POLITICAL THEORIES

What is Political Theory?

Political theory is the study of political ideas and values like justice,
power and democracy that we use to describe, understand and assess
political practices and institutions.

Works of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Socrates

“Neither of us knows anything of beauty or of goodness, but he thinks he

knows something when he knows
nothing, and I, if I know nothing, at least never suppose that I do. So it
looks as though I really am a little
wiser than he, just in so far as I do not imagine myself to know things
about which I know nothing at all.”
- Socrates.

Socrates (470-399 B.C.) of Athens was one of the most influential

thinkers in the history of Western civilization. He was known for his
Socratic method, that is to question and question till you are satisfied of
the explanation and you get the full view of the answers plus you
convince the answerer of certain defects or errors in his beliefs or
knowledge. “The unexamined life is not worth living” – this quotation is
the famous precepts of Socrates. It is an emphasis on rationally
determining moral and social principles, which in turn justify our choices
to behave in certain ways. Specific moral and political action should be
guided by reason, not fear or favor.

Socrates’ political ideas are also associated to his ethical beliefs. In his
ethical beliefs he thought about purification by oneself of his own soul to
reach happiness, while in his political beliefs, he extended it further. He
viewed politics as the statesman's task of “tending” the souls of all his
fellow citizens and making them “as good as possible.” Thus, for
Socrates, the knowledge of good is also the foundation of all
statesmanship.

Plato
The historical and epistemological development of democratic theory is
inseparable from critiques of democracy. It is precisely systematically
developed critiques of democracy rather than theoretical elaborations of
democratic thought itself in the history of political theory that provides us
with insights into the concept of democracy and its ontologies. We learn
about democracy from its very first critiques. These critiques reach back
to the very beginnings of democratic political practice itself - Athens of
the 4th and 5th century B.C. Famously, Plato and later Aristotle elaborated
the first systematic critiques of democracy with certain implicit and
sometimes explicit references in their

Utopianism
Just as Socrates develops an account of a virtuous, successful human
being and contrasts it with several defective characters, he also develops
an account of a virtuous, successful city and contrasts it with several
defective constitutions. So the Republic contributes to political
philosophy in two main ways.
To sketch a good city, Socrates does not take a currently or previously
extant city as his model and offer adjustments (see 422e, and
cf. Statesman 293e). He insists on starting from scratch, reasoning from
the causes that would bring a city into being. This makes his picture of a
good city an ideal, a utopia.
The Republic’s utopianism has attracted many imitators, but also
many critics. The critics typically claim that Plato’s political ideal rests
on an unrealistic picture of human beings. The ideal city is conceivable,
but humans are psychologically unable to create and sustain such a city.
According to this charge, then, Plato’s ideal constitution is a
nowhere-utopia (ou-topia = “no place”). But if ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, then
a constitution that cannot exist is not one that ought to exist. So, the
objection goes, Plato’s ideal constitution fails to be an ideal-utopia
(eu-topia = “good place”).
To consider the objection, we first need to distinguish two apparently
ideal cities that Socrates describes. The first, simple city is sketched very
briefly, and is rejected by Glaucon as a “city of pigs” though Socrates
calls it “the healthy city”. It contains no provision for war, and no
distinction among classes. The second, initially called by Socrates a
“fevered city” and a “city of luxuries” but later purified of its luxuries
and characterized as a beautiful city (“Kallipolis,”), includes three classes,
two that guard the city and its constitution (ruling and auxiliary guardians)
and one that produces what the city needs. The charge of “utopianism”
would apply well to the first city Socrates describes. This city resembles a
basic economic model since Socrates uses it in theorizing how a set of
people could efficiently satisfy their necessary appetitive desires
(Schofield 1993). At the center of his model is a principle of
specialization: each person should perform just the task to which he is
best suited. But Socrates’ model makes no provision for reason’s rule,
and he later insists that no one can have orderly appetitive attitudes unless
they are ruled by reason. So the first city cannot exist, by the lights of
the Republic’s account of human nature (Barney 2001). It is a
nowhere-utopia, and thus not an ideal-utopia.
This is not to say that the first city is a mistake. Socrates introduces
the first city not as a free-standing ideal but as the beginning of his
account of the ideal, and his way of starting highlights two features that
make the eventual ideal an ideal. One is the principle of specialization.
With it Socrates sketches how people might harmoniously satisfy their
appetitive attitudes. If reason could secure a society of such people, then
they would be happy, and reason does secure a society of such people in
the third class of the ideal city. (So the model turns out to be a picture of
the producers in Kallipolis.) But the principle can also explain how a
single person could flourish, for a version of it explains the optimal
satisfaction of all psychological attitudes. Indeed, this principle is central
to the first “proof” for the superiority of the just life. The second feature
crucial to Socrates’ ideal enters when Glaucon insists that the first city is
fit for pigs and not human beings. He objects that it lacks couches, tables,
relishes, and the other things required for a symposium, which is the
cornerstone of civilized human life as he understands it (Burnyeat 1999).
Glaucon is not calling for satisfaction of unnecessary appetitive attitudes,
for the relishes he insists on are later recognized to be among the objects
of necessary appetitive attitudes. Rather, he is expressing spirited
indignation, motivated by a sense of what is honorable and fitting for a
human being. He insists that there is more to a good human life than the
satisfaction of appetitive attitudes. This begins to turn Glaucon away
from appetitive considerations against being just. It also completes the
first city’s introduction of the two kinds of arguments for the superiority
of the just life, by appealing, as the pleasure proofs do, to the intrinsic
value of different kinds of psychological satisfaction.
Does the “utopianism” objection apply to the second city, with its
philosopher-rulers, auxiliary guardians, and producers? Some readers
would have Plato welcome the charge. As they understand the Republic,
Socrates sketches the second city not as an ideal for us to strive for but as
a warning against political utopianism or as an unimportant analogue to
the good person. There are a couple of passages to support this approach.
At 472b–473b, Socrates says that the point of his ideal is to allow us to
judge actual cities and persons based on how well they approximate it.
And at 592a–b, he says that the ideal city can serve as a model
(paradeigma) were it ever to come into existence or not. But these
passages have to be squared with the many in which Socrates insists that
the ideal city could in fact come into existence. His considered view is
that although the ideal city is meaningful to us even if it does not exist,
it could exist. Of course, realizing the ideal city is highly unlikely. The
widespread disrepute of philosophy and the corruptibility of the
philosophical nature conspire to make it extremely difficult for
philosophers to gain power and for rulers to become philosophers .
Nevertheless, according to what Socrates explicitly says, the ideal city is
supposed to be realizable. The Laws imagines an impossible ideal, in
which all the citizens are fully virtuous and share everything, but
the Republic is more practical than that (Burnyeat 1992; cf. Griswold
1999 and Marshall 2008). So if Plato does not intend for us to think of
the Republic’s ideal city as a serious goal worth striving for, something
other than Socrates’ explicit professions must reveal this to us.

