This paper looks at two accounts of Aristotle's views on the virtue of megalopsychia. The first, defended by Christopher Cordner, commits Aristotle to two claims about the virtuous person that might seem unpalatable to modern readers. The second account, defended by Roger Crips, does not commit Aristotle to these claims. Some might count this as an advantage of Crisp's account. However, I argue that Cordner's account, not Crisp's, is actually the better interpretation of Aristotle. Nonetheless, this does not ultimately (...) spell trouble for Aristotle, since, as I argue, the claims that Cordner's account commits Aristotle to are, on closer inspection, not really problematic. (shrink)

For Aristotle, some wrongdoers do not deserve blame, and the virtuous judge should extend sungnōmē, a correct judgment about what is equitable, under the appropriate excusing circumstances. Aristotle’s virtuous judge, however, does not forgive; the wrongdoer is excused from blame in the first place, rather than being forgiven precisely because she is blameworthy. Additionally, the judge does not fail to blame because she wishes to be merciful or from natural feeling, but instead, because that is the equitable action to take (...) under the circumstances. Moreover, while Aristotle does claim in his discussions of the virtues of megalopsychia and praotēs that the virtuous person will sometimes fail to become angry at blameworthy wrongdoers, Aristotle’s reasons for repudiating anger or forestalling blame have little to do with the sorts of reasons that one would or could be forgiving for. Although an Aristotelian virtuous agent does let go of anger for her own reasons, she does not forgive. As a result, I argue that since Aristotle’s account of equity entails that forgiveness is positively vicious, forgivingness is not merely a virtue left out of Aristotle’s account, but is in fact incompatible with his account. (shrink)

It is a matter for both surprise and disappointment that so little has been written from a philosophical perspective about the moral tradition enshrined in Europe''s oldest living literature, the Icelandic sagas. The main purpose of the present essay is to start to ameliorate this shortcoming by analysing and assessing the moral code bequeathed to us by the saga literature. To do so, I draw attention to the striking similarities between saga morality and what tends to be called an ''ancient (...) moral outlook'' (with special reference to Aristotle''s much-maligned virtue of megalopsychia) and then try to defend the credentials of both outlooks in so far as they clash, or seem to clash, with certain aspects of a ''modern moral outlook.''. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a reconstruction of gratitude as an Aristotelian virtue. The account I propose is meant to be essentially Aristotelian although it is clearly not Aristotle’s own account. I start in section “Current Discourses on Gratitude” with an overview of recent discourses on gratitude in philosophy and psychology. I then proceed, in section “Putting the Aristotelian Pieces Together”, to spell out a formal characterisation of gratitude as an Aristotelian emotional virtue. Section “Reappraising Aristotle on (...) megalopsychia and Gratitude” pauses to explore how such a characterisation can be squared with Aristotle’s apparently unambiguous remarks about gratitude as a non-component of the virtuous makeup of the megalopsychoi. Finally, I conclude in section “Gratitude and Poetic Justice” by demonstrating the virtuosity of gratitude—what makes it intrinsically valuable as part of eudaimonia—by elucidating its association with the overarching emotional virtue of nemesis. (shrink)

One of the most striking and controversial features of Aristotle's moral exemplar, the megalopsychos, is his tendency to be contemptuous. Not surprisingly, modern scholarship has found this attribute of the megalopsychos particularly unappealing. This article probes the question about the targets of the contempt of the Aristotelian megalopsychos and explores the forms that this contempt might take. I argue that the primary targets of the megalopsychos are people who claim superiority on the wrong grounds (their external prosperity and social status). (...) The megalopsychos, who prioritizes virtue over external goods as a criterion of individual worth ( axia), rejects the self-image these people claim for themselves and refuses to grant them the appraisal respect they are accustomed to receiving, and think they deserve. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of ‘areti’ as encountered in the Aristotelian ethical system in order to establish its relationship to the modern concept of virtue as well as to that of moral truth, that is, to identify its truth-value. I intend to show that the Aristotelian ‘areti’ as a developed state of character and as an advanced stage of ethical understanding entails moral truth. ‘Areti’ as a good-in-itself possesses an intrinsic value which reflects moral truth, and as a means (...) for the accomplishment of ‘eudaimonia’ (ultimate happiness) it possesses an instrumental value. I also wish to argue that this position calls for a realist as well as an objectivist (or nonrelativist) approach in Aristotle. To that effect, I examine the elements of ‘areti’ that relate it to truth, and then I use reference to some of theAristotelian virtues, such as ‘andreia’ (courage), ‘philia’ (friendship), ‘dikaiosyne’ (justice), and ‘megalopsychia’ (magnanimity), in order to examine the way moral truth functions. This examination will also try to show that Aristotle’s aretaic approach does not suffer from the ills of virtue ethics theories. (shrink)

