Section 6: Defining Moral Virtue in terms of the Mean

But we must not only say that virtue is a state of character, but also say what kind of state of character it is. We may say, then, that every virtue or excellence _[15] both brings into a good condition the thing it is an excellence of and makes the work of that thing well-done. For example, 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 a military horse makes the horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider, _[20] and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of a human being will also be the state of character that makes a human good and makes a human 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 _[25] 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 in terms relative to us. And the equal is an intermediate or mean between excess and deficiency. By the intermediate or mean of the thing itself, I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, _[30] which is one and the same for everyone. By the intermediate or mean relative to us, I mean that which is neither too much nor too little–and this is neither one nor the same for everyone.

For instance, if 10 is many and 2 is few, 6 is the mean in terms of the thing itself, since 6 exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount, [namely by 4, since 6+4=10 and 6-4=2]. This is an example of the mean in accord with arithmetical _[35] proportion.

But the mean relative to us must not be determined in this way. For example, if 10 pounds of food a day is too much for a particular person and two pounds a day is too little, it does not follow that the person’s trainer _[1106b1] will say the person should eat six pounds of food per day. For this might also be too much for the person to eat, or too little. Likewise, what counts as too little food for the famous athlete Milo might be too little food for the beginner in athletic exercises. The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any skill avoids excess and deficiency, _[5] but seeks and chooses the mean or intermediate–the mean not in relation to the thing itself, but instead the mean in relation to us.

Hence, if every skill and craft does its work well by looking to the mean and judging what it does by this standard (so that we often say of well-made things created by a skill craftsman that it is not possible either to take away or to add anything to the thing created, _[10] implying that excess and deficiency would destroy the goodness of the skillfully created object, while the mean preserves it; and good craftsmen, as we say, look to the mean in their work), and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any craftsman’s skill, as nature is too, then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the mean. _[15]

I am talking about moral virtue, since it is concerned with emotions and actions, and in these there is excess, deficiency, and a mean. For instance, fear, confidence, appetite, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases _[20] not well. But to feel them at the right times, in relation to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is both the mean and the best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with regard to actions there is also excess, deficiency, and a mean.

Now virtue is concerned with emotions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure and deficiency is a form of failure, _[25] while the mean 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), _[30] while to succeed is possible only in one way. This is also why acting badly is easy and acting virtuously is difficult–to miss the mark is easy, to hit it is difficult. Hence this is also why excess and defect are characteristic of vice, while the mean is characteristic of virtue. For people are good in only one way, but bad in many ways. _[35]

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in the mean relative to us, _[1107a1] this being determined by reason, and by that which the prudent person would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency. And again, it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both emotions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. _[5]

Hence in respect of its substance and the definition that states its essence, virtue is a mean. But in respect of what is best and right, virtue is an extreme.

But neither every action nor every emotion has a mean. For some have names that already imply badness: for example, spite, _[10] shamelessness, and envy; and in the case of actions adultery, theft, and murder. For all of these and things like them imply by their names that they are themselves bad. It’s not only the excessive and deficient varieties of these that are bad. It is not possible, then, ever to be right with regard to actions and emotions like these. Instead, it is always wrong. Nor is there [15] doing well or not doing well with regard to such actions or emotions. For example, you can’t commit adultery well by doing it with the right woman, at the right time, and in the right way. Rather, simply to do any of these actions is wrong.

It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in unjust, cowardly, and intemperate actions there would be a mean, an excess, and a deficiency. For in that way there would be a mean of excess and of deficiency, _[20] 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, [namely the intermediate is the extremely good], so too of the intrinsically bad 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 _[25] and deficiency, nor excess and deficiency of a mean.