Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The horizon we glimpse in Aristotle beyond the realm of moral virtue and practical reason itself has a practical character. This is to say that the circularity involving moral virtue and practical wisdom repeats itself at a higher or more comprehensive level in the relationship between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom: Practical wisdom points beyond itself, and must by its nature point beyond itself, to something purer and more important; but at the same time theoretical wisdom is never completely absolved of its character as that which is posited, projected as the horizon of practical wisdom. The elevation of theory is inescapably practical; the ruling idea cannot altogether shed its character as an idea of ruling.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Both Locke and Aristotle suggest that deviations from the rule of law may be necessary, but their primary reasons differ: the former attributes these failures to the constant flux of things, while the latter emphasizes the irreducibility of virtue to law. Yet a careful reading of each shows that they recognize the other's point. Aristotle acts as a guide to why this difference in emphasis concerning extralegal action reveals their deep disagreement regarding the relationship of philosophy and politics.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper argues that political theorists should examine the structure of the patron-client relationship and what it can contribute to a notion of praxis. While most theorists who are concerned with issues of friendship and community association focus on an ideal of Aristotelian beneficence (from the Nicomachean Ethics), I argue that the related Ciceronian concepts of patronage and liberality—as articulated in De Officiis—are also useful for political practice. While Aristotelian notions are interesting from an ethical perspective, Ciceronian and Roman notions are more structured and thus easier to adapt to the practicalities of political life. We can think of this as a divide between the performance of offices, which involves material structure, and the performance of duty, which, particularly in its more modern and Kantian context, is more nebulous and difficult to define and implement. I suggest that patronage can be used to develop a web of relationships in contemporary civil society that have the unique advantage of being mobile and individualized, as opposed to group-based and rooted in the soil, like many communitarian notions of association. These qualities make patronage relationships an interesting addition to a classical liberal framework.