Civic Republicanism

Iseult Honohan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781134616107
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Civic Republicanism is a valuable critical introduction to one of the most important topics in political philosophy. In this book, Iseult Honohan presents an authoritative and accessible account of civic republicanism, its origins and its problems. The book examines all the central themes of this political theory. In the first part of the book, Honohan explores the notion of historical tradition, which is a defining aspect of civic republicanism, its value and whether a continued tradition is sustainable. She also discusses the central concepts of republicanism, how they have evolved, in what circumstances civic republicanism can be applied and its patterns of re-emergence. In the second part of the book, contemporary interpretation of republican political theory is explored and question of civic virtue and participation are raised. What is the nature of the common good? What does it mean to put public before private interests and what does freedom mean in a republican state? Honohan explores these as well as other questions about the sustainability of republican thought in the kind of diverse societies we live in today. Civic Republicanism will be essential reading for students of politics and philosophy.

PART I: The Historical Evolution of Republican Thought

Introduction to Part I

How the cluster of core republican ideas evolved historically is the subject of the chapters in Part I. The approach is essentially chronological, but in each chapter one of the key ideas – civic virtue, freedom, participation and recognition – comes to the fore.

Chapter I

In ancient Athens and Rome, the key question is how justice is related to politics. The answer of the theorists of those times, who are the precursors of this tradition, is broadly that political life is concerned with the full development of citizens’ character; that through politics citizens come to exercise virtue, to which political freedom is secondary.

Chapter II

In the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries the key question considered is the possibility of citizen self-rule as a viable alternative to sovereign power. For Machiavelli and Harrington the primary value of the republic is freedom, and virtue is understood in narrower, or more instrumental, terms. But the obverse of virtue, corruption, is understood as the primary threat within the republic.

Chapter III

In the eighteenth century the question is how far free government can be expanded to include larger numbers of equal citizens in vast territorial states and commercial societies. Here the republican response to centralised despotism or elitism is more fragmented, and participation is understood in a variety of ways. For example, for Madison it is achieved by representative government with federation and separation of powers. For Rousseau only a radically participatory unitary republic is compatible with freedom, and this is threatened by large numbers and substantial inequalities.

Chapter IV

In the contemporary world the key question that political theorists have come to address is whether morally and culturally diverse citizens can be connected more substantially with each other than is envisaged through the institutions and systems of rights in liberal democracy. Here, recognition has emerged as the focal concept of civic republicanism in the work of Arendt and Taylor.

CHAPTER I: The Primacy of Virtue: Aristotle and Cicero

Introduction

Civic republicanism is a modern tradition with roots that extend deeply into the classical past. The exponents of the early modern tradition hark back to ancient theoretical and practical antecedents in Greece and Rome. Machiavelli, Harrington, Madison and Rousseau wrote in very different worlds, but all thought of themselves as building on ancient foundations: the institutions of Athens, Sparta and Rome, the examples of their political heroes, and the ideas of ancient writers, particularly Aristotle and Cicero.

Aristotle and Cicero prefigure many elements of the recurring themes in later republican thinking. They emphasise the value of membership of a political community, and of freedom, contrasted to slavery, as a fragile political achievement, guaranteed by the rule of law and ‘mixed’ government. They connect this with political participation and active citizenship. They stress that the character, or ‘virtues’, of citizens are as important as laws in sustaining a civilised society. They see the role of law in shaping character in a way that is compatible with freedom. Finally they identify the state as a bounded community of citizens who share common goods, clearly distinct in form from the family and other associations.

In later chapters we shall see how the tradition has accumulated dimensions and reordered key elements as it has developed historically from the ancient context. Virtue is the focus of Aristotle’s and Cicero’s political theories, and freedom, while important, plays a secondary role in the service of virtue. Both take for granted that participation in politics will be restricted to a fairly narrow citizen elite. Some issues which are central today are not explicitly addressed by these earlier thinkers. They assume that the state will be relatively homogeneous in important respects, so that citizens gain mutual recognition through public action within a bounded political community.