But if Socrates would not welcome the “utopianism” charge, does he

successfully avoid it? This is not clear. It is difficult to show that the ideal
city is inconsistent with human nature as the Republic understands it.
Socrates supposes that almost all of its citizens—not quite all —have to
reach their fullest psychological potential, but it is not clear that anyone
has to do more than this.
Nevertheless, we might make the “utopianism” charge stick by showing
that the Republic is wrong about human nature. This version of the
criticism is sometimes advanced in very sweeping terms: Plato’s
psychology is “too optimistic” about human beings because it underplays
self-interest, say. In these general terms, the criticism is false. Socrates
builds his theory on acute awareness of how dangerous and selfish
appetitive attitudes are, and indeed of how self-centered the pursuit of
wisdom is, as well. In fact, it might be easier to argue in sweeping terms
that the Republic’s ideal city is too pessimistic about what most people
are capable of, since it consigns most human beings to lives as slaves or
as citizens who are slavishly dependent upon others’ ruling (590c–d).
Still, more specific criticisms of Plato’s psychology may well be tenable,
and these might even show that the Republic is too optimistic about the
possibility of its ideal city.

Such criticism should be distinguished from a weaker complaint

about the Republic’s “utopianism.” One might concede to the Republic its
psychology, concede the possibility of the ideal city, and nevertheless
insist that the ideal city is so unlikely to come about as to be merely
fanciful. A hard-nosed political scientist might have this sort of response.
But this sounds like nothing more than opposition to political theory
proposing ideals that are difficult to achieve, and it is not clear what
supports this opposition. It is not as though political theorizing must
propose ideas ready for implementation in order to propose
ideas relevant to implementation. The Republic’s ideal can affect us very
generally: we can consider the unity and harmony fundamental to it, and
consider whether our own cities and souls should be allowed to fall short
in unity and harmony where they do. But it can also work in more
specific terms: we should be able to recognize and promote the strategies
and policies crucial to the Republic’s ideal, including careful moral
education societally and habitual regulation of appetitive desire
personally, or the equal opportunity for work societally and the
development of multiple kinds of psychological attitudes personally.
So the Republic’s ideal city might be objectionably nowhere-utopian,
but the point is far from obvious. Of course, even if it is not
nowhere-utopian, it might fail to be attractively ideal-utopian. We need to
turn to other features of the second city that have led readers to praise and
blame it.
Communism
One of the most striking features of the ideal city is its abolition of
private families and sharp limitation on private property in the two
guardian classes. Starting with Aristotle (Politics II 1–5), this
communism in the Republic’s ideal city has been the target of confusion
and criticism (see Nussbaum 1980, Stalley 1991, Mayhew 1997). On the
one hand, Aristotle (at Politics 1264a11–22) and others have expressed
uncertainty about the extent of communism in the ideal city. On the other,
they have argued that communism of any extent has no place in an ideal
political community.
There should be no confusion about private property. When Socrates
describes the living situation of the guardian classes in the ideal city, he is
clear that private property will be sharply limited, and when he discusses
the kinds of regulations the rulers need to have in place for the whole city
(421c ff.), he is clear that the producers will have enough private property
to make the regulation of wealth and poverty a concern. But confusion
about the scope of communal living arrangements is possible, due to the
casual way in which Socrates introduces this controversial proposal. The
abolition of private families enters as an afterthought. Socrates says that
there is no need to list everything that the rulers will do, for if they are
well educated, they will see what is necessary, including the fact that
“marriage, the having of wives, and the procreation of children must be
governed as far as possible by the old proverb: friends possess everything
in common”. It is not immediately clear whether this governance should
extend over the whole city or just the guardian classes. Still, when he is
pressed to defend the communal arrangements, Socrates focuses on the
guardian classes , and it seems most reasonable to suppose that the
communism about families extends just as far as the communism about
property does, on the grounds that only the best people can live as friends
with such things in common.
To what extent the communism of the ideal city is problematic is a
more complicated question. The critics claim that communism is either
undesirable or impossible. The charge of impossibility essentially extends
one of Plato’s insights: while Plato believes that most people are
incapable of living without private property and private families, the
critics argue that all people are incapable of living without private
property. This criticism fails if there is clear evidence of people who live
communally. But the critic can fall back on the charge of undesirability.
Here the critic needs to identify what is lost by giving up on private
property and private families, and the critic needs to show that this is
more valuable than any unity and extended sense of family the communal
arrangements offer. It is not clear how this debate should go. Plato’s
position on this question is a stubbornly persistent ideal, despite the
equally stubborn persistence of criticism.
Totalitarianism
Some of the most heated discussions of the politics of
Plato’s Republic have surrounded the charge of totalitarianism famously
advanced by Karl Popper ([1945] 1971). Like the other “isms” we have
been considering, totalitarianism applies to the Republic only
conditionally, depending on the definition of ‘totalitarianism’ offered. But
it is worth thinking through the various ways in which this charge might
be made, to clarify the way the philosopher-rulers wield political
authority over the rest of the city (see Bambrough 1967, Taylor 1986, L.
Brown 1998, and Ackrill 1997).
Critics of Plato’s Republic have characterized the aims of Kallipolis’
rulers as totalitarian. Socrates is quite explicit that the good at which the
rulers aim is the unity of the city . Is this an inherently totalitarian and
objectionable aim?
The problem, Popper and others have charged, is that the rulers aim at
the organic unity of the city as a whole, regardless of the individual
interests of the citizens. But this would be surprising, if true. After all,
the Republic provides a picture not just of a happy city but also of a
happy individual person, and in Book One, Socrates argues that the
ruler’s task is to benefit the ruled. So how could the rulers of Kallipolis
utterly disregard the good of the citizens?
Some readers answer Popper by staking out a diametrically opposed
position (Vlastos 1977). They maintain that Plato conceives of the city’s
good as nothing more than the aggregate good of all the citizens. On this
view, citizens need to contribute to the city’s happiness only because they
need to contribute to the happiness of other citizens if they are to achieve
their own maximal happiness. Any totalitarian control of the citizens is
paternalistic. Yet this view, too, seems at odds with much of the Republic.
When Socrates says that the happiest city is a maximally unified city
(462a–b), or when he insists that all the citizens need to be bound
together (519e–520a), he seems to be invoking a conception of the city’s
good that is not reducible to the aggregate good of the citizens.
So a mixed interpretation seems to be called for (Morrison 2001; cf.
Kamtekar 2001, Meyer 2004, and Brennan 2004). In the Republic, the
good of the city and the good of the individual are independently
specifiable, and the citizens’ own maximal good coincides with the
maximal good of the city. Since Plato believes that this coincidence is
realized only through propagandistic means in the ideal city, the
propaganda is paternalistically targeted at the citizens’ own good but not
exclusively at the citizens’ own good. On this view, if the citizens do not
see themselves as parts of the city serving the city, neither the city nor
they will be maximally happy.
This does not leave Kallipolis’ aims beyond reproach, for one might
well be skeptical of the good of unity, of Plato’s assumption that
individuals reap their own maximal good when the city is most unified, or
of the Republic’s claims about how this unity (and these individual goods)
might be achieved. But it is not obvious that the rulers of Kallipolis have
inherently totalitarian and objectionable aims (cf. Kamtekar 2004).
Kallipolis has more clearly totalitarian features. First, totalitarian
regimes concentrate political power in one bloc and offer the ruled no
alternative. The ideal city of Plato’s Republic is plainly totalitarian in this
respect.
But the concentration of political power in Kallipolis differs in at least
two ways from the concentration in actual totalitarian states. First,
Socrates insists that in the ideal city, all the citizens will agree about who
should rule. This agreement is the city’s moderation, caused by the city’s
justice. Socrates also suggests some ways of explaining how the
non-philosophers will agree that the philosophers should rule. First, he
