Greatness of Soul and the Problematic Status of Honor

1


Walter J. Thompson
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts

I.
In the recent revival of interest in Aristotelian ethics, not all of Aristotles
excellences have fared well. Conspicuous among those with few defenders is greatness of
soul (). While it seems to all that Aristotle commends greatness of soul as a
sort of peak of the excellences, many find it difficult to see how greatness of soul can
even be counted among the excellences, let alone be their crown. Some have portrayed
Aristotles account as little more than an expression of class or cultural prejudice.
2

Greatness of soul, they argue, is an excellence at home only in a heroic or status-centered
society.
3
Our own incomprehension or aversion is said to be a consequence of our
inhabiting a society of a very different sort, one with an opposed set of cultural
presuppositions.
4
This line of interpretation, however, tends to put the hermeneutic cart
before the horse. Rather than interpreting Aristotles own words, we are to situate them
within the broader cultural context that supplies their true meaning. But that Aristotle
repeats the presuppositions of his culture is a conclusion that must be shown; it cannot be
a premise. Only a careful and complete interpretation both of his own texts, and those of
his contemporaries, could disclose the extentindeed, the contentof their agreement.
There can be no knowledge of a culture that is not ultimately rooted in the attempt to
understand the words and deeds of its members. Thus neither can there be any cultural
context in which to situate these words and deeds that is not itself derived from their
interpretation.
5
Our first task, then, is always to understand these primary materials. What
further contextualization may be necessary to render them intelligible will come to
light in the act of interpretation. We must begin by taking the materials themselves as the
proper guide to their context.
Thankfully, there have been interpreters who have taken up this fundamental task.
But their interpretations have been various, and often contradictory. According to R.-A.
Gauthier, for example, the function of greatness of soul is to ground the impassability of
the sage before the vicissitudes of fortune.
6
Though as a particular virtue greatness of

1
Paper delivered at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL,
August 31September 3, 1995.
2
See Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York: Collier Books, 1966), 6768; 7880; John
Burnet argues that Aristotles portrait represents the ideal of the average Hellene, but he does not think
Aristotle shares this ideal. See The Ethics of Aristotle (London: Methuen, 1900), 179.
3
See Dirk t.D. Held, in Nicomachean Ethics iv. Ancient Philosophy 13 (1993): 95110.
4
See Held, , 9596; John Casey, Pagan Virtue: An Essay in Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990), vvi; Christopher Cordner, Aristotelian Virtue and Its Limitations. Philosophy 69 (1994):
291316.
5
See Jacob Klein, History and the Liberal Arts, in Lectures and Essays. eds. Robert B. Williamson and
Elliot Zuckerman (Annapolis: St. Johns College Press, 1985), 13738.
6
R.-A. Gauthier and J.-Y. Jolif, Lthique Nicomaque (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain,
1959), II.1: 278.

2
soul has for its object the external goodsor the greatest of these, honorit delivers man
from vulnerability to fortune by disposing him to dominate and despise the external
goods. To the great-souled man, the grandeur of the external goods pales in comparison
with the grandeur of his excellence.
7
The great-souled man, then, is both excellent and
conscious of his excellence. If his security from fortune is to be complete, however, he
must have complete excellence. And if he is to have complete excellence, then he must
have the contemplative as well as the practical excellences.
8
The great-souled man,
therefore, must be a philosopher, and one for whom the consciousness of his value gives
him the strength to despise opinion.
9
The philosopher alone, by virtue of his self-
sufficient communion with the highest objects of thought, can transcend the merely
human world.
Harry Jaffa, on the other hand, has argued that Aristotles description of greatness
of soul is the description of the highest non-philosophic human type.
10
While the great-
souled man does indeed aim at what appears to him the highest thing, this is not
contemplation but honor.
11
And in striving for divine honor the magnanimous man
strives above all to be a benefactor.
12
He is, therefore, less a thinker of lofty thoughts
than a doer of great deeds, for which he claims recognition. As the man chiefly
concerned with honor, the great-souled man is clearly the political man par
excellence, for the practical virtues find their supreme expression in the political
sphere, whose good is the honorable good.
13
The virtue of the great-souled man, then, is
not complete virtue simpliciter, but complete virtue as it appears within the moral-
political horizon. Indeed, on Jaffas account, it is Aristotles intention in his treatment of
greatness of soul to disclose the limits of moral-political action as such, and to point
beyond it toward the more complete and satisfying activity of the philosopher. Insofar as
its good is the honorable good, the moral-political good is for Aristotle not the highest
good.
I will argue with Jaffa against Gauthier that greatness of soul as Aristotle
describes it is not the excellence of the philosopher. But I will argue beyond Jaffa that
neither is it the peak of moral or practical excellence simply. Aristotle, I will argue, is
exposing the limits not of action as such, but of a certain politically preponderant
conception of it. It is the political man who is above all concerned with honor. But insofar
as his end is honor, I will argue, he is not the man of practical excellence. In exposing the
limits of the political mans conception of practice, Aristotle is pointing not only toward
philosophy, but toward a refined conception of practice.

7
Gauthier, Lthique, 274, 284.
8
Gauthier, Lthique, 29091.
9
Gauthier, Lthique, 289.
10
Harry V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas on the
Nocomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 121.
11
Larry Arnhart has attempted to account for the two, seemingly contradictory, faces of greatness of soul:
The common element is the striving to engage the soul in an activity of such lasting greatness that it will
escape the transcience and futility that ruin ordinary human endeavors. Magnanimity, whether political or
philosophic, is the pursuit of immortality. The great political man hopes that the honor and glory of his
deeds will somehow endure despite the vicissitudes of political life. And the philosopher hopes that the
objects of his thought are in some manner eternal.Statesmanship as Magnanimity: Classical, Christian,
and Modern. Polity 16 (1983): 267.
12
Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, 121.
13
Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism, 130.

