Reason

===Reason in political philosophy and ethics===
{{Main|Political Philosophy|Ethics|The Good}}
[[Aristotle]] famously described reason (with language) as a part of [[human nature]], because of which it is best for humans to live "politically" meaning in communities of about the size and type of a small [[city state]] ({{transliteration|grc|polis}} in Greek). For example:
{{quote|text=It is clear, then, that a human being is more of a political {{transliteration|grc|politikon}} = of the {{transliteration|grc|polis}}] animal [{{transliteration|grc|zōion}}] than is any bee or than any of those animals that live in herds. For nature, as we say, makes nothing in vain, and humans are the only animals who possess reasoned speech [{{transliteration|grc|logos}}]. Voice, of course, serves to indicate what is painful and pleasant; that is why it is also found in other animals, because their nature has reached the point where they can perceive what is painful and pleasant and express these to each other. But speech [{{transliteration|grc|logos}}] serves to make plain what is advantageous and harmful and so also what is just and unjust. For it is a peculiarity of humans, in contrast to the other animals, to have perception of good and bad, just and unjust, and the like; and the community in these things makes a household or city [{{transliteration|grc|polis}}].... By nature, then, the drive for such a community exists in everyone, but the first to set one up is responsible for things of very great goodness. For as humans are the best of all animals when perfected, so they are the worst when divorced from law and right. The reason is that injustice is most difficult to deal with when furnished with weapons, and the weapons a human being has are meant by nature to go along with prudence and virtue, but it is only too possible to turn them to contrary uses. Consequently, if a human being lacks virtue, he is the most unholy and savage thing, and when it comes to sex and food, the worst. But justice is something political [to do with the {{transliteration|grc|polis}}], for right is the arrangement of the political community, and right is discrimination of what is just.<ref name=Politics>{{cite book|author=[[Aristotle]]|title=[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]|translator-first=Peter|translator-last=Simpson}}</ref>{{rp|at=I.2, 1253a}} }}

If human nature is fixed in this way, we can define what type of community is always best for people. This argument has remained a central argument in all political, ethical, and moral thinking since then, and has become especially controversial since firstly [[Rousseau]]'s Second Discourse, and secondly, the [[Theory of Evolution]]. Already in Aristotle there was an awareness that the {{transliteration|grc|polis}} had not always existed and had to be invented or developed by humans themselves. The household came first, and the first villages and cities were just extensions of that, with the first cities being run as if they were still families with Kings acting like fathers.{{r|Politics|at=I.2, 1252b15}}
<blockquote>[[Friendship]] seems to prevail in man and woman according to [[nature]] [{{transliteration|grc|kata phusin}}]; for people are by nature [{{transliteration|grc|tēi phusei}}] pairing more than political [{{transliteration|grc|politikon}}], in as much as the household [{{transliteration|grc|oikos}}] is prior and more necessary than the {{transliteration|grc|polis}} and making children is more common [{{transliteration|grc|koinoteron}}] with the animals. In the other animals, community [{{transliteration|grc|koinōnia}}] goes no further than this, but people live together [{{transliteration|grc|sumoikousin}}] not only for the sake of making children, but also for the things for life; for from the start the functions [{{transliteration|grc|erga}}] are divided, and are different for man and woman. Thus they supply each other, putting their own into the common [{{transliteration|grc|eis to koinon}}]. It is for these reasons that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this kind of friendship.{{r|NE|at=[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/f-h-peters/text/book-8#chapter-8-1-12 VIII.12]}}</blockquote>

[[Rousseau]] in his Second Discourse finally took the shocking step of claiming that this traditional account has things in reverse: with reason, language, and rationally organized communities all having developed over a long period of time merely as a result of the fact that some habits of cooperation were found to solve certain types of problems, and that once such cooperation became more important, it forced people to develop increasingly complex cooperation—often only to defend themselves from each other.

In other words, according to Rousseau, reason, language, and rational community did not arise because of any conscious decision or plan by humans or gods, nor because of any pre-existing human nature. As a result, he claimed, living together in rationally organized communities like modern humans is a development with many negative aspects compared to the original state of man as an ape. If anything is specifically human in this theory, it is the flexibility and adaptability of humans. This view of the animal origins of distinctive human characteristics later received support from [[Charles Darwin]]'s [[Theory of Evolution]].

The two competing theories concerning the origins of reason are relevant to political and ethical thought because, according to the Aristotelian theory, a best way of living together exists independently of historical circumstances. According to Rousseau, we should even doubt that reason, language, and politics are a good thing, as opposed to being simply the best option given the particular course of events that led to today. Rousseau's theory, that human nature is malleable rather than fixed, is often taken to imply (for example by [[Karl Marx]]) a wider range of possible ways of living together than traditionally known.

However, while Rousseau's initial impact encouraged bloody revolutions against traditional politics, including both the [[French Revolution]] and the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]], his own conclusions about the best forms of community seem to have been remarkably classical, in favor of city-states such as [[Geneva]], and [[Arcadia (utopia)|rural living]].