capitalism

Arts and Public Support 19
as rational and virtuous activity; that moral virtue involves
achieving a mean (or intermediate condition) between
extremes (e.g., courage is a mean between cowardice and
foolhardiness); and that this mean is attained through practical
wisdom, a deliberative excellence cognizant of the
human end. Although concerned with individual excellence,
the Ethics describes itself as a work of “political science.”
The basis for this self-description is evident from
Aristotle’s Politics, which begins by arguing that human
beings are by nature political animals, that the city-state
(or polis) exists by nature, and that the city-state is prior by
nature to individual human beings. Because the city-state
is necessary for individual human perfection, ethics is a
part of political philosophy.
Although the city-state represents, in Aristotle’s view,
the outgrowth and perfection of human nature, it also
requires a lawgiver whose function it is to apply the science
of politics in order to fashion a constitution, laws, and system
of education for the citizens. The Politics expounds this
theory, distinguishing between just constitutions that promote
the common advantage of all citizens and unjust constitutions
that seek the private advantage of the ruling class.
The best constitution will assign political rights on the basis
of civic virtue. Aristotle described a constitution that fulfills
this ideal, including a system of public education aimed at
producing virtuous citizens. He also discussed how political
science should address problems of political change,
revolution, and faction. Aristotle viewed revolution as a
disease of the city-state that has injustice as its leading
cause: The ruled become rebellious when they perceive the
rulers treating them unjustly. Aristotle offered political
remedies based on this analysis.
Aristotle’s overall political position was conservative
rather than libertarian. He held that social order must
always be imposed by a single ruling element, so that he
tended to favor authoritarian systems. He deprecated the
view, which was popular among the democrats of his day,
that freedom consisted of living as one wishes. Instead,
from his perspective, freedom was the right to do what one
should do. He advocated compulsory public moral education,
and he endorsed the rule of men over women and of
free persons over “natural” slaves.
Yet he also contributed to libertarian theory, especially
through his theory of political justice. He criticized Plato’s
collectivist ideal, arguing that the best constitution promotes
the interests of each and every citizen—and, hence,
protects individual rights. Aristotle’s constitutional theory
also had an indirect, but important, influence on European
classical liberals and on the founders of the American constitution.
Indeed, some recent American libertarian political
theorists explicitly acknowledge their debt to Aristotle.
FM
See also Aquinas, Thomas; Constitutionalism; Liberty in the Ancient
World; Natural Law; Rand, Ayn
Further Readings
Barnes, Jonathan, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle. 2 vols.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Keyt, David, and Miller, Fred D., Jr. A Companion to Aristotle’s
Politics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
Miller, Fred D., Jr., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Newman, W. L., ed. The Politics of Aristotle. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1887–1902.
Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J. Liberty and
Nature: An Aristotelian Defense of Liberal Order. LaSalle, IL:
Open Court Publishing, 1991.
Shields, Christopher. Aristotle. London: Routledge, 2007.
ARTS AND PUBLIC SUPPORT
Advocates of public support of the arts claim that the arts
improve the overall quality of human life, stimulate economic
growth, and confer on individuals and communities a host of
other benefits and are, therefore, worthy of underwriting by
government. Libertarians, in contrast, tend to oppose such
support on the principle that the arts, like religion, are too
much entwined with our deepest personal values. For most
people, the subject is of little pressing concern. When contemporary
work perceived as blasphemous, obscene, or otherwise
politically charged is supported by the National Endowment
for the Arts (NEA), however, public outcry inevitably ensues.
Often the question is also raised as to whether the work exhibited
is, in fact, art. Most arts professionals today subscribe to
the notion that anything can be considered art even if it makes
no sense or is intended primarily as political or social protest.
The importance of such matters is magnified when they relate
to public support of the arts at the local level, through art education
in our public schools.
In Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in
American Culture, historian Michael Kammen notes that
ambiguity of purpose and meaning in contemporary art is
often deliberate, and that the ordinary person finds it troubling
when not “utterly baffled” by it. He reports that, by the
1970s, new kinds of “art”—most notably conceptual art,
installation art, and performance art—had attained such
legitimacy that they became eligible for public funding. As
a result, possibilities for “political provocation” dramatically
increased, and artists began to create objects as art
while clearly intending them as instruments of social criticism
and political activism. Similarly, conservative cultural
critic Lynne Munson has observed in Exhibitionism: Art in
an Era of Intolerance that, in the mid-1960s, the idea that
“anything could be art was on the rise” (although neither she
nor Kammen cites or proposes a definition of the term art).
The NEA has contributed to that trend. The original legislation
establishing it in 1965 eschewed a formal definition of
art. Instead, it stipulated a list of diverse forms—including,
but not limited to, the traditional fine arts, as well as industrial