Introduction
In the world of Anglophone Aristotle scholarship, like-mindedness or ὁμόνοια is treated like the neglected understudy of the spectacle that is the account of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics (EN).Footnote 1 For those interested in the social or political aspects of Aristotle’s ethical treatises, by contrast, what Anglophone scholars construe as political or civic friendship (πολιτικὴ ϕιλία) is the rock star that eclipses almost all other roles or participants therein. Whereas only a few scholars have focused attention on trying to understand the nature and significance of like-mindedness, a hoard of paparazzi, as it were, have flocked around Aristotle’s account of political friendship, inundating it with attention and coverage.Footnote 2
Such a scholarly scrum, as it were, is lamentable for at least two reasons, both of which are evident in Aristotle’s endoxic report that
lawgivers (νομοθέται) seem to be more serious about friendship (ϕιλία) than they are about the virtue of justice; for like-mindedness, which seems to be something similar to friendship, is what they especially aim at while faction (στάσιν), which is enmity, is what they most wish to drive out. (EN 8.1.1155a23-26)Footnote 3
First, according to Aristotle, it is like-mindedness itself rather than friendship at which lawgivers actually aim, a point that finds broad support in the way that the term like-mindedness is used by other 4th century authors.Footnote 4 But, second, as Aristotle’s endoxon also makes clear, like-mindedness appears to be “something similar to friendship” (ἡ γὰρ ὁμόνοια ὅμοιόν τι τῇ ϕιλίᾳ). Scholars who identify like-mindedness and political friendship ignore that, whatever similarities the two possess, for the most part, Aristotle distinguishes them.Footnote 5 Clearly, an accurate account of Aristotle’s analysis of like-mindedness needs to disentangle it from political friendship.
Once like-mindedness is disentangled from political friendship, there remains the question of whether we should think of like-mindedness as fundamentally a political or ethical concept. Although like-mindedness is said primarily of collective entities, such as a polis, Aristotle also claims that like-mindedness is found in decent people who exhibit like-mindedness to themselves and others (9.6.1167b4-6). Thus, in their commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, René Gauthier and Jean-Yves Jolif write that “le mot d’ὁμόνοια appartient en propre à la langue politique .… Le but de ce chapitre [i.e., EN 9.6] est précisément de transposer au plan moral ce concept politique.”Footnote 6 By contrast, Richard Bodéüs’ Le philosophe et la cité has argued the contrary, namely that the Nicomachean Ethics must be understood as a work directed towards the audience of legislators whose role it is to prepare their citizens to live happy lives on the basis of their communal education. Over the last quarter of a century, many of the conclusions and arguments of Bodéüs’ The Political Dimensions of Aristotle’s Ethics have been incorporated into what one might call a mainstream orthodox interpretation of Aristotle’s ethical and political works. My hope is that assuming Bodéüs’ perspective can once again help to clarify a contested concept in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
In order to clarify the nature of like-mindedness in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the first part of my paper disentangles it from what Aristotle calls πολιτικὴ ϕιλία. Once the two are disentangled, I argue that like-mindedness is a sort of hinge that pivots between the ethical and political aspects of Aristotle’s thought and that such a hinge is affixed, as it were, to the political side of Aristotle’s works. The second part of my paper explores the political side of like-mindedness through an examination of Aristotle’s specific examples of like-mindedness in a polis. Part three of my paper then examines the ethical side of like-mindedness, namely its relationship to individuals with ethically virtuous souls. All three parts of my paper support Bodéüs’ interpretation of the Nicomachean Ethics as a political work and call into question that of Gauthier and Jolif. Although the body of my paper focuses on how like-mindedness and political friendship are depicted in the Nicomachean Ethics, in an Appendix to the paper, I examine the meaning of the term πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in Eudemian Ethics (EE) 7.10 and argue that, whatever the term means, its use in EE 7.10 is fundamentally different from the use of the term in EN 9.6.
Part I: Disentangling ὁμόνοια and πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in NE 9.6
Although both ὁμόνοια and πολιτικὴ ϕιλία are relatively rare terms in Aristotle’s corpus, in both the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics the two are found together. In the case of EN 9.6, ὁμόνοια is examined as part of an analysis of τὰ ϕιλικά or characteristics or aspects of friendship, alongside an analysis of εὔνοια (or well-mindedness) in EN 9.5.Footnote 7 In both EN 9.5 and 9.6, Aristotle’s strategy is to distinguish each object from other similar objects and explain its relationship to friendship more generally. Thus, εὔνοια appears to be an aspect of friendship because it is the “starting point of friendship,” namely the admiration and well-wishing we feel towards virtuous persons (9.5.1167a3-4). Yet Aristotle is also quite clear that εὔνοια is only an “aspect of friendship” and should not be identified with friendship itself (primarily because εὔνοια can be experienced towards strangers [9.5.1166b34-35]).
