Aristotle’s Ethics
Aristotle was Plato’s student. Following Socrates and Plato, he argues that virtue was central to living a good life. Like Plato, Aristotle considered ethical virtues, like courage, justice, and temperance, to be complex skills that are at once rational, emotional, and social. Where he disagreed with Plato was on the role of knowledge of what goodness is in some absolute or ideal sense.
For Aristotle, what’s needed to live a good life is an appreciation for the ways in which goods like pleasure, honor, friendship, and virtue fit together. He acknowledged that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings. In an effort to reconcile such differences, he suggests that the highest good, whatever that is, must have three characteristics:
- It must be desirable for itself - it’s an end unto itself.
- It isn’t desirable for the sake of some other good - it isn’t a means to some other end.
- Whatever else we consider good must be good is necessarily desirable for the sake of that highest good.
This highest good was called eudaimonia - the highest form of flourishing or wellbeing. Health, wealth, and all other goods are subordinate in that they promote eudaimonia.
To resolve the question of what eudaimonia consists in, Aristotle posed a question: what is the ergon (function, task, work) of a human being is. Looking to biology for an answer, he argued that, for any creature, eudaimonia must be a matter of actualizing their unique ergon. Take a bird, for example. We might say that a bird’s unique ergon is its capacity for flight. On Aristotle’s view, a bird’s eudaimonia must be tied to its unique ergon, its unique capacity to fly (and to sing).
As the poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou goes,
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.…
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Of course, this poem really speaks to the human condition, representing the confinement and oppression Angelou felt as a Black woman in America. We might say that freedom is integral to our human eudaimonia.
For Aristotle, the ergon of the human being is the capacity for reason. It is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. So happiness, flourishing, eudaimonia, must consist in using reason well over the course of a full, virtuous life.
The Golden Mean
According to Aristotle, virtues are character traits that enable human flourishing. The Golden Mean helps define these virtues by positioning them between extremes:
- Virtues are habits of choosing the mean between extremes
- The mean is relative to the individual and the situation, not a fixed point
- Finding the mean requires practical wisdom (phronesis) to judge the right action in each context
The Golden Mean suggests that moral virtue is a middle state between two vices - one of excess and one of deficiency. Aristotle believed that to live a virtuous life, one should aim for this middle ground in their actions and emotions.
Examples of the Golden Mean
Here are some examples of virtues as means between extremes:
-
Courage
- Deficiency: Cowardice
- Mean: Courage
- Excess: Recklessness
-
Temperance
- Deficiency: Insensibility
- Mean: Temperance
- Excess: Self-indulgence
-
Generosity
- Deficiency: Stinginess
- Mean: Generosity
- Excess: Wastefulness
-
Truthfulness
- Deficiency: Self-deprecation
- Mean: Truthfulness
- Excess: Boastfulness
-
Wit
- Deficiency: Boorishness
- Mean: Wittiness
- Excess: Buffoonery
-
Friendliness
- Deficiency: Unfriendliness
- Mean: Friendliness
- Excess: Obsequiousness
-
Modesty
- Deficiency: Shamelessness
- Mean: Modesty
- Excess: Bashfulness
It’s important to note that the mean is not always the exact middle point. For instance, courage is closer to recklessness than to cowardice, as Aristotle believed it’s better to err on the side of excess in this case.
Aristotle emphasized that finding the mean requires practical wisdom (phronesis) and is context-dependent. What counts as courageous action in one situation might be reckless in another. The goal is to cultivate the ability to judge and act appropriately in each unique circumstance.