Aristotle and Nietzsche

I've been inspired, I just emailed this to a professor to see what his take is and i realized I should preserve it on my blog so I can update it with further ideas for everyone's edification. (I mean my own edification)

what do you think about Aristotle's portrayal of the great souled person in relation to Nietzsche's idea of the noble man who self-posits his own worth?

Aristotle makes the case that the true man of great soul engages in excellence and treats people justly, has moderation, shuns honors that are inappropriate etc. and because of this he is seen as arrogant. N.E>1124a20 "Power and wealth are desirable because of the honor they bring, or at any rate people who have them wish to be the recipient of honor through them; and the person to whom even honor is of small consequence (i.e. the grate souled) will treat the other things like that too. This is why great souled people seem to be arrogant."

Following Aristotle's argument so far, the life of action aiming at happiness, is essentially self-positing; the great souled man enjoys this excellence and thus flourishes ( eudaimon). Whether or not he agrees with Aristotle’s particular definitions of what the means that produce excellence are etc. Nietzsche's critique of value judgments originates in the idea that nobility and goodness are essentially self posited-- "a knightly-aristocratic value judgments presupposed a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general all that involves vigorous free, joyful activity." (genealogy of morals,7) For Nietzsche "the good" did not originate with those to whom goodness was shown, but in the good themselves in opposition to the common and plebian. In any case, it occurred to me that Aristotle’s comment about the great of soul being considered arrogant, reminded me of the earlier part where he said that those who are rash will always call the moderate deficient.

Summarizing the argument in Genealogy of Morals, I think Aristotle would agree with Nietzsche. The idea that ressentiment is an attempt to devalue that which one really knows to be valuable, In this case excellence, seems to me to correspond to the pitiable herd value judgments which seek to defend their deficiencies and excesses by trying to say that passion is so strong that seeking pleasure is almost involuntary etc..

Again they most likely wouldn't agree about the particulars, but Aristotle does see the plebian and common type bereft of excellence as pitiable. It seems to me that Nietzsche’s main thrust here is that the slave revolt in morality, angry with it's pathologies and lack of excellence, devalues nobility of spirit and creates new values in contradistinction to them. I quote here: "The wellborn felt themselves to be happy; they did not have to establish their happiness artificially by examining their enemies, or to persuade themselves, deceive themselves, that they were happy ( as all men of ressentiment are in the habit of doing); and they likewise knew, as rounded men replete with energy and therefore necessarily active, that happiness should not be sundered from action—being active was with them necessarily a part of happiness (whence euprattein takes its origin)—all very much the opposite of ‘happiness’ at the level of the impotent, the oppressed, and those in whom poisonous and inimical feeling are festering, with whom it appears as essentially narcotic, drug, rest , peace, ‘Sabbath’, slackening of tension and relaxing of limbs, in short passively.” Genealogy, 10

I think that as much as Nietzsche hates socrates and plato, what he’s hitting upon is important because this distincion is the same one that socrates puts in the symposium. The good life, begetting beautiful ideas – the life of the philosopher, is essentially active. While that of the dionysian symposium is passive. In other words, Alcibiades’ criticism of socrates almost edges on ressentiment. Socrates shuns his beauty because of his excellence, and Alcibiades calls him arrogant, deceptive, etc. But shows that he acknowleges the value of his excellence—i.e. Socrates as a satyr statue with figures of the gods inside.
The active life always is at odds with the political situation because the masses, consideing good to be passion and assuagement of it in ephemeral and indulgent ways—hate to be made aware of spiritual superiorty. For them, happiness, and I think aristotle would agree, is a narcotic kind of passive “fill ones self up’ with things to make one’s self feel good.