That like-mindedness is ϕιλικόν distinguishes it both from ὁμοδοξία or “likeness in belief” (since that can be shared between strangers) and from indiscriminate ὁμογνωμονεῖν (for instance, about the nature of the heavens).Footnote 8 By contrast, he reports,
we say that a city is like-minded when people are of one mind about what is advantageous (περὶ τῶν συμϕερόντων ὁμογνωμονῶσι), deliberately choosing the same things, and put into action the things they have resolved in common. (EN 9.6.1167a26-28)Footnote 9
To claim that ὁμόνοια is ϕιλικόν, thus, is based on two points. First, ὁμόνοια (unlike εὔνοια) presupposes some level of familiarity between those who experience it. Second, ὁμόνοια presupposes the collective deliberation and shared goals or purpose of a community, which is like the shared goals of friends. But, whereas Aristotle usually examines friendship as a two-person relationship, he initially characterizes like-mindedness as the characteristic of a polis, namely a collective entity.Footnote 10 Aristotle’s parallel analyses of εὔνοια and ὁμόνοια suggest that to call either phenomenon ϕιλικόν is to characterize it as friendship in a qualified way (namely, that εὔνοια is the beginning of friendship and that ὁμόνοια is a sort of city-wide friendship).Footnote 11
No doubt, readers of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics are familiar with a text that appears to identify like-mindedness and πολιτικὴ ϕιλία. After noting that like-mindedness exists not when two parties think the same thing (e.g., both think that each of them should rule), but when two or more parties agree in connection with the same party or individual (since that way all the parties get what they are seeking), Aristotle concludes
like-mindedness, therefore, appears to be πολιτικὴ ϕιλία, as it is in fact said to be, for it is concerned with things that are advantageous and ones that affect our life. (EN 9.6.1167b2-4)Footnote 12
Many Anglophone commentators, following John Cooper, take Aristotle here to be identifying like-mindedness with the πολιτικὴ ϕιλία he discusses in EE 7.10, namely a form of friendship that aims at what is useful (τὸ χρήσιμον) and is grounded in legal equality (EE 7.10.1242a6-19, 1242b1-43a3).Footnote 13 Let me break the passage into two parts and examine them separately in order to explore what Aristotle actually says about the relationship between like-mindedness and πολιτικὴ ϕιλία.
Aristotle’s initial assertion (1167b2-3) draws a similarity between like-mindedness and political friendship, first, based on the prior example of two or more parties agreeing on the same object and, second, based on linguistic usage. In the first case, it is worth pointing out that Aristotle only claims that like-mindedness appears or seems like (ϕαὶνεται) political friendship. That seems entirely consistent with the earlier claim in EN 8.2 that like-mindedness is similar to friendship or the opening lines of EN 9.6, which claim that like-mindedness is a characteristic of friendship (ϕιλικόν), albeit not friendship itself. Similarity, needless to say, is not the same thing as identity.Footnote 14 In the second case, that like-mindedness is in fact said to be political friendship, is an observation about linguistic usage rather than the conclusion of an argument that identifies like-mindedness and political friendship. If we look at Aristotle’s own linguistic usage, we see that he uses the term like-mindedness, with only one exception, to describe cities rather than individuals. Thus, when legislators talk about like-mindedness, they have in mind the opposite of stasis (8.2.1155a25-26). In the Politics, Aristotle uses the cognate term ὁμονοητικόν — “what promotes like-mindedness” — to describe a stable oligarchy or the communal property proposals in his own best constitution and that of Socrates in the Republic.Footnote 15
The evidence of Aristotle’s linguistic usage for the phrase πολιτικὴ ϕιλίαis even more limited. Our passage (1167b2) is the sole instance of the full phrase in the Nicomachean Ethics. In two other places, Aristotle uses a somewhat similar phrase: at one point, he draws parallels between πολιτικαὶ ϕιλίαι (or, political friendships, which significantly is in the plural) and other associations, based on some agreement, such as those between members of the same tribe or among fellow sailors (8.12.1161b13). In a second instance, he mentions how, in a political (friendship implied), a shoemaker’s production is compensated monetarily (9.1.1163b34).Footnote 16 The two examples — one of which is based on agreement and the other of which characterizes reciprocity in trade — bear a stronger resemblance to what EE 7.10 characterizes as πολιτικὴ ϕιλία, namely a utility friendship based on legal agreement.Footnote 17 But those examples of conventional exchange relations appear to have nothing in common with the like-mindedness analyzed in Nicomachean Ethics 9.6. One is left with the feeling that any characterization of πολιτικὴ ϕιλία based solely on EN 9.6 will be speculative and arbitrary.
