I will look first at general uses of the body metaphor, or in some cases, the body analogy. As several scholars have noted, the body was a common topos in antiquity in political speeches arguing for unity in the form of homonoia, or “concord” speeches. Martin contends that these speeches were so common that they were practically a genre unto themselves. Some famous examples of these speeches include Antiphon's Περὶ ὁμονοίαςς and Isocrates' Panegyricus.

The homonoia speeches often had predictable patterns and examples, and rhetoricians employed common topoi such as the body or the household to argue for political unity. According to this use, the group, which was not limited to formal political associations, was like a body in that it was composed of various parts which needed to cooperate in order to survive, or for the “common good.”

But the metaphor was not limited to homonoia speeches. Its significance varied according to its use by orators of different philosophical backgrounds. Even in the context of the homonoia speeches, there was a multiplicity of uses. It will be helpful to begin the present study by delving deeper into the different ways in which the orators applied it.

Basic structure

The image was often used to make a simple and direct statement. The following passage is from Cicero, using an example from rhetoric: “In an enumeration we have, as it were, parts, as (ut) for example a body has head, shoulders, hands, sides, legs, feet and so forth.”

A visit by Protagoras to Athens is the dramatic occasion for the conversations depicted in the Protagoras. Protagoras is a celebrity, staying as a guest at the house of Callias, where a large company has gathered. Among the more notable characters present are Critias and Alcibiades, the sophists Prodicus and Hippias, and the two sons of Pericles, Paralus and Xanthippus (314e3–316a5). Socrates is induced to join the gathering by Hippocrates, a young man so eager to meet Protagoras that he has roused Socrates from bed before dawn in the hope of persuading him to use his entrée to secure an audience. Once inside, speaking on behalf of the younger man, Socrates asks Protagoras what Hippocrates could expect to learn should he become his student (318a). The answer – though it is put in various ways – is virtue. And the first sustained discussion is set in train by the doubts Socrates expresses about whether virtue is the kind of thing that can be taught (319a9–320c2).

The so-called great speech is Protagoras' response (320c2–328d2). When it is over, Socrates declares himself convinced that virtue can be taught. He is, however, still troubled by one small question (329b6–d2). This question is the occasion for a new sequence of arguments that occupies the rest of the dialogue apart from a procedural dispute (334c9–338e7) and a substantial digression in which the interpretation of a poem of Simonides is discussed (338e8–349a7).

The previous chapters have described the Stoic bodily unity of humanity and the way in which this formed the basis for their social ethics. This chapter will demonstrate that in 1 Cor. 12 Paul similarly establishes the identity of the community according to the bodily unity of the community. However, it will also be important to notice the divergence from Stoicism, especially the ultimate source of bodily unity – Christ – and the community's relationship to the eschatological age. Since the coming of Christ has resulted in a new age, Paul is not concerned with the Stoics' universal humanity, but a “new” humanity composed of those who have been transformed through Christ.

As a result, 1 Cor. 12 is primarily a statement of the Corinthians' identity as Christ's body. This identity provides the “principle” on which Paul will base his “precepts” in ch. 14, as similarly seen in the way bodily oneness forms the foundation for Stoic social ethics.

Structure of 1 Corinthians 12

The following proposed structure highlights the relationship between Christ and the Corinthians as his body.

1. Introduction (12:1–3) – spiritual existence as being under the Lordship of Christ

2. A (12:4–11) – the Corinthians as recipients of diverse manifestations of the Spirit, to be used for what is advantageous

3. B (12:12–26) – Christ/the church as characterized by unity and diversity, just like a human body

4. A′ (12:27–30) – the Corinthians as diverse members of the body of Christ, appointed by God in the ekklesia

Paul begins in 12:1–3 by making the crucial point that “spiritual existence” is related to Christ's Lordship.

