What Does Aristotle's Moral Exemplar Feel Contempt For?

Abstract

One of the most striking and controversial features of Aristotle's moral exemplar, the megalopsychos, is his tendency to be contemptuous. Not surprisingly, modern scholarship has found this attribute of the megalopsychos particularly unappealing. This article probes the question about the targets of the contempt of the Aristotelian megalopsychos and explores the forms that this contempt might take. I argue that the primary targets of the megalopsychos are people who claim superiority on the wrong grounds (their external prosperity and social status). The megalopsychos, who prioritizes virtue over external goods as a criterion of individual worth (axia), rejects the self-image these people claim for themselves and refuses to grant them the appraisal respect they are accustomed to receiving, and think they deserve.

The virtue of megalopsychia (Eth. Nic. 4.3; Eth. Eud. 3.5), commonly translated as “magnanimity,” “greatness of soul,” or “proper pride” is widely acknowledged to be the most controversial among the virtues of character articulated by Aristotle. The megalopsychos, according to Aristotle's definition, is one who “considers himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them” (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1123b1-2), and what makes the megalopsychos worthy of great things is his complete virtue or excellence of character (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124a4, 7–8). As Broadie (1991, p. 52) aptly put it, the virtue of megalopsychia is “the good man's sense of the incomparable worth of his goodness.” Aristotle himself describes megalopsychia as a sort of “crown” or “ornament” (kosmos) to the rest of the virtues (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124a1-2), yet modern Aristotelian scholarship has found this virtue particularly unappealing: the spirit of Aristotle's megalopsychos has been described as “intolerable” (Stewart, 1892, p. i.335), “appalling” (MacIntyre, 2002, p. 76), and priggish (quoted by Hardie, 1968, p. 119). ¹ This is largely due to the contemptuous attitude that Aristotle's moral exemplar is thought to demonstrate. The characteristic of contempt to demote its target and treat it as being of comparatively low status sits uneasily with modern egalitarian sentiments and the belief in the fundamental moral equality of all persons. Despite the philosophical distinction (Bell, 2013, p. 100) between moral status and moral standing (the former admitting of degrees, the latter not), the idea that a morally good person can find others morally inferior and despise them on this account sounds particularly unsavory to the modern ear. ²

A common scholarly assumption about the megalopsychos is that he despises all nonmegalopsychoi, that is, all people who are not moral exemplars like himself (Bell, 2013, p. 140). This statement, however, is too sweeping and potentially misleading. First, Aristotle does not actually specify who the objects of the megalopsychos’ contempt are. More importantly, Aristotle allows for gradations in the case of non-fully virtuous people, so the group of nonmegalopsychoi necessarily comprises disparate kinds of individuals of varying degrees of moral worth or moral baseness. To give a few examples, Aristotle distinguishes between irreparably bad people, “continent” people who have not aligned their desires with what is noble but nonetheless do the right thing after a process of moral struggle, as well as people who do the right thing out of fear or shame (the latter being superior to the former). ³ The group of nonmegalopsychoi would also include young people, who are still in the process of moral development, as well as, we might speculate, mature people who strike the mean in their emotions and actions most of the time, but who have not yet reached the point of being paragons of virtue. ⁴ These gradations of virtue, then, raise the question of whether the megalopsychos is at all sensitive to these differences, or whether we are meant to assume that he feels the same kind of justified contempt for all non-virtuous states. This article has a twofold aim: first, to probe the question about the targets of the contempt of the Aristotelian megalopsychos and, second, to explore the forms that this contempt might take.

Objects of Contempt: Things

We may safely assert that the megalopsychos feels contempt for certain things. As Aristotle says, the megalopsychos cares about a few things only, and his preferences are not shaped by what other people see as important or great. In particular, the megalopsychos assigns little or no value to things that most people deem valuable such as wealth, power, and good luck. He only cares about honor and only moderately (Eth. Eud. 3.5.1232a38-1232b12; Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124a12-20). The implication of this is that the megalopsychos adopts quite a unique stance when it comes to the pursuit of generally desirable goods, the goods that Aristotle calls “common objects of competition” among ordinary men (perimachēta agatha, Eth. Eud. 8.3.1248b27-29; Eth. Nic. 9.8.1169a20-21). Not only does the megalopsychos not pursue these prized goods himself, but he is also not at all impressed (as ordinary people tend to be) when he encounters other people who possess them. It is this tendency of the megalopsychos to think little of such positional goods, Aristotle says, that creates a strange aura around this character and makes him appear disdainful (hyperoptēs, Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124a20). Thus, some scholars argue, the megalopsychos feels contempt for things rather than people (Pakaluk, 2004, pp. 244–245), and his apparently contemptuous attitude is only the impression he creates in ordinary people as a result of his detachment from popular objects of pursuit such as wealth and power.

