THE MORAL VIRTUES
[Book Γ] THAT THE VIRTUES ARE MEANS,1 AND THAT THESE ARE states of choice, and that the contrary states are vices and [25] what these are, has been stated in general terms. But let us take them individually and speak of them in order; and first let us speak of courage. Practically everyone is agreed that the courageous man is concerned with fears and that courage is one of the virtues; and in the table we distinguished confidence and fear as contraries—for in a way they are opposed [30] to one another. Plainly, then, those named after these states will be similarly opposed to one another—that is, the coward (for he is so called from fearing more than he ought and being less confident than he ought) and the over-confident man (who is so called for fearing less than he [35] ought and being more confident than he ought). That is why they have names cognate to those of the qualities: for instance, ‘over-confident’ is cognate to ‘over-confidence’. So that since courage is the best state in regard to fear and confidence, and one should be neither like the over-confident (who are deficient in one way, excessive in another) nor like cowards (of whom the same may be said, only not about the [1228b] same objects, but contrariwise—for they are deficient in confidence and excessive in fear), it is plain that the middle state between over-confidence and cowardice is courage; for this is the best.
The courageous man seems to be for the most part fearless, [5] the coward prone to fear: the latter fears many things and few, great things and small, and intensely and quickly, while the former, on the contrary, fears either not at all or slightly and reluctantly and seldom, and great things, and he faces even what is intensely frightening, whereas the coward does not face even what is slightly frightening. What, then, [10] does the courageous man face? First, is it the things that are frightening to himself or to another? If the latter, his courage would be nothing much. But if it is the things that he himself fears, then he must find many things frightening—frightening things2 being things that cause fear to those who find them frightening, powerful fear if intensely frightening, weak fear if slightly frightening. Then it follows that the courageous [15] man feels much and serious fear; but, on the contrary, courage seemed to make a man fearless, fearlessness consisting in fearing few things if any, and in fearing slightly and with reluctance.
But perhaps things are called frightening—like pleasant and good—in two ways. Some things are pleasant or good in [20] the abstract, others are so to a particular person and not in the abstract but rather the contrary—base and not pleasant (for instance, what is beneficial to the vicious or pleasant to children as such). Similarly the frightening is either in the abstract such or such to a particular person. What, then, a coward as such fears is not frightening to anyone or but [25] slightly so; but what is frightening to the majority of men or to human nature, that we call frightening tout court. The courageous man shows himself fearless towards these and faces such things, which are frightening to him in one way but not in another—frightening to him qua man, but not frightening to him except slightly so, or not at all, qua courageous. [30] These things, however, are frightening; for they are so to the majority of men. This is why the state of the courageous man is praised: his condition is like that of the strong or healthy. For these are what they are, not because in the case of the one no exertion and in the case of the other no excess crushes them, but because they are either unaffected tout court or affected only to a slight extent by the things that affect [35] the many or the majority. The diseased, then, and the weak and the cowardly are affected by the common emotions as well, only more quickly and to a greater extent than the many, ***3 Again, by the things that affect the many they are wholly unaffected or but slightly affected.
The problem is raised that if nothing is frightening to the [1229a] courageous man, he would not have any fears. Or perhaps nothing prevents him in the way above mentioned? For courage consists in following reason, and reason bids one choose the noble. That is why the man who faces the frightening from any other cause than this is either out of his wits or foolhardy; but the man who does so for the sake of the noble is alone fearless and courageous. The coward, then, [5] fears even what he ought not and the over-confident man is confident even when he ought not to be; the courageous man both fears and is confident when he ought to be and is in this way in a middle state—for he is confident or fears as reason bids him. But reason does not bid a man to face what is very painful or destructive unless it is noble: the over-confident man is confident about such things even if reason [10] does not bid him be so; the coward is not confident even if it does; and the courageous man alone is confident about them if reason bids him.
