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Single Idea 4388

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean ]

Full Idea

The doctrine of the mean does not require the doctrine of moderation: if I say we should drink lots of alcohol once a week, but you propose a little each day, your view is more in line with moderation, but we can agree on the doctrine of the mean.

Gist of Idea

One drink a day is moderation, but very drunk once a week could exhibit the mean

Source

comment on Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1106b16) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.162

Book Ref

'Essays on Aristotle's Ethics', ed/tr. Rorty,Amélie Oksenberg [University of California 1980], p.162

A Reaction

So two people could agree on the doctrine, but end up behaving differently. This is important for virtue theory. In a moral dilemma there might be several right things that could be done.

The 26 ideas with the same theme [virtues as appropriate route between evils]:

7359 Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)]
20917 Contentment comes from moderation and proportion in life [Democritus, by Stobaeus]
305 Something which lies midway between two evils is better than either of them [Plato]
281 The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato]
3545 The mean implies that vices are opposed to one another, not to virtue [Aristotle, by Annas]
47 Virtues are destroyed by the excess and preserved by the mean [Aristotle]
4406 Aristotle aims at happiness by depressing emotions to a harmless mean [Nietzsche on Aristotle]
60 The mean is relative to the individual (diet, for example) [Aristotle]
61 Skills are only well performed if they observe the mean [Aristotle]
4388 One drink a day is moderation, but very drunk once a week could exhibit the mean [Urmson on Aristotle]
4387 In most normal situations it is not appropriate to have any feelings at all [Urmson on Aristotle]
62 We must tune our feelings to be right in every way [Aristotle]
5159 The mean is always right, and the extremes are always wrong [Aristotle]
65 The vices to which we are most strongly pulled are most opposed to the mean [Aristotle]
5161 To make one's anger exactly appropriate to a situation is very difficult [Aristotle]
5235 Patient people are indignant, but only appropriately, as their reason prescribes [Aristotle]
5238 The sincere man is praiseworthy, because truth is the mean between boasting and irony [Aristotle]
23914 People sometimes exhibit both extremes together, but the mean is contrary to both of them [Aristotle]
2829 The law is the mean [Aristotle]
21395 One of Zeno's books was 'That Which is Appropriate' [Zeno of Citium, by Long]
3049 The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
20848 An appropriate action is one that can be defended, perhaps by its consistency. [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
7453 Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking]
21417 How do we distinguish a mean? The extremes can involve quite different maxims [Kant]
21420 If virtue is the mean between vices, then virtue is just the vanishing of vice [Kant]
20372 The instinct of the herd, the majority, aims for the mean, in the middle [Nietzsche]