Anselm Spindler Politics and collective action in Thomas Aquinas's on kingship Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Spindler, Anselm (2018) Politics and collective action in Thomas Aquinas's on kingship. Journal of the History of Philosophy. ISSN 0022-5053 © 2018 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/87076/ Available in LSE Research Online: March 2018 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Politics and Collective Action in Thomas Aquinas's On Kingship There is currently a vibrant debate in philosophy about the nature of collective intentionality and collective action. However, these topics are rarely explored in detail from the perspective of the history of philosophy. And if reference is made to the history of philosophy, it is mostly to antique authors like Plato1 or to modern authors such as Hobbes2, Rousseau3, or Kant4 – although it has been appreciated that these were important issues in the Middle Ages as well.5 Therefore, I would like to contribute a little bit to a broadened understanding of the history of these concepts by exploring the political philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. This, however, may seem an unlikely place to look. After all, what Aquinas's political philosophy is mostly known for is not a theory of collective intentionality or collective action but rather a kind of Christian-Aristotelian perfectionism that has its roots in his moral philosophy. Therefore, his political philosophy is often portrayed as being based on claims such as these: (1) The relevance of the political community and of political institutions is due to the way in which they contribute to the moral perfection of human beings, a process that is aimed at the twofold “temporal” and “eternal” happiness of man. (2) The political community and political institutions contribute to this process (i) by providing certain goods that the twofold human happiness requires and (ii) by providing a system of behavioural guidelines, i.e. positive law, that help human beings to develop the virtues that the twofold happiness requires. (3) Both the good ruler and the good citizen are characterised by a specific set of virtues that accords with their role in the political community. (4) The previous claims are the main reason why political philosophy is a branch of moral philosophy.6 Passages supporting a perfectionist interpretation of Aquinas's political philosophy abound. There is, for instance, the argument in favour of the institution of positive human law in Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 95: Human beings are supposed to strive for virtue in order to lead a good life. However, the acquirement of virtues requires moral education which men, because of their peculiar natural setup, normally have to receive from others. In many cases, parental admonition suffices to provide this education. But there are also some “insolent persons prone to vice who cannot easily be moved by words”. And therefore, “it is necessary that they are kept away from the bad by force and 1 Pettit 2003. 2 Martell 2009. 3 Gilbert 1990. 4 Korsgaard 2014. 5 Pettit/List 2011, 10-11. 6 Interpretations of Aquinas's political philosophy in terms of some or all of these claims, or nearby versions of them, can be found in a wide range of contributions to the subject. See e.g. Crofts 1973, Weisheipl 1975, Scully 1981, Dupré 1993, Finnis 1998 and 2014, Kempshall 1999, Pakaluk 2001, and Aroney 2007. 1 fear”; and “this education which coerces by fear of punishment is the education of law”.7 A second example is Aquinas's discussion of prudence in Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 47 where he argues that prudence, as a virtue that is concerned with the rational direction of human action, is not a specific virtue of those who are subject to political rule. Because insofar as they have this role, they do not “direct and govern” human actions. Rather, it is a specific virtue of the people in government whose job it is to direct the actions of their subjects according to reason.8 A third example is the division of philosophy that Aquinas proposes in the prologues to his commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics9 and Politics10. In these texts, Aquinas advocates the traditional view that moral philosophy is a practical rather than a theoretical science; and that it has three parts, namely individual ethics, household management, and political science. Furthermore, he argues that political science belongs to the moral sciences because politics is not a sphere of production “where the activity is transferred to some external material”. Rather, like morals in general, it is a sphere of action in the narrow sense of moral practice “where the activity remains in the one who acts”.11 However, ironically, it is Aquinas's political treatise On Kingship to the King of Cyprus (De Regno ad Regem Cypri) that has proven to be strangely resistant to a compelling interpretation in these terms. Commentators often approach this text in search of support for a perfectionist interpretation of Aquinas's political philosophy. Therefore, they focus on issues such as the definition of the common good as peace and unity12 or the relationship between the “temporal” and the “ecclesiastical” authority that corresponds with the relationship between the “temporal” and the “eternal” happiness of human beings.13 But there are various important themes in On Kingship that do not straightforwardly lend themselves to a perfectionist interpretation. Take, for instance, the thought experiment that is at the heart of the foundational argument of the opening chapter: If human beings lived a solitary life like some other animals, they would not need anyone else to direct them. Instead, everyone would be his or her own king, directing his or her own actions through their faculty of reason.14 But according to Aquinas's perfectionist understanding of politics, human beings socialise because life in groups provides certain goods that they require for a good life. Furthermore, in acquiring the virtues that allow them to reasonably direct their actions, most 7 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 95, a. 1 (174-175). – All quotations from Aquinas's works are taken from the Editio Leonina; page numbers are given in brackets. All translations in this article are my own. 8 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 47, a. 12 (360). 