Limits of Rationality

Abstract

It is hard for me to decide whether I should be elated or depressed by the fact that over 2000 years ago, Aristotle had already thought about the problem that I am addressing now, which is more or less the relationship of rationality and ethics. He not only thought about it but also achieved insights to which we have found it difficult to add. In his analysis he separated ethics from politics in explicit recognition of the dialectic tension between the man and the citizen—between the particular and the universal. In Aristotle’s own words (or rather in W.D. Ross’ translation): If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still, inasmuch as all citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen—thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in a good state all the citizens must be good (1).