Book IV

But this is not the proper name for them. For “wasteful” is meant for someone with one vice, 1120a that of destroying his substance. The wasteful person is one who is ruined through his own fault, and the destruction of one’s substance seems to be a kind of ruin of oneself, since living depends on it. This, then, is how we understand wastefulness. Things that have a use can be used both well and badly, and wealth is a useful thing; and each thing is used best by the person who has the excellence concerned with it. So wealth too will be used best by the person who has the excellence concerned with wealth, and this is the generous person. Using wealth seems to consist in spending and giving; taking and keeping are more a matter of possessing. That is why it is more characteristic of the generous person to give to the right people than to take from the right sources and not take from the wrong ones.note

For it belongs to excellence more to do good than to have good done to one, and more to do fine things than not to do shameful ones. And it is quite clear that doing good and doing fine things go with giving, while having good done to one, or not doing what is shameful, goes with taking. Gratitude goes to the giver, not to the one who does not take, and so, even more, does praise. Not taking is also easier than giving, since people are less willing to part with what is their own than to refrain from taking what belongs to others. It is givers, too, who are called generous; those who do not take are praised not for generosity but no less for justice; and those who take are hardly praised at all. Of all people who are loved for their excellence, the generous are perhaps loved most, since they are beneficial, and this lies in their giving.

Actions in accordance with excellence are fine and done for the sake of the fine. So the generous person too will give for the sake of the fine, and rightly: to the right people, in the right amounts, at the right time, with everything else that goes with right giving. And he will do so with pleasure, or without pain, since what accords with excellence is pleasant or painless, and least of all painful. Someone who gives to the wrong people, or not for the sake of the fine but for some other reason, will be called not generous but something else. Nor will someone who gives with pain, since he would prefer the wealth to the fine action, and that is not the generous person’s way. Nor will the generous person take from the wrong sources, since such taking is not characteristic of someone who does not value wealth. Nor would he be one to ask for things, since it is not characteristic of someone who does good to others to accept benefits readily.

He will take from the right sources, 1120b for instance from his own possessions—not as something fine but as something necessary, so that he has something to give. Nor will he neglect his own property, since he wants to help others by means of it. Nor will he give to just anyone, so that he can give to the right people, at the right time, and where it is fine to do so. It is also very characteristic of the generous person to go to excess in giving, so that he leaves less for himself, since not looking out for oneself is characteristic of the generous person. Generosity is spoken of relative to one’s means. For generosity lies not in the quantity given but in the state of the giver, and this state gives in proportion to one’s means. So nothing prevents the person who gives less from being more generous, if he gives from smaller means.

Those who have not made their fortune themselves but inherited it seem to be more generous: they have no experience of need, and everyone is fonder of their own creations, as parents and poets are. It is not easy for the generous person to be rich, since he is not inclined to take or to keep, but is free with his money and values it not for its own sake but for the sake of giving. That is why people complain against fortune that those who most deserve to be rich are the least rich. But this happens not without reason: one cannot have money without taking care to have it, just as with anything else. He will not, however, give to the wrong people or at the wrong time, and so on; for then he would no longer be acting in accordance with generosity, and having spent on these things he would not have enough to spend on the right ones.

For, as has been said, the generous person is the one who spends in accordance with his means and on the right things; the one who exceeds is wasteful. That is why we do not call tyrants wasteful: it does not seem easy for their gifts and expenditures to exceed the size of their holdings. Since generosity is a mean concerning the giving and taking of wealth, the generous person will give and spend on the right things and in the right amounts, in small matters and large alike, and do so with pleasure; and he will take from the right sources and in the right amounts. For since the excellence is a mean concerning both, he will do both as he should: taking of this kind goes along with decent giving, while taking of the other kind is contrary to it. So the kinds that go together are found together in the same person, while the contrary kinds clearly are not.

