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What's Wrong With Megalopsychia?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2008

Alexander Sarch
Alexander Sarch
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Abstract

This paper looks at two accounts of Aristotle's views on the virtue of megalopsychia. The first, defended by Christopher Cordner, commits Aristotle to two claims about the virtuous person that might seem unpalatable to modern readers. The second account, defended by Roger Crisp, does not commit Aristotle to these claims. Some might count this as an advantage of Crisp's account. However, I argue that Cordner's account, not Crisp's, is actually the better interpretation of Aristotle. Nonetheless, this does not ultimately spell trouble for Aristotle, since, as I argue, the claims that Cordner's account commits Aristotle to are, on closer inspection, not really problematic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , April 2008 , pp. 231 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2008

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References

2 Christopher Cordner, ‘Aristotelian Virtue and Its Limitations’, Philosophy 69 (1994), Pp. 291–316.

3 Cordner, op. cit., p. 296.

4 Roger Crisp, ‘Aristotle on Greatness of Soul,’ in The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, ed. Richard Kraut, (Blackwell Publishing: 2006) Pp. 158–179.

5 Cordner, op. cit., p. 299.

6 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

7 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

8 This is Ross's translation. Ross translates ‘megalopsychos’ as ‘proud man.’ See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross. (Oxford University Press: 1998) p. 90. I use Ross's translation throughout, except where indicated.

9 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

10 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

11 This conception of honor as respect, reputation and status (as opposed to material goods like medals and trophies) seems to be shared by Crisp as well. He says: ‘Also worth noting is that Aristotle does not necessarily have in mind material goods, such as wealth. The honor received by the virtuous from other virtuous people is analogous to the honor paid to the gods, in the form of respect and its symbols.’ Crisp, op. cit., p. 163.

12 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

13 Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.

14 Crisp, op. cit., p. 160.

15 Crisp, op. cit., p. 160.

16 Crisp, op. cit., p. 163.

17 Howard Cruzer offers an account of megalopsychia that is practically identical to Crisp's. See Howard Cruzer, ‘Aristotle's Much Maligned, Megalopsychos,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 69 no. 2 (June 1991) p. 132.

18 The megalopsychos would actively seek honor only under normal circumstances because it seems a desire for honor would motivate one to actively seek it only under normal circumstances. Suppose a person is pursuing a scientific discovery that would be worthy of the Nobel Prize. Even if he desires to obtain an honor like the Nobel Prize, it needn't be the case that this desire is what motivates him to carry out his research. For perhaps he knows that people of his nationality or gender or whatever are, as a matter of fact, never granted honors like the Nobel Prize. Despite cases like this, however, there is still a tight connection between desiring something and being motivated by this desire to seek it out. The desire to obtain the honor one knows one deserves will (at least help) motivate one to actively seek it out as long as one does not believe that obtaining this honor is impossible. Thus the megalopsychos' desire for honor would get him to actively seek it only under normal circumstances.

19 There are several passages that, at least at first glance, might seem to suggest that Aristotle thinks the megalopsychos actively seeks honor. In particular, the passages 1123b12, 1123b22 and 1124a5, in Ross' translation, have the megalopsychos ‘making claims to great honor’ and ‘being concerned with honor and dishonor.’ (In fact, Cordner cites some of these passages as evidence for his account of megalopsychia. See Cordner, op. cit., p. 298.) However, Ross's translation of these passages seems to be idiosyncratic. In the original Greek, these passages clearly do not suggest that the megalopsychos actively seeks honor. (A more literal translation, such as Crisp's own, makes this clear. See Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Roger Crisp. (Cambridge University Press: 2000), p. 68–72.)

20 Crisp, op. cit., p. 167.

21 Perhaps Crisp could respond that an otherwise courageous person would not volunteer for the dangerous mission unless he thought of himself as a virtuous person. However, it seems that in that case, the person in question would not completely have the virtue of courage. If completely courageous, one would have everything needed to get one to do courageous acts. But that means megalopsychia would not add anything to one's courage. Perhaps it will be objected that one cannot fully possess one virtue without also possessing all the others. But then it seems that every virtue would deserve the name ‘crown of the virtues.’

22 See Crisp, op. cit., p. 162.

23 Perhaps Crisp could respond that possessing megalopsychia in his sense does guarantee one's excellence at something that having the other virtues does not: namely, excellence at knowing that one is worthy of great honor. Nonetheless, this excellence would not seem to be a very valuable one to have. Unless, of course, Crisp could provide some independent explanation of why it is valuable to know that one is worthy of great honor. But this is precisely the question Crisp needed an answer to in the first place.

24 This is a commonplace at least in the fields of sociology and anthropology. The idea traces to Marcel Mauss' influential book The Gift. (Marcel Mauss, The Gift. Norton & Company, Inc. 1990). For a good contemporary explanation of the idea, see W.I. Miller, Humiliation, (Cornell University Press: 1993), p. 17 or Campbell, J.K. Honour, Family and Patronage (Oxford University Press: 1964), p. 95. This phenomenon was also recognized by Hobbes. See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. XI, ‘Of the difference of Manners.’

25 Christopher Taylor seems to agree with this understanding of why Aristotle makes these five claims about the megalopsychos' character. See Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. C.C.W. Taylor. (Oxford: 2006) p. 224–225.

26 Cordner, op. cit., p. 305.

27 NE VII.1 reveals that Aristotle thinks that the virtuous person cannot be subject to conflicting desires. There Aristotle distinguishes the virtuous person from the continent man, who ‘knowing that his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them.’ (1145b10). This means that the virtuous person, since he is not merely a continent person, does not have any bad appetites that he must use rationality to overcome. Accordingly, it should not be possible for the virtuous person to find himself in situations where he has some bad desire that conflicts with his other, virtuous desires.

28 Another response to this problem would be to point out that Aristotle's claim that the virtuous person's desires cannot conflict is itself dubious. After all, when faced with the choice between two incompatible, but equally valuable goods, it seems a virtuous person should have conflicting desires.

29 Cruzer, op. cit., p. 151.

30 To see this, consider what it would be to honor the gods, or to honor your king.

31 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin. (Hackett Publishing Company: 1999) p. 220.

32 Cordner says: ‘there is a range of qualities whose absence from Aristotle's canon of virtues we surely cannot avoid being struck by. In the Nicomachean Ethics we find no mention of kindness, compassion, forgiveness, apology, repentance, remorse, humility …’ Cordner, op. cit. p. 293.

33 Irwin suggests another way to respond to the present objection. He suggests that the Christian virtue of humility merely requires that one not exaggerate one's merits, not that one actively play them down. In that case VM and VA might not conflict with the ideal of humility. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin. (Hackett Publishing Company: 1999) p. 220.