The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  Say that it was Odysseus, sacker of cities,8

  implying that Odysseus would not have been avenged unless the Cyclops perceived both by whom and for what he had been blinded. Consequently we do not get angry with anyone who cannot be aware of our anger, and we cease to be angry with [25] people once they are dead, for we feel that the worst has been done to them, and that they will neither feel pain nor anything else that we in our anger aim at making them feel. And therefore the poet has well made Apollo say, in order to put a stop to the anger of Achilles against the dead Hector,

  For behold in his fury he doeth despite to the senseless clay.9

  It is now plain that when you wish to calm others you must draw upon these [30] commonplaces; you must put your hearers into the corresponding frame of mind, and represent those with whom they are angry as formidable, or as worthy of reverence, or as benefactors, or as involuntary agents, or as much distressed at what they have done.

  4 · Let us now turn to friendship and enmity, and ask towards whom these [35] feelings are entertained, and why. We will begin by defining friendship and friendly feeling. We may describe friendly feeling towards anyone as wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, [1381a1] so far as you can, to bring these things about. [[A friend is one who feels thus and excites these feelings in return.]]10 Those who think they feel thus towards each other think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows that your friend is the [5] sort of man who shares your pleasure in what is good and your pain in what is unpleasant, for your sake and for no other reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of his good wishes for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we wish for, and pained at getting what we do not. Those, then, are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; [[and those who are, moreover, friendly or unfriendly [10] to the same people]]11 for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves each other’s friends. Again, we feel friendly to those who have treated us well, either ourselves or those we care for; or if they have done so on a large scale, or readily, or at some particular crisis; provided it was for our own sake. And also to those who we [15] think wish to treat us well. And also to our friends’ friends, and to those who like, or are liked by, those whom we like ourselves. And also to those who are enemies to those whose enemies we are, and dislike, or are disliked by, those whom we dislike. For all such persons think the things good which we think good, so that they wish [20] what is good for us; and this, as we saw, is what friends must do. And also to those who are willing to treat us well where money or our personal safety is concerned; and therefore we value those who are liberal and brave. And to just men—the just we consider to be those who do not live on others; which means those who work for their living, especially farmers and others who work with their own hands. We also [25] like temperate men, because they are not unjust to others; and, for the same reason, those who mind their own business. And also those whose friends we wish to be, if it is plain that they wish to be our friends: such are the good in respect of excellence, and those well thought of by everyone, by the best men, or by those whom we [30] admire or who admire us. And also those with whom it is pleasant to live and spend our days: such are the good-tempered, and those who are not too ready to show us our mistakes, and those who are not cantankerous or quarrelsome—such people are always wanting to fight us, and those who fight us we feel wish for the opposite of what we wish for ourselves—and those who have the tact to make and take a joke; for in both ways they have the same object in view as their neighbour, being able to [35] stand being made fun of as well as do it prettily themselves. And we also feel friendly towards those who praise such good qualities as we possess, and especially if they praise the good qualities that we are not too sure we do possess. And towards those who are cleanly in their person, their dress, and all their way of life. And [1381b1] towards those who do not reproach us with what we have done amiss to them or they have done to help us, for both actions show a tendency to criticize us. And towards those who do not nurse grudges or store up grievances, but are always ready to make [5] friends again; for we take it that they will behave to us just as we find them behaving to everyone else. And towards those who are not slanderers and who are aware of neither their neighbours’ bad points nor our own, but of our good ones only, as a good man always will be. And towards those who do not try to thwart us when we are angry or in earnest, which would mean being ready to fight us. And towards [10] those who have some serious feeling towards us, such as admiration for us, or belief in our goodness, or pleasure in our company; especially if they feel like this about qualities in us for which we especially wish to be admired, esteemed, or liked. And towards those who are like ourselves in character and occupation, provided they do [15] not get in our way or gain their living from the same source as we do—for then it will be a case of ‘potter against potter’. And those who desire the same things as we desire, if it is possible for us both to share them together; otherwise the same trouble arises here too. And towards those with whom we are on such terms that, while we respect their opinions, we need not blush before them for doing what is conventionally [20] wrong; as well as towards those before whom we should be ashamed to do anything really wrong. Again, our rivals, and those whom we should like to envy us—though without ill-feeling—either we like these people or at least we wish them to like us. And we feel friendly towards those whom we help to secure good for themselves, provided we are not likely to suffer heavily by it ourselves. And those who feel as friendly to us when we are not with them as when we are—which is why [25] all men feel friendly towards those who are faithful to their dead friends. And, speaking generally, towards those who are really fond of their friends and do not desert them in trouble; of all good men, we feel most friendly to those who show their goodness as friends. Also towards those who are honest with us, including those who will tell us of their own weak points: it has just been said that with our [30] friends we are not ashamed of what is conventionally wrong, and if we do have this feeling, we do not love them; if therefore we do not have it, it looks as if we did love them. We also like those with whom we do not feel frightened or uncomfortable—nobody can like a man of whom he feels frightened. Friendship has various forms—comradeship, intimacy, kinship, and so on.

