On April 4, 2024, the James Madison Program hosted Mary P. Nichols,
Professor Emerita in Political Science at Baylor University, for a
lecture titled, "Piety, Philosophy, and Politics: The Nicomachean Ethics
as Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human."
As is often noted, piety is not among the list of moral and intellectual
virtues mentioned by Aristotle in the Ethics. I argue that this is
neither an oversight on Aristotle’s part nor a subtle way for him to
reject the legitimacy or importance of piety. Rather, for Aristotle
piety is not simply one of the virtues but in fact it provides a crucial
element underlying the specific virtues. Piety is reverence for the
divine. Reverence, in the first place, entails our distance from the
power and goodness of divinity, and thereby conveys a sense of our
limitation. In the second place, beings who revere obviously have a
capacity for reverence, an openness to the divine. This link to divinity
that Aristotle finds in the human soul confers on us a privilege, or
rather a duty, to act in a way that is worthy of who we are. Because we
look up to the divine, we are not beasts. Piety confers pride. Because
we are not gods, piety confers what could be called humility. Aristotle
discovers the human not merely in a state between god and beast but in
those ethical and intellectual virtues in which both this pride and
humility are at work, in the political and philosophical lives we lead.
This discovery of the human has several implications for political life.
For example, the distance between human and divine rules out the
possibility that philosophy culminate in wisdom and therewith the
authoritative rule of the wise. Moreover, Aristotle’s political
recommendations direct us to a polity that protects and fosters what is
divine in the human soul, whether manifest in religious worship, the
pursuit of the truth, or the activities of virtue. Far from endorsing
the ancient polis (city-state) that binds its citizens to the way of
life it deems superior, Aristotle’s political thought offers support to a
politics that respects religious tolerance, academic freedom and the
cause of knowledge, and conditions of civility that are conducive to
virtuous action. Aristotle’s political thought might provide a more
solid foundation for liberal politics than the view of human nature
offered by early modern theorists.
Professor Nichols studies Greek political philosophy, the history of
political thought, and “politics, literature and film,” including
Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, the dramas of Shakespeare, and the
films of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Woody Allen. Her most recent
book is Aristotle’s Discovery of the Human: Piety and Politics in
Aristote’s “Nicomachean Ethics” (Notre Dame 2003), on which her
presentation at Princeton is based.
Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event does not constitute
departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program,
speakers or views presented.