The Median Principle of Morality

THE DISCUSSION BELOW CAME FROM VARIOUS SOURCES THROUGH WHICH I AM INDEBTED; NONETHELESS, THE DISCUSSION THAT FOLLOWS IS PRIMARILY BASED ON THE MAIN TEXT OF THE SCHOLAR ARISTOTLE'S "NICOMACHEAN ETHICS" (ARISTOTLE On Man in the Universe, Edited with Introduction by Louise Romes Loomis, Published for the Classic Club by Walter J. Black, Inc: Roslyn, New York)

Happiness as the “chief good”

= The contention is insufficient unless we philosophize what happiness is

a.)                to know its nature

b.)                to know how to achieve it

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What is the function of the Human Person?

= Such function must be unique or peculiar to the human person

a.)                that it belongs to the rational part of man

b.)                that it finds expression in action

= The rational part of the human person can be active or passive.  It is passive in that it follows the dictates of reason.  It is active in that it possesses and exercises the ability to reason.  Similarly, since the reasonable element of rational life may be active or passive, we must make it clear that we are discussing a life determined by the USE, as opposed to the mere possession, of rational faculty.

                          

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What is then Happiness?

            = Happiness is an activity of the soul which is in accordance with virtue and which is in conformity with reason

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Hence, the claim that Happiness is the “chief good” will only suffice provided that we see the attainment of Happiness in connection with the human person’s use of its ability to reason.

Aristotle says in Book I of his Nicomachean Ethics, since Happiness is some activity of soul in accordance with complete excellence or virtue, we should discuss the subject of excellence; for perhaps in this way we shall get a better view of happiness too.

There are two kinds of virtue or excellence:

a.)                Intellectual virtue is the result of learning or teaching

b.)                Moral Virtue is the result of practice or habituation

Ethics is a subject of great practical importance as well as theoretical interest, because we are interested not merely in determining the nature of goodness, but also on how we may become good men.  For this reason, it is necessary to investigate the problems of right and wrong actions and proper conduct, for, our actions govern the characteristics we develop.

It is generally conceded that persons must act according to what they consider the right principle of reason.  We have to remember that the nature of moral qualities is such that they can be destroyed either by deficiency or excess.  Just as too much or too little food or exercise is bad for the body, so the person who fears everything becomes coward and the man who fears nothing becomes reckless or foolhardy, and neither is able to develop the virtue of courage.  This same rule holds in regard to all the virtues.  Excess or deficiency destroys them.  Action in accordance with a mean produces and maintains them.

Moral excellence is primarily a matter of concern with pleasure and pain.  The following points are relevant here:

1.      The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the main causes of evil action, for pleasure can make men do have things and pain can deter them from doing noble things. This is why Plato said that right education is matters of making persons feel pleasure and pain for the right reasons.

2.      Virtue is concerned with actions and feelings or emotions and these may be accompanied by pleasure or pain.

3.      Pain is used as an instrument of punishment, for nature works by means of opposites and pain can have a remedial effect in the case of vicious men.

4.      Every characteristic of the soul shows its true nature in regard to those factors that can make it better or worse. Persons become corrupted through pleasure and pain, either by pursuing or avoiding pleasure or pain of the wrong kind, at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. This indicates that the object of ethics is to learn to feel pleasure or pain for the right reasons. We may assume that virtue enables men to act in the best way in matters involving pleasure and pain, and that vice does the opposite.

At this point it has been determined that Moral good ness is a quality disposing men to act in the best way while dealing with pleasures and pains, and that vice disposes them to act in the worst way in the same situation.

In all actions, to some extent, pleasure and pain are used as standard.  Virtue is not to be interpreted as freedom from pleasure and pain.  Rather these are the materials which, when molded into the right form, enable us to become virtuous. To sump up, the following conclusions can be made:

1.      Virtue or excellence is some caused with pleasure or pain.

2.      The actions, which produce virtue, are identical in character with those that increase it.

3.      These same actions differently performed can destroy virtue.

4.      Virtue finds expression or is actualized in the same activities that produce it.

When are we to consider an act to be a virtuous act?

            = A virtuous act is not virtuous only because it is an act of certain quality or kind.  The agent or doer of a virtuous act must also be in a certain frame of mind and have certain characteristics when s(he) acts.  There are three conditions required: (a) that the agent must be fully conscious of what s(he) is doing, (b) that s(he) must deliberately choose or will (he)r action, and must choose it for its own sake, (c) that the act must proceed from a fixed moral disposition.

            = Hence, acts are called virtuous when they are the kind of acts a virtuous person would perform, but a person who performs a virtuous act is not necessarily (he)rself virtuous.  The virtuous person is one who performs that act in the way common to virtuous persons, that is, s(he) knows that the act is the right thing to do in the circumstances, and s(he)does it for the right motive.

The human soul is conditioned by three factors: (a) emotions or feelings, capacities and dispositions or characteristics.  It is evident that virtue must be one of these.  Emotions include such things as anger, appetite, fear, confidence, envy, pity and other state of mind that involves pleasure or pain. Capacities are our faculties for experiencing emotions.  Dispositions are the conditions or states of character in which we are in regard to emotions (e.g., we say that one has a bad disposition where anger is concerned if he tends to become excessively or insufficiently angry and has a good disposition toward anger if he consistently feels the appropriate amount of anger).

