Nicomachean Ethics

To apply the term compulsory to acts done for the sake of pleasure or for noble objects, on the plea that these exercise constraint on us from without, is to make every action compulsory. For (1) pleasure and nobility between them supply the motives of all actions whatsoever. Also (2) to act under compulsion and involuntarily is painful, but actions aiming at something pleasant or noble are done with pleasure. And (3) it is absurd to blame external things, instead of blaming ourselves for falling an easy prey to their attractions; or to take the credit of our noble deeds to ourselves, while putting the blame for our disgraceful ones upon the temptations of pleasure. It appears therefore that an act is compulsory when its origin is from outside, the person compelled contributing nothing to it.

(b) An act done through ignorance is in every case not voluntary, but it is involuntary only when it causes the agent pain and regret: since a man who has acted through ignorance and feels no compunction at all for what he has done, cannot indeed be said to have acted voluntarily, as he was not aware of his action, yet cannot be said to have acted involuntarily, as he is not sorry for it. Acts done through ignorance therefore fall into two classes: if the agent regrets the act, we think that he has acted involuntarily; if he does not regret it, to mark the distinction we may call him a non-voluntary agent—for as the case is different it is better to give it a special name. Acting through ignorance however seems to be different from acting in ignorance; for when a man is drunk or in a rage, his actions are not thought to be done through ignorance but owing to one or other of the conditions mentioned, though he does act without knowing, and in ignorance. Now it is true that all wicked men are ignorant of what they ought to do and refrain from doing, and that this error is the cause of injustice and of vice in general.

But the term involuntary does not really apply to an action when the agent is ignorant of his true interests. The ignorance that makes an act blameworthy is not ignorance displayed in moral choice (that sort of ignorance constitutes vice)—that is to say, they result not from general ignorance (because that is held to be blameworthy), but from particular ignorance, ignorance of the circumstances of the act and of the things affected by it; for in this case the act is pitied and forgiven, because he who acts in ignorance of any of these circumstances is an involuntary agent. Perhaps then it will be as well to specify the nature and number of these circumstances. They are (1) the agent, (2) the act, (3) the thing that is affected by or is the sphere of the act; and sometimes also (4) the instrument, for instance, a tool with which the act is done, (5) the effect, for instance, saving a man’s life, and (6) the manner, for instance, gently or violently.

Now no one, unless mad, could be ignorant of all these circumstances together; nor yet, obviously, of (l) the agent—for a man must know who he is himself. But a man may be ignorant of (2) what he is doing, as for instance when people say it slipped out while they were speaking, or they were not aware that the matter was a secret, as Aeschylus said of the Mysteries ; or that they let it off when they only meant to show how it worked as the prisoner pleaded in the catapult case. Again (3) a person might mistake his son for an enemy, as Merope does ; or (4) mistake a sharp spear for one with a button on it, or a heavy stone for a pumice-stone; or (5) one might kill a man by giving him medicine with the intention of saving his life; or (6) in loose wrestling hit him a blow when meaning only to grip his hand.

Ignorance therefore being possible in respect of all these circumstances of the act, one who has acted in ignorance of any of them is held to have acted involuntarily, and especially so if ignorant of the most important of them; and the most important of the circumstances seem to be the nature of the act itself and the effect it will produce. Such then is the nature of the ignorance that justifies our speaking of an act as involuntary, given the further condition that the agent feels sorrow and regret for having committed it. An involuntary action being one done under compulsion or through ignorance, a voluntary act would seem to be an act of which the origin lies in the agent, who knows the particular circumstances in which he is acting. For it is probably a mistake to say that acts caused by anger or by desire are involuntary. In the first place, (1) if we do so, we can no longer say that any of the lower animals act voluntarily, or children either. Then (2) are none of our actions that are caused by desire or anger voluntary, or are the noble ones voluntary and the base involuntary? Surely this is an absurd distinction when one person is the author of both.

Yet perhaps it is strange to speak of acts aiming at things which it is right to aim at as involuntary; and it is right to feel anger at some things, and also to feel desire for some things, for instance health, knowledge. Also (3) we think that involuntary actions are painful and actions that gratify desire pleasant. And again (4) what difference is there in respect of their involuntary character between wrong acts committed deliberately and wrong acts done in anger? Both are to be avoided; and also we think that the irrational feelings are just as much a part of human nature as the reason, so that the actions done from anger or desire also belong to the human being who does them. It is therefore strange to class these actions as involuntary.

Having defined voluntary and involuntary action, we next have to examine the nature of Choice. For this appears to be intimately connected with virtue, and to afford a surer test of character than do our actions. Choice is manifestly a voluntary act. But the two terms are not synonymous, the latter being the wider. Children and the lower animals as well as men are capable of voluntary action, but not of choice. Also sudden acts may be termed voluntary, but they cannot be said to be done by choice. Some identify Choice with (1) Desire, or (2) Passion, or (3) Wish, or (4) some form of Opinion. These views however appear to be mistaken. (1) The irrational animals do not exercise choice, but they do feel desire, and also passion. Also a man of defective self-restraint acts from desire but not from choice; and on the contrary a self-restrained man acts from choice and not from desire. Again, desire can run counter to choice, but not desire to desire. And desire has regard to an object as pleasant or painful, choice has not. (2) Still less is choice the same as passion. Acts done from passion seem very far from being done of deliberate choice.

(3) Again, choice is certainly not a wish, though they appear closely akin. Choice cannot have for its object impossibilities: if a man were to say he chose something impossible he would be thought a fool; but we can wish for things that are impossible, for instance immortality. Also we may wish for what cannot be secured by our own agency, for instance, that a particular actor or athlete may win; but no one chooses what does not rest with himself, but only what he thinks can be attained by his own act. Again, we wish rather for ends than for means, but choose the means to our end; for example we wish to be healthy, but choose things to make us healthy; we wish to be happy, and that is the word we use in this connection, but it would not be proper to say that we choose to be happy; since, speaking generally, choice seems to be concerned with things within our own control.

(4) Nor yet again can it be opinion. It seems that anything may be matter of opinion—we form opinions about what is eternal, or impossible, just as much as about what is within our power. Also we distinguish opinion by its truth or falsehood, not by its being good or bad, but choice is distinguished rather as being good or bad. Probably therefore nobody actually identifies choice with opinion in general. But neither is it the same as some particular opinion. For it is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil. And we choose to take or avoid some good or evil thing, but we opine what a thing is, or for whom it is advantageous, or how it is so: we do not exactly form an opinion to take or avoid a thing. Also we praise a choice rather for choosing the right thing, but an opinion for opining in the right way. And we choose only things that we absolutely know to be good, we opine things we do not quite certainly know to be true. Nor do the same persons appear to excel both at choosing and at forming opinions: some people seem to form opinions better, but yet to choose the wrong things from wickedness.

That choice is preceded or accompanied by the formation of an opinion is immaterial, for that is not the point we are considering, but whether choice is the same thing as some form of opinion. What then are the genus and differentia of Choice, inasmuch as it is not any of the things above mentioned? It manifestly belongs to the genus voluntary action; but not every voluntary act is chosen. Perhaps we may define it as voluntary action preceded by deliberation, since choice involves reasoning and some process of thought. Indeed previous deliberation seems to be implied by the very term proaireton , which denotes something chosen before other things.

As for Deliberation, do people deliberate about everything—are all things possible objects of deliberation—, or are there some things about which deliberation is impossible? The term object of deliberation presumably must not be taken to include things about which a fool or a madman might deliberate, but to mean what a sensible person would deliberate about. Well then, nobody deliberates about things eternal, such as the order of the universe, or the incommensurability of the diagonal and the side, of a square. Nor yet about things that change but follow a regular process, whether from necessity or by nature or through some other cause: such phenomena for instance as the solstices and the sunrise. Nor about irregular occurrences, such as droughts and rains. Nor about the results of chance, such as finding a hidden treasure. The reason why we do not deliberate about these things is that none of them can be effected by our agency.

We deliberate about things that are in our control and are attainable by action (which are in fact the only things that still remain to be considered; for Nature, Necessity, and Chance, with the addition of Intelligence and human agency generally, exhaust the generally accepted list of causes). But we do not deliberate about all human affairs without exception either: for example, no Lacedaemonian deliberates about the best form of government for Scythia ; but any particular set of men deliberates about the things attainable by their own actions. Also there is no room for deliberation about matters fully ascertained and completely formulated as sciences; such for instance as orthography, for we have no uncertainty as to how a word ought to be spelt. We deliberate about things in which our agency operates, but does not always produce uniform results; for instance about questions of medicine and of business; and we deliberate about navigation more than about athletic training, because it has been less completely reduced to a science; and similarly with other pursuits also. And we deliberate more about the arts than about the sciences, because we are more uncertain about them.

