Magnificence and Heroic Virtue (NE IV.2)
Magnificence is usually thought to be large-scale liberality; its sphere is great wealth while liberality’s sphere is moderate wealth. But magnificence is better understood as heroic liberality. It is the version of liberality possessed by heroically virtuous people. In addition to solving various interpretative problems, taking magnificence to be heroic liberality captures an important moral intuition: the intuition that, within limits, the more generous a person is, the better.
Keywords: liberality, magnificence, heroic virtue, great wealth
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