Virtue or excellence is something for which persons are called good or bad or for which they are praised or blamed.  Since one is not called good or bad on the basis of his emotions, it is clear that virtue is not an emotion.  Furthermore, virtues are the result of some kind of choice but a man does not exercise his will (i.e., make a choice) when he experiences such emotions as anger or fear.  It is also clear that virtue is not capacity, since a person is not praised or blamed for having the ability to experience certain feelings.  A human being receives (he)r capacities from nature, but nature does not cause (he)r to develop into a good or a bad man.  Therefore, since virtues and vices are not emotions or capacities, they must belong to the genus known as dispositions or characteristics.

Virtue in a person is whatever characteristic that makes (he)r a good man and causes (he)r to perform (he)r function well.

Any continuous activity (including feeling and action, the raw materials of virtue) is divisible into parts.  These may include a LARGER PART, a SMALLER PART, and the HALF OR EQUAL PART, which can be defined as the MEAN between too much and too little.  In things which do not vary there is an objective mean which is always the same (e.g., the mean between two points ten miles apart is always five miles).

The mean is relative in such things as the feelings and actions of persons.  This is because there are differences between people in regard to most characteristics and attributes (e.g., ten pounds of food may be too much for a person and two pounds not enough, but this does not necessarily imply that six pounds is the right amount for a person or for all men).

Moral virtue aims at the relative mean in feeling and action.  Moral virtue can be defined as a disposition to choose the mean relative to oneself, as determined by a rational principle (i.e., by the rational principle that would be applied by a person with practical wisdom and common sense).

It is possible to experience too much or too little of any emotion, and in either case the emotion is not experienced properly.  The mark of virtue is to experience an emotion at the right time, toward the right objects or person, for the right reason, and in the right manner; in other words, in accordance with the mean.  This principle applies to the evaluation of all human actions.  Excess, mean and deficiency can be determined for all feelings and action.

What then is Excellence or Virtue?

            = Aristotle puts in that excellence is a disposition issuing in decisions, depending on the intermediacy of the kind relative to us, this being determined by rational prescription and in the way in which the wise person would determine it.  And it is intermediacy between two bad states, one involving excess, and the other involving deficiency; and also because one set of bad states is deficient, the other excessive in relation to what is required both in affections and in actions, whereas excellence both finds and chooses the intermediate.

A shown by Aristotle, there are three kinds of dispositions.  Two are vicious (one characterized by excess, the other by deficiency), and one is virtuous (the mean).

How to Find the Mean?  The following points have been established:

1.      Moral virtue is a mean.

2.      It is a mean between two vices, one marked by excess and the other by deficiency.

3.      It is a mean in the sense that it aims at the middle point in emotions and actions.

Here are some rules for the guidance of those who seek the mean (i.e., who seek after virtue):

1.      Avoid the extreme most opposed to the mean for which you are seeking. One of the two extremes is always more in error than the other. If you must err from the right path, it is better to choose the lesser of two evils.

2.      Guard against those errors into which you are most likely to fall because of your natural inclinations by forcing yourself to move in the opposite direction. One can determine his natural inclinations by observing the amount of pleasure and pain he experiences in regard to certain things.

3.      Remember that you will make few mistakes if you try to avoid pleasure and pleasant things and move away from whatever is most tempting for this will tend to be the path toward the mean.

FEELING	ACTION	EXCESS	MEAN	DEFICIENCY
Fear		Cowardice	Courage	Unnamed
Confidence		Recklessness (overconfidence) Self-indulgence (intemperance)	Courage Self-control (temperance)	Cowardice “insensitivity” (word in this context coined by Aristotle)
Sensual pleasures (note that pain may arise from the desire for such pleasures)	Giving of money Taking of money Giving of money on a large scale (as for charity or public use) Pursuit of honor on a large scale Pursuit of honor on a small scale	Extravagance Stinginess Vulgarity Vanity Ambitiousness	Generosity Generosity Magnificence Highmindedness Unnamed, could be called ambition in proper amount	Stinginess Prodigality Meanness Smallmindedness Unambitiousness
Anger	Telling the truth about oneself Pleasantness in amusement Pleasantness in daily life	Shorttemperedness Boastfulness Buffoonery Obsequiousness	Gentleness Truthfulness Wittiness Friendliness	Apathy Self-depreciation Boorishness Grouchiness
Shame		Bashfulness	Modesty	Shamelessness
Pain and pleasure felt at good or bad fortune of others		Envy	Righteous indignation	Spite

An important point worth noting is that Aristotle’s mean is not a rigid mathematical abstraction, since he points out several times that it is a “mean relative to us,” and differs fro people of different dispositions or in different circumstances.  Although his doctrine of the mean is stated abstractly, Aristotle was well aware that goodness and moral conduct cannot be reduced to artificial formulas or rules.