Aristotle’s MVPs: NE 4.1–4

If we were to look for great-spirited people in our own times, the sporting world would be a good place to start, as Aristotle’s description of such a person sounds a lot like a most valuable player (MVP) or a greatest of all time (GOAT). Jackie Robinson, for instance, broke the color barrier in 1947 when he became the first African American to play Major League Baseball. With his sights set on this lofty goal, he had little concern for whether people liked him, as one of this chapter’s epigraphs shows.⁴ Eunshil Bae presents the great-spirited person as a “mental athlete,” who is like an “Olympic champion runner [who] shows little interest in competing with ordinary, untrained runners.”⁵ The sporting world of antiquity was also a promising source of models, as NE 4.1–4’s talk of prizes and crowns attests. Aristotle first introduces greatness of spirit at NE 1.10 in the context of a person’s virtue “shining through” in times of ill fortune. In that passage, external goods were said to be a kosmos (ornament) of virtue. The discussion in NE 4.1–4 contains NE’s remaining three controversial instances of kosmos. In what follows, I will contribute to the effort to defend greatness of spirit against its twentieth-century critics. My approach builds on existing work, by situating controversial virtue within the nexus of athletic/heroic ideas running throughout NE.

Greatness of spirit is presented as the third in a set of four virtues. The set itself is structured as a pair of pairs, each of which has an everyday and a grand form. Generosity (eleutheriotēs; NE 4.1) is a virtue concerned with spending everyday sums of money. It strikes a mean between stinginess (deficient spending) and squandering (excessive spending).⁶ Like any virtue of character, this is done for the sake of the kalon, “giving to the right people, the right amounts, at the right time” (1120a23–25). As with discipline/moderation, I take “right” here to be defined by the virtuous person’s overarching goals, which structure his kalon activity. And, as with any virtue of character, Aristotle is clear that this spending is relative to the individual’s particular context and resources (1120b7–11).

The grand form of generosity is megaloprepeia. This term, Aristotle explains, comes from “great” (megas) and “fitting” (prepon; NE 4.2, 1122a24–25). While it is normally translated as “magnificence,” I will use the more current term for such a person, “big spender,” with the understanding that this is meant as a positive attribute. Like a generous person, a big spender must strike a middle way between stinginess and tasteless squandering, yet he does so on a grand scale. Aristotle illustrates this by invoking ancient liturgies, or public offices, by which rich citizens voluntarily decorated public temples, outfitted war ships, or underwrote religious festivals. He calls these instances of “good love of honor (euphilotimētos) for the common good” (1122b21–22). These examples seem to suggest that big spending is a virtue only for the rich.⁷ Aristotle, however, states that one may also exhibit the virtue of big spending in expenses that come up only once in one’s private life—for instance, buying a house or hosting a wedding banquet (1123a6–9). In fact, one may be a big spender by giving the most beautiful (kalon) ball or oil flask (lēkythos) to a child (1123a14–16). The latter is one of the few bits of kit one would bring to an ancient gym. Aristotle is clear that its cost is minimal. The big spender, however, will find just the right oil flask to give to a child, getting the best value for his money without going overboard into excess and extravagance. Given these examples, it seems that what makes an act of spending big is not how it compares to the resources that most people have but how it compares to the resources of the individual spender. From this perspective, generosity and big spending are virtues concerned with “ordinary” and “extraordinary” spending.⁸ While this still places big spending beyond the reach of the poor, it opens up the possibility for people of moderate means, who are Aristotle’s target audience in the first place.

Aristotle claims, “The big spender will be furnished with a house (oikos) befitting his wealth, for this is a kind of ornament (kosmos)” (1123a6–7). On the cosmetic reading, this amounts to wealthy people merely showing off by buying big houses. Aristotle’s emphasis, however, is on what is fitting (prepon). The passage continues that what “befits” a temple is different from what befits a house or a tomb. If a house is a means of showing off, then it must do so the right way: rather than impose beauty from outside, the wealthy person’s house should be an accurate reflection of his own fiscal worth.⁹ What is more, even in private matters the big spender “is not lavish for his own sake but for the common good” (1123a-45). An Athenian house (oikos) is not only a building but also the land and people that go with it. As Plato’s dialogues illustrate, the house provides a venue for symposia and sophistic demonstrations. Like public gyms, the house provides a vital space for education and networking. Aristotle himself speaks of entertaining ambassadors from abroad (1123a3–4). So, as with liturgies, the big spender’s house also serves the common good, albeit on a smaller scale. Even the gift of an oil flask has some public significance, as it helps a child pursue his civic education by way of something like the ancient equivalent of back-to-school shopping.¹⁰

