7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul

7 Aristotle on Greatness of Soul Roger Crisp n the recent revival of interest in Aristotelian ethics, relatively little attention has been paid to the virtue of greatness of soul (megalopsuchia). This is partly Ibecause of the focus on the more structurally central concepts of Aristotle’s theory, in particular happiness (eudaimonia) and virtue (aret¯e). But in fact a study of greatness of soul can reveal important insights into the overall shape of Aristotelian ethics, including the place of external goods and luck in the virtuous life, and the significance of “the noble” (to kalon). Further, Aristotle describes the great-souled person in more detail than any other, and calls greatness of soul a “sort of crown of the virtues” (NE IV.3.1124a1–2). Many have found aspects of the portrait of the great-souled person in the Nicomachean Ethics repellent or absurd, but that is no good reason for the student of Aristotle to shy away from it. In this chapter, I shall elucidate Aristotle’s account of greatness of soul, addressing some puzzles internal to that account and bringing out its place in, and implications for, the ethics of Aristotle and of those modern writers influenced by him. Greatness of Soul as a Virtue To understand greatness of soul as an Aristotelian virtue requires first understand- ing Aristotle’s conception of virtue itself. Aristotle distinguishes virtues into two classes – intellectual virtues and virtues of character – corresponding to distinct aspects of the human soul (NE I.13). Greatness of soul is a virtue of character, though, like all such virtues, it requires its possessor to have the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom (phron¯esis; NE VI.13). A virtue, Aristotle claims, is neither a feeling nor a capacity, but a state or disposition (hexis) to act or to feel in particular ways in certain circumstances (NE II.5–6). And, of course, the same is true of vices. The key element in Aristotle’s account of virtue is his famous “doctrine of the mean” (NE II.6). It has several times been suggested that greatness of soul fits aristotle on greatness of soul 159 awkwardly into that doctrine because greatness is itself an “extreme” (Hardie 1978: 65; Curzer 1990: 527–8; Horner 1998: 421; Kristjánsson 1998: 400). There are indeed interesting questions to be asked about why Aristotle individuated greatness of soul as he did, and also some problems relating to the details of the account of it as a mean. But once the doctrine of the mean is properly understood, it should be clear that greatness of soul fits well into that account. Let me elucidate the doctrine using the example of even temper, the mean concerned with anger (NE IV.3). What is it to say that even temper is a mean, or that the actions or feelings of the even-tempered person fall “in a mean?” It is initially tempting to think that the mean here must consist in feeling a moderate amount of anger, but this is both to ignore Aristotle’s characterization of the mean in NE II.6 and to open the way to misunderstanding how the idea of greatness can feature as an element within a mean state. According to NE II.6, anger “can be experienced too much or too little, and in both ways not well. But to have [it] at the right time, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the mean and best” (1106b20–22). So that is the mean in the case of anger – feeling it at the right time, about the right things, and so on. But what about the two vices, those of excess and of deficiency? In one sense, there are only two ways to go wrong with anger, which can be captured by two variant placings of the negative operator. One way to go wrong would be not to have anger at the right time, about the right things, and so on. If you assault me for no good reason, for example, that is something I should feel angry about, and I should feel angry with you right now. If I just shrug it off and go on my way that is a kind of culpable insensibility. Another way to go wrong is to feel anger not at the right time, that is, at the wrong time, and so on. This is the kind of vice one often sees in car drivers who become furious at what they see, mistak- enly, as insults to their honor. In another sense, however, as Aristotle points out (NE II.6.1106b28–33), there are many ways to go wrong, and only one way to get things right. Hitting the mean involves getting one’s actions and feelings right in all the various ways listed in the doctrine. But because each variable is different, to any one variable corre- sponds, to speak strictly, a different vice. Thus, in the case of anger, the even- tempered person will get angry with someone at the correct point, whereas the irascible or irritable person will get angry too quickly; and the person with the virtue will remain angry for the right time, whereas the sulky person will remain angry for too long. And, of course, we can imagine corresponding vices: those of the person who takes too long to get angry, and of the person who gets over their anger too quickly. Anger is a feeling, and it might be thought that the sphere of each virtue is a distinct feeling. While stating the doctrine of the mean, Aristotle himself lists fear, confidence, appetite, anger, pity, and pleasure and pain in general NE( II.6.1106b18–20). But some virtues do not involve any special feeling: for example, the central virtue of generosity (NE IV.1), the sphere of which is the giving and 160 roger crisp taking of money. What is essential is that there is some neutrally describable feeling and/or action, which can be felt or performed at the right time, toward the right person, and so on. It is the fact that these feelings and actions are neutrally describable that makes the doctrine of the mean possible, since each can then feature in a description of either the virtue or a vice. As Aristotle says: “[N]ot every action or feeling admits of a mean. For some have names immediately connected with depravity, such as spite, shamelessness, envy, and among actions, adultery, theft, homicide” (NE II.6.1107a8–12). What, then, is the sphere of greatness of soul, and its corresponding vices? The answer to this question will reveal why there is no difficulty in plotting this virtue onto the map provided by the doctrine of the mean: It is thinking oneself worthy of great honor. The great-souled person will think himself worthy of great honor at the right times, for the right reasons, and so on (we have to assume that Aristotle is here taking “thinking” to be a kind of action). The person with the excessive vice – vanity – will be someone who thinks himself worthy of great honor at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons, and so on; while the person with the deficient vice of smallness of soul will fail to think himself worthy of great honor when he should, and so on. The doctrine of the mean does not rule out the possibility of a single person’s possessing both of two opposed vices. Indeed, Aristotle explicitly notes this in his discussion of generosity. Someone may be both wasteful, giving away money when he should not do so, and stingy, not giving away money when he should (NE IV.1.1121a30–b7). So we might imagine someone who is both vain – perhaps thinking himself worthy of honor for something rather unimpressive – and small-souled – failing to recognize the significance of what he has really achieved. Perhaps Arthur Conan Doyle, who was proud of his rather earnest historical novels and thought far less of his Sherlock Holmes stories, might provide a modern example. The above account of the doctrine of the mean makes sense of most of what Aristotle says about individual virtues and vices. And the view itself is a powerful one. Essentially, Aristotle is recognizing that there are certain central spheres of human life – emotions such as fear and anger, control over and distribution of resources, relationships with others, and so on – and that these spheres can be characterized in terms of core feelings and/or actions. The virtuous person is then the one who gets things right in these spheres, and, as we have seen, one may be vicious in either an excessive or defective direction. This picture of morality seems both more realistic and more positive in its approach than, for example, a strictly deontological list of prohibitions: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie. According to one traditional view, however, Aristotle was revising the Ethics at his death, and it may well be that he had not got around to tidying up the doctrine of the mean and its implications for his accounts of individual virtues. There are certain problems which appear to arise when he fails to select a single, neutrally aristotle on greatness of soul 161 describable core for the sphere he is discussing. Envy involves feeling inappropriate pain at someone’s doing well, and its opposite ought therefore to be failing to feel such pain when it is appropriate. But Aristotle sets it in opposition to a different “positive” vice, feeling inappropriate pleasure at someone’s doing badly (NE II.7.1108a35–b6).

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