offers a way of persuading those who lack knowledge that only the
philosophers have knowledge, which in effect offers a way of explaining
to the non-philosophers that only the philosophers have the knowledge
required to rule. Second, he suggests that the non-philosophers will be
struck by the philosophers’ obvious virtue. (Their virtue would be
especially striking to the producers, since the philosophers do without
private property, which the producers love so much.) Finally, he suggests
that in Kallipolis, the producers will be grateful to the guardian classes
for keeping the city safe and orderly, wherein they can achieve their good,
as they see it, by optimally satisfying their necessary appetitive attitudes.
The second way in which Kallipolis’ concentration of political power
is special that it does not concentrate anything good for the rulers.
Socrates is clear that the philosophers despise political power, and they
rule not to reap rewards but for the sake of the ruled, because their justice
obligates them to obey the law that commands them to rule. In fact, the
rulers of Kallipolis benefit the ruled as best they can, helping them realize
the best life they are capable of. These benefits must include some
primary education for the producer class, to make good on the
commitment to promote especially talented children born among the
producers and to enable the producers to recognize the virtue in the
philosophers. But the benefits extend to peace and order: the producers do
not have to face warfare.
A second totalitarian feature of Kallipolis is the control that the rulers
exert over daily life. There is nothing especially totalitarian about the rule
of law pervasive in Kallipolis (see esp. 415d–e, and cf. the laws that
apply to the rulers, such as the marriage law and the law commanding
philosophers to rule) (Meyer 2006 and Hitz 2009). But the rulers control
mass culture in the ideal city, and they advance a “noble lie” to convince
citizens of their unequal standing and deep tie to the city. This
propagandistic control plainly represents a totalitarian concern, and it
should make us skeptical about the value of the consent given to the
rulers of Kallipolis.
It is one thing to identify totalitarian features of Kallipolis and another
thing to say why they are wrong. Three very different objections suggest
themselves. First, we might reject the idea of an objectively knowable
human good, and thus reject the idea that political power should be in the
hands of those who know the human good. Here we should distinguish
between Plato’s picture of the human good and the very idea of an
objective human good, for even if we want to dissent from Plato’s view,
we might still accept the very idea. At least, it does not seem implausible
to suppose that some general psychological capacities are objectively
good for their possessors (while others are objectively bad), and at that
point, we can ask whether political power should be used to foster the
good capacities and to restrain or prevent the bad ones. Given that
state-sponsored education cannot but address the psychological capacities
of the pupils, only very austere political systems could be supported by a
thorough-going skepticism about the human good.
Second, we might accept the idea of an objectively knowable human
good, but be wary of concentrating extensive political power in the hands
of a few knowers. We might reject Plato’s apparent optimism about the
trustworthiness of philosopher-rulers and insist on greater checks upon
political power, to minimize the risks of abuse. If this is our objection,
then we might wonder what checks are optimal.
Politics, Part Two: Defective Constitutions
The best human life is ruled by knowledge and especially knowledge
of what goodness is and of what is good for human beings. So, too, is the
best city. For Plato, philosophers make the ideal rulers for two main
reasons. First, they know what is good. Second, they do not want to rule
(esp. 520e–521b). The problem with existing cities is correspondingly
twofold. They are ruled by people who are ignorant of what is good, and
they suffer from strife among citizens all of whom want to rule. These
flaws are connected: the ignorant are marked by their desire for the wrong
objects, such as honor and money, and this desire is what leads them to
seek political power. All existing regimes, whether ruled by one, a few, or
many, show these defects. So in the Republic Socrates does not
distinguish between good and bad forms of these three kinds of regime,
as the Stranger does in the Plato’s Statesman (301a–303b, cf.
Aristotle, Politics III 7).
Nonetheless, Socrates has much to say in Books Eight and Nine about
the individual character of various defective regimes. He organizes his
account to emphasize appetite’s corrupting power, showing how each
defective regime can, through the corruption of the rulers’ appetites,
devolve into a still worse one (Hitz 2010, Johnstone 2011). In the
timocracy, for example, nothing checks the rulers from taking money to
be a badge of honor and feeding their appetites, which grow in private
until they cannot be hidden anymore. The account is thus deeply
informed by psychology. It does not purport to be an account of what has
happened (despite Aristotle’s treatment of it in Politics V 12), any more
than Books Two through Seven purport to give an historical account of an
ideal city’s genesis. It is not, for all that, ahistorical, for Plato’s concerns
about corruption are clearly informed by his experiences and his
understanding of history. The account, psychologically and historically
informed, does not offer any hint of psychological or historical
determinism. Socrates does not identify the transitions from one defective
regime to the next as inevitable, and he explicitly allows for transitions
other than the ones he highlights. This is just one story one could tell
about defective regimes. But this particular story is valuable as a morality
tale: it highlights the defective regimes’ vulnerability to the corruption of
the rulers’ appetites.
The political psychology of Books Eight and Nine raises a host of
questions, especially about the city-soul analogy. Is the account of
political change dependent upon the account of psychological change, or
vice versa? Or if this is a case of mutual interdependence, exactly what
accounts for the various dependencies? It seems difficult to give just one
answer to these questions that will explain all of the claims in these books,
and the full, complex theory that must underlie all of the claims is by no
means clear.
But those questions should not obscure the political critiques that
Socrates offers. First, he criticizes the oligarchs of Athens and Sparta. His
list of five regimes departs from the usual list of rule by one, rule by a
few, and rule by many (cf. 338d) because he distinguishes among three
different regimes in which only a few rule. He contrasts the ideal city, in
which the wise rule, and two would-be aristocracies, the timocracy in
which the militaristically “virtuous” rule and the oligarchy in which the
rich rule. Socrates argues that these are not genuine aristocracies, because
neither timocracy nor oligarchy manages to check the greed that
introduces injustice and strife into cities. This highlights the deficiencies
of the Spartan oligarchy, with its narrow attention to valor (cf. Laws, esp.
Books One and Two), and of the Athenian oligarchs, many of whom
pursued their own material interests narrowly, however much they eyed
Sparta as a model. So the Republic distances Plato from oligarchic parties
of his time and place.
Second, Socrates criticizes the Athenian democracy, as Adeimantus
remarks. Many readers think that Socrates goes over the top in his
description, but the central message is not so easy to dismiss. Socrates
argues that without some publicly entrenched standards for evaluation
guiding the city, chaos and strife are unavoidable. Even the timocracy and
oligarchy, for all their flaws, have public standards for value. But
democracy honors all pursuits equally, which opens the city to conflict
and disorder.
Some readers find a silver lining in this critique. They note that the
democracy’s tolerance extends to philosophers , allowing such things as
the conversation that Socrates, Glaucon, and the others are having . But
the Republic also records considerable skepticism about democratic
tolerance of philosophers, and does not say that only a democracy could
tolerate philosophers.
 Still, some readers have tried to bring the Republic’s judgment of
democracy into line with the Statesman, where the Stranger ranks
democracy above oligarchy. I doubt that Socrates explicit ranking in
the Republic should count for less than some imagined implicit ranking,
but we might still wonder what to make of the apparent contrast between
the Republic and Statesman. Perhaps the difference is insignificant, since
both democracies and oligarchies are beset by the same essential strife
between the rich (oligarchs) and poor (democrats) (422e–423a). Perhaps,
too, the Republic and Statesman appear to disagree only because Plato
has different criteria in view. Or perhaps he just changed his mind. The
ideal city of the Laws, which Plato probably wrote shortly after
the Statesman, accords a greater political role for unwise citizens than
the Republic does (see Plato: on utopia).
A central goal of politics is harmony or agreement among the citizens
about who should rule. Harmony requires that the city cultivate virtue and
the rule of law. The consistency of these messages across several Platonic
dialogues might well make us so bold as to think that they are the
take-home message of the Republic’s politics.

