Paradox

EUBULIDES AND THE POLITICS OF THE LIAR 97with this flexibility, Aristotle’s theory of virtue is vulnerableto a sorites argument. Suppose that in the case of Aristotlehimself, a donation of one hundred drachmas to war widowswould be generous. Donating ninety-nine drachmas wouldstill be generous. A one drachma difference cannot make thecrucial difference between a generous and nongenerous donation.Repeated applications of the principle leads to theconclusion that Aristotle would be generous if he donated asingle drachma.Aristotle frequently says that we should demand only asmuch precision as the subject matter allows. For instance,many factors of commerce depend on convention and fluctuatingconditions. So a commentator on the economy mustspeak roughly and in outline rather than with the precisionof mathematics or science. If Aristotle took these limitationsabout subject matter to be limits about the correspondingconcepts, then he might have rejected Eubulides’ challengeto draw the line between generous and nongenerous donations.That is, he might have insisted there is a certainlooseness in the concept of generosity that makes it illegitimateto ask which amount is the minimum generous donation.He might even have denied that there is any fact to bediscovered. Textual evidence suggests that Aristotle demandsprecision from ethical concepts:Similarly, too, we must state what quantity of moneywhich he desires makes a man avaricious and what qualityof pleasures which he desires makes a man incontinent . . .And similarly, in all cases of this kind; for the omission ofany differentia whatever involves a failure to state theessence.(Aristotle’s, Topics 146 b)