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Justice Speaks: Nemesis, Nature, and Common Law in Aristotle's Rhetoric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2021

Christine J. Basil Open the ORCID record for Christine J. Basil [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

This essay explores Aristotle's treatment of the passion of nemesis or “righteous indignation” in his Rhetoric and its relevance to contemporary displays of passion in democratic political orders. It does so by considering Aristotle's perplexing definition of nemesis in relation to two other passions, pity and envy, as well as its significance to his discussion of common law (a transpolitical standard of justice according to nature), which he presents through allusions to Sophocles's Antigone. Aristotle's discussion sheds light on the way in which nemesis, which is aroused in relation to the concern for justice, necessarily takes into consideration questions of moral worth that liberal democratic regimes attempt to relegate to the private sphere.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , Spring 2021 , pp. 174 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Notre Dame

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References

1 For examples, see Jackson, Jeff, “What Is Democratic in an Unequal Society?,” review of Democracy against Domination, by K. Sabeel Rahman and Why Democracy Is Oppositional, by John Medearis, Political Theory 45, no. 6 (2017): 853–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parvin, Phil, “Democracy, Capital, and the Rise of the New Inequality,” review of Republic of Equals: Predistribution and Property-Owning Democracy, by Alan Thomas and Free Market Fairness, by John Tomasi, Political Theory 45, no. 6 (2017): 863–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For an account of the contemporary civic-minded revival of Aristotle see Collins, Susan, “Moral Virtue and the Limits of Political Community in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,” American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 1 (2004): 47–61Google Scholar, esp. 47 and 47n1.

3 Translations of Aristotle's Rhetoric are my own. I have consulted Joseph Sachs's translation, in Gorgias and Rhetoric (Newburyport, MA: Focus, 2009); Robert Bartlett's translation, Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019); and George Kennedy's translation, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Translations of the Politics are from The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), with changes. Translations of the Ethics are from Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), with changes.

4 For accounts of the place of the passions in Aristotle's treatment of rhetoric see Fortenbaugh, William W., “On the Emotions,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 52, no. 1 (1970): 40–70Google Scholar; and Grimaldi, William M. A., “A Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle's Rhetoric 1354–1356,” American Journal of Philology 78, no. 2 (1957): 88–192Google Scholar.

5 Noteworthy examples include Nichols, Mary P., “Aristotle's Defense of Rhetoric,” Journal of Politics 49, no. 3 (1987): 657–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lord, Carnes, “The Intention of Aristotle's Rhetoric,” Hermes 109, no. 3 (1981): 326–39Google Scholar; Larry Arnhart, Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on the “Rhetoric” (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1981); Clayton, Edward W., “The Audience of Aristotle's Rhetoric,” Rhetorica 22, no. 2 (2004): 183–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Frost, Bryan-Paul, “Preliminary Reflections on the Rhetoric of Aristotle's Rhetoric,” Expositions 2, no. 2 (2008): 163–88Google Scholar.

6 While the examples of scholars who have recognized the importance of rhetoric in understanding Aristotle's political teachings are numerous and insightful, their references to the Rhetoric itself are surprisingly limited. See Thomas L. Pangle, Aristotle's Teaching in the “Politics” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013) and “The Rhetorical Strategy Governing Aristotle's Teaching,” Journal of Politics 73, no.1 (2011): 84–96; Aristide Tessitore, Reading Aristotle's “Ethics”: Virtue, Rhetoric, and Political Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); Sebell, Dustin, “The Problem of Political Science: Political Relevance and Scientific Rigor in Aristotle's ‘Philosophy of Human Affairs,’” American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 1 (2016): 85–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 For examples of various accounts of how to reconcile the moral and technical aspects of rhetoric in Aristotle see Grimaldi, William M. A., “Rhetoric and the Philosophy of Aristotle,” Classical Journal 53, no. 8 (1958): 371–75Google Scholar and Studies in the Philosophy of Aristotle's “Rhetoric” (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1972), 15–17; Eugene Garver, “Deception in Aristotle's Rhetoric: How to Tell the Rhetorician from the Sophist and Which One to Bet On,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 24, nos. 1–2 (1994): 75–94; Arnhart, Political Reasoning, 13–43; Bryan Garsten, Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 115–41; Nieuwenburg, Paul, “Learning to Deliberate: Aristotle on Truthfulness and Public Deliberation,” Political Theory 32, no. 4 (2004): 449–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Steven Salkever, “Teaching the Questions: Aristotle's Philosophical Pedagogy in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics,” Review of Politics 69, no. 2 (2007): 192–214; Thomas W. Smith, Revaluing Ethics: Aristotle's Dialectical Pedagogy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001).