3

II.
Let us begin, as Aristotle himself does, with what is first for us. At Nicomachean
Ethics I.45, Aristotle begins his inquiry into the human good, that comprehensive good
which he has said is the end of political science. There is more or less agreement among
most concerning the name, he says, for both the many and the refined (
) call it happiness, and suppose living well and doing well to be the same as
being happy. But concerning what happiness is ( ), they disagree, and the many
and wise do not give a similar account (NE I.4 1095a1822). The nominal agreement
between the many and the refined gives way to a disagreement between the many and the
wise concerning the what is of happiness. The many, Aristotle continues, [think] it is
something among the things obvious and apparent, such as pleasure or wealth or honor,
some thinking one thing, others another; the answer of the wise is not yet indicated (NE
I.4 1095a2223).
Aristotle turns to an examination of the common opinions, or rather, of those that
are most prevalent
14
or that seem to have some reason for them (NE I.4 1095a2930). It
seems not unreasonable, he remarks, that people take up [a conception of] the good and
happiness on the basis of their ways of life (NE I.5 1095b1415). Looking to the ways
of life people in fact lead, Aristotle identifies three prominent candidates: the many and
most vulgar hold [happiness and the good to be] pleasure, and on account of this they
prefer the life of indulgence ( ). For the most prominent
15

[ways of life] are three: the one we have just mentioned, the political ( ) and
third, the theoretical ( ) (NE I.5 1095b1619). First for us, then, is the
appearance of rival ways of life, from which follow rival conceptions of happiness and
the good.
The first way of life, that of the many and most vulgar, Aristotle summarily
dismisses as utterly slavish, a life fit for cattle. Still, he remarks, the fact that many men
in high places are seen to favor such a life gives it a hearing. This life, then, is less that
led by the many than that to which the many and most vulgar aspire. The curtness of
Aristotles dismissal leads us to wonder whether he expects his interlocutors to share an
instinctive contempt for such a life. Or perhaps he intends, by branding it as bestial and
slavish, to dissuade from its pursuit those who might otherwise find such a life of
unrestricted gratification attractive. The tyrants life, after all, has never been without its
partisansand not among the many alone. In either case, Aristotle passes quickly to the
next candidate: Refined and practical men ( ), he says, [hold
happiness and the good to be] honor (), for this is just about the end of the political
life (NE I.5 1095b2223). Recalling his earlier differentiation of the opinions of the
many, the refined and the wise, it now seems that while Aristotle distinguishes the
refined and practical from the many and most vulgar who find happiness in the life
of enjoyment, in contradistinction to the wise he counts them among the many who find
happiness in some good obvious and apparent.

14
The most prevalent opinions are, literally, those most at the surface ( ),
those that most immediately and obviously appear.
15
The most prominent ( ) ways of life are, literally, those that jut out most.

4
Unlike that of the many and most vulgar, however, this opinion of the refined
and practical Aristotle proceeds to engage dialectically. Honor cannot be the good we
seek, he argues, because it is too superficial. Honor rests more with the one who honors
than with the one who is honored, while we suspect that the good must be something that
is ones own. Judging from their practice, moreover, it appears that the refined and
practical do not consider honor as something final. For it is not honor as such, but an
honor of which they deem themselves worthy that they seek. They do not seek honor
from any and every source, nor for any and every reason. Rather, they desire to be
honored only by men of prudence, who know them, and who honor them for their
excellence. Thus they seem to pursue honor in order to persuade themselves that they
are good (NE I.5 1095b2728). It is clear, then, Aristotle remarks, that according to
these excellence is superior [to honor] (NE I.5 1095b2930). The practice of the
refined and practical reveals behind their desire for honor a deeper desire: the desire to
be, and to know themselves as good. Yet while this final desire is implicit in their
practice, it does not surface in their self-consciousness. The tension between the pursuit
of honor and the pursuit of excellence goes unrecognized by the refined and practical
themselves. This tension is brought to sight only through Aristotles dialectical scrutiny
of the opinion of the refined and practical. In their own self-understanding, the two
desires remain fused, and honor, because it is the more immediate end, appears to be the
end simply.
Honor, then, is just about the end of the political life (NE I.5 1095b23). Though
not the end simply, it is manifestly the end for the refined and practical who are the
partisans of the political life. The most prominent conception of the political life, then,
that held by those who typically devote themselves to politics, holds politics to be for the
sake or in the service of honor.
16

The refined and practical pursue honor in order to be persuaded of their
goodness. Their opinion of their goodness, then, must be fragile and in need of
confirmation. But to whom will they look for such confirmation? Certainly they cannot
look to those they deem unworthy, for the unworthy are poor judges of worth. They must
look, then, to those they deem worthy, those whose goodness qualifies them to judge. But
how will they identify these? And how will they know their judgment to be sound? In
selecting judges wont they have to rely on that very opinion which they have set out to
confirm? And if their opinion of their own goodness is fragile, will not their opinion of
the goodness of another be equally so? For how can one judge the goodness of another
except on the basis of a judgment of the good in oneself? The refined and practical are
stuck in a vicious circle: they must rely on their own fragile opinion of their worth to
identify others by whose judgment they hope to confirm their opinion of their worth.
Only by coming to know their own goodness could they be delivered from this circle. It
becomes clear why according to Aristotle honor is something superficial: as confirmation
from without of what one is in oneself, honor is a stand-in for self-knowledge. The more

16
It is important to note that this is not Aristotles own conception of the political, but his portrayal of the
refined and practical who typically devote themselves to the affairs of the polis. There is a tendency
among commentators to collapse practical into political, to grant to the political practitioner the
practical excellences, and so to read Aristotles commendation of excellent practical activity as a
valorization of politics. The danger in such a reading is that it threatens greatly to overestimate the virtue of
those who devote themselves to politics, and greatly to underestimate Aristotles criticism of politics as
practiced in most, if not all, actual regimes, on the grounds precisely of its deficiency as practice.

