Section 2: Moral virtue is acquired by avoiding excess and deficiency

Since our inquiry doesn’t aim at theoretical knowledge like other inquiries do (for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good people, since otherwise our inquiry would be of no benefit to us), we must examine what relates to actions, namely in what way we ought to do action. For actions also determine _[30] the states of character that are produced, as we have said.

That we must act according to right reason is a common view and should be taken as basic–it will be discussed later, both what right reason is and how it is related to the other virtues.

But the following must be agreed upon beforehand: that the whole account of matters relating to action must be given in outline _[1104a1] and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning, that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter. Matters concerned with actions and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health do.

The general account being of this nature, _[5] the account of particular cases is yet more lacking in exactness. For particular cases do not fall under any skill or set of rules, but the people acting must themselves in each case consider what is appropriate to the situation, as happens also in the practice of medicine or of ship navigation. But although our present account is of this nature, we must give what help we can.

First, then, let us consider that things like skills, good conditions, and good habits are naturally destroyed by deficiency and excess, as we see in the case of bodily strength and health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things). Both excessive and defective exercise regimens _[15] will destroy bodily strength. Likewise, both food or drink regularly consumed above or below a certain amount will destroy health, while that which is proportionate both produces health and increases and preserves it.

So too, then, in the case of temperance, courage, and the other virtues. For the person who avoids and fears everything and doesn’t stand his ground against anything _[20] becomes cowardly, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes overconfident. Similarly, the person who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from nothing becomes intemperate, while the person who avoids every kind of pleasure, as uncultured people do, becomes in a way insensitive. Temperance and courage, then, are destroyed _[25] by excess and deficiency, and preserved by the mean or middle condition.

But when it comes to these sorts of things, not only are the sources and causes of their origination and growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere of their actualization will be the same. For this is also true of the things which are more evident to the senses, for example, bodily strength. _[30] Strength is produced by eating a lot of food and doing a lot of exercise, and it is the strong person that will be most able to do these things.

This is also the case with the virtues. By abstaining from pleasures, we become temperate, and once we have become temperate, we are most able to abstain from pleasures. Similarly _[35] in the case of courage. For by being habituated to despise frightening things _[1104b1] and to stand our ground against them we become courageous, and once we have become courageous, we will be most able to stand our ground against them.