Ariston Azevedo
Paulo Grave
This essay aims to pave the way for a philosophical reflection on administration. Our thinking has already advanced along many lines, and it is our intention over the next few years to tie the points together. Our core research and study text continues to be “Prolegomena to All Possible Administrology: Administration – What Is This?” (Azevedo & Grave, 2014), published in the journal Organizações & Sociedade (https://doi.org/10.1590/S1984-92302014217100009). The path is arduous, we know, but we are neither alone nor wandering aimlessly.
To achieve areté, to have areté, means being able to reach the highest level of excellence in the exercise of an activity, which is the same as performing it in accordance with excellence. As such, it can be attained in various spheres of human life. This is precisely why some of the most important Greek writers referred to areté as a quality of intelligence or the soul (psyché) (Plato, Protagoras, 322d; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a), health (Plato, Gorgias, 479b; Statesman, 353b; Aristotle, Rhetoric, I, 3), beauty (Xenophon, Cyropaedia, V, 1-4), and the body – especially concerning strength and agility (Homer, Iliad, Book XX, line 411). Furthermore, areté could also be attributed to the merit of the craftsman, the statesman, and the citizen.
There is a speculative tradition about ways of life that dates back to the earliest Greek philosophers. It seems that Pythagoras was the first to use the terms “philosopher” and “philosophy” when asked by Leon of Phlius about which art he valued most. In response to this question, he said he understood nothing of art because he considered himself a “philosopher.” Drawing an analogy with the Greek games, he said that in the great Olympic spectacles, three types of men could be observed: first, those who aspired to fame and glory; second, those who went there to buy and sell; and finally, those who came solely to observe what was being done and how it was done – that is, they went there to contemplate things and seek to understand them. This was the activity of a philosopher for Pythagoras.
This Pythagorean distinction would significantly influence how Plato and Aristotle categorized and described the different ways of life of men. In Republic, Plato distinguishes three main types of individuals: the philosopher, the ambitious, and the self-interested (Rep. IX, 581c). Each of them corresponds to one of the three faculties of the soul (Rep. IV, 439a-440e): the appetitive (irrational), the irascible, and the rational. Additionally, each of these human types is associated with a form of pleasure (Rep. IX, 580d-583b): the first is linked to impulses, desires, and bodily needs; the second, to the pursuit of power, victory, and recognition, being the auxiliary element of reason in the political sphere; and the third, to the pleasure provided by philosophy, which is intrinsic to reason.
Aristotle, in turn, presents in Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics a reworked version of Plato’s categorization. In the first book of Nicomachean Ethics, he distinguishes three fundamental modes of life, corresponding to three ends that men pursue as expressions of happiness: the voluptuous life, which seeks pleasure; the political life, oriented by honor and virtue; and the contemplative life, whose fulfillment lies in wisdom (Eth. Nic. I, 5, 1096a). Similarly, in Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle states that for some, prudence is the greatest good; for others, virtue; and for others still, pleasure (Eth. Eud. I, 1, 1214a). In another passage, he specifies that the philosophical life is dedicated to prudence and the contemplation of truth, the political life is realized in noble actions derived from virtue, and the life of enjoyment is realized in bodily pleasures (Eth. Eud. I, 4, 1215a-b).
For Aristotle, regardless of the path chosen, the free man, as a being endowed with reason (nous/logos), would attain the Good through the active exercise of that reason, always in accordance with the ethical imperatives that guide excellence (areté). Thus, while activities guided by excellence could lead a person to achieve eudaimonia (happiness), those that deviated from this principle would result in degradation (Eth. Nic. 1100a 51-52). Furthermore, activities carried out in accordance with excellence were the most enduring of all human functions, with the highest being those that fully and continuously occupied the lives of happy people: “this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them” (Eth. Nic. 1100b 6-12). Thus, concludes Aristotle, “the happy man […] will always, or at least frequently, be engaged in the practice or contemplation of what is in accordance with excellence” (Eth. Nic. 1100b 6-12).
From Aristotle to the present day, debates on ways of life have been revisited numerous times, and among the thinkers who have revisited them is Hannah Arendt. In The Human Condition, Arendt builds on the Aristotelian typology to develop her analysis of politics. In her interpretation, for a way of life (bios) to constitute an “autonomous and authentically human way of life,” it was essential that the activity associated with it be worthy of being exercised by a free person. This requirement meant that neither labor nor work were considered dignifying ways of life in Greek civilization. Although both activities were included in what Arendt calls the Vita Activa, they were not seen as dignified because they lacked the four fundamental attributes of freedom: status, personal inviolability, economic autonomy, and the right to move freely (Arendt, 1999, p. 21). The Vita Activa was composed of three dimensions: labor, work, and action. Of these, only action originated a way of life worthy of being lived, the bios politikos, which, along with the bios apolaustikos (pleasure-oriented life) and the bios theōrētikos (contemplative life), made up the three fundamental ways of life highlighted by Aristotle.
These three ways of life shared the fact that they were not oriented toward the “necessary” or “merely useful,” but toward the beautiful. Arendt describes them as follows: (i) a life focused on bodily pleasures, in which beauty is consumed as it is presented; (ii) a life dedicated to the affairs of the city-state, where excellence manifests through great deeds; and (iii) a life devoted to the investigation and contemplation of eternal truths, whose perennial beauty cannot be produced by human action or altered by consumption. Each of these ways of life corresponds to an activity considered worthy of a free person.
Happiness cannot be achieved through the development of any activity, but only and exclusively through those that are in accordance with excellence, that is, with the best and most complete form of excellence. However, it is essential to recognize that excellence is not limited to a personal and self-evident component; its achievement does not occur in a context of isolation, solitude, or purely phenomenological experience. On the contrary, as Arendt observes, the attainment of excellence takes place within the context of human plurality. According to the author:
“The idea of excellence has always been reserved for the public sphere, where a person could stand out and distinguish themselves from others. Every activity performed in public can achieve an excellence never matched in intimacy; for excellence, by definition, there is always the need for the presence of others, and this presence requires a formal audience, composed of the individual’s peers…” (Arendt, 1999:58).
She adds:
“No activity can become excellent if the world does not provide space for its exercise. Neither education, nor ingenuity, nor talent can replace the constitutive elements of the public sphere, which make it the suitable place for human excellence.” (Arendt, 1999:59).
What underlies this analysis by Arendt is the idea that each human activity has a proper place within the existential fabric of man and the collectivity. We wish to highlight three fundamental points from it, which will lead us to a fourth point as a hypothesis for study: first, each way of life corresponds to a specific activity or action; second, this activity or action must necessarily be carried out in accordance with excellence; and third, it is essential to consider, within the set of human relations, the appropriate space for that activity or action to be fully exercised.
With this in mind, we must consider the possibility of achieving areté in the practice of administrative activity. Our hypothesis is as follows: administration, in its public revelation – that is, when it manifests and is recognized – presents itself as a human excellence (areté) associated with a specific way of life, connected to the idea of “good governance.”
But to which way of life would administration be linked? What are its essential activities?
We will explore this point in the next text.
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