As well as common themes, we shall see that there are also significant differences between the ideas of Aristotle and Cicero; and different expressions of republicanism can be traced back to one or the other. One strand emphasises political participation, and the other the rule of law as the basis of republican freedom. In recent interpretations of the republican tradition, the link to Cicero and Rome has been given greater prominence, but significant elements of modern republicanism can be traced back to Aristotle’s account of political life.

These political theorists expressed, refined and challenged more widely held contemporary beliefs about political life. In Greece of the sixth century BC, independent city-states of free, self-governing citizens had emerged from kingdoms and tribal groupings. A sense of pride in the achievement of new forms of government, and of the novelty of such political arrangements, elevated the founding acts of men like Solon at Athens and Lycurgus at Sparta, and the deeds of the great men who sustained them. But the democratic polity of Athens and the militarily disciplined state of Sparta represented two rival versions of the city-state that aroused the admiration of later republicans.

Athens – a city-state of peasant citizens, based on agricultural small-holdings and supported by slaves – pioneered the practice of a self-ruling citizenry. All citizens – native-born, adult males, irrespective of wealth – formed a self-governing body, participated extensively in the assembly, on juries and in public offices, and defended their state in arms. In contrast to slaves or the subjects of a monarch (both subject to the will of another), self-ruling citizens were free. Freedom was exemplified in their equality before the law, and their equal rights to speak in the assembly and to serve in office. While individuals competed for fame and success, in principle matters were settled by discussion and deliberation of the citizens, not by force. Political equality was achieved by appointment to office for short terms on a rotating basis, often by lottery. There was no state apparatus separate from the people. Thus each citizen had a chance and a duty to participate in the decisions and practices that framed their lives. Though citizens held private property and lived in households based on the family, political life was valued more highly than private. As Pericles is reported to have said, ‘We do not say that a man who is not interested in politics minds his own business, but that he does not belong here at all’ (Thucydides, 1972: 147). Commerce was left to resident foreigners, and foreigners could not easily become citizens. Although Athens was later to be admired as the cradle of democracy and public architecture, none of the major thinkers of the time articulated a normative theory that supported it. Many were notoriously hostile. Above all, Plato saw democracy as the rule of the poor and ignorant, characterised by excessive liberty and leading ultimately to the usurpation of political power by a tyrant.

In the closer community of Sparta, citizens lived from land granted by the state and worked by a subject race of helots. Family life was minimal: at an early age citizens were taken for education in military discipline; as adults they ate communally, and were organised in military bands that were bound partly by homosexual ties. The criterion of good citizenship was martial vigour and devotion to the polis; those who could not meet this were subject to shame and social exclusion. The good of the political community was paramount over that of individuals or intermediate communities within it. Foreigners were excluded, and, in theory, the ownership of silver and gold was forbidden. Politics was conducted less publicly and less democratically than in Athens, although every citizen had some input in a popular assembly. Most power was divided between two hereditary kings, a board of five officials called ephors, elected in rotation, and a council of elders, popularly elected for life from a priestly caste.

Where Athens represented democratic freedom and political grandeur, Sparta represented civic devotion and military heroism. Its political system was praised as a system of mixed government by those who distrusted the fuller democracy of Athens.

These states were continuously at war either with external enemies or with one another, so that, even in Athens, the norms of civic commitment were intermixed with the competitive norms of warrior honour. But over time specifically political qualities and devotion to the common interest of the state were increasingly valued. The danger posed to political stability by personal ambition for power and greed for wealth was a key problem, giving rise to the conflict between factions (stasis), which undermined the delicate balance of the constitution and led to cyclical upheavals between forms of government.

Ancient thinkers were very conscious that reliably ordered societies that allowed people to live peacefully at a level above mere survival were uncommon and short-lived, and that constructing a political society was a precarious enterprise. Thus it was important to them to establish a connection between politics and virtue rather than force and self-aggrandisement.

