Two Concepts in Aristotle's 'Public Policy': Social Capital and Well-Being

In The Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle articulates the nature and political primacy of two policy ideas generally thought of as emerging in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Social Capital and Well-being. The paper articulates the conceptions presented by Aristotle, the links to current day frameworks and identifies critical challenges in the application to current policy and practices. Aristotle emphasizes the central role of political community and sees it as rooted in a kind of communal friendship. Fostering that friendship - in some sense trust - is the most important propriety for political leadership as it is necessary for a political community to see and govern by a sense of the common good. Major inequality is an anathema to governing, not because it is unfair but because it undermines the ability of the population to see everyone as part of a common polity. The discussion of what we now call trust and the presumption of a highly networked society engaged in the political and policy decisions of the day anticipate much of the concepts, structure, and processes of modern social capital. However there are key challenges to this ideal that arise in modern application: size and diversity. The Nicomachean Ethics offers one of the richest discussions of the aims, nature and numerous challenges to the attainment of human happiness and flourishing. Much of this discussion has contemporary relevance and insight - the role of education, the malleability of human preferences, the nature of friendship and self-love. But there is also a rigidity in the conception of the telos of human life - what flourishing or will being looks like - that excludes many but women in particular. The paper assesses both the valuable and deeper insights offered Aristotle's ideas that may be overlooked in contemporary understandings of social capital and wellbeing as well as the challenges that his theory illuminates for them.