Nicomachean Ethics

It seems that there is also a certain virtue concerned with honor, as was said in our first remarks, which would seem to stand to magnanimity in a relation similar to that in which liberality stands to magnificence. For both of these stand aloof from what is great, and dispose us as we ought to be disposed towards moderate and small things; and just as in the getting and giving of wealth there is a mean, an excess, and a deficiency, so also in the desire for honor there is a more and a less than is right, and a desire from the right sources and in the right way. For we blame both the ambitious person as aiming at honor more than is right and from wrong sources, and the unambitious person as not choosing to be honored even for noble deeds. But sometimes we praise the ambitious person as manly and a lover of what is noble, and the unambitious as moderate and self-controlled, as we also said in our first remarks. It is clear, however, that since “lover of such-and-such” is used in more than one sense, we do not always apply the term “ambitious” to the same thing, but when we praise we apply it to one who is more ambitious than most, and when we blame to one who is more so than is right. Since the mean has no name, the extremes seem to dispute for its place as if it were vacant. But where there is excess and deficiency, there is also a mean; and people desire honor both more than is right and less; therefore, they also desire it as is right. At all events, this state is praised, being an unnamed mean concerned with honor. It appears as unambitiousness when compared with ambition, and as ambition when compared with unambitiousness, and as both in a way when compared with both. This seems to be the case with the other virtues also; but in this case the extremes appear to be opposed to each other because the mean has not been named.