From the perspective of understanding classical political thought as both a supplement and a challenge to contemporary theory, it is worth observing that contemporary theorists of citizenship have paid less attention than they might to two important features of classical political thought. First, human excellence or nobility. The great modern ideal of equality has tended to reduce contemporary interest in human excellence or nobility, as opposed to the peaceful virtues suitable to commercial or liberal republics (Rahe 1992; Pettit 1997). However, certain theorists have redirected attention to intellectual and political nobility by referring to the ancient example. Leo Strauss and Thomas Pangle, for example, aspire to ‘‘ennoble’’ liberalism by offering a more aristocratic interpretation of its key principles and possibilities (Strauss 1968; T. Pangle 1992; Lutz 1998). Their goal is to reassert a nonrelative understanding of the perfectibility of human nature, so as to combat the perceived inadequacies of the contemporary liberal world, including relativism, conformism, and the lack of spiritual fulfillment. Often this political aspiration has been coupled with an appreciation of Plato and Aristotle’s belief that political life is incomplete by comparison with the philosophical life. Only philosophy, in the ancient philosophical view, provides the highest fulfillment of human nature and the deepest satisfaction of human longing. Translating such views into a more contemporary idiom, such theorists articulate and defend a principled intellectual life as the best human life altogether, in the spirit of Platonic political philosophy.
Second, the intrinsic worth of the active exercise of political virtue. Although Arendt (1958) and Sandel (1996, 1998) emphasize the intrinsic worth of civic activity, it is possible to discern in classical political thought an even more profound concern with intrinsic goodness than these theorists have recognized. Developing the citizens’ character and prudence, and thus providing citizens with an opportunity for a good life per se, was seen to be an essential task of the ancient political regime (cf. Diamond 1977; Licht 1978). Speaking roughly, at least, the ancient polis existed in order to make citizens good, in the belief that both individual lives and the community as a whole would flourish most fully by this means. In other words, the ancient ‘‘politics of virtue’’ should be understood as ‘‘eudaimonistic’’ - that is, as directed toward the cultivation of virtues of character and intellect as a perfection of human nature. The cultivation of virtues which are good for their own sake enables individuals themselves to lead good, flourishing human lives, even as they contribute in functionally excellent ways to the city. This conception of virtue politics envisions civic virtue as an intrinsically worthwhile (i. e., as a ‘‘final’’ or ‘‘telic’’) constituent of human well-being, as well as an instrumentally useful capacity enabling individuals to coexist in just and stable polities. Seen in this light, the classical politics of virtue strives to bridge the gap between individual self-interest and the demands of the larger political society. This volume as a whole shows that the well-known Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic versions of eudaimonism grew out of, and were developments of, a long, diverse, and exceptionally well-developed Greco-Roman tradition of political thought. This tradition was particularly concerned with understanding how and why the political cultivation of civic virtues and deliberative prudence contributed to the good lives of individual citizens.
This line of interpretation suggests that the classical political philosophy and ideology of civic virtue can be connected to what is now called ‘‘virtue ethics.’’ This is true particularly for the Greek traditions of civic virtue. In ethical philosophy, Elizabeth Anscombe (1958), Rosalind Hursthouse (1999), and Gabriele Taylor (2006), among others, have drawn on ancient, and particularly Aristotelian, thinking about virtue and vice in order to remedy apparent shortcomings in the prevailing Kantian and utilitarian theories. As David Depew shows in chapter 26, however, these neo-Aristotelian philosophers should also take account of virtue and vice as political phenomena, in the spirit of the ancients’ own understanding of the virtues and of eudaimonia. Aristotle, most obviously, perceived ethics as a particular branch of politics, and he regarded his Nicomachean Ethics as the essential preliminary study for his Politics. Again, however, this way of relating ethics to politics was characteristic of classical political ideas and ideologies as a whole. As the essays in this volume indicate, study of ancient Greek and Roman political thought helps to provide a political framework for modern reappropriations of ancient ethics.
Much the same could be said about the resurgence of interest in the political passions. If ancient politics was particularly concerned with citizenly character, then the ancient thinkers were especially well positioned to reflect upon questions of moral and political psychology. Ancient reflections upon the role of the passions in political life have proved to be a fruitful basis for the modern reconsideration of political psychology in all its forms. Contemporary theorists such as Martha Nussbaum (2001), Jon Elster (1999), and Michael Walzer (2004) have taken up with gusto the study of emotion and its political applications, typically in ways that are explicitly and deeply indebted to the Greeks and Romans. The diverse essays by Sissa, Ludwig, Kaster, and Gibert illustrate, among other things, the special importance of Greek and Roman political thought for the study of political emotion and show how broad and pervasive, both chronologically and generically, the ancient interest in political passions came to be. By deepening the conversation (though not, perhaps, the ‘‘quarrel’’) between the ancients and the moderns, these essays strengthen the ancient contribution to our understanding of central, but traditionally neglected, facets of our political experience.
World History
