Aristotle's Politics: Ethical politics or political realism?

Much of the scholarly literature provides significant support for the ethical foundation of Aristotelian political science. Still, it cannot be said that there is a smooth relationship between Aristotle’s ethical thinking and his theory of politics in the Politics. This chapter takes the possible inconsistencies between the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics seriously and shows how these are accommodated when we understand Aristotle’s political science in a comprehensive way, as a practical science that has both the good life and stability within the political community as its ends. The chapter shows how the thesis fits with several passages in the middle sections of the Politics, including Aristotle’s controversial account of tyranny.