The Role Of Generosity In Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle’s discussion of generosity is quite simple, yet interesting to read about. In Nicomachean Ethics he describes generosity as the mean of wealth where wastefulness and selfishness are the excess and deficiency of the mean. Aristotle argues that generosity can involve giving money to people who need it or refusing money from those who cannot afford to give it. This means that virtuous generosity involves giving or refusing money in the right way, to or from the right people, at the right time, and in the right amount. He says that a man who exhibits generosity in a virtuous way will do so pleasurably; or at the very least painlessly because virtues are meant to be pleasurable.
According to Aristotle, wastefulness and “ungenerosity”

are considered the excess and the deficiency. He claims that ungenerous, or in more common terns selfish, people are the ones who take their wealth too seriously and do nothing with their money. The wasteful person is a bit more complex; Aristotle says that wastefulness is more than just spending money on frivolous things, it involves giving more than is necessary or in the wrong way and it can simply be someone who spends his or her money in a negative or self-destructive way. This is evident as he says “for someone who causes his own destruction [lays waste’ to himself, and so] is wasteful,” (Aristotle, pg. 49).