Aristotle on the Political Preconditions for Human Flourishing

• In Event: Justice, Education, and Human Flourishing in Plato and Aristotle

Abstract

The human being, given its nature, is the animal fit for living in a city, according to Aristotle. What makes the city conducive to human flourishing? Why do other sorts of association or community—the family, the village, a nation, or an empire, for example—all fall short of satisfying our nature? Is the city as conducive as Aristotle asserts, or are there ways in which the city is unfavorable to human flourishing? Why might Aristotle overstate the case for the Greek polis? And if Aristotle is correct, what are the prospects for human flourishing in modernity, when states are the dominant form of association? Is the state a greater obstacle to flourishing, or can we attain a new, distinctly modern form of human flourishing?

Author

• Gregory A. McBrayer, Ashland University