virtue. Again, if by natural right we mean that some actions
are better than others, display or require more virtue than others, then such a
thing does exist in Aristotle; if we instead mean a standard or rule by which to
judge such actions that would be a useful guide to decision-making, it does
not; only conventional right provides such a standard. Those who would continue to be serious about virtue cannot take as their model the just man. If virtue is a mean between two vices, then the furthest thing from vice is vice; yet
the furthest thing from injustice is justice, it seems; Aristotle has some difficulty fitting justice into his system as a mean between two vices (cf. NE
1132a1424; 1132b1820; 1133b1734a16). The just man respects certain
boundaries because they have inherent worth; the virtuous man relentlessly
pursues what is good.
Those parts of Aristotles writings relied upon by proponents of natural
law, and by their enemies, do not directly address the question of natural law.
They do, however, point to it. In doing so, they indicate a challenge to the
Aristotelian philosophic project to elevate the intellectual virtues by denying
that furthest from vice is best, a challenge that instead makes justice the paradigmatic virtue, and with it, obedience. What Aristotle says in these passages
suggestive of natural law in fact forms part of a critique of that vision of justice. Such a justice implies the existence of a standard that is at odds with
human flourishing, even as it holds out the promise of the most complete
flourishing.
Ross J. Corbett

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

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