If he happens to spend contrary to what is right and fine, he will be pained, but moderately and as he should, since it belongs to excellence to be pleased and pained at the right things and in the right way. The generous person is also easy to deal with in money matters. He can be wronged, since he does not value wealth, and he is more upset if he has failed to spend something he should have than pained if he has spent something he should not have; and he does not agree with Simonides. The wasteful person goes wrong in these respects too: he is neither pleased nor pained at the right things or in the right way. This will become clearer as we go on. We have said, then, that wastefulness and stinginess are excesses and deficiencies, and in two things, giving and taking; for we count spending as part of giving.note

Wastefulness exceeds in giving and not taking, and falls short in taking; stinginess falls short in giving and exceeds in taking, except in small matters. Now the features of wastefulness do not often go together, since it is not easy to give to everyone while taking from nowhere: private individuals who give quickly run through their substance, and they are the ones who are thought to be wasteful. Yet such a person would seem to be considerably better than the stingy one. He is easily cured, both by age and by lack of means, and he can come to the mean. For he has the features of the generous person: he gives and does not take, though he does neither as he should or well. If he were trained in this, or changed in some other way, he would be generous, since he would give to the right people and not take from the wrong sources.

That is why he is thought not to be bad in character; for exceeding in giving and not taking is the mark not of a wicked or ignoble person but of a foolish one. The person who is wasteful in this way seems much better than the stingy person, both for the reasons given and because the one benefits many people while the other benefits no one, not even himself. But most wasteful people, as has been said, also take from the wrong sources, and in this respect they are stingy. They become grasping because they want to spend but cannot easily do so, since their resources quickly run out. So they are forced to get supplies from elsewhere. 1121b At the same time, because they give no thought to what is fine, they take carelessly and from every source; they have an appetite for giving, but how or from where makes no difference to them.

That is why their gifts are not generous either: they are not fine, nor given for the sake of the fine, nor in the right way. Sometimes they make rich those who ought to be poor; they would give nothing to people of moderate character, but a great deal to flatterers or to those who provide them with some other pleasure. That is also why most of them are self-indulgent: since they spend readily, they are lavish on self-indulgence as well, and because they do not live with a view to the fine, they slide toward pleasures. The wasteful person, then, drifts into these things if he is left without guidance, but with care he might reach the mean and what is right. Stinginess, on the other hand, is incurable (old age and every kind of incapacity seem to make people stingy), and it is more innate in human beings than wastefulness: most people are fonder of money than of giving.

It is also far-reaching and takes many forms, since there seem to be many kinds of stinginess. It consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in taking, and it does not come whole to everyone; sometimes the two are separated, and some people exceed in taking while others fall short in giving.

Those who go by such names as “tight-fisted”, “miserly” and “cheapskate” all fall short in giving, but they do not covet other people’s property or want to take it. Some do so from a kind of decency and a wariness of what is shameful (some seem, or at least claim, to hold on to their money for this reason, so that they may never be forced to do anything shameful; among these is the cumin-splitter and everyone of that sort, who is so called from his excessive unwillingness to give anything). Others, again, keep away from other people’s property out of fear, on the ground that it is not easy to take what belongs to others without others taking what is yours; so they are content neither to take nor to give. Others, again, exceed in taking by taking anything from anywhere, such as those who practice occupations unworthy of a free person—brothel-keepers and all such people—and those who lend small sums at high interest.note

For all of these take from the wrong sources, and more than they should. What they have in common is evidently shameful profiteering, since all of them put up with reproach for the sake of gain, and small gain at that. For those who take great things from the wrong sources, and take what they should not—tyrants who sack cities and plunder temples, for instance—we do not call stingy but rather wicked, impious and unjust. The gambler, however, and the clothes-thief and the bandit are among the stingy, since they are shameful profiteers. Both kinds pursue their business for the sake of gain and put up with reproach: the one runs the greatest risks for the sake of the loot, while the other makes gains from his friends, to whom one ought to give. Both, then, since they want to make gains from the wrong sources, are shameful profiteers; and all such taking is stingy.

It is reasonable that stinginess is called the opposite of generosity: it is a greater evil than wastefulness, and people go wrong more in this direction than in the direction of wastefulness as we have described it. So much, then, for generosity and the vices opposed to it.

