Book IV Summary and Analysis

Aristotle continues to describe the specific virtues of character, their scope, and their excesses and deficiencies. He next turns to the virtue of generosity, which is related to money and valuable things. The excess of generosity is wastefulness, Aristotle explains, and its deficiency he calls ungenerosity.

The truly generous person gives to the "right people at the right time and in the proper amounts, and does so with pleasure." Generosity also has a component of taking, and the generous person does not take from the wrong kind of wealth. He acquires his wealth from the proper sources, and only so that he might then give it again. Aristotle is careful to add that the raw amount that a person gives does not make him generous. It is to be measured in relation to how much he is able to...