As Bell (2013, pp. 59–60) rightly remarks, however, contempt applies primarily to people and is used only by extension with reference to things. Given this characteristic of contempt, therefore, it is important to explore further whether the megalopsychos does feel contempt for people, as well as things, and try to pin down with greater clarity some categories of people for whom there is sufficient evidence to suggest that they do form the targets of this contempt.

Objects of Contempt: People

One category of people that immediately attracts attention is the people with whom Aristotle explicitly contrasts the megalopsychos, namely wealthy, fortunate, and powerful people:

Good fortune (ta eutychēmata) is thought to contribute to greatness of soul. For the well born and powerful and wealthy people are considered worthy of honour (timē); for they are in a position of superiority (hyperochē), and whatever is superior with respect to some good is more worthy of honour. This is why such things make people more great-souled; they are honoured by some people. In truth, however, only the good person (agathos) is to be honoured; but the person who has both is considered more worthy of honour. They, on the other hand, who possess such goods without virtue (aretē) are neither justified (dikaiōs) in considering themselves worthy of great things nor are they correctly (orthōs) called great-souled; for that is impossible without complete virtue. People who possess this kind of goods are among those who become arrogant (hyperoptēs) and insolent (hybristēs). For without virtue it is not easy to handle good fortune (ta eutychēmata) properly. And since they are not able to handle their good fortune and think that they are superior (hyperechein) to others, they look down on (kataphronein) other people, and they themselves do whatever they please. Without being like the great-souled person, they imitate him where they can; they therefore do not act virtuously and look down on (kataphronein) other people. For the great-souled person is justified (dikaiōs) to look down (for his beliefs are true), but most people do so arbitrarily. ⁵ (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124a20-1124b6)

Prosperous people, Aristotle says, attract honor and admiration on account of their prosperity and as a result tend to think highly of themselves. In this, they resemble the megalopsychos, yet the good opinion they have of themselves is neither correct nor justified. In fact, this is a group of people that the megalopsychos has good reasons to find contemptible. First, they adhere to a value system that is fundamentally misguided. These people place too much value on external goods, the very goods that the megalopsychos thinks little of, and base their claims to honor and worth on their social success. Instead of striving to develop their excellence of character, these people remain preoccupied with the pursuit of external prosperity. According to Aristotle, however, (and, of course, the megalopsychos himself) the “true” criterion of worth (axia), and the proper and legitimate ground for thinking highly of oneself, is goodness or moral virtue. To put it simply, these people have got their life priorities wrong. Second, people who pride themselves on their wealth, power, and social success reveal a mistaken conception about the role of luck in human affairs. They lose sight of the fact that the goods that they value so much are goods of fortune, and therefore largely outside their control, and (mis)attribute their achievements to their efforts and merit alone. Third, and as a result of that, they develop an inflated view about themselves and their worth, and become arrogant and hybristic. ⁶ They overvalue themselves and treat ordinary people with contempt, thinking that they are unconditionally better and that their claims are superior to the claims of others. ⁷

It is precisely towards such people that the megalopsychos, as Aristotle puts it, presents himself as “haughty” or “great”:

It is characteristic of the great-souled person … to be haughty (megas) towards people of prominence (axiōma) and good fortune (eutychia), but moderate (metrios) towards ordinary people (mesos); for to be superior (hyperechein) to the former is difficult and dignified (semnon), but it is easy to be superior to the latter, and it is not ignoble to behave proudly (semnynesthai) towards the former group, but it is vulgar to do so among the humble, as it is to use one's strength against the weak. (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124b17-23)

