adminMany a times, most gripes are from those with less or nothing at all to offer to the nation. A nation’s success is realised when citizens’ skills are voluntarily utilised.
In most of my discussions with my colleagues, I have often asked: what do you have on offer for this country in the absence of a viable economy and in the event that the economy is stable? I am now used to the mumbled responses, in which the close to concrete response I get is a hope of employment. This certainly puzzles me because if you have a skill that can get you employed why don’t you use that skill to employ yourself?
The reason why one is employed for their skill is because there is demand for that specific service. The absence of your employer does not mean the absence of the demand, so why allow yourself to be exploited? It is even better for those who desire to be exploited, but many have nothing to offer even for the exploitation. It is that which triggers my questioning of their moral standing when they complain of Zanu-PF.
When you complain, Zanu-PF expects you to query from a position of skill disenfranchisement with an offer of alternatives to alleviate the status quo. Because this week I deliberately decided to unpack what moral standing is; I hope whoever reads this remains questioning themselves which position are they questioning the situation from; can you queue behind your skill or you belong to the fraternity of the absurd.
Allow me to be a bit pedagogic in my explaining of these controversial facets, moral status, knowledge and man as a political animal. Certain views might acknowledge that some humans lack full moral status and yet emphasise that we ought, nevertheless, to treat them as though they have it due to the bad effects that would otherwise follow. Immanuel Kant’s remarks about the treatment of animals might indicate a yet further argument for treating humans without full moral status as if they nevertheless had it. He argued that we have reasons to avoid cruelty to animals, and thus to treat animals better than their moral status since otherwise we might develop psychological propensities that could lead us analogously to mistreat humans who have full moral status.
Similarly, one might reason, if we do not treat those humans without full moral standing as having it, we might develop psychological propensities that could lead us to mistreat humans who have it. When one questions public management inadequacies from a misinformed position what they simply lack is knowledge which accords them a “moral status”, according to my standards.
Ghostly echoes from Athens
In Book Six of the Ethics Aristotle says that all knowledge can be classified into three categories: theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge, and productive knowledge. Put simply, these kinds of knowledge are distinguished by their aims: theoretical knowledge aims at contemplation, productive knowledge aims at creation, and practical knowledge aims at action.
Theoretical knowledge involves the study of truth for its own sake; it is knowledge about things that are unchanging and eternal, and includes things like the principles of logic, physics, and mathematics (at the end of the Ethics Aristotle says that the most excellent human life is one lived in pursuit of this type of knowledge, because this knowledge brings us closest to the divine). The productive and practical sciences, in contrast, address our daily needs as human beings, and have to do with things that can and do change.
Productive knowledge means, roughly, know-how; the knowledge of how to make a table or a house or a pair of shoes or how to write a tragedy would be examples of this kind of knowledge. This entry is concerned with practical knowledge, which is the knowledge of how to live and act. According to Aristotle, it is the possession and use of practical knowledge that makes it possible to live a good life. Ethics and politics, which are the practical sciences, deal with human beings as moral agents.
Ethics is primarily about the actions of human beings as individuals, and politics is about the actions of human beings in communities, although it is important to remember that for Aristotle the two are closely linked and each influences the other.
The fact that ethics and politics are kinds of practical knowledge has several important consequences.
First, it means that Aristotle believes that mere abstract knowledge of ethics and politics is worthless. Practical knowledge is only useful if we act on it; we must act appropriately if we are to be moral. He says in Ethics (1103b25): “The purpose of the present study (of morality) is not, as it is in other inquiries, the attainment of theoretical knowledge: we are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, or else there would be no advantage in studying it.”
Interestingly, according to Aristotle, only some people can strategically participate in politics. Aristotle believes that “A young man is not equipped to be a student of politics; for he has no experience in the actions which life demands of him and these actions form the basis and subject matter of the discussion” (Ethics 1095a2).
Aristotle adds that young men will usually act on the basis of their emotions, rather than according to reason, and since acting on practical knowledge requires the use of reason, young men are unequipped to study politics for this reason too. So the study of politics will only be useful to those who have the experience and the mental discipline to benefit from it, and for Aristotle this would have been a relatively small percentage of the population of a city.
Even in Athens, the most democratic city in Greece, no more than 15 percent of the population was ever allowed the benefits of citizenship, including political participation. Aristotle does not think this percentage should be increased — if anything, it should be decreased. This is a reflection of a motion that was debated this week at Lupane State University supported by Zimbabwe Youth Council and UNFPA. It questioned the importance of opening up political playfield to the young people to incentivise their participation. It is essential for young people to actively participate in the direct politics of Zimbabwe, however, knowledgeable enough to engage dissent, contribute to viable policies and stay relevant in an unmerciful political jungle where the food chain is fluid, it constantly changes.
Man, the Political Animal
That man is much more a political animal than any kind of bee or any herd animal is clear. For, as we assert, nature does nothing in vain, and man alone among the animals has speech . . . Speech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful and hence also the just and unjust. For it is peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things of this sort; and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city (1253a8).
Like bees and herd animals, human beings live together in groups. Unlike bees or herd animals, humans have the capacity for speech — or, in the Greek, logos. Logos means not only speech but also reason. Here the linkage between speech and reason is clear: the purpose of speech, a purpose assigned to men by nature, is to reveal what is advantageous and harmful, and by doing so to reveal what is good and bad, just and unjust.
This knowledge makes it possible for human beings to live together, and at the same time makes it possible for us to pursue justice as part of the virtuous lives we are meant to live. Other animals living in groups, such as bees, goats, and cows, do not have the ability to speak or to reason as Aristotle uses those terms. Of course, they do not need this ability. They are able to live together without determining what is just and unjust or creating laws to enforce justice among them. Human beings, for better or worse, cannot do this hence knowledge credits you of a moral status than the animals.
The grave truth — Although nature brings us together, we are by nature political animals. Nature alone does not give us all of what we need to live together: There is in everyone by nature an impulse toward this sort of partnership. And yet the one who first constituted (a city) is responsible for the greatest of goods. We must figure out how to live together for ourselves through the use of reason and speech, discovering justice and creating laws that make it possible for human community to survive and for the individuals in it to live virtuous lives. A group of people that has done this is a city (The Greek word for city is polis, which is the word that gives us English words like “politics” and “policy”):
The virtue of justice is a thing belonging to the city. In discovering and living according to the right laws, acting with justice and exercising the virtues that allow human society to function, we make possible not only the success of the political community but also the flourishing of our own individual virtue and happiness. Without the city and its justice, human beings are the worst of animals, just as we are the best when we are completed by the right kind of life in the city.
And it is the pursuit of virtue rather than the pursuit of wealth or security or safety or military strength that is the most important element of a city. The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together.
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. Send feedback to [email protected]
Bongani Ndlovu