Christensen, Niels Aslak;
(2021)
The Kosmos of the Virtues: the Virtue of Megalopsychia in Aristotle's Ethics.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Abstract
Aristotle’s account megalopsychia, the virtue concerned with great honours, is often criticised as portraying a person who is self-righteous, self-absorbed, ungrateful, and simultaneously both obsessed with public appearance and arrogantly disdainful of her inferiors. Nevertheless, Aristotle considers the virtue of megalopsychia to be the apex of moral accomplishment, calling it a ‘sort of kosmos of the virtues’, which enhances its possessor’s other virtues. Perhaps due to the prima facie unattractive features of the virtue, although it would be false to say that it has been entirely ignored, megalopsychia is often neglected in the literature on Aristotle’s ethics, and its important role as the epitome of practical virtue tends to be downplayed. This thesis, therefore, aims to reassess this central virtue, offering a comprehensive reinterpretation of the account of the virtue as well as of its role in Aristotle’s ethics as a whole. The thesis presents two main arguments. First, I argue that Aristotle had good and philosophically attractive reasons to accord honour significant value in the life of practical virtuous activity. In Aristotle’s view, honour is a great and important good to the virtuous person, because the virtuous person is someone who respect and cares about the opinions of her peers. Consequently, I argue, the virtuous person’s desire for honour is a function of her appreciation and concern for others. Second, I argue that megalopsychia centrally involves the virtuous person’s correct assessment of her great practical and deliberative abilities, which provides her with the confidence required to ensure the stability of her commitment to virtuous action – even in the face of great risks or public censure. For this reason, I argue, megalopsychia is a ‘kosmos of the virtues’, not in the sense of a superfluous addition, but as a necessary component of a virtuous character.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The Kosmos of the Virtues: the Virtue of Megalopsychia in Aristotle's Ethics |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10132547 |
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