9 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Ethicorum I, 1. 10 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, Prologus. 11 Ibid. (70). 12 See e.g. Finnis 1998, 222-234. 13 See e.g. Weisheipl 1975, 189-195; Miethke 2008, 25-43. 14 Thomas Aquinas, De Regno I, c. 1. 2 humans depend on education they receive from the family or the government. These assumptions suggest that if humans lived a solitary life, most of them would not be their own king because they would lack the material basis and the moral education required to direct one's own actions according to reason. A second example is the distinction between just and unjust forms of government.15 Here the fault of the unjust ruler is not described in the terms that Aquinas's perfectionism suggests, i.e. as a lack of certain virtues. Rather, it is described in terms of the institution of government: The political community is a multitude of free persons, not a multitude of slaves. Therefore, it is the government's job to pursue the common good of the citizens. As a consequence, the fault of the unjust ruler is that, contrary to his “job description”, he uses his power to further his private ends instead of the common good. And this seems to be a fault independently of the moral merits or demerits of his individual character and of his individual conception of happiness. A third example is the discussion about the rewards for the good ruler.16 Against the background of Aquinas's perfectionism, this discussion may seem to turn on the question of how promoting the moral perfection and happiness of others is conductive to realising one's own moral perfection and happiness. However, it appears to turn rather on a particular problem of motivation that results from the distinction between the common good and individual happiness: It is the ruler's job to promote the common good of the political community, which means that he has the task of pursuing an end that is not his own. But as a human being, his own happiness is the ultimate motivational basis for whatever he does. So how can this motivational basis be connected to the pursuit of the common good? This problem also seems to exist independently of the moral merits or demerits of the ruler's individual character and of the ruler's individual conception of happiness, and even of the common good itself. So several important themes in On Kingship are not straightforwardly explicable in terms of the perfectionist understanding of politics that is commonly attributed to Aquinas. However, I will not dispute the cogency of a perfectionist interpretation of his political philosophy in general because it has a firm textual basis. Also, I will not suggest to downplay the relevance of On Kingship as a source of his political philosophy because of its unfinished character or its supposed philosophical weakness; or to call into question its authenticity altogether because of certain discrepancies in content.17 Instead, I would like to propose that the foundational argument of On Kingship is actually quite strong and that it can be interpreted as the consequent development of an idea that is present in 15 Thomas Aquinas, De Regno I, c. 1. 16 Thomas Aquinas, De Regno I, c. 7-9. 17 On the character of On Kingship and its place in Aquinas's oeuvre, see e.g. Eschmann 1949, xxii-xxvi; Weisheipl 1975, 189-195; Torrell 1996, 170; Dyson 2002, xix; Miethke 2008, 25-43. 3 texts the authenticity and philosophical strength of which is considered to be beyond doubt. This idea, however, is not part of Aquinas's perfectionist view of politics as it is usually portrayed. Rather, it is what I will call an “action-theoretical” conception of the political community according to which the political community is an artificial and yet distinct subject of human agency. This conception of the political community allows for a compelling interpretation of central themes of On Kingship as a theory of representative government that is meant to solve a collective action problem which results from human sociation; an interpretation that links this theory of government with today's debate about the nature of collective intentionality and collective action. The paper is divided accordingly: In the first part, I will reconstruct Aquinas's conception of the political community as an artificial and distinct subject of human agency (1.). In the second part, I will argue that this action-theoretical understanding of the political community allows for a compelling interpretation of central themes in On Kingship as a theory of representative government that is intended to solve a collective action problem (2.). In the third part, I will carve out certain features of Aquinas's understanding of the political community as a subject of agency in more detail and argue that his approach is quite similar to but also interestingly different from List's and Pettit's influential theory of “group agents” (3.).18 1. The Political Community as an Artificial Subject of Agency In the first part of the paper, my aim is to reconstruct Aquinas's conception of the political community that can be found in the prologues to his commentaries on Aristotle's Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. In these texts, as in the prologues to his commentaries on Aristotle's works in general19, Aquinas locates the subject matter under discussion – i.e. morals and politics – in a comprehensive system of philosophy. Thus, in both texts, he advocates the traditional view that moral philosophy is a practical rather than a theoretical science; and that it has three parts, namely individual ethics, household management, and political science. In the course of arguing for this view, he describes the political community as an artificial and yet distinct subject of human agency: It is artificial because it is the product of human action. And it is a distinct subject of human agency because actions can be attributed to it that cannot be attributed to any of its individual members, and vice versa. 