Deliberation then is employed in matters which, though subject to rules that generally hold good, are uncertain in their issue; or where the issue is indeterminate, and where, when the matter is important, we take others into our deliberations, distrusting our own capacity to decide. And we deliberate not about ends, but about means. A doctor does not deliberate whether he is to cure his patient, nor an orator whether he is to convince his audience, nor a statesman whether he is to secure good government, nor does anyone else debate about the end of his profession or calling; they take some end for granted, and consider how and by what means it can be achieved. If they find that there are several means of achieving it, they proceed to consider which of these will attain it most easily and best. If there is only one means by which it can be accomplished, they ask how it is to be accomplished by that means, and by what means that means can itself be achieved, until they reach the first link in the chain of causes, which is the last in the order of discovery. (For when deliberating one seems in the procedure described to be pursuing an investigation or analysis that resembles the analysis of a figure in geometry —

indeed it appears that though not all investigation is deliberation, for example, mathematical investigation is not, yet all deliberation is investigation—and the last step in the analysis seems to be the first step in the execution of the design.) Then, if they have come up against an impossibility, they abandon the project—for instance, if it requires money and money cannot be procured; but if on the other hand it proves to be something possible, they begin to act. By possible, I mean able to be performed by our agency—things we do through the agency of our friends counting in a sense as done by ourselves, since the origin of their action is in us. (In practising an art ) the question is at one moment what tools to use, and at another how to use them; and similarly in other spheres, we have to consider sometimes what means to employ, and sometimes how exactly given means are to be employed. It appears therefore, as has been said, that a man is the origin of his actions, and that the province of deliberation is to discover actions within one’s own power to perform; and all our actions aim at ends other than themselves.

It follows that we do not deliberate about ends, but about means. Nor yet do we deliberate about particular facts, for instance, Is this object a loaf? or, Is this loaf properly baked? for these are matters of direct perception. Deliberation must stop at the particular fact, or it will embark on a process ad infinitum. The object of deliberation and the object of choice are the same, except that when a thing is chosen it has already been determined, since it is the thing already selected as the result of our deliberation that is chosen. For a man stops enquiring how he shall act as soon as he has carried back the origin of action to himself, and to the dominant part of himself, for it is this part that chooses. This maybe illustrated by the ancient constitutions represented in Homer: the kings used to proclaim to the people the measures they had chosen to adopt. As then the object of choice is something within our power which after deliberation we desire, Choice will be a deliberate desire of things in our power; for we first deliberate, then select, and finally fix our desire according to the result of our deliberation.

Let this serve as a description in outline of Choice, and of the nature of its objects, and the fact that it deals with means to ends.

Wishes, on the contrary, as was said above, are for ends. But while some hold that what is wished for is the good, others think it is what appears to be good. Those however who say that what is wished for is the really good, are faced by the conclusion, that what a man who chooses his end wrongly wishes for is not really wished for at all; since if it is to be wished for, it must on their showing be good, whereas in the case assumed it may so happen that the man wishes for something bad. And those on the other hand who say that what appears good is wished for, are forced to admit that there is no such thing as that which is by nature wished for, but that what each man thinks to be good is wished for in his case; yet different, and it may be opposite, things appear good to different people.

If therefore neither of these views is satisfactory, perhaps we should say that what is wished for in the true and unqualified sense is the good, but that what appears good to each person is wished for by him; and accordingly that the good man wishes for what is truly wished for, the bad man for anything as it may happen (just as in the case of our bodies, a man of sound constitution finds really healthy food best for his health, but some other diet may be healthy for one who is delicate; and so with things bitter and sweet, hot, heavy, etc.). For the good man judges everything correctly; what things truly are, that they seem to him to be, in every department for the noble and the pleasant have a special form corresponding to each of the faculties of our nature, and perhaps what chiefly distinguishes the good man is that he sees the truth in each kind, being himself as it were the standard and measure of the noble and pleasant. It appears to be pleasure that misleads the mass of mankind; for it seems to them to be a good, though it is not, so they choose what is pleasant as good and shun pain as evil.

If then whereas we wish for our end, the means to our end are matters of deliberation and choice, it follows that actions dealing with these means are done by choice, and voluntary. But the activities in which the virtues are exercised deal with means. Therefore virtue also depends on ourselves. And so also does vice. For where we are free to act we are also free to refrain from acting, and where we are able to say No we are also able to say Yes; if therefore we are responsible for doing a thing when to do it is right, we are also responsible for not doing it when not to do it is wrong, and if we are responsible for rightly not doing a thing, we are also responsible for wrongly doing it. But if it is in our power to do and to refrain from doing right and wrong, and if, as we saw, being good or bad is doing right or wrong, it consequently depends on us whether we are virtuous or vicious. To say that None would be vile, and none would not be blest seems to be half false, though half true: it is true that no one is unwilling to be blessed, but not true that wickedness is involuntary;

or else we must contradict what we just now asserted, and say that man is not the originator and begetter of his actions as he is of his children. But if it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions, and if we are unable to trace our conduct back to many other origins than those within ourselves, then actions of which the origins are within us, themselves depend upon us, and are voluntary. This conclusion seems to be attested both by men’s behavior in private life and by the practice of lawgivers; for they punish and exact redress from those who do evil (except when it is done under compulsion, or through ignorance for which the agent himself is not responsible), and honor those who do noble deeds, in order to encourage the one sort and to repress the other; but nobody tries to encourage us to do things that do not depend upon ourselves and are not voluntary, since it is no good our being persuaded not to feel heat or pain or hunger or the like, because we shall feel them all the same.

Indeed the fact that an offence was committed in ignorance is itself made a ground for punishment, in cases where the offender is held to be responsible for his ignorance; for instance, the penalty is doubled if the offender was drunk, because the origin of the offence was in the man himself, as he might have avoided getting drunk, which was the cause of his not knowing what he was doing. Also men are punished for offences committed through ignorance of some provision of the law which they ought to have known, and might have known without difficulty; and so in other cases where ignorance is held to be due to negligence, on the ground that the offender need not have been ignorant, as he could have taken the trouble to ascertain the facts. It may be objected that perhaps he is not the sort of man to take the trouble. Well, but men are themselves responsible for having become careless through living carelessly, as they are for being unjust or profligate if they do wrong or pass their time in drinking and dissipation. They acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way. This is shown by the way in which men train themselves for some contest or pursuit: they practice continually.

Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct; but if a man knowingly acts in a way that will result in his becoming unjust, he must be said to be voluntarily unjust. Again, though it is unreasonable to say that a man who acts unjustly or dissolutely does not wish to be unjust or dissolute,

nevertheless this by no means implies that he can stop being unjust and become just merely by wishing to do so; any more than a sick man can get well by wishing, although it may be the case that his illness is voluntary, in the sense of being due to intemperate living and neglect of the doctors’ advice. At the outset then, it is true, he might have avoided the illness, but once he has let himself go he can do so no longer. When you have thrown a stone, you cannot afterwards bring it back again, but nevertheless you are responsible for having taken up the stone and flung it, for the origin of the act was within you. Similarly the unjust and profligate might at the outset have avoided becoming so, and therefore they are so voluntarily, although having become unjust and profligate it is no longer open to them not to be so.

And not only are vices of the soul voluntary, but in some cases bodily defects are so as well, and we blame them accordingly. Though no one blames a man for being born ugly, we censure uncomeliness that is due to neglecting exercise and the care of the person. And so with infirmities and mutilations: though nobody would reproach, but rather pity, a person blind from birth, or owing to disease or accident, yet all would blame one who had lost his sight from tippling or debauchery. We see then that bodily defects for which we are ourselves responsible are blamed, while those for which we are not responsible are not. This being so, it follows that we are responsible for blameworthy moral defects also.

But suppose somebody says: “All men seek what seems to them good, but they are not responsible for its seeming good: each man’s conception of his end is determined by his character, whatever that may be. Although therefore, on the hypothesis that each man is in a sense responsible for his moral disposition, he will in a sense be responsible for his conception of the good, if on the contrary this hypothesis be untrue, no man is responsible for his own wrongdoing. He does wrong through ignorance of the right end, thinking that wrongdoing will procure him his greatest Good; and his aim at his end is not of his own choosing. A man needs to be born with moral vision, so to speak, whereby to discern correctly and choose what is truly good. A man of good natural disposition is a man well endowed by nature in this respect; for if a thing is the greatest and noblest of gifts, and is something which cannot be acquired or learnt from another, but which a man will possess in such form as it has been bestowed on him at birth, a good and noble natural endowment in this respect will constitute a good disposition in the full and true meaning of the term.”

Now if this theory be true, how will virtue be voluntary any more than vice? Both for the good man and the bad man alike, their view of their end is determined in the same manner, by nature or however it may be; and all their actions of whatever sort are guided by reference to their end as thus determined. Whether then a man’s view of his end, whatever it may be, is not given by nature but is partly due to himself, or whether, although his end is determined by nature, yet virtue is voluntary because the good man’s actions to gain his end are voluntary, in either case vice will be just as much voluntary as virtue; for the bad man equally with the good possesses spontaneity in his actions, even if not in his choice of an end. If then, as is said, our virtues are voluntary (and in fact we are in a sense ourselves partly the cause of our moral dispositions, and it is our having a certain character that makes us set up an end of a certain kind), it follows that our vices are voluntary also; they are voluntary in the same manner as our virtues.

