Study Guide

The Nicomachean Ethics Book 4, Chapter 2 (1122a18-1123a34)

By Aristotle

Book 4, Chapter 2 (1122a18-1123a34)

Now Aristotle will kick it up a notch to discuss "magnificence."
Think of liberality times a thousand. Magnificence is spending a lot of money on a large and noble thing/cause.
The level of magnificence is relative to the person spending the cash and to the nobility of the thing spent on. In any case, it has to be big.
A magnificent person is liberal, but not all liberal people have the financial capacity to be magnificent.
Magnificence is the "golden mean" between parsimony (the deficiency) and crassness/vulgarity (the excess).
Magnificence = knowledge, since a magnificent person has a head for knowing what to spend on and how much.
He will also make sure that the end result is noble and awesome. And he won't stop giving until it's done right. Whatever it is.
Aristotle says that while goods/possessions can be noble, they're nothing compared to the value of what they can buy or create—when everything is done well.
To be properly magnificent, the expenditure has to be on something noble—i.e. to honor the gods or benefit the community—and it has to come from someone who can afford it.
It's all about having the right relationship with money. A poor person can't be magnificent (and it would be foolish for him to try) because he has no coin.
While a magnificent person gives lavishly for the benefit of the community, he's also generous in his private lifestyle. He decks out his house beautifully—and not with stuff from IKEA.
A magnificent person must spend his cash on things that endure. He has a social duty to be awesome in every category of things that he buys.
Vulgar or crass people spend beyond what they need to and on all the wrong things. They overdo everything—except what they should really overdo it on.
On the other extreme, a parsimonious person is like the stingy person on steroids. It hurts him to spend even the least penny on anything—and he continuously complains about it.
And yet, though parsimony and vulgarity are vices, they don't much harm anyone and are not a big deal, unlike licentiousness.

The Nicomachean Ethics Book 4, Chapter 2 (1122a18-1123a34)

By Aristotle

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