Why does aristotle think virtue is a mean

Rather, when he says that unequal relationships based on character are imperfect, his point is that people are friends in the fullest sense when they gladly spend their days together in shared activities, and this close and constant interaction is less available to those who are not equal in their moral development. When Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship, he introduces a notion that is central to his understanding of this phenomenon: a genuine friend is someone who loves or likes another person for the sake of that other person.

Does such good will exist in all three kinds of friendship, or is it confined to relationships based on virtue? At first, Aristotle leaves open the first of these two possibilities.

He says:. The reasons mentioned are goodness, pleasure, and advantage; and so it seems that Aristotle is leaving room for the idea that in all three kinds of friendships, even those based on advantage and pleasure alone, the individuals wish each other well for the sake of the other. But in fact, as Aristotle continues to develop his taxonomy, he does not choose to exploit this possibility. He speaks as though it is only in friendships based on character that one finds a desire to benefit the other person for the sake of the other person.

Those who wish good things to their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally. When one benefits someone not because of the kind of person he is, but only because of the advantages to oneself, then, Aristotle says, one is not a friend towards the other person, but only towards the profit that comes one's way a15— In such statements as these, Aristotle comes rather close to saying that relationships based on profit or pleasure should not be called friendships at all.

Friendships based on character are the ones in which each person benefits the other for the sake of other; and these are friendships most of all. Because each party benefits the other, it is advantageous to form such friendships. And since each enjoys the trust and companionship of the other, there is considerable pleasure in these relationships as well.

Because these perfect friendships produce advantages and pleasures for each of the parties, there is some basis for going along with common usage and calling any relationship entered into for the sake of just one of these goods a friendship. Friendships based on advantage alone or pleasure alone deserve to be called friendships because in full-fledged friendships these two properties, advantage and pleasure, are present.

It is striking that in the Ethics Aristotle never thinks of saying that the uniting factor in all friendships is the desire each friend has for the good of the other. Aristotle does not raise questions about what it is to desire good for the sake of another person. He treats this as an easily understood phenomenon, and has no doubts about its existence.

But it is also clear that he takes this motive to be compatible with a love of one's own good and a desire for one's own happiness.

Someone who has practical wisdom will recognize that he needs friends and other resources in order to exercise his virtues over a long period of time.

When he makes friends, and benefits friends he has made, he will be aware of the fact that such a relationship is good for him. And yet to have a friend is to want to benefit someone for that other person's sake; it is not a merely self-interested strategy. Aristotle sees no difficulty here, and rightly so.

For there is no reason why acts of friendship should not be undertaken partly for the good of one's friend and partly for one's own good. Acting for the sake of another does not in itself demand self-sacrifice. It requires caring about someone other than oneself, but does not demand some loss of care for oneself.

For when we know how to benefit a friend for his sake, we exercise the ethical virtues, and this is precisely what our happiness consists in. Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small IX.

Even if one lived in a city populated entirely by perfectly virtuous citizens, the number with whom one could carry on a friendship of the perfect type would be at most a handful. For he thinks that this kind of friendship can exist only when one spends a great deal of time with the other person, participating in joint activities and engaging in mutually beneficial behavior; and one cannot cooperate on these close terms with every member of the political community.

One may well ask why this kind of close friendship is necessary for happiness. If one lived in a community filled with good people, and cooperated on an occasional basis with each of them, in a spirit of good will and admiration, would that not provide sufficient scope for virtuous activity and a well-lived life?

Admittedly, close friends are often in a better position to benefit each other than are fellow citizens, who generally have little knowledge of one's individual circumstances. But this only shows that it is advantageous to be on the receiving end of a friend's help. The more important question for Aristotle is why one needs to be on the giving end of this relationship.

And obviously the answer cannot be that one needs to give in order to receive; that would turn active love for one's friend into a mere means to the benefits received.

Aristotle attempts to answer this question in IX. A virtuous person loves the recognition of himself as virtuous; to have a close friend is to possess yet another person, besides oneself, whose virtue one can recognize at extremely close quarters; and so, it must be desirable to have someone very much like oneself whose virtuous activity one can perceive.

The argument is unconvincing because it does not explain why the perception of virtuous activity in fellow citizens would not be an adequate substitute for the perception of virtue in one's friends. Aristotle would be on stronger grounds if he could show that in the absence of close friends one would be severely restricted in the kinds of virtuous activities one could undertake. But he cannot present such an argument, because he does not believe it. He refuses to regard private life—the realm of the household and the small circle of one's friends—as the best or most favorable location for the exercise of virtue.