The megalopsychos, then, adjusts his behavior depending on the kind of people he interacts with. Towards ordinary people, who are not pretentious about their circumstances, he is modest and self-deprecating and avoids an overbearing attitude. ⁸ Towards prominent and prosperous people, however, who are liable to the moral failings outlined above, he maintains his superiority, not out of petty competitiveness or a desire to show off, but because of his firm belief in the superior value of the value system that he endorses. ⁹

Based on the attitude of the megalopsychos towards ordinary people, it has been argued (Irwin, 1999, pp. 221–222) that the megalopsychos may recognize his comparative merit without, however, despising others or treating them with contempt on this account. In other words, there is a distinction drawn between the belief of the megalopsychos in his moral superiority and the outward manifestation of that belief. This scenario gains some support from Aristotle's definition of “slight” or “belittling” (oligōria), the generic term of which contempt (kataphronēsis) is a species. Aristotle defines oligōria as “an actualization (energeia) of opinion (doxa) about what seems worthless or of no account.” The megalopsychos can thus be said to hold an opinion about his superior merit or the low merit of others without giving actual expression to this opinion in his interactions with them. ¹⁰ Yet, Aristotle's remarks about the attitude of the megalopsychos towards prosperous and self-satisfied people that we examined above do not suggest that the megalopsychos restricts himself merely to the level of belief or an internal evaluative judgment. Rather, he seems to respond to these people's misguided and overbearing behavior, and his response demonstrates certain characteristic features of contempt as outlined, for example, by Macalester Bell (2013, pp. 37–43).

To begin with, the response of the megalopsychos is a holistic one, in that it takes whole persons as its object. What the megalopsychos responds to is not a particular action on the part of the powerful and prosperous, but the general character of those people and their outlook to life. His attitude is not a response to their wrongdoing but to their badbeing, it is a negative appraisal of the kind of people they are. His attitude also involves a reflexive and comparative element, in that the megalopsychos compares himself with these people and places them on a lower moral level as they fail to meet the standard that the megalopsychos endorses, namely his firm belief in the priority of virtue over external goods and the idea that virtue is the proper criterion of worth. ¹¹

A similar picture emerges from Aristotle's brief reference to contempt in his discussion of the emotion of emulation. ¹² According to Aristotle:

Contempt (kataphronēsis) is the opposite of emulation (zēlos) and to emulate is the opposite of to feel contempt for (kataphronein). Necessarily, those in a situation to emulate others, or to be emulated, are contemptuous of those (and for these reasons) who have the evils which are the opposites of the goods that are worthy of emulation. This is why people are often contemptuous (kataphronein) of those who are fortunate (hoi eutychountes), whenever the latter have good fortune without the goods that are really valued (ta entima agatha). (Rh. 2.11.1388b22-28)

Aristotle specifies two objects of contempt in this passage. First, a generic group of people who have the negative attributes that are the opposites of the positive attributes that are worth emulating. Second, a more specific group, the familiar one of fortunate and prosperous people, when their good luck is not accompanied with the “things” or “goods” that are really valued. To grasp the grounds of contempt towards these groups, therefore, we need to know which things, or goods, or attributes are valued and worth emulating.

Aristotle has provided a brief account of these “valued goods” in the immediately preceding lines:

But if valued goods (ta entima agatha) are the objects of emulation, necessarily the virtues are such a thing [i.e., an object of emulation], and all things that are useful and beneficial to others (for people honour benefactors and good people), and also those good things which are a source of enjoyment for our neighbours, for example, wealth and beauty more than health. And it is also clear who are the kind of people who are emulated; for those who possess these things and other things similar to them are objects of emulation. These things are the aforementioned ones, for example, courage, wisdom, public office (for those who hold offices can benefit many people), generals, politicians, and all those who have this kind of power. (Rh. 2.11.1388b10-18)

The things or attributes that Aristotle classifies as “valued goods” can be divided into two broad categories. The first category comprises the virtues of character and intellect in general, and Aristotle offers courage and wisdom as examples. The second category is more varied and comprises personal qualities and attributes such as beauty, and external goods like wealth, but also social roles and positions, such as being a magistrate or a general. The common feature that unites the “goods” in this category, according to Aristotle, is their other-regarding capacity, the fact that they enable their possessor to become useful and beneficial to others. ¹³ This feature, of course, is also characteristic of the virtues of character (the first category), since the capacity to do good forms part of the very definition of virtue. ¹⁴