1.1. The Political Community as an Artefact 18 List/Pettit 2011. 19 Cheneval/Imbach 1993, LVII–LXX. 4 Aquinas develops the first element of this conception – that the political community is an artefact – in the prologue to his commentary on Aristotle's Politics.20 The basic move is a distinction between nature and art that implies two claims. The first is that the distinction between nature and art is an exhaustive distinction between two domains of reality according to their causal history: The concept of art applies to all things that exist as products of human activity. And the concept of nature designates all things that exist because of divine activity.21 The second claim is Aristotle's dictum that art imitates nature22 of which Aquinas gives the following interpretation: There is a certain similarity between the human and the divine intellect because both are capable of productive action. But the human intellect is characterised by a lesser degree of perfection and therefore, the imperfect productive activity of humans must imitate the perfect productive activity of God as it is present in nature. Thus, art must seek to imitate nature because nature is the ideal example of artistic activity. Against this background, Aquinas first draws a distinction between theoretical and practical reason in human beings and a corresponding distinction between theoretical and practical sciences. As sources of productive action, the divine intellect and the human intellect do not mingle: Nature does not produce the works of art and art does not produce the works of nature. As a consequence, the human intellect is theoretical or speculative with respect to nature because it can cognize but not produce it. With respect to artefacts in the broad sense envisaged here, on the other hand, the human intellect is practical because it both cognizes and produces them.23 Secondly, Aquinas specifies the claim that art imitates nature. This imitation consists in the adoption of an abstract principle of productive action, namely that productive action proceeds by composition.24 In human practical reason, this principle has two applications: The first is in the production of material objects that are useful for human beings, such as ships or houses, which are construed out of simpler parts. The second application is in the ordering or arrangement of 20 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, Prologus. 21 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, Prologus (69): “[S]icut se habent principia adinuicem, ita proportionabiliter se habent operationes ad effectus; principium autem eorum que secundum artem fiunt est intellectus humanus, qui secundum similitudinem quandam deriuatur ab intellectu diuino qui est principium rerum naturalium: unde necesse est quod et operationes artis imitentur operationes nature, et ea que sunt secundum artem imitentur ea que sunt in natura.” 22 Ibid.: “Sicut philosophus docet in II Phisicorum, ars imitatur naturam.” 23 Ibid.: “Set natura quidem non perficit ea que sunt artis, set solum quedam principia preparat et exemplar operandi quodam modo artificibus prebet; ars uero inspicere quidem potest ea que sunt nature et eis uti ad opus proprium perficiendum, perficere uero ea non potest. Ex quo patet quod ratio humana eorum que sunt secundum naturam est cognoscitiua tantum, eorum uero que sunt secundum artem est et cognoscitiua et factiua. Vnde oportet quod scientie humane que sunt de rebus naturalibus sint speculatiue, que uero sunt de rebus ab homine factis sint practice siue operatiue secundum imitationem nature.” 24 Thus, it is a more abstract interpretation of the Aristotelian dictum than the one in Summa contra Gentiles II, 75 or De Veritate 11, 1 where the idea seems to be that art should imitate nature in the more material sense of adopting the same methods and means to achieve a desired effect. 5 individual human beings in such a way that they form a community such as the domestic or the political community.25 And since, as Aquinas assumes, the political community is the community that aims to achieve the highest possible human good, i.e. the self-sufficiency of human life, he can conclude: “[T]his whole which is the political community must be the highest of all wholes which can be cognized and constituted by human reason.”26 1.2. The Political Community as a Distinct Subject of Agency So in the prologue to his commentary on the Politics, Aquinas characterises the political community as an artefact: It is not part of nature but belongs to the realm of things that exist because human beings produce them. He develops the second, complementary element of this action-theoretical understanding of the political community – that it is a distinct subject of human agency – in the prologue to his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.27 In this text, Aquinas first characterizes moral philosophy in general as a practical science that is concerned with the rational direction of intentional human action.28 He then accounts for its division into individual ethics, household management, and political science by distinguishing three distinct subjects of intentional human agency: [O]ne must know that this whole, which is the civic multitude, or the domestic