For Hobbes, there is nothing “more repugnant to government” or “more ignorantly” said than much of Aristotle's Politics and Ethics. But it does not take such sharp wit to discern the tension between Aristotle's thought and a liberal tradition that prizes the freedom of each to pursue happiness as he or she sees fit. Indeed, one of the aims of this tradition has been to liberate the individual from the kind of religious authority and sectarian strife for which Hobbes blamed the “ghostly” Aristotelianism of his time. As Rawls notes, liberalism emerges as the solution to the problem of creedal and salvationist religions, and it is with a view to solving this problem for the sake of future peace that, in response to the attacks of September 11th, we are now attempting to remake the world in our image. Given the political goods of liberalism, then, perhaps we should simply abandon Aristotle's political philosophy, as Hobbes advises, or reformulate it to make it consistent with the democratic pluralism of our age, as some scholars today urge. I have argued, to the contrary, that it is precisely because Aristotle does not share liberal presuppositions that his thought becomes useful to us. In particular, by exploring dimensions of the moral and political world that we neglect or obscure, he illuminates the question central to his political philosophy and before us once again: What is a citizen?

During an interview on the first anniversary of September 11th, author David Halberstam was suddenly moved to remark, “I used to say I was a New Yorker. Now I like to think of myself as a citizen of the city.” As a response to the attacks on America's most cosmopolitan city, Halberstam's comment spoke powerfully to the newfound sense of citizenship that then gripped the nation and has since struggled for definition. For what, indeed, does it mean to be a “citizen”?

To be sure, the events of September 11th and their aftermath have impelled all serious observers to speak anew of the sacrifices and duties of citizenship or of a deeper commitment to community. Beyond this, however, language often fails. With Rousseau, perhaps, some had sought to efface the very word citizen from our vocabulary, or, with Kant, to search out a higher notion of world citizenship, or, with Hobbes, to rest content as subjects rather than citizens as long as life and liberty were otherwise preserved. But if, in the face of present challenges, such notions seem inadequate – if, in particular, we are awake to aspects of citizenship that our own principles and assumptions obscure or resist – where might we turn for understanding? This study turns to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, the two works in the history of political philosophy that together contain the most comprehensive and systematic investigation of the question “What is a citizen?”

THE PROBLEM OF PRUDENCE

When Aristotle concludes the account of the particular moral virtues to turn to intellectual virtue, the question of the standard to which the morally virtuous person and the law look in determining right action forms a new horizon in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE 1138b13–14). That this question remains is indicated immediately by the fact that he returns to the subject of right reason he had earlier postponed (NE 1138b18–20). The investigation of right reason is inseparable from a consideration of the target (scopos) at which the virtues aim and the boundary (or limit, horos) within which the mean is identified (NE 1138b21–5, 32–4). In the absence of such a consideration, the definition of virtue – as the mean defined by the prudent human being (phronimos) – is true but unclear (NE 1138b25–6).

Despite the apparent urgency of this task, Aristotle does not approach it directly, instead undertaking a lengthy treatment of the characteristics of the rational or intellectual parts of the soul. While we might then expect his discussion of prudence, the rational characteristic that governs deliberation in the realm of action, to shed light on the question of right reason, this discussion proves first to complicate rather than illuminate the matter. A simple sketch brings out the central difficulty. In short, we learn that prudence is required for perceiving the right thing to do in a particular situation.

As a principle of the political order, justice is the focus of much scrutiny in contemporary political theory, yet even among neo-Aristotelians, little attention is paid to justice as a characteristic or virtue of the individual. Aristotle, by contrast, begins his inquiry by emphasizing that justice is like the other virtues in constituting a characteristic that disposes us to act well, namely, “to do just things, act justly, and wish just things” (NE 1129a3–11). His first task, then, is to examine justice as a virtue that constitutes our perfection. The immediate complication is that justice has two meanings that are similar but not the same: “the lawbreaker is thought to be unjust,” but so too is “the one who takes more than his share [pleonektēs] and is unfair [lit. “unequal,” anisos]” (NE 1129a32–4). In short, justice may mean either “lawfulness” or “fairness,” alternatives that Aristotle classifies under the respective headings of general and particular justice (NE 1129a34–b1). Accordingly, there exist two different, though related, characteristics in the case of justice. General justice as lawfulness is complete virtue, understood as the sum of all the virtues directed toward the good of another (NE 1129b26–30). Particular justice as fairness is the proper disposition concerning the good things – security, money, and honor – in which all who belong to the political community must share (NE 1130a32–b5).