On the basis of these observations, therefore, it emerges that contempt is, or should be, directed toward two groups of people. The first one comprises people who lack the virtues altogether or have the opposite of the virtues, that is, people who are bad or vicious and positively harmful to others. The second group deserves a closer look. Since Aristotle emphasizes the other-regarding capacity of things such as wealth and social roles and positions, it seems unlikely that he means to suggest that contempt is directed to anyone who lacks such roles and positions (e.g., poor people of low social status who are unable to rise to the highest offices). Rather, his point must be that legitimate contempt is directed to those who do hold such roles and positions, and therefore have the capacity to benefit others, but fail to do so, because they enjoy the privileges that their position provides without actualizing the position's other-benefiting potential. To put it differently, contempt is directed towards people who hold positions that command recognition respect, but prove themselves unworthy of appraisal respect as office-holders because they fail to perform the duties and obligations that their positions entail in such a way as to benefit others. ¹⁵

This interpretation is reinforced by Aristotle's remarks in his analysis of the various forms of constitutions in the Politics. In the context of his discussion of monarchy and tyranny, Aristotle makes the point that citizens attack and subvert monarchies on account of the contempt (kataphronēsis/kataphronein) they feel towards the monarch or tyrant (Pol. 5.10.1311a25-26). ¹⁶ As Aristotle explains, what makes the tyrants contemptible (eukataphronētos) in the eyes of their subjects, and therefore potential targets of attack, is their soft and debauched lifestyle characterized by heavy drinking, sloth, luxury, and indulgence of their appetites (Pol. 5.10.1311b40-1312a14, 1312b20-25; 5.11.1314b34-36); in a word, tyrants are deemed contemptible on account of their vices. Because they are not good rulers (i.e., they do not perform their role as they should, they are not worthy of appraisal respect in their role), subjects attack and remove them from power. ¹⁷ This is why, Aristotle says, if a tyrant wants to appear dignified (semnos), instead of contemptible, and secure the respect (aidōs) of his subjects, he must cultivate military virtue at the very least (if not the rest of the virtues as well), and create for himself the reputation of a great military man (Pol. 5.11.1314b18-23; cf. 5.12.1315b16-17). Receiving respect, therefore, is the opposite of being the object of contempt, and requires possessing some (at least) of the virtues of character and acting in a manner congruent with the requirements and obligations that one's position and role entail.

We are now in a position to summarize our findings concerning the objects of contempt when it comes to people. Aristotle's remarks suggest that one appropriate target of contempt is morally bad people who tend to be positively harmful to others. Yet, both in his discussion of megalopsychia and in his discussion of emulation Aristotle seems to be more interested in a different group as the target of contempt in general, and of the legitimate contempt of the megalopsychos in particular. This is the group of prosperous and powerful people who: (1) place too much value on external possessions and fail to recognize that the true criterion of worth is moral virtue; (2) exact respect from others on the wrong grounds and even actively depreciate or dishonor others on the same wrong grounds; ¹⁸ (3) fail to grasp the real value of external goods such as wealth and power, which is their capacity to be used by the agent in ways that benefit others. ¹⁹ With regard to this last failure, we may even distinguish between two potentially contemptible attitudes. One is manifested by those who take advantage of their external prosperity to gain easier access to positions of authority and power, and then use these positions for further self-aggrandizement, rather than for benefitting others as these positions require. The other is manifested by those who keep their external prosperity all to themselves and enjoy it selfishly staying away from social life and eschewing their social obligations. According to Aristotle, however, it is precisely people of status and social prominence who have a responsibility to use their abundant resources and engage in other-benefitting projects that promote the common good. This is, in fact, the scope of “magnificence” (megaloprepeia), the virtue pertaining to large-scale public benefactions, a virtue most appropriate or fitting (prepein) to people of wealth, reputation, and nobility of birth (Eth. Nic. 4.2.1122b29-33). ²⁰

The Forms of Contempt

So much for the targets of contempt. ²¹ Let us now turn to the forms that this contempt may take. According to emotion theorists, contempt motivates psychological and/or spatial withdrawal: people who feel and show contempt express their non-identification with the object of contempt and disengage themselves from it (Bell, 2013, pp. 44–45, 53–54). In Western culture, for example, characteristic expressions of withdrawal may take the form of turning one's back to the object of contempt or refusing to shake hands and further associate with them.

