POLITICS. — The etymology, from Greek πόλις = city, suggests the first and most general meaning of the term, insofar as it highlights the object to which it refers. Politics concerns the public life of the city or of the State. This relation, however, does not by itself reveal its specific nature, since many other human activities and theoretical constructions have the same point of reference and yet cannot be included within its sphere; hence the difficulty of passing from the nominal definition to the substantial one. As a point of departure, one may nevertheless accept the common definition, which describes it as the art and science of government and has at least the merit of highlighting two principal aspects. In the first, politics is a practical activity whose purpose is to promote public affairs, and in this sense, although less frequently, it is already found in Aristotle and in the majority of subsequent theorists.
It is necessary, however, to focus attention on the fact that the noun “art” does not express its essence exactly. It refers only to an element that is certainly not negligible, namely that, in the exercise of political activity, intuition and genius are necessary in order to discern the directives of history, anticipate its developments, and take timely measures in favor of the present and future public good; this brings it close to art, from which it is nevertheless distinguished by the normative laws that guide it, whereas those of art are exclusively indicative. Moreover, it must be observed that the element specifying political art and science in the definition given above appears, upon first analysis, too narrow to express the broad meaning ordinarily attributed to politics. For it is not only those who govern who exercise political activity but, particularly in democratic regimes, citizens, the people, and political parties as well; it is therefore more accurate to say that politics, in this first aspect, comprises any activity directed toward the advancement of public affairs, with particular regard to the government and organization of the State.
In its second aspect, politics is a science, and this is the sense in which the term is most frequently used by Aristotle, s. Tommaso, and later theorists. The uncertainties that still persist concerning the concept are, however, reflected in scientific speculation, making the contours of this science elusive and its proper object insufficiently determined. Some identify it with sociology, others with the general theory of the State or with political philosophy, still others with economics or morality; finally, some confuse the practical aspect with the theoretical aspect, dissolving the latter into the former. All these various positions either empty political science of any specific content and deny it while retaining its name, or annul it in amoral empiricism.
The two notions mentioned, the practical and the speculative,
are not independent of one another. Practical politics, in fact, necessarily presupposes politics as a science, since it is proper to man to proceed to action after acquiring a more or less adequate knowledge of the particular or universal ends toward which it must be directed and of the means suited to achieving them—in a word, of the rules that must guide its development. This prior knowledge is provided by political science, which is followed by practice through the application to concrete cases of the norms and directives established by II. By virtue of this intimate and necessary connection, politics belongs among the practical sciences, whose purpose is to guide human action. In every practical science, theory and action are correlative, insofar as speculative knowledge of the laws governs and directs human conduct, though in such a way that the final judgment concerning the path to be followed in concrete cases depends both on theoretical principles and on an evaluation of the factual conditions in which the acting subject finds himself on each occasion. A variable element is thus inscribed in the process that guides action; consideration of it may produce a different practical solution without any change in the higher norms of action. It is upon this variable element that the flexibility universally recognized in politics rests, often mistakenly confused with discretionary power; in a sound conception, however, it is nothing other than the effect of prudence, which suggests differences in practical conduct and adaptability to historical circumstances, within the limits marked out by the most universal principles. Politics, as an art accompanied by inspired intuition, is exercised particularly in this field.
To attain a more adequate concept, the specifying element of purpose must be added to those already mentioned. Every practical science and every human conduct that falls within its sphere have a particular end that determines them and makes their classification possible. Thus, for example, medicine aims either at preventing or curing disease, architecture at construction, economics at the production and circulation of wealth, and pedagogy at education. The same must be said of politics. Whether as a practical science or as action, it has as its specific end the well-being of the community, which it is its function to promote by choosing means suited to the time and circumstances. It is therefore essentially the science of ends and means. The most common current of thought has difficulty admitting this concept, observing that the ends of politics change continually in the course of history or, if it accepts a fixed and permanent end, assigns it to the assertion of power. It is easy to see, however, how it confuses the provisional and contingent ends that are always present, and cannot fail to be present, in the life of States with the universal end to which they are subordinated. Just as, in individual life, above the many temporary objectives there exists a universal and comprehensive one to which they remain subordinated as intermediate steps, so in social life there exists a universal and comprehensive purpose which, as revealed by an objective study of the deepest human aspirations, consists in the well-being of the community (v. BENE COMUNI). Those who, inspired by Machiavelli’s conception, assign to politics the assertion of power as its end identify it with force and its use, denying it the character of a normative science and reducing it to an apparatus of constitutive means directed toward crushing the human person, abandoned to the caprice of the powers of the State.
Politics arises from man and is directed, as its ultimate term, toward man. Its true concept is therefore that of an activity and a science whose respective ends are the temporal and human good of the community. This end does not, however, appear to be specific to it, since it is easy to observe that other practical sciences and other social activities likewise refer to II. The difficulty has an objective foundation, yet it will suffice to press the analysis a little deeper in order to overcome it and bring the essential character of politics more clearly to light.
Some of the practical sciences that contribute to promoting the common good, such as economics, law, pedagogy, agricultural and financial science, and so forth, are limited to a narrow and well-defined sector of public life and therefore have a particular purpose that specifies them. Politics, by contrast, aims at the achievement of a more universal good, embracing the goods toward which all the others strive; over these it exercises a superior power of coordination and subordination, considering the ends of each as intermediate ends and means ordered to the proper functioning and prosperity of the State. Politics is an architectural science and activity, which places the individual elements from which the social good results within a general design; and by virtue of this function it is essentially distinct from every other particular activity and science, which contributes to it only partially.