He is convinced that the loss of this private sphere would greatly detract from a well-lived life, but he is hard put to explain why. He might have done better to focus on the benefits of being the object of a close friend's solicitude. Just as property is ill cared for when it is owned by all, and just as a child would be poorly nurtured were he to receive no special parental care—points Aristotle makes in Politics II. But Aristotle is not looking for a defense of this sort, because he conceives of friendship as lying primarily in activity rather than receptivity.

It is difficult, within his framework, to show that virtuous activity towards a friend is a uniquely important good. Since Aristotle thinks that the pursuit of one's own happiness, properly understood, requires ethically virtuous activity and will therefore be of great value not only to one's friends but to the larger political community as well, he argues that self-love is an entirely proper emotion—provided it is expressed in the love of virtue IX.

Self-love is rightly condemned when it consists in the pursuit of as large a share of external goods—particularly wealth and power—as one can acquire, because such self-love inevitably brings one into conflict with others and undermines the stability of the political community. If egoism is the thesis that one will always act rightly if one consults one's self-interest, properly understood, then nothing would be amiss in identifying him as an egoist.

But egoism is sometimes understood in a stronger sense. Just as consequentialism is the thesis that one should maximize the general good, whatever the good turns out to be, so egoism can be defined as the parallel thesis that one should maximize one's own good, whatever the good turns out to be. Egoism, in other words, can be treated as a purely formal thesis: it holds that whether the good is pleasure, or virtue, or the satisfaction of desires, one should not attempt to maximize the total amount of good in the world, but only one's own.

When egoism takes this abstract form, it is an expression of the idea that the claims of others are never worth attending to, unless in some way or other their good can be shown to serve one's own.

The only underived reason for action is self-interest; that an act helps another does not by itself provide a reason for performing it, unless some connection can be made between the good of that other and one's own. There is no reason to attribute this extreme form of egoism to Aristotle.

On the contrary, his defense of self-love makes it clear that he is not willing to defend the bare idea that one ought to love oneself alone or above others; he defends self-love only when this emotion is tied to the correct theory of where one's good lies, for it is only in this way that he can show that self-love need not be a destructive passion.

He takes it for granted that self-love is properly condemned whenever it can be shown to be harmful to the community. It is praiseworthy only if it can be shown that a self-lover will be an admirable citizen.

In making this assumption, Aristotle reveals that he thinks that the claims of other members of the community to proper treatment are intrinsically valid. This is precisely what a strong form of egoism cannot accept. We should also keep in mind Aristotle's statement in the Politics that the political community is prior to the individual citizen—just as the whole body is prior to any of its parts a18— Aristotle makes use of this claim when he proposes that in the ideal community each child should receive the same education, and that the responsibility for providing such an education should be taken out of the hands of private individuals and made a matter of common concern a21—7.

No citizen, he says, belongs to himself; all belong to the city a28—9. What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole.

The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle's doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual. It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole.

In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding b17— The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity.

But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need.

But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities. Aristotle turns therefore, in X. Theoria is not the process of learning that leads to understanding; that process is not a candidate for our ultimate end, because it is undertaken for the sake of a further goal.

What Aristotle has in mind when he talks about theoria is the activity of someone who has already achieved theoretical wisdom. The happiest life is lived by someone who has a full understanding of the basic causal principles that govern the operation of the universe, and who has the resources needed for living a life devoted to the exercise of that understanding.

Evidently Aristotle believes that his own life and that of his philosophical friends was the best available to a human being. He compares it to the life of a god: god thinks without interruption and endlessly, and a philosopher enjoys something similar for a limited period of time. It may seem odd that after devoting so much attention to the practical virtues, Aristotle should conclude his treatise with the thesis that the best activity of the best life is not ethical. In fact, some scholars have held that X.

But it is difficult to believe that he intends to reverse himself so abruptly, and there are many indications that he intends the arguments of X.

The best way to understand him is to take him to be assuming that one will need the ethical virtues in order to live the life of a philosopher, even though exercising those virtues is not the philosopher's ultimate end. To be adequately equipped to live a life of thought and discussion, one will need practical wisdom, temperance, justice, and the other ethical virtues.

