Dooyeweerd on Aristotles Universalism

Herman Dooyeweerds criticism of Aristotles conception of the polis seems to hinge upon a reading of the
latters understanding of the relationship between (1) the State as a whole, and (2) its constituent parts (e.g.
villages, households and individuals): Aristotle viewed human society, from its smallest unity, the
household, to the city-state, as founded metaphysically in the substantial form of human nature. The
complete unfolding of this essential form is the natural end of mans existence (201).
This sentence needs to be unpacked. First, we learn that Dooyeweerd understands Aristotles conception of
the State to be metaphysical, i.e. it is informed by some of the latters most important philosophical
commitments about reality or being itself. Specifically, Dooyeweerd continues, this metaphysical
conception of the State is rooted in the substantial form of human nature. Now a substantial form is the
answer to the question, What is it? It is the organizing principle of a given body-in-motion. Human nature
is a particular substantial form that can be differentiated from others. But what is human nature? For
Aristotle, human nature is the nature of a rational animal, namely, that organism which has the peculiar
ability to reason. Of course there are a number of things to be said about reason, but perhaps what is most
important for our purposes is that the rational soul of a human being is an immaterial principle that is related
to its material body as a ruler-to-ruled. The rational soul rules the body. Finally, Dooyeweerd says that
Aristotles conception of the State is the complete unfolding of . . . mans existence. Human beings are
literally completed by the State.
Dooyeweerd continues: This implies that, according to the teleological order of human nature, the State is
prior to the household and the village (as an association of households) and also prior to the individual man
(201). Now of course Dooyeweerd isnt saying that Aristotle thinks that somehow the State pre-exists
individuals in temporal history; rather, he means that the State has something of a logical or metaphysical
priority, since individuals, households and villages are really only themselves to the extent that they serve the
general purposes of the State.
Here we have what Dooyeweerd calls the Aristotelian position of universalism, which amounts to
something like the following: that all subsidiary institutions (village, household) within a State are understood
as parts of a unified whole. This position is universalist because it subsumes all politically relevant ends of
subsidiary institutions under the organizing principle of the State. This is an inevitable consequence of the
universalist view of human society, Dooyeweerd says, even to the extent that the spousal relationship and
the parent-child relationship is constituted by a decidedly political structure of ruler-ruled (202).
The most fundamental problem with universalism, Dooyeweerd seems to suggest, is that it prevents Aristotle
from recognizing a true difference (i.e. a difference in kind) between political (State apparatus?) and nonpolitical institutions (household): It is true that [Aristotle] warns against losing sight of the specific
difference between the State and the household. But in his universalist view of the polis this difference
cannot be of a radical character. It is in the first place a difference in scale and secondly a difference in
governmental form (202). If what we would call non-political institutions such as the family are really just
parts of a larger political whole, then those institutions do not and cannot have ends that are intelligible
apart from the ends of the State. Indeed, extended to the ethical realm, It is the universalist view which
leads him to the conclusion that . . . moral relations require their expansion and perfection in the community
of the State. They are not ends in themselves but only means to the formation of good citizens (203).
At this point, though, without the larger context of Dooyeweerds massive New Critique and its ground-up
alternative ontology, we might be tempted to respond in something like the following way: Universalism,
yes, but whats the problem? Indeed, it is precisely this implication of such an integrative project that has

led several contemporary interpreters to adopt an Aristotelian disposition towards ethical and political issues
in modern life. Fortunately Dooyeweerd does have at least one thing to say with regards to this reply, even in
the immediate context of our assigned section. It has to do with his rejection of Aristotles distinction
between distributive and commutative justice as by no means serviceable in a modern society (214).
Dooyeweerd rightly calls attention to Aristotles distinction between distributive and commutative justice
(see NE.5.2). Distributive justice demands that in the distribution of honours and benefits we take into
account the inequality of personal properties and conditions; whereas commutative justice guards that in
exchange transactions the objective value of the exchanged commodities is equal (213). Both are species of
the overarching genus of justice (read: giving each her due), but it is latter with which Dooyeweerd is
principally concerned.
Now Dooyeweerds reformational alternative certainly recognizes something like distributive justice (e.g.
public justice), but for him commutative justice is especially illustrative of the problematic nature of
Aristotles universalism. Dooyeweerd understands economic transactions to be expressions of an irreducibly
different sort of relation than what we might call political or public decision-making. He says that the
former are inter-individual and the latter communal relationshipsthe distinction being operative at an
irreducible, transcendental level (565). This just means that inter-individual relationships and communal
relationships are characterized by fundamentally different ends. Whereas inter-individual relationships are
marked by their contractual character (meaning [t]he purposes pursued in these organizational forms are
to be freely chosen [571]), communal relationships are marked by their natural and institutional character,
which implies much more Aristotelian-sounding bond of natural goods held in common (567).
All this to say, Aristotles concept of commutative justice is symptomatic of collapsing of this distinction
between inter-individual and communal relationships. Because all human interactions ultimately take their
meaning from the shared telos of the State, there is only a distinction in scale between them, as opposed to a
distinction in kind. Commutative justice, which demands something like a just price for goods and services
in an exchange economy, is always indexed to the eudaimonia that only the unified whole of the State can
provide.
But such a view of the exchange economy is wholly untenable for modern life, according to Dooyeweerd.
The whole Aristotelian conception of commutative justice has its background in his aversion to commercial
trade and interest (213). If we recall Politics 1.8-10 again, we remember that Aristotle considers retail trade
and especially usury to be unnatural modes of exchange, since their value is exhausted by the mirage that is
the possible infinite of (quantitative) monetary exchange. This reactionary position against trade and interest,
for Dooyeweerd, is an obvious symptom of a political program that is not serviceable in a modern society.
Yet as our discussions have brought out in some detail, it is not always clear whether being serviceable in a
modern society is an disadvantage rather than an advantage for any account of the exchange economy; for
nothing is plainer than that contemporary finance capitalism (which is fueled by usury) has revealed itself to
be unsustainable. Neither Dooyeweerd (at the time of the New Critique) nor Aristotle could have seen it
coming, but perhaps that makes the discussion more interesting. Could it be that the only thing wrong with
Dooyeweerds interpretation of Aristotle is his conclusive judgment?