9 For an account of the political significance of Aristotle's Poetics see Daniel DiLeo, “Tragedy against Tyranny,” Journal of Politics 75, no. 1 (2013): 254–265, who holds that the Poetics is “best read as a part of Aristotle's political science” (255). See also Elliot Bartky, “Plato and the Politics of Aristotle's Poetics,” Review of Politics 54, no. 4 (1992): 589–619.

10 For an elaboration of Aristotle's treatment of nemesis in the Ethics see Ronna Burger, “Ethical Reflection and Righteous Indignation: Nemesis in the Nicomachean Ethics,” in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, ed. John P. Anton and Anthony Preus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 127–39. For further reflection on the relationship between hope, which is present particularly in nemesis, and the divine see Robert Bartlett's interpretive essay in Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” esp. 259–63.

11 So great is the appeal of using speech ignobly as a means of manipulating our basest passions for the sake of victory that Aristotle's Rhetoric begins with a critique of the excessive focus on forensic rhetoric, the basest passions, and victory. This initial dismissal of forensic rhetoric as base or ignoble cannot be construed as Aristotle's final word on the subject. See Nichols, “Aristotle's Defense,” 671–76, and Frost, “Preliminary Reflections,” 181n9.

12 In his interpretive essay Bartlett helpfully observes that “Nemesis is a goddess (Hesiod, Theogony 223)—but it cannot be said (and Aristotle does not say) that the immortal gods take pity on us: the immortals may well bring down a mortal who thinks himself something special, but they in their superiority to us cannot be moved to pity us, let alone envy us” (Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” 257).

13 Aristotle's discussion of the justice that forensic rhetoric ought to pursue begins with a treatment of injustice and its causes (see Rh. 1368b6–26). This suggests that the quest for justice itself originates in the encounter with injustice or wrongdoing.

14 While emulation (zēlos) is also one of the passions of the decent, I have not explored it here as Aristotle does not explicitly define nemesis in relation to it as he does with pity and envy.

15 The word Aristotle uses and that is here translated “worth” (axios) might also be translated “desert,” “deserving,” or even “merit.” I use these English words in this section to attempt to capture what is embedded in the Greek meaning of the word.

16 This might appear unremarkable but for the fact that nemesis, the thirteenth of the sixteen passions Aristotle highlights in the Rhetoric, marks a departure from his heretofore consistent method of treating the passions, one he outlines in his introduction to book 2 (Rh. 1378a23–27). See Bartlett, Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” 256. Aristotle abandons his habit of defining passions by means of the imperative estō. Instead, nemesis's formal definition (and also that of envy) follows directly from the estō used to define pity at Rh. 1385b14. Aristotle does not use estō in describing either nemesis or envy. See William M. A. Grimaldi, Aristotle “Rhetoric” II: A Commentary (New York: Fordham University Press, 1988), 151.

17 LSJ, s.v. While Bartlett, Sachs, Freese, and George Kennedy interpret this word as having a sense of opposition to nemesis (“antithesis,” “opposite,” “opposed”), Aristotle's treatment of nemesis seems to have something of both in mind as it unfolds. As Grimaldi notes “there is a kinship between pity and indignation in which one emotion is complementary to the other in a person” (Aristotle “Rhetoric” II, 152).

