For the purpose of Presidential elections, deceased Chicagoland residents have more rights as citizens than idolized American boxer Mike Tyson. It has long been a tradition to cast votes for the deceased, as long as they are still on the books as goodstanding citizens, whereas convicted felons like Tyson have had their voting privileges repealed. Utilizing criteria not dissimilar to the voting privilege, Aristotle seeks out the definition of an ideal citizen. He doesn't allow for dead members, so Socrates and Daley's whole list would be out of the question. As for felons and other non-desirables, he condenses the issue into something much simpler--and much more vague. Specifically, Aristotle defines what requirements apply to citizenship, what criteria decide the 'goodness' of a citizen, and, utilizing the latter, He questions whether or not the goodness of a good citizen can be equated with the goodness of a 'good man'.
To begin the discourse, Aristotle recounts and contradicts a few generally preconceived notions of what citizenship is. He shows that residency does not imply citizenship; his counter- examples are the "resident aliens and slaves [who] share the domicile of citizens" but surely do not receive the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Common rights to legal recourse do not confer citizenship because even foreign trading partners have these types of relationships. Resident aliens who are absorbed as a result of a revolution are officially counted as citizens in many cases, but, it is more relevant whether they should be citizens.
It is simplest to group all these types together as pseudo-citizens, like the old or young. They possess some of the qualifications, but in each case, are lacking the holistic sense that a good citizen should have. He indicates that when citizens become too old, they are relieved of military and judiciary duties and thus are only partial-citizens. Similarly, he notes that children are not responsible for these duties either, and fall into the category of "potential-citizens." This concept of a marginalized citizen is treated in more detail when Aristotle discusses constitutions. But first, he puts down a working draft of 'citizenship.'
Aristotle says that the "right to participate in judicial functions and in office" defines a citizen, where office encompasses those jobs which are indeterminate in length, and those with specific term-limits. After putting forth this definition, he discusses the definition of a citizen as required by the specific constitution of a state. Each constitution necessitates that certain people be involved in the governing, conversely extending the sense of pseudo-citizenship to whichever classes of people are not granted full partnership in a state. He explains that under some constitutions children were only citizens if both of their parents had citizenship, implying that only the descendants of the founders of a state would be citizens. In this case, a son born of a citizen father and a foreign mother would not be a citizen, or could be called, at best, a permanent pseudo-citizen, as opposed to children, who need only time to attain the status of full citizenship. Aristotle also notes that some states use the opposite policy which requires only one parent to be a citizen. Obviously, this would open the door for every resident, even non-residents and complete strangers. After a few generations, any and everyone otherwise restricted from participation would be sheltered under the ever-increasing umbrella of citizenship. It is noted that this type of policy would only exist in a state they suffered from under population. Aristotle generalizes that deviations in citizenship policy tend to come from constitutions which find themselves in odd circumstances. As regards his search, these are extenuating circumstances which are not to be considered. Aristotle wants to know only who should be called a citizen, not who has at one time been a citizen.
With the definition of citizen stated and qualified, Aristotle asks whether a good citizen is necessarily a good person. Necessarily, he first looks to define the excellence of a citizen. He says a citizen is a partner in a community, which is the constitution. Therefore the goodness of a citizen is dependent on the constitution under which he lives. In opposition, the goodness of a man does not depend on the government nor the current economy. The claim is that the goodness of a man is measured on a absolute scale, not relative to the type of constitution. Thus it follows that it is possible to be a good citizen without necessarily being a good man. He explains as a further example that the existence of a state whose members are all good citizens is plausible, whereas a state consisting solely of good men is ludicrous. There are classes of workers necessary to the good state whose members do not have the leisure time to pursue moral goodness. It is sufficient and optimal for them to strive for excellence only in their prescribed duty to the state. Hence, such a state with only good citizens would have a majority of men not classified as 'good', thus it would be impossible to equate good citizen with good man.
Following the detrivialization of a 'good man', it is obvious to seek out what special citizen might possess the qualities of be both a good citizen and a good man. Aristotle notes that a good ruler is virtuous and wise, and that citizens fulfill their position if they act wisely with regards to politics. Without any more direct evidence, Aristotle concludes that only the ruler is good in a fashion which inherently implies his goodness as a human.
At this point, Aristotle has answered the two main questions which he proposed. He finds that citizens are those who actually take part in the governing of the state. He then finds that the only citizen whose goodness implies a general goodness is the ruler, as the measure of goodness for any other member of society is relative to his task.
For the most part, Aristotle's arguement rests on too many assumptions and logical gaps, but the results of his discourse can hardly be contested with respect to his goal for his society. When he asks who are citizens, he clearly uses empirical observations to note that slaves, and aliens are not included, but he then goes on to ignore the examples where they are included. More precisely, he whisks them away saying that the constitutions they represent are deviant, so as to not support the right answer for which we search.
When Aristotle asks of what the excellence of a citizen consists, he never actually gets a final definition, but it is this vagueness which allows him to reach his next conclusion. He notes that there is no fixed definition such that it could not equal goodness of man, which is definitely an absolute quality.
When Aristotle trys to equate goodness of man to the goodness of one particular type of citizen, his choice of ruler seems to come too quickly. I would agree that there would be someone whose 'prescribed duty to the state' was synonymous with the tasks entailed in general goodness. But I wouldn't think this would be the ruler. Perhaps this is only the bias of living in a not-so-perfect society. Maybe a good ruler is like this. I would still tend to think of a social worker or a religious minister as someone whose day-to-day tasks were sychronous with the general goodness of humanity. Aristotle relies only on the evidence that rulers and citizens are both praised for wisdsom, implying that the best citizen would be the ruler.
Relative to the citizenship requirements we have in the US, the criteria proposed by Aristotle seem elitist or facist, granting governmental control only to those individuals who are wealthy enough and high enough in society. But it must be understood that Aristotle's goal is 'the security of the state,' not the preservation of liberty and justice for all. As in Plato's Republic, the good of the state has been elevated in a way which trivializes the plight of any one man. The structure necessitated by Aristotle's citizenry would indeed provide for a stable society, that is, once we accept an assumption upon which so much of Greek thought is based. Namely, the concept that each individual has an optimal role in society. This assumption allows for the division and prescription of labor that both Plato and Aristotle use to set up there societies. Without it, the plebeian workers would no doubt resent and revolt against their subjugation. To properly decide if Aristotle's citizens are trully optimal, we need to go one level deeper and construct the state that we wish to protect and maintain. Aristotle does this throughout the remainder of his Politics, and what he builds is surely not in synch with the society in which we live today.