Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle [most read books of all time .txt] 📗

epub:type="noteref">68 is that which inclines to base things and which has great powers of expansion. Now, these characteristics are nowhere so strongly marked as in appetite and in childhood; children too [as well as the profligate] live according to their appetites, and the desire for pleasant things is most pronounced in them. If then this element be not submissive and obedient to the governing principle, it will make great head: for in an irrational being the desire for pleasant things is insatiable and ready to gratify itself in any way, and the gratification of the appetite increases the natural tendency, and if the gratifications are great and intense they even thrust out reason altogether. The gratifications of appetite, therefore, should be moderate and few, and appetite should be in no respect opposed to reason (this is what we mean by submissive and “chastened”), but subject to reason as a child should be subject to his tutor.

And so the appetites of the temperate man should be in harmony with his reason; for the aim of both is that which is noble: the temperate man desires what he ought, and as he ought, and when he ought; and this again is what reason prescribes.

This, then, may be taken as an account of temperance.

Book IV The Several Moral Virtues and Vices⁠—Continued I

Liberality, of which we will next speak, seems to be moderation in the matter of wealth. What we commend in a liberal man is his behaviour, not in war, nor in those circumstances in which temperance is commended, nor yet in passing judgment, but in the giving and taking of wealth, and especially in the giving⁠—wealth meaning all those things whose value can be measured in money.

But both prodigality and illiberality are at once excess and defect in the matter of wealth.

Illiberality always means caring for wealth more than is right; but prodigality sometimes stands for a combination of vices. Thus incontinent people, who squander their money in riotous living, are called prodigals. And so prodigals are held to be very worthless individuals, as they combine a number of vices.

But we must remember that this is not the proper use of the term; for the term “prodigal” (ἄσωτος) is intended to denote a man who has one vice, viz. that of wasting his substance: for he is ἄσωτος,69 or “prodigal,” who is destroyed through his own fault, and the wasting of one’s substance is held to be a kind of destruction of one’s self, as one’s life is dependent upon it. This, then, we regard as the proper sense of the term “prodigality.”

Anything that has a use may be used well or ill.

Now, riches is abundance of useful things (τὰ χρήσιμα).

But each thing is best used by him who has the virtue that is concerned with that thing.

Therefore he will use riches best who has the virtue that is concerned with wealth70 (τὰ χρήματα), i.e. the liberal man.

Now, the ways of using wealth are spending and giving, while taking and keeping are rather the ways of acquiring wealth. And so it is more distinctive of the liberal man to give to the right people than to take from the right source and not to take from the wrong source. For it is more distinctive of virtue to do good to others than to have good done to you, and to act nobly than not to act basely: but it is plain that doing good and acting nobly go with the giving, while having good done to you and not acting basely go with the taking.

Again, we are thankful to him who gives, not to him who does not take; and so also we praise the former rather than the latter.

Again, it is easier not to take than to give; for we are more inclined to be too stingy with our own goods than to take another’s.

Again, it is those who give that are commonly called liberal; while those who abstain from taking are not praised for their liberality especially, but rather for their justice; and those who take are not praised at all.

Again, of all virtuous characters the liberal man is perhaps the most beloved, because he is useful; but his usefulness lies in his giving.

But virtuous acts, we said, are noble, and are done for the sake of that which is noble. The liberal man, therefore, like the others, will give with a view to, or for the sake of, that which is noble, and give rightly; i.e. he will give the right things to the right persons at the right times⁠—in short, his giving will have all the characteristics of right giving.

Moreover, his giving will be pleasant to him, or at least painless; for virtuous acts are always pleasant or painless⁠—certainly very far from being painful.

He who gives to the wrong persons, or gives from some other motive than desire for that which is noble, is not liberal, but must be called by some other name.

Nor is he liberal who gives with pain; for that shows that he would prefer71 the money to the noble action, which is not the feeling of the liberal man.

The liberal man, again, will not take from wrong sources; for such taking is inconsistent with the character of a man who sets no store by wealth.

Nor will he be ready to beg a favour; for he who confers benefits on others is not usually in a hurry to receive them.

But from right sources he will take (e.g. from his own property), not as if there were anything noble in taking, but simply as a necessary condition of giving. And so he will not neglect his property, since he wishes by means of it to help others. But he will refuse to give to any casual person, in order that he may have wherewithal to