in the maid's room, a US$15,000 umbrella stand, and a US$17,000 traveling toilette box.
Ironically, Koslowski's defense insisted that he didn't “hide” anything; his self-serving appropriations of corporate resources were open for all to see. So, under his way of thinking, our categories of rational thought appear to have simply vanished: the normal distinction in both law and morality between “appropriation” and “misappropriation” has been repudiated, all in the service of the self-serving greed of the leader.
At the other end of the spectrum is the petty person that fusses over the smallest details of every financial layout. Listen to what Aristotle has to say about that: “The niggardly man…will fall short in everything, and after spending the greatest sums will spoil the beauty of the result for a trifle, and whatever he is doing he will hesitate and consider how he may spend least, and lament even that, and think he is doing everything on a bigger scale than he ought.”82 In the course of steering clear of the excesses of vulgarity and pettiness, you could be magnificent by allocating some of your wealth to the development of public goods, for instance by building a library, being a patron of the arts, or adding a new wing to a hospital. Consider the case of Bill Gates. His foundation contributed US$4.2 billion for ameliorating disease throughout the developing world.
It is interesting to note that, given the choice between, say, stretching beyond financial means to outfit one's residence with fancy, new-fangled gizmos and keeping to a budget with understated, more durable alternatives, a magnificent person goes for the second of these. “A magnificent man will…furnish his house suitably to his wealth…and will spend by preference on those works that are lasting (for these are the most beautiful), and on every class of things he will spend what is becoming.”83 A suitable modern contrast could be drawn between the homes and lifestyles of, one the one hand, Nicholas Gage (whose gaudy foreclosed Bel Aire mansion was described by a real estate agent as a “frat house bordello”),84 and on the other, Warren Buffet (one of the world's richest persons, who still lives in the same modest home he bought for US$31,500 in 1958, yet gives thirty billion dollars to charity).85 Yet Aristotle may not have been completely adverse to what is known today as consumerism as one might suppose, given his staunch opposition to the hedonistic life. For Aristotle the bottom line is that your consumption should be balanced, that is, under the guidance of what self-perfection requires.
Aristotle advances a universal vision of the good life, wherein human fulfillment is coextensive with moral and intellectual virtue. What is particularly noteworthy about Aristotle's treatment of the intellectual virtues from the standpoint of our inquiry into the broader intellectual and cultural implications for business life, is the insight that the highest deployment of the intellect is to be found in the leadership of others and in the philosophical search for truth. To propose such a vision for the life of business sets a higher bar than conventional thinking seems to allow. To adequately grasp some sense of this extended vision necessitates adopting an unconventional mind-set toward commercial life. For that end, it is vital to find a way of seeing business as essentially connected to basic goods of human nature. We shall extend discussion of this point further in subsequent chapters. For now, let us turn our attention to the connection between virtue and character.
Character
For Aristotle, a prime concern of ethics is human character. A virtuous person reveals the combined excellence of character and reason. As the following passage illustrates, the character of a person encompasses virtues and vices along with emotions and desires.
Just and brave acts, and other virtuous acts, we do in relation to each other, observing our respective duties with regard to contracts and services and all manner of actions
And with regard to passions; and all of these seem to be typically human. Some of them seem even to arise from the body, and virtue of character to be in many ways bound up with the passions. Practical wisdom, too, is linked to virtue of character, and this to practical wisdom, since the principles of practical wisdom are in accordance with the moral virtues and rightness in morals is in accordance with practical wisdom. Being connected with the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite nature; and the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, therefore, are the life and the happiness which correspond to these.86
Thus, although having a virtue means being inclined to behave in a certain way, having a good character amounts to more than just checking off a list of worthy accomplishments. Having appropriate emotions counts too. In other words, a virtuous individual knows what doing the right thing is, and there is some emotional connection to it as well. In this way, character is fused to what a person enjoys.
We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones.87
A person having good character gets enjoyment from acting virtuously. That is, a virtuous person attains a kind of psychic harmony. Desires also come into play in the sense that a person who, for instance, has a generous character truly wants to be that way.
Aristotle states that the twin excellences of reason and character are closely linked. We cannot have one but not the other. “It is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue.”88 Since Aristotle does not explicate the precise way in which the two virtues are interdependent, scholars differ on this point. One view emphasizes practical wisdom (phron
Certainly Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is central to understanding the virtues of character.91 A virtue of character is an action-directing disposition to strike a state of equilibrium, or mean, between two extreme emotions in particular situations. For example, when faced with danger, courage is a person's disposition to attain the mean between foolhardiness and cowardice. It is not that the extremes by themselves determine the mean. Rather, the mean is determined by extremes relative to demands presented by some given situation, which includes facts concerning the person facing that situation. Additionally, it is by way of the idea of the mean that we grasp the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom because it requires a reasoned outlook on a set of circumstances to attain the mean. The concept of the mean also supplies a basis for differentiating genuine virtues from natural dispositions or emotions.
The exercise of the intellectual virtues, including practical wisdom, is not merely something of instrumental value. As components of the fulfilled human life, the intellectual virtues as well as the virtues of character are each morally significant in their own right. Because they are part and parcel of the good life, there's no difference between selecting virtuous actions for their own intrinsic worth and selecting them as a pathway to happiness. Granted, both the nonrational and rational components of the soul are motivators of virtuous action. Yet just because the reason-holding portion of the virtuous person aims at virtuous conduct because it is good, constituting part of the good life, it does not follow that it is selecting such conduct simply as a route to happiness.
It is reasonable to take Aristotle as holding that the virtues of character make up a whole, meaning that, like buying tickets for a subscription concert series, you cannot have one of them unless you have them all. So displaying the virtue of generosity involves more than just giving the proper measure to the right person at the appropriate juncture for the right reason. It would also be necessary