The deficiency of this state is called shabbiness, and the excess vulgarity, tastelessness and the like, which exceed not in the scale of spending on the right things but by making a splash in the wrong things and in the wrong way. We will speak about these later. The magnificent person is like an expert: he can see what is fitting and spend great sums tastefully. 1122b For, as we said at the beginning, a state is defined by its activities and by its objects. The expenditures of the magnificent person, then, are great and fitting. So too are the works he produces, for in this way the expenditure will be great and also fitting to the work. So the work must be worthy of the expenditure, and the expenditure worthy of the work, or even exceed it. The magnificent person will spend such sums for the sake of the fine, since this is common to the excellences.

And further, he will do so with pleasure and freely, since precise accounting is shabby. He will consider how to make the work finest and most fitting rather than how much it will cost and how it can be done most cheaply. The magnificent person, then, must also be generous. For the generous person too will spend what he should and as he should; and it is in these things that the greatness of the magnificent person—his scale, as it were—lies, generosity being concerned with the same things; and from an equal expenditure he will make the work more magnificent. For the excellence of a possession and of a work is not the same. The most valuable possession is the one worth the most, gold for example; but the most valuable work is one that is great and fine (for the sight of such a thing is wonderful, and what is magnificent is wonderful). And the excellence of a work, magnificence, lies in scale.

Among expenditures, magnificence belongs to those we call honorable, such as those connected with the gods—votive offerings, buildings and sacrifices—and likewise with everything divine; and to those that are objects of honorable ambition in public life, as when people think they should fund a chorus splendidly, or equip a warship, or even give a feast for the city. In all these cases, as has been said, the question also refers to the agent: who he is and what means he has. For the expenditures must be worthy of these, and befit not only the work but also the one who produces it. That is why a poor man could not be magnificent: he does not have the means to spend large sums fittingly, and the one who tries is foolish, since it goes against what is due and proper, whereas acting rightly is what accords with excellence.note

It also befits those who already have such resources, whether through their own efforts or from their ancestors or from people they are connected with, and the well-born and the famous and so on, since all these things carry greatness and prestige. The magnificent person, then, is above all of this kind, and magnificence lies in expenditures of this kind, as has been said, since these are the greatest and most honored. Among private expenditures it lies in those that happen once, 1123a such as a wedding or anything of that kind; in anything the whole city, or people of standing, take seriously; in receiving and sending off foreign guests; and in gifts and return gifts. For the magnificent person spends not on himself but on public things, and gifts have something in common with votive offerings.

It is also characteristic of the magnificent person to furnish his house in a way that befits his wealth (since this too is a kind of adornment), and to spend more on works that last a long time (since these are the finest), and in each case on what is fitting; for the same things do not suit gods and human beings, or a temple and a tomb. Each expenditure is great in its own kind: the most magnificent without qualification is a great expenditure on a great object, but in a given case it is what is great in those circumstances. And greatness in the work differs from greatness in the expenditure: the finest ball or oil flask has the magnificence of a present for a child, though its price is small and mean. That is why it is characteristic of the magnificent person, whatever kind of thing he produces, to produce it magnificently (for such a thing is not easily surpassed), and in a way that matches the worth of the expenditure.

Such, then, is the magnificent person. The one who exceeds, the vulgar person, exceeds, as has been said, by spending beyond what is right. On small expenses he spends a great deal and makes a tasteless display—entertaining his dining club as if it were a wedding feast, for instance, or, when funding a chorus for a comedy, bringing it on for its entrance in purple, as they do at Megara. And he will do all such things not for the sake of the fine but to show off his wealth, thinking he is admired for them, spending little where he should spend much and much where he should spend little. The shabby person will fall short in everything. After spending enormous sums he will spoil the fine effect for a trifle; whatever he does, he hesitates and considers how he can spend the least, and even then he grumbles, thinking he is doing everything on a bigger scale than he should.note

These states are vices, then, but they do not bring reproach, since they are neither harmful to one’s neighbor nor too unseemly.

The person who thinks himself worthy of less than he is worth is small-souled, whether he is worthy of great things or moderate ones, or even if he is worthy of small things and thinks himself worthy of still less. And the one who is worthy of great things would seem to be small-souled most of all; for what would he do if he were not worthy of so much? The great-souled person, then, is at an extreme in terms of greatness, but at the mean in terms of doing as he should, since he thinks himself worthy of what he is worth, while the others exceed and fall short. If, then, he thinks himself worthy of great things, and is worthy of them, and above all of the greatest things, he would be concerned above all with one thing.