There are five kinds of courage, so named for a certain similarity; for they all face the same things but not for the same reasons. One is a political courage, due to the sense of [15] shame. Another is military, due to experience and knowledge, not (as Socrates said4) of what is fearful but of the resources one has to meet what is fearful. The third kind is due to inexperience and ignorance: it is that of children and madmen which makes the latter face whatever comes and the former take hold of snakes. Another kind is due to hope, which makes those who have often been fortunate face dangers—and [20] also those who are drunk, for wine makes them optimistic. Another kind is due to irrational feeling—for instance, love or rage; for a man in love is over-confident rather than cowardly and faces many dangers, like the man who slew the tyrant in Metapontum or the man of whom stories are told in Crete. Similar is the action of anger or [25] rage; for rage puts a man out of his wits. That is why wild boars are thought to be courageous though they are not really so; for they behave as such when beside themselves, but at other times are unpredictable like over-confident men. Nevertheless, the courage due to rage is above all natural (for rage is invincible—and that is why children are excellent fighters), but political courage is the effect of custom. But in [30] truth none of these is courage, though all are useful for encouragement in danger.
So far we have spoken of the frightening generally; but it is well to distinguish further. In general, then, whatever is productive of fear is called frightening, and this is all that is [35] apparently going to cause destructive pain. For those who expect some other pain may perhaps have another pain and another emotion but not fear—for instance, if a man foresees that he will suffer the pain which the envious suffer or the jealous or the ashamed. Rather, fear only occurs on the appearance of such pains whose nature is to be destructive to [1229b] life. That is why men who are very soft as to some things are courageous, and some who are hard and enduring are cowards. Indeed, it is thought pretty much a property of courage to take up a certain attitude towards death and the pain of it. For if a man were so constituted as to face as reason requires [5] heat and cold and similar not dangerous pains, but to be soft and fearful about death, not for any other emotion but just because it means destruction, while another was soft in regard to these but unaffected in regard to death, the former would seem cowardly, the latter courageous; for we speak of [10] danger only in regard to such objects of fear as bring near to us that which will cause such destruction: it is when this is apparently close that danger appears.
The frightening things, then, in regard to which we call a man courageous are, as we have said, those which are apparently capable of causing destructive pain, and these when [15] they appear near and not far off, and are of such magnitude, real or apparent, as is not out of proportion to man—for some things must appear frightening and must disturb any man. For, just as things hot and cold and certain other powers [20] are too strong for us and for the conditions of the human body, nothing prevents it from being so too with regard to the emotions of the soul.
The cowardly, then, and the over-confident are deceived by their characters; for to the coward what is not frightening seems frightening, and what is slightly frightening intensely so, while in the contrary way, to the over-confident man the [25] frightening seems safe and the intensely frightening but slightly so; but the courageous man thinks things what they truly are. Therefore, if a man faces the frightening through ignorance (for instance, if a man faces in the transport of madness the attack of a thunderbolt), he is not courageous; nor yet if, knowing the magnitude of the danger, he faces it through rage—as the Celts take up their arms and meet the [30] waves (in general, all the courage of foreigners involves rage). Some face danger for pleasure—for rage is not without a certain pleasure, involving as it does the hope of vengeance. But still, whether a man faces death for this or some other pleasure or to avoid greater evils, he would not [35] justly be called courageous. For if dying were pleasant, the self-indulgent would have often died because of their incontinence, just as now—since what causes death is pleasant though not death itself—many knowingly incur death through their incontinence, but none of them would be thought courageous even if they do it with perfect readiness to die. Nor is a man courageous if he seeks death to avoid exertions, as many do; to use Agathon’s words:
[1230a] Base men too weak for exertion long for death.
And so the poets narrate that Chiron, because of the pain of his wound, prayed for death although he was immortal. Similarly [5] all who face dangers owing to experience, as practically all soldiers do. For the truth is the very contrary of what Socrates thought. He thought that courage was knowledge. But those who know how to ascend masts are confident not because they know what is frightening but because they [10] know how to help themselves in fearful circumstances. Nor is all that makes men fight more confidently courage; for then, as Theognis puts it, strength and riches would be courage—‘Every man’ (he says) ‘is daunted by poverty’. Evidently some, though cowards, face dangers because of their experience, and do so because they do not think them dangers, as [15] they know how to help themselves. An indication of this is the fact that, when they think they can get no help and the danger is close at hand, they do not face it. But of all courageous men of this sort, it is those who face danger because of shame who most seem to be courageous, as Homer says Hector faced the danger from Achilles: ‘And shame seized [20] Hector’; and : ‘Polydamas will be the first to taunt me’.5 Such courage is political.