In sum, the big spender’s house is a kosmos in the athletic sense, in that it expresses its owner’s inner worth through external prosperity, while serving as a resource for further virtuous activity in service of the public good. As with the goods of fortune in NE 1.10, we find a virtuous cycle as the big spender’s house serves both as an outward manifestation of his virtuous activity and as a means to virtuous activity in the future. The person in NE 1.10 was said to show greatness of spirit in times of ill fortune. I argued, however, that this was the exception, whereas a virtuous cycle was the norm, as goods of fortune are “usually” the ornament of virtuous activity. The real test of this reading is whether it holds up for the extended discussion of greatness of spirit in NE 4.3–4.

Aristotle presents greatness of spirit as the grand form of a virtue that lacks a name in Greek but we might call healthy pride (NE 4.4). Both the common and the grand form strike a mean between the small-spirited person (mikropsychos), who seeks less than he is worth, and the vain person (chaunos), who thinks himself worth more than he is. Vain people “adorn themselves (kosmeō) in clothes, ostentatious style and that sort of thing” (1125a30). With this, we finally have a clear use of kosmos in its cosmetic sense. Note, however, that it is connected to a vice not a virtue. The vain (literally, spongy) person lacks self-knowledge and thus aims to express outwardly more worth than he actually has within. This is a textbook example of a deceptive, cosmetic kosmos.¹¹ Great-spirited and properly proud people, by contrast, seek the honor they actually deserve. This aligns with the athletic sense of kosmos.

Aristotle stipulates that greatness in this discussion refers to “greatness in each virtue” that “seems to belong to the great-spirited person” (1123b30). But what exactly does “greatness in virtue” mean? Most scholars take this to refer to the degree of one’s virtue.¹² It makes intuitive sense to refer to one person as more virtuous than another. Perhaps for this reason, this assumption has gone largely unquestioned in the scholarship. According to Aristotle’s theory as laid out across NE 2–3, however, virtues of character are acquired conditions (1) to act in ways that strike various means, (2) which involve correct feelings of pleasure and pain, and (3) which aim at the kalon. The three parts of this account suggest at least three ways in which virtues may be great. The first is that one person may outdo another in hitting the mean. This is the least promising option.¹³ Is the surpassingly virtuous person someone who always eats exactly the right amount of carbs or tells jokes at just the right time? While admirable, this hardly sets someone apart from the crowd in the ways Aristotle speaks about the person of great spirit.¹⁴ If we focus on feelings, we might say that virtues are made greater insofar as people come better to enjoy virtuous activity. Aristotle will elaborate on this idea in NE 7’s discussion of discipline, where he sees the transition from grudging compliance to willing enjoyment of moderate behavior as marking the final stage of moral development. NE 10’s account of pleasure, in turn, sets this idea within a virtuous cycle akin to what modern athletes refer to as flow. None of these ideas, however, are explicitly stated in the present context. This leaves the final option: virtues may be made greater by coordinating their activity toward ever more kalon ends. But would this entail putting one’s best possible effort into pursuing beautiful ends or actually accomplishing those beautiful ends?¹⁵ Our passage continues (1123b31–1124a4):

In no way would it suit a great-spirited person to run away with his arms flailing or to commit an injustice. Why would someone for whom nothing is great commit shameful acts? And if we examine each case, it will be completely ridiculous to find that the great-spirited person is not actually good. Nor would he be worthy of honor if he were vicious (phaulos), for honor (timē) is the prize (athlon) of virtue (aretē) and it is awarded to the good. It seems therefore that greatness of spirit is a kind of ornament (kosmos) of the virtues (aretai), for it makes them greater, and it does not come to be without them. For this reason, it is difficult to be truly great-spirited, since it is impossible without beautiful goodness (kalokagathia).