Aristotle

“Since we see that every city-state is a sort of community and that every community
is established for the sake of some good (for everyone does everything for the sake of
what they believe to be good), it is clear that every community aims at some good,
and the community which has the most authority of all and includes all the others
aims highest, that is, at the good with the most authority. This is what is called the
city-state or political community.”

Aristotle defines the constitution as “a certain ordering of the

inhabitants of the city-state” . He also speaks of the constitution of a
community as “the form of the compound” and argues that whether the
community is the same over time depends on whether it has the same
constitution . The constitution is not a written document, but an immanent
organizing principle, analogous to the soul of an organism. Hence, the
constitution is also “the way of life” of the citizens . Here the citizens are
that minority of the resident population who possess full political rights.

Aristotle states, “The politician and lawgiver is wholly occupied with

the city-state, and the constitution is a certain way of organizing those
who inhabit the city-state”. His general theory of constitutions is set forth
in Politics III. He begins with a definition of the citizen (politês), since
the city-state is by nature a collective entity, a multitude of citizens.
Citizens are distinguished from other inhabitants, such as resident aliens
and slaves; and even children and seniors are not unqualified citizens (nor
are most ordinary workers). After further analysis he defines the citizen
as a person who has the right (exousia) to participate in deliberative or
judicial office. In Athens, for example, citizens had the right to attend the
assembly, the council, and other bodies, or to sit on juries.
Aristotle defines the constitution (politeia) as a way of organizing the
offices of the city-state, particularly the sovereign office (III.6.1278b8–10;
cf. IV.1.1289a15–18). The constitution thus defines the governing body,
which takes different forms: for example, in a democracy it is the people,
and in an oligarchy it is a select few (the wealthy or well born). Before
attempting to distinguish and evaluate various constitutions Aristotle
considers two questions. First, why does a city-state come into being? He
recalls the thesis, defended in Politics I.2, that human beings are by
nature political animals, who naturally want to live together.