The true courage is neither this nor any of the others, but like them, as is also that of brutes which from rage run to meet the blow. For a man ought to hold his ground though frightened, not because he will incur disrepute, nor through [25] anger, nor because he does not expect to be killed or has the capacity to protect himself (for in that case he will not even think that there is anything to be feared). Rather, since all virtue implies choice (we have said before what this means—that it makes a man choose everything for the sake of some end, and that the end is the noble), it is plain that courage, [30] because it is a virtue, will make a man face what is frightening for some end, so that he does it neither through ignorance (for his virtue rather makes him assess things correctly), nor for pleasure but because the act is noble—since, if it is not noble but frantic, he does not face the danger, for that would be ignoble. In regard, then, to what things courage [35] is a mean state, between what, and why, and the meaning of the frightening, we have now spoken pretty adequately for our present purpose.
AFTER THIS WE MUST TRY TO DRAW CERTAIN DISTINCTIONS regarding self-indulgence and temperance. We talk of self-indulgence in more ways than one. A man is self-indulgent when he has not been chastised or cured (just as [1230b] what has not been cut is uncut), and of such men, some are capable, others incapable of chastisement (just as the uncut includes both what cannot be cut and what can be but has not been cut). So too with the self-indulgent6. For it is both that which by its nature refuses chastisement, and that which [5] is of a nature to accept but has not yet received chastisement for the errors in regard to which the temperate man acts correctly—for instance, children, who are called self-indulgent in this sense. And again, in another sense we give the name to those hard to cure and to those it is quite impossible to cure through chastisement. Self-indulgence, then, being spoken of in several ways, it is evident that it has to do with [10] certain pleasures and pains, and that the forms differ from one another and from other states by the kind of attitude towards these. We have already stated how we apply ‘self-indulgence’ to various states by extension. As to those who from insensibility are unmoved by these same pleasures, [15] some call them insensible, while others describe them as such by other names; but this phenomenon is not very familiar or common because all rather err in the opposite direction, and it is congenital to all to be overcome by and to be sensible to such pleasures. It is the state chiefly of such as the boors introduced on the stage by comic writers, who will not go near [20] even moderate and necessary pleasures.
Since temperance has to do with pleasures, it must also have to do with certain appetites: we must, then, ascertain which. For the temperate man does not exhibit his temperance in regard to all appetites and all pleasures but rather (so [25] it is believed) about the objects of two senses, taste and touch—and in truth about those of touch alone. For his temperance is shown not in regard to visual pleasure in the beautiful (so long as it is unaccompanied by sexual appetite) or pain at the ugly; nor, again, in regard to the pleasure or pain of the ear at harmony or discord; nor, again, in regard to olfactory pleasure or pain at pleasant or disagreeable smells—[30] a man is not called self-indulgent for feeling or want of feeling in regard to such matters. For instance, if one sees a beautiful statue, or horse, or human being, or hears singing, without wanting to eat or drink or have sex but only to contemplate the beautiful and to hear the singers, he would not [35] be thought self-indulgent any more than those who were charmed by the Sirens.
Rather, temperance and self-indulgence have to do with those two senses whose objects alone are felt by and give delight and pain to brutes as well; and these are the senses of [1231a] taste and touch: the brutes seem insensible to the pleasures of all the other senses in pretty much the same way—for instance, harmony or beauty; for they obviously have no feeling worth considering at the mere contemplation of the beautiful or the hearing of the harmonious, except, perhaps, in some miraculous instances. And with regard to pleasant [5] and disagreeable smells it is the same, though all their senses are sharper. They do, indeed, feel delight in certain smells; but these gladden them coincidentally and not of their own nature. By not of their own nature I mean those that delight us owing to expectation and memory—for instance, food and drink; for these we delight in because of a different pleasure, [10] that of eating or drinking. The smells enjoyed for their own nature are for instance those of flowers (that is why Stratonicus neatly remarked that some things smell beautiful and others pleasant7). Brutes are not excited over every pleasure connected with taste—not over those which are sensed at the tip of the tongue but only over those sensed in [15] the gullet, the experience being more like touch than taste. That is why gourmands pray not for a long tongue but for the gullet of a crane, as did Philoxenus, the son of Eryxis. So we should regard self-indulgence as concerned, broadly speaking, with objects of touch. Similarly it is with such pleasures that the self-indulgent man is concerned. For sottishness, [20] gluttony, lecherousness, gourmandizing, and all such things are concerned with the above-mentioned senses; and these are the parts into which we divide self-indulgence. But in regard to the pleasures of sight, hearing, and smell, no one is called self-indulgent if he is in excess: rather, we blame such faults without reproaching them—and so in general all in regard to which we do not speak of men as continent, the incontinent [25] being neither self-indulgent nor temperate.
