Eudemian Ethics

Generally speaking the other praiseworthy and blameworthy states of character also are excesses or deficiencies or middle states, but in respect of an emotion: for instance, the envious man and the malicious. For—to take the states of character after which they are named—Envy means being pained at people who are deservedly prosperous, while the emotion of the malicious man is itself nameless, but the possessor of it is shown by his feeling joy at undeserved adversities;

and midway between them is the righteously indignant man, and what the ancients called Righteous Indignation—feeling pain at undeserved adversities and prosperities and pleasure at those that are deserved; hence the idea that Nemesis is a deity.

Modesty is a middle state between Shamelessness and Bashfulness: the man who pays regard to nobody’s opinion is shameless, he who regards everybody’s is bashful, he who regards the opinion of those who appear good is modest.

Friendliness is a middle state between Animosity and Flattery; the man who accommodates himself readily to his associates’ desires in everything is a flatterer, he who runs counter to them all shows animosity, he who neither falls in with nor resists every pleasure, but falls in with what seems to be the best, is friendly.

Dignity is a middle state between Self-will and Obsequiousness. A man who in his conduct pays no regard at all to another but is contemptuous is self-willed; he who regards another in everything and is inferior to everybody is obsequious; he who regards another in some things but not in others, and is regardful of persons worthy of regard, is dignified.

The truthful and sincere man, called downright, is midway between the dissembler and the charlatan. He that wittingly makes a false statement against himself that is depreciatory is a dissembler, he that exaggerates his merits is a charlatan, he that speaks of himself as he is is truthful and in Homer’s phrase sagacious; and in general the one is a lover of truth and the others lovers of falsehood.

Wittiness also is a middle state, and the witty man is midway between the boorish or stiff man and the buffoon. For just as in the matter of food the squeamish man differs from the omnivorous in that the former takes nothing or little, and that reluctantly, and the latter accepts everything readily, so the boor stands in relation to the vulgar man or buffoon—the former takes no joke except with difficulty, the latter accepts everything easily and with pleasure. Neither course is right: one should allow some things and not others, and on principle,—that constitutes the witty man.

The proof of the formula is the same as in the other cases: wittiness of this kind (not the quality to which we apply the term in a transferred sense) is a very becoming sort of character, and also a middle state is praiseworthy, whereas extremes are blameworthy. But as there are two kinds of wit (one consisting in liking a joke, even one that tells against oneself if it is funny, for instance a jeer, the other in the ability to produce things of this sort), these kinds of wit differ from one another, but both are middle states;

for a man who can produce jokes of a sort that will give pleasure to a person of good judgement even though the laugh is against himself will be midway between the vulgar man and the frigid. This is a better definition than that the thing said must not be painful to the victim whatever sort of man he may be—rather, it must give pleasure to the man in the middle position, since his judgement is good.

All these middle states, though praiseworthy, are not virtues, nor are the opposite states vices, for they do not involve purposive choice; they are all in the classification of the emotions, for each of them is an emotion.

But because they are natural they contribute to the natural virtues; for, as will be said in what follows, each virtue exists both naturally and otherwise, that is, in conjunction with thought.

Therefore envy contributes to injustice (for the actions that spring from it affect another person), and righteous indignation to justice, and modesty to temperance (owing to which people even define temperance as a species of emotion), and the sincere and false are respectively wise and foolish.

And the mean is more opposed to the extremes than the extremes are to one another, because the mean does not occur in combination with either extreme, whereas the extremes often do occur in combination with one another, and sometimes the same men are venturesome cowards, or extravagant in some things and illiberal in others, and in general not uniform in a bad way—

for when men lack uniformity in a good way, this results in men of the middle characters, since the mean contains both extremes.

The opposition existing between the mean and the extremes does not seem to be the same in the case of both the extremes, but sometimes the greater opposition is by way of excess, sometimes by way of deficiency.

The causes of this are partly the two first mentioned, rarity (for example, the rarity of people insensitive to pleasant things) and the fact that the error to which we are more prone seems more opposite to the mean,

and thirdly the fact that the extreme that more resembles the mean seems less opposite to it, as is the case with daring in relation to boldness and extravagance in relation to liberality.

We have therefore sufficiently discussed the other praiseworthy virtues, and must now speak about Justice.