The Works and Writings of St. Augustine

Even though those elected for salvation and those elected for
damnation are thoroughly intermingled, the distinction arising from their
respective destinies gives rise to two classes of persons, to whom
Augustine refers collectively and allegorically as cities—the City of God
and the earthly city. Citizens of the earthly city are the unregenerate
progeny of Adam and Eve, who are justifiably damned because of
Adam’s Fall. These persons, according to Augustine, are aliens to God’s
love (not because God refuses to love them, but because they refuse to
love God as evidenced by their rebellious disposition inherited from the
Fall). Indeed, the object of their love—whatever it may be—is
something other than God. In particular, citizens of the “earthly city” are
distinguished by their lust for material goods and for domination over
others. On the other hand, citizens of the City of God are “pilgrims and
foreigners” who (because God, the object of their love, is not
immediately available for their present enjoyment) are very much out of
place in a world without an earthly institution sufficiently similar to the
City of God. No political state, nor even the institutional church, can be
equated with the City of God. Moreover, there is no such thing as “dual
citizenship” in the two cities; every member of the human family belongs
to one—and only one.

Justice and the State

 The Augustinian notion of justice includes what by his day was a
well-established definition of justice of “giving every man his
due.” However, Augustine grounds his application of the definition in
distinctively Christian philosophical commitments: “justice,” says
Augustine, “is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all
else.” Accordingly, justice becomes the crucial distinction between ideal
political states (none of which actually exist on earth) and non-ideal
political states—the status of every political state on earth. For example,
the Roman Empire could not be synonymous with the City of God
precisely because it lacked true justice as defined above; and since,
“where there is no justice there is no commonwealth,” Rome could not
truly be a commonwealth, that is, an ideal state. “Remove justice,”
Augustine asks rhetorically, “and what are kingdoms but gangs of
criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty
kingdoms?” No earthly state can claim to possess true justice, but only
some relative justice by which one state is more just than
another. Likewise, the legitimacy of any earthly political regime can be
understood only in relative terms: The emperor and the pirate have
equally legitimate domains if they are equally just.
Nevertheless, political states, imperfect as they are, serve a divine
purpose. At the very least, they serve as vehicles for maintaining order
and for preventing what Hobbes will later call the “war of all against
all.” In that respect, the state is a divine gift and an expression of divine
mercy—especially if the state is righteously ruled. The state maintains
order by keeping wicked men in check through the fear of
punishment. Although God will eventually punish the sins of all those
elected for damnation, He uses the state to levy more immediate
punishments against both the damned and the saved (or against the
wicked and the righteous, the former dichotomy not necessarily
synonymous with the latter). Rulers, as God’s ministers, punish the
guilty and always are justified in punishing sins “against nature,” and
circumstantially justified in punishing sins “against custom” or “against
the laws.” The latter two categories of sins change from time to time. In
this regard, the institution of the state marks a relative return to order
from the chaos of the Fall. Rulers have the right to establish any law that
does not conflict with the law of God. Citizens have the duty to obey their
political leaders regardless of whether the leader is wicked or
righteous. There is no right of civil disobedience. Citizens are always
duty bound to obey God; and when the imperatives of obedience to God
and obedience to civil authority conflict, citizens must choose to obey
God and willingly accept the punishment of disobedience. Nevertheless,
those empowered to levy punishment should take no delight in the
task. For example, the prayer of the judge who condemns a man to death
should be, as Augustine’s urges, “From my necessities [of imposing
judgment to a person] deliver thou me.”

Church and State

Even though the ostensible reason for the state’s divinely appointed
existence is to assist and bless humankind, there is no just state, says
Augustine, because men reject the thing that best could bring justice to an
imperfect world, namely, the teachings of Christ. Augustine does not
suggest that current rejection of Christ’s teachings means that all hope for
future amendment and reformation is lost. However, Augustine’s whole
tenor is that there is no reason to expect that the political jurisdictions of
this world ever will be anything different than what they now are, if the
past is any predictor of the future. Hence, Augustine concludes that
Christ’s servants, whether they are kings, or princes, or judges, or
soldiers . . . are bidden, if need be, to endure the wickedness of an utterly
corrupt state, and by that endurance to win for themselves a place of
glory . . . in the Heavenly Commonwealth, whose law is the will of God.
Augustine clearly holds that the establishment and success of the
Roman Empire, along with its embracing of Christianity as its official
religion, was part of the divine plan of the true God. Indeed, he holds
that the influence of Christianity upon the empire could be only salutary
in its effect:

Were our religion listened to as it deserves,” says Augustine, “it

would establish, consecrate, strengthen, and enlarge the commonwealth
in a way beyond all that Romulus, Numa, Brutus, and all the other men of
renown in Roman history achieved.
Still, while Augustine doubtless holds that it is better for Rome to be
Christian than not, he clearly recognizes that officially embracing
Christianity does not automatically transform an earthly state into the
City of God. Indeed, he regards Rome as “a kind of second
Babylon.” Even if the Roman Emperor and the Roman Pontiff were one
and the same—even if the structures of state and church merged so as to
become institutionally the same—they would not thereby become the
City of God, because citizenship in the City of God is determined at the
individual and not the institutional level.
Augustine does not wish ill for Rome. Quite the contrary, he
supplicates God for Rome’s welfare, since he belongs to it, in temporal
terms at least. He sees Rome as the last bastion against the advances of
the pagan barbarians, who surely must not be allowed to overrun the
mortal embodiment of Christendom that Rome represents. Nevertheless,
Augustine cannot be overly optimistic about the future of the Roman state
as such—not because it is Rome, but because it is a state; for any society
of men other than the City of God is part and parcel of the earthly city,
which is doomed to inevitable demise. Even so, states like Rome can
perform the useful purpose of championing the cause of the Church,
protecting it from assault and compelling those who have fallen away
from fellowship with it to return to the fold. Indeed, it is entirely within
the provinces of the state to punish heretics and schismatics.

JOHN OF SALISBURY ON TYRANNY (12th c.)

