Eudemian Ethics

On the subject of Greatness of Spirit we must define its characteristic from the attributes of the great-spirited man.For just as in the other cases of things that, owing to their affinity and similarity up to a point, are not noticed to differ when they advance further, the same has happened about greatness of spirit.

Hence sometimes the opposite characters claim the same quality, for instance the extravagant man claims to be the same as the liberal, the self-willed as the proud, the daring as the brave; for they are concerned with the same things, and also are neighbors up to a point, as the brave man can endure dangers and so can the daring man, but the former in one way and the latter in another, and that makes a very great difference.

And we use the term great-spirited according to the designation of the word, as consisting in a certain greatness or power of spirit. So that the great-spirited man seems to resemble both the proud man and the magnificent, because greatness of spirit seems to go with all the virtues also.

For it is praiseworthy to judge great and small goods rightly; and those goods seem great which a man pursues who possesses the best state of character in relation to such pleasures, and greatness of spirit is the best.

And the virtue concerned with each thing judges rightly the greater and the smaller good, just as the wise man and virtue would bid, so that all the virtues go with it, or it goes with all the virtues.

Again, it is thought characteristic of the great-spirited man to be disdainful. Each virtue makes men disdainful of things irrationally deemed great: for example, courage makes a man disdainful of dangers, for he thinks that to consider danger a great matter is a disgraceful thing, and that numbers are not always formidable; and the sober-minded man disdains great and numerous pleasures, and the liberal man wealth.

But the reason why this is thought characteristic of the great-spirited man is because of his caring about few things and those great ones, and not about whatever somebody else thinks. And a great-spirited man would consider more what one virtuous man thinks than what many ordinary people think, as Antiphon after his condemnation said to Agathon when he praised his speech for his defence. And a feeling thought to be specially characteristic of the great-spirited man is disdain.

On the other hand, as to the accepted objects of human interest, honor, life, wealth, he is thought to care nothing about any of them except honor; it would grieve him to be dishonored and ruled by someone unworthy, and his greatest joy is to obtain honor.

Thus he might therefore be thought inconsistent, on the ground that to be specially concerned about honor and to be disdainful of the multitude and of reputation do not go together.

But in saying this we must distinguish. Honor is small or great in two ways: it differs in being conferred either by many ordinary people or by persons of consideration, and again it differs in what it is conferred for,since its greatness does not depend only on the number or the quality of those who confer it, but also on its being honorable; and in reality those offices and other good things are honorable and worthy of serious pursuit that are truly great, so that there is no goodness without greatness; owing to which each of the virtues seems to make men great-spirited in regard to the things with which that virtue is concerned, as we said.

But nevertheless there is a single virtue of greatness of spirit side by side with the other virtues, so that the possessor of this virtue must be termed great-spirited in a special sense. And since there are certain goods which are in some cases honorable and in others not, according to the distinction made before, and of goods of this sort some are truly great and others small, and some men deserve and claim the former, it is among these men that the great-spirited man must be looked for.

And there are necessarily four varieties of claim: it is possible to deserve great things and to claim them as one’s desert; and there are small things and a man may deserve and claim things of that size; and as regards each of these two classes of things the reverse is possible—one man may be of such a character that although deserving small things he claims great ones—the goods held in high honor, and another man though deserving great things may claim small ones.

Now the man worthy of small things but claiming great ones is blameworthy, for it is foolish and not fine to obtain what does not correspond to one’s deserts. And he also is blameworthy who though worthy of such things does not deem himself worthy to partake of them although they are available for him.

But there is left here the man who is the opposite of both of these, who being worthy of great things claims them as his desert, and is of such a character as to deem himself worthy: he is praiseworthy, and he is in the middle between the two.

Since, therefore, greatness of spirit is the best disposition in relation to the choice and the employment of honor and of the other good things that are esteemed, and not in relation to useful things, and since we assign this to the great-spirited man, and since also at the same time the middle state is most praiseworthy, it is clear that even greatness of spirit must be a middle state.

And of the opposites as shown in our diagram, the one in the direction of deeming oneself worthy of great goods when one is not worthy is vanity (for the sort of men that fancy themselves worthy of great things though they are not we call vain), and the one that is concerned with not deeming oneself worthy of great things when one is worthy of them is smallness of spirit (for if a man does not think himself worthy of anything great although he possesses qualities which would justly make him considered worthy of it, he is thought small-spirited); so that it follows that greatness of spirit is a middle state between vanity and smallness of spirit.

But the fourth of the persons in our classification is neither entirely reprehensible nor is he great spirited, as he is concerned with nothing possessing greatness, for he neither is nor thinks himself worthy of great things; owing to which he is not the opposite of the man of great spirit.Yet thinking oneself worthy of small things when one is worthy of small things might be thought the opposite of thinking oneself worthy of great ones when one is worthy of great ones;

but he is not opposite to the great-spirited man because he is not blameworthy either, for his character is as reason bids, and in nature he is the same as the great-spirited man, for both claim as their desert the things that they are worthy of.

And he might become great-spirited, for he will claim the things that he is worthy of; whereas the small-spirited man, who when great goods corresponding to his worth are available does not think himself worthy of them—what would he have done if his deserts were small? For either he would have conceitedly thought himself worthy of great things, or of still less.

Hence nobody would call a man small-spirited for not claiming to hold office and submitting to authority if he is a resident alien, but one would do so if he were of noble birth and attached great importance to office.