We have then now discussed in outline the virtues in general, having indicated their genus [namely, that it is a mean, and a disposition ] and having shown that they render us apt to do the same actions as those by which they are produced, and to do them in the way in which right reason may enjoin ; and that they depend on ourselves and are voluntary. But our dispositions are not voluntary in the same way as are our actions. Our actions we can control from beginning to end, and we are conscious, of them at each stage. With our dispositions on the other hand, though we can control their beginnings, each separate addition to them is imperceptible, as is the case with the growth of a disease; though they are voluntary in that we were free to employ our capacities in the one way or the other. But to resume, let us now discuss the virtues severally, defining the nature of each, the class of objects to which it is related, and the way in which it is related to them. In so doing we shall also make it clear how many virtues there are.

Let us first take Courage. We have already seen that Courage is the observance of the mean in respect of fear and confidence. Now it is clear that the things we fear are fearful things, which means, broadly speaking, evil things; so that fear is sometimes defined as the anticipation of evil. It is true then that we fear all evil things, for example, disgrace, poverty, disease, lack of friends, death; but it is not thought that Courage is related to all these things, for there are some evils which it is right and noble to fear and base not to fear, for instance, disgrace. One who fears disgrace is an honorable man, with a due sense of shame; one who does not fear it is shameless: though some people apply the term courageous to such a man by analogy, because he bears some resemblance to the courageous man in that the courageous man also is a fearless person.

Again, it is no doubt right not to fear poverty, disease, or in general any evil not caused by vice and not due to ourselves. But one who is fearless in regard to these things is not courageous either (although the term is applied to him, too, by analogy); since some men who are cowards in war are liberal with money, and face loss of fortune boldly. Nor yet is a man cowardly if he fears insult to his wife and children, or envy, or the like; nor courageous if he shows a bold face when about to undergo a flogging. What then are the fearful things in respect of which Courage is displayed? I suppose those which are the greatest, since there is no one more brave in enduring danger than the courageous man. Now the most terrible thing of all is death; for it is the end, and when a man is dead, nothing, we think, either good or evil can befall him any more. But even death, we should hold, does not in all circumstances give an opportunity for Courage: for instance we do not call a man courageous for facing death by drowning or disease.

What form of death then is a test of Courage? Presumably that which is the noblest. Now the noblest form of death is death in battle, for it is encountered in the midst of the greatest and most noble of dangers. And this conclusion is borne out by the principle on which public honors are bestowed in republics and under monarchies. The courageous man, therefore, in the proper sense of the term, will be he who fearlessly confronts a noble death, or some sudden peril that threatens death; and the perils of war answer this description most fully. Not that the courageous man is not also fearless in a storm at sea (as also in illness), though not in the same way as sailors are fearless, for he thinks there is no hope of safety, and to die by drowning is revolting to him, whereas sailors keep up heart because of their experience. Also Courage is shown in dangers where a man can defend himself by valor or die nobly, but neither is possible in disasters like shipwreck.

Now although the same things are not fearful to everybody, there are some terrors which we pronounce beyond human endurance, and these of course are fearful to everyone in his senses. And the terrors that man can endure differ in magnitude and degree; as also do the situations inspiring confidence. But the courageous man is proof against fear so far as man may be. Hence although he will sometimes fear even terrors not beyond man’s endurance, he will do so in the right way, and he will endure them as principle dictates, for the sake of what is noble ; for that is the end at which virtue aims. On the other hand it is possible to fear such terrors too much, and too little; and also to fear things that are not fearful as if they were fearful. Error arises either from fearing what one ought not to fear, or from fearing in the wrong manner, or at the wrong time, or the like; and similarly with regard to occasions for confidence.

The courageous man then is he that endures or fears the right things and for the right purpose and in the right manner and at the right time, and who shows confidence in a similar way. (For the courageous man feels and acts as the circumstances merit, and as principle may dictate. And every activity aims at the end that corresponds to the disposition of which it is the manifestation. So it is therefore with the activity of the courageous man: his courage is noble; therefore its end is nobility, for a thing is defined by its end; therefore the courageous man endures the terrors and dares the deeds that manifest courage, for the sake of that which is noble.) Of the characters that run to excess, on the other hand, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (this, as we remarked before, is the case with many qualities), but we should call a man mad, or else insensitive to pain, if he feared nothing, earthquake nor billows, as they say of the Kelts; he who exceeds in confidence [in the face of fearful things ] is rash.

The rash man is generally thought to be an impostor, who pretends to courage which he does not possess; at least, he wishes to appear to feel towards fearful things as the courageous man actually does feel, and therefore he imitates him in the things in which he can. Hence most rash men really are cowards at heart, for they make a bold show in situations that inspire confidence, but do not endure terrors. He that exceeds in fear is a coward, for he fears the wrong things, and in the wrong manner, and soon with the rest of the list. He is also deficient in confidence; but his excessive fear in face of pain is more apparent. The coward is therefore a despondent person, being afraid of everything; but the courageous man is just the opposite, for confidence belongs to a sanguine temperament. The coward, the rash man, and the courageous man are therefore concerned with the same objects, but are differently disposed towards them: the two former exceed and fall short, the last keeps the mean and the right disposition. The rash, moreover, are impetuous, and though eager before the danger comes they hang back at the critical moment; whereas the courageous are keen at the time of action but calm beforehand.

As has been said then, Courage is the observance of the mean in relation to things that inspire confidence or fear, in the circumstances stated ; and it is confident and endures because it is noble to do so or base not to do so. But to seek death in order to escape from poverty, or the pangs of love, or from pain or sorrow, is not the act of a courageous man, but rather of a coward; for it is weakness to fly from troubles, and the suicide does not endure death because it is noble to do so, but to escape evil.

Such is the nature of Courage; but the name is also applied to five divergent types of character. (1) First, as most closely resembling true Courage comes the citizen’s courage. Citizen troops appear to endure dangers because of the legal penalties and the reproach attaching to cowardice, and the honors awarded to bravery; hence those races appear to be the bravest among which cowards are degraded and brave men held in honor. It is this citizen courage which inspires the heroes portrayed by Homer, like Diomede and Hector: Polydamas will be the first to flout me; and Diomede says Hector will make his boast at Troy hereafter: “By me was Tydeus’ son . . .” This type of courage most closely resembles the one described before, because it is prompted by a virtue, namely the sense of shame, and by the desire for something noble, namely honor, and the wish to avoid the disgrace of being reproached.

The courage of troops forced into battle by their officers may be classed as of the same type, though they are inferior inasmuch as their motive is not a sense of shame but fear, and the desire to avoid not disgrace but pain. Their masters compel them to be brave, after Hector’s fashion: Let me see any skulking off the field— He shall not save his carcase from the dogs! The same is done by commanders who draw up their troops in front of them and beat them if they give ground, or who form them in line with a trench or some other obstacle in the rear; all these are using compulsion. A man ought not to be brave because he is compelled to be, but because courage is noble. (2) Again, experience of some particular form of danger is taken for a sort of Courage; hence arose Socrates’ notion that Courage is Knowledge. This type of bravery is displayed in various circumstances, and particularly in war by professional soldiers. For war (as the saying is) is full of false alarms, a fact which these men have had most opportunity of observing; thus they appear courageous owing to others’ ignorance of the true situation.

Also experience renders them the most efficient in inflicting loss on the enemy without sustaining it themselves, as they are skilled in the use of arms, and equipped with the best ones both for attack and defence. So that they are like armed men fighting against unarmed, or trained athletes against amateurs; for even in athletic contests it is not the bravest men who are the best fighters, but those who are strongest and in the best training. But professional soldiers prove cowards when the danger imposes too great a strain, and when they are at a disadvantage in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to run away, while citizen troops stand their ground and die fighting, as happened in the battle at the temple of Hermes. This is because citizens think it disgraceful to run away, and prefer death to safety so procured; whereas professional soldiers were relying from the outset on superior strength, and when they discover they are outnumbered they take to flight, fearing death more than disgrace. But this is not true courage.

(3) Spirit or anger is also classed with Courage. Men emboldened by anger, like wild beasts which rush upon the hunter that has wounded them, are supposed to be courageous, because the courageous also are high-spirited; for spirit is very impetuous in encountering danger. Hence Homer writes, he put strength in their spirit, and roused their might and their spirit, and bitter wrath up through his nostrils welled, and his blood boiled ; for all such symptoms seem to indicate an excitement and impulse of the spirit. Thus the real motive of courageous men is the nobility of courage, although spirit operates in them as well; but wild animals are emboldened by pain, for they turn to bay because they are wounded, or frightened—since if they are in a forest or a swamp they do not attack. Therefore they are not to be considered courageous for rushing upon danger when spurred by pain and anger, and blind to the dangers that await them; since on that reckoning even asses would be brave, when they are hungry, for no blows will make them stop grazing! (And adulterers also are led to do many daring things by lust.)

