The relation between ethics and politics in Aristotle

Aristototle has included the disciplines of ethics and politics into the category of practical sciences and positioned ethics as a subfield of politics. In this context, it is not possible to think ethics and politics seperately in the philosophy of Aristoteles. And to Aristoteles, for a man whose ultimate goal is happiness it is not possible to achieve his goal without the advantages that these two disciplines provide. The ethical views of Aristotle are based on individual happiness. In his inquisition of the ethics rooting on this, He searches for the conditions which are necessary for the individual happiness to emerge. He thinks that the practice, which is in accordance with the virtue which is a result of a preference and supported by sufficient outer goodness, leads the individual to happiness. The individual practices which have virtue are rarely a product of nature. Thus, the individuals must have a character which favors the virtues and dislikes the opposite. For him, this is possible only through education. For the aimed education and a virtuous social life a public supervision is needed and this public supervision must be provided through laws. Thus, Aristotle needs the domain of politics to achieve a successful inquisition of ethics. İn his inquisition of politics, Aristotle deals with the subjects such as the process of the birth of state, citizenship, analyses of the constitutions, regime types and ideal state. By this inquisition, he aims to define the conditions which let the whole city be happy, which he regards as the only self-sufficient social structure. Here, the happiness of the all citizens of the city is expected to be achieved. For him, the happiness of the all the citizens of the city is only possible through the virtuous acts of all the citizens. And this is possible only through the virtuous laws. Then the state is an institution which exists to guide its citizens towards the virtuous acts and make them happy. This way, he positions his political views on ethics in the same way he positions his ethical views on the political ones. İn this study, we aim to present the dynamic relation between Aristotle's political and ethical views, and how they rely on each other to achieve the common ideal of happiness.