What the Virtuous Person Despises and is Superior to

Abstract

The article is devoted to Aristotle’s description of the virtuous person (Great-minded) longing to superiority and despising. The issue is about the superiority in the act (action) which is expressed in leading of the origin of the act up to oneself, to the ruling part of the soul, that is about the superiority of being the moral subject. The main Aristotle’s task is to find out how to confer benefits and not to receive them (that is how to act by oneself) which is a question of being oneself. The unity of Aristotle’s ethics and metaphysics is seen in conceptual unity of δύναμις and ἐνέργεια (both of which are in metaphysics and ethics) with ἕξις and πρᾶξις (the disposition and the act). In metaphysics ἐνέργεια (the actual being) is described as immanence of an aim and being acting one in the act, but in ethics the act is described in the same way. Two leadings up (ἀνάγω): of the origin (ἀρχή) to oneself and of the potency to actuality show an absolute superiority of a person as the moral subject. Leading of ἀρχή (as a sovereignty, not as a cause) up to oneself (aligned with the “cognize yourself”) explodes and denies cause-and-effect relations of the empirical world and creates the a possibility of the self-sufficient act as being the virtuous person. He is a despising one on his own right based on his genuine superiority: his contempt is not an estimation but something like a gesture removing any obstacle to being oneself (that is the absolute origin of the act), excluding any causation besides oneself (because of which Great-minded’s speech is free). Aristotle creates an entire image which personalizes idea of the moral subject and answers a question on human being.