5
one has need of honor the less one knows ones goodness. But the less one knows ones
goodness, the less one is able to judge the worth of those to whom one would look for
confirmation. Conversely, the more one knows ones goodness, the less one has need of
honor. But the more one knows ones goodness, the better one is able to judge the worth
of other judges.
Judging from their practice (though not their self-understanding), the refined and
practical hold excellence to be superior to honor. The connection between excellence
and honor would seem to lie in praise. Excellence, Aristotle says, is something
praiseworthy. But the common index of what is praiseworthy is what is in fact praised.
Excellence first appears to us as that which is praised. Praise is, as it were, the public face
of excellence (NE I.12 1101b3132, I.13 1103a910; Rhet I 1362b1213, 1367b810).
But a difficulty arises here, for there is no necessary connection between what is
praiseworthy and what is in fact praised. If praise is the common index of excellence, still
it may be an unreliable index. For praise is only as valuable as the perceptiveness of the
praiser; it is always relative to the one who praises, who judges by his standards (NE I.12
1101b1216). In calling honor superficial, Aristotle draws attention to the fact that the
deep motive behind the love of honor is the desire to know oneself as good. In exposing
the tenuous connection between what is praised and what is praiseworthy, he raises the
question whether there cannot be a knowledge of ones goodness that is more self-
sufficient and less a submission to possibly unreliable opinions.
On the basis of his dialectical refinement of the opinion of the refined and
practical, Aristotle suggests that perhaps it is excellence and not honor that is the true
end of the political life. But even this, he says, appears incomplete; for one might
possess excellence while being asleep or inactive throughout life ( )
(NE I.5 1095b3033). On first hearing, this argument sounds absurd: if excellence is a
disposition to act, how can one be excellent and remain inactive throughout life? But
perhaps Aristotle means to suggest that the refined and practical, those for whom honor
is just about the end of the political life, typically misunderstand the nature of
excellence. For them, excellence is a possession or an adornment. They conceive
character as something to be donned, in the manner of a fine garment. They seek to be
excellent so as to be recognized as excellent. Excellence is for them less a disposition to
act than a token of their worth. Such persons will be tempted to subordinate the activity
of excellence to the repute that its possession (or its reputed possession) brings. Now all
would be well ifbut only ifexcellence always received its just reward. But there is no
necessary connection between what is excellent and what is reputed to be so. Indeed,
given Aristotles analysis of the prominent opinions concerning happiness and the human
good, we have every reason to believe that there may be a disjunction between what is
excellent and what is recognized as excellent. In arguing here that excellence is
incomplete, Aristotle points the refined and practical beyond a conception of
excellence as a possession and toward a conception of excellence as a disposition to act,
and to act well. He points them from the love of honor to the love of excellent activity
itself.
The last of the rival ways of life, the theoretical life ( ), Aristotle
identifies, but quickly drops, with the promise of a later treatment. He remains silent on
the identity of its proponents, and on their view of happiness and the good. By his silence
we are led to wonder whether this life, if indeed it may have some reason for it, is in fact

6
prominent as Aristotle had earlier suggested. It would appear that the character of theory
or theorizing, its difference from other sorts of activity or pursuit, is elusive, hidden from
public view.
In lieu of the theoretical life, Aristotle takes up a previously unmentioned way of
life, that of the money-maker. The money-makers life, he argues, being concerned with
necessary things, is something forced. Wealth cannot be the good we seek since we
choose it not for its own sake, but for the sake of what comes from it. Any of the other
alternatives, which are sought for their own sakes, would be superior. Though perhaps
prominent, then, the money-makers life must finally collapse into one of those chosen
for their own sakes. Since money is essentially a meansand seemingly an all-purpose
meansone is a money-maker only incidentally.
III.
The prominent views of happiness and the good, Aristotle tells us, locate it in
some one of the external goods. Of these views, that which is politically preponderant
the view of those who typically devote themselves to political lifetakes the greatest of
the external goods to be honor. And because politics offers the most and the grandest
opportunities for the pursuit of honor, it takes the political life to be the best of lives.
Within the horizon of politics as conceived by its typical practitioners, honor is the
primary political good.
As Aristotle presents it, honor is the very currency of political life, the measure of
public worth (NE IV.3 1123b1721; Rhet I.7 1365a89). It is considered the prize of
excellence and of noble deeds (NE IV.3 1123b1721). It is the means used by legislators
to reward and punish, to exhort and dissuade (NE III.1 1109b3035; III.5 1113b2126). It
is the compensation given to those who rule (NE V.6 1134b68) and the reward returned
to benefactors and to contributors to the common stock (NE VIII.14 1163b38; Rhet I.5
1361a2831). Even those who pursue other of the external goodswealth and power, for
exampledo so wishing to be honored for their possession. All the external goods are in
fact pursued as honorable goods (NE IV.3 1124a1718, 2024). Regimes, moreover, are
differentiated according to whom they honor and for what qualities. And superiority in
honor is a mark of superiority in the regime (Pol II.11 1273a3941; IV.3 1290a1112;
V.2 1302a2432).
Honor, however, is a problematically political good. Because it is both scarce and
essentially comparative, its pursuit is a zero-sum game: what honor accrues to one is both
lost to and diminishes that of othersa star shines brightest against a dark sky. A
politics centered on the pursuit of honor becomes a politics of grasping for superiority: a
politics of factious strife at home and of domination abroad (see NE IX.6 1167a3234,
IX.8 1168b1522; Pol II.7 1266b381267a14, IV.11 1296a30b2, V.2 1302a2532).
The many, Aristotle says, seem to think that politics () is [the same as]
mastery (), and seek to exercise such rule, if not among themselves, then
toward their neighbors (Pol VII.2 1324b3233). They do so because they think that the
political life, conceived as the quest for honor or superiority, is the only life for a man
() (Pol VII.2 1324a4041).
17
Aristotles pedagogy throughout his political
science seems especially directed against this most common conception of the political.

17
On Aristotles critique of the politics of virility, see Salkever Finding the Mean, 191-99; and Nichols,
Citizens and Statesman, 128-30.

