Summary Magnanimity (also known as high-mindedness or great-souledness) is the mean between vanity and small-mindedness or pettiness. It presupposes possession of all the other virtues, for high-mindedness is the quality of those who think they deserve great things (e.g., honor, public office, respect) and actually do deserve them. High-mindedness, by […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book IV: Chapter III – High-MindednessSummary and Analysis Book IV: Chapter II – Magnificence
Summary Magnificence is another virtue pertaining to wealth, but unlike generosity it is confined to expenditures involving the use of money, and is concerned only with spending on a grand scale (as for civic projects). The scale for judging magnificence is relative, depending on how much is a suitable outlay […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book IV: Chapter II – MagnificenceSummary and Analysis Book IV: Chapter I – Generosity
Summary Generosity or liberality is the mean in matters pertaining to material goods (i.e. money and everything whose value is measured in money). The two extremes related to it are extravagance or prodigality and stinginess. All are concerned with giving and taking, although to different degrees. Stinginess is the quality […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book IV: Chapter I – GenerositySummary and Analysis Book III: Analysis for Book III
Before giving an account of specific virtues included in the moral life Aristotle discusses a number of questions having to do with the nature of a moral act and the degree to which a person is responsible for what he does. He begins by distinguishing between actions that are voluntary […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Analysis for Book IIISummary and Analysis Book III: Chapter XII – Self-Control (iii)
Summary Self-indulgence is motivated by pleasure while cowardice is motivated by pain. Pain upsets and destroys the nature of a man experiencing pain, but pleasure does not, so self-indulgence is classified as more voluntary than cowardice and more reprehensible. The acts of a self-indulgent man are always voluntary. Cowardice is […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter XII – Self-Control (iii)Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter XI – Self-Control (ii)
Summary Excess in pleasure is known as self-indulgence or intemperance. It takes many different forms (e.g., desire for something which most other men find offensive, desire to a greater extent than normal for something liked by other men, desire in the wrong way for something also desired by other men, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter XI – Self-Control (ii)Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter X – Self-Control (i)
Summary Temperance or self-control is a virtue of the irrational part of human beings. It is a mean in regard to sensual pleasures and is concerned only with those pleasures which human beings share with the lower animals. (i.e., taste and touch, more specifically, pleasures of eating, drinking, and sexual […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter X – Self-Control (i)Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter IX – Courage (iv)
Summary Courage is concerned with feelings of confidence and fear. It often involves facing what is painful, but, like all virtues, its end is pleasant. In many cases, the more happy a man is, the more painful it is for him to exercise courage in a dangerous situation because death […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter IX – Courage (iv)Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter VIII – Courage (iii)
Summary There are five lesser forms of courage: Political or civic courage (e.g., that of citizen-soldiers), which inspires men to face danger for the sake of honor and renown or to escape the disgrace assigned by law to cowardice. Because it has a noble motive-honor — it is closest to […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter VIII – Courage (iii)Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter VII – Courage (ii)
Summary Like all human beings, the courageous man fears what is fearful, but he endures his fear in the right way and for the right reason because his aim is to act with nobility. It is possible to fear things to a greater or lesser extent than is warranted or […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Book III: Chapter VII – Courage (ii)