Grounds and Limits of Political Obligation

Political Obligation during the Greek Period

From Pericles to Aristotle, democracy was cradled in Athens, one of the most celebrated Greek poleis, city-states. The polis was a celebration of public life. Such was the importance they attached to political life and participation of individuals in the public life of the polis that those who were uninterested in the affairs of the polis, the Greek called them idiots—from which we derive the word idiot.⁹ Such an understanding of political and public life was germane to the political obligation that the polis sought from its citizens. Aristotle’s phrase that state is prior to the individual seeks to establish teleological priority of the state. Like the nature of a seed is to be a tree or a plant, nature of man is to be a political animal and to realize himself in the state. The purpose of human life is to realize one’s self and freedom in association with fellow beings. If this was the realization and reconciliation of, what Barker says, the antithesis between the individual and the state, the Greeks resolved the issue of political obligation by making the polis a cradle of an individual’s freedom ad self-realization. Greek political thought did not seek ground for political obligation from its citizens away from the very purpose of the polis, betterment of the citizens. In Greek political thought we find endorsement of political obligation based on teleological ground in which the purpose of good life justifies obedience and affiliation to the state.

Their justification for political obligation was grounded in the very nature of human life, as Aristotle would say, ‘state is a creature of nature and man is a political animal’ or ‘to live alone … one must be either an animal or a god’. State was found to be the highest level of social and self-sufficient organization. This self-sufficiency was not merely in terms of territorial, economic and material but for moral and mental development as well. State, as Aristotle says, came into being for the sake of life but continues for the sake of good life. If this was the end of the State, political obligation of the individuals meant their own benefit and development.

However, the Greek poleis were not free from stasis, civil strife or discord between the rich and poor and factional competition and their alignment across different poleis. Plato complained of factional strife and identified this as a reason for instability.¹⁰ Repeated corruption (in the sense of degeneration) of the constitutions and form of governments from monarchy to tyranny; aristocracy–oligarchy and democracy to mobocracy was a staple complain of both Plato and Aristotle. Though overall loyalty and obligation to the polis was forthcoming, Greek political life was not without resistance. Aristotle talks of revolutions as cyclical changes in the forms of government. This would be possible when one class takes over from the other class (class in the sense of rich, poor and middle class).