7
His practical intent seems to be to moderate the politics of honor by redirecting desire
away from those goods the pursuit of which provokes contention and strife and toward
goods whose pursuit can be common (see NE IX.9, 1170b1013; Pol II.7, 1267a813).
A recurrent refrain in Aristotles treatment of the excellences of character is that
action in accordance with excellence is itself noble or beautiful () and is done for
the sake of the noble or beautiful ( ) (see NE III.7 1115b1213, 1115b21
24, III.12 1119b1518, IV.1 1120a2326, IV.2 1122b67). The excellences dispose one
to act in each thing in the way that one should, in the manner that is fitting. An action in
accordance with excellence is one that responds appropriately to the demands of the
particular situation in which one must act. There is a beauty to an act that is fittingly done
that is simply attractive. And the person of excellence takes pleasure in so doing. Thus
noble action, and the pleasure that one takes in it, is its own end. The end of excellent
action is to act nobly and the motive for excellent action is the attraction of the noble act
itself. Unlike the lover of honor, then, the lover of the noble acts primarily for the sake of
the nobility of his deeds. While noble action may indeed be praiseworthy, he who acts for
the sake of the noble has his eyes more on the fitness of the deed than on the praise that
may or may not follow it.
Indeed, Aristotle repeatedly distinguishes the desire for the noble from the desire
for honor. In his treatment of courage, for example, he differentiates courage proper from
five forms of seeming courage. First among these, and the one that seems most similar
to courage simply, Aristotle calls political courage ( ). The two forms differ in
that the courageous man endures fearful things because it is noble to do so, while the
political man endures on account of the penalties and reproaches of the laws and on
account of honors (NE III.8 1116a1819).
18
This sort of seeming courage is thought
most similar to true courage, Aristotle remarks, because it happens on account of
excellence, that is, on account of shame, and on account of longing for the noble, for it
longs for honor (NE III.8 1116a2729). Aristotle, however, has already suggested that
shame, although it is praised as an excellence, is not in fact an excellence (NE II.7
1108a3132). Shame, he will later argue, is rather a passionthe fear of ill repute (NE
IV.9 1128b1012). For the young, and those who live according to the passions, shame
can be a useful educative force. But for the good it is inappropriate, insofar as they do not
desire to act in ways that provoke shame. As shame is commonly confused with
excellence, Aristotle seems to say, so honor is commonly confused with the noble. To
those who are not yet excellent, and so do not feel the pleasure of acting nobly, acting on
account of shame appears to be the same as acting on account of excellence. For the
immature, the fear of ill repute takes the place of the love of the noble. Honor becomes,
as it were, the seeming noble.
Aristotle gives two examples of political courage, both drawn from Homers
Iliad. In the first, Hector resolves to stand and fight the raging Achilles at the gates of
Troy for fear of being reproached by a lesser man for fleeing inside the city walls. And he
does so despite the moving pleas of both his father and mother to withdraw, and so to
preserve the good of both family and city (Iliad XXII 33110). In the second, Diomedes
is persuaded by the old Nestor to flee the advance of Hector when it becomes clear that

18
There is an etymological connection here between the penalties of the law ( )
and honors ( ) that is lost in English. The penalties of the laws are deprivations of public honor, of
political privilege.

8
Zeus himself is granting the Trojans victory. The thought of Hectors taunts tempts
Diomedes to remain, but Nestor reminds him that, given his past deeds in battle, no one
could believe them (Iliad VIII 137157). Both examples seem to show that to face
dangers on account of shame can be bad for the common good, for the concern with
honor is a concern for something that cannot be shared.
Confusion between honor and the noble runs deep. First among the fearful things
Aristotle lists in his search for the proper subject matter of courage is ill repute. The fear
of ill repute, he remarks, is fitting and noble, and the one who fears this is decent and
modest, while the one who does not is shameless. Poverty and disease, on the other hand,
should not be feared, nor in general should one fear those things that are neither from
vice nor caused by oneself (NE III.6 1115a1017). In ruling out poverty and disease
things which could well be both from vice and caused by oneselfAristotle compels us
to reconsider the case of ill repute. Recalling the essential relativity of praise and the
tenuous connection between excellence and repute, we are led to wonder whether ill
repute may not sometimes be among the things one ought not fear. Like poverty and
disease, it too is not always within ones control. The limit of ones concern, Aristotle
suggests, should be that which is caused by oneself. But one does not live alone as a beast
or a god; one lives among others. It is therefore fair and modest to pay some attention to
ones appearance among others. To do otherwise would be to exaggerate ones self-
sufficiency and so be unjust to ones fellows and to ones real situation. On this account,
however, concern for reputation would be subordinated to concern for excellence, the
love of honor to the love of the noble.
At the very center of his treatment of the excellences of character Aristotle takes
up the excellences that concern honor.
19
It is here that the tension between the pursuit of
honor and the pursuit of excellence and the political consequences of that tension are
most fully displayed. Aristotle begins by considering greatness of soul (
).
20
The great-souled man, he says, seems to be one who thinks himself
worthy of great things, being in fact worthy of them. For greatness of soul lies in
greatness, just as beauty lies in a great body; and while the small are pretty and
proportionate, they are not beautiful (NE IV.3 1123b68).
21
What, however, are the
great things of which the great-souled man deems himself worthy?
If he thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them, and
most of all the greatest, he would be concerned with one thing above all.
Worth ( ) is spoken of in relation to the external goods. But the
greatest of these we should set down as that which we render to the gods,

19
This placement would make little rhetorical sense if Aristotle were intending to portray greatness of soul
as the peak or pinnacle of the ethical virtues. It would, however, make philosophical sense, if Aristotle
understood greatness of soul to reveal the central problematic with which he is concerned in his treatment
of the ethical virtues.
20
Aristotle adopts a peculiar strategy here, arguing that in the case of greatness of soul it makes no
difference whether we consider the disposition itself or the person who possesses the disposition. The only
other time he explicitly adopts this strategy is in the consideration of prudence at NE VI.5. Perhaps he
intends the later treatment of the prudent to be a response to that of the great-souled.
21
cf. Poetics 7 1450b351451a1: Again, to be beautiful, a living thing, and every whole made up of parts,
must not only present a certain order in its arrangement of parts, but also be of a certain definite magnitude.
Beauty is a matter of size and order, and is therefore impossible in a very small creature. . . or in a creature
of vast size Aristotle is silent here on the second of his two requirements for beauty: harmonious order.