18 This desire and hope in divine justice is one that Burger claims is the hidden catalyst of the exploration of virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics. See “Ethical Reflection and Righteous Indignation,” 133–34. In this vein, Bartlett's comments on nemesis draw our attention to Hegel's observation on the close relationship between nemesis and the expectation of divine justice. G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, §564; Bartlett, Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” 257n26.

19 With respect to Aristotle's concern for his noble audience see Frost, “Preliminary Reflections,” esp. 167–71; Lord, “Intention,” 338–39; Thomas K. Lindsay, “Aristotle's Appraisal of Manly Spirit: Political and Philosophic Considerations,” American Journal of Political Science 44 no. 3 (2000): 433–48; Jacob Howland, “Aristotle's Great-Souled Man,” Review of Politics 64, no. 1 (2002): 27–56; Karl Löwith, “Can There Be a Christian Gentleman?,” Theology Today 5, no. 1 (1948): 58–67.

20 As Burger observes, “Pity and righteous indignation share the presupposition that nature itself should be governed by an order in accordance with the standards of human justice, and it is this that separates them from envy and [malice]” (“Ethical Reflection and Righteous Indignation,” 129).

21 Fear (phobos) is one of the passions treated in the Rhetoric. Like anger it is related primarily to the good of one's self or one's own. See Rh. 1382a20–83b11.

22 As Grimaldi reminds us in his commentary on signs and likelihoods, Aristotle argues in his Metaphysics that all scientific knowledge (epistēmē) is either “of that which is always [tou aei]” or “of that which is for the most part [tou hōs epi to polu]” (Met. 1027a 20–21). William M. A. Grimaldi, Aristotle “Rhetoric” I: A Commentary (New York: Fordham University Press, 1980), 62.

23 See Sachs, Gorgias and Rhetoric, 179n87. Aristotle describes two other principles of common law that he finds in other writings, one concerning the inherent goodness of life, the other concerning freedom (see Rh. 1373b9–18). The meaning of Aristotle's references to the other texts is less than certain as their sources are lost though each reference might be taken to highlight a different aspect of the common law: the wrong of taking innocent life and the principle that slavery is contrary to nature and freedom in accord with it. See Bartlett, Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” 242–49.

24 All references to Sophocles's Antigone are to The Theban Plays: Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, trans. Peter J. Ahrensdorf and Thomas L. Pangle (London: Cornell University Press, 2014), with changes.

25 Various feminist readings of the play have revolved around the question of the relation between nature and convention. Those who emphasize the permanent bearing sexual difference has on political life include Elshtain, Jean Bethke, “Antigone's Daughters,” Democracy 2 (1982): 46–59Google Scholar; Mary G. Dietz, “Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking,” Political Theory 13, no. 1 (1985): 19–37; Saxonhouse, Arlene, “From Tragedy to Hierarchy and Back Again: Women in Greek Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 80, no. 2 (1986): 403–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In contrast, Catherine A. Holland, “After Antigone: Women, the Past, and the Future of Feminist Political Thought,” American Journal of Political Science 42, no. 4 (1998): 1108–32, suggests that Antigone's actions are wholly determined by convention.

26 Paul DeHart's reading of Antigone, which draws on Aristotle's references to that text in the Rhetoric, might be understood as evidence of just how successful Aristotle's retelling of Antigone's story according to nature has been. “Humans have an obligation to justice over and above their obligation to human laws. In fact, Aristotle even suggests that written laws that contradict the unwritten law are not laws at all” (DeHart, “The Dangerous Life: Natural Justice and the Rightful Subversion of the State,” Polity 38, no. 3 [2006]: 376–77). For an alternative reading of Antigone, see Bonnie Honig, “Antigone's Laments, Creon's Grief: Mourning, Membership, and the Politics of Exception,” Political Theory 37, no. 1 (2009): 5–43, who suggests that the “true political stakes” of the play are obscured by reading the play in terms of a conflict between nature and convention. She contends the play ought to be understood as a conflict between aristocratic (Antigone's) and democratic (Creon's) burial customs (7–8).