Wherein the prince differs from the tyrant has already been set forth
above. . . . Wherefore it will be easier to make known here, and in fewer
words, the opposite characteristics of the tyrant. A tyrant, then, as the
philosophers have described him, is one who oppresses the people by
rulership based upon force, while he who rules in accordance with the
laws is a prince. Law is the gift of god, the model of equity, a standard of
justice, a likeness of the divine will, the guardian of well being a bond of
union and solidarity between peoples, a rule defining duties, a barrier
against the vices and the destroyer thereof, a punishment of violence and
all wrong-doing. The law is assailed by force or by fraud, and, as it were,
either wrecked by the fury of the lion or undermined by the wiles of the
serpent. In whatever way this comes to pass, it is plain that it is the grace
of God which is being assailed, and that it is God himself who in a sense
is challenged to battle. The prince fights for the laws and the liberty of the
people; the tyrant thinks nothing done unless he brings the laws to nought
and reduces the people to slavery. Hence the prince is a kind of likeness
of divinity; and the tyrant, on the contrary, a likeness of the boldness of
the Adversary, even of the wickedness of Lucifer, imitating him that
sought to build his throne to the north and make himself like unto the
Most High, with the exception of his goodness. For had he desired to be
like unto Him in goodness, he would never have striven to tear from Him
the glory of His power and wisdom. What he more likely did aspire to
was to be equal with him in authority to dispense rewards. The prince, as
the likeness of the Deity, is to be loved, worshipped and cherished; the
tyrant, the likeness of wickedness, is generally to be even killed. The
origin of tyranny is iniquity, and springing from a poisonous root, it is a
tree which grows and sprouts into a baleful pestilent growth, and to which
the axe must by all means be laid. For if iniquity and injustice, banishing
charity, had not brought about tyranny, firm concord and perpetual peace
would have possessed the peoples of the earth forever, and no one would
think of enlarging his boundaries. Then kingdoms would be as friendly
and peaceful, according to the authority of the great father Augustine, and
would enjoy as undisturbed repose, as the separate families in a
well-ordered state, or as different persons in the same family; or perhaps,
which is even more credible, there would be no kingdoms of all, since it
is clear from the ancient historians that in the beginning these were
founded by iniquity as presumptuous encroachments against the Lord, or
else were extorted from Him.

The City of God

The work of Augustine’s most likely to be known to modern students
of political thought is The City of God. Although this work was often
copied in the middle ages (382 manuscripts have survived), a reading of
the whole work was never part of the university curriculum. Extracts
from it were included in influential anthologies, such as
Gratian’s Decretum and Peter Lombard’s Sentences.
Two cities, the city of God and the earthly city, are distinguished by
two loves, love of God and (misdirected) love of self, and by two
destinies, heaven and hell. Augustine’s most famous contribution to
theology was the doctrine of predestination, a position that only became
pronounced later in life. God has decreed from all eternity that to some he
will give the grace (special help) needed to attain eternal salvation, while
the rest of mankind (the majority) will go to eternal
damnation—the massa damnata (City of God, XXI.12, p. 1070).
Salvation requires the grace of “final perseverance”, i.e., the grace of
being in friendship with God at the moment of death. Some who live well
for most of their lives may fall away at the very end. Thus we cannot tell
for sure who is predestined to salvation. Since the city of God consists of
those predestined to salvation, we cannot be sure of its membership. The
city of God is not identical with the Church, since not all members of the
Church will be saved. The earthly city is not identical with any particular
state, since some members of a state may be predestined to salvation. A
particular state may include citizens of both cities.
Although the members of the two cities have different ultimate values,
they may have intermediate ends in common—for example, they all
desire peace on earth. Insofar as any particular state serves such common
ends it will have the cooperation of members of the city of God (City of
God, XIX.17, p. 945–7). As a Platonist Augustine thought in terms of a
hierarchy of levels of reality, in which lower levels imitate or reflect the
higher levels. Augustine’s is not a philosophy of “black and white”, of
stark opposition between the forces of light and the forces of
darkness—this was the Manichean philosophy, to which Augustine at one
time subscribed, until the reading of certain works of the Platonists had
led him to reject it. According to Augustine there is no absolute evil
(see City of God XI.22, XII.2, 3,
7; Confessions VII.xii.18–xiii.19; Enchiridion 11–12). Anything evil
must be to some extent good, or it could not exist at all. Its evil consists in
disorder or misdirection, in its failing to attain all the goodness
appropriate to it.
The peace of all things lies in the tranquillity of order, and
order is the disposition of equal and unequal things in such a
way as to give to each its proper place. (City of God, XIX.13,
p. 938)
There are many orderings and sub-orderings, and there are therefore
different kinds or levels of peace, and (for beings capable of moral choice)
different kinds or levels of virtue, justice and happiness.[12]
True virtue presupposes obedience to the true God. But something like
true virtue, namely love of honour, may lead to something like justice and
peace, as it did in the Roman Republic (City of God, V.12). Earlier,
Augustine had offered to prove that by Cicero’s definition, the Romans
never had a republic: “I shall attempt to show that no such
commonwealth ever existed, because true justice was never present in it”
(City of God II.21, p. 80; see also the entry on ancient political
philosophy (§6. Cicero and the Roman Republic), since the Romans did
not obey the true God (cf. XIX.21). But this is only an argumentum ad
hominem. As Augustine says, “There was, of course, according to a more
practicable definition, a commonwealth of a sort” (II.21, p. 80). It is only
by an unduly narrow definition that it can be said that non-Christians
cannot form a commonwealth. Motivated by love of honour, the Romans
were able to live together in an approximation to peace, justice and
happiness, though not in “true” peace, justice and happiness. Justice in
some measure is essential to anything that deserves to be called a
commonwealth.
Justice removed, then, what are kingdoms but great bands of
robbers?… It was a pertinent and true answer which was
made to Alexander the Great by a pirate whom he had seized.
When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea,
the pirate defiantly replied: “The same as you do when you
infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I
 am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet,
you are an emperor”. (City of God, IV.4, p. 147–8)

Some medieval writers, whom some modern historians have called

“Political Augustinians”,[13] inferred from Augustine’s discussion of
Cicero’s definition of a republic that among non-Christians there can be
no community. According to Giles of Rome (d. 1316), among others,
non-Christians can have no property rights and no political rights, since
such things presuppose membership of a community, and only Christians
can form a true community. But the views of these so-called Political
Augustinians were generally rejected by other medieval political thinkers.
We should not infer that Augustine believed only good Christians can be
rulers. Nevertheless, he believes that Christian virtue, if observed, makes
for better government (City of God, V.24, p. 232).
Among medieval Christians there were at least three views of the
goods and evils of government:

Government may be, and should be, rule by the ideal Christian
ruler, whom Protestants later called “the godly prince”; such a ruler
would lead his people in obedience to God.