family, only has the unity of order according to which it is not something that is simply one; and therefore, a part of this whole can have an activity that is not an activity of the whole, just as the soldier in the army has an activity that is not the activity of the whole army. But nevertheless, this whole itself has some activity which does not belong to any of its parts, but to the whole, namely the battle of the whole army. […] But there is another type of whole which has the unity not just of order but of composition or connection or continuity, according to which a unity is something that is simply one; and therefore, there is no activity of the part which is not also an activity of the whole. For in continuous things, the 25 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, Prologus (69): “Procedit autem natura in sua operatione ex simplicibus ad composita, ita quod in eis que per operationem nature fiunt, quod est maxime compositum est perfectum et totum et finis aliorum, sicut apparet in omnibus totis respectu suarum partium; vnde et ratio hominis operatiua ex simplicibus ad composita procedit, tanquam ex imperfectis ad perfecta. Cum autem ratio humana disponere habeat non solum de hiis que in usum hominis ueniunt, set etiam de ipsis hominibus qui ratione reguntur, in utrisque procedit ex simplicibus ad compositum: in aliis quidem rebus que in usum hominis ueniunt, sicut cum ex lignis constituit nauim, et ex lignis et lapidibus domum; in ipsis autem hominibus, sicut cum multos homines ordinat in unam quandam communitatem. Quarum quidem communitatum cum diuersi sint gradus et ordines, ultima est communitas ciuitatis ordinata ad per se sufficientia uite humane: unde inter omnes communitates humanas ipsa est perfectissima.” 26 Ibid.: “[N]ecesse est quod hoc totum quod est ciuitas sit principalius omnibus totis que ratione humana cognosci et constitui possunt.” (My emphasis.) 27 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Ethicorum I, 1. 28 Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Ethicorum I, 1 (4): “Sic igitur moralis philosophiae, circa quam versatur praesens intentio, proprium est considerare operationes humanas secundum quod sunt ordinatae adinvicem et ad finem.” 6 movement of the whole and the part are the same; and similarly, in composite things or in connected things, the activity of the part is principally an activity of the whole; and therefore, the consideration of the whole and the part must belong to the same science. But it does not belong to the same science to consider a whole that has only the unity of order and its parts. And therefore, moral philosophy is divided into three parts. The first of these, which is called individual ethics, considers the actions of the single human being oriented towards a goal. The second, however, which is called household management, considers the actions of the domestic multitude. The third, however, which is called political science, considers the actions of the civic multitude.29 Aquinas's perfectionism suggest that political philosophy is a branch of moral philosophy because it is also concerned with the moral perfection of human beings; a fact that is mirrored in a focus on the specific virtues and actions of the rulers and of the citizens. However, in this passage, Aquinas argues for this hierarchy of disciplines in a different way, namely by introducing a subject of human agency that is distinct both from the rulers and from the citizens: Political science belongs to moral philosophy in general because it is also concerned with the rational direction of human action. But it must be distinguished from individual ethics and household management in particular because it is concerned with a distinct subject of human agency, namely the political community as opposed to individual human beings and the domestic community. But what does it mean to say that the political community is a distinct subject of human agency? The passage turns on the idea that something can be a unified whole in the sense of being “simply one” or in the sense of possessing the “unity of order”. Aquinas employs these concepts in other contexts as well, e.g. when discussing the unity of the world or the unity of the human soul: Something that is “simply one” is unified in virtue of its substantial form; a human being, for instance, is “simply one” in virtue of its soul.30 In contrast, something that possesses the “unity of order” is not an individual substance that is unified in virtue of a substantial form; rather, it is a multitude of individual substances that is unified because these individual substances have a certain order imposed on them both in relation to one another and in relation to a common point of 29 Ibid.: “Sciendum est autem quod hoc totum quod est civilis multitudo vel domestica familia habet solam ordinis unitatem, secundum quam non est aliquid simpliciter unum; et ideo pars huius totius potest habere operationem quae non est operatio totius, sicut miles in exercitu habet operationem quae non est totius exercitus; habet nihilominus et ipsum totum aliquam operationem quae non est propria alicuius partium sed totius, puta conflictus totius exercitus […] Est autem aliud totum quod habet unitatem non solum ordine sed compositione aut colligatione vel etiam continuitate, secundum quam unitatem est aliquid unum simpliciter; et ideo nulla est operatio partis quae non sit totius; in continuis enim idem est motus totius et partis, et similiter in compositis vel colligatis operatio partis principaliter est totius. Et ideo oportet quod ad eandem scientiam pertineat consideratio talis totius et partis eius, non autem ad eandem scientiam pertinet considerare totum quod habet solam ordinis unitatem et partes ipsius. Et inde est quod moralis philosophia in tres partes dividitur, quarum prima considerat operationes unius hominis ordinatas ad finem quae vocatur monastica, secunda autem considerat operationes multitudinis domesticae quae vocatur yconomica, tertia autem considerat operationes multitudinis civilis quae vocatur politica.” 