The second clause of Aristotle’s assertion is explanatory and presumably intended to confirm the first assertion by reference to the objects of like-mindedness, namely “things that are advantageous and ones that affect our life” (EN 9.6.1167b3-4). Such a claim repeats what Aristotle had previously said, namely that like-mindedness aims at what is advantageous (1167a28), but it seems wrong to identify such a characteristic with τὸ χρησιμόν or what is the aim of utility friendships.Footnote 18 Τὰ συμϕέροντα, rather, seem to be nothing other than what Aristotle elsewhere characterizes as the common advantage (Pol 3.6.1279a17-21).Footnote 19 Our passage much more clearly seems to echo the Nicomachean account of communities (κοινωνίαι), namely kinds of collective entities.Footnote 20 After noting that both friendship and justice exists in community, Aristotle writes that
all communities seem to be parts of the political community, however, since people consort together for some advantage and to provide themselves with something for their life. And the political community seems both to have come together at the start and to remain in existence for the sake of what is advantageous. For legislators also aim to hit this, and what is for the common advantage is said to be just. (8.9.1160a8-13)Footnote 21
I suggest that, when Aristotle claims that like-mindedness appears to be political friendship, he has in mind his claim that ϕιλία is an aspect of community rather than a claim about utility friendships.Footnote 22 Indeed, Aristotle claims that every κοινωνία, whether in the household or in the city, exhibits its own characteristic form of ϕιλία.Footnote 23 But Aristotle fails to characterize such community friendship in terms of utility, pleasure, or even virtue. Rather, Aristotle characterizes friendship in constitutions and household primarily in terms of equality and inequality. To characterize like-mindedness as a kind of utility friendship is thus a category mistake.
Part II: The Politics of ὁμόνοια and the Examples of τὰ πρακτά
Having disentangled like-mindedness and political friendship, I turn to the equally challenging question of whether like-mindedness is political or ethical. Ultimately, of course, it is in some sense both, since Aristotle characterizes both cities and individuals as being like-minded. Nonetheless, the disagreement between Bodéüs and Gauthier and Jolif with which I began my paper requires us to determine whether we should think of the Nicomachean Ethics either as a work of autonomous ethical theory for individuals seeking a good life (which subsequently can be applied in political contexts) or as part of political science that legislators consult in their pursuit of the common good. Whereas Bodéüs argues that the ethical guidance of the Nicomachean Ethics is aimed at legislators who need to train their citizens in virtue, Gauthier and Jolif, by contrast, argue that in his account of like-mindedness Aristotle takes a political notion of interest and transforms it into an ethical concept, grounded in the true interests of the virtuous person. In order to adjudicate between these two interpretations, let me first look at the political side of like-mindedness and then, in the next section of my paper, at its ethical side.
Aristotle claims that the objects of like-mindedness are “things doable in action” (περὶ τὰ πρακτά), or even more specifically, those πρακτά “that are important [lit.: have a certain magnitude]Footnote 24 and where it is possible for both or all to attain their goals” (9.6.1167a28-30). He follows up with six examples (with my own enumerations):
Cities are like-minded (ὁμονοοῦσιν) when all resolve (1) to have their offices be elective; (2) to ally with Sparta; or (3) to have Pittacus rule (when he too is willing to do so). (4) But when each of the two parties wishes the rule for himself, like those in the Phoenician Women, they factionalize. (5) For it is not like-mindedness when each of the two thinks (ἐννοεῖν) the same thing, whatever it may be, but rather (6) when they think it in connection with the same thing, for example, when both the common people (ὁ δῆμος) and the upper classes (οἱ ἐπιεικεῖς) think that the best people (τοὺς ἀρίστους) should rule. (EN 9.6.1167a30-b1)Footnote 25
Examples (1), (2), (3), and (6) meet the criteria of like-mindedness, whereas (4) and (5) are instances of faction (στάσις). Let me examine first the examples of factionalism and then those of like-mindedness.