Worth is spoken of in relation to external goods. And we would take the greatest of these to be what we render to the gods, what people of standing most aim at, and the prize awarded for the finest deeds; and such a thing is honor, since this is the greatest of external goods. So the great-souled person is concerned with honors and dishonors as he should be. Even without argument, great-souled people are evidently concerned with honor, since it is honor above all that great people think themselves worthy of, though in accordance with their worth. The small-souled person falls short both in relation to himself and in relation to the worth of the great-souled person. The vain person exceeds in relation to himself, though not in relation to the great-souled person. The great-souled person, since he is worthy of the greatest things, would be the best person; for the better person is always worthy of more, and the best person of the greatest things. So the truly great-souled person must be good.

And what is great in each excellence would seem to belong to the great-souled person. It would be quite out of character for a great-souled person to run away with his arms flailing, or to do wrong; for why would someone do shameful things when nothing is great to him? And if we look at the particulars one by one, a great-souled person who was not good would appear utterly ridiculous. Nor would he be worthy of honor if he were bad, since honor is the prize of excellence and is rendered to the good. 1124a Greatness of soul seems, then, to be a kind of adornment of the excellences, since it makes them greater and does not arise without them. That is why it is hard to be truly great-souled: it is impossible without being fine and good in every respect.

It is chiefly with honors and dishonors, then, that the great-souled person is concerned. At great honors conferred by excellent people he will be moderately pleased, as getting what is properly his, or even less; for no honor could be worthy of complete excellence. Still, he will accept it, since they have nothing greater to bestow on him. But honor from just anyone, and for small things, he will utterly disdain, since that is not what he is worthy of; and likewise dishonor, since it will not justly apply to him. So although, as has been said, the great-souled person is concerned chiefly with honors, he will nevertheless also be moderately disposed toward wealth and power and every kind of good and bad fortune, however it turns out; he will be neither overjoyed at good fortune nor overwhelmed by bad. For he does not even regard honor as the greatest thing.

For power and wealth are choiceworthy because of honor; at any rate, those who have them want to be honored for them. But someone to whom even honor is a small thing will regard the rest as small too. That is why great-souled people are thought to be disdainful. Good fortune is also thought to contribute to greatness of soul. For the well-born are thought worthy of honor, and so are the powerful and the wealthy, since they stand in a position of superiority, and whatever is superior in something good is held in greater honor. So things like these also make people more great-souled, because they are honored by some for them. In truth, though, only the good person deserves honor; but someone who has both is thought more worthy of honor. Those who have goods of this sort without excellence neither have a just claim to think themselves worthy of great things nor are rightly called great-souled, since that is impossible without complete excellence. Instead, people who have such goods become disdainful and arrogant too.

For without excellence it isn’t easy to bear good fortune gracefully. 1124b Unable to bear it, and thinking themselves superior to everyone else, they look down on others while themselves doing whatever they happen to feel like. They imitate the great-souled person without being like him, and they do so where they can: they don’t perform the actions that come from excellence, but they do look down on others. For the great-souled person is justified in his disdain, since his judgments are true, whereas most people’s disdain is random. He doesn’t court small dangers, nor is he fond of danger, since there are few things he values highly; but he will face great dangers, and when he does, he doesn’t spare his life, since he thinks life is not worth living at any price. He is the sort to do good turns, but he is ashamed to receive them, since the one is the mark of a superior, the other of an inferior. And he repays a benefit with a greater one, since that way the one who started it will end up in his debt in turn and will be the one who has been well treated.

Such people also seem to remember the good they do but not the good they receive (for the recipient of a benefit is inferior to the benefactor, and the great-souled person wants to be superior), and to enjoy hearing about the former but not the latter. That, it seems, is why Thetis doesn’t mention to Zeus the services she has done him, and why the Spartans didn’t mention theirs to the Athenians, but only the benefits they had received.note

It is also characteristic of the great-souled person to need nothing, or scarcely anything, yet to be eager to help others; and to carry himself with dignity toward people of rank and good fortune, but with moderation toward those of the middling sort. For it is difficult and impressive to be superior to the former, but easy to be superior to the latter; and to put on airs among the former is not ill-bred, while to do so among humble people is vulgar, like showing off one’s strength against the weak. He also doesn’t go after the usual objects of honor, or things where others hold first place. He is idle and slow to act except where great honor or a great deed is at stake; and he does few things, but those great and notable.