It is further distinct from one of the most important practical sciences, morality, which has a higher and more universal purpose than politics; for it does not merely order public conduct and civil life toward the attainment of the honest good, but refers above all to man’s private life, in order to direct it through its precepts toward the end of life, which is to be attained beyond the limits of time. Although morality partly enters the field reserved to politics, it is not possible to identify it with the latter, by virtue of its proper end, which transcends the temporal, and of the greater breadth of its application. Political science must therefore be recognized as possessing a distinctive physiognomy and a relative autonomy of its own. It is neither economics, nor law, nor social philosophy, nor the general theory of the State, nor any other practical science, although it makes use of all of them in order to achieve its specific purpose: the better organization of public life and the human and temporal good in all its aspects.
The concept of politics has progressively followed the changes that have taken place in its material object. At its origin it was linked to the Greek polis and its organization, from which the theorists of Hellenic philosophy drew their immediate inspiration. As the movement of association expanded, however, causing the small independent human communities to merge into more complex aggregates, the concept was applied to this new social reality and, while retaining its fundamental meaning, extended its scope in accordance with the breadth and complexity of public life. The movement of unification that led to the formation of States did not stop at this stage but, driven by the associative forces rooted in human nature, linked peoples and nations in a higher, international society, thereby greatly widening the horizons of politics.
From the social evolution described there subsequently arose the three branches of politics, concerning the life of the community, of the State, and of the society of nations. The last two are usually called domestic politics and international politics. Domestic politics, in turn, has been divided into as many sectors as there are branches of activity in the modern State: social, economic, educational, financial, labor, and so forth. These divisions tend to multiply as the need increases for more active State intervention in the various aspects of public life. The application of the concept to the activity of the Church is improper. The Church is undoubtedly a visible society, but both the principle of union and the ends to whose realization it is essentially ordered transcend the human and temporal sphere. Consequently, the use of the term to indicate the activity carried out for its government and welfare can have only an analogous value, whereas it retains its proper meaning when it denotes the attitude of the State
with regard to religion. Just as there is an economic policy, so there is a religious policy.
From what has been set forth, the solution to the much-debated question concerning the relations between politics and morality may appear evident, but it is appropriate to devote particular attention to II. With regard to this question, theories fall into three currents: some identify the two, others separate them by an unbridgeable gulf, while still others occupy an intermediate position. The author of the first current was Plato, who, in the De republica, maintained the complete convertibility of politics and morality, to the point of entirely absorbing the latter into the former. Idealist immanentism arrives at an equal identification, portraying the State as the concrete reality of the ethical idea, itself ethical, in which morality dissolves. Morality is likewise sacrificed on the altar of politics by communist ideology, according to which the concepts of justice, honesty, and virtue, as projections of the capitalist system, are destined to disappear in a new ordering of wealth. Meanwhile, the political ideal of the class struggle must be regarded as the supreme measure of good and evil. The so-called modern mystiques of class, race, or nation are founded on the same ideological confusion, manifested in the attempt to imbue political ideals with a religious inspiration, elevating them to the status of substitutes for religion. The second current mentioned above includes all those realistic theorists or politicians who, following in the footsteps of Machiavelli, conceive politics as exclusively empirical knowledge, deriving its precepts from the study of history and teaching by what means power should be maintained. Politics, on this view, would not concern itself with what ought to be or with the best order to be established in society, but with the actual state of affairs or the order already constituted; for its maintenance and reinforcement it employs whatever means seem most suitable, without any restraint from a higher law. If its law derives from anything, it is from a super-morality that allows the statesman to overcome ordinary moralistic prejudices in the assertion of his power. The criticism of these theories arises spontaneously from the tyranny that they render legitimate. The human person does not enter into the social aggregate in order to be absorbed and annihilated within it, but in order to attain ends of his own that transcend it; communal life remains subordinated to these ends as a necessary means. Consequently, the person not only preserves an inalienable sphere of autonomy, which cannot be sacrificed to any temporal end, but also retains his substantial dignity, which forbids reducing him to the status of a means or instrument. The empiricist current, moreover, after deforming the concept of science through a boundless relativism contrary to the demands of reason, sacrifices the rights of the person to raison d’état, shrouding social life, abandoned to the caprice of force, in a funereal pall.
The true solution to the problem can be reached if the two aspects of politics, the practical and the theoretical, are kept in view. In its practical aspect, politics, although not identical with morality, remains subordinate to II. Morality, in fact, has as its specific objective free activity necessarily directed toward the good; that is, it must guide human conduct toward the attainment of the ultimate end. Wherever this conduct unfolds, within the sphere of private or public life, within the boundaries of the State or beyond them, in the broad international arena, morality occupies the position of command. Politics, too, has a good as its object, specifically the social good, and as such, being included within the moral order, does not escape the ethical imperative. The same conclusion may be reached by another route. The purpose of the political organism can only be a human good, and it cannot be such unless it is directed toward, or does not oppose, man’s proper end. The particular end toward which political action tends cannot reasonably diverge from man’s supreme end, which is pursued by morality. All particular ends are intermediaries,
that is, means in relation to man’s general and ultimate end. Thus, just as the specific aims of tactical actions cannot disregard the general aims of strategy, so the ends of politics must be coordinated in accordance with the end of ethics. In its theoretical aspect, politics is distinct from morality. As a science, it has its own object and its own purpose. This distinction, however, is not adequate, since among the highest principles that it must necessarily establish as its foundation are norms of morality and justice, which derive from the objective order of social values and are immanent in every human association.