But the form of courage that is inspired by spirit seems to be the most natural, and when reinforced by deliberate choice and purpose it appears to be true Courage. And human beings also feel pain when angry, and take pleasure in revenge. But those who fight for these motives, though valiant fighters, are not courageous; for the motive of their confidence is not honor, nor is it guided by principle, but it springs from feeling. However, they show some affinity to true Courage. (4) Nor yet again is the boldness of the sanguine the same thing as Courage. The sanguine are confident in face of danger because they have won many victories over many foes before. They resemble the courageous, because both are confident, but whereas the courageous are confident for the reasons already explained, the sanguine are so because they think they are stronger than the enemy, and not likely told come to any harm.

(A similar boldness is shown by men who get drunk, for this makes them sanguine for the time being.) When however things do not turn out as they expect, the merely sanguine run away, whereas the mark of the courageous man, as we have seen, is to endure things that are terrible to a human being and that seem so to him, because it is noble to do so and base not to do so. Hence it is thought a sign of still greater courage to be fearless and undismayed in sudden alarms than in dangers that were foreseen. Bravery in unforeseen danger springs more from character, as there is less time for preparation; one might resolve to face a danger one can foresee, from calculation and on principle, but only a fixed disposition of Courage will enable one to face sudden peril.

(5) Those who face danger in ignorance also appear courageous; and they come very near to those whose bravery rests on a sanguine temperament, though inferior to them inasmuch as they lack self-confidence, which the sanguine possess. Hence the sanguine stand firm for a time; whereas those who have been deceived as to the danger, if they learn or suspect the true state of affairs, take to flight, as the Argives did when they encountered the Lacedaemonians and thought they were Sicyonians. We have now described the characteristics both of the courageous and of those who are thought to be courageous.

Courage is displayed with respect to confidence and fear, but not with respect to both equally: it is more particularly displayed in regard to objects of fear; for one who is unperturbed in the presence of terrors and comports himself rightly towards these is courageous in a fuller sense than one who does so in situations that inspire confidence. In fact, as has been said, men are sometimes called courageous for enduring pain. Hence Courage itself is painful; and it is justly praised, because it is harder to endure pain than to abstain from pleasure. Not but what it would appear that the end corresponding to the virtue of Courage is really pleasant, only its pleasantness is obscured by the attendant circumstances. This is illustrated by the case of athletic contests: to boxers, for example, their end—the object they box for, the wreath and the honors of victory—is pleasant, but the blows they receive must hurt them, being men of flesh and blood, and all the labor of training is painful; and these painful incidentals are so numerous that the final object, being a small thing, appears not to contain any pleasure at all.

If then the same is true of Courage, the death or wounds that it may bring will be painful to the courageous man, and he will suffer them unwillingly; but he will endure them because it is noble to do so, or because it is base not to do so. And the more complete his virtue, and the fuller the happiness he has attained, the more pain will death cause him; for to such a man life is worth most, and he stands to lose the greatest goods, and knows that this is so, and this must be painful. But he is none the less courageous on that account, perhaps indeed he is more so, because he prefers glory in war to the greatest prizes of life. It is not true therefore of every virtue that its active exercise is essentially pleasant, save in so far as it attains its end. No doubt it is possible that such men as these do not make the best professional soldiers, but men who are less courageous, and have nothing of value besides life to lose; for these face danger readily, and will barter their lives for trifling gains.

Let this suffice as an account of Courage: from what has been said it will not be difficult to form at all events a rough conception of its nature.

After Courage let us speak of Temperance; for these appear to be the virtues of the irrational parts of the soul. Now we have said that Temperance is the observance of the mean in relation to pleasures (for it is concerned only in a lesser degree and in a different way with pains); and Profligacy also is displayed in the same matters. Let us then now define the sort of pleasures to which these qualities are related. Now we must make a distinction between pleasures of the body and pleasures of the soul: Take for instance ambition, or love of learning: the lover of honor or of learning takes pleasure in the thing he loves without his body being affected at all; the experience is purely mental. But we do not speak of men as either temperate or profligate in relation to the pleasures of ambition and of learning. Nor similarly can these terms be applied to the enjoyment of any of the other pleasures that are not bodily pleasures: those who love hearing marvellous tales and telling anecdotes, and who spend their days in trivial gossip, we call idle chatterers, but not profligates; nor do we call men profligate who feel excessive pain for the loss of fortune or friends.

Temperance therefore has to do with the pleasures of the body. But not with all even of these; for men who delight in the pleasures of the eye, in colors, forms and paintings, are not termed either temperate or profligate, although it would be held that these things also can be enjoyed in the right manner, or too much, or too little. Similarly with the objects of hearing: no one would term profligate those who take an excessive pleasure in music, or the theater, nor temperate those who enjoy them as is right. Nor yet does Temperance apply to enjoyment of the sense of smell, unless accidentally ; we do not call those who are fond of the scent of fruit or robes or incense profligate, though we may be inclined so to style those who love perfumes and the smell of savory dishes, for the profligate take pleasure in these odors because they remind them of the objects of their desires. One may notice that other persons too like the smell of food when they are hungry; but to delight in things of this kind is a mark of the profligate, since they are the things on which the profligate’s desires are set.

Nor do the lower animals derive any pleasure from these senses, except accidentally. Hounds do not take pleasure in scenting hares, but in eating them; the scent merely made them aware of the hare. The lion does not care about the lowing of the ox, but about devouring it, though the lowing tells him that the ox is near, and consequently he appears to take pleasure in the sound. Similarly he is not pleased by the sight of or stag or mountain goat, but by the prospect of a meal. Temperance and Profligacy are therefore concerned with those pleasures which man shares with the lower animals, and which consequently appear slavish and bestial. These are the pleasures of touch and taste. But even taste appears to play but a small part, if any, in Temperance. For taste is concerned with discriminating flavors, as is done by wine-tasters, and cooks preparing savory dishes; but it is not exactly the flavors that give pleasure, or at all events not to the profligate: it is actually enjoying the object that is pleasant, and this is done solely through the sense of touch, alike in eating and drinking and in what are called the pleasures of sex.

This is why a certain gourmand wished that his throat might be longer than a crane’s, showing that his pleasure lay in the sensation of contact. Hence the sense to which Profligacy is related is the most universal of the senses; and there appears to be good ground for the disrepute in which it is held, because it belongs to us not as human beings but as animals. Therefore it is bestial to revel in such pleasures, and to like them better than any others. We do not refer to the most refined of the pleasures of touch, such as the enjoyment of friction and warm baths in the gymnasia; the tactual pleasures of the profligate have to do with certain parts only, not with the whole of the body.

Desires seem to be of two kinds, one common to all men, the other peculiar to special peoples, and adventitious. For instance, the desire for food is natural, since everyone desires solid or liquid nourishment, and sometimes both, when in need of them; and also sexual intercourse, as Homer says, when young and lusty. But not everybody desires this or that particular sort of nourishment, any more than everyone desires the same particular portion of food; hence a taste for this or that sort of food seems to be an individual peculiarity. Not but what there is also something natural in such tastes; for different things are pleasant to different people, and there are some special delicacies which all men like better than ordinary food. In the case of the natural desires, then, few men err, and in one way only, that of excess in quantity; for to eat or drink to repletion of ordinary food and drink is to exceed what is natural in amount, since the natural desire is only to satisfy one’s wants. Hence people who over-eat are called mad-bellies, meaning that they fill that organ beyond the right measure; it is persons of especially slavish nature that are liable to this form of excess.

But in regard to the pleasures peculiar to particular people, many men err, and err in many ways. For when people are said to be very fond of so-and-so, it is either because they like things that it is not right to like, or like them more than most people do, or like them in a wrong manner; and the profligate exceed in all these ways. For they like some things that are wrong, and indeed abominable, and any such things that it is right to like they like more than is right, and more than most people. It is clear then that excess in relation to pleasures is Profligacy, and that it is blameworthy. As regards pains on the other hand, it is not with Temperance as it is with Courage: a man is not termed temperate for enduring pain and profligate for not enduring it, but profligate for feeling more pain than is right when he fails to get pleasures (in his case pleasure actually causing pain), and temperate for not feeling pain at the absence of pleasure [or at abstaining from it].

The profligate therefore desires all pleasures, or those that are the most pleasant, and is led by his desire to pursue these in preference to everything else. He consequently feels pain not only when he fails to get them, but also from his desire for them, since desire is accompanied by pain; paradoxical though it seems that pain should be caused by pleasure. Men erring on the side of deficiency as regards pleasures, and taking less than a proper amount of enjoyment in them, scarcely occur; such insensibility is not human. Indeed, even the lower animals discriminate in food, and like some kinds and not others; and if there be a creature that finds nothing pleasant, and sees no difference between one thing and another, it must be very far removed from humanity. As men of this type scarcely occur, we have no special name for them.

The temperate man keeps a middle course in these matters. He takes no pleasure at all in the things that the profligate enjoys most, on the contrary, he positively dislikes them; nor in general does he find pleasure in wrong things, nor excessive pleasure in anything of this sort; nor does he feel pain or desire when they are lacking, or only in a moderate degree, not more than is right, nor at the wrong time, et cetera. But such pleasures as conduce to health and fitness he will try to obtain in a moderate and right degree; as also other pleasures so far as they are not detrimental to health and fitness, and not ignoble, nor beyond his means. The man who exceeds these limits cares more for such pleasures than they are worth. Not so the temperate man; he only cares for them as right principle enjoins.

