Aristotle's Megalopsuchia:
A Multi-Tracked Explanation

Benjamin V. Hole (Lewis and Clark College)

Megalopsuchia, deserving and claiming much, is ambiguous because Aristotle does not give a detailed philosophical account of the virtue. The ambiguity is that deserving and claiming much are described through the megalopsuchos and his dispositions towards honor and fortune. His disposition towards honor suggests he is a statesman, and fortune suggests he is a philosopher. Because of this ambiguity in the Nicomachean Ethics, commentators have looked to a passage in the Posterior Analytics, which suggests that Alcibiades, Achilles, and Ajax are thought to be megalopsuchoi because they are intolerant of dishonor, and Lysander and Socrates because they are indifferent to fortune. If these characters are megalopsuchoi, then Aristotle chose two radically different exemplars of megalopsuchia. I argue that this is a problem because the two exemplars would act in conflicting ways. I resolve this incompatibility in two steps. First, I argue that the Posterior Analytics passage is best understood in terms of Aristotle’s dialectic. In naming possible megalopsuchoi, Aristotle only goes so far as surveying the endoxa. Second, I argue that the dispositions towards honor and fortune are multi-tracked. Since they involve dispositions to think, act, and feel, the dispositions coincide. I conclude that Aristotle’s megalopsuchos possesses megalopsuchia just in case he possesses (1) the other virtues, and the right dispositions towards (2) honor and (3) fortune.

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