The phrase “prize of virtue” immediately preceding “ornament of the virtues” could hardly make the athletic context clearer. Yet in what sense of virtue? It is uncontroversial that aretē in the plural can mean virtuous deeds. We saw this in Pindar, Olympian 3.18’s “crown for virtuous deeds.”¹⁶ Could this be the sense at play in NE 4.3? That Aristotle uses an article, “the virtues,” where Pindar does not, may count against this as a translation. That said, Aristotle is explicit at NE 1.8: “In the Olympic games, it is not the finest and the strongest who are crowned victor, but those who compete: for it is from this group that winners come.” So, whether we translate kosmos tōn aretōn as “crown for virtuous deeds” or “crown for virtues,” there is explicit reason within NE for thinking that it is not merely having virtues but actively using them that makes one worthy of praise. If we continue the thought, then this kosmos increases activities that put those virtues to use.¹⁷

If this is right, we find a third virtuous cycle: like the happy person’s good fortune (NE 1.10) and the big spender’s house (NE 4.2), the great-spirited person’s attitude toward great honor makes outwardly visible the worth of his virtuous activity, while also serving as a means for further virtuous activity (NE 4.3). At least, usually. It is fairly easy to see how goods of fortune, houses included, may contribute to one’s virtuous activity. It is not immediately clear how one’s relationship to honor plays an analogous role. Some scholars think that the great-spirited person’s sense of self-worth emboldens him to undertake great deeds in ways that the small-spirited person would not.¹⁸ That seems right, but it only explains the individual’s self-worth, not the honor others pay him. Why should the person of great spirit care what others think of him? I have two responses.

First, we may embrace the practical spirit of NE and recognize that honor and resources often go together. Athletic scholarships are given only to those students whose talent is recognized. Promotions recognize good work, at least in theory, and bring increased income and responsibilities. The link between recognition and resources is built into the Greek word for “honor,” timē, which has as much to do with positions of public office as it does with conferring praise. From this perspective, it is little wonder that greatness of spirit first appears in NE in connection with external resources.

Second, recall that when buying a house, the big spender “is not lavish for his own sake but for the common good.” If the big spender and the great-spirited person are meant to parallel each other, what would it mean to care about one’s reputation “for the common good”? In his work on logic, Posterior Analytics, Aristotle presents Socrates as an example of a great-spirited individual. The context is a general discussion of crafting definitions through identifying features that members of a group have in common. Aristotle illustrates this process by identifying Socrates’s boyfriend, Alcibiades, as an additional example of a great-spirited person, as well as the Homeric heroes Achilles and Ajax, each of whom “does not endure insults, for one waged war, another gave into rage, and the third killed himself.” By contrast, Socrates and the Spartan commander Lysander are said to have greatness of spirit in their “indifference to good and bad fortune” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 97b17–25). Some scholars use the passage from Posterior Analytics to read NE 4.3 as Aristotle’s not terribly successful attempt to combine Homeric love of honor with Socratic indifference by cutting out their extremes. The end result, on this reading, is a person who cares about honor more than other external goods but does not care about it too much.¹⁹

I suggest that we can make better sense of this fusion of intolerance of insults and indifference to fortune through the somewhat paradoxical idea that an individual’s concern for his own honor may rest on his concern for the common good. Let us begin with Socrates. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates makes light of a death sentence (29d-c), calls himself god’s gift to the city (30e), insults jury members who care about anything other than virtue (29e-30b) and—after having been found guilty—suggests that he deserves to be fed for life at public expense like an Olympic victor (36d-e). It is easy to see Socrates as indifferent to the whims of fortune. It is therefore something of a surprise when, in the midst of all this brazen “come what may,” Socrates expresses concern for his own reputation. Most people in his situation would resort to rhetorical tricks: begging, crying, and dragging their children into court in hopes of winning sympathy votes. Socrates takes the opposite approach: “With regard to my reputation and yours and that of the whole city, it does not seem right to me to do these things, especially at my age and with my reputation. For it is generally believed, whether truly or falsely, that in certain respects Socrates is superior to the majority of mankind” (Plato, Apology 34e-35a). What should we make of this death-before-dishonor mentality? Given that Socrates in Apology presents himself as pursuing a divine mission to make people care for virtue above all else, the most obvious explanation is that Socrates is willing to die to preserve his reputation, because his reputation allows him to serve as a role model for others in the pursuit of virtue. To do otherwise would be to show that death matters more to him than his divine mission. Viewed from this perspective, Socrates’s concern for his own reputation is based on his concern for the common good. We might make a similar case for Achilles’s intolerance of insults, insofar as one’s reputation for superiority is key to one’s ability to rule within Homer’s heroic context. Meanwhile, Achilles’s willingness to risk his life in battle, even in the face of a prophecy about his untimely demise, shows an indifference to goods of fortune that is not so dissimilar to Socrates’s. While Socrates and Achilles are cited in Posterior Analytics but not NE, I suggest that we can find something that Achilles and Socrates do have in common: each leads a life that is tightly structured around overarching goals that contribute to the common good, and each values his reputation insofar as it makes visible his life’s work and serves as a means of pursuing that work. We find a similar use of one’s reputation to serve the common good in modern athletes from Jackie Robinson to Megan Rapinoe, who have successfully used their position in the public consciousness to fight for the rights of marginalized groups. In short, all of these figures treat their reputation as a kosmos of virtuous activity.