Euripides’ Phoenician Women tells the story of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles, and Polyneices vying for the throne of Thebes. Following Oedipus’ abdication, Eteocles and Polyneices agreed to alternate turns at ruling Thebes as tyrant, with Eteocles ruling in the first year and then Polyneices following for a year, but Eteocles failed to abide by the agreement (469-483).Footnote 26 Polyneices goes into exile in Argos, raises an army, and then returns to Thebes not only to overthrow his brother but to take the city by conquest. The subsequent war results in both of their deaths, but with Eteocles as a hero and Polyneices as a failed revolutionary. The strife between the brothers illustrates the opposite of like-mindedness: as Aristotle notes in example (5), although both brothers have the same object (namely, ruling over Thebes as king), they are unable to agree upon a practical proposal that allows each to get what he wants. But further, at least in Euripides’ telling, neither brother is faultless. When their mother Jocasta calls a truce, the brothers will not even look at each other because of their mutual enmity (454-459); the truce ends with them exchanging death threats and insults (594-625). Although the chorus leader claims that Polyneices’ justification of his actions appear to be sensible (ξυνετά [497-498]), Eteocles captures the spirit of their mutual enmity when he says that his brother
ought not to be trying to reach an agreement by force of arms (ὅπλοισι τὰς διαλλαγάς):Footnote 27 speech accomplishes everything an enemy’s arms might accomplish. Well, if he wants to dwell in this land on other terms, he may do so. But this point I shall never willingly give up: when I can rule, shall I be this man’s slave? (515-520)
Neither brother has the moral high ground. Eteocles, as his mother notes, worships the goddess of Ambition (Φιλοτιμία [532]), but Polyneices plans to sack the city if his brother fails to step down (485-488). It is hard to imagine a clearer case of στάσις, motivated by greed and selfishness.
By contrast, although Aristotle’s examples of like-mindedness present a striking diversity of political policies, all capture the essential notion that citizens of a political community in common agree upon a policy that supports the common advantage.Footnote 28 Aristotle’s first example, when all resolve (πᾶσι δοκῇ) that offices are elective, is an aristocratic policy that stands opposed to the democratic policy of filling office by lot (Pol 4.15.1300a8-b4). Without further description (for instance, whether property qualifications preclude serving as a candidate in such an election), it is hard to say precisely how exclusive such a proposal would be. Nonetheless, the proposal could result in a fundamental constitutional change about who could participate in which offices. By contrast, Aristotle’s second example — when a polis chooses to ally (συμμαχεῖν) with Sparta — concerns the foreign policy of a polis, namely whether it should have the same friends and enemies as Sparta (i.e., form either a defensive or an offensive alliance with Sparta). Agreement on such a πρακτόν would determine when and against whom the citizens of a polis would go to war.
Aristotle’s third and sixth examples illustrate political communities agreeing upon elitist policies that disenfranchise a significant part (if not all) of the political community. Example three uses the historical case of 6th century BCE Mytilene in which all resolved that Pittacus would take the position of elective tyrant or dictator (αἰσυμνήτης) for a ten-year term. The injunction that Pittacus himself agrees (ὅτε καὶ αὑτος ἥθελεν) underscores the scope of unanimity in like-mindedness. As Aristotle explains in the Politics, Pittacus only agreed to the position of dictatorship while the city was under attack by a group of exiles (Pol 3.14.1285a30-38), after which he resigned the position even though the people of Mytilene wished him to continue his autocratic rule. For a polis to be truly like-minded means that everyone, including Pittacus, agrees that placing Pittacus in office supports the common good, even while such a policy disenfranchises the entire citizen population for a decade. Example six — when both the demos (i.e., the common people) and the upper classes resolve to let the best rule — invokes nothing other than an exclusionary aristocracy.Footnote 29
Aristotle’s examples of like-mindedness support my disentanglement of ὁμόνοια and πολιτικὴ ϕιλία and Bodéüs’ interpretation of the relationship of the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. First, the examples repeatedly characterize ὁμόνοια as a characteristic of a polis rather than of individuals within a polis (1167a26, a30). No doubt, it is the individuals within the polis who collectively agree on specific proposals, but over and over he describes like-mindedness as when a polis does something collectively; by contrast, when Aristotle discusses examples of friendship, utility friendships or otherwise, he talks about how individuals act.Footnote 30
Second, although like-mindedness aims at what is commonly advantageous, it is less clear how that is individually advantageous or even useful. The ethical treatises characterize utility friendship as a reciprocal exchange in which individual A and individual B are mutually advantageous to each other (for example, one is a seller, the other a buyer). But, in the case of like-mindedness, we find individuals agreeing about a specific and important policy that is collectively rather than individually advantageous, and indeed several of the examples include policies that disenfranchise large parts of the citizen population.
