Political Philia and Need in Nicomachean Ethics, V

There is a fundamental problem with Aristotle’s notion of political phili a (π ο λ ι τ ι κ ὴ φ ι λ ί α) in that Aristotle uses the term for two seemingly different things: on the one hand, political philia is a type of φ ι λ ί α δ ι ὰ τ ὸ χ ρ ή σ ι μ ο ν, manifested in the exchanges between two types of craftsmen (these are exchanges of one kind of good against another); on the other hand, political friendship is identified as homonoia (‘concord’) (EN IX.6, 1167b 2, cf. EE VII.7, 1241a 34)—and homonoia is at other places in turn identified with philia and said to be that at which lawgivers aim more than at justice. Existing accounts of political friendship tend to perceive a fundamental difference between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics in their treatment of political friendship. Whereas the former tends to conceive of political friendship in terms of concord, the latter seems to imply a more down-to-earth view of political philia, as the exchange between two businessmen (it is said that this kind of philia is a transaction ‘from hand to hand’, ‘ἀ λ λ ’ ἐ κ χ ε ι ρ ὸ ς ε ἰ ς χ ε ῖ ρ α ἡ φ ι λ ί α, EE VII.10, 1242b 21-27).

Another problem with this topic is that the term π ο λ ι τ ι κ ὴ φ ι λ ί α is often translated as ‘civic friendship’. ‘Civic friendship’ is however a notion in its own right in modern political philosophy (discussed for example in John RAWLS’, Political Liberalism), and we should be weary of identifying the two, as the risk is that notions and connotations of civic friendship in the modern debate are important into Aristotle’s notion of political philia. Civic friendship as it is discussed in modern political philosophy is part of a specific debate that addresses other questions than those that Aristotle had in mind.

This paper will take a different approach to explain Aristotle’s notion of π ο λ ι τ ι κ ὴ φ ι λ ί α. What Aristotle in fact aims at is to analyze what keeps a polis together. He calls the mechanisms that ensure this ‘ philia of the political type’. This approach not only renders the initial (apparent) discrepancy noted above less problematic; by approaching the issue in this way, it also becomes clear that the two parts of political friendship can be viewed under a unifying aspect. The key to this harmonizing reading is a passage from Book V of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Although the term political philia is not mentioned in this passage, and the passage has therefore not been taken into account for the discussion of political philia, this paper will argue that precisely this passage holds the key to harmonizing the accounts of the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics. This is the discussion of the exchange between the leather-cutter and the farmer in the context of the discussion of justice in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. This paper will focus on the passage NE V.5, 1133a 7-31. This passage presents us with a number of complexities.

In this passage, Aristotle describes the problem of incommensurability that arises in the exchange between two different craftsmen. He offers two ways in which the incommensurability may be solved. He introduces two potential ‘measures’ for the goods of the different craftsmen. The first is ‘currency’ (ν ό μ ι σ μ α), the second is ‘need’ (χ ρ ε ί α). The passage has become famous as Aristotle’s contribution to economics, as he here develops the notion of exchange value. Yet on closer analysis, the passage in fact seems to refer to two different kinds of exchange. In the first part of the passage under discussion (NE 1133a 19-26) in fact the role of currency is somewhat different than in the second part of the passage (NE 1133a 25-31): for in the first part of the passage it seems that Aristotle is thinking of currency solely as a standard of value that enables the participants in the exchange to determine that the goods exchanged are equal. Here money seems to be used as a measure of conversion: both houses and shoes can be converted into money, and when they are, it can be determined how much of the product of the leather-cutter is equal to the products of the builder. By contrast, in NE 1133a 25-31 Aristotle seems to be talking about exchanging goods for money: the emphasis here is on the fact that it has it origin in convention, ν ό μ ο ς, and that it has no intrinsic value (it is in our power to render it without function (ἄ χ ρ η σ τ ο ς). ν ό μ ι σ μ α is called a ὑ π ά λ λ α γ μ α τ ῆ ς χ ρ ε ί α ς, a kind of material, quantifying representative of need. The exchange envisaged here seems to be that of an amount of money against a certain kind of good that a person needs—but this is still a relatively simple form of exchange: an X amount of goods against an Y amount of money, not complicated financial things such as interest. The paper will address these difficulties inherent in this passage in the context of the discussion of political philia. Especially the fact that Aristotle ‘reduces’ the exchange discussed to ‘need’ is an important indication that the kind of interaction described in this passage in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics concerns relationships of the ‘political’ kind.

This paper will show why the issues discussed in this passage in NE Book V are crucial for our understanding of political philia. Moreover, it will argue that the category to which political philia belongs, φ ι λ ί α δ ι ὰ τ ὸ χ ρ ή σ ι μ ο ν, is not to be understood as a relationship ‘for the sake of the useful’ (as it is usually seen), but rather ‘having its origin in need’. The paper will thus bring together considerations from the fields of economics, value theory, political theory, and moral reasoning to arrive at a satisfactory and coherent account of the type of relations that Aristotle considered constitutive for a polis.

[9] Elena Alymova

St. Petersburg State University, Russian Federation