For Aristotle, the highest human end is excellent activity. Greatness of spirit, I suggest, determines the attitude one takes toward choosing high-level goals and arranging mid- and low-level goals in service of them. Healthy pride, by contrast, determines the attitude one takes toward low-level goals, working within the parameters set by higher-level goals.²⁰ As we saw in NE 1, the place of honor in eudaimonia is not merely to be honored but to be honored for the right reason: excellent activity. This is why the person of great spirit cares more about the approval of good people than of the crowd. Yet, provided that his actions are worthy of honor, he will not be overly troubled if those actions go unappreciated.²¹

When it comes to making virtues greater, this reading sidesteps the oddity of increasing a mean. It is not the moderate nature of an action that greatness of spirit increases. It is the agent’s overall activity, his life’s work, insofar as greatness of spirit provides a structure of motivation and purpose for everything an individual does.²² This structuring activity also explains the role greatness of spirit plays in unifying the virtues. Organizing one’s entire life around a single overarching goal is a huge challenge. It takes tremendous discipline, practice, care, and thinking on one’s feet. If an individual is missing any of the virtues of character, he runs the risk of undermining his own efforts: backing down from challenging situations, overindulging in natural pleasures to the detriment of other goals, failing to navigate social situations, and so on. This is why greatness of spirit manifests itself only once all the other virtues of character are in place, and serves as the outward expression of this inward worth.²³ It is a kosmos of the virtues. Meanwhile, the attitudes and behaviors that constitute greatness of spirit are what allow an individual to navigate this hierarchy of low- and mid-level goals in service of his high-level goal. As we have seen, Tom Seaver pets dogs with his left hand to avoid injury to his pitching hand. To expand on Bae’s suggestion, an Olympic runner may decline to race amateurs both to avoid unnecessary injury but also to avoid humiliating those amateurs. In short, greatness of spirit allows a person to keep his “eyes on the prize.”

Soft Skills: NE 4.5–9

The second half of NE 4 introduces a set of virtues to guide how individuals interact with each other. These serve to contextualize greatness of spirit within other aspects of one’s social life.²⁴ Today we call these soft skills. Unlike one’s abilities in math, language, or athleticism (hard skills), soft skills are hard to quantify but help individuals navigate work with others. Aristotle’s list includes evenness of temper (4.5), friendliness (4.6), honesty (4.7) and wit (4.8). While he does not quantify them exactly, he does suggest that each may fit a scale of excess, mean, and deficiency. There are times when jokes, for instance, are called for, such as roasting someone at an awards banquet. The individual who does not appreciate the roast is too stiff. But there are other times when jokes or banter are not called for, such as funerals. Someone who makes crass jokes on solemn occasions is tasteless. A witty person hits the mean by his ability to read the room and engage or not engage in humor as it is called for. So too for the other skills, which involve how we respond to offensive behavior (evenness of temper), how we present ourselves to people we meet for the first time (friendliness), and how we talk about our own accomplishments (truthfulness). While this section of NE is useful, particularly for people headed into job interviews, it is possibly the least controversial portion of the work. It clarifies what other factors must be in place for a person to pursue a life of great spirit and big spending. Aristotle continues this contextualizing project in book 5.