On magnificence (and many other virtues) | Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV

The great-souled man, public art and magnificence, shame, and so on.

Today, we continue our read-along of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. If you’re just now joining and want to catch up, here is the schedule we are following (with links to previous posts):

• July 1: Introducing the work, Aristotle’s life, etc.

• July 8: Book I

• July 15: Book II

• July 22: Book III

• July 29: Book IV

• August 5: Book V

• August 12: Book VI

• August 19: Book VII

• August 26: Book VIII

• September 2: Book IX

• September 9: Book X

• September 16: Retrospective

This read-along of the Nicomachean Ethics is free. But if you want to support my work – which really means helping me support my family – and you want access to the monthly Zoom calls, become a paying subscriber.

Last week, we read Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics. In that book, we saw that the discussion was divided roughly in half. In the first half of the book, Aristotle discussed a complex set of ideas about human action: voluntary vs. involuntary action, voluntary action vs. choice, the necessity of choice (or at least voluntary action) for virtue, and so on. Then, quite suddenly, Aristotle shifts gears.

The second half of the book begins Aristotle’s project of cataloging and describing the virtues. He began with two of the most important virtues: courage and moderation. Some of you may know that these two virtues comprise half of what we commonly call the cardinal virtues: courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom.

Book IV continues the description of the various virtues. Recall that Aristotle did not give us a number of virtues at the beginning – I believe he says the number is revealed in the act of analysis – and he also refuses to limit himself to those virtues we moderns commonly discuss. So, throughout Book IV, we see discussions of virtues that are admittedly a touch odd.

The structure of Book IV makes it one of the easier books in the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle’s dialectical method is toned down here, and we see a more straightforward way of organizing ideas. If you found this book easier to read than the others, let me know down in the comments — I’m always interested in hearing how new readers respond to different parts of the text.

Since I don’t aim to summarize the text completely, I’m going to go over some (but not all) of the particular virtues discussed in Book IV: liberality, magnificence, and greatness of soul. I’ll also discuss the role of shame in the final chapter of Book IV. You are, of course, free to discuss any of the other virtues down the comments.

Remembering Aristotle’s view of virtue

Just to quickly remind us all of what Aristotle says about virtue in general, look back at this passage from II.6:

Virtue, therefore, is a characteristic marked by choice, residing in the mean relative to us, a characteristic defined by reason and as the prudent person would define it. Virtue is also a mean with respect to two vices, the one vice related to excess, the other to deficiency; and further, it is a mean because some vices fall short of and others exceed what should be the case in both passions and actions, whereas virtue discovers and chooses the middle term. Thus, with respect to its being and the definition that states what it is, virtue is a mean; but with respect to what is best and the doing of something well, it is an extreme.

Virtue is a mean between two vices, it is an extreme in that there is no room for further improvement, and it is a characteristic marked by choice. We’ll want to keep that general framework in mind as we discuss Book IV.

Liberality

How we spend our money is a moral matter. Not only does it affect the sort of good we are able to do – if you spend money on things that don’t matter, you cannot spend it on things that do matter – but it also speaks to our relationship to our passions. It is highly similar to moderation. The virtue of moderation, discussed in the previous book, was the mean between gluttony and insensibility. The virtue of liberality is a mean between prodigality and stinginess.

We express this virtue, and the corresponding vices, in two ways: in giving and in taking. The prodigal person exceeds in giving and not in taking, and is deficient in taking, while the stingy person is deficient in giving and excessive in taking (1121a). The liberal person gives and takes to the appropriate degree.

Liberality involves putting others before oneself, in fact. ‘It very much belongs to the liberal person also to exceed in giving,’ Aristotle writes, ‘for it is typical of the liberal person not to look out for himself (1120b). As a consequence, a liberal person will have very little left for himself. Yet he should have some left for himself and his family, we can reason, since he does need to care for himself in the most basic sense and to care for his family.

We have noted several times that a virtue will typically be closer to a one vice, and this is a great example. Stinginess is contrary to liberality, and prodigality is closer to the mean ( 1122a). People often err closer to stinginess, however. In fact, Aristotle says that stinginess verges on being incurable as people become stingy with age.

This brief discussion of liberality is very interesting to me, because we so often view money as an amoral matter. It’s your money, we say. Do what you want. By our standards, Aristotle is a moral busybody, telling others how they ought to spend their money.

Magnificence

Magnificence is not a word we usually use for a virtue, but in Aristotle’s parlance, it is a virtue closely related to liberality in that it is concerned with money. But it is only related to expenditures. ‘Magnificence is a fitting expenditure on a great thing,’ Aristotle writes at the beginning of chapter two. The excess of magnificence is parsimony, and the deficiency is vulgarity. One who is magnificent is one who spends their money on great works — and in this regard, magnificence really is a virtue most available to the wealthy. This expenditure is on common affairs, not on things that directly benefit the giver. Adorning a temple is a good example. The point is not to display wealth, we say, but rather for the sake of the common good.

Reading on magnificence, you see a moral imperative to spend your money in a way that benefits your community. Especially for the wealthy, this is essential. I think of the lack of public art in the United States, or the ways in which our buildings have become progressively uglier while mansions become more lavish, art is collected and stored in order to raise its value, and local arts struggle to raise adequate funding. We need more magnificence in our world.

Greatness of soul and the unnamed virtue relating to ambition

Greatness of soul is another of these peculiar virtues, and it is a virtue relating to honor. For most of us, moderation is the virtue we must concern ourselves with. We know we deserve small things, and we desire them accordingly and do not exceed them. The great-souled man, according to Aristotle, is one worthy of great things who desires them and takes them in the appropriate degree. ‘The great-souled man, if indeed he is worth of the greatest things, would be the best,’ Aristotle says (1123b). Greatness of soul is also called an ornament of the virtues — it cannot exist without virtue, but when present, it enhances them.

This is a good time to point out an interesting feature of Aristotle’s view, which is also present in his discussion of magnificence: the full life of virtue really is not available to everyone. This is a very different view than what one sees in the Stoics, for instance. For the Stoics, virtue was a kind of knowledge, and if you acted on that knowledge you were acting virtuously. For Aristotle, your material circumstances constrain the possibility of being virtuous. This means that some of us will never be magnificent, never have greatness of soul, and so on. Yet other virtues are available to us, though how we are educated is going to affect how virtuous we can become.

Is shame a virtue?

In the final chapter of Book IV, Aristotle asks if shame can be considered a virtue. The answer is no. Virtue is not a characteristic, and so it does not meet the definition from Book II. But a virtuous person is one who is disposed to feel shame in the right circumstances.

But there is a complication here. A virtuous person, strictly speaking, should never feel shame, because they won’t have acted in a shame-worthy way. And so Aristotle says we must characterize the virtuous person’s disposition as a hypothetical: if he were to act in that way, he would feel shame. But since he is virtuous, he won’t do the shameful thing in the first place.