9
and that at which persons [in positions] of worth most aim, and that which
is the prize in the most noble things. And such is honor ( ), for this is
the greatest of the external goods (NE IV.3 1123b1521).
In light of Aristotles earlier critique of the pursuit of honor as superficial, it seems
strange that honor should here be called the greatest of the external goods. But in calling
honor the greatest of the external goods, Aristotle has already departed from the self-
understanding of those who pursue honor. To call honor an external good is both to
qualify or limit its goodness and to point to the existence of goods other than those
obvious and apparent; it is already to classify honor as something superficial. The
reasons Aristotle adduces in defense of his calling honor the greatest of the external
goods are equally puzzling. Aristotle had earlier noted the peculiarity of the human praise
of the gods. To praise the gods, he had said, is to refer them to our own standards, and
this is ridiculous. Being blessed in themselves, they seem to deserve something better
than praise (NE I.12 1101b1230). The honor rendered the gods, moreover, is either a
token of gratitude or a plea for aid. Honor is bestowedand not only to the godseither
in return for or in the expectation of some benefit to ourselves (see NE VIII.14 1163b3
8; Rhet I.5 1361b2831). It is thus relative to the measure of those who bestow it. We
have already seen, furthermore, that on Aristotles account those who pursue honor do so
in order to be persuaded of their own goodness. Though they do not themselves recognize
it, it is excellence or knowledge of excellence that lovers of honor truly seek. We see here
the reemergence of the vicious circle in which lovers of honor are trapped: worth is
measured by the external goods, and the greatest of these is honor, because honor is what
the worthy pursue.
Finally, in his earlier analyses of the virtues of character, Aristotle had
consistently maintained that action in accordance with excellence is noble or beautiful
and is done for the sake of the noble or beautiful. The end of noble action is nobility itself
and the pleasure one takes in acting nobly. Here, by contrast, Aristotle speaks not of the
noble as end, but of honor as the prize of the most noble things. This is the first case in
which Aristotle speaks of an excellence whose end is other than excellent action itself. A
prize is something that follows on performance; it is a good external to the activity itself.
As such it is derivative of the excellence of the performanceor perhaps we should say,
of the apparent excellence of the performance, for the performer is hostage to the
perspicacity of the judge. To speak of honor as the prize of excellence betrays a
conception of excellence not as a disposition to act well but as a means to recognition or
distinction. For these reasons, perhaps Aristotle is suggesting that greatness of soul is the
pinnacle not of excellence simply, but of excellence as understood by the refined and
practical, those for whom honor is just about the end of the political life.
It is honor above all that the great-souled man claims, Aristotle says, and in
accordance with his worth (NE IV.3 1123b2324). Thus,
the great-souled man, since he merits the greatest things, would be ( )
best, for the better always merit the better things, and the best [merits] the
greatest. Thus the truly great-souled man should () be good. And it
would seem () that greatness in each excellence [should] belong to
greatness of soul (NE IV.3 1123b2630).

10
Aristotle speaks no longer of honor as the greatest of the external goods, but as the
greatest thing simply. And his language here is curiously hypothetical: he seems to be
drawing the necessary consequences of the supposition of the great-souled mans
greatness. If he is to merit the greatest things, if his worth is to match his claims, the
great-souled man must be best. To be truly great-souled one must be good. But it does not
follow that those deemed worthy of honor are truly the best. And it remains not at all
clear, for the reasons mentioned above, that honor itself is the greatest of things or even
adequate reward for the greatest of things. Aristotle continues:
Nor would he merit honor if he were base, for honor is the prize of
excellence, and that which is assigned to the good. Greatness of soul, then,
seems to be a sort of crown of the excellences ( . . .
), for it makes them greater, and cannot come to be without them.
On account of this, it is difficult to be great-souled in truth, for it is not
possible without nobility and goodness ( ) (NE IV.3
1123b341124a4).
Again, if he were base, the great-souled man would not merit honor, for honor is the prize
of excellence. Therefore, he must be good. As the prize of excellence, honor is that which
is assigned to the good. But by whom, we wonder? It would seem that only the good
could assign the proper reward of virtue, for they alone are adequate judges of excellence.
But is it the good who do the assigning? Or is it, as in choral competition, the spectators?
Or, as in the professions, ones peers? Or, as in the assembly and the jury courts, ones
fellow citizens? In speaking of honor as something assigned to the good, Aristotle recalls
the overarching political context within which individual honors are assigned. It is always
some particular regime that determines those publicly acceptable criteria of worth
according to which honors are distributed in the city.
Again, if the great-souled person is to be best, as all agree, then he must be good.
But this is difficult, says Aristotle, forperhaps contrary to the belief of manyit is hard
to be good, it is hard to be excellent, it is hard to be noble and good. Nobility and
goodness belongs only to those who are great-souled in truth. Nobility and goodness
distinguishes its bearer as truly, versus apparently, good and excellent. Surely, then, the
great-souled man cannot simply be the conventionally reputable, or one who observes the
conventional moral orthodoxy, for there is little difficult in this. In introducing nobility
and goodness, Aristotle introduces a distinction between goodness or excellence in truth
and goodness or excellence in appearance. The nobility and goodness of the good and
excellent is juxtaposed to that of the reputable. Or rather, it is argued that repute properly
belongs to goodness and excellence in truth. But the problem, then, is this: what is true
as opposed to apparent nobility and goodness? In introducing this distinction, Aristotle
identifies a problem that calls for inquiry.
The great-souled man seems prey to the same tension between honor and
excellence that characterized the life of the refined and practical. The great-souled man,
Aristotle says, is most concerned with honors and dishonors. With honors that are great
and from serious men, he is moderately () pleased, as happening upon what is
proper () to him, or even less () (NE IV.3 1124a47). Only the serious
or mature can be adequate judges of the worth of excellence. But how will these be
identified? To avoid entrapment in the circle of opinion the great-souled man must know