Profligacy seems to be more voluntary than Cowardice. For the former is caused by pleasure, the latter by pain, and pleasure is a thing we choose, pain a thing we avoid. Also pain makes us beside ourselves: it destroys the sufferer’s nature; whereas pleasure has no such effect. Therefore Profligacy is the more voluntary vice. And consequently it is the more reprehensible; since moreover it is easier to train oneself to resist the temptations of pleasure, because these occur frequently in life, and to practise resistance to them involves no danger, whereas the reverse is the case with the objects of fear. On the other hand, the possession of a cowardly character would seem to be more voluntary than particular manifestations of cowardice: for cowardliness in itself is not painful, but particular accesses of cowardice are so painful as to make a man beside himself, and cause him to throw away his arms or otherwise behave in an unseemly manner; so that cowardly actions actually seem to be done under compulsion. But with the profligate on the contrary the particular acts are voluntary, for they are done with desire and appetite, but the character in general is less so, since no one desires to be a profligate.

The word Profligacy or wantonness we also apply to the naughtiness of children, which has some resemblance to the licentiousness of adults. Which of the two takes its name from the other is of no importance for the present enquiry, but it would seem clear that the state which comes later in life must be named from the one which comes earlier. The metaphor appears apt enough, since it is that which desires what is disgraceful and whose appetites grow apace that needs chastisement or pruning, and this description applies in the fullest degree to desire, as it does to the child. For children, like profligates, live at the prompting of desire; and the appetite for pleasure is strongest in childhood, so that if it be not disciplined and made obedient to authority, it will make great headway. In an irrational being the appetite for pleasure is insatiable and undiscriminating, and the innate tendency is fostered by active gratification; indeed, if such gratification be great and intense it actually overpowers the reason. Hence our indulgences should be moderate and few, and never opposed to principle— this is what we mean by well-disciplined and chastened —; and the appetitive part of us should be ruled by principle, just as a boy should live in obedience to his tutor.

Hence in the temperate man the appetitive element must be in harmony with principle. For (1) the aim of both Temperance and principle is that which is noble; and (2) the temperate man desires the right thing in the right way at the right time, which is what principle ordains. Let this then be our account of Temperance.

Next let us speak of Liberality. This virtue seems to be the observance of the mean in relation to wealth: we praise a man as liberal not in war, nor in matters in which we praise him as temperate nor in judicial decisions, but in relation to giving and getting wealth, and especially in giving; wealth meaning all those things whose value is measured by money. Prodigality and Meanness on the other hand are both of them modes of excess and of deficiency in relation to wealth. Meanness is always applied to those who care more than is proper about wealth, but Prodigality is sometimes used with a wider connotation, since we call the unrestrained and those who squander money on debauchery prodigal; and therefore prodigality is thought to be extremely wicked, because it is a combination of vices. But this is not the proper application of the word: really it denotes the possessor of one particular vice, that of wasting one’s substance; for he who is ruined by his own agency is a hopeless case indeed, and to waste one’s substance seems to be in a way to ruin oneself, inasmuch as wealth is the means of life. This then is the sense in which the term Prodigality is here understood.

Now riches are an article of use; but articles of use can be used either well or ill, and he who uses a thing best is he who possesses the virtue related to that thing; therefore that man will use riches best who possesses the virtue related to wealth; and this is the liberal man. But the use of wealth seems to consist in spending and in giving; getting wealth and keeping it are modes of acquisition rather than of use. Hence the liberal man is more concerned with giving to the right recipients than with getting wealth from the right sources and not getting it from the wrong ones. Virtue is displayed in doing good rather than in having good done to one, and in performing noble acts rather than in avoiding base ones; but manifestly doing good and acting nobly go with giving, while having good done to one and avoiding base actions go with getting. Again, gratitude is bestowed on a giver, not on one who refrains from taking; and still more is this true of praise. Also it is easier not to take than to give: men are more reluctant to give away what belongs to them than to refrain from taking what belongs to someone else.

Again, it is those who give whom we call liberal; those who refrain from taking are not praised for Liberality but rather for Justice, and those who take are not praised at all. And of all virtuous people the liberal are perhaps the most beloved, because they are beneficial to others; and they are so in that they give. Acts of virtue are noble, and are performed for the sake of their nobility; the liberal man therefore will give for the nobility of giving. And he will give rightly, for he will give to the right people, and the right amount, and at the right time, and fulfil all the other conditions of right giving. Also he will give with pleasure, or at all events without pain; for virtuous action is pleasant, or painless—it certainly cannot be painful. One who gives to the wrong people, or not for the nobility of giving but from some other motive, will not be called liberal, but by some different title; nor will he who gives with pain, for he would prefer the money to the noble deed, which is not the mark of a liberal man.

Consequently the liberal man will not take money from a wrong source either, since one who holds wealth in low esteem is not the man to make improper gains. Nor yet will he be fond of asking favors, for one who confers benefits does not readily accept them. But he will acquire wealth from the proper source, that is, from his own possessions, not because he thinks it is a noble thing to do, but because it is a necessary condition of having the means to give. He will not be careless of his property, inasmuch as he wishes to employ it for the assistance of others. He will not give indiscriminately, in order that he may be able to give to the right persons and at the right time, and where it is noble to do so. But the liberal man is certainly prone to go to excess in giving, so as to leave himself the smaller share; for it is a mark of a liberal nature to be regardless of self.

In crediting people with Liberality their resources must be taken into account; for the liberality of a gift does not depend on its amount, but on the disposition of the giver, and a liberal disposition gives according to its substance. It is therefore possible that the smaller giver may be the more liberal, if he give from smaller means. Men who have inherited a fortune are reputed to be more liberal than those who have made one, since they have never known what it is to want; moreover everybody is specially fond of a thing that is his own creation: parents and poets show this. But it is not easy for a liberal man to be rich, since he is not good either at getting money or at keeping it, while he is profuse in spending it and values wealth not for its own sake but as a means of giving. Hence people blame fortune because the most deserving men are the least wealthy. But this is really perfectly natural: you cannot have money, any more than anything else, without taking pains to have it.

On the other hand, the liberal man will not give to the wrong people, nor at the wrong time, and so forth, for this would not be an act of Liberality at all; and if he spent his money on the wrong objects he would not have any to spend on the right ones. In fact, as was said before, the liberal man is one who spends in proportion to his means as well as on the right objects; while he that exceeds his means is prodigal. This is why we do not call the lavishness of princes Prodigality; because we feel that however much they spend and give away they can hardly exceed the limit of their resources.

Liberality then being the observance of the mean in the giving and getting of wealth, the liberal man will not only give and spend the right amounts on the right objects alike in small matters and in great, and feel pleasure in so doing, but will also take the right amounts, and from the right sources. For as this virtue is a mean both in giving and in getting, he will do both in the right way. Right getting goes with right giving, wrong getting is opposed to right giving; the two concordant practices therefore may be found in the same person, but the two opposite ones clearly cannot be. If the liberal man should happen to spend in a manner contrary to what is right and noble, he will feel pain, though in a moderate degree and in the right manner; for it is a mark of virtue to feel both pleasure and pain on the right occasions and in the right manner. Also the liberal man is an easy person to deal with in money matters; he can be cheated, because he does not value money, and is more distressed if he has paid less than he ought than he is annoyed if he has paid more: he does not agree with the saying of Simonides.

The prodigal on the other hand errs in his feelings with regard to money as well as in his actions; he feels neither pleasure nor pain on the right occasions nor in the right manner. This will become clearer as we proceed. We have said then that Prodigality and Meanness are modes of excess and of deficiency, and this in two things, giving and getting—giving being taken to include spending. Prodigality exceeds in giving [without getting ], and is deficient in getting; Meanness falls short in giving and goes to excess in getting, only not on the great scale. Now the two forms of Prodigality are very seldom found united in the same person, because it is not easy to give to everyone without receiving from anyone: the giver’s means are soon exhausted, if he is a private citizen, and only such persons are considered prodigal.

In fact, a man who is prodigal in both ways may be thought considerably superior to the mean man; for he is easily cured by age or by poverty, and is able to be brought to the due mean, because he possesses the essentials of the liberal character—he gives, and he refrains from taking, though he does neither in the proper way or rightly. Correct this by training, or otherwise reform him, and he will be liberal, for he will now give his money to the right objects, while he will not get it from the wrong sources. This is why he is felt to be not really bad in character; for to exceed in giving without getting is foolish rather than evil or ignoble. The prodigal of this type therefore seems to be much superior to the mean man, both for the reasons stated, and because the former benefits many people, but the latter benefits nobody, not even himself. But the majority of prodigal people, as has been said, besides giving wrongly, take from wrong sources; in respect of getting they are in fact mean.

