Nicomachean Ethics: The Golden Mean

Aristotle now gives his most famous idea about virtue: that it lies in the middle, between too much and too little.This idea is often called the golden mean.

“In everything we can take more, less, or an equal amount, and the equal amount is a mean between too much and too little.But the mean is not the same for everyone.If ten pounds of food is too much and two pounds too little, the trainer will not simply order six pounds.For a famous wrestler like Milo that would be too little, but for a beginner it would be too much.So a skilled person avoids too much and too little, and looks for the mean that is right for the case.

Virtue works in the same way with our feelings and actions.We can feel fear, confidence, anger, pity, pleasure and pain too much or too little, and both are wrong.Courage, for example, is the mean between being a coward and being reckless, and generosity is the mean between being wasteful and being mean with money.To feel these things at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right reason and in the right way: that is the mean, and that is virtue.

That is why it is hard to be good.Anyone can get angry, and anyone can give away money or spend it; that is easy.But to do this to the right person, to the right amount, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way is not easy, and not everyone can do it.There are many ways to miss the target but only one way to hit it.So if we lean too far one way, we should push ourselves the other way, as people straighten a bent piece of wood.”