The purpose of this research is to examine how Aristotle might have demonstrated that John W. Hinckley Jr. was not res ponsible for his attempt to kill President Ronald Reagan. The plan of the research will be to set forth a demonstration in general terms with reference to the overarching structure of The Nicomachean Ethics, and then to explore Hinckley's action in the context of Aristotle's discussion of the conditions un der which individuals can be held responsible for actions.
The problem of demonstrating in Aristotelian terms an absence of responsibility for an action that, on the surface, seems to so great an extent a consequence of planning and foresight turns out to be extremely complex if one cannot take refuge in the (seemingly straightforward) given of Hinckley's insanity as explaining his involuntary action. Accordingly, it is necessary to establish a background for Aristotelian demonstration of Hinckley's lack of responsibility.
A deceptively obvious aspect of this background is Aristotle's very conception of ethics as purposeful and scientific, aiming at the good. For Aristotle, the science of the good is political, which can be seen as a structure encasing the vicissitudes of human interaction and evaluation of whether that interaction is good. "It makes no difference," Aristotle says, "whether the activities themselves are the ends of the action, or something beyond the activities" (Aristotle, 1980, p. 1). An individual's purpose, while not irrelevant, is subsidiary to that of mankind's social context (= politics).
[E]ven if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to pre serve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states (Aristotle, 1980, p. 2).
The whole of I.2 is devoted to describing society as context for ...