Key Concept
God as God – The phrase “God as God” is basically a synonym for “God the subject.” In other words, it refers to God precisely in God’s status as an incomprehensible divine Other.
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In the 1954 novel The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, several preadolescent boys survive a plane crash, arriving on an island without any adult supervision. They attempt to develop a rational civilization modeled on the political structure they experienced in Great Britain, but because they lack good habits and are inexperienced at careful deliberation, compromise, and decision-making, the boys are not well-positioned to succeed in developing an ideal society. They fight over authority, argue over the appropriate use of resources, and eventually experience mass hysteria over an illusory island monster that serves as a scapegoat for their fears. Piggy, the brains behind the orderly and democratic society that the boys have built on the island, is eventually killed as a result of a fight over his glasses, which are valuable for making fire. At the same time, his political ideas based on rules, hierarchical leadership, and self-governance are dismantled, and the group is divided and a mob mentality overtakes the tribes.
Through this story, Golding gives us an answer to the question (plus an argument for his answer), are human beings born good? If children who have been civilized for 9-12 years can so easily turn off moral judgment like a light switch when the adults aren’t around, then of course human beings aren’t born good! But is it true? Would children really be so terrible if they weren’t punished for their wrongdoing?
18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said no, no, no! What corrupts the youth? Other people, through the institution of civilized society. In the famous opening line of his Emile, Rousseau says, “God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil […] Under existing conditions a man left to himself from birth would be more of a monster than the rest. Prejudice, authority, necessity, example, all the social conditions into which we are plunged, would stifle nature in him and put nothing in her place.” (Rousseau, Emile Book I) So Rousseau answers yes to the question, are we born good? The problem is that we are raised badly!
In today’s reading, we will study the virtue theory of Aristotle, who agreed with Golding that we are not born good. Yet, Aristotle thought we aren’t born bad either! As we will see, Aristotle claims that we are born with the ability to be good or bad; events and people in our lives help to send us down one path or another. What do you think has the strongest impact on our becoming good or bad?
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born in Greece; his father was a physician, and this influenced Aristotle’s natural philosophy (what we might now call “biology”). He studied at the Academy in Athens under Plato, who was a student of Socrates. Aristotle went on to form his own school in Athens, teaching no fewer than three future kings, including Alexander the Great! As with Socrates, Aristotle was eventually accused of impiety by the ruling class of Athens. Unlike Socrates, though, Aristotle fled the city to avoid prosecution (Socrates defended himself in trial, was condemned to death, and was executed.).
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is split into ten books. In this article, we will focus on Book 2, in which he argues that virtues are learned habits whereby we act and think in between the bad extremes. If you want to start from the beginning, check out the Philosophy Teaching Library article on Book 1!
Excellence/Virtue – A good habit that we learn over time through instruction and repetition. What makes the habit good is that, once we have that habit, we have a strong tendency to do the right thing at the right time, in the right way, to the right degree, with the right attitudes, whenever we are confronted with a situation that we know calls us to exercise that habit.
Vice – A bad habit that we learn over time through instruction or instinct and that we develop through repetition. What makes the habit bad is that, once we have that habit, our tendency is to do the incorrect thing in certain types of situations. We may choose to do something entirely uncalled for in that situation, or we may act at the wrong time, in the wrong way, to the wrong degree, or with the wrong attitudes, or for the wrong reasons.
Relative Mean – The “Goldilocks amount” of some type of action or emotion. When you act in this way, according to Aristotle, you act exactly as is required under the current circumstances. This means that you do what is called for by the situation at hand, rather than doing something too extreme or not doing something extreme enough. You do something in the moderate amount (the mean amount) relative to the specific situation you are in when you need to act.
Throughout Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that virtues are good habits that we develop over time by learning from others with more experience and then by repeating the good deed over and over, just as we become good at playing piano by learning from experienced piano teachers and then by practicing the piano repeatedly.
Book 2.1
[N]one of the moral excellences or virtues is implanted in us by nature; for that which is by nature cannot