  Things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and [35] not proclaiming the fact when they are done, which shows that they were done for our own sake and not for some other reason.

  Enmity and hatred should clearly be studied by reference to their opposites. [1382a1] Enmity may be produced by anger or spite or calumny. Now whereas anger arises from offences against oneself, enmity may arise even without that; we may hate people merely because of what we take to be their character. Anger is always concerned with individuals—Callias or Socrates—whereas hatred is directed also [5] against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victims to feel; the hater does not mind [10] whether they feel or not. All painful things are felt; but the greatest evils, injustice and folly, are the least felt, since their presence causes no pain. And anger is accompanied by pain, hatred is not; the angry man feels pain, but the hater does not. Much may happen to make the angry man pity those who offend him, but the hater under no circumstances wishes to pity a man whom he has once hated; for the [15] one would have the offenders suffer for what they have done; the other would have them cease to exist.

  It is plain from all this that we can prove people to be friends or enemies; if they are not, we can make them out to be so; if they claim to be so, we can refute their claim; and if they are disputing through anger or hatred, we can bring them to [20] whichever of these we prefer.

  5 · Next, we show the things and persons of which,
and the states of mind in which, we feel afraid. Fear may be defined as a pain or disturbance due to imagining some destructive or painful evil in the future. For there are some evils, e.g. wickedness or stupidity, the prospect of which does not frighten us: only such as amount to great pains or losses do. And even these only if they appear not remote [25] but so near as to be imminent: we do not fear things that are a very long way off; for instance, we all know we shall die, but we are not troubled thereby, because death is not close at hand. From this definition it will follow that fear is caused by whatever we feel has great power of destroying us, or of harming us in ways that tend to cause [30] us great pain. Hence the very indications of such things are terrible, making us feel that the terrible thing itself is close at hand; and this—the approach of what is terrible—is danger. Such indications are the enmity and anger of people who have power to do something to us; for it is plain that they have the will to do it, and so they are on the point of doing it. Also injustice in possession of power; for it is the unjust [1382b1] man’s choice that makes him unjust. Also outraged excellence in possession of power; for it is plain that, when outraged, it always chooses to retaliate, and now it has the power to do so. Also fear felt by those who have the power to do something to us, since such persons are sure to be ready to do it. And since most men tend to be [5] bad—slaves to greed, and cowards in danger—it is, as a rule, a terrible thing to be at another man’s mercy; and therefore, if we have done anything horrible, those in the secret terrify us with the thought that they may betray or desert us. And those who can do us wrong are terrible to us when we are liable to be wronged; for as a rule men do wrong to others whenever they have the power to do it. And those who [10] have been wronged, or believe themselves to be wronged, are terrible; for they are always looking out for their opportunity. Also those who have done people wrong, if they possess power, since they stand in fear of retaliation: we have already said that wickedness possessing power is terrible. Again, our rivals for a thing cause us fear when we cannot both have it at once; for we are always at war with such men. We [15] also fear those who are to be feared by stronger people than ourselves: if they can hurt those stronger people, still more can they hurt us; and, for the same reason, we fear those whom those stronger people are actually afraid of. Also those who have destroyed people stronger than we are. Also those who are attacking people weaker than we are: either they are already formidable, or they will be so when they have thus grown stronger. Of those we have wronged, and of our enemies or rivals, it is [20] not the passionate and outspoken whom we have to fear, but the quiet, dissembling, unscrupulous; since we never know when they are upon us, we can never be sure they are at a safe distance. All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder—either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also worse which we cannot, or [25] cannot easily, help. Speaking generally, anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or threatens, others causes us to feel pity.

  The above are, roughly, the chief things that are terrible and are feared. Let us now describe the conditions under which we ourselves feel fear. If fear is associated with the expectation that something destructive will happen to us, plainly nobody [30] will be afraid who believes nothing can happen to him; we shall not fear things that we believe cannot happen to us, nor people who we believe cannot inflict them upon us; nor shall we be afraid at times when we think ourselves safe from them. It follows therefore that fear is felt by those who believe something to be likely to happen to them, at the hands of particular persons, in a particular form, and at a particular time. People do not believe this when they are, or think they are, in the [1383a1] midst of great prosperity, and are in consequence insolent, contemptuous, and reckless—the kind of character produced by wealth, physical strength, abundance of friends, power; nor yet when they feel they have experienced every kind of horror already and have grown callous about the future, like men who are being flogged to [5] death—if they are to feel the anguish of uncertainty, there must be some faint expectation of escape. This appears from the fact that fear sets us thinking what can be done, which of course nobody does when things are hopeless. Consequently, when it is advisable that the audience should be frightened, the orator must make them feel that they really are in danger of something, pointing out that it has happened to others who were stronger than they are, and is happening, or has happened, to [10] people like themselves, at the hands of unexpected people, in an unexpected form, and at an unexpected time.