In the context of these developments a number of issues arose centrally: What is the purpose of political life? Can power be exercised for the benefit of the citizens, rather than for the good of the rulers alone? What form of politics best realises justice and the good life for citizens? What virtues should citizens have – military or political – and how do the virtues relate to personal success? Is the good life achieved through politics, or independently of it? A separate but related question was whether and how far the mass of the people should have a significant say in politics. Are the common people too ignorant or too self-interested to be given power?

In attributing value to participating in political life according to norms of communal concern, Aristotle and Cicero stand against two other more or less contemporary views. According to one of those views, since only the powerful few can realise themselves, the demands of justice have to be discounted (e.g. the Sophists); according to the other, since justice or virtue are the only ideals worth pursuing, external success may have to be discounted (Plato and the Stoics).

Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 BC) wrote in the closing years of the Athenian democracy. Not himself a citizen of Athens, he came there from Macedonia to study with Plato and returned as a teacher of philosophy. He observed the vicissitudes of the democracy, had to go into exile when anti-Macedonian feeling arose after the rise of Alexander, and he died shortly afterwards.

Aristotle stands at the head of many modern disciplines. He adopted the same observational approach to politics as in his studies of other fields, ranging from biology to metaphysics. But since human affairs vary with circumstances of time and place, he believed that knowledge of political and moral affairs, unlike the exact sciences, requires specific experience and deliberation. In order to pursue the good in life, people need not just general principles, but practical knowledge. In the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics Aristotle draws on a range of contemporary opinions, assessing their coherence and viability, so as to elucidate the individual and political dimensions of a worthwhile life. He concludes that politics provides an essential framework for developing and exercising the virtues that are the key to the pursuit of a good life. Thus in politics they must take account of the common good of the political community, of which they are part.

Material and moral interdependence in the polis

For Aristotle human life has natural goals that can be objectively determined and hierarchically ranked on the basis of our knowledge of human nature. Achieving eudaemonia – best translated as all-round happiness, or human flourishing – depends on realising the potential present at birth. How far this can be accomplished will depend not only on that initial potential, but also on external conditions such as health, prosperity and friends (external goods). Someone in dire poverty or serious ill-health cannot be described as flourishing even if they are unworldly, calm and resigned to their condition. But, on the other hand, pleasure, wealth or honour are limited and intermediate goals, which are less satisfying in the long run than exercising distinctively human capacities, of which reason stands above all.

Association between families, households, villages and polities rests in part on material interdependence between people whose different and complementary qualities promote their prosperity. But they are morally interdependent too. Because people are naturally undetermined as wholly good or wholly bad, but develop their character through acting, the social and political relationships in which they live are crucial to their possibility of self-realisation. Thus, unlike the instrumental relations of a military alliance or business arrangement, members of a polis have an interest in the welfare and character of other citizens, with whom they jointly pursue what is good. ‘A state is an association by kinships and villages which aims at a perfect and self-sufficient life.…The association which is a state exists not for the purpose of living together but for the sake of noble actions’ (Politics 1280b29–1281a9).¹

Aristotle’s famous statement that ‘man is a political animal’ can be unpacked as follows. The political community is the highest, overarching form of association which facilitates development across the whole range of human life in a way that is not possible in the family or smaller social groups. A politics of free and equal citizens is possible because humans are not social just by instinct, but have language and reason (logos), through which they communicate with others, think and evaluate: ‘the real difference between man and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust; it is sharing these matters in common that make a household and a state’ (Politics 1253a7) [my translation]. Politics requires not only theoretical reason, but practical reason (phronesis) to determine what is best in particular circumstances for a community. In a political community of citizens, joint deliberation on questions of value is possible among equals, whereas relationships between husband and wife, father and child and master and slave are marked by ineradicable inequalities.²

This means that anyone who lives outside a political society is lacking something absolutely fundamental to human flourishing. Someone without a polis is almost like a wild animal, or an ‘isolated piece in a board game’ (Politics 1253a1). There is a deep, almost organic, interdependence between citizens and the polis, just as if you ‘separate hand or foot from the whole body, and they will no longer be hand or foot except in name’ (Politics 1253a18).

