Pluralism and the Pathos of Distance (or How to Relax with Style): Connolly, Agonistic Respect and the Limits of Political Theory

Abstract

Now if arguments were in themselves enough to make men good, they would justly, as Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should have been provided; but as things are, while they seem to have power to encourage and stimulate the generous-minded among our youth, and to make a character that is well-bred, and a true lover of what is noble, ready to be possessed by virtue, they are not able to encourage the many to nobility and goodness. For these do not by nature obey the sense of shame, but only fear, and do not abstain from bad acts because of their baseness but through fear of punishment; living by passion they pursue the pleasures appropriate to their character and the means to them, and avoid the opposite pains, and have not even a conception of what is noble and truly pleasant, since they have never tasted it. What argument would remould such people? It is hard, if not impossible, to remove by argument the traits that have long since been incorporated in the character; and perhaps we must be content if, when all the influences by which we are thought to become good are present, we get some tincture of virtue. Now some think we are made good by nature, others by habituation, others by teaching. Nature's part evidently does not depend on us, but as

Machiavelli’s il Principe and the Politics of Glory*

“…Commenting on this passage elsewhere (Owen, 2008), I have noted that with this argument, Aristotle is delimiting the audience for his philosophical reflections on ethics, while also preparing the way for the transition from ethics to politics. In other words, Aristotle’s lectures are taken by him to be oriented to, and necessarily limited to, those who can be brought to value what is noble, but who have not acquired a reflective understanding of the value of ‘what is noble’ of the kind that he will attempt to supply.…”