Government may be simply a wicked tyranny, an expression of the

“earthly city”. As Pope Gregory VII (1081) once wrote:
Who does not know that kings and dukes had their
rulership from those who, not knowing God, strove
from blind greed and intolerable presumption to
dominate their equals, namely mankind, by pride,
rapine, perfidy, murder, and crimes of all sorts, urged
on by the ruler of the world, i.e., the devil? (Gregory
VII 1081: 552; see also Poole 1920: 201, fn. 5)

Government exists to organise the cooperation of “men of good

will” (to use a modern phrase), i.e., citizens of the two cities united
by an interest in earthly peace and other earthly goods valued by
both Christians and others. Such a limited view of the goals of
government is found in Marsilius and Ockham (McGrade 1974:
109–33).
Medieval Life and Thought

Civil and Canon Law

Historians point to another “renaissance” (i.e., another stage in the
re-appropriation of the culture of antiquity) during the twelfth century.
This “renaissance of the twelfth century” included a revival in the study
of civil law, i.e., the Roman law as codified and digested by Justinian and
his officials (the Corpus iuris civilis, 533/4), and this stimulated and
influenced the study of canon law, beginning with Gratian’s Decretum.
Ideas that medieval political thinkers took—in different ways and to
different degrees—from the law texts included the following:

A distinction among kinds of laws, namely natural law (ius

naturale), law of nations (ius gentium), and civil law (i.e., the law
of a particular community). The law textbooks were perhaps the
main source of the idea of natural law, so important to later
medieval political thought. This idea can be traced back to Cicero,
to the Stoics, and to Aristotle, but most medieval political
philosophers encountered it in Gratian’s Decretum. (As a rule,
medieval theologians and philosophers evince a greater familiarity
with the collections of canon law than with the Corpus iuris
civilis.)

A notion of rights, including natural rights (“human rights” as

we would say), attributable to individuals. It is noteworthy that the
language of rights, without which many people these days would
not know how to talk about politics, did not fully enter political
philosophy until the fourteenth century as a borrowing from the
law.

A belief in “the one liberty of all men”, that is, the idea that
human beings are basically equal and that slavery is contrary to
natural law, though in accordance with the law of nations.

An account, or rather two accounts, of the origin of property:

according to some Roman law texts, property originated by natural
law; according to others by the law of nations. According to canon
law, property exists by human law (which includes the law of
nations and the civil law); compare Augustine’s statement that
property exists by the laws of the emperors .

A canon law doctrine that human law cannot altogether abolish

the original commonness of things under natural law. Property
owners must help the poor, and in cases of necessity, a person may
assert the natural right to use anything needed to sustain life.

The doctrine that the source of political authority is the people,

who have, however, entrusted their power to the emperor or other
ruler.

The doctrine that either the pope or emperor (or both) has a
“fullness of power”.

The doctrine that natural law permits an individual to resist

force by force (Digest 1.1.3; D. 1 c. 7, trans. in Gratian [c. 1140]
1993: 7). This doctrine would provide a premise for arguments for
the right to resist a tyrannical government, used later by Locke.

A distinction between Church and State—more exactly,

between the priesthood and the power of the emperor, each
independent in its own sphere, though the priesthood has the higher
function. The classic place for this doctrine is the canon Duo
sunt. Another canon, Cum ad verum, gave reasons for the
separation: mutual limitation of their powers would restrain the
pride of priest and emperor, and those on God’s service (the clergy)
should be kept free of worldly entanglements (D. 96 c. 6; translated
in Tierney 1980: 14–15). This was also the force of the
canons Sicut enim and Te quidem.

Various legal ideas relating to corporations and representation

(including the distinction between a head’s capacity as head and
his private capacity), the need for meetings to deal with common
concerns (“what touches everyone must be discussed and approved
by everyone”) and majority decision (or some qualified version
 thereof) when there is no unanimity (decision by “the greater and
sounder part”).

Of these points, what was probably most important for medieval

political philosophy was the idea of natural law.

Natural Law and Natural Rights

Complex reflections on natural law were prompted by a text of

Isidore of Seville (quoted in D. 1 c. 7; Gratian 1993: 6–7). According to
Isidore, natural law includes
the common possession of all things, the one liberty of all,
and the acquisition of what is taken from air, land and sea;
also, the restitution of a thing or money left for safekeeping.
The common possession of all things seems inconsistent with the
acquisition and restitution of property.
One of the early commentators on Gratian, Rufinus, distinguished
within natural law between commands or prohibitions, to which there can
be no exceptions, and “indications” (demonstrationes) pointing out what
is better but not always obligatory. Thus natural law not only lays down
rules but also recommends ideals. The “one liberty of all men” and
“common possession of all things” belong to the “indications”. Since the
indications do not impose strict obligations, human laws can for good
reasons set them aside. To do so may even serve the recommended ideals,
under some circumstances.

For example… it was established that those who

pertinaciously rebelled against those who have authority
over them would be perpetually slaves when defeated and
captured in war… that [they]… should thereafter become
gentle…
—a purpose recommended by natural law (trans. Lewis 1954: vol. 1, 38;
see Tierney 2014: 23–8).