And what makes them grasping is that they want to spend, but cannot do so freely because they soon come to the end of their resources, and so are compelled to obtain supplies from others. Moreover, being indifferent to nobility of conduct, they are careless how they get their money, and take it from anywhere; their desire is to give, and they do not mind how or where they get the means of giving. Hence even their giving is not really liberal: their gifts are not noble, nor given for the nobility of giving, nor in the right way; on the contrary, sometimes they make men rich who ought to be poor, and will not give anything to the worthy, while heaping gifts on flatterers and others who minister to their pleasures. Hence most prodigal men are also profligate; for as they spend their money freely, some of it is squandered in debauchery; and having no high moral standard they readily yield to the temptation of pleasure. This then is what the prodigal comes to if he is not brought under discipline; but if he is taken in hand, he may attain the due mean and the right scale of liberality.

Meanness on the contrary is incurable; for we see that it can be caused by old age or any form of weakness. Also it is more ingrained in man’s nature than Prodigality; the mass of mankind are avaricious rather than open-handed. Moreover Meanness is a far-reaching vice, and one of varied aspect: it appears to take several shapes. For as it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in getting, it is not found in its entirety in every case, but sometimes the two forms occur separately, some men going too far in getting, while others fall short in giving.

The characters described by such names as niggardly, close-fisted, and stingy all fall short in giving, but they do not covet the goods of others nor wish to take them. With some of them this is due to an honorable motive of a sort, namely a shrinking from base conduct—since some persons are thought, or at all events profess, to be careful of their money because they wish to avoid being forced at some time or other to do something base; to this class belong the skinflint and similar characters, who get their names from an excessive reluctance to give. But some keep their hands off their neighbors’ goods from fear; they calculate that it is not easy to take what belongs to others without others taking what belongs to oneself, and so they prefer (as they say) neither to take nor to give. The other sort of people are those who exceed in respect of getting, taking from every source and all they can; such are those who follow degrading trades, brothel-keepers and all people of that sort, and petty usurers who lend money in small sums at a high rate of interest; all these take from wrong sources, and more than their due.

The common characteristic of all these seems to be sordid greed, since they all endure reproach for gain, and for a small gain. Those who make improper gains from improper sources on a great scale, for instance princes who sack cities and rob temples, are not termed mean, but rather wicked or impious or unjust. But the dicer and the foot-pad or brigand are to be classed as mean, as showing sordid greed, for both ply their trade and endure reproach for gain, the robber risking his life for plunder, and the dicer making gain out of his friends, to whom one ought to give; hence both are guilty of sordid greed, trying as they do to get gain from wrong sources. And all similar modes of getting wealth are mean for the same reasons. Meanness is naturally spoken of as the opposite of Liberality; for not only is it a greater evil than Prodigality, but also men more often err on the side of Meanness than on that of Prodigality as we defined it. Let this suffice as an account of Liberality and of the vices which are opposed to it.

Next it would seem proper to discuss Magnificence, for this also appears to be a virtue concerned with wealth. It does not however, like Liberality, extend to all actions dealing with wealth, but only refers to the spending of wealth; and in this sphere it surpasses Liberality in point of magnitude, for, as its name itself implies, it consists in suitable expenditure on a great scale. But this greatness of scale is relative. An amount of outlay that would be great for a person fitting out a galley for the navy would not be great for one equipping a state pilgrimage. The suitability of the expenditure therefore is relative to the spender himself, and to the occasion or object. At the same time the term magnificent is not applied to one who spends adequate sums on objects of only small or moderate importance, like the man who said Oft gave I alms to homeless wayfarers ; it denotes someone who spends suitably on great objects. For though the magnificent man is liberal, the liberal man is not necessarily magnificent.

The defect corresponding to the magnificent disposition is called Paltriness, and the excess Vulgarity, Want of Taste or the like. The latter vices do not exceed by spending too great an amount on proper objects, but by making a great display on the wrong occasions and in the wrong way. We will however speak of them later. The magnificent man is an artist in expenditure: he can discern what is suitable, and spend great sums with good taste. (For as we said at the outset, a disposition is defined by the activities in which it is displayed, and by the objects to which it is related.) So the magnificent man’s expenditure is suitable as well as great. And consequently the objects he produces must also be great and suitable; for so only will a great expenditure be suitable [to the result ] as well. Hence, as the object produced must be worthy of the expenditure, so also must the expenditure be worthy of or even exceed the object produced. Again, the motive of the munificent man in such expenditure will be the nobility of the action, this motive being characteristic of all the virtues. Moreover he will spend gladly and lavishly, since nice calculation is shabby;

and he will think how he can carry out his project most nobly and splendidly, rather than how much it will cost and how it can be done most cheaply. The magnificent man will therefore necessarily be also a liberal man. For the liberal man too will spend the right amount in the right manner; and it is in the amount and manner of his expenditure that the element great in the magnificent or greatly splendid man, that is to say his greatness, is shown, these being the things in which Liberality is displayed. And the magnificent man from an equal outlay will achieve a more magnificent result ; for the same standard of excellence does not apply to an achievement as to a possession: with possessions the thing worth the highest price is the most honored, for instance gold, but the achievement most honored is one that is great and noble (since a great achievement arouses the admiration of the spectator, and the quality of causing admiration belongs to magnificence); and excellence in an achievement involves greatness.

Now there are some forms of expenditure definitely entitled honorable, for instance expenditure on the service of the gods— votive offerings, public buildings, sacrifices—and the offices of religion generally; and those public benefactions which are favorite objects of ambition, for instance the duty, as it is esteemed in certain states, of equipping a chorus splendidly or fitting out a ship of war, or even of giving a banquet to the public. But in all these matters, as has been said, the scale of expenditure must be judged with reference to the person spending, that is, to his position and his resources; for expenditure should be proportionate to means, and suitable not only to the occasion but to the giver. Hence a poor man cannot be magnificent, since he has not the means to make a great outlay suitably; the poor man who attempts Magnificence is foolish, for he spends out of proportion to his means, and beyond what he ought, whereas an act displays virtue only when it is done in the right way. But great public benefactions are suitable for those who have adequate resources derived from their own exertions or from their ancestors or connections, and for the high-born and famous and the like, since birth, fame and so on all have an element of greatness and distinction.

The magnificent man therefore is especially of this sort, and Magnificence mostly finds an outlet in these public benefactions, as we have said, since these are the greatest forms of expenditure and the ones most honored. But Magnificence is also shown on those private occasions for expenditure which only happen once, for instance, a wedding or the like, and which arouse the interest of the general public, or of people of position; and also in welcoming foreign guests and in celebrating their departure, and in the complimentary interchange of presents; for the magnificent man does not spend money on himself but on public objects, and his gifts have some resemblance to votive offerings. It is also characteristic of the magnificent man to furnish his house in a manner suitable to his wealth, since a fine house is a sort of distinction; and to prefer spending on permanent objects, because these are the most noble;

and to spend an amount that is appropriate to the particular occasion, for the same gifts are not suitable for the gods and for men, and the same expenditure is not appropriate to a sacrifice and a funeral. In fact, inasmuch as the greatness of any form of expenditure varies with its particular kind, and, although the most magnificent expenditure absolutely is great expenditure on a great object, the most magnificent in a particular case is the amount that is great in that case, and since the greatness of the result achieved is not the same as the greatness of the expenditure (for the finest ball or oil-flask does not cost much or involve a very liberal outlay, though it makes a magnificent present in the case of a child), it follows that it is the mark of the magnificent man, in expenditure of whatever kind, to produce a magnificent result (for that is a standard not easily exceeded), and a result proportionate to the cost.

Such then is the character of the magnificent man. His counterpart on the side of excess, the vulgar man, exceeds, as has been said, by spending beyond what is right. He spends a great deal and makes a tasteless display on unimportant occasions: for instance, he gives a dinner to his club on the scale of a wedding banquet, and when equipping a chorus at the comedies he brings it on in purple at its first entrance, as is done at Megara . Moreover, he does all this not from a noble motive but to show off his wealth, and with the idea that this sort of thing makes people admire him; and he spends little where he ought to spend much and much where he ought to spend little. The paltry man on the other hand will err on the side of deficiency in everything; even when he is spending a great deal, he will spoil the effect for a trifle, and by hesitating at every stage and considering how he can spend least, and even so grudging what he spends and always thinking he is doing things on a greater scale than is necessary. These dispositions then are vices, but they do not bring serious discredit, since they are not injurious to others, nor are they excessively unseemly.

Greatness of Soul, as the word itself implies, seems to be related to great objects; let us first ascertain what sort of objects these are. It will make no difference whether we examine the quality itself or the person that displays the quality. Now a person is thought to be great-souled if he claims much and deserves much; he who claims much without deserving it is foolish, but no one of moral excellence is foolish or senseless. The great-souled man is then as we have described. He who deserves little and claims little is modest or temperate, but not great-souled, since to be great-souled involves greatness just as handsomeness involves size: small people may be neat and well-made, but not handsome. He that claims much but does not deserve much is vain; though not everybody who claims more than he deserves is vain. He that claims less than he deserves is small-souled, whether his deserts be great or only moderate, or even though he deserves little, if he claims still less. The most small-souled of all would seem to be the man who claims less than he deserves when his deserts are great; for what would he have done had he not deserved so much?