30 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles II, 58. See also Henry 1991, 279-313. 7 reference. The world, for instance, possesses the “unity of order” because it consists of a multitude of individual substances that are ordered in a certain way in relation to one another and in relation to God.31 Now Finnis describes Aquinas's application of this distinction to human communities as follows: “[c]ommunities […] are groups, each of them a whole [totum] made up of persons (and perhaps of other groups), their unity being not merely one of composition or conjunction or continuity, but rather of order […].”32 However, Aquinas's point is not that human communities not only possess the unity of composition, conjunction, or continuity; it is rather that they only possess the unity of order. Because something that possesses the “unity of order” is a unified whole to a lesser degree than something that is “simply one”.33 Thus, just like the world, these communities are not individual substances unified in virtue of a substantial form. Rather, they consist of a multitude of individual substances, i.e. individual human beings; and these can be considered a unified whole because a certain order has been imposed on them both in relation to one another and in relation to a common point of reference. However, according to Aquinas, their unity of order has an effect that the world's unity of order does not seem to have, namely that the whole itself emerges as a subject of agency that is distinct from the subjects of agency that make it up: Actions can be attributed to the community as a whole that cannot be attributed to any of its individual members; and actions can be attributed to its individual members that cannot be attributed to the community as a whole. This distinguishes these communities from things that are “simply one” where an action of one of the parts is principaliter an action of the whole: If I take a walk, the movement of my feet and my taking a walk are not distinct actions; and my feet and I are not distinct subjects of agency.34 But this also distinguishes these communities from the world, considered as a unified whole. For the world, while also an ordered multitude of individual substances, does not emerge itself as a distinct subject of agency. 2. Representative Government and the Political Community as Subject of Agency in On Kingship In the second part of the paper, my aim is to show that a better way to approach central themes in On Kingship is to view them as a consequent development not of Aquinas's perfectionist understanding of politics but of his action-theoretical conception of the political community according to which the political community is an artificial and yet distinct subject of human agency. 31 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 47, a. 3. 32 Finnis 2014 (his emphasis). 33 See also Summa contra Gentiles II, 58. 34 See also Henry 1991, 313-317. 8 I will first offer an interpretation along these lines of the foundational argument of the opening chapter and then briefly sketch how some other important themes flow from it. 2.1. The Argument for the Indispensability of Government In On Kingship, Aquinas makes rather free use of the literary form of the “Mirrors for Princes” by presenting a general theory of government and a justification of monarchy as the best regime type.35 In this spirit, the first chapter begins with a foundational four-step argument for the indispensability of government in social groups. In the first step of this argument, Aquinas introduces a general conception of intentional goal- directed action: [I]n all things that are ordered towards an end the attainment of which allows one to proceed this way or another way, there must be something that guides through which the end is directly achieved. For the ship, which according to the impulse of different winds can move in different directions, would not arrive at its destination if it were not directed to the port through the diligence of the pilot.36 So Aquinas claims that if an agent has a certain orientation towards a goal and if there is more than one way to achieve that goal, then the very achievement of the goal requires that there is some sort of guiding authority in the agent that determines which way to go. The example of the ship suggests that this implies two things: First, it is not just that there are in theory multiple ways of attaining the goal. Rather, for each of them, there are certain reasons or “impulses” that favour it over the others. Secondly, the course of action eventually chosen by the agent need not be identical with any of those suggested by the different reasons or “impulses” taken alone. In the second step of the argument, Aquinas applies these considerations to human beings and their teleological orientation as rational agents: Now man has an end to which his whole life and action is ordered […]. But men can proceed towards this intended end in different ways, as the diversity in human endeavours and actions shows. Therefore, something that guides towards this end is required in man. Now every man by nature has the light of reason, through which he directs his actions towards this end. And if man lived a solitary life, as many animals do, he would not need another agent directing him towards this end, but every 35 See Lambertini 2011. 36 Thomas Aquinas, De Regno I, c. 1 (449): “In omnibus autem quae ad finem aliquem ordinantur, in quibus contingit sic et aliter procedere, opus est aliquo dirigente per quod directe debitum perueniatur ad finem. Non enim nauis, quam secundum diuersorum uentorum impulsum in diuersa moueri contingit, ad destinatum finem perueniret nisi per gubernatoris industriam dirigeretur ad portum.” 9