11
the serious as serious. He must therefore know his own worth, know what is proper to
him. What the great-souled man needs is self-knowledge.
But does the great-souled man possess self-knowledge? As a disposition,
greatness of soul appears unstable: with great honors from serious men the great-souled is
moderately pleased, as happening on what is proper to himor even less. The
excellences, Aristotle says, are dispositions to hitting the mean in actions and passions.
But the mean here does not satisfy. It does not satisfy because honor is a superficial
stand-in for self-knowledge. The greater I wish to be the less pleased I will wish to seem
at being honored by others; the more vulnerable I am to others opinion of my greatness
the less great I will seem to be. The realm of honor is the realm of appearances.
But there is a second reason for the instability of greatness of soul:
[T]here can be no honor worthy of perfect excellence ( );
but still he will accept it, since they have nothing greater to assign him
(NE IV.3 1124a79).
No honor can be worthy of perfect or complete excellence; strictly speaking, they are
incommensurable. But the great-souled man, insofar as he claims a prize, must accept
honor, for they have nothing greater to assign him. Strictly speaking, then, the great-
souled man does not know his worth, for he claims what does not match his worth. What
he knows, he knows only negatively: he knows that what he claims, which is the greatest
thing he knows, does not satisfy. But he does not know the reason why what he claims
does not satisfy. For if he did, he would no longer have reason to claim what cannot
satisfy. His overriding concern would no longer be with one thing above allhonor.
Nor does he [care much] even about honor, [although] it is the greatest
thingfor power and wealth are choiceworthy on account of honor, at
least those who have them wish to be honored on account of them. For
him to whom even honor is a small thing, the others are so as well. On
account of this they seem to be haughty () (NE IV.3 1124a16
20).
For those who choose some one of the external (i.e., the obvious and apparent) goods
as best, honor is the greatest thing. For one to whom even the greatest thing is a trifle, the
lesser are so as well. In the absence of great things to look up to, the great-souled man
looks down on the small. He is not, Aristotle says, of the wondering sort (),
for nothing is great to him (NE IV.3 1125a23).
22
His haughtiness, then, is not so much
pride as disdain: to the great-souled even the seemingly great is small. But, Aristotle
continues,
it seems that the gifts of fortune also contribute to greatness of soul. For
the well-born [seem to be] worthy of honor, and so too the powerful and
the wealthy; for they are in superiority, and what is superior in something
good is always more highly honored. On account of this, even such things

22
In this, his haughtiness is other than that of the philosopher, for whom human beings are not the best
things in the cosmos. The disdain of the great-souled is opposed as well to the concern of the prudent with
the ultimate particulars of action.

12
make them greater in soul, for they are honored by some [for these]. But
according to truth, a good man alone is to be honored, though he who
possesses both is esteemed more worthy of honor (NE IV.3 1124a2026).
The well-born, powerful, and wealthy seem worthy of honor, for they are superior, and
what is superior in something good is more highly honored. Thus, although these goods
seem small to the great-souled man, possession of them must make one greater in soul,
for they are honored. If honor is indeed the greatest of goods, then one must recognize the
worth of those goods for which one will be honored. Superiority is honored; and being
honored is the measure of superiority. But what are the goods superiority in which
renders one worthy of honor? Those which are in fact honored? Honor, we recall, rests
more with the one who honors than the one who is honored; it is relative to the estimation
of the bestower, who measures by his standards. And it is derivative of the regime,
insofar as it belongs to the regime to determine authoritative public criteria of worth.
Honor is also essentially comparative; it lies in superiority. The quest for honor is the
quest for public recognition of individual superiority.
Aristotle introduces a distinction: though as a matter of fact those superior in the
external goods are honored, as a matter of truth, the good alone should be honored.
Honor, we recall, is the prize of excellence. But are the excellent in fact honored, and for
their excellence? And how, moreover, are we to identify the excellent? From what
Aristotle has said of the derivative character of honor it would seem insufficient simply to
look to those who are honored. Again, to know who is worthy of honor we would seem to
require knowledge of excellence.
The great-souled man is superior, and therefore held in honor. But for what is
he honored? He is honored for his works. Because he seeks both to be and be recognized
as great, the great-souled man is a doer of exceptional deeds: he will readily face great
dangers; he will readily confer great benefits; he will readily render great assistance. In
general,
he does not go into the things honored or the things in which others excel;
and he is idle () and reluctant, except with some great honor or
work, and is practical of few things ( ), but of great
and noteworthy ones (NE IV.3 1124b2326).
It is distinction that the great-souled man seeks. Therefore, he acts so as to produce fitting
monuments to his excellence. In his concern for recognition, he looks more to the effects
( ) of his excellence than its actualization (). His concern is less with
doing-well day to day than with doing good in a big way, and so making his excellence
known. This overriding concern for producing notable works would seem to follow from
his high estimation of honor.
It is for his works, then, that the great-souled man is honored. He is a benefactor:
one who produces or preserves things useful to others (see Rhet I.9 1366b17). Thus he is
potentially most useful to his fellows and to his cityprovided, of course, his thirst for
distinction can be channeled in socially useful ways. As the pinnacle of benefaction,
greatness of soul is the pinnacle of excellence as popularly conceived: as a capacity, as it
seems, of providing and preserving good things, and of working many and great benefits
(Rhet I.9 1366b12); and, as Aristotle adds, it is necessary that the greatest excellences