Though therefore in regard to the greatness of his claim the great-souled man is an extreme, by reason of its rightness he stands at the mean point, for he claims what he deserves; while the vain and the small-souled err by excess and defect respectively. If then the great-souled man claims and is worthy of great things and most of all the greatest things, Greatness of Soul must be concerned with some one object especially. Worthy is a term of relation: it denotes having a claim to goods external to oneself. Now the greatest external good we should assume to be the thing which we offer as a tribute to the gods, and which is most coveted by men of high station, and is the prize awarded for the noblest deeds; and such a thing is honor, for honor is clearly the greatest of external goods. Therefore the great-souled man is he who has the right disposition in relation to honors and disgraces. And even without argument it is evident that honor is the object with which the great-souled are concerned, since it is honor above all else which great men claim and deserve. The small-souled man falls short both as judged by his own deserts and in comparison with the claim of the great-souled man;

the vain man on the other hand exceeds as judged by his own standard, but does not however exceed the great-souled man. And inasmuch as the great-souled man deserves most, he must be the best of men; for the better a man is the more he deserves, and he that is best deserves most. Therefore the truly great-souled man must be a good man. Indeed greatness in each of the virtues would seem to go with greatness of soul. For instance, one cannot imagine the great-souled man running at full speed when retreating in battle, nor acting dishonestly; since what motive for base conduct has a man to whom nothing is great? Considering all the virtues in turn, we shall feel it quite ridiculous to picture the great-souled man as other than a good man. Moreover, if he were bad, he would not be worthy of honor, since honor is the prize of virtue, and the tribute that we pay to the good. Greatness of Soul seems therefore to be as it were a crowning ornament of the virtues: it enhances their greatness, and it cannot exist without them. Hence it is hard to be truly great souled, for greatness of soul is impossible without moral nobility.

Honor and dishonor then are the objects with which the great-souled man is especially concerned. Great honors accorded by persons of worth will afford him pleasure in a moderate degree: he will feel he is receiving only what belongs to him, or even less, for no honor can be adequate to the merits of perfect virtue, yet all the same he will deign to accept their honors, because they have no greater tribute to offer him. Honor rendered by common people and on trivial grounds he will utterly despise, for this is not what he merits. He will also despise dishonor, for no dishonor can justly attach to him.

The great-souled man then, as has been said, is especially concerned with honor; but he will also observe due measure in respect to wealth, power, and good and bad fortune in general, as they may befall him; he will not rejoice overmuch in prosperity, nor grieve overmuch at adversity. For he does not care much even about honor, which is the greatest of external goods (since power and wealth are desirable only for the honor they bring, at least their possessors wish to be honored for their sake); he therefore to whom even honor is a small thing will be indifferent to other things as well. Hence great-souled men are thought to be haughty. But it is thought that the gifts of fortune also conduce to greatness of soul; for the high-born and those who are powerful or wealthy are esteemed worthy of honor, because they are superior to their fellows, and that which is superior in something good is always held in higher honor; so that even these gifts of fortune make men more great-souled, because their possessors are honored by some people.

But in reality only the good man ought to be honored, although he that has both virtue and fortune is esteemed still more worthy of honor; whereas those who possess the goods of fortune without virtue are not justified in claiming high worth, and cannot correctly be styled great-souled, since true worth and greatness of soul cannot exist without complete virtue. It is true that even those who merely possess the goods of fortune may be haughty and insolent; because without virtue it is not easy to bear good fortune becomingly, and such men, being unable to carry their prosperity, and thinking themselves superior to the rest of mankind, despise other people, although their own conduct is no better than another’s. The fact is that they try to imitate the great-souled man without being really like him, and only copy him in what they can, reproducing his contempt for others but not his virtuous conduct. For the great-souled man is justified in despising other people—his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no good ground for their pride.

The great-souled man does not run into danger for trifling reasons, and is not a lover of danger, because there are few things he values; but he will face danger in a great cause, and when so doing will be ready to sacrifice his life, since he holds that life is not worth having at every price. He is fond of conferring benefits, but ashamed to receive them, because the former is a mark of superiority and the latter of inferiority. He returns a service done to him with interest, since this will put the original benefactor into his debt in turn, and make him the party benefited. The great-souled are thought to have a good memory for any benefit they have conferred, but a bad memory for those which they have received (since the recipient of a benefit is the inferior of his benefactor, whereas they desire to be superior); and to enjoy being reminded of the former but to dislike being reminded of the latter: this is why the poet makes Thetis not specify her services to Zeus; nor did the Spartans treating with the Athenians recall the occasions when Sparta had aided Athens , but those on which Athens had aided Sparta .

It is also characteristic of the great-souled man never to ask help from others, or only with reluctance, but to render aid willingly; and to be haughty towards men of position and fortune, but courteous towards those of moderate station, because it is difficult and distinguished to be superior to the great, but easy to outdo the lowly, and to adopt a high manner with the former is not ill-bred, but it is vulgar to lord it over humble people: it is like putting forth one’s strength against the weak. He will not compete for the common objects of ambition, or go where other people take the first place; and he will be idle and slow to act, except when pursuing some high honor or achievement; and will not engage in many undertakings, but only in such as are important and distinguished. He must be open both in love and in hate, since concealment shows timidity; and care more for the truth than for what people will think; and speak and act openly, since as he despises other men he is outspoken and frank, except when speaking with ironical self-depreciation, as he does to common people.

He will be incapable of living at the will of another, unless a friend, since to do so is slavish, and hence flatterers are always servile, and humble people flatterers. He is not prone to admiration, since nothing is great to him. He does not bear a grudge, for it is not a mark of greatness of soul to recall things against people, especially the wrongs they have done you, but rather to overlook them. He is no gossip, for he will not talk either about himself or about another, as he neither wants to receive compliments nor to hear other people run down (nor is he lavish of praise either); and so he is not given to speaking evil himself, even of his enemies, except when he deliberately intends to give offence. In troubles that cannot be avoided or trifling mishaps he will never cry out or ask for help, since to do so would imply that he took them to heart. He likes to own beautiful and useless things, rather than useful things that bring in a return, since the former show his independence more.

Other traits generally attributed to the great-souled man are a slow gait, a deep voice, and a deliberate utterance; to speak in shrill tones and walk fast denotes an excitable and nervous temperament, which does not belong to one who cares for few things and thinks nothing great. Such then being the Great-souled man, the corresponding character on the side of deficiency is the Small-souled man, and on that of excess the Vain man. These also are not thought to be actually vicious, since they do no harm, but rather mistaken. The small-souled man deprives himself of the good things that he deserves; and his failure to claim good things makes it seem that he has something bad about him [and also that he does not know himself], for (people argue), if he deserved any good, he would try to obtain it. Not that such persons are considered foolish, but rather too retiring; yet this estimate of them is thought to make them still worse, for men’s ambitions show what they are worth, and if they hold aloof from noble enterprises and pursuits, and for go the good things of life, presumably they think they are not worthy of them.

The vain on the other hand are foolish persons, who are deficient in self-knowledge and expose their defect: they undertake honorable responsibilities of which they are not worthy, and then are found out. They are ostentatious in dress, manner and so on. They want people to know how well off they are, and talk about it, imagining that this will make them respected. Smallness of Soul is more opposed than Vanity to Greatness of Soul, being both more prevalent and worse. Greatness of Soul then, as we have said, is concerned with great honors.

It appears however that honor also, as was said in the first part of this work, has a certain virtue concerned with it, which may be held to bear the same relation to Greatness of Soul that Liberality bears to Magnificence. This virtue as well as Liberality is without the element of greatness, but causes us to be rightly disposed towards moderate and small honors as Liberality does towards moderate and small amounts of money; and just as there is a mean and also excess and deficiency in getting and in giving money, so also it is possible to pursue honor more or less than is right and also to seek it from the right source and in the right way. We blame a man as ambitious if he seeks honor more than is right, or from wrong sources; we blame him as unambitious if he does not care about receiving honor even on noble grounds.

But at another time we praise the ambitious man as manly and a lover of what is noble, or praise the unambitious man as modest and temperate, as we said in the first part of this work. The fact is that the expression fond of so-and-so is ambiguous, and we do not always apply the word fond of honor (ambitious) to the same thing; when we use it as a term of praise, we mean more fond of honor than most men, but when as a reproach, more than is right. As the observance of the mean has no name, the two extremes dispute as it were for the unclaimed estate. But where there is excess and deficiency there must also be a mean. Now men do seek honor both more and less than is right; it must therefore be possible also to do so rightly. It is therefore this nameless middle disposition in regard to honor that we really praise. Compared with ambition it appears unambitiousness, and compared with unambitiousness it appears ambition: compared with both, it a appears in a sense to be both. This seems to be true of the other virtues also; but in the present case the extremes appear to be opposed only to one another, because the middle character has no name.

