Aristotle and Modern Politics

Abstract

Peter Simpson has performed a great service by highlighting three things: the manner in which the longings that make man a political animal make him a religious animal as well, the intimate connection that always in the past subsisted between the political and the religious spheres, and the degree to which the modern liberal polity’s institution of an artificial separation between the two marks a break with all previous theory and practice. Although I think this separation fragile and always in need of defense, in sharp contrast with Simpson, I argue on Aristotelian grounds that it is highly advantageous both for politics and religion—especially, within Christendom where, in earlier times, doctrinal disputes repeatedly threatened the public peace. Finally, I suggest that the administrative centralization that Simpson rightly laments was due to the Progressives who embraced a critique of the classical liberalism of the American Founders not unlike Simpson’s own.