Virtue and the good human life

In this context, the key to flourishing is developing and actively exercising a character exhibiting different kinds of virtue (arete), through a lifetime shaped by nature, habit and education. This is a broad sense of virtue which includes excellence or superiority of all kinds, as well as ethical goodness (with which virtue is now often identified), and specifically civic virtue (concern for the common goods shared by citizens).

Aristotle speaks of ‘virtues’ in the plural; just as people need a range of external goods, there is also a range of virtues, which fit together in a harmonious life. Some are familiar enough to modern thinking, such as courage, justice, self-control, truthfulness, modesty, self-respect, friendliness, generosity, even-temper; but others seem more incongruous to us, such as pride and magnificence or self-regard. These are not innate qualities; they are dispositions developed through practice, which make those who possess them spontaneously inclined to choose to act in the right way.

‘Acting well’ is not defined in terms of acting altruistically instead of self-interestedly, but of acting to realise properly conceived personal interests. Thus, if you have to choose between earning more and spending more time with your family, this is not a trade-off between happiness and ethical goodness, but a way to realise both, since external goods are just a means towards time spent with family and friends. So acquiring and exercising virtues constitutes self-realisation, not self-sacrifice, and the good life is one of material and ethical success.

For Aristotle, then, virtue is not a matter of subordinating inclination to duty, but an ingrained disposition to act in a certain way that leads to success in every dimension; it is acquired by ‘educating’ the desires, and by harmonising them with reason. We need practical reason to act correctly, because what is best in any case has to be identified in deliberation, and cannot simply be deduced from first principles. Aristotle’s account of the human good has been well described as being simultaneously ‘thick’ (based on a very specific idea of what is essential to human nature) and ‘vague’ (not specified in detail for every instance) (Nussbaum, 1990: 217).

Moreover, simply knowing what is right is not enough, nor is simply possessing the virtues; a worthwhile life needs to be realised in action. Action needs to take place in a social framework, and requires social conditions for its performance. Becoming virtuous requires acculturation, example and education. A good polis allows us to realise goods and exercise the virtues. Thus an important part of virtue will be justice in the narrow sense, giving due consideration to the community, and not overemphasising one’s own claims.

Institutions

Some kinds of political regime foster the development of citizens better than others. Every polis has a guiding principle reflected in the character of its citizens. Democratic citizens are easy-going, citizens in tyrannies fearful, and so on. Political demands and legal constraints can divert people into pursuing power, freedom or wealth instead of the virtues. Only in a good regime is the good man the same as the good citizen (Politics 1332b32).

The institutions of politics are thus of great importance. States can be distinguished on two criteria: the number of those who rule, and the interests they pursue. A state may be ruled by one, few or many people, and it may be ruled in the interests of all (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy) or of the ruler alone (tyranny, oligarchy and ochlocracy or mob rule). The best regimes are those that govern in the interests of all; the others are deviant. However, all regimes are unstable, and the inherent flaws of each kind tend to lead to its replacement by deviant forms, resulting in a cyclical succession of forms amid conflict. Under differing conditions, rule by one man, by few, or by many may be appropriate. But in practice there is rarely one person who is so much superior to the rest as to justify his ruling in the interests of all. An aristocracy of the most virtuous citizens might seem the logically ideal regime, but it is difficult to achieve. Besides, virtues and practical wisdom are more widely distributed among the population, thus justifying some participation for those not in the top echelons. But, at the other extreme, in a democracy the sheer weight of numbers tends to swamp all other considerations, and to deflect from rule in the interests of all. In Aristotle’s view, the Athenian interpretation of equality of access to political life (isegoria) is mistaken, since people are very unequal in talent, wealth and other contributions to society. Political equality should be kept for equals (Politics 1283b13). Bette...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The Problems of Philosophy
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: The Historical Evolution of Republican Thought
• Part II: Contemporary Debates
• Notes
• Bibliography