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Full Idea
Excessive and insufficient exercise or food destroy one's strength or health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves them. It is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues.
Gist of Idea
Excess and deficiency are bad for virtue, just as they are for bodily health
Source
Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1104a15)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.94
A Reaction
An example of Aristotle's philosophy originating in his biological background. This appears to be true of health, but he notes exceptions in morality. Adultery has no mean. In health a middle way is needed, but in morality it is what is 'appropriate'.
| 3053 | Pythagoras taught that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God [Pythagoras, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 495 | Wisdom creates a healthy passion-free soul [Democritus] |
| 2129 | Goodness is mental health, badness is mental sickness [Plato] |
| 5154 | Excess and deficiency are bad for virtue, just as they are for bodily health [Aristotle] |
| 5268 | Disreputable pleasures are only pleasant to persons with diseased perception [Aristotle] |
| 5870 | Everything seeks, not a single good, but its own separate good [Aristotle] |
| 502 | Good breeding in men means having a good character [Democritus (attr)] |
| 22238 | Stoics said health is an 'indifferent', but they still considered it preferable [Stoic school, by Pormann] |
| 20861 | The health of the soul is a good blend of beliefs [Stoic school, by Stobaeus] |
| 22239 | Humans acquired the concept of virtue from an analogy with bodily health and strength [Seneca, by Allen] |
| 22237 | The Greeks had a single word meaning both 'beautiful' and 'good' [Pormann] |