Finally, Aristotle’s examples of like-mindedness in EN 9.6 are fundamentally inegalitarian or even aristocratic and dictatorial. Viewing office as elective or elevating the ἄριστοι (or even the ἄριστος) over the people or the upper classes presupposes a political community in which individuals of excellent ability are recognized and endorsed by all.Footnote 31 Such examples support Bodéüs’ view that the Nicomachean Ethics is political for two reasons. First, the examples are institutionally diverse and cover the full panoply of right constitution forms: election for office and entering into an alliance with Sparta are options for a polity; Pittacus’ elective dictatorship resembles a virtuous monarchy; and the elevation of the ἄριστοι into power is an example of an aristocracy.Footnote 32 But, second, although the examples of like-mindedness are institutionally diverse (and thus could speak to lawgivers seeking to establish fundamentally different kinds of constitutions), all presuppose the habituation of citizens by the laws of a polis. But such training seems essentially to be the object of the lawgiver, not the individual seeking his own highest good. The phenomenon of like-mindedness is a hinge between Aristotle’s ethical treatises and his Politics because it is both a matter of collective action (as we have seen) and of properly oriented ethical character, as we will see in the next section of my paper. But it is hard to imagine such political or collective decision-making as having any relevance for an individual seeking his own happiness.
Part III: The Ethics of ὁμόνοια and Its Requisite Qualities of Soul
If like-mindedness is a hinge of sorts that pivots between Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, it remains to determine to which side of the door, as it were, the hinge is affixed. Gauthier and Jolif, commenting on Aristotle’s assertion that decent people are like-minded both with themselves and with others (1167b5-6), claim that
sans doute, pour qu’on puisse parler de « concord, » faut-il que ces souhaits aient pour objets des intérêts: mais l’intérêt du vertueux, c’est intérêt de tous, car ce qui est utile pour lui, c’est ce qui est réellement utile et est donc utile pour tous. Bien entendu, Aristote ne pretend pas identifier cette « concord » des vertueux à leur amitié: elle n’est qu’une amitié utile.Footnote 33
Rather clearly, Gauthier and Jolif affix the hinge to the ethical side of the door on the grounds that Aristotle’s account of the good person (in this instance, one whose psychic condition is properly ordered) is the basis for extending friendly feelings from one’s self towards others. The account of phronesis and deliberate choice in Bodéüs’ The Political Dimensions of Aristotle’s Ethics attaches the hinge, as it were, to the political side of the door. Whereas Gauthier and Jolif attribute rational interests or ends to agents, Bodéüs attributes such ends to ethical virtue, which is ultimately the result of the legislator’s habituation of the ethical or desiring part of the soul. The place of wishing (βούλεσθαι) in Aristotle’s account of like-mindedness tips the scale towards Bodéüs.
Immediately following the political examples of like-mindedness, Aristotle asserts that the sort of like-mindedness that such examples illustrate
is found among decent people (ἐν τοῖς ἐπιεικέσιν), since they are in accord both with themselves and with others (καὶ ἑαυτοῖς ὁμονοοῦσι καὶ ἀλλήλοις) — out for the same things, so to speak. For the wishes (τὰ βουλήματα) of such people are constant, not ebbing and flowing like the Euripus river. They wish (βούλονταί) for just things as well as advantageous ones, and these they also seek in common. (EN 9.6.1167b4-6)
One of the most important contributions of Bodéüs’ Le philosophe et la cité is its defence of the claim that it is ethical virtue, rather than phronesis or practical reason, that determines the goal or end of an individual. Although Aristotle notes that like-mindedness consists in the deliberate choice of the same practical objects, such deliberate choice is properly a matter of determining the things productive of the goal, rather than of the goal itself. But according to Aristotle’s characterization of such “decent people,” it is precisely their wishes (τὰ βουλήματα) — determined by their ethical virtue — that are properly oriented, abiding, and the ultimate foundation of their like-mindedness.Footnote 34 Aristotle’s use of the term “wish” to characterize the difference between decent and bad people seems crucial to the argument between Gauthier/Jolif and Bodéüs. From Bodéüs’ perspective, such wishes are ultimately the result of individuals’ ethical habituation; and I think that, insofar as like-mindedness is grounded in the abiding wishes of the decent for what is just and communally advantageous, this ethical text leans towards a political rather than an ethical reading of like-mindedness. Whereas Gauthier and Jolif interpreted the decent person in terms of his rational interest, which is ultimately beneficial to himself, a Bodéüsian reading sees that the decent person’s like-mindedness (either towards himself or towards others) is a function of that person’s wish, which itself is formed by the laws of that person’s society.Footnote 35
It should be no surprise that Aristotle’s account of why base people are incapable of experiencing like-mindedness and instead are led to faction is also grounded in the nature of what they wish for, namely the negative results of their poor ethical habituation.