One of the founders of Franciscan theology, Alexander of Hales,

reported Rufinus’s distinction and a similar distinction by Hugh of St
Victor (Alexander of Hales [c. 1240] 1948: vol. 4, 348, 351–2) but also
suggested another way of resolving the inconsistency in Isidore’s list,
based on Augustine’s explanation of how the same God can be the author
of the Old Law and of the New: namely, that the same principles may
require different particular rules for different circumstances. According to
Alexander, Isidore’s list is not inconsistent after all, since natural law
prescribes community for the state of innocence and respect for property
for the fallen state. The leading Franciscan theologian of the next
generation, Bonaventure, adopted a similar position.
Building on these ideas, Ockham developed a distinction between
three kinds of natural law, according to which some principles of natural
law apply everywhere and always, some applied only in the state of
innocence, and some apply only “on supposition”, viz. on the supposition
of some voluntary act (e.g., an agreement or an act of legislation), unless
those concerned agree on something else. Thus “the common possession
of all things, the one liberty of all” belonged to the natural law in the state
of innocence, but “the acquisition of what is taken from air, land and sea;
also, the restitution of a thing or money left for safekeeping” belonged to
natural law “on supposition”—supposing Adam’s sin, and supposing that
human law has since made a division of property, it is a requirement of
natural law to respect others’ property (William of Ockham, Letter:
286–93; commentary in Kilcullen 2001a, Tierney 2014: 103–16). Many
things that belong to the law of nations are also natural laws of the third
kind.
Besides natural law, scholastic thinkers developed a notion of natural
rights, borrowing the notion of a right from the canon lawyers. A natural
right may be simply something that natural law requires or permits. But
according to some, natural rights to certain freedoms belong to natural
law “positively”, in the sense that there is a presumption in their favour,
so that they cannot be abolished, at least not for all circumstances, or
cannot be abolished except for good reasons. Medieval natural rights
foreshadow modern “human rights” (Tierney 1997; Mäkinen and
Korkman 2006; Mäkinen 2010; Kilcullen 2010c,d; and Robinson 2014a).
Aristotle’s Politics
Another aspect of the “renaissance of the twelfth century” was the
translation into Latin of many Greek and Arabic philosophical and
scientific writings (see the section on “new translations” in the entry
on medieval philosophy). The market for these translations included the
teachers, students and alumni of the urban schools, which in the early
thirteenth century began to form universities. The universities set the
curriculum followed in the schools of the town, and, given Aristotle’s
fame, competition for students between the schools of different towns
soon meant that Aristotle’s works became the main element in the Arts
curriculum (despite the misgivings of the theologians, who noted the
conflicts between Aristotle’s philosophy and Christian belief).
Ideas which medieval political writers took from Aristotle (or which
Aristotle reinforced) include the following:

It is natural for human beings to form cities. “Political” [i.e., city] life
is natural to human kind. On the face of it, this is in conflict with
Augustine.

The city or state exists not just for security and trade, but to foster the
“good life”, the life according to virtue (Politics III.9, 1280 a32–b35).

Some human beings are slaves “by nature”, i.e., there are, or may be,
human beings marked out by nature for subordination to the interests
of others. Natural slaves are human beings naturally lacking in
intelligence and in capacity to achieve virtue or happiness.This
conflicted with the thinking of the New Testament , the lawyers and
the Stoics and the Fathers of the Church.

Women should, in general, be ruled by men (Politics I.5, 1254 b13).

The inferiority of women was already the general opinion, but
Aristotle reinforced it, not only by what he said in the Politics but also
by his biological theories.

There are various forms of government, of which some are good and
some are perversions. The good forms seek “the common good”, i.e.,
the good of both ruler and ruled. The best is kingship, the worst
tyranny. “The common good” became a basic conception in medieval
political philosophy (Kempshall 1999; McGrade, Kilcullen, and
Kempshall 2001).

There is a “best” regime, the form of government that best fosters the
common good. The “ideal polity” was not a topic of pre-Aristotelian
medieval thought, but it became a common theme (e.g., William of
Ockham, Letter: 311–23; see Blythe 1992).

“The rule of law” is better than “the rule of men”, i.e., it is better to
have rules impartially applied than to leave every decision to the
unfettered discretion of the rulers. This accorded with the earlier
medieval idea that the difference between a king and a tyrant is that
the king observes the law .

However, since no legislator can foresee every case that may arise, the
rule of law must be tempered by epieikeia, “equity”, the making of
 exceptions to general rules when exceptional cases arise
(Nicomachean Ethics V.10, and Politics III.16, 1287 a23–28, 1287
b15–27).

A good form of government must be stable, not liable to revolution

(Politics V, and VI.5). Medieval Aristotelians gave some thought to
precautions against the degeneration of kingship into
tyranny. Marsilius presents Defensor pacis as a supplement to
Aristotle’s discussion of the causes of revolution.

Although Aristotle regarded kingship as ideally best (and medieval

writers agreed), Aristotle also gives an argument for democracy—or,
more exactly, an argument that in good government there is a role for
ordinary people. If ordinary people deliberate as a body they may
make sound decisions (Politics III.11). Marsilius (and others) used
Aristotle’s remarks to support the proposition that the people are the
ultimate political authority, an idea also found in the Roman law.

All of Aristotle’s works supported one of the central institutions of

medieval university life, disputation, in which the master states
opposing positions and supports them with strong arguments, then
evaluates the arguments by criticism. The practice of disputing about
important questions, including questions relating to politics, was
deeply ingrained in medieval culture.

Papal Fullness of Power

So much for the sources of medieval political philosophy and its early
stages. Let us turn now to the contributions made by scholastic and late
scholastic writers, who often became involved in conflict between secular
rulers and the papacy.
One focus of controversy was the papal claim to “fullness of power”.
Originally the claim meant that the pope had preeminently whatever
power any other authority had within the Church, so that he could
intervene by full right in any Church affair (Rivière 1925). Pope Innocent
III (1198–1216), whose decretals repeatedly “exalted papal political
power” (Pennington 2007: 165), provided the fodder for subsequent
jurists to develop the notion of papal fullness of power. During the
thirteenth century this conception was also invoked when the pope
authorised the mendicant friars to preach and perform religious functions
in a diocese even without the consent of the diocesan bishop. Such
interventions were strongly opposed by many secular clerics who argued
that bishops had their authority by divine law and were not merely agents
of the pope.
The popes did not in fact wish to take on the burdens of day-to-day
government throughout the world. Their claim was that, while ruling was
normally the business of secular rulers, the pope could intervene by full
right in governmental matters whenever he saw good reason to do so.
Canon lawyers drew up lists of circumstances in which the pope might
intervene, but some items in the list were so comprehensive as to leave no
area in which popes could not intervene. For example,
intervention ratione peccati, “by reason of sin”, meant that if a secular
ruler commits an injustice (which is a sin) then the pope might intervene.
Papal claims were opposed by secular rulers, by clerical writers who
saw some interest in defending the secular rulers, and by theologians
unconvinced by the pro-papal arguments and concerned about the likely
effects of papal encroachment. Most of the political writers of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were involved in controversy about the
extent and limits (or absence of limits) of papal authority (Miethke 2000a;
Oakley 2012: 173ff. and 2015: 14ff.).