Aquinas’ view of kingship and the Aristotelian response Essay

St. Thomas doubting Thomas takes art objecty of Aristotles ideas from The Politics in order to create his idea of the best judicature. He revisits the good and questioning forms of each type of government Aristotle introduced, and then makes his decision that the best regime is a type of monarchy that he calls great powership. This decision stems from his definition of a king as one who rules over the great deal of a city or province for the common good (17).Kingship is beneficial because it is the rule of one person. doubting Thomas states that the correct and most useful way to carry out an impersonal is when it is lead to its appropriate end (15). The incorrect way would be the black eyeto lead something to an inappropriate end, or non to lead it to an end at all. In light of this definition, the most effective government would lead the raft to their appropriate end, which doubting Thomas counts is whizz. In this sense, doubting Thomas believes that obviously something that is itself one loafer promote unity better than that which is a plurality (17).This may not seem quite so obvious to anyone else, and his analogy between unity and heat may seem a secondary vague, but Aquinas settle down makes a valid point in that creating a government promoting unity is more difficult when more people are involved. This is obviously because of the number of ideas and interpretations present within a group that are not present under the rule of one.Aquinas also argues that kingship, or the good, serious monarchy, is preferable because it is present in nature. He likens the king to matinee idol, because naturally God is the Ruler over all (17). It is in that locationfore natural for one man to rule many, as long as he is leading the people to their appropriate end, which is unity. The king should be a shepherd who seeksnot his admit profit (16), which is an instance of government represented by nature. Aquinas believes that as art imitates nature (18), so should politics, and the best art is that which best imitates nature. In this sense, the best government would be that which imitates natural order. The king has a occupation to act in his kingdom like the soul in the corpse and God in the world (26). This is the best way in which a government can reflect nature in its practice.Aquinas understands that monarchy is considered by many as odious because itis associated with the evils of totalism (20). He, however, believes that kingship is so important, that a nice change of the type of monarchy would not be that bad. This is interesting, because Aquinas also says that monocracy is the worst form of government (18) because it seeks only the good of the tyrant, and is therefore unless from the appropriate end of government, which is the common good and unity. The reasons Aquinas seems to change his heading about the idea of tyranny seem to be a little cloudy.He suddenly decides that tyranny in its less excessive forms is nowh ere near as bad as the better forms of government, even though he says it is the worst. Aquinas would advise the citizens to tolerate a mild tyranny for a time (23) instead of doing anything rash that may bring on many dangers that are worse (23). These dangers include democracy and oligarchy, which are suppositional to be better forms of government than tyranny. In any case, the tyranny would still be the rule of one, although not for the common good. This may be what Aquinas means when he says tyranny is tolerable.Aristotle would agree with most of Aquinas statements, generally because they were Aristotles statements first. Aristotle poses questions on the issue of kingship, and sets up arguments others have against it, while Aquinas attempts to come up with some answers as to why kingship is the best alternative. Aristotle agrees that there are some states that kingship would benefit greatly. His view is not that all states would benefit from a kingship, which is what Aquinas i s trying to prove. This is the major difference, as both believe that kingship is a worthy form of government.