Base people cannot be like-minded, except to a small extent, any more than they can be friends. For they seek a greedy share (πλεονεξίας) in benefits, but in labours and charitable things a deficient one. And since each one wishes these things to himself (ἑαυτω δ’ ἕκαστος βουλόμενος), he keeps an eye on his neighbour and stands in his way, with the excuse that, if people do not keep watch, the common good gets ruined. The result is that they factionalize, compelling each other to do just things but not wishing (μὴ βουλομένους) to do them themselves. (EN 9.6.1167b9-16)
Aristotle’s contrast is quite clear: decent people are like-minded both with themselves and with others because they wish for what is just and mutually beneficial.Footnote 36 Base people greedily wish what is beneficial only to themselves because they do not wish to do what is just. Such people do what is just only out of necessity. As The Political Dimensions of Aristotle’s Ethics, pp. 51-57, has shown quite clearly, it is precisely such a contrast — between those who wish for what is just versus those who act justly only from the threat of punishment and compulsion — that commences the epilogue of EN 10.9 and its plea that legislators educate their citizens to be like the former rather than the latter persons. If a lawgiver wants his polis to agree upon and deliberate wisely about what is collectively advantageous, then the lawgiver must insure that the members of that community are ethical in the literal sense of the term, namely that they have been properly habituated to wish for the right goals. The ethical side of like-mindedness, therefore, ultimately looks to and is dependent upon the laws that the legislator promulgates.
Conclusion
It is perfectly understandable that scholars such as Cooper and his followers in the last few decades have sought to attribute to Aristotle a robust and even communitarian account of political friendship. Aristotle clearly thinks that the polis community is a robust component of its citizens’ lives and that citizens should be educated in the norms and standards of their specific constitutions.Footnote 37 He repeatedly criticizes the anonymity and unfamiliarity that he thinks is characteristic of large polis communities, especially in a democracy like Athens.Footnote 38 Aristotle repeatedly praises the importance of friendship in the political community, at one point claiming that “we regard friendship as the greatest of goods for the polis, since in this condition people are least likely to factionalize.”Footnote 39 Furthermore, it is one of the great insights of Aristotle’s account of friendship to see constitutions and the relationship between the ruler and the ruled in terms not only of justice but also of ϕιλία.Footnote 40 Finally, it is indisputable that Aristotle refers explicitly to the phrase πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in NE 9.6 and EE 7.7 and 7.10, and the phrase is implied at two other places in the Nicomachean Ethics.Footnote 41 How then can one deny that Aristotle has a substantive account of political friendship?
I have tried to show that, when Aristotle says that like-mindedness is similar to πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EN 9.6, we should not construe either as a kind of utility friendship between citizens. When Aristotle speaks about the advantage at which like-mindedness aims, he has in mind the common advantage, at which just constitutions aim rather than any sort of utility between individuals. Although it is true that Aristotle refers to πολιτικὴ ϕιλία at greater length in the Eudemian rather than the Nicomachean Ethics, I devote an appendix to my paper that argues that πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in the Eudemian Ethics is fundamentally different from like-mindedness in the Nicomachean Ethics. If Aristotle sought to articulate a doctrine of political friendship, the Nicomachean Ethics does an especially poor job of making clear its characteristics, how it is related to other forms of friendship, or how it governs the lives of members of the polis.Footnote 42 Although speculative reconstructions of the nature of political friendship show no signs of abating, such accounts should be kept separate from Aristotle’s relatively robust account of like-mindedness, even though like-mindedness has similarities with a form of political friendship. Characterizing like-mindedness as a form of utility friendship has no textual basis and fundamentally obscures what Aristotle actually has to say about such an important political concept.
