Polytropy

There was a remark near the end of the last reading, in § v.18:

τοῦ δὲ ἀδικήματος
τὸ μὲν ἔλαττον ἀδικεῖσθαί ἐστι,
τὸ δὲ μεῖζον τὸ ἀδικεῖν.

And with an unjust transaction,
having injustice done to one is less than the mean,
and doing the injustice is in excess of it.
(Sachs)

Of the injustice done,
the smaller part is the suffering
and the larger part is the doing of injustice.
(Rackham)

At first glance – my first glance, anyway – Aristotle alludes here to the teaching of Socrates, which I tried to work out in “Doing and Suffering”: suffering injustice is less bad than doing it.

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When I was ten, I learned the adjective “magnanimous” from Star Trek. I learn now from Wikipedia that the episode called “Whom Gods Destroy” was unseen in the UK until 1994, and one reason was the scene that preceded the following dialogue:

Garth of Izar

She’s yours if you wish, Captain.

Kirk

Thank you, that’s – very magnanimous of you.

Garth

You will find that I am magnanimous – to my friends, and merciless to my enemies.

The woman referred to is called Marta. Garth styles himself Lord Garth, Master of the Universe, but he is mad. For Lee Erwin then, the writer of the episode, magnanimity would seem to be generosity exhibited by the powerful, or the deserving of power, at least in their own minds. This understanding is supported by definitions in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (sixth edition, 1976):

magnanimous

Noble, generous, not petty, in feelings or conduct.

generous

Magnanimous, noble-minded; not mean or prejudiced; free in giving, munificent.

Generosity is one word for the main subject of our previous reading. Etymologically, the word refers to birth, so that generosity is literally being of good family.

Nobility, by contrast, is being “in the know”: the letters “no” show the relation, while the K of “know” corresponds to a letter missing in “noble,” but retained in “ignoble.”

In its Latin parts, “magnanimity” is being of “great soul.” The word seems to be a calque of Aristotle’s μεγαλοψυχία, which is our main subject now.

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We are reading the last part of Book III of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. The subject is ἡ σωφροσύνη. This might be given various names in English, such as temperance, moderation, modesty, sobriety, sanity, prudence, continence, chastity. Our question is not so much what the best word for sôphrosyne is, but what Aristotle means by it, and how this fits with our own experience.

Like all virtues, σωφροσύνη has two attendant vices:

• ἡ ἀκολασία, licence, licentiousness, intemperance, profligacy;
• ἡ ἀναισθησία, “anaesthesia,” insensitivity.

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