What it takes to be great: Aristotle and aquinas on magnanimity

Faith and Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 415-444

  Horner, David A ^a  

^a ORIEL COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 10644290429     PISSN: 07397046     EISSN: 21533393     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/faithphil199815440     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. John Casey, Pagan Virtue: An Essay in Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 200.
2. I do not assume that the differences in cultural and religious context between Aristotle and Aquinas, and between both of them and us, are insignificant. Nor do I wish to suggest that the concept of magnanimity remains unaltered between these contexts. What I do assume is that there is sufficient common ground in human experience with respect to basic human needs and capacities-in Nussbaum's term, "grounding experiences"-to fix the general virtue-type for which Aristotle and Aquinas each provide specification, and that we (particularly as philosophical descen-dents of both thinkers) are able to come to some understanding and evaluation of those specifications on their own terms and in light of our background convictions. See Martha C. Nussbaum, "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach," in Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume XIII: Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue, ed. P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 32-53
3. Nussbaum, "Comparing Virtues," Journal of Religious Ethics 21 (1993): 345-396.
4. For a caution regarding NussbaunVs approach, see Robert C. Roberts, "Emotions Among the Virtues of the Christian Life," Journal of Religious Ethics 20 (1992), 63.
5. For an excellent (and relevant here) discussion and account of cross-cultural ethical analysis, see Lee H. Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990).
6. I shall not address every aspect of magnanimity. For example I shall not be concerned with Aristotle's description of the magnanimous person's mannerisms and voice (1125al3-16) (although Aquinas does try to incorporate and defend these (ST Ilallae. 129.3.3)). For some interesting cultural insights into these matters, see Dirk t. D. Held, "Megalopsuchia in Nicomachean Ethics iv," Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993): 95-110.
7. Howard J. Curzer, "A Great Philosopher's Not So Great Account of Great Virtue: Aristotle's Treatment of 'Greatness of Soul'," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20 (1990), 527, so limits (i), and considers it an intellectual virtue.
8. W. D. Ross, Aristotle: A Complete Exposition of His Works and Thought, Fifth ed. (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 203.
9. Alasdair Maclntyre, A S/zorf History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century (New York: Collier Books, 1966), 79.
10. For attempts to answer other objections as well, see Howard J. Curzer, "Aristotle's Much Maligned Megalopsychos," Australasian journal of Philosophy 69 (1991): 131-151.
11. Harry V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 123-127.
12. Curzer, "Not So Great' 518-522, opts for virtue as the core of Aristotle's account, and downplays the rôle of honor. However Aristotle is as explicit, or more, about the centrality of honor than he is about virtue, and this needs to be accounted for.
13. See D. A. Rees, "'Magnanimity' in the Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics," in Untersuchungen zur Endemischen Ethik, ed. Paul Moraux and Dieter Harlfinger (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1970), 231-243
14. Neil Cooper, "Aristotle's Crowning Virtue," Apeiron 22 (1989): 191-205
15. Curzer, "Not So Great"
16. Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) for variations on this thesis.
17. Cooper, "Aristotle's Crowning Virtue," 196-197. This is implicit in the picture in EN as well, where the magnanimous person discriminates between the honors given by excellent or "just anyone," and for something worthy vs. something small (1124al0).
18. For discussions of the concept of honor, see Peter Berger, "On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor," in Revisions: Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair Maclntyre (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 172-181
19. T. H. Irwin, "Homonymy in Aristotle," Review of Metaphysics 34 (1981): 523-544.
20. In further defense of my reading: it renders Aristotle's remarks here consistent with his accounts of honor, self-sufficiency, and external goods in book 1 of EN (cf. Roger Crisp, "Aristotle's Inclusivism," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XII (1994): 111-136)
21. See J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. A. O. Rorty (Berkeley: 1980), 157-170.
22. Eckart Schütrumpf, "Magnanimity, Megalopsuchia, and the System of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics" Archive für Geschichte der Philosophie 71 (1989), 13, points out that an important positive aspect of Aristotle's discussion of magnanimity is that here "Aristotle guards himself against a potential misunderstanding, namely that the concept of the mean in his definition of virtue should be understood as mediocrity."
23. Nancy Sherman, "Common Sense and Uncommon Virtue," in Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume XIII: Ethical Character and Virtue, ed. P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 97-114
24. Sherman, "Common Sense," 104.
25. See Bernard Williams, "Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts," in Aristotle and Moral Realism, ed. Robert Heinaman (London: UCL Press, 1995), 13-23
26. Rosalind Hursthouse, "The Virtuous Agent's Reasons: A Reply to Bernard Williams," in ibid., 24-33.
27. Sarah W. Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 373-383
28. Anthony Kenny, Aristotle on the Perfect Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 9-15.
29. Annas, Morality of Happiness, 118.
30. See Casey, Pagan Virtue, 62ff. For an extensive account of courage in Aquinas, see Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas. Concerning how the conception of courage is changed by Aquinas's Christian outlook, see Stanley Hauerwas, "The Difference of Virtue and the Difference it Makes," Modern Theology 9 (1993): 249-264.
31. For more on problems and illuminations see Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas, 33-36.
32. An interesting biographical sidelight is that Aquinas consistently refused ecclesiastical honors. James A. Weisheipl, O. P., Friar Thomas D'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 48.
33. Cf. Edmund Pincoffs, "Quandary Ethics" Mind 80 (1971): 552-571
34. David L. Norton, "Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character" in Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume XIII: Ethical Character and Virtue, ed. P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 180-195.
35. Sir Anthony Kenny, Roger Crisp, Christopher Shields, Linda Zagzebski, Dirk t. D. Held, Robert Pasnau, and William Wainwright. I have also benefited from the comments of audiences where earlier versions were read: Society of Christian Philosophers, 1995 Intermountain Regional Conference; Eighteenth Annual Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Dirk t. D. Held, respondent); and Society of Christian Philosophers, 1995 Midwestern Regional Conference. I am grateful for funding from the U.K. Overseas Research Scholarship Award for initial work related to magnanimity at Oxford University.