To say that there is something better even than ethical activity, and that ethical activity promotes this higher goal, is entirely compatible with everything else that we find in the Ethics. Although Aristotle's principal goal in X. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city.

The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity.

Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times as Plato's philosopher-kings do , he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle's politician, but worse than that of Aristotle's philosopher.

But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely b4— What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: they are needed when something has gone wrong, or threatens to do so.

Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for. Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis—but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated.

As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due.

The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one's community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city.

But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit.

Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle's political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order.

Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well—even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career—it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.

The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life—a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery. Barnes ; J. Cooper ch. Annas ch.

Cooper chs 1, 3 , chs 9, 13 ; Curzer ; Gadamer ; Gerson ; Gomez-Lobo ; Heinaman , ; Irwin ; Keyt ; Korsgaard a, b; Kraut a, b, , ch. Lear ; J. White , ; S.

White ; Whiting , ; Wielenberg ; Williams ch. Brickhouse ; Brown ; Brunschwig ; Clark 84—97 ; N. Cooper ; Curzer , , , , , ; Di Muzio ; Gardiner ; Gottlieb , a, b, , ; Halper ; Hardie ; Hursthouse ; Hutchinson ; Irwin a; Kraut ch.

Broadie ; Charles , ; Coope ; J. Annas , ch. Broadie ; Chappell ed. Aristotle character, moral egoism ethics: virtue friendship Plato pleasure wisdom. Preliminaries 2. The Human Good and the Function Argument 3. Methodology 3. Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence 5. The Doctrine of the Mean 5. Intellectual Virtues 7. Akrasia 8. Pleasure 9. Friendship Single-Authored Overviews B.

Anthologies C. Studies of Particular Topics C. The Human Good and the Function Argument The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement.

Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue a1—10 : those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning virtues of mind or intellect , and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason ethical virtues, virtues of character. Intellectual Virtues Since Aristotle often calls attention to the imprecision of ethical theory see e. Akrasia In VII.

Plato and Aristotle, he says, collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves—a mistake illustrated by this example: I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table: I am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing to temptation and even conceivably but why necessarily?

Pleasure Aristotle frequently emphasizes the importance of pleasure to human life and therefore to his study of how we should live see for example a7—20 and b3—a16 , but his full-scale examination of the nature and value of pleasure is found in two places: VII.

He says: it is necessary that friends bear good will to each other and wish good things for each other, without this escaping their notice, because of one of the reasons mentioned.

Three Lives Compared In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: one is devoted to pleasure, a second to politics, and a third to knowledge and understanding b17— Further Reading A.

Bibliographies Lockwood Bartlett, and Susan D. Irwin ed. With Introduction, Notes, and Glossary. Second edition. Reeve, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. Ross trans. Solomon trans. Rackham trans. Woods trans. Austin, J. Bartlett, Robert C. Collins eds. Bobonich, Christopher and Pierre Destree eds. Reprinted in Broadie b: — ch. For among statements about conduct those which are general apply more widely, but those which are particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do with individual cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these cases.

We may take these cases from our table. With regard to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name many of the states have no name , while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains- not all of them, and not so much with regard to the pains- the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence.

Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often found; hence such persons also have received no name. But let us call them 'insensible'. With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. In these actions people exceed and fall short in contrary ways; the prodigal exceeds in spending and falls short in taking, while the mean man exceeds in taking and falls short in spending.

At present we are giving a mere outline or summary, and are satisfied with this; later these states will be more exactly determined. With regard to money there are also other dispositions- a mean, magnificence for the magnificent man differs from the liberal man; the former deals with large sums, the latter with small ones , an excess, tastelessness and vulgarity, and a deficiency, niggardliness; these differ from the states opposed to liberality, and the mode of their difference will be stated later.

With regard to honor and dishonor the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of 'empty vanity', and the deficiency is undue humility; and as we said liberality was related to magnificence, differing from it by dealing with small sums, so there is a state similarly related to proper pride, being concerned with small honors while that is concerned with great.

For it is possible to desire honor as one ought, and more than one ought, and less, and the man who exceeds in his desires is called ambitious, the man who falls short unambitious, while the intermediate person has no name. The dispositions also are nameless, except that that of the ambitious man is called ambition. Hence the people who are at the extremes lay claim to the middle place; and we ourselves sometimes call the intermediate person ambitious and sometimes unambitious, and sometimes praise the ambitious man and sometimes the unambitious.

