Political and Distributive Justice in the Political Science of Aristotle

Abstract

The modern science of politics has agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government must be based on the rejection of Aristotle's belief that claims to rule might be judged and accepted on their substantive merit as a matter of justice. The present essay examines the premodern approach as found in Aristotle's treatment of the question of regimes in the Politics. It is argued that the interpretation of Aristotle's discussion that understands him to distinguish right and deviant regimes as these are in the interest of ruled or rulers respectively and to seek a resolution of the conflict between claims to rule as a kind or instance of distributive justice is belied by a close reading of his Politics and Nicomachean Ethics and collapses distinctions crucial to Aristotelian political science.

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