Helen CULLYER Aristotle on the Great and the Good: Megalopsuchia in the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics

In this paper, I argue that Aristotle's account of megalopsuchia in the Nicomachean Ethics is best explained as a revision of the Eudemian account of the virtue. I believe, pace Neil Cooper (1989) and Anthony Kenny (1978), that the comparison of the two accounts provides corroborative evidence for the hypothesis that the Eudemian Ethics represents an earlier stage in Aristotle's ethical thought.

The Nicomachean megalopsuchos possesses kalokagathia writ large, and deems himself worthy of honor justifiably on the grounds of his moral greatness. Whiting (1996) has recently argued that the Eudemian megalopsuchos is also kalos kagathos ; one for whom natural goods, such as honor and wealth, are kala, because they are the deserved rewards of unselfish virtuous activity undertaken for its own sake ( EE 1248b - 1249a 17).

However, the Eudemian megalopsuchos seems more concerned than his Nicomachean counterpart about claiming the honor which is his due. EE 1231a 19 - 1223b 25 suggests that the megalopsuchos can distinguish between great and small honors, and pursues only the great, but that he does not make the further judgement, made by his Nicomachean counterpart, "honor is not the greatest thing". If the megalopsuchos does not make the judgement that virtue itself is a greater good than honor, he is not necessarily kalos kagathos. For he may undertake virtuous action for the sake of honor.

Aristotle answers these objections in the Nicomachean Ethics by making kalokagathia a necessary condition of megalopsuchia , and by stressing that the megalopsuchos is indifferent even to the honor bestowed by good men. He is great in virtue of his internal ethical self-consciousness, rather than in virtue of his pursuit of great external goods.