Is active citizenship necessary to the achievement of eudaimonia?

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Ian Bishop

Is active citizenship necessary to the achievement of eudaimonia?

Aristotle describe the purpose of the state as being to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number of its citizens.  That is, the state exists for the purpose of securing the ‘good life’, or eudaimonia, for its citizenry.  Such happiness is not a means to an end, as almost all other human endeavours are, but it is an end in itself.  Indeed, Aristotle regards it as being the sole end at which humanity should be aimed.  Aristotle articulates modes of achieving such a state of being in the Ethics, and broadly concludes that the supreme form of happiness is derived from noble and virtuous deeds. He decides that happiness is not a disposition, but an activity, because 'if it were [a disposition] it might belong to someone who was asleep throughout his life, or a plant, or to someone who was suffering the greatest misfortune.' Happiness is therefore an activity.   Given this logic, it seems natural to proceed to proceed with the hypothesis that active citizenship is likely to achieve eudaimonia for the citizen.

It is easy to discover in The Politics a theme of encouragement to the active life.  As Aristotle seeks to define the best form of state, he establishes that the best form of life must also be understood.  Breaking down the best form of life into its constituent elements of external good, goods of the body and goods of the soul, Aristotle concludes that the state must supply its people with these determinate types of good, or at least provide an environment in which they may be gained.      These goods, when possessed, create the self-sufficiency that Aristotle believes a state must represent.  This autarkeia is the natural telos of the state, Aristotle argues, and it permits the citizens of a state to have leisure.  It is important to note that self-sufficiency extends beyond an economic idea for Aristotle, and full self sufficiency will consist in a state enabling its citizens to achieve the range of goods necessary for eudaimonia.    This is all significant for it charts Aristotle’s belief in the state as a fundamentally natural institution that exists for something more than the fulfilment of day to day wants.  It is the emergence of the state after family and village structures, that permits, Aristotle believe, citizens to seek eudaimonia.   This is permitted through the accomplishment of self-sufficiency by the state, something that neither family nor village units could fully provide.  Thus if we take Aristotle’s famous assertion that ‘man is by nature a political animal’ and that the goal of the state, itself a natural institution, is the achievement of happiness for its citizens, then this goal must also be natural, for it is an end in itself.   In Book VII, Aristotle states that ‘the Gods are happy and blessed, not by reason of any external good, but in themselves and by reason of their own nature’.  If man is to realise his nature as a political animal, then the state and its goal of eudaimonia are paramount concerns of his, the former as a means to the achievement of the latter.  As the state must achieve self –sufficiency to create circumstances necessary to eudaimonia, then it is clear that at least some form of active citizenship is required to gain the external goods (i.e. material possessions such as wealth, power and reputation) necessary to the autarkeia of the state.

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This leads us to consider whether active citizenship is a means to an end, or whether it itself is intrinsic to the achievement of eudaimonia, that is that without active citizenship one cannot acquire the good life no matter what other goods one possesses.  Aristotle is not very clear in this, possibly because he does not feel the need to restate his moral position voiced in the Ethics.  He holds a clear view that virtuous deeds and noble actions are required to the achievement of happiness, yet he is pragmatic in his awareness that the good man is not ...

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