Virtues
Liberality
Aristotelian Virtues
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Origin 335 BCE to 322 BCE
Liberality, in Greek eleutheriotes, is the virtuous mean Aristotle names in the Nicomachean Ethics between prodigality and stinginess: giving and spending money well, in the right amount, to the right people, at the right time, for the sake of the noble rather than for reputation or out of compulsion. Aristotle distinguishes it from Magnificence, a related virtue concerning large, one-off expenditure such as funding a public festival, which this heading does not separately catalogue.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginAthens, at Aristotle's Lyceum. 1 Origin of the NameGreek eleutheriotes, from eleutheros, free; the term this atlas renders as liberality, the moral virtue of giving and spending well that Aristotle names in the Nicomachean Ethics. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerAristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerTreated by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae, Secunda Secundae, question 117, as a virtue annexed to justice, concerned with the right use of external wealth and freedom from excessive attachment to material possessions. 2Tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1 Doctrinal Status DetailAquinas relocates Aristotle's eleutheriotes within the Christian virtue scheme as a virtue annexed to justice, and treats it as subordinate to and in service of charity, since rightly used wealth in his account ultimately serves the neighbor and God rather than the giver's own honor, a different final end than Aristotle's noble self-expression. 2Tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Doctrinal Status DetailAristotle's virtue concerning the right use of wealth in giving and spending; prodigality and stinginess, or meanness, name the two vices of excess and deficiency it stands between. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceIn Aquinas's scholastic account, liberality is the virtue that governs the right use and right release of wealth, positioned as a support to justice rather than, as in Aristotle, a largely civic virtue of personal reputation and social standing. 2Tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Meaning in the Attesting SourceLiberality (eleutheriotes), the virtuous mean Aristotle names between prodigality and stinginess: giving and spending money well, in the right amount, to the right people, at the right time. 1 Disputed
Origin PeriodNamed in Book Four of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, composed at his Lyceum in Athens and generally placed in his later career, the 330s to 320s BCE. The Ethics survives through the medieval manuscript tradition rather than as an autograph, and scholars continue to debate whether it reached its present form as Aristotle's own draft or as lecture notes edited after his death, so its precise date of composition is bounded only broadly. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Liberality is also treated within the Christian scholastic scheme by Thomas Aquinas, a systematic home beside its existing Aristotelian framing on this page.
Related To
Magnanimity, Virtues Both are moral virtues from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics list catalogued under this heading.
Sincerity, Virtues Both are moral virtues from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics list catalogued under this heading.
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