Phronetics and Politics

The existence today of such institutions as 'Ethics Commissions', that function to investigate political corruption, would seem to suggest an adversarial relation between Ethics and Politics. In contrast, Aristotle presents his Theory of the former as preparatory to that of the latter. For, in his System, Ethics is the cultivation of Reason in a person, and Politics is the arena for the practice of it. However, he compromises this systematization, when he also asserts that Contemplation, which is an entirely private experience, is the highest Rational activity achievable. Antagonism between Ethics and Politics in Western culture became ingrained over the centuries, especially when promoted by the influential Scriptural distinction drawn between 'rendering unto God' and 'rendering unto Caesar', and when codified by the Hobbesian notion of Politics as a necessary evil. One interpretation of Spinoza, namely that which has Political activity for him being the expression of Ethically enlightened individuals, and Kant's notion of a 'Kingdom of Ends', suggest, at least in principle, an overcoming of that antagonism. Now, since Idionomic interpersonal activity of any sort is an experience in which an Individual Evolves, Evolvemental Phronetics rejects the tradition that opposes Ethics and Politics.