One obvious way for the megalopsychos to express contempt towards certain individuals is to refuse to include them in his select group of close friends. According to Aristotle, the happy or flourishing life (eudaimonia) of a virtuous person requires friends, in particular virtuous friends to spend time with (Eth. Nic. 9.9.1170b18-19). The megalopsychos is certainly not the kind of person who will easily compromise his principles in order to ingratiate himself with others (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124b31-1125a2), but at the same time, he is not as self-willed as to think that he can live his life entirely independent of other people. ²² The megalopsychos is well aware of the positive role of friendship in the good life and will choose to have friends. Virtuous friends, however, cannot be many in number (Eth. Nic. 9.10.1171a17-20), so the megalopsychos will necessarily be selective in his friendships and associate closely only with a limited number of virtuous individuals like himself. ²³ An expression of contempt on the part of the megalopsychos may therefore be to convey to another person, through verbal or non-verbal cues, that they are deemed unworthy to join this select group of virtuous friends (active contempt), or simply to fail to notice that person or consider them as a potential friend (passive contempt). ²⁴

What is more interesting, however, is to explore the ways in which the megalopsychos can express contempt in the wider sphere of everyday social interaction with strangers and acquaintances. For this, we should turn to the virtue usually referred to in English as “friendliness,” one of the three virtues that Aristotle defines specifically in terms of their social character. ²⁵ According to Aristotle, friendliness is located “in associations with others and in living together (syzēn) and participating in discussions and actions” (Eth. Nic. 4.6.1126b11-12), so the domain of friendliness is the sphere of social life and social interaction. Friendliness differs from friendship (philia) proper in that it requires no fondness or liking for the other person, no (pre)existing attachment or closeness; it can be manifested towards all people, strangers, and acquaintances alike, and requires no special affection (stergein) towards particular people as opposed to others (Eth. Nic. 4.6.1126b22-23). When meeting and interacting with others in a social setting, Aristotle says, the friendly person associates with them in the right way: he accepts and rejects the right things and in the right way, and he aims at pleasing others, or, at least, not causing them pain (Eth. Nic. 4.6.1126b11-19, 28–31). To grasp the scope of friendliness, therefore, we need to ascertain what it is exactly that the friendly person “accepts” and “rejects,” as Aristotle puts it, in the context of an interaction.

Goffman's (1967) notions of line and face are especially useful in this respect. A line is defined as “a pattern of verbal and nonverbal acts by which [an interactant] expresses his view of the situation and through this his evaluation of the participants, especially himself” (p. 5). Face, on the other hand, is “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (p. 5). A person may be said to have or maintain face “when the line he effectively takes presents an image of him that is internally consistent [and] supported by judgments and evidence conveyed by other participants…” (p. 6). ²⁶ According to Goffman, human interaction is based on a tacit agreement between participants in a social encounter that each participant will, in principle, respect the face and projected image of the other participants (as well as his own), otherwise, participants will lose face and the interaction will become dysfunctional. This means, Goffman says, “that the line taken by each participant is usually allowed to prevail, and each participant is allowed to carry off the role he appears to have chosen for himself” (p. 11). ²⁷ This tacit agreement and cooperation between interactants, however, is not unconditional. To take effect, each participant must take into account what others are willing to accept. ²⁸

It is a theory of interaction along these lines, I suggest, that Aristotle articulates in his analysis of friendliness. What friendliness disposes the megalopsychos (who possesses all the virtues) to “accept” and “reject” in the right way is (in Goffman's terms) another person's line and the face they project in social encounters. The megalopsychos is willing, as a rule, to go along with, and offer real or working acceptance of, his interactant's line. He is, in other words, prepared to please people, by responding with approval to their actions and words, and seeks not to offend them or give them pain by challenging their line and posing a threat to their face. ²⁹ But, he is prepared to act in this way up to the point when continuing to do so begins to pose a threat to his face or to compromise his respectability and self-respect. In such cases, the megalopsychos is equally prepared to react and object. He is prepared to reject a person's line (and cause them pain) if accepting it would require him to sacrifice his own dignity or to make a painful concession to the principles he holds most dear.