13
are those most useful to others, if indeed excellence is a capacity for benefaction (
) (Rhet I.9 1366b34).
The honor which the great-souled man receives is rendered, then, either in return
for or expectation of benefits received.
23
Honor is bestowed not on excellence itself, but
on its works, and these are honored for their utility to the bestowers. If according to truth
only a good man is to be honored, and only for his excellence, according to common
practice the good man is honored less for his excellence than for his usefulness. The
honor which the great-souled man receives, therefore, remains superficial: it is less his
own than anothers.
If the great-souled man is potentially useful to his fellows and his city, he is also
only problematically a part of any community. Because he seeks distinction, he spurns
dependence. He willingly confers benefits, but is ashamed of having received them. Like
Zeus, he forgets his debts, and does not like to be reminded of them. He renders help
willingly, but does not ask it of others. He is revealing in his loves and hates, and speaks
and acts openly, for he is disdainful of others. He does not care much for others praises;
nor is he the sort to praise. And in general, he is not able to live with a view toward
anotherexcept, perhaps, a friend (NE IV.3 1124b311125a1). The great-souled man,
then, aims at a kind of god-like superiority and self-sufficiency. But, as we have seen
and this is perhaps the case with the gods as wellhe is honored not in himself, but for
his gifts. His superiority, therefore, is measured by the standard of anothers good. In his
quest for self-sufficiency he is blind to his dependence on the opinion of those he must
benefit in order to manifest his superiority.
The great-souled man seems prey to the same tension between honor and
excellence that characterized the life of the refined and practical. This tension is most
evident in the attitude toward action that follows from his estimation of honor. While he
both merits and desires it, the great-souled man knows that no honor can be worthy of his
excellence. Still, as nothing else can be given him, he must accept it. But because he finds
even honor a small thing, he is haughty and aloof, holding himself back from the things
that most pursue. He is also strangely inactive: he is practical of few things, and only of
great and noteworthy ones. Given Aristotles identification of happiness with an activity
and of the end of action as doing-well in those particular circumstances in which one
must act, it is difficult not to read this characterization as a subtle critique of greatness of
soul.
24
At NE I.8, Aristotle had said, it makes no small difference whether we suppose
the best to be in possession or in use and also in disposition or in activity (1098b3033);
for while someone may possess a disposition without using it, the activity cannot be such,
for it will act of necessity and act well (1099a3). Insofar as the great-souled man
considers honor the greatest of goods, his excellence would seem to be impeded in its
activity. We recall that Aristotle had earlier suggested that it is characteristic of those

23
See NE VIII.14 1163b48: [H]onor is the privilege of excellence and beneficence (
) . . . This also appears to hold in regimes, for the one who supplies nothing good to the
commons is not honored, for what is common is given to the one who benefits () the
commons, and honor is common; and Rhet I.5 1361a2831: Honor is a sign of the reputation for doing
good ( ). Those who have done good are above all and justly honored, but also
he who is capable of doing good. Doing good refers either to preservation and the other causes of existence,
or to wealth, or to some other of the good things which are not easy to acquire.
24
There is word play in Aristotles characterization here: happiness is a being-at-work ( ), while
the great souled man is without a work ().

14
who pursue honor to conceive of excellence as a possession, as an adornment. In that
case, calling greatness of soul a sort of crown or ornament of the excellences (
) would not be praise but criticism. Greatness of soul would be the
pinnacle not of excellence simply, but of excellence as conceived by lovers of honor,
excellence conceived as ornament.
In the passage just cited, Aristotle had offered the following analogy:
[J]ust as in the Olympic games it is not the most beautiful and the
strongest who are wreathed, but the contestants, for some among these
will win, so too, of the noble and good things in life those who act rightly
become achievers (
) (NE I.8 1099a37).
The great-souled man is like a strong and beautiful spectator of the game of life. But it is
not enough, Aristotle says, to possess excellence; one must put it to work. Those alone
achieve nobility and goodness who act, and act rightly.
25
Ironically, Aristotle uses the
metaphor of the game to stress the primacy of actvity. Only by doing the noble and good
things does one become an achiever. The end of excellent action is acting rightly, and
thereby securing for oneself nobility and goodness.
The connection between activity and self-knowledge is underlined by Aristotle in
his treatment of the vices opposed to greatness of soul. Here he makes it clear that,
insofar as honor is sought as confirmation of ones opinion of ones worth, the
excellences concerning honor are excellences concerning self-knowledge. The small-
souled man is deficient and the vain excessive. But these are not so much bad as
mistaken. Each sort of person, Aristotle says, aims at actions in accordance with his
worth (NE IV.3 1125a25). The small-souled person, thinking himself unworthy, holds
back not only from the things honored, but even from noble actions and pursuits.
26
In
fact, Aristotle notes, he is not unworthy of noble actions. But he thinks himself unworthy
of honor and so holds back even from noble action. The vain person, on the other hand,
thinking himself worthy, throws himself into any pursuit that happens to be honored,
whether noble or not. He thinks himself worthy of honor when he is unworthy of noble
action. The two differ, then, not in their estimation of honor, but in their estimation of
self. In each case, it is ignorance of self combined with an overestimation of honor that
becomes an obstacle to noble action (NE IV.3 1125a2532).
27
Curiously, Aristotle
remarks that smallness of soul is more opposed to greatness of soul than vanity is; for it
happens more and is worse (NE IV.3 1125a3234). It is worse because smallness of soul
keeps many worthy people from performing those noble actions of which they are
capable. It drives the potentially excellent from the field. And, Aristotle suggests,

25
Insofar as it belongs to prudence to discern and command what it is to act rightly in any particular
situation, the portrayal of the prudent at NE VI.5 would be the counter-figure to this portrayal of the great-
souled.
26
Insofar as smallness of soul is opposed to greatness of soul, the great souled man should throw himself
into noble actions and pursuits, rather than holding himself back for the big ones. It would seem that his
aim is less the noble than the noteworthy.
27
cf. Pol VII.23, in which Aristotle adjudicates a dispute between those activists who think that the
political life is the only life worthy of a man, and those quietists who, in reaction against politics as so
conceived, reject action altogether.

