Aristotle on Greatness and why that matters:

This is kind of corny, and not something that I would normally do, mostly because I like answering questions a lot more than I like posing questions and pretending to sound smart. But nonetheless I was introduced to a particularly interesting and poignant quote from Aristotle's Ethics on the difference between excellence and skill. I am writing an essay on the extent of Alexander the Great's, "Greatness."

“Again, neither do the case of skills and that of excellences resemble each other: the things that come about through agency of skills contain in themselves the mark of their being done well, so that it is enough if they turn out in a certain way, whereas the things that come about in accordance with the excellences count as done justly or moderately not merely because they themselves are of a certain kind, but also because of facts about the agent doing them—first, if he does them knowingly, secondly if he decides to do them and decides to do them because they are the things a just person would do, and thirdly if he does them from a firm and unchanging disposition. When it is a matter of having skills, these conditions are not relevant, except for knowledge itself; but when it comes to having the excellences, knowledge makes no difference, or a small one, whereas the force of the other conditions is not small but counts for everything.”
-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (1105a28-1105b4)

So this topic got me thinking, who then would fall into this category of greatness? Very few modern examples would meet any of those conditions, let alone all three. I think this issue is pertinent in that greatness is a term often thrown around. Many would describe Ronald Reagan as a great man, perhaps he meets that definition, perhaps he doesn't (I would lean towards not). Also, Robert Kennedy may serve as an example, although he has mitigating factors that I wrote an independent study on (ie is far outside the scope of this post, let alone blog). My mom suggested Burke Marshall, who I think is an excellent example (here is his obituary for those who have not heard of Burke Marshall, but go buy a biography of Robert Kennedy if you have not heard of Burke Marshall).

So that is just one opinion. Perhaps I will follow up on this post in the future. Perhaps not. You'll just have to keep coming to see...

-Mr. Alec