Contempt is one of the forms this rejection can take. As Bell (2013, pp. 157–158) notes, “disengaging from a person who has failed to meet certain basic standards that are especially important to the contemnor can allow her [the contemnor] to maintain her self-esteem.” This is precisely the point that Aristotle makes with his remark that the friendly person is mindful not to cause pain to others while at the same time considering also what is fine or honorable (kalon, Eth. Nic. 4.6.1126b28-30). Suppose, for example, that the megalopsychos encounters a wealthy and powerful person who takes pride in their social condition, considers it only natural that they will be an object of admiration, and even attempts to exact respect from others on account of their external prosperity. ³⁰ The megalopsychos, for the moral reasons outlined earlier, will feel contempt for this person and refuse to accept their line, as he would normally do with people of a different kind. He may break off the interaction altogether and make it clear that he wants no further association with that person. Alternatively, the megalopsychos will express his objection by refusing to pay even lip service to the line that the wealthy person takes, because this line goes against his most fundamental principles and would be beneath his dignity to accept. He will, therefore, refuse to approve or corroborate the wealthy person's idea of themselves, the values they hold, and the image they project. In other words, the megalopsychos denies that person any sign of appraisal respect and withholds any token of approval, praise, or admiration they expect to receive on account of their favorable social condition. In this way, the megalopsychos refuses to acknowledge that person's success in the social game and signals to them that (according to his standards) their adherence to a value system of this kind places them at a lower moral level. ³¹

Socratic Contempt

To illustrate this form of behavior it is useful to consider the concrete example of an individual who is often taken to be the model of Aristotle's megalopsychos, namely Socrates (Pakaluk, 2004, pp. 243–244; Rees, 1971, p. 242). In Plato's Symposium, Alcibiades, the paradigmatic example of a prosperous, powerful, and conceited young man, says in his encomium of Socrates:

What you see is a Socrates who is liable to fall in love with beautiful young men, is always in their company and is greatly taken by them … Believe me, he is not a bit interested in whether someone is good-looking, and in fact he despises (kataphronein) good looks more than you would ever imagine. The same is true of wealth and every other mark of distinction (timē) that most people regard as a matter for congratulation. He considers that all these attributes are worthless and that we ourselves—I mean it—are of no account (ouden). ³² (Symp. 216d2-e4)

Socrates is well known for his dismissive attitude towards external goods and his firm belief in the priority of virtue for happiness, an outlook he expressed through his own lifestyle. In the same speech, Alcibiades describes how Socrates used to wear a light, shabby cloak and to walk barefoot even in extreme cold (Symp. 220a6-c1), and similarly, Plato's Apology presents Socrates as caring little for positional goods such as wealth, power, and public offices (Ap. 30a7-b4, 36b4-9). At the same time, according to Alcibiades, Socrates’ contempt for these goods is not restricted to how he himself relates to them, but also extends to his behavior towards the young men who possess them and think highly of themselves for possessing them. ³³ The gist of Alcibiades’ words is that it was Socrates’ conviction that these men were of no particular worth (axia) simply because they possessed conventionally admirable goods and that their external prosperity gave them no additional or special claim to respect. He thus typically refused to go along with the idea that Alcibiades and his likes had of themselves and denied them the appraisal respect they were accustomed to receiving and thought they deserved. To return to Goffman and Aristotle, in his interactions with these wealthy young men, Socrates refused to “accept” their words and actions (their line) and presented himself as a constant threat to the face they projected, and as a source of pain for them on this account. Indeed, Alcibiades repeatedly describes his interactions with Socrates as a source of emotional pain for himself on account of the blows Socrates delivers to his cherished self-image. ³⁴

