fatal

Magnificence: Magnificence is a mean between
niggardliness and tastelessness/vulgarity. Like
liberality, this is also a moral concerned with wealth.
But unlike liberality, magnificence relates only to the
expenditure of wealth on a large scale. The magnificent
character is liberal, but the liberal character
is not necessarily magnificent. The magnificent character
is like an artist; they know what is appropriate
and tastefully spend large sums of wealth. If a magnificent
character commisions the construction of
a new building, then they will consider how it can
be made most beautiful rather than how it can be
produced most cheaply. Magnificence only applies
to honorable expenditures, such as votive offerings,
buildings, and sacrifices, and all those that are proper
objects of public-spirited ambition, as when characters
think they ought to entertain the city in a brilliant
way. Hence, a poor character cannot be magnificent,
since they lack the means with which to
fittingly spend large sums of wealth. Poor characters
who try to spend magnificently are fools, since
they spend beyond what can be expected of them
and what is proper. Instead, it is the right expenditure
that is moral. Regarding private occasions, the
most suitable for magnificent expenditure are those
that take place once and for all, such as a wedding
or anything that interests the whole city or the characters
of position in it, including: receiving foreign
guests and sending them on their way, and gifts and
counter-gifts. The magnificent character spends on
public objects, not on themselves. Finally, a magnificent
character furnishes their house suitably to
their wealth, since even a house is a sort of public
ornament.
NEMO.GRATUITO.BONUS.EST
No one is good for no reason.
Proper Pride: Proper pride is a mean between
undue humility and empty vanity. A character
has proper pride who thinks themselves worthy
of great things and is actually worthy. Therefore, a
character with proper pride makes great claims, but
is correct in their claims. Characters with proper
pride claim only that which is in accordance with
their merits. Since a character with proper pride
deserves the most, they must be moral in the highest
degree; the better character always deserves more,
and the best character deserves most. Therefore, a
character must be moral to have proper pride.
Proper pride, then, is the supreme moral because
possessing it makes other morals greater, and it does
not exist independent of other morals. A character
with proper pride is moderately pleased at honors
that are great and conferred by moral characters,
considering the honor to be merely appropriate.
Characters with proper pride despise honor from
casual characters given for trifling reasons, since characters
with proper pride deserve honor from great
characters given for great reasons. Therefore, characters
with proper pride also despise dishonor given
from others, since it cannot be just because characters
with proper pride deserve the best. Overall,
characters with proper pride do not value honor (the
greatest of the external goods); therefore they do
not value other characters, either. Hence, characters
with proper pride are considered disdainful because
they do not value others. Fortune is considered
a contributing factor to proper pride, because
characters who are wellborn, powerful, or wealthy
are considered worthy of honor. However, characters
who are wellborn, powerful, or wealthy usually
become disdainful and insolent because they consider
themselves superior to others, despise others,
and do as they please. A character with proper pride
despises justly since they think truly, but the many,
the masses, do not. Characters with proper pride
dislike danger because they honor few things. However,
they will face great dangers, and do not spare
their lives in great danger because they know the
conditions on which life is not worth living. A character
with proper pride confers benefits on others,
but is ashamed to receive benefits from others. To
give benefits to others is the mark of a superior,
while to receive benefits from others is the mark of
Chapter 4: Disposition
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