The Founders of the United States, in their lists of dependable and confident political philosophers, frequently included Aristotle. Some of the Founders, especially, John Adams and James Wilson, often refer to Aristotle and show an admiration for his Politics. By the “rule of law”, Adams and the Founders did not comprehend the simple consistency or predictability of law and procedure (Pakaluk, Michael). He was recognized as the original source for many policies, mostly declared by the Founders. Some of which include:
“1. government should govern for the good of the people, not for the good of those in power;
2. there is a natural aristocracy, and skilled statecraft arranges things so that this element acquires authority, or, failing that, …show more content…
A significance of the above is that legal justice is not absolute justice but is the kind of justice appropriate to the activity of doing law (Beever, Allan, 2004). Aristotle upholds that legal justice displays certain insufficiencies from the standpoint of absolute justice. One reason for this is that, “all law is universal, and there are some things about which it is not possible to pronounce rightly in general terms” (Beever, Allan, 2004, pg. 35). Aristotle’s view in ethics is the concluding claim that, “we must be satisfied with a broad outline of the truth; that is, in arguing about what is for the most part so from premises which are for the most part true we must be content to draw conclusions that are similarly qualified” (Beever, Allan, 2004, pg. 35). We can summarize this by saying, that for Aristotle, ethical truth is too complex to be taken by any limited stable set of principles. Hence a system that sought the observation of principles could not understand justice (Beever, Allan, …show more content…
The explanation of “natural” found in the Nicomachean Ethics, shows the mistakenness of a common view about Aristotle and the natural law. “It is often claimed that Aristotle could have had no notion of a “natural law,” because he was still philosophizing in a context, evident in the Sophistic Movement, in which “nature” (phusis) and “law” (nomos) were contrasted and held to be incompatible” (Pakaluk, Michael, pg.
“1. government should govern for the good of the people, not for the good of those in power;
2. there is a natural aristocracy, and skilled statecraft arranges things so that this element acquires authority, or, failing that, …show more content…
A significance of the above is that legal justice is not absolute justice but is the kind of justice appropriate to the activity of doing law (Beever, Allan, 2004). Aristotle upholds that legal justice displays certain insufficiencies from the standpoint of absolute justice. One reason for this is that, “all law is universal, and there are some things about which it is not possible to pronounce rightly in general terms” (Beever, Allan, 2004, pg. 35). Aristotle’s view in ethics is the concluding claim that, “we must be satisfied with a broad outline of the truth; that is, in arguing about what is for the most part so from premises which are for the most part true we must be content to draw conclusions that are similarly qualified” (Beever, Allan, 2004, pg. 35). We can summarize this by saying, that for Aristotle, ethical truth is too complex to be taken by any limited stable set of principles. Hence a system that sought the observation of principles could not understand justice (Beever, Allan, …show more content…
The explanation of “natural” found in the Nicomachean Ethics, shows the mistakenness of a common view about Aristotle and the natural law. “It is often claimed that Aristotle could have had no notion of a “natural law,” because he was still philosophizing in a context, evident in the Sophistic Movement, in which “nature” (phusis) and “law” (nomos) were contrasted and held to be incompatible” (Pakaluk, Michael, pg.