The man, then, so constituted as to be deficient in the pleasures in which all for the most part must share and delight is insensible (or whatever else we ought to call him); and the man in excess is self-indulgent. For all naturally take delight in these objects and conceive appetites for them, and [30] they neither are nor are called self-indulgent (for they neither exceed by delighting more than they ought when they get them, nor by feeling greater pain than they ought when they miss them); nor are they insensitive (for they are not deficient in feeling delight or pain but rather in excess).
[35] Since there is excess and deficiency in regard to these things, there is plainly also a mean, and this state is the best and contrary to both of the others. So if the best state about the objects with which the self-indulgent is concerned is temperance, temperance will be the mean in regard to the above-mentioned sensuous pleasures, being a mean between self-indulgence and insensibility. The excess is self-indulgence [1231b] and the deficiency either nameless or expressed by the names we have suggested. More precise distinctions about the class of pleasures will be drawn in what is said later about continence and incontinence.
[5] IN THE SAME WAY WE MUST ASCERTAIN WHAT IS GOOD temper and bad temper. For we see that the good-tempered man is concerned with the pain that arises from rage, being characterized by a certain attitude towards this. In our diagram we have opposed to the irascible, to the bad-tempered, and to the savage (all such being names for the same state) [10] the slavish and the unintelligent. For these are pretty much the names which people especially apply to those whose rage is not moved even when it ought to be, but who take insults easily and are humble in the face of disdain—for slowness in [15] that feeling of pain which we call rage is opposed to quickness, intensity to mildness, short duration to long. And since there is here, as we have said there is elsewhere, excess and deficiency—for the bad-tempered is one that feels anger more quickly, to a greater degree, and for a longer time, and when he ought not, and at what he ought not, and frequently, [20] while the slavish is the contrary—it is plain that there is a middle to this inequality. Since, then, both the above-mentioned states are mistaken, it is clear that the middle state between them is upright; for he is neither too soon nor too late, and does not feel anger when he ought not, nor feel no anger when he ought. So since in regard to these emotions [25] the best condition is good temper, good temper will be a mean, and the good-tempered person midway between the bad-tempered and the slavish.
PRIDE, MAGNIFICENCE, AND LIBERALITY ARE ALSO MEANS—liberality being shown in the acquisition or expenditure of [30] wealth. For the man who is more delighted than he ought to be with every acquisition and more pained than he ought to be at every expenditure is illiberal; he who feels less of both than he ought is prodigal; and he who feels both as he ought is liberal. (By ‘as he ought’, both in this and in the other cases, I mean ‘as correct reasoning directs’.) Since the two former [35] lie in excess and deficiency, and where there are extremes there is also a middle which is best, and there is a single best for each kind of action, it follows that liberality is the mean between prodigality and illiberality in regard to the acquisition and expenditure of wealth.
We talk of wealth and business affairs in two ways: one [1232a] may use one’s property in its own right (for instance, a shoe or a coat), and one may use it coincidentally—not the use of a shoe for a weight but (for instance) the selling of it or letting it out for money, which is a use of a shoe. Now the lover [5] of money is a man eager for money: for him the possession of money is more important than its coincidental use. An illiberal man may even be prodigal in the coincidental use of wealth—for it is in the natural use of it that he aims at increase. The prodigal runs short of necessaries. The liberal [10] man gives his superfluities.
There are also species of these which exceed or fall short as regards parts—for instance, the miserly, the stingy, the avaricious, are all illiberal: the miserly is characterized by his refusal to spend, the avaricious by his readiness to accept anything, the stingy by his strong feeling over small [15] amounts, while the man who is illiberally unjust is a miscalculator and cheat. And similarly one sort of prodigal is a waster by his disorderly expenditure, the other a non-calculator who cannot face the pain of calculation.