He must also be open in his hatreds and open in his friendships (for concealment belongs to someone who is afraid, and to care less for the truth than for what people will think), and he must speak and act openly. For he speaks frankly because he is disdainful, and he is truthful, except when he is being self-deprecating, as he is with the many. He is also unable to live in dependence on another, unless it is a friend, 1125a since that is slavish. That is why all flatterers are servile, and people of low standing are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration, since nothing is great to him. Nor does he bear grudges, since it isn’t characteristic of a great-souled person to keep remembering things, especially wrongs; rather, he overlooks them. Nor is he a gossip: he won’t talk about himself or about anyone else, since he isn’t concerned to be praised or to have others blamed. Then again, he isn’t given to praising others either. So he doesn’t speak ill of others, not even of his enemies, except to insult them deliberately.

And about necessities or small matters he is the last person to lament or plead, since to behave that way about such things is the mark of someone who takes them seriously. He is also the sort to own beautiful things that bring no return rather than profitable and useful ones, since that is more fitting for someone self-sufficient. The great-souled person is also thought to have a slow gait, a deep voice and a steady way of speaking. For someone who takes few things seriously is not in a hurry, and someone who thinks nothing is great is not tense; shrillness of voice and haste come from those things. Such, then, is the great-souled person. The one who falls short is small-souled, and the one who exceeds is vain. These people too are not thought to be bad (since they do no harm), but mistaken.

For the small-souled person, though worthy of good things, deprives himself of what he deserves, and seems to have something bad about him from not thinking himself worthy of good things, and seems not to know himself; otherwise he would have reached for what he deserved, since those things are good. Yet such people are not thought to be foolish, but rather timid. But this sort of opinion of themselves seems actually to make them worse. For each kind of person aims at what accords with their worth; and these people hold back from fine actions and pursuits because they consider themselves unworthy, and likewise from external goods. Vain people, on the other hand, are foolish and don’t know themselves, and this is plain to see. For they attempt honorable undertakings though they aren’t worthy of them, and then they are shown up. They adorn themselves with clothes and posturing and the like; they want their good fortune to be conspicuous, and they talk about it, as though they will be honored for it.

Smallness of soul is more opposed to greatness of soul than vanity is, since it is both more common and worse. Greatness of soul, then, is concerned with great honor, as has been said.

But sometimes we praise the ambitious person as manly and a lover of what is fine, and the unambitious person as modest and moderate, as we also said in our first discussion. It is clear that, since “lover of such-and-such” is said in more than one way, we don’t always apply the term “lover of honor” to the same thing: when we praise, we apply it to loving honor more than most people do; when we blame, to loving it more than one should. And since the mean has no name, the extremes seem to dispute over it as if it were unclaimed. But where there is excess and deficiency, there is also a mean. People desire honor both more than they should and less; so it is also possible to desire it as one should. In any case, this state is praised, being a nameless mean concerned with honor. Compared with ambition it appears as lack of ambition, compared with lack of ambition it appears as ambition, and compared with both it appears in a way as both.

This seems to hold of the other excellences too. But in this case the extremes appear to be opposed only to each other, because the person in the middle has not been given a name.

The deficiency, whether it is a kind of unirascibility or whatever it may be, is blamed. For those who don’t get angry at the things they should are thought to be fools, and so are those who don’t get angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right people. Such a person seems not to perceive things or be pained by them, and, since he doesn’t get angry, not to be inclined to defend himself; and to put up with being insulted, and to let one’s own people be insulted, is slavish. The excess occurs in all these respects (being angry with the wrong people, at the wrong things, more than one should, more quickly, and for longer), but not all of them belong to the same person. That would be impossible, since what is bad destroys even itself, and if it is present in full it becomes unbearable.

