NICOMACHEANETHICS(BOOKIV) 187
Moreover, we must watch the errors which have the greatest attraction for us
personally. For the natural inclination of one man differs from that of another, and we
each come to recognize our own by observing the pleasure and pain produced in us [by
the different extremes]. We must then draw ourselves away in the opposite direction, for
by pulling away from error we shall reach the middle, as men do when they straighten
warped timber. In every case we must be especially on our guard against pleasure and
what is pleasant, for when it comes to pleasure we cannot act as unbiased judges. Our
attitude toward pleasure should be the same as that of the Trojan elders was toward
Helen, and we should repeat on every occasion the words they addressed to her. For if
we dismiss pleasure as they dismissed her, we shall make fewer mistakes.
In summary, then, it is by acting in this way that we shall best be able to hit the
median. But this is no doubt difficult, especially when particular cases are concerned.
For it is not easy to determine in what manner, with what person, on what occasion, and
for how long a time one ought to be angry. There are times when we praise those who
are deficient in anger and call them gentle, and other times when we praise violently
angry persons and call them manly. However, we do not blame a man for slightly devi-
ating from the course of goodness, whether he strays toward excess or toward defi-
ciency, but we do blame him if his deviation is great and cannot pass unnoticed. It is not
easy to determine by a formula at what point and for how great a divergence a man
deserves blame; but this difficulty is, after all, true of all objects of sense perception:
determinations of this kind depend upon particular circumstances, and the decision rests
with our [moral] sense.
This much, at any rate, is clear: that the median characteristic is in all fields the
one that deserves praise, and that it is sometimes necessary to incline toward the excess
and sometimes toward the deficiency. For it is in this way that we will most easily hit
upon the median, which is the point of excellence.
BOOKIV
- High-Mindedness, Pettiness, and Vanity:High-mindedness, as its very name
suggests, seems to be concerned with great and lofty matters. Let us take the nature of
these matters as the first point of our discussion. It makes no difference whether we
investigate the characteristic or the man who is characterized by it. A man is regarded as
high-minded when he thinks he deserves great things and actually deserves them; one
who thinks he deserves them but does not is a fool, and no man, insofar as he is virtu-
ous, is either foolish or senseless. This then is the description of a high-minded man.
A person who deserves little and thinks he deserves little is not high-minded, but is a
man who knows his limitations. For high-mindedness implies greatness, just as beauty
implies stature in body: small people may have charm and proportion but not beauty.
A man who thinks he deserves great things but does not deserve them is vain, though
not everybody who overestimates himself is vain. One who underestimates himself is
small-minded regardless of whether his actual worth is great or moderate, or whether it
is small and he thinks that it is smaller still. A man of great deserts, it would seem, is
most [liable to be small-minded,] for what would he do if his deserts were not as great
as they are? Thus, measured by the standard of greatness, the high-minded man is an
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