[20] AS TO PRIDE WE MUST DEFINE ITS SPECIFIC NATURE FROM the qualities that we ascribe to the proud. For just as with other things, in virtue of their nearness and likeness up to a certain point, their divergence beyond that point escapes notice, so it is with pride. That is why sometimes men who are contrary lay claim to the same character—for instance, the illiberal to that of the liberal, the churlish to that of the [25] dignified, the over-confident to that of the courageous. For they are concerned with the same things, and are up to a certain point contiguous, as the courageous man and the over-confident man are ready to face danger—but the former in one way, the latter in another; and these ways differ greatly.
Now, we assert that the proud man, as is indicated by the name we apply to him, is characterized by a certain greatness [30] of soul and capacity;8 and so he seems like the dignified and the magnificent man, since9 pride seems to accompany all the virtues. For to assess correctly great goods and small is praiseworthy. Now, those goods are thought great which are pursued by the man of the best character in regard to what [35] seem to be pleasures;10 and pride is the best. But every virtue correctly assesses the greater and the less among its objects, as the wise man and virtue would direct, so that all the virtues seem to go with this one, or this with all the virtues.
Further, it seems characteristic of the proud man to be contemptuous. Each virtue makes one contemptuous of [1232b] what is esteemed great contrary to reason (for instance, courage is contemptuous of dangers of this kind—for it considers it disgraceful to hold them great, and numbers are not always frightening;11 and the temperate is contemptuous of many great pleasures, and the liberal of wealth). This characteristic seems to belong to the proud man because he busies [5] himself about few things, and those great, and not because someone else thinks them so—the proud man would consider rather what one virtuous man thinks than what many ordinary men do, as Antiphon after his condemnation said to Agathon when he praised his defence of himself. Disdain [10] seems to be the emotion particularly characteristic of the proud man. Again, as regards honour, life, and riches—about which men seem to busy themselves—he thinks nothing of them except honour. He would be pained if denied honour, and if ruled by someone unworthy. He delights most of all when he obtains honour.
In this way he would seem to be inconsistent; for it is inconsistent [15] to be12 concerned above all with honour, and yet to be contemptuous of the multitude and13 of reputation. So we must first distinguish. For honour, great or small, is of two kinds: it may be given by a crowd of ordinary men or by those worth considering; and, again, there is a difference according to the ground on which honour is given. For it is [20] made great not merely by the number of those who give the honour or by their quality, but also by its being honourable; and in truth, office and all other goods are honourable and worth pursuing only if they are truly great, so that there is no virtue without greatness. That is why every virtue, as we have said, makes a man proud in regard to the object with which [25] that virtue is concerned. But still there is a single virtue, pride, alongside of the other virtues, and he who has this must be called in a special sense proud. Since some goods are honourable and some as we distinguished earlier, and of such goods some are in truth great and some small, and of [30] these some men are worthy and think themselves so, among these we must look for the proud man.
We must distinguish four different kinds of men. For a man may be worthy of great goods and think himself worthy of them, and again there may be small goods and a man worthy of them and thinking himself worthy; and we may have the opposites in regard to either kind of goods: there may be [35] a man worthy of small who thinks himself worthy of great and honourable goods; and, again, one worthy of great but thinking himself worthy of small. He then who is worthy of the small but thinks himself worthy of the great is blameworthy; for it is unintelligent and not noble that he should obtain out of proportion to his worth. The man also is blameworthy who, being worthy of great goods and possessing [1233a] them does not think himself worthy to share in them. There remains then the contrary of these two—the man who is worthy of great goods and thinks himself worthy of them and is such as to think himself worthy of them. He is praiseworthy and in the middle between the other two.
[5] Since, then, in respect of the choice and use of honour and the other honourable goods, the best condition is pride, and we define the proud man as being this and not as being concerned with things useful, and since the14 mean is the most praiseworthy state, it is plain that pride is a mean. Of the contraries, as shown in our diagram, the condition consisting [10] in thinking oneself worthy of great goods when not worthy is vanity (for we give the name of vain to those who think themselves worthy of great things though they are not); and the condition of not thinking oneself worthy of great things though one is, we call diffidence (for it is held to be the mark of the diffident not to think himself worthy of anything great though he possesses that for which he would [15] justly be deemed worthy of it): hence, it follows that pride is a mean between vanity and diffidence.