Irascible people, then, get angry quickly, with the wrong people, at the wrong things and more than they should, but they stop quickly, which is the best thing about them. This happens to them because they don’t hold their anger in, but, being quick-tempered, retaliate openly and then stop. The choleric are excessively quick, irascible about everything and at every occasion, hence their name. Sulky people are hard to appease and stay angry for a long time, since they keep their anger in. It stops when they retaliate, for revenge puts an end to anger by producing pleasure in place of pain. If this doesn’t happen, they carry the weight of it; for since it isn’t out in the open, no one even tries to talk them round, and digesting one’s anger inside oneself takes time. People like this are most troublesome to themselves and to their closest friends.note

We call “bad-tempered” those who are angry at the wrong things, more than they should be and for longer, and who aren’t reconciled without revenge or punishment. It is the excess that we set more in opposition to gentleness, since it occurs more often (for taking revenge is more human), and bad-tempered people are worse to live with. What was said earlier is also clear from what we are saying now: it isn’t easy to determine how, with whom, at what and for how long one should be angry, and up to what point one acts rightly or goes wrong. For someone who strays a little, whether toward more or toward less, is not blamed; sometimes we praise those who fall short and call them gentle, 1126b and call those who are harsh manly, as being capable of ruling.

So how far and in what way someone must stray to be blameworthy is not easy to state in an account, since the judgment lies in particulars and in perception. But this much at least is clear: the middle state is praiseworthy, the one in virtue of which we are angry with the right people, at the right things, in the right way and so on, while the excesses and deficiencies are blameworthy—mildly so if they go a little way, more so if further, and severely if a long way. Clearly, then, we should hold to the middle state. So much, then, for the states concerned with anger.

It differs from friendship in being without feeling or affection for those one associates with. For such a person accepts each thing as he should not because he loves or hates, but because of the sort of person he is. He will behave the same way toward people he doesn’t know and people he knows, toward intimates and strangers, though in each case as is fitting; for it isn’t appropriate to show the same concern for intimates and for strangers, or, for that matter, to cause them pain in the same way. It has been said in general terms, then, that he will associate with people as he should; and it is by reference to what is fine and what is beneficial that he will aim not to cause pain or to contribute pleasure.

For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures and pains that arise in social encounters. Of these, whenever it is not fine, or is harmful, for him to share in someone’s pleasure, he will object and decide to cause pain instead. And if something would bring discredit, and no small discredit, or harm to the person doing it, while opposing it would cause only a little pain, he won’t accept it but will object. He will behave differently with people of rank and with ordinary people, 1127a and with those he knows more or less well, and similarly with respect to other differences, giving each what is fitting. In itself he prefers to contribute pleasure and is wary of causing pain, but he is guided by the consequences if these are weightier—I mean consequences for what is fine and beneficial. And for the sake of a great pleasure later on, he will cause small pains.

Such, then, is the person in the middle, but he has no name. Of those who contribute to others’ pleasure, the one who aims at being pleasant for no further reason is obsequious, while the one who does it to get some advantage for himself, in money or in what money buys, is a flatterer. The one who objects to everything is, as has been said, cantankerous and quarrelsome. The extremes appear to be opposed to each other because the middle has no name.

The boaster, then, is thought to be someone who lays claim to distinctions he doesn’t have, or greater ones than he has; the self-deprecator, conversely, to be someone who disclaims what he has or makes it smaller; and the person in the middle, being straightforward, to be truthful both in how he lives and in what he says, acknowledging what he has, neither more nor less. Each of these things can be done for some purpose or for none. And each person speaks and acts and lives in accordance with the sort of person he is, unless he is acting for some purpose. In itself, falsehood is base and blameworthy, and truth fine and praiseworthy. So too the truthful person, being in the middle, is praiseworthy, while both kinds of false person are blameworthy, but the boaster more so. Let us discuss each of them, beginning with the truthful person.note

We are not talking about someone who is truthful in agreements, or in matters bearing on injustice or justice 1127b (these would belong to another excellence), but about someone who, in cases where nothing of that kind is at stake, is truthful both in speech and in life because he has that sort of state. Such a person would seem to be decent. For a lover of truth, who is truthful even where nothing is at stake, will be all the more truthful where something is; he will avoid falsehood as shameful, since he avoided it even in itself. Such a person is praiseworthy. He leans toward understatement rather than the truth, since this seems in better taste, because exaggerations are tiresome.

