6
We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of
character, but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark, then,
that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the
thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing
be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and
its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see
well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in
itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting
the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the
virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man
good and which makes him do his own work well.
How this is to happen we have stated already, but it will be made
plain also by the following consideration of the specific nature of
virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it is
possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in
terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an
intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the
object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes,
which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate
relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too little- and
this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many
and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object;
for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this is
intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the
intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are
too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does
not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is
perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little- too
little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises.
The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art
avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses
this- the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us.
If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well- by looking
to the intermediate and judgling its works by this standard (so that
we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to
take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect
destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and
good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), and if, further,
virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is,
then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I
mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions
and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the
intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite
and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both
too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel
them at the right times, with reference to the right objects,
towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way,
is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of
virtue. Similarly with regard to actions also there is excess, defect,
and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned with passions and
actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, while
the intermediate is praised and is a form of success; and being
praised and being successful are both characteristics of virtue.
Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at
what is intermediate.
Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the
class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to
that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way
(for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult- to miss
the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then,
excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;
For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying
in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a
rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of
practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two
vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on
defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall
short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while
virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in
respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence
virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.
But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some
have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness,
envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of
these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are
themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is
not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must
always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such
things depend on committing adultery with the right woman, at the
right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to
go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in
unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should be a mean, an
excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there would be a mean of
excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of
deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of temperance and
courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an extreme, so
too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor any excess
and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong; for in
general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor excess
and deficiency of a mean.
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