Victor Saenz, PhD, Executive Director, Houston Institute
What does it mean to be great and to do great things? In this discussion, we’ll look at the first Western philosophical account of this: Aristotle’s treatment of the virtue of magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. Interestingly, however, depending on how one translates this part of the Ethics, we get two wildly different accounts. On one view, Aristotle’s magnanimous agent turns out to be morally repugnant: someone who is aware of his own greatness, seeks to promote it, and has little time for those who can’t help him. On another reading, Aristotle’s magnanimous agent is a person of the highest moral ideals, seeking to outdo himself in doing good, and valuing virtue above all. So which is it?
In this session we will look at two translations of this key text in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and puzzle over the nature of greatness.
Tues. 2/12
6:15-7:30pm
Duncan Hall 3076