Once like-mindedness is freed from speculative reconstructions of what Aristotle means by “political friendship,” we discover an important phenomenon that in microcosm illuminates many of the connections between Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, such as the nature of practical reason, citizen support for a constitution, and the central importance of legislators educating their citizens. The political side of Aristotle’s account of like-mindedness shows that well-functioning political communities must deliberate in common and arrive at important policy decisions about how to promote the goals or purposes of their communities. The ethical side of like-mindedness shows that such well-functioning communities require citizens who rationally wish for or desire what is just, namely the common advantage for that community. And what Bodéüs has shown, 25 years ago for Anglophone readers of Aristotle, is that bringing the ethical and political sides of like-mindedness together requires lawgivers who see as one of their fundamental tasks the ethical training of citizens who will be able to deliberate and decide in common about the best paths for their communities.
Appendix: The Meaning of πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10
EE 7.10 discusses at some length the nature of what it calls πολιτικὴ ϕιλία (or often simply πολιτική).Footnote 43 As noted in my paper, many scholars have complained about the ambiguity of the text but then proceed to interpolate the term’s meaning based on what they think Aristotle should have meant by the term “political friendship.”Footnote 44 My paper has focused on like-mindedness in the Nicomachean Ethics, but numerous exegetes draw upon EE 7.10 to explicate like-mindedness insofar as like-mindedness is identified with political friendship in EN 9.6 and EE 7.7. Such a move strikes me as unwise since the use of the term πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 is significantly different from the term used in EN 9.6.Footnote 45
Aristotle’s discussion of πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 is located almost entirely within two thematically linked passages (1242a1-19 and 1242b21-1243a2), both of which concern reciprocal exchange between individuals. The first passage states that
we say that there are friendships among kin, among comrades, and in a community (so-called πολιτική). Friendship among kin takes many forms, one like that of brothers, another like that between fathers and sons. There is a proportional friendship, like that of a father, and arithmetic friendship, like that among brothers. The latter is very close to the friendship among comrades, since they too compete for privileges. ἡ πολιτικὴ [sc. ϕιλία] exists because of utility (κατὰ τὸ χρήσιμον) above all else. People seem to come together because they are not self-sufficient, though they would also have come together just for the sake of living together. But only ἡ πολιτικὴ and its deviant form go beyond being friendships (ϕιλίαι) and are also communities based on friendship (ϕίλοι κοινωνοῦσιν). The others (αἱ δ’ ἄλλαι) are based on superiority. (7.10.1242a1-10)
I leave the term πολιτική untranslated for the moment, but like the parallel discussions in Nicomachean Ethics 8.12-13, Aristotle begins with a variety of forms of friendship and then moves towards πολιτικὴ ϕιλία as part of an analysis of equal and unequal friendships, which is the main topic of the bulk of EE 7.10.
Scholars who construe the term πολιτική as “political” or “having to do with the polis do so along the lines of construing πολιτικὸν ζῷον as ‘political animal.’”Footnote 46 But that does not seem to work in EE 7.10 for a couple of reasons. First, when Aristotle refers to “ἡ πολιτικὴ and its deviant form,” quite clearly he has in mind a reference to the constitutional form of polity and its “deviant form,” namely democracy. As Malcolm Schofield notes, in this passage “‘political’ derives from ‘politeia,’ in that specific use of the word to mean a popular or relatively popular form of rule in the common interest .… For otherwise the clause ‘and the deviation corresponding to it’ makes no sense” (p. 88). EE 7.9-10 are a continuous text and EE 7.9.1241b29-32 claims that justice and friendship in constitutions and households are isomorphic. The constitutional form of polity is isomorphic with the household relations of brothers or comrades, and thus polity is a stand-in for an egalitarian or republican understanding of justice.Footnote 47
A second reason that “political friendship” will not work for πολιτική is that Aristotle explicitly opposes such friendships to others “based on superiority” (1242a10). EE 7.9 is quite clear that the model of superiority is a reference to the aristocratic and monarchical forms of relations in constitutions and household relations (namely, those based on proportional equality rather than arithmetic equality [7.9.1241b32-40]). I submit that what the author of the Eudemian Ethics has in mind with the locution πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 is not some general notion of civic or political friendship, but rather that sort of egalitarian friendship that is modelled either in the constitutional form of polity or in the fraternal or comradely forms of household relations.Footnote 48 Within the context of EE 7.9-10, the phrase πολιτικὴ ϕιλία should be understood as something like republican or polity friendship, namely that form of ϕιλία appropriate to members of a polity.
