Can Politics Perfect Us? Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas on Self-Interest and Political Life

Political philosophy has long explored how individual interests relate to the welfare of the political community. Modern political thought usually assumes that individuals naturally seek their own interests and that government mainly exists to protect those interests. However, many classical and medieval thinkers took a different view. They did not see self-interest and the common good as opposing ideas. They believed that human well-being relies on being part of a community aimed at justice. Still, they had significant disagreements about why people often fail to pursue the common good and what political institutions can realistically achieve. 

Aristotle claims that the common good and individual fulfillment are closely linked because humans are naturally social beings whose greatest happiness comes from being virtuous citizens. In contrast, Augustine argues that humanity's sinful nature creates a constant conflict between self-interest and the common good. He believes politics can only aim to restrain evil instead of achieving true justice. Thomas Aquinas tries to bridge these views by embracing Aristotle's faith in reason and political communities while also accepting Augustine's acknowledgment of humanity's flawed state. Although all three thinkers dismiss selfish individualism as a suitable basis for politics, they come to different conclusions about how much political communities can overcome self-interest and guide citizens toward the common good.

In comparison with other thinkers, Aristotle offers a more positive interpretation of political relations than the other thinkers, given that he believes that the apparent conflict between self-interest and the common good is a function of our inability to define what constitutes true happiness. According to Aristotle, every human activity has as its goal at least one perceived good. However, since some of these goods can be seen to function only as a means to a higher good, there must also be one ultimate or supreme good that gives direction to all other pursuits. In the initial pages of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states, "All of the arts or bodies of systematic study, as well as all the actions or choices of human beings, are directed to some good." In conclusion, he contends that politics is the highest, or most practical, of the sciences because it organizes all of the other types of activity of all human beings to the ultimate good.

Aristotle views the link between ethics & politics as crucial to understanding the common good. Individual happiness can't be separated from political life since the state's function is not just to maintain order/protect property but also to create the conditions necessary for excellence among humans. In other words, each individual's flourishing is connected with the flourishing of the political community as a whole. Aristotle asserts that "politics [...] determines what sorts of sciences ought to exist in states," as well as "the end of politics [involves] the ends of all other sciences." Since politics dictates all of the communal activity of human beings, it makes the pursuit of "the human good" a matter that is pursued more comprehensively on behalf of the entire community than on behalf of any single person.

Aristotle further develops this argument in Politics by establishing the foundation of a political society on humans as they are, rather than merely on their utilitarian existence. Aristotle says that "all political communities are merely associations of greater or lesser values, whereas every political community has a specific purpose as a means of achieving value," all organized associations have value as means to an end for their members. While there are other forms of organized associations, the political community is distinct from them in that it contains all other associations, and consequently its purpose is to seek "the highest of all values." Unlike the family and village which exist primarily for the purposes of basic needs, the polis exists so that humans can achieve their full potential.

Aristotle maintains that this is what distinguishes us from other animals; we are also social; we have a third type of society. Political activity is part of being human. The Family provides us with some satisfaction of our immediate biological requirements, the Village provides most of our economic requirements, however the only means by which we can achieve our full potential is by being members of a Polis. "The State exists, in the first instance, for the preservation of life and, in the second instance, for the benefit of human beings". "Man's nature is political," so anyone who is able to live physically isolated from society must be a "beast or God." Therefore individualism does not prevent workers from becoming fully human, but instead makes them more human as they participate in society.

The shift in understanding the nature of eudaimonia changes how Aristotle viewed our individual drive for a higher purpose.  All of humankind usually confuses happiness with either honor or wealth; therefore, these things do not produce true eudaimonia, because they exist for the sole purpose of providing for something beyond themself.  In Aristotle's view, eudaimonia can only be achieved through living by virtue according to reason. Since virtuous actions are the result of education, habit, and participation in a just community, the overall goal of each individual in pursuing eudaimonia ultimately requires that individual to sacrifice for all others.  This point is strongly supported by the way Aristotle defines moral virtues; he states that virtue is achieved not through instinct, but by repeated acts of that virtue.  Therefore, individuals become courageous by exhibiting courageous behavior, and become just by exhibiting just behavior, and become temperate by exhibiting temperate actions through their habitual self-control. Thus, the importance of good laws is that they contribute to developing virtuous citizens over a longer period of time than just punishing bad behavior.

Thus, Aristotle distinguishes clearly between forms of government that truly promote the public good and governments that have been corrupted by personal ambition. An example of this is that a king who governs for the benefit of all his subjects does so in a just manner, while on the other hand, a tyrant would only seek to benefit himself. The same is true of the difference between aristocracy and oligarchy; in the former, the government serves the public interest while in the latter, it serves only the interests of the rich. Finally, the difference between a constitutional government and a democracy is also the same; in the case of the former, there are limits imposed upon the majority for the protection of the minority, whereas, in the latter, there are no such limitations and the majority abuses the power of its numbers. For this reason, political corruption occurs whenever those in authority choose to pursue their personal interests rather than the interests of the entire political community. Since "all states have as their foundation an aim to serve some good,” the failure to fulfill that common objective makes any government illegitimate.

Although many citizens have personal desires, it is these individual wants that are shaped into their rightful place through a well-educated, well-ordered society governed by laws and good form of moral conduct in the political arena. The individual’s self-interest becomes a potential issue when the person believes he or she is pursuing the highest form of self-interest when doing so by way of seeking wealth, power or pleasure on their own without regard to moral values. If recognized properly, then both the personal pursuit of happiness and the good of all are supportive of each other because both will lead to the establishment of a "good" or flourishing political community through the establishment of reasoned wisdom and virtue in the people.