The fourth of the sorts of men we have distinguished is neither wholly blameworthy nor yet proud, not having to do with anything that possesses greatness. He neither is worthy nor thinks himself worthy of great goods: that is why he is not contrary to the proud man. Yet to be worthy and think [20] oneself worthy of small goods might seem contrary to being worthy and thinking oneself worthy of great ones. But such a man is not contrary to the proud, for he is not blameworthy (his state being what reason directs): he is, in fact, the same in nature as the proud man (for both think them-selves worthy of what they are worthy of), and he might become proud—for of whatever he is worthy of he will think [25] himself worthy. But the diffident man who possesses great and honourable things and does not think himself worthy of them—what would he do if he was worthy of small things? Either15 he would think himself worthy of great things and thus be vain, or else of still smaller. That is why no one would call a man diffident if, being an alien in a city, he does not [30] think himself worthy of ruling but rather submits, but only if he is well born and thinks office a great thing.
THE MAGNIFICENT MAN IS NOT CONCERNED WITH ANY and every action or choice but with expenditure (unless we use the name in an extended sense): without expense there cannot be magnificence. It is what is fitting in ornament, [35] and ornament is not to be got by ordinary expenditure but consists in exceeding what is necessary. The man, then, who tends to choose in great expenditure the fitting magnitude, and desires this sort of mean, and with a view to this sort of pleasure, is magnificent. The man whose inclination is to something larger but out of harmony has no name, though [1233b] he is near to those called by some tasteless and ostentatious. For instance, if a rich man, spending money on the marriage of his beloved, thinks it fitting to make such arrangements as one makes to entertain those who are only there to raise a glass, he is shabby; while one who receives guests of this sort in the way suited to a marriage feast resembles the ostentatious [5] man, if he does it neither for the sake of reputation nor to gain power; but he who entertains worthily and as reason directs, is magnificent; for what is fitting is worthy, and nothing unworthy is fitting. And what one does should be fitting ***16 For in what is fitting is involved the worth of the object17 (for instance, one thing is fitting for a servant’s, [10] another for a lover’s wedding) and the worth of the entertainer both in extent and kind—for instance, people thought that the entertainment offered by Themistocles at the Olympic games was not fitting to him because of his previous humble station but would have been to Cimon. The man who is indifferent to questions of worth is in none of the above classes. Similarly with liberality; for a man may be neither [15] liberal nor illiberal.
IN PRETTY WELL ALL THE OTHER BLAMEWORTHY OR praiseworthy qualities of character there are excesses, deficiencies, and means of the emotions: for instance, the envious man and the spiteful man. For, to consider the states of character to which they owe their names, envy is pain felt at [20] deserved good fortune, while the emotion of the spiteful man has itself no name18—but such a man makes plain his nature by19 delighting in undeserved ill fortune. Midway between them is the man inclined to indignation, the name given by the ancients to pain felt at either good or bad fortune [25] if undeserved, and to delight felt at them if deserved. That is why they think that indignation or Nemesis is a god.
Modesty is a mean between shamelessness and bashfulness; for the man who cares for no one’s opinion is shameless, he who cares for everyone’s alike is bashful, he who cares for that of manifestly upright men is modest.
[30] Friendliness is a mean between hostility and flattery; for the man who readily keeps company with another in all his appetites is a flatterer; the man who opposes him in all is prone to hostility; and the man who does not keep company in all pleasure (nor resists all) but rather in what seems to be best is friendly.
Dignity is a mean between churlishness and obsequiousness. [35] For the contemptuous man who lives with no consideration for another is churlish; the man who adapts his whole life to another and is submissive to everybody is obsequious; and he who acts thus in certain cases but not in others, and to those worthy, is dignified.
The candid and simple man, whom they call straightforward, is midway between the self-deprecator and the boaster. [1234a] For the man who knowingly and falsely underestimates himself is a self-deprecator; the man who exalts himself is a boaster; the man who represents himself as he is, is candid, and in the Homeric phrase genuine; in general the one loves truth, the other falsehood.