27 As an example Aristotle suggests the case of Athenian laws banning iron weapons used to inflict bodily harm. To show how this general law might fail to account for the exigencies of particular circumstance, Aristotle presents the case of someone who is punished for raising his hand against or hitting someone while wearing an iron ring (Rh. 1374a37–38). According to Athenian law to raise an iron object against another is to be guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. “By the written law he is subject to punishment and commits an injustice, but according to the truth [kata to alēthes] he does not commit an injustice.” To make this distinction is “the equitable thing [to epieikes]” (Rh. 1374b1–2). For an overview of the meaning of natural justice elsewhere in Aristotle's corpus see Simpson, Peter, “Aristotle on Natural Justice,” Studia Gilsoniana, no. 3 (2014): 367–76Google Scholar.

28 Jennet Kirkpatrick's account suggests that Antigone's sister Ismene shows a middle way between Creon's strict claims of the justice of law and convention and Antigone's unwavering devotion to what is just by nature (Kirkpatrick, “The Prudent Dissident: Unheroic Resistance in Sophocles's Antigone,” Review of Politics 73, no. 3 [2011]: 406). See also Bonnie Honig, “Ismene's Forced Choice: Sacrifice and Sorority in Sophocles’ Antigone,” Arethusa 44, no. 1 (2011): 29–68.

29 One need reflect no further than Thucydides's account of the various Athenian responses to the plague at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War to see the relevance of hope of divine reward to political life.

30 This is also evident in Aristotle's earlier account of anger, which refers to the Iliad no fewer than five times (see Rh. 1378a–1379a9).

31 As Peter Ahrensdorf observes, “it was Homer who provided the Greeks with a common moral understanding by providing them with vivid and compelling models of human excellence,” and a certain understanding of these “compelling models” is taken for granted in the writings of Aristotle. Ahrensdorf, Peter J., Homer on the Gods and Human Virtue: Creating the Foundations of Classical Civilization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 3, 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Iliad 16.50–73.

33 Aristotle's five references to the Iliad in his account of anger each dwell upon some facet of the wrath of Achilles or of Agamemnon's divinely bestowed rule. See Rh. 1378b6–79a6.

34 See Sachs, Gorgias and Rhetoric, 211n126. Bartlett notes that the passage appears in Plutarch's How to Study Poetry 36a (Aristotle's “Art of Rhetoric,” 104n72).

35 For a fuller account of the movement of Achilles's concern for justice throughout the Iliad and especially in book 9 see Timothy W. Burns, “Friendship and Divine Justice in Homer's Iliad,” in Poets, Princes, and Private Citizens: Literary Alternatives to Postmodern Politics, ed. Joseph M. Knippenberg and Peter Augustine Lawler (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 289–303. See also Arlene W. Saxonhouse “Thymos, Justice, and Moderation of Anger in the Story of Achilles,” in Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates to Nietzsche, ed. Catherine H. Zuckert (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988).

36 For accounts of the Ethics that emphasize the significance of courage in Aristotle's account of the moral and philosophic life see Ward, Lee, “Nobility and Necessity: The Problem of Courage in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,” American Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (2001): 71–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Susan Collins, “Moral Virtue and the Limits of Political Community,” esp. 48–51; and Pangle, Lorraine, “The Anatomy of Courage in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,” Review of Politics 80, no. 4 (2018): 569–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. and trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 235–41, 479–81.

38 See Thomas Hobbes's attempt to limit the scope of public deliberation about moral questions in Leviathan (esp. chap. 37). See also Garsten, Saving Persuasion, 25–54.