Gentleness is the observance of the mean in relation to anger. There is as a matter of fact no recognized name for the mean in this respect—indeed there can hardly be said to be names for the extremes either—, so we apply the word Gentleness to the mean though really it inclines to the side of the defect. This has no name, but the excess may be called a sort of Irascibility, for the emotion concerned is anger, though the causes producing it are many and various. Now we praise a man who feels anger on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time. He may then be called gentle-tempered, if we take gentleness to be a praiseworthy quality (for gentle really denotes a calm temper, not led by emotion but only becoming angry in such a manner, for such causes and for such a length of time as principle may ordain; although the quality is thought rather to err on the side of defect, since the gentle-tempered man is not prompt to seek redress for injuries, but rather inclined to forgive them).

The defect, on the other hand, call it a sort of Lack of Spirit or what not, is blamed; since those who do not get angry at things at which it is right to be angry are considered foolish, and so are those who do not get angry in the right manner, at the a right time, and with the right people. It is thought that they do not feel or resent an injury, and that if a man is never angry he will not stand up for him self; and it is considered servile to put up with an insult to oneself or suffer one’s friends to be insulted. Excess also is possible in each of these ways, for one can be angry with the wrong people, for wrong things, or more violently or more quickly or longer than is right; but not all these excesses of temper are found in the same person. This would be impossible, since evil destroys even itself, and when present in its entirety becomes unbearable.

There are then first the Irascible, who get angry quickly and with the wrong people and for the wrong things and too violently, but whose anger is soon over. This last is the best point in their character, and it is due to the fact that they do not keep their anger in, but being quick-tempered display it openly by retaliating, and then have done with it. The excessively quick-tempered are Passionate; they fly into a passion at everything and on all occasions: hence their name. The Bitter-tempered on the other hand are implacable, and remain angry a long time, because they keep their wrath in; whereas when a man retaliates there is an end of the matter: the pain of resentment is replaced by the pleasure of obtaining redress, and so his anger ceases. But if they do not retaliate, men continue to labour under a sense of resentment—for as their anger is concealed no one else tries to placate them either, and it takes a long time to digest one’s wrath within one. Bitterness is the most trouble some form of bad temper both to a man himself and to his nearest friends.

Those who lose their temper at the wrong things, and more and longer than they ought, and who refuse to be reconciled without obtaining redress or retaliating, we call Harsh-tempered. We consider the excess to be more opposed to Gentleness than the defect, because it occurs more frequently, human nature being more prone to seek redress than to forgive; and because the harsh-tempered are worse to live with than the unduly placable. But what was said above is also clear from what we are now saying; it is not easy to define in what manner and with whom and on what grounds and how long one ought to be angry, and up to what point one does right in so doing and where error begins. For he who transgresses the limit only a little is not held blameworthy, whether he errs on the side of excess or defect; in fact, we sometimes praise those deficient in anger and call them gentle-tempered, and we sometimes praise those who are harsh-tempered as manly, and fitted to command. It is therefore not easy to pronounce on principle what degree and manner of error is blameworthy, since this is a matter of the particular circumstances, and judgement rests with the faculty of perception.

But thus much at all events is clear, that the middle disposition is praiseworthy, which leads us to be angry with the right people for the right things in the right manner and so on, while the various forms of excess and defect are blameworthy—when of slight extent, but little so, when greater, more, and when extreme, very blameworthy indeed. It is clear therefore that we should strive to attain the middle disposition. Let this be our account of the dispositions related to anger.

In society and the common life and intercourse of conversation and business, some men are considered to be Obsequious; these are people who complaisantly approve of everything and never raise objections, but think it a duty to avoid giving pain to those which whom they come in contact. Those on the contrary who object to everything and do not care in the least what pain they cause, are called Surly or Quarrelsome. Now it is clear that the dispositions described are blameworthy, and that the middle disposition between them is praiseworthy—that is, the tendency to acquiesce in the right things, and likewise to disapprove of the right things, in the right manner. But to this no special name has been assigned, though it very closely resembles friendship ; for he who exemplifies this middle disposition is the sort of man we mean by the expression a good friend, only that includes an element of affection.

It differs from friendship in not possessing the emotional factor of affection for one’s associates; since a man of this character takes everything in the right way not from personal liking or dislike, but from natural amiability. He will behave with the same propriety towards strangers and acquaintances alike, towards people with whom he is familiar and those with whom he is not—though preserving the shades of distinction proper to each class, since it is not appropriate to show the same regard or disregard for the feelings of friends and of strangers. We have said then in general terms that he will behave in the right manner in society. We mean that in designing either to give pain or to contribute pleasure he will be guided by considerations of honor and of expediency. For he seems to be concerned with pleasure and pain in social intercourse. He will disapprove of pleasures in which it is dishonorable or harmful to himself for him to join, preferring to give pain ; and he will also disapprove of and refuse to acquiesce in a pleasure that brings any considerable discredit or harm to the agent, if his opposition will not cause much pain.

And he will comport himself differently with men of high position and with ordinary people, with persons more and less well known to him, and similarly as regards other distinctions, assigning to each class the proper degree of deference, and, other things apart, preferring to join in the pleasures of his companions and being reluctant to give pain; but being guided by the consequences, that is to say, the effects on his and his friends’ credit or interest, if these outweigh the pleasure he will give by compliance. Also he will give a small amount of pain at the moment for the sake of a large amount of pleasure in the future. Such is the middle character, although it has no name. The man who always joins in the pleasures of his companions, if he sets out to be pleasant for no ulterior motive, is Obsequious; if he does so for the sake of getting something by it in the shape of money or money’s worth, he is a Flatterer. He that disapproves of everything is, as we said, Surly or Quarrelsome. As the mean has no name, the extremes appear to be opposite to each other.

The observance of the mean in relation to Boastfulness has to do with almost the same things. It also is without a name; but it will be as well to discuss these unnamed excellences with the rest, since we shall the better understand the nature of the moral character if we examine its qualities one by one; and we shall also confirm our belief that the virtues are modes of observing the mean, if we notice how this holds good in every instance. Now we have treated of behavior in Society with relation to giving pleasure and pain. Let us now discuss truthfulness and falsehood similarly displayed in word and deed, and in one’s personal pretensions. As generally understood then, the boaster is a man who pretends to creditable qualities that he does not possess, or possesses in a lesser degree than he makes out, while conversely the self depreciator disclaims or disparages good qualities that he does possess; midway between them is the straightforward sort of man who is sincere both in behavior and in speech, and admits the truth about his own qualifications without either exaggeration or understatement.

Each of these things may be done with or without an ulterior motive; but when a man is acting without ulterior motive, his words, actions, and conduct always represent a his true character. Falsehood is in itself base and reprehensible, and truth noble and praiseworthy; and similarly the sincere man who stands between the two extremes is praised, and the insincere of both kinds are blamed, more especially the boaster. Let us discuss each of the two, beginning with the truthful man. We are speaking not of truthfulness in business relations, nor in matters where honesty and dishonesty are concerned (for these matters would come under a different virtue ), but of cases where a man is truthful both in speech and conduct when no considerations of honesty come in, from an habitual sincerity of disposition. Such sincerity may be esteemed a moral excellence; for the lover of truth, who is truthful even when nothing depends on it, will a fortiori be truthful when some interest is at stake, since having all along avoided falsehood for its own sake, he will assuredly avoid it when it is morally base; and this is a disposition that we praise.

The sincere man will diverge from the truth, if at all, in the direction of understatement rather than exaggeration; since this appears in better taste, as all excess is offensive. The man who pretends to more merit than he possesses for no ulterior object seems, it is true, to be a person of inferior character, since otherwise he would not take pleasure in falsehood; but he appears to be more foolish than vicious. When, on the other hand, a man exaggerates his own merits to gain some object, if that object is glory or honor he is not very much to be blamed [as is the boaster], but if he boasts to get money or things that fetch money, this is more unseemly. (Boastfulness is not a matter of potential capacity but of deliberate purpose; a man is a boaster if he has a fixed disposition to boast—a boastful character.) Similarly liars are divided into those who like lying for its own sake and those who lie to get reputation or profit.

Those then who boast for the sake of reputation pretend to possess such qualities as are praised and admired; those who do so for profit pretend to accomplishments that are useful to their fellows and also can be counterfeited without detection; for instance, proficiency in prophecy, philosophy, or medicine. Because these arts have the two qualities specified they are the commonest fields of pretence and bragging. Self-depreciators, who understate their own merits, seem of a more refined character, for we feel that the motive underlying this form of insincerity is not gain but dislike of ostentation. These also mostly disown qualities held in high esteem, as Socrates used to do. Those who disclaim merely trifling or obvious distinctions are called affected humbugs, and are decidedly contemptible; and sometimes such mock humility seems to be really boastfulness, like the dress of the Spartans, for extreme negligence in dress, as well as excessive attention to it, has a touch of ostentation. But a moderate use of self-depreciation in matters not too commonplace and obvious has a not ungraceful air. The boaster seems to be the opposite of the sincere man, because Boastfulness is worse than Self-depreciation.