尼各马科伦理学（中）.pdfVIP

N ICOM A CH EA N E T H ICS 1 B O O K I V 1 LET us speak next of liberality .It seems to be the mean with regard to wealth ; for the liberal man is praised not in respect of military matters, nor of those in respect of which the temrate man is praised, nor of j udicial decisions, but with regard to the giving and taking of wealth, and especially in respect of giving . Now by wealth we mean all the things whose value is measured by money . Further, prodigality and meanness are excesses and defects with regard to wealth ; and meanness we always impute to those who care more than they ought for wealth, but we some- times apply the word prodigality in a complex sense ; for we call those men prodigals who are incontinent and spend money on self - indulgence .Hence also they are thought the poorest charac- ters ; for they combine more vices than one .Therefore the appli- 尼各马科伦理学 2 cation of the word to them is not its proper use ; for a prodigal means a man who has a single evil quality, that of wasting his substance ; since a prodigal is one who is being ruined by his own fault, and the wasting of substance is thought to be a sort of rui- ning of oneself, life being held to depend on possession of sub- stance . This, then, is the sense in which we take the wordprodigali- ty.Now the things that have a use may be used either well or badly ; and riches is a useful thing ; and everything is used best by the man who has the virtue concerned with it ; riches, therefore, will be used best by the man who has the virtue concerned with wealth ; and this is the liberal man . Now spending and giving seem to be the using of wealth ; taking