Justice and Reciprocity in Aristotle's Political Philosophy

Examines Aristotle's approaches to how to develop a political community based on the notions of justice and friendship.

Kazutaka Inamura (Author)

9781107110946, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2015

266 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

This book illustrates how Aristotle's ethical concepts such as justice, reciprocity and friendship offer a basis for his political philosophy. In particular, it points out the importance of Aristotle for articulating the concept of a civic relationship and developing a theory of integration, by exploring how he includes a wide variety of people within the deliberative and judicial processes. Comparisons between Aristotle's own thought and present-day 'Aristotelian' political theories, such as communitarianism, civic republicanism and the capabilities approach, are also among the unique approaches offered by the book and are used to illustrate his original vision of politics. They can also, however, offer new insights into the problems of how to read his texts appropriately in their context and why we now need to read them, not only out of an antiquarian interest but also out of our concern for politics.

1. Aristotelian political theories in a liberal democracy
2. The good life and a good polis
3. Democracy, polity and the mixed constitution
4. Civic virtue
5. Civic friendship
6. Reciprocity in the political economy
Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]