Aristotle's analyses of the virtues and vices regarding material goods

  Critically discuss Aristotle's analyses of the virtues and vices regarding material goods. Exposition (about 4-5 pages): (a) How does A. define a ‘moral virtue’/ ‘virtue of character’? (b) According to A., what is generosity? How does its scope differ from that of the contemporary virtue of generosity or charity? How does A. use his doctrine of the mean to articulate the virtue and two vices in giving or spending and taking or making money/material goods? According to A., what is stinginess? extravagance? (Note there may be more than one type of one or both of these vices). Does the generous person perform generous acts for their own sakes? (c) Why will the generous person enjoy giving? (Be sure to reconstruct A’s argument fully for the conclusion that exercise of moral virtues is pleasant.) (d) According to A., the generous person “will give to the right people, the right amount, at the right time” (N.E., IV.1. 1120a25) and “will take the right amounts from the right sources” (N.E., IV. 1. 1120b30). What is the right amount to give? What is the general category of right people to whom one should give? Which of A.’s six character profiles (Bk VII) do you believe he would include under this more general category? Give A.’s examples of the types of right people and of wrong people to spend on or give money. Which criteria about whom and how to help do A.’s examples suggest? (E.g., does A. consider the recipient’s desert or the donation’s effectiveness?) What are some of the wrong and right sources from which to acquire money? (e) How does A. argue that stinginess is worse than extravagance? Do acts of generosity tend to have good consequences for others? (f) Some people will be neither virtuous nor vicious regarding money. How would A. explain the psychological profiles of the morally weak/incontinent and the morally strong/continent with respect to money (Book VII)? (g) How do magnificence, vulgarity, and miserliness differ from generosity, extravagance, and stinginess? Is the difference only one of scale? Does one learn anything important about generosity and its vices from IV, 2 that was not in IV, 1?