Comparison of the Aristotelean and Liberal Traditions

Based on some feedback I’ve received, I see that I need to say more about the differences between the Aristotelean and Liberal traditions. Here is a section of my doctoral dissertation (2005) that outlines what I see as the most important differences. 

2.6 Comparison of the Aristotelean and Liberal Traditions 

The Aristotelean tradition contrasts with Liberalism on a number of points:

Relation of desire to morality

This is perhaps the most important contrast, yet it can be summed up in very few words: Aristotle’s value theory is based on what people should want; Liberal value theory is based on what people do want.

The nature of the individual 

Both Liberalism and Aristotle posit the individual as a relatively independent entity, and not a mere social construct, as postmodernism claims. But Aristotle’s position is a moderate individualism, while the Liberal position takes individualism to an atomistic extreme. From Hobbes, for whom the “state of nature” is a “war of each against all”, to John Rawls, who bases his “veil of ignorance” thought experiment on the imagined responses of individuals who are completely disconnected from any particular time, place, culture, physical characteristics, or set of human relationships * [...], the individual-as-monad has been a constant metaphysical assumption of Liberalism. Aristotle recognizes that, while the individual is metaphysically independent of his or her culture in some sense (i.e., the individual subsists), a human existence is possible only in the context of a community. An individual who can live utterly separated from this human context is for practical purposes “a beast or a god” (1253a 20), and our “intuitions” about what such an entity would do when confronted with the choice Rawls proposes are of dubious evidential value.

Spirituality and religion

Since the Enlightenment, scientism has become a persistent current in Western thought. By scientism (or naturalism if one prefers) I mean the position that the methods of the natural sciences are the only rational basis for belief, that entities that can be studied using such methods are the only ones that exist, and that questions that cannot be answered using the methods of the natural sciences are pseudo-questions. Most of the major Liberal thinkers have been scientistic to some degree, while Aristotle clearly accepts a transcendent reality in the form of the First Mover. 

There is, however, an important difference between Aristotle’s attitude toward religion and that of certain republican thinkers. Aristotle recognizes that “there are other things much more divine in their nature even than man” (1141a 35), and that the contemplation of such things is the highest form of theōria, which a well-run state should make possible for its citizens [...] religious practice is one of the “purposes of life” that states are formed to fulfill. But in the republican tradition, there is a tendency to idolize the state. [...] Machiavelli presents civic virtue as being in opposition to Christian virtue (and not simply in opposition to the degenerate practices of the religious authorities of his day). James Harrington, on the other hand, gives the state a Christian eschatological character, making the republic an earthly realization of the kingdom of heaven (cf. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment). Either way, religious devotion is effectively subordinated to devotion to the state. In light of the experiences of the 20th century, we must be wary of this kind of nationalistic appropriation of religion, for nationalism has tended to beget fascism. [...]

Applied knowledge 

Concerning the application of knowledge to the concrete problems that people face in their day-to-day existence, Aristotle distinguishes between those that require phronēsis and those that require technē. Aristotle’s teacher Plato was fond of drawing an analogy between politics and crafts such as medicine, particularly in his critiques of democracy--just as one would not decide on a medical treatment by submitting the question to a vote of unskilled persons, neither should one do so for political decisions. Plato suggests that politics is a technē like any other (cf. Dunne, Back to the Rough Ground; Winner, The Whale and the Reactor, ch. 3). Aristotle, however, recognizes the limits of this analogy. The problems confronting statesmen are more complex and less well-defined than those facing craftsmen and require a different kind of intelligence.

Liberals have come to accept a technicism that outdoes Plato in terms of the level of faith it places in experts. Lacking any concept of human telos to guide their moral theories, Liberals have made “desire-satisfaction” the criterion of rightness, science the source of all truth, and instrumental reason the whole of rationality. The result is that efficiency has become a goal in itself, without regard to to the fact that it is better to pursue a good end inefficiently than pursue a bad end efficiently (cf. Dunne; MacIntyre, After Virtue). [...]

Nature, purpose, and value of human association 

The contrast here is multiple. Firstly, there is the contrast between a compact for shared goals (Aristotle) and a contract for separate goals (Liberalism). Secondly, for Aristotle, the most important purpose of government is to enable its citizens to achieve eudaimonia; for Liberals, the most important purpose of government is to preserve property (these different views of government come with corresponding commitments to positive freedom and negative freedom, respectively [...] ). Thirdly, there is the contrast between Aristotle’s recognition of levels of association between the individual and the state which are not reducible to either (especially the family and the household; Aristotle also briefly mentions the village), and the Liberal view which reduces all such associations to aspects of the contract between individuals. Fourthly, Aristotle views political association as intrinsically valuable, while Liberals view it as merely instrumentally valuable.


The set of characteristics that I here ascribe to Liberalism represent a set of Wittgensteinian “family resemblances” rather than a strict definition of Liberalism. I base these generalizations about Liberalism on the views of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Bentham, Mill, Berlin, and Rawls, as expressed in their writings, and on the views of contemporary neoliberals, as expressed in the policies they have promoted during the past thirty years. This is a disparate group, and no single thinker exemplifies all of the above attributes. My purpose in this section is neither to present a comprehensive survey of Liberalism, nor to discern its essence; the extent to which the above currents of thought may be central or merely peripheral to Liberalism is not important. What is important is the way these currents of thought have affected American society, and the way the Aristotelean tradition challenges them. 



 * Rawls asks the reader to imagine a situation in which a person can choose what sort of society to be born into, yet a “veil of ignorance” prevents the person from knowing what specific position he or she will occupy in that society (what sex, race, wealth, abilities, disabilities, etc.). Under these circumstances, Rawls argues, rationality would dictate that the person choose a society that does not oppress people based on these characteristics, lest the person find him/herself born into one of the oppressed groups. Rawls uses this thought experiment to argue that justice is based upon rationality. Rawls presented this idea in A Theory of Justice (1971) and defended it over a period of thirty years, most recently in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001).