Even if you think that a legitimate government is one that promotes human flourishing as best as possible in the circumstances (eudaimonism), what's human flourishing? Ari's own version of eudaimonism is extremely vexed, particularly since there are at least two versions of it -- the "political" version (N.E. I-IX) and the "contemplative" version (N.E. X). Marx's laborist version is different and J.S. Mill's experimentalist version different again. There are others. In addition, eudaimonism is only one view. There's utilitarianism, varieties of Kantianism, Rawls, natural rights theory left and right, etc. Anyway, Ari wasn't interested in the problems of consent theory, since they had not occurred to him. And he doesn't address the later alternatives, likewise. Aristotle's analysis is useful, but only as a starting point. There is nothing easy about these questions.
I have a paper in draft about the relations between democracy and legal positivism.
--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Andie:
>
>
> There is no easy answer. To a certain extent, anyone
> who believes in the consent of the governed must
> concede that it counts in favor of Putin and his
> policies. But raw consent does not settle the
> matter,
> or we;' have to concede that Hitler and Stalin, both
> of whom were very popular while they were winning,
> were legitimate too. I underline that I do not put
> Putin in their league.
>
> The point is that mere consent only goes so far. At
> the same time we must be very cautious about
> discounting the popular will. However, unless we are
> willing to give up radical projects, as Chris and
> Yoshie are willing to do for Russia and Iran but
> not,
> it seems, for the US,w here there ideas have even
> less
> purchase than they do in Iran or Russia, we cannot
> say
> that consent trumps.
>
>
> [WS:] I do not want to sound overly simplistic, but
> did not Aristotle sort
> those things out? He classified government types by
> the number of rulers
> (one, few, many) and its functionally (correct and
> deviant), resulting in
> six types: 3 correct types (kingship, aristocracy,
> and polity), and 3
> deviant types (tyranny, oligarchy, democracy).
>
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/#ConCit
>
> Furthermore, the distinction between correct and
> deviant forms is NOT based
> on the consent of the governed, as Aristotle was
> keenly aware that opinions
> are not equal, but the system's capacity to realize
> the full human potential
> in its citizens (which is more objective than
> subjective opinions.) The
> latter is essentially a view espoused by Karl Marx
> as well.
>
> What is important here is that consent of the
> governed (and the implicit
> legal positivism) offers no guarantee against a
> tyranny (cf. slavery in the
> southern states, or Nazi Germany). The proof is in
> the eating so to speak -
> that is the effects of a system on the lives of the
> citizens as measured by
> their *potential* rather than actual and subjective
> preferences (as
> stipulated by both consent and free market
> doctrines).
>
> Of course, there is the question how to determine
> the potential without
> asking for the current subjective opinions, but that
> question can be
> answered empirically by finding real life examples
> of potential actualized
> in the lives of individuals and using that as
> models. This, of course,
> assumes that while different individuals have
> different potentials, the
> variation among those potentials is not that great
> and can be subsumed to a
> manageable number of types.
>
> The bottom line here is that it is possible, and
> even desirable, to create a
> "correct" political system that is NOT based on the
> popular consent *prior*
> to its implementation. However, the issue of
> consent can be re-phrased in
> this context by stipulating that the population will
> eventually consent to a
> form of government after it experiences it and can
> assess its effects on the
> people's lives. The latter makes far more sense
> than asking people opinions
> about something they have not yet experienced - as
> the standard consensus
> approach stipulates.
>
> Wojtek
>
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