Understanding πολιτικὴ ϕιλία as “polity friendship” provides a much better interpretation in the second passage, in which the term clusters (EE 7.10. 1242b21-1243a2). At EE 7.10.1242b2, the Eudemian author takes up the problem of justice within friendships, specifically how to reconcile recriminations or accusations that arise between friendships based either on superiority or equality (EE 7.10.1242b2-5). The remainder of the text then takes up two cases: first, how to reconcile accusations in a friendship between superiors and inferiors (1242b6-21), and second, how to reconcile accusations in friendships between equals (1242b21-1243a2). The characterization of the former invokes the notion of inequality between ruler and ruled or a human and a god, characterizations already used in the specification of monarchic and aristocratic models in constitutions and the household. And the characterization of reconciliation between equals invokes πολιτικὴ ϕιλία as an egalitarian relationship grounded in legal equality.
Let me translate the passage in question using “polity friendship” rather than the usual “political friendship” to show how the egalitarian relationship between citizens provides a model for justice between equals.
Polity friendship is the equal kind. And polity friendship is based on utility; just as cities are friends to each other, so too are citizens in a polity. ‘Athenians no longer recognize Megarians’ and it is the same with citizens, when they aren’t useful to each other; their friendship is a cash-in-hand transaction. Here too there is ruler and ruled, but the relationship is not by nature nor is it monarchical but occurs in rotation, and not for the purpose of benefactions, like a god, but to create an equality in benefits and burdens. Polity friendship in fact tends to be based on equality. (EE 7.10.1242b21-31)
Whereas the account of superiority friendships explicitly invoked the relation of the ruler and the ruled without alteration, the account of equality friendship explicitly makes reference to rule in rotation, namely that form of ruling that, in numerous other places, Aristotle characterizes as the form or rule most characteristic of polity or republican government.
One might object that EE 7.10 provides a broad analysis of different kinds of friendship (i.e., those based on kinship, family, and community) and “polity friendship” is too narrow, since therein Aristotle is juxtaposing different kinds of communities rather that different kinds of political communities. Alternatively, one might concede that EE 7.10 examines polity friendship but then denies that it is fundamentally different from like-mindedness in EN 9.6.Footnote 49 Polity friendship could be understood as a paradigmatic example of like-mindedness (insofar as like-mindedness is predicated equivocally [EE 7.7.1241a23-24]) since it takes place in a constitution that regularly practices practical deliberation. But both objections fail to appreciate that πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 captures a relatively narrow notion of reciprocal exchange, namely one based on utility between two individuals whose exchange is grounded in an agreement. Unlike the like-mindedness examined in EN 9.6, which is primarily characterized as intra-polis consensus, πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 is said exclusively of inter-personal relations. Although it is primarily cities that exhibit like-mindedness, it is individual humans who exhibit polity friendship.
If I am correct, then, to say that the phrase πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EE 7.10 is best thought of as describing friendship specifically in a polity rather than an aristocracy or a monarchy in order to make sense of inter-personal reciprocal exchange, then clearly when Aristotle claims that like-mindedness is like πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in EN 9.6, he cannot mean the same thing as πολιτικὴ ϕιλία in Eudemian Ethics 7.10. Like-mindedness in EN 9.6 characterizes intra-polis consensus and the examples of like-mindedness clearly envision constitutional regimes far less egalitarian than those found in polity. If my analysis is sound, the phrase πολιτικὴ ϕιλία means at least two significantly different things. In EE 7.10, “polity friendship” is a form of utility friendship, modelled on an egalitarian political institution, concerned with reciprocal exchange. In EN 9.6, “political friendship” is a general form of intra-polis consensus on polis actions in both egalitarian and hierarchical political institutions.
Acknowledgements:
My paper originates in commentary I offered on Josh Hayes’ “A Politics to Come: Benevolence and the Nature of Friendship in Aristotle’s Ethics” at the Ancient Philosophy Society annual meeting (April 2018). I am grateful to Josh for stimulating my thoughts on the nature of like-mindedness. I am equally grateful to Richard Bodéüs and my colleagues at the Northeast Political Science Association 50th annual meeting (November 2019) for participating in a panel on the discussion of Bodéüs’ Le philosophe et la cité, at which time I presented an earlier version of this paper. I am especially grateful to Richard for providing extended written comments at the panel discussion; I am also grateful to Peter Simpson for also providing written comments.