  Having now seen the nature of fear, and of the things that cause it, and the various states of mind in which it is felt, we can also see what confidence is, about what things we feel it, and under what conditions. It is the opposite of fear, and what [15] causes it is the opposite of what causes fear; it is, therefore, the imaginative expectation of the nearness of what keeps us safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible: it may be due either to the near presence of what inspires confidence or to the absence of what causes alarm. We feel it if we can take [20] steps—many, or important, or both—to cure or prevent trouble; if we have neither wronged others nor been wronged by them; if we have either no rivals at all or no strong ones; if our rivals who are strong are our friends or have treated us well or been treated well by us; or if those whose interest is the same as ours are the more numerous party, or the stronger, or both.

  [25] As for our own state of mind, we feel confidence if we believe we have often succeeded and never suffered reverses, or have often met danger and escaped it safely. For there are two reasons why human beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or they may have means to deal with it: thus when in [30] danger at sea people may feel confident about what will happen either because they have no experience of bad weather, or because their experience gives them the means of dealing with it. We also feel confident whenever there is nothing to terrify other people like ourselves, or people weaker than ourselves, or people than whom we believe ourselves to be stronger—and we believe this if we have conquered them, or conquered others who are as strong as they are, or stronger. Also if we believe ourselves superior to our rivals in the number and importance of the advantages that [1383b1] make men formidable—plenty of money, men, friends, land, military equipment (of all, or the most important, kinds). Also if we have wronged no one, or not many, or [5] not those of whom we are afraid. And when we are being wronged; [[and generally, if our relations with the gods are satisfactory, as will be shown especially by signs and oracles]]12 for anger makes us confident and, anger is excited by our knowledge that we are not the wrongers but the wronged, and that the divine power is always supposed to be on the side of the wronged. Also when, at the outset of an enterprise, [10] we believe that we cannot fail, or that we shall succeed. So much for the causes of fear and confidence.

  6 · Next we will explain the things that cause shame and shamelessness, and the persons before whom, and the states of mind under which they are felt. [15] Shame may be defined as pain or disturbance in regard to bad things, whether present, past, or future, which seem likely to involve us in discredit; and shamelessness as contempt or indifference in regard to these same bad things. If this definition be granted, it follows that we feel shame at such bad things as we think are disgraceful to ourselves or to those we care for. These evils are, in the first place, [20] those due to badness. Such are throwing away one’s shield or taking to flight; for these bad things are due to cowardice. Also, withholding a deposit; for that is due to injustice. Also, having carnal intercourse with forbidden persons, at wrong times, or in wrong places; for these things are due to licentiousness. Also, making profit in petty or disgraceful ways, or out of helpless persons, e.g. the poor, or the [25] dead—whence the proverb ‘He would pick a corpse’s pocket’; for all this is due to low greed and meanness. Also, in money matters, giving less help than you might, or none at all, or accepting help from those worse off than yoursel
f; so also borrowing when it will seem like begging; begging when it will seem like asking the return of a [30] favour; asking such a return when it will seem like begging; praising a man in order that it may seem like begging; and going on begging in spite of failure: all such actions are tokens of meanness. [[Again, praising people to their face is a mark of flattery.]]13 Also, praising extravagantly a man’s good points and glozing over his weaknesses, and showing extravagant sympathy with his grief when you are in his presence, and all that sort of thing; all this shows the disposition of a flatterer. Also, refusing to endure hardships that are endured by people who are older, more [1384a1] delicately brought up, of higher rank, or generally less capable of endurance than ourselves; for all this shows effeminacy. Also, accepting benefits, especially accepting them often, from another man, and then abusing him for conferring them: all this shows a mean, ignoble disposition. Also, talking incessantly about [5] yourself, making loud professions, and appropriating the merits of others; for this is due to boastfulness. The same is true of the actions due to any of the other forms of badness of character, of the tokens of such badness, and the like: they are all disgraceful and shameless. Another sort of bad thing at which we feel shame is, lacking a share in the honourable things shared by everyone else, or by all or nearly [10] all who are like ourselves. By ‘those like ourselves’ I mean those of our own race or country or age or family, and generally those who are on our own level. Once we are on a level with others, it is a disgrace to be, say, less well educated than they are; and so with other advantages: all the more so, in each case, if it is seen to be our own fault: wherever we are ourselves to blame for our present, past, or future [15] circumstances, it follows at once that this is to a greater extent due to our badness. We are moreover ashamed of having done to us, having had done, or being about to have done to us acts that involve us in dishonour and reproach, e.g. when we submit to outrage (we yield to lust both voluntarily and involuntarily, to force involuntarily), [20] for unresisting submission to them is due to unmanliness or cowardice.