Conviviality also is a mean, the convivial man being midway [5] between the antisocial boor and the buffoon. For just as where food is concerned the finicky differs from the omnivorous in that the one takes little or nothing and that with reluctance, while the other accepts everything readily, so is the boor related to the vulgar buffoon: the one finds it hard to [10] accept a joke, the other accepts all easily and with pleasure. One ought to take neither attitude: rather, one ought to accept some things and not others, as reason directs—and the man who does this is convivial. The demonstration is the same: conviviality of this kind, supposing we do not use the word in some extended sense, is a most upright state, and the mean is praiseworthy and the extremes blameworthy. [15] Conviviality is of two kinds, one being delight in a joke, even when directed against oneself, if it be funny (one case is mockery), the other being the capacity of producing such things. The two sorts differ from one another but both are means. For the man who can20 produce what a good assessor [20] will be pleased at, even if the joke is against himself, will be midway between the vulgar and the frigid man. This definition is better than that which requires the thing said to be not painful to the person mocked, no matter what sort of man he is: one ought rather to approve of the man who is in the mean—for he is a good assessor of things.
All these means are praiseworthy, but they are not virtues, [25] nor are their contraries vices—for they do not involve choice. All of them occur in the classifications of emotions; for each is an emotion. Since they are natural, they contribute to the natural virtues; for, as will be said later, each virtue is found [30] both naturally and also otherwise, including wisdom. Thus envy contributes to injustice (for the acts arising from it affect another), indignation to justice, modesty to temperance—that is why some even put temperance into this genus. The candid and the false are respectively sensible and foolish.
The middle state is more contrary to the extremes than [1234b] these to one another, because the middle is found with neither, but the extremes often with one another and some-times the same people are at once cowardly and over-confident, or prodigal in some ways, illiberal in others, and in general are lacking in uniformity in a bad sense—for if they lack uniformity in a good sense, men of the mean type [5] are produced; since, in a way, the extremes are present in the middle. The contrariety between the middle and the extremes does not seem to be alike in both cases: sometimes it is that of the excessive extreme, sometimes that of the deficient, and the causes are the two first given—rarity (for instance, [10] of those insensible to pleasures), and the fact that the error to which we are most prone seems the more contrary. There is a third reason: the more like seems less contrary—for instance, over-confidence to courage, prodigality to liberality.
We have, then, spoken sufficiently about the other praiseworthy virtues: we must now speak of justice.
1 Reading αἱ ἀρεταί (Fritzsche) for ἐν ταῖς ἀρεταῖς (‘That among the virtues …’).
2 Omitting μεγάλα καί and reading φοβερά· <τὰ δὲ φοβερὰ> φόβου (Bonitz). Susemihl retains μεγάλα καί (‘find great things and many things frightening’) and marks a lacuna after φοβερά.
3 Susemihl marks a lacuna.
4 See Plato, Protagoras 360D.
5 Homer, Iliad XXII 100.
6 ‘Self-indulgent’ is ἀκόλαστος, which comes from κολάζειν (‘chastise’) and a negative prefix—just as ‘uncut’ is ἄτμητος, from τέμνειν (‘cut’) and a negative prefix.
7 Reading τὰ… τὰ… (Casaubon) for the received τὰς… τὰς… (‘some smells smell …’).
8 ‘Pride’ is μεγαλοψυχία, a compound from μέγας (‘great’) and ψυχή (‘soul’).
9 Reading ὅτι (a suggestion of Susemihl) for ὅτε (‘when’).
10 Reading δοκοῦντα (Fritzsche) for τοιαῦτα.
11 The text of these two clauses is uncertain.
12 Reading τό for τῷ (with half the tradition).
13 Retaining the καί which Susemihl deletes.
14 Deleting αὕτη (Rackham).
15 Reading ἤ for εἰ (with half the tradition), and rejecting Susemihl’s lacuna.
16 Susemihl marks a lacuna.
17 The text is uncertain.
18 Omitting ἐπὶ τό.
19 Reading ἐστι τῷ for ἐπὶ τό (Casaubon). ‘Spiteful’ is ἐπιχαιρέκακος, ‘delight in’ is χαίρειν.
20 Reading ὁ δυνάμενος (Sylburg) for τὸν δυνάμενον.