Aristotle's Views on Citizenship
For Aristotle the human is "by nature" destined to live in a political association. Yet not all who live in the political association are citizens, and not all citizens are given equal share in the power of association. The idea of Polity is that all citizens should take short turns at ruling (VII, 1332 b17-27). It is an inclusive form of government: everyone has a share of political power. Aristotle argues that citizen are those who are able to participate in the deliberative and judicial areas of government (III, 1279a32-34). However, not all who live in a political association are citizens. Women, children, slaves, and alien residents are not citizens. Some groups; the rich, the poor, those who come from noble families and the virtuous, can claim power in the state.
Polis exits by nature, and human beings are naturally adapted to live in a Polis (II, 1253a1-3). Initially appears the family. Then several families amalgamate to form a village. When several villages amalgamate into a community large enough to be self-sufficient, they form a state, "Polis". Polis "comes to be for the sake of living, but it remains in existance for the sake of living well" (II, 1252 b28). According to Aristotle, studying the mature and fully developed specimen is the best way to understand the nature of being. To comprehend the nature of the thing one does not need to look to its origin but to its full development.
Every city-state exists by NATURE, since the first communities do. For the city-state is their end, and nature is an end; for we say that each thing's nature […] is the character it has when its coming-into-being has been completed. Moreover, that for the sake that something exists [its end], is b...
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... those who come from noble families and the virtuous, can share in the power of association. Artisans, trades persons, and those who do not own property are not given equal share in power of the state. They are not "citizens" in respect to ruling. Polity is "a mixture of oligarchy and democracy" (IV, 1293 b34), is an attempt to combine the freedom of the poor majority and the wealth of the rich minority (IV, 1294 a17). Rule is a complex of activities that can be allocated to different social categories. Polity is the form of government in which different organs of government are controlled by different sections of the population, in such a way that both rich and poor have a share of power. Because power is shared by all categories, all take turns to rule.
Bibliography:
Reeve, C..D.C. trans. Aristotle Politics (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998)
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