Characteristics Of Aristocracy

In today’s day and age, we tend to think that our regime, whatever that may be, is the best regime out there. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, deeply analyzed which regime is not only the best but the most just. In his argument, Aristotle discusses how others define justice, the most just claims to political office, and the drawbacks, and weighs which regime is the best. At the end of this long thought out discussion it seems plausible that Aristotle comes to the conclusion that Aristocracy would logically be the most just regime. In that bold claim he is not taking credit from any of the other regimes, because he believes that all regimes are just if they serve the common advantage; Aristocracy would just be the most just. A regime is defined

The way democrats define justice is equality for equals and inequality for those who are unequal. So, if you are living in a democratic regime if you are unequal and below everyone, and you still benefit from the society. Both the oligarchs and democrats “agree as to the equality of the object, but dispute about it for persons” (1280a 19). The main difference between democrats and oligarchs is poverty and wealth respectively (1280a 1-2). In an oligarchic regime, your government believes that because you are unequal in wealth that you are therefore unequal in everything even including freedom, whereas democrats believe that you may be unequal in wealth but you are still equal in freedom. This claim makes complete sense and makes it easy to agree with the democratic view on keeping partisans equal in everything else even though they are not equal in financial status. In comparison, Aristocracy is superior to these regimes

Some countries live in a democracy where the people get to vote the president and they find that to be a pretty just way to get their voices heard, and a just way to get into a political office. The way Aristotle believes it should be handled is that the virtue of a good man needs to be examined. Often people get distracted by someone being great in one field and they instantly think it translates to being great in the political office. He states “the good citizen should know and have the capacity both to be ruled and to rule” (1277b 14). This essentially means that one would have had to been in a regime that was either well run or poorly run so they now know how it should be portrayed. The person put in political office should be able to listen to others but also be a leader. Then he goes even further to saying that the only virtue that separates a ruler is prudence; “prudence is not a virtue of one ruled, but rather true opinion; for the one ruled is like a flute maker, while the ruler is like a flute player, the user what makes the other” (1277b 28). What he means by this is that a person who is capable of holding political office is one who sets the lead; one who gives other people the help and tools they need to get through life. The one backlash seen with this argument is that he states one who is capable of holding political office has virtue, but who decides