7
makes the polis unique as distinct from other forms of community, like families and
tribes (1252b10-26). In a more pernicious sense, Aristotle’s doctrine of natural slaves is
based in part on this conception of nature (1255a5-a15).
•
Finally, related to the idea of nature as a set of distinctive qualities, as well as to nature as
a moral order is Aristotle’s concept of a natural end, or telos. Given that one can find
distinctive qualities of things in nature, and that nature makes nothing in vain, Aristotle
also speaks of nature as the purpose or end of these distinctive properties. Here, for
example, is Aristotle on the polis: “if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state
[i.e. the polis], for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each
thing is when fully developed, we call its nature” (1252b31-33). While the kinship bonds
of families and tribes are natural in the impulsive sense, only the state is natural in the
teleological sense.
Building from these appeals to nature in Aristotle’s political theory, contemporary naturalist
Aristotelians see at least some form of moral (if not biological) foundations and/or teleology
as useful guides to theories and practices of democratic citizenship, and important antidotes
to the relativistic and conservative tendencies of radical historicism. Nussbaum, for
example, appeals to Aristotle to come up with a universal account of the good human life,
upon which she bases a list “non-relative” minimal requirements for a flourishing political
community. Nussbaum claims not to endorse Aristotle’s discredited “metaphysical biology,”
but she does see in Aristotle a potentially valid account of the universal aspects of human
nature and the minimal requirements for a good regime.
13
For naturalist Aristotelians like
13
Nussbaum (2002), 63. I am not entirely convinced that Nussbaum’s account is entirely free from
metaphysics or biology. For a less apologetic account of Aristotle’s natural teleology, see Salkever
(1990), 13-56.
Convention