Nietzsche's ethics is basically an ethics of virtue. In his own unique way, and in accordance with his extra-moral view of life, Nietzsche recovers and re-appropriates certain virtues – notably pagan, aristocratic virtues – as part of his project to reconceptualise (‘rehabilitate') the virtues in terms of virtù (virtuosity and vitality), to which he also refers as his ‘moraline-free' conception of the virtues. The virtue of generosity (in the sense of magnanimity) plays a central role in Nietzschean ethics. According to (...) Nietzsche, the truly noble or virtuous person is one who lives beyond resentment and feelings of remorse and guilt. He lives his life from the fullness and plenitude of his own being and what he is able to bestow on others. Nietzsche seeks to rekindle and rehabilitate the aristocratic ‘pathos of distance' as the true origin of ethical life. This pathos of distance basically emanates from self-respect: ‘The noble soul has reverence for itself' (1974b: §287). For Nietzsche, this means that one should realize the greatest multiplicity of drives and form-giving forces in oneself, in the most tension-fraught but ‘controlled' manner. This control, this imposing a form on oneself without neglecting the multiplicity in oneself, is a creative, artistic activity. Nietzsche also refers to this as a process of transforming the self into a work of art, of giving style to one's own existence. Thus we free ourselves from guilt, resentment and the rage against contingency. It is of the utmost importance for Nietzsche that one should attain satisfaction with oneself, for ‘only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight.' (1974a: §290). To attain satisfaction with oneself ultimately means to affirm life in its totality. This implies a life beyond resentment, i.e. a life that is characterised by generosity or magnanimity ( megalopsychia, magnanimitas ), which is for Nietzsche the ‘crown' of all the virtues. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (1) 2007: pp. 17-30. (shrink)

아리스토텔레스는『니코마코스 윤리학』에서 “실천적 지혜 하나만 갖추면, 모든 덕 또한 가지게 된다”는 이른바 덕의 통일성 주장을 제시한다. 이 주장만 따르자면 우리는 ‘하나’의 실천적 지혜를 갖게 됨으로써 여러 덕을 ‘모두’ 한 번에 가지는 것처럼 보인다. 하지만 덕의 통일성 주장을 덕에 대한 그의 다른 주장들과 비교해보면 일관성을 갖기 어려운 것처럼 보이며, 어윈(Irwin)은 이를 다음과 같은 주장들로 요약한다. 아리스토텔레스에 따르면 통이 큼과 포부의 큼은 참되고 구별되는 덕이다. 그리고 이 두 덕 없이도 다른 덕을 가질 수 있다고 한다. 그런데도 어떻게 덕의 통일성 주장이 성립할 수 (...) 있는가? 이 글의 목적은 ‘하나의 실천적 지혜’를 논의의 단초로 삼아 어윈이 제기한 문제로부터 덕의 통일성 주장의 정합성을 옹호하는 데 있다. 실천적 지혜는 자기 자신이나 가정 경제, 폴리스와의 관계에 따라 여럿으로 구분되므로, 그중 하나만을 고려하여 ‘하나의 실천적 지혜’라고 불렀을 가능성이 있다. 이러한 실천적 지혜의 분리 가능성을 바탕으로 통이 큼이나 포부의 큼과 같은 큰 규모의 덕은 자유인다움이나 적절한 명예욕과 같은 작은 규모의 덕과 달리 폴리스적 규모의 큰 이득을 주는 것을 일차적인 목표로 하기에 폴리스에 관한 실천적 지혜를 반드시 전제해야만 한다는 것을 보인다. (shrink)