•  142
    Categories of Competition
    Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 5 (4). 2011.
    In the first part of this paper, I argue that philosophers of sport have mistakenly privileged a specific psychology and purpose in their definitions of competition. The result of this mistake has been that philosophers of sport make generalisations about competition as such which in fact only hold for some competitions. In the second and third parts of the paper, I articulate an alternative approach: rather than search for a single psychology and purpose that underlies all competition, I argue …Read more
  •  85
    Delimiting Aristotle's conception of stasis in the politics
    Phronesis 54 (4-5): 346-370. 2009.
    Some scholars have claimed that Aristotle uses the word " stasis " to refer to any sort of conflict in the political realm, covering everything from civil-war to social rivalry. After developing an interpretation of Politics V.1-4, where Aristotle discusses the topic at length, I argue that he is in fact carefully delimiting the concept of stasis so that it applies only to civil-war and open sedition, showing how his analysis excludes partisan antipathy, legal disputes, and political competition…Read more
  •  31
    Currency, Trade, and Commerce in Plato's Laws
    History of Political Thought 27 (2): 189-205. 2006.
    This article examines the grounds for Plato's negative attitude towards trade, commerce and currency in the Laws. The author shows that commerce and trade are condemned because they are fundamentally private, and demonstrates that Plato rejects gold and silver currency because its use encourages a kind of cosmopolitanism. Rather than condemning the competitiveness or licentiousness of the economic sphere, Plato critiques it for turning the citizens' attention away from civic life
  •  29
    Revisiting Competitive Categories: A Reply to Royce
    Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 9 (1): 6-17. 2015.
    In this article, I respond to the criticisms that Richard Royce has made of my theory of competition in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy. While I find some of his attacks misplaced, a number of his criticisms address key difficulties to which I offer clarification and defense
  •  24
    By examining his account of individual virtues, making inferences from his analyses of flawed cities, and teasing out the tacit assumptions behind claims about the nature of political activity, I argue that Aristotle thinks of competition as being a political ideal rather than as an inevitable corruption of civic life. Virtuous citizens compete for civic honor through traditional "competitive outlays" and contend against one another for prestigious offices in the city. Moreover, I argue that the…Read more
  •  21
    Aristotle on Virtue as Mean State
    Ancient Philosophy 42 (2): 493-508. 2022.
    Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean is often interpreted as a map of how character virtues are constituted. Taken in this way, critics argue that the Doctrine fails to describe accurately the specific virtues analyzed in books 3 to 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that Aristotle does not offer the Doctrine as a map, but rather as a legend in terms of which any explication of a character virtue should be given. This interpretation resolves a number of interpretative problems in the Ethics and sh…Read more
  •  21
    Review of Ronna Burger, Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (1). 2009.
  •  16
    Competition in the Best of Cities
    Political Theory 37 (1): 44-68. 2009.
    By examining his account of individual virtues, making inferences from his analyses of flawed cities, and teasing out the tacit assumptions behind claims about the nature of political activity, I argue that Aristotle thinks of competition as being a political ideal rather than as an inevitable corruption of civic life. Virtuous citizens compete for civic honor through traditional “competitive outlays” and contend against one another for prestigious offices in the city. Moreover, I argue that the…Read more
  •  16
    Aristotle's Politics: Critical Essays (edited book)
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2005.
    Aristotle's Politics is widely recognized as one of the classics of the history of political philosophy, and like every other such masterpiece, it is a work about which there is deep division.
  •  13
    Aristotle’s Theory of Partisanship
    Polis 25 (2): 208-232. 2008.
    This paper develops and defends a new interpretation of Aristotle's conception of democratic and oligarchic identity. Rejecting interpretations that ground partisan identities in class, greed, or conceptions of justice, this interpretation posits that Aristotle thought of democrats and oligarchs as being defined by the confluence of four distinct traits: having an incorrect conception of happiness, having an incorrect conception of political desert, suffering from an emotional defect, and habitu…Read more
  •  4
    Offers a careful analysis of how Aristotle understands civil war, partisanship, distrust in government, disagreement, and competition, and explores ways in which these views are relevant to contemporary political theory. Do only modern thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes accept that conflict plays a significant role in the origin and maintenance of political community? In this book, Steven Skultety argues that Aristotle not only took conflict to be an inevitable aspect of political life, but fu…Read more