15
greatness of soul is more opposed to smallness of soul than vanity because it is closer to
ostentation than diffidence.
This, however, is not Aristotles last word on the love of honor. After his
examination of greatness of soul, he next turns to the excellence that disposes us properly
toward middling and small honors. This excellence, he notes, has no name. Being without
a name, it is without public recognition. In the absence of a commonly acknowledged
mean, Aristotle continues, the two extremes are left to contend with one another over the
vacant middle (NE IV.4 1125b1718):
We blame the lover of honor ( ) as aiming at honor more than
he should and from whence he should not, and the non-lover of honor
() as not choosing even to be honored for noble things. But
sometimes we praise the lover of honor as manly and a lover of the noble
( ), and the non-lover of honor as measured and
moderate ( ) (NE IV.4 1125b813)
The nature of honor as a good both scarce and comparative seems to assure that its
pursuit tends naturally to the extremes. If, as Aristotle notes, there can be a proper
disposition toward honor, it has no public recognition. As a consequence, the political
field is left to those who grasp for superiority and those who, in reaction, withdraw into
quietism. The former take politics to be the same as mastery, while the latter reject
politics altogether as an impediment to a free man.
28
The former pursue honor
immoderately while the latter do not choose to be honored even in noble things. The
unnamed mean, Aristotle says, would somehow combine both extremes. In relation to
either, it would appear to be the other (NE IV.4 1125b2123). It would combine the love
of the noble with moderation in the pursuit of honor.
The decisive question, then, is whether the love of honor is in function of the love
of the noble. Excellence is what makes one worthy of honor; therefore, honor is
derivative of excellence. But excellence first comes to sight as that which is honored;
therefore, honor is the apparent excellent. The extremes both fail to distinguish the
honorable and the honored. Their confusion concerning the mean in honor is both
reflection and cause of the extremes of their politics.

IV.
Aristotles addresses the problems raised in his examination of the love of honor
in his treatment of friendship in Ethics VIIIIX. That this later treatment is intended as an
explicit response to the former is indicated by the fact that Aristotle here identifies friends
and not honor as the greatest of the external goods (NE IX.9 1169b9).
29
Friendship, or
more precisely the best sort of friendship, would appear to offer more of what one seeks
honor for.
In a passage strikingly reminiscent of that in Ethics I.5 with which we began,
Aristotle reformulates the problem in this way:

28
See Pol VII.23.
29
This response was also anticipated in Aristotles earlier remark that the great-souled man is incapable
of living with a view to anotherexcept, perhaps, a friend (NE IV.3 1124b31-1125a1).

16
The many seem, on account of love of honor (), to wish more to
be loved than to love. . . . And being loved seems akin to being honored, at
which they aim. But it would seem that they choose honor not on account
of itself, but according to an accident . . . [for] those who desire honor
from the good and those who know are aiming to confirm their own
opinion of themselves. They enjoy honor, then, because they are
persuaded that they are good by the judgment of those who say it. But
being loved they enjoy in itself. On account of this it would seem to be
superior () to being honored, and friendship would seem to be
choiceworthy in itself. But it seems that friendship consists more in loving
than in being loved (NE VIII.8 1159a1228).
The deep motive behind the pursuit of honor, we have said, is to be assured of ones
goodness. Honor is chosen not as an end, but as means to an end. For those who pursue
honor as a means, friendship also is a meansa means to being honored. Still, Aristotle
says, even for lovers of honor friendship appears to be a thing more self-sufficient than
honor; for it is enjoyed for its own sake.
Friendship, however, lies more in loving than in being loved; just as happiness
lies more in activity than in possession. Loving, Aristotle says, is being active; in loving
we put our own activity to work in or for another. Friends, then, provide the scope for our
own actualization; they become a field for the exercise of our excellence. Our loves,
moreover, reveal ourselves, reveal our character. If this is so, then we can come to know
ourselves by knowing our loves, by contemplating the character and actions of those we
call friends. For a friend is, as it were, another self. Indeed, Aristotle notes, love for a
friend is grounded in love for self; for what we seek in a friend is what we seek for
ourselves. Our friends reveal to us what it is we hold dear. It belongs to friends, Aristotle
says, to wish good things to each other for the sake of the other. A proper friend,
therefore, must have a proper love of self. To those who seek only to be loved, or rather
honored, by others, Aristotle seems to pose the question: but can you love yourselves?
And his response: you can only if you are and can recognize yourselves as lovable, that
is, only if you are yourself good and have good friends. While honor is superficial in that
it rests more in the one who honors than the one who is honored, friendship is a good that
is ones own and self-sufficient, for it is rooted in a self-conscious love of self.
Friendship, then, or the best sort of friendship, makes possible the kind of self-knowledge
that those who pursue honor truly seek.
But such self-knowledge is available only to the extent that we wish for ourselves
the things truly lovable. And it is the mark of the things truly lovable that they are
shareable. The friendship of the good is a communion in those good things the pursuit of
which does not provoke rivalry because they can be enjoyed in common. Those who
make [self-love] a matter of reproach, Aristotle says, ascribe it to those who assign to
themselves the greater share of wealth, honors, and somatic pleasuresfor the many (
) long for these things, and are serious () about them as though they
were the best things, and on account of this, they are fought over () (NE IX.8
1168b1518). But those who are eminently serious ( ) about
noble actions ( ) all people approve and praise. And when all
compete with a view to the noble and exert themselves to do the most noble things, all
that should be for the common would be, and for each individual the greatest of good

17
things, since excellence is such a thing (NE IX.8 1169a613). Aristotle, therefore, points
those who seek self-knowledge beyond the desire for honor which issues in contention
and toward the desire for those goods that can be genuinely sharednoble action and
thought. Only such a communion of the excellent in word and deed can provide that firm
and self-sufficient knowledge of goodness that lovers of honor seek.