Leading up to his account of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses three virtues that pertain to “our associations” and “the speeches and deeds of our common relations”: friendliness (philia, lit. “friendship”), truthfulness, and wittiness (NE 1126b11–12). His account of these virtues is prepared by his treatment of the nameless characteristic pertaining to anger, which he chooses to call “gentleness” (praotēs). Generally speaking, the person who possesses this virtue becomes angry “in the circumstances and at whom he ought, and further in the manner, when, and for as much time as he ought” (NE 1125b31–2). In choosing to name the virtue “gentleness,” Aristotle associates it with its also nameless deficiency, and the gentle person in fact tends toward a deficiency of anger. The gentle person, who “wishes to be calm and led not by passion but as reason would command,” is more disposed to forgive than, as is more common, to seek revenge and punishment (NE 1125b33–1126a4, 1126a30). Indeed, this disposition toward forgiveness sometimes makes the gentle human being an object of blame rather than praise: He is thought to be a fool and slavish, for he appears to endure foul abuse and to overlook his own affairs (NE 1126a4–8). Moreover, in certain circumstances, not gentleness but harshness, the excess of anger identified as most opposed to the mean, is praised: Harsh human beings “are sometimes praised as manly on the grounds that they are able to rule” (NE 1126a36–b2).