man’ does not have such relativity. The meaning of good man is always and everwhere the same. The good man is identical with the good citizen only in one case – the case of the best regime. For only in the best regime is the good of the regime and the good of the good man identical – that goal being virtue. This amounts to saying that in his Politics, Aristotle questions the proposition that patriotism is enough. From the point of view of the patriot, the fatherland is more important than any difference of regime. From the point of view of the patriot, he who prefers any regime to the fatherland is a partisan, if not a traitor. Aristotle says in effect that the partisan sees deeper than the patriot, but that only one kind of partisan is superior to the patriot; this is the partisan of virtue. One can express Aristotle’s thought as follows: patriotism is not enough for the same reason that the most doting mother is happier if her child is good than if he is bad. A mother loves her child because he is her own; she loves what is her own. But she also loves the good. All human love is subject to the law that it be both love of one’s own and love of the good, and there is necessarily a tension between love of one’s own and the good, a tension which may well lead to a break, be it only the breaking of a heart.
Terrance Hoyt
Hoyt, Terrance. "Who is the "good man" and who is the "good citizen"?." Practical Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jun 2014. <http://www.practicalphilosophy.net/?page_id=423>.