The reason of our doing this will be stated in what follows; but now let us speak of the remaining states according to the method which has been indicated. With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean.

Although they can scarcely be said to have names, yet since we call the intermediate person good-tempered let us call the mean good temper; of the persons at the extremes let the one who exceeds be called irascible, and his vice irascibility, and the man who falls short an inirascible sort of person, and the deficiency inirascibility. There are also three other means, which have a certain likeness to one another, but differ from one another: for they are all concerned with intercourse in words and actions, but differ in that one is concerned with truth in this sphere, the other two with pleasantness; and of this one kind is exhibited in giving amusement, the other in all the circumstances of life.

We must therefore speak of these too, that we may the better see that in all things the mean is praise-worthy, and the extremes neither praiseworthy nor right, but worthy of blame. Now most of these states also have no names, but we must try, as in the other cases, to invent names ourselves so that we may be clear and easy to follow. With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called truthfulness, while the pretence which exaggerates is boastfulness and the person characterized by it a boaster, and that which understates is mock modesty and the person characterized by it mock-modest.

With regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready-witted and the disposition ready wit, the excess is buffoonery and the person characterized by it a buffoon, while the man who falls short is a sort of boor and his state is boorishness. With regard to the remaining kind of pleasantness, that which is exhibited in life in general, the man who is pleasant in the right way is friendly and the mean is friendliness, while the man who exceeds is an obsequious person if he has no end in view, a flatterer if he is aiming at his own advantage, and the man who falls short and is unpleasant in all circumstances is a quarrelsome and surly sort of person.

There are also means in the passions and concerned with the passions; since shame is not a virtue, and yet praise is extended to the modest man. For even in these matters one man is said to be intermediate, and another to exceed, as for instance the bashful man who is ashamed of everything; while he who falls short or is not ashamed of anything at all is shameless, and the intermediate person is modest. Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite, and these states are concerned with the pain and pleasure that are felt at the fortunes of our neighbors; the man who is characterized by righteous indignation is pained at undeserved good fortune, the envious man, going beyond him, is pained at all good fortune, and the spiteful man falls so far short of being pained that he even rejoices.

But these states there will be an opportunity of describing elsewhere; with regard to justice, since it has not one simple meaning, we shall, after describing the other states, distinguish its two kinds and say how each of them is a mean; and similarly we shall treat also of the rational virtues. There are three kinds of disposition, then, two of them vices, involving excess and deficiency respectively, and one a virtue, viz. For the brave man appears rash relatively to the coward, and cowardly relatively to the rash man; and similarly the temperate man appears self-indulgent relatively to the insensible man, insensible relatively to the self-indulgent, and the liberal man prodigal relatively to the mean man, mean relatively to the prodigal.

Hence also the people at the extremes push the intermediate man each over to the other, and the brave man is called rash by the coward, cowardly by the rash man, and correspondingly in the other cases.

We will work through this thought in a moment, but first we need to notice that another kind of influence may be at work when you recall what Aristotle says about habit, and another kind of medicine may be needed against it.

Are you thinking that no matter how we analyze the effects of habituation, we will never get around the fact that Aristotle plainly says that virtues are habits?

He says that moral virtue is a hexis. Hippocrates Apostle, and others, translate hexis as habit, but that is not at all what it means. The trouble, as so often in these matters, is the intrusion of Latin. The Latin habitus is a perfectly good translation of the Greek hexis , but if that detour gets us to habit in English we have lost our way. In fact, a hexis is pretty much the opposite of a habit. Socrates makes the point that knowledge can never be a mere passive possession, stored in the memory the way birds can be put in cages.

Socrates thus suggests that, whatever knowledge is, it must have the character of a hexis in requiring the effort of concentrating or paying attention. A hexis is an active condition, a state in which something must actively hold itself, and that is what Aristotle says a moral virtue is. Some translators make Aristotle say that virtue is a disposition, or a settled disposition. In De Anima , when Aristotle speaks of the effect produced in us by an object of sense perception, he says this is not a disposition diathesis but a hexis.

In Book VII of the Physics, Aristotle says much the same thing about the way children start to learn: they are not changed, he says, nor are they trained or even acted upon in any way, but they themselves get straight into an active state when time or adults help them settle down out of their native condition of disorder and distraction.