Someone who claims more than he has for no purpose seems to be of a base sort (otherwise he wouldn’t enjoy lying), but he appears foolish rather than bad. If he does it for a purpose, then the one who does it for reputation or honor is, for a boaster, not very blameworthy, while the one who does it for money, or for things that bring money, is more disgraceful. (Someone is a boaster not by capacity but by decision; for it is in virtue of his state, and by being a certain sort of person, that he is a boaster.) In the same way, one liar enjoys the lie itself, while another wants reputation or gain. Those who boast for the sake of reputation, then, claim the sort of qualities that bring praise or congratulation, while those who boast for gain claim qualities that others can enjoy and whose absence can go unnoticed, such as being a skilled seer or doctor.

That is why most people claim such things and boast about them: they have the features just mentioned. Self-deprecators, who understate, appear more refined in character, since they seem to speak not for gain but to avoid pomposity. These people especially disclaim things that bring distinction, as Socrates used to do. But those who disclaim small and obvious things are called humbugs and are more contemptible; and sometimes this is plainly a form of boastfulness, like the Spartan style of dress, since both excess and extreme deficiency are boastful. Those who use self-deprecation in moderation, and about things that are not too commonplace and obvious, appear refined. It is the boaster who appears opposed to the truthful person, since he is worse.note

Those who joke tastefully are called witty, as it were “quick-turning,” since such movements are thought to belong to character; and just as bodies are judged by their movements, so are characters. But since opportunities for laughter are everywhere, and most people enjoy amusement and teasing more than they should, even buffoons are called witty, as though they were refined; but it is clear from what has been said that they differ, and not by a little. Tact also belongs to the middle state. It is characteristic of the tactful person to say and listen to the sort of things that suit a decent and free-spirited person; for there are things that it is fitting for such a person to say and hear by way of amusement, and the amusement of a free-spirited person differs from that of a slavish one, and that of an educated person from that of an uneducated one.note

One can see this from the old comedies and the new ones: in the former, obscenity was what made things funny, in the latter it is rather innuendo; and these differ not a little in point of decorum. Should we define the person who jokes well, then, by his saying what isn’t unbecoming to a free-spirited person, or by his not causing pain to his listener, or even delighting him? Or is that, at any rate, indeterminate, since different things are hateful or pleasant to different people? He will also listen to the same sort of things, since the jokes a person puts up with hearing are the ones he seems to make himself. So he won’t make every kind of joke; for a joke is a kind of abuse, and lawgivers forbid certain kinds of abuse—perhaps they should have forbidden certain kinds of joke too. The refined and free-spirited person, then, will conduct himself in this way, being a law to himself, as it were. Such is the person in the middle, whether he is called tactful or witty.note

The buffoon, on the other hand, is a slave to the laugh, and spares neither himself nor anyone else if he can raise a laugh, saying things 1128b none of which a refined person would say, and some of which he wouldn’t even listen to. The boor is useless for such social exchanges, since he contributes nothing and objects to everything. Yet rest and amusement are thought to be necessary in life. The means we have described in life, then, are three, and they are all concerned with sharing in certain kinds of conversation and activity. They differ in that one is concerned with truth, the others with what is pleasant. Of those concerned with pleasure, one is found in amusement, the other in social exchanges in the rest of life.

For shame is not characteristic of a decent person either, since it arises from bad actions (and such actions shouldn’t be done at all; and whether some things are shameful in truth and others only by reputation makes no difference, since neither sort should be done, so one shouldn’t have cause for shame). It belongs to a base person even to be the sort of person who does something shameful. And to be so disposed that one would be ashamed if one did something of the kind, and to think oneself decent on that account, is absurd. For shame concerns voluntary actions, and the decent person will never voluntarily do bad things. Shame might be something decent on a hypothesis: if he were to do such a thing, he would be ashamed. But this doesn’t apply to the excellences. And if shamelessness—not being ashamed to do shameful things—is bad, it doesn’t follow that it is decent to be ashamed when one does such things.

Nor is self-control an excellence, but a kind of mixed state; we will discuss it later. Now let us speak about justice.