Now, Socrates is also well known as the “gadfly” (Ap. 30e) who actively sought to engage in conversations with people, questioning his interlocutors, exposing their moral weaknesses, and inviting them to care for their soul, mend their ways, and strive to improve. This kind of engagement with others may seem incompatible with contempt, which is associated with disengagement and the desire to withdraw from the target of contempt. Socrates, in other words, may be said to engage in the kind of “firm but respectful confrontation” that theorists who question the moral value of contempt propose as an alternative response to vice (cf. Bell, 2013, p. 169; Hill, 2000, p. 92). Yet, this is not how Alcibiades himself interprets Socrates’ behavior towards him and his friends. As Alcibiades’ remarks suggest, Socrates’ interlocutors interpret his withholding of appraisal respect as an expression of contempt on Socrates’ part. In this respect, the perspective of Alcibiades is consistent with Aristotle's remark (Rh. 2.2.1378b35-1379a4) that people who consider themselves worthy of appraisal respect on certain grounds also expect to receive this respect and, if they do not, they interpret this denial as a “slight” (oligōria), an act of belittlement or contempt towards them. According to Alcibiades at least, the fact that one continues to associate and engage with others does not exclude the possibility of contempt. Rather, Alcibiades seems to understand contempt primarily in terms of a refusal to satisfy another person's positive face wants, which includes showing approval not only for the image they project, but also for the things they value and take pride in. As Brown and Levinson (1987, pp. 62–63) rightly stress, positive face (the desire that one's self-image be appreciated) entails also the want to have one's goals, possessions, and achievements approved of and thought of as desirable, a point grasped already by Aristotle in his rich account of the various “slights” that evoke the emotion of anger (orgē):

And people grow angry towards those who speak badly of, and show contempt for (kataphronein), the things which they themselves take most seriously (spoudazein), for example, those who take pride in philosophy grow angry if someone speaks badly of philosophy, and those who take pride in their appearance if someone speaks badly of their appearance, and similarly in other cases. (Rh. 2.2.1379a34-38)

The more central certain qualities, attributes, and values are to our identity and self-image, and the more proud we are of them, the more likely it is to interpret an expression of contempt towards these attributes and values as an expression of contempt toward us. Alcibiades makes this point emphatically clear in his famous narrative of his repeated, and unsuccessful, attempts to seduce Socrates:

After this exchange, and having as it were shot my arrows in his direction, I thought I had scored a hit. So without waiting for him to say anything more I got up and putting my heavy cloak around him (it was winter), lay down beside him under his own short cloak and put my arms around him, this truly superhuman and amazing man. This was how I lay all night long. Again, Socrates, you cannot deny that I am telling the truth. Yet despite all that, he completely defeated me, and despised (kataphronein) and mocked (katagelan) and insulted (hybrizein) my beauty—and in that respect I really thought I was something … I swear to you by all the gods and all the goddesses too that when I got up in the morning after spending the night with Socrates, nothing more had happened than if I had slept with my father or elder brother. (Symp. 219b3-d2, transl. Howatson and Sheffield)

Conclusion

Aristotle's discussion of megalopsychia and his scattered remarks on contempt (kataphronēsis/kataphronein) throughout his corpus allow us to form a fairly consistent view of the kind of people and attitudes that Aristotle's moral exemplar finds contemptible. Though people who lack the virtues of character, in general, emerge as an appropriate target of contempt, the focus of Aristotle's attention is more explicitly on the category of privileged and powerful individuals, the “prosperous fools” (Rh. 2.16.1391a13-14), who have a great idea of themselves and tend to exact respect from others on the basis of their favorable circumstances and external prosperity. In this, Aristotle seems to be in line with modern theorists of contempt who maintain that contempt is the most appropriate attitude to the vices of superiority, such as arrogance, haughtiness, and overweening pride (Bell, 2013). To this purpose, the virtue of “friendliness” (Eth. Nic. 4.6) gives an idea of how the contempt of the megalopsychos can be expressed in the course of social encounters. The megalopsychos, who prioritizes virtue over external goods as a criterion of worth (axia), is not willing to accept the self-image that these “prosperous fools” claim for themselves in social interaction (their face in Goffman's terms) and is prepared to reject it. In the first instance, the megalopsychos will refuse to grant such people the appraisal respect they are accustomed to receiving on account of their social condition, an attitude which they readily, and rightly, interpret as an expression of contempt on the part of the megalopsychos. Depending on the social context and the interactant (if, e.g., the interactant shows signs of potential for improvement), the megalopsychos may even engage with them and seek to bring about their moral transformation. If, however, these attempts prove futile, or if circumstances demand it, the megalopsychos is also perfectly capable of showing even more marked (and painful for their target) forms of contempt characterized by disengagement and withdrawal. As Aristotle says, it is precisely towards people who claim superiority on the wrong grounds that the megalopsychos demonstrates his own superiority and justified contempt.