A Study Of Political Ethics In Farabi 's "Virtue City"

Al-Farabi (Abu Nasr Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Tarkani Farabi, hereinafter referred to as Farabi) was a reknowned philosopher, natural scientist and musicologist of the Arab in the time of Middle Ages. Farabi’s contributions and status on Philosophy are almost as the First Master Aristotle’s, and he was honoured as "the Second master" after Aristotle and as "the Greatest Authority of the Orient Islam".One of the Farabi’s contributions on Philosophy was his explanatory note and comment on the works of Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. He founded the foundation of Islamic Philosophy based on the theory of Islam and took in the Ancient Greek Philosophy with an open and inclusive perspective. He also was the founder of the systematic philosophy of Islam.Principles of the Opinions of the Citizens of the Virtuous City (hereinafter referred as the Virtuous City) was the last work of Farabi during his lifetime and was considered as the gem of his thought. The Virtuous City with an ample and profound information, to be specific, with the thoughts of Metaphysics, Politics and the Ethics, the book embodied the features of Philosophy of Middle Ages, and it was one of the representative works of Farabi’s attempt on reconciling religion and philosophy problem. As the Repubilc of Plato, it was not a book of imaginary and visionary Utopian, but was a philosopher’s strong concern with the reality problem in our daily life and this should be the radical departure for researching and comprehending the philosophy of Farabi. The Virtuous City of Farabi was considered as "The Repubilc" of Islam, but it’s worth mentioning that Farabi did not imitate the political thinking of Plato and Aristotle. In this work he based on Metaphysics and worked out his "ideal city".This paper aims at figuring out three problems:firstly, it discusses the theoretical foundation of political ethics thought of Farabi which includes the "Theory of Emanation" presented by Neoplatonism and political thought of Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle in the first chapter. Secondly, it expatiates main content and core ideas of political ethics thought of the book which includes political concept with metaphysical idea on the macro level and political ethics thought with the content of "justice, virtuous, and attainment of happiness" in the most general sense in chapter two and three respectively. Specifically, the Virtuous City starts with ontology and cosmology, then introduces function of our soul and body and interprets the virtuous city at last. The part of ontology talks about the reality and attributes of God (the First Existence), and part of cosmology details order of universe and the relationship of the First Existence and world that in which way it is the cause of all the other existents, how these existents arise from it and how it thinks them, in other words, the First Existence emanates the whole world and the world follows the First Existence. In this part, Farabi suggested that "the rank of the world embodies God’s Justice", Justice is everything "find its own positions" in this sense. Farabi refers the First Existence (the One) and "the existences above the moon" in the part of cosmology, there are nineteen existences above the moon which contains Ten Angles and Nine Heavenly Bodies. He states that all of these happen with ulmost justice, judicious and completeness. Farabi introduces the how the falculties of human’s body and soul are brought about in the next section, which talks about the relationship between body and soul, the falculties of the human soul, which of them arises first, which second and which last, their ranks in relation to one another, which of them only rules and which of them only serves, and the rank of each of them with regard to the other. He mainly talks about functions of the representative part of the soul — how dreams and "revelation" come about,which was the theory base for his later talks about the theory on "ruler" of the Virtuous City is also a "prophet". In order to preserve himself and to attain his highest perfections every human being is by his very nature in need of many things which he cannot provide all by himself; he is in need of people who supply with some particular need of his. Everybody finds himself in the same relation to everybody in this respect. Therefore man cannot attain the perfection because his inborn nature has been given to him unless many people who cooperate come together who each supply everybody else with particular need of his, so that as a result of the contribution of the whole community all things are brought together which everybody needs in order to preserve himself and to attain perfection, therefore human individuals have come to exist in great numers and cities come about. Happiness is the hightest goal that a man should persue, the city in which people aim through association at cooperating for the things by which felicity in its real and true can be attained is the excellent city, and the nation in which all of its cities cooperate for those things through which felicity is attained is excellent nation. From the non-virtuous cities, namely, the ignorant cities, the vicious cities, the perverted cities and the erring cities we can get the conclusion that the citizens of the virtuous city are with the virtue of sapiential, abstemious, moderate and rightous. Thirdly, it explains in chapter four how Farabi interprets political ethics thought with metaphysics.Chapter five deduces that the political echics thoughts of the Virtuous City have important significances:it preserves and developes the core political ethics thought of ancient philosophy, it foundes the foundation of Islamic politics philosophy and it provides the theoritical references for political practices for modern Islamic contries.