We somehow set them free to speak, and give them a particular language to do it in, but they—Mr. Everyone at St. In neither account is it possible for anyone to train us, as Gorgias has habituated Meno into the mannerisms of a knower. Habits can be strong but they never go deep. Authentic knowledge does engage the soul in its depths, and with this sort of knowing Aristotle links virtue.

In the passage cited from Book VII of the Physics , he says that, like knowledge, virtues are not imposed on us as alterations of what we are; that would be, he says, like saying we alter a house when we put a roof on it.

In the Categories , knowledge and virtue are the two examples he gives of what hexis means 8b, 29 ; there he says that these active states belong in the general class of dispositions, but are distinguished by being lasting and durable.

He confirms this identity by reviewing the kinds of things that are in the soul, and eliminating the feelings and impulses to which we are passive and the capacities we have by nature, but he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer.

This is an enormous claim that pervades the whole of the Ethics , and one that we need to stay attentive to. No action is good or just or courageous because of any quality in itself. Virtue manifests itself in action, Aristotle says, only when one acts while holding oneself in a certain way. The indefinite adverb is immediately explained: an action counts as virtuous when and only when one holds oneself in a stable equilibrium of the soul, in order to choose the action knowingly and for its own sake.

This stable equilibrium of the soul is what we mean by having character. Skinner, the psychologist most associated with the idea of behavior modification, that a class of his once trained him to lecture always from one corner of the room, by smiling and nodding whenever he approached it, but frowning and faintly shaking their heads when he moved away from it.

That is the way we acquire habits. We slip into them unawares, or let them be imposed on us, or even impose them on ourselves. A person with ever so many habits may still have no character. Habits make for repetitive and predictable behavior, but character gives moral equilibrium to a life.

The difference is between a foolish consistency wholly confined to the level of acting, and a reliability in that part of us from which actions have their source. It should now be clear though, that the habit cannot be any part of that character, and that we must try to understand how an active condition can arise as a consequence of a passive one, and why that active condition can only be attained if the passive one has come first.

What we need to notice now is that there is yet another rung of the ladder below the habits. We all start out life governed by desires and impulses. Unlike the habits, which are passive but lasting conditions, desires and impulses are passive and momentary, but they are very strong. How can such powerful influences be overcome?

This innocent sentence seems to me to be one of the lynch-pins that hold together the Ethics , the spot that marks the transition from the language of habit to the language appropriate to character.

The latter word, that can be translated as being-at-work, cannot mean mere behavior, however repetitive and constant it may be. See Aristotle on Motion and its Place in Nature for as discussion energeia. The moral life can be confused with the habits approved by some society and imposed on its young. We at St. What he considered good breeding is for us mere habit; that becomes obvious when some student who stood up at the beginning of a lecture occasionally gets bored and leaves in the middle of it.

In such a case the politeness was just for show, and the rudeness is the truth. When a parent makes a child repeatedly refrain from some desired thing, or remain in some frightening situation, the child is beginning to act as a moderate or brave person would act, but what is really going on within the child?

What seems more likely is that parental training is needed only for its negative effect, as a way of neutralizing the irrational force of impulses and desires. We all arrive on the scene already habituated, in the habit, that is, of yielding to impulses and desires, of instantly slackening the tension of pain or fear or unfulfilled desire in any way open to us, and all this has become automatic in us before thinking and choosing are available to us at all.

Virtue has the aspect of a second nature, because it cannot develop first, nor by a continuous process out of our first condition. But it is only in the moral virtues that we possess our primary nature, that in which all our capacities can have their full development.

The sign of what is natural, for Aristotle, is pleasure, but we have to know how to read the signs. Things pleasant by nature have no opposite pain and no excess, because they set us free to act simply as what we are b, , and it is in this sense that Aristotle calls the life of virtue pleasant in its own right, in itself a, , Our first or childish nature is never eradicated, though, and this is why Aristotle says that our nature is not simple, but also has in it something different that makes our happiness assailable from within, and makes us love change even when it is for the worse.

And the road to these virtues is nothing fancy, but is simply what all parents begin to do who withhold some desired thing from a child, or prevent it from running away from every irrational source of fear. They make the child act, without virtue, as though it had virtue. The same is true of temperance; what is temperate lies in a mean between the extremes of excessive enjoyment of sensual pleasures and deficient enjoyment of such pleasures.

