Assessment of polity and aristocracy

Assessment of polity and aristocracy Compare Aristotle’s relative assessments of polity and aristocracy. Which regime does he prefer? On what basis does he prefer one over the other? Is his preference convincingly defended?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Different types of politics are exercised in countries all over the world. It is widely discussed, studied, and practiced in different forms of administration all over the world today. Many influential philosophers and political scientists of the modern day world base their knowledge of politics on the studies, books and thoughts written by respectable philosophical scholars of the past. Aristotle, a renowned Greek philosopher discusses politics in a sequence of books called Politics. In Politics, Aristotle establishes an importance of human excellence by setting out causal principles for a clear understanding of nature of all political philosophy. Throughout his observation in the books in Politics, Aristotle sets out the conditions of a perfect state in order to fulfill the best way of life. He states in Books VII of Politics that investigating to find the best regime is essential to one’s life and emphasizes the importance preserving merits of virtue as an essential goal of politics to maintain freedom, stability and happiness. To investigate the regime Aristotle values, it is important to interrelate Aristotle’s â€Å"way of life† with the characteristics of a regime that he would prefer. This essay will introduce the six different types of constitutions that Aristotle examines in Politics, and will compare the common practices of the regimes polity and aristocracy. The analysis of the two regimes, polity and aristocracy will further reveal Aristotle’s preference of the political system, polity. Aristotle adapts Plato’s â€Å"six-fold classification† chart from his book Statesmen and categorizes the six possible types of constitutions into two groups; the correct constitution, and the deviant. Under the â€Å"deviant† constitution lies tyranny, oligarchy and democracy; and underneath the possible â€Å"correct† constitution, kingship, aristocracy and polity remains. Aristotle creates the notion of two types of humans; individuals that were of â€Å"nature free† and of â€Å"nature slaves†. He then separates the naturally free persons into two types; the prosperous oligarchs and the democrats.With the three â€Å"deviant† types of constitutions evident, Aristotle sought to find a superlative regime by taking the good traits of the erroneous regimes. An analysis of Polity and Aristocracy Polity is among one of the constitutions that Aristotle believes it to be one of the correct forms of ruling. Polity is â€Å"a mixture of oligarchy and democracy.†Oligarchy is the rule of the few, in general consisting of the wealthy citizens and democracy, rule of the people, whereas the ruling class of the poor. In polity, power between the olig archs and democrats is shared among the rich and the poor creating a balance of power among the different types of classes. It is viewed as the most stable and practical regime to Aristotle. Polity takes out the best qualities of oligarchy and democracy creating a regime in which the interests of the poor and the rich are balanced. For example, the mixture of the two constitutions is made by including some of the characteristics usually related with democracy, such as a legislative body open to all citizens, with other qualities generally linked with oligarchy such as election to high bureaus.