Similar things, Aristotle thinks, can be said for each virtue. There are important differences among the dispositions Aristotle calls virtues, of course; but each virtue involves the observance of a mean between extremes. One extreme consists in some sort of excess; another in some sort of deficiency, though as I shall argue this way of talking can mislead.

Our task in trying to be good is to find these means and avoid these opposed extremes. Aristotle explains:. By the mean of a thing I mean what is equally distant from either extreme, which is one and the same for everyone; by the mean relative to us what is neither too much nor too little, and this is not the same for everyone.

For instance, if ten are many and two few, we take the mean of the the thing if we take six; since it exceeds and is exceeded by the same amount; this then is the mean according to arithmetic proportion.

But we cannot arrive thus at the mean relative to us. Let ten lbs. In the same way then one with understanding in any matter avoids excess and deficiency, and searches out and chooses the mean — the mean, that is, not of the thing itself but relative to us. We cannot arrive at the mean relative to us by this method, for at least four reasons. First, the mean relative to us need not be equidistant from two opposed extremes the way an arithmetic mean is.

What virtue or excellence demands is not a fixed and determinate act or emotional response on a particular occasion, but that our acts and emotions fall within a certain more or less precisely delineated range. Aristotle himself points out that in practical matters the arithmetic mean is not particularly useful see, e.

Fourthly, each of us is different; the mean relative to us will consequently also be different, and cannot be determined without close attention to features of the persons to whom such means are relative and the circumstances in which those persons are placed.

The importance of this will become clear when I turn in section II to discussing particular Aristotelian virtues. Seen one way, then, the possibilities for error are indefinitely various.

Any shot that misses the mark in any direction qualifies. Seen another way, however, the recipe for such error is absolutely precise: any shot that lands anywhere beyond the fixed edge of the target counts. This comports well with what Aristotle says earlier about excellence of character, that there is nothing fixed and invariable about matters of excellent or virtuous conduct a ; the excellent thing to do is anything which falls within a certain range.

What is excellent depends upon circumstances, just as the appropriate amount of food or exercise does. It cannot be determined with arithmetic precision a There are, however, emotions and acts which are absolutely vicious and disgraceful and are so in ways that do not depend upon circumstances.

EE b There cannot be commendable or praiseworthy exercises of malice, shamelessness, and envy; nor can one deserve praise for committing adultery, theft, or murder. Some things — the acts and feelings just mentioned — should never be done or felt; other things should be done or felt with our whole being a; a Aristotle points out that a general account of the mean is not likely to be helpful without concrete examples a; cf.

In the course of Books II, III, and IV of the NE he discusses many virtues and their corresponding vices, arguing that in each case the virtue involves the observance of a mean between extremes. Aristotle does not, as some commentators have suggested, think of fear as the opposite or absence of confidence, or of confidence as the opposite or absence of fear. There are therefore several ways one can fail to hit the mean with respect to these variables.

One can on a given occasion display too much fear and too much confidence; we have no special name for this kind of person, but while he puts on a show of courage, he does not endure b One can display too much fear and not enough confidence; this is the coward. One can display too little fear and too much confidence; this is the rash person. Lastly, one can display too little fear and not enough confidence; this person is crazy or insensible. Urmson suggests that Aristotle has in effect presented us with two continua:[ 6 ].

Emotions and acts can fall anywhere on the first continuum, and anywhere on the second. The courageous person observes the mean regarding fear and confidence; he avoids the errors listed above. The mean with respect to the first variable need not correspond exactly with the mean with respect to the second, for the variables are independent of one another. And, further, there is no particular point on the continuum from cowardice to insensitive fearlessness to which his act must correspond; neither is there such a point on the continuum from lack of confidence to overconfidence.

His act or reaction falls within a range of acceptable alternatives on each continuum. What is acceptable depends at least in part on the circumstances. But what circumstances?

And in what ways does what is excellent depend on these circumstances? Some people are by nature confident and assured of themselves. Others are not. One who is naturally bold or overconfident may find it easy to conquer fear of certain things. A naturally timid person may not. Some people fear certain things and situations more than other people do, and certain things and situations more than other things and situations.

Because the mean is relative to the individual one cannot tell whether an individual deserves praise for being courageous unless one knows something about that person — specifically, about that concerning which she is especially fearful or fearless, unconfident or overconfident.

This is fine as far as it goes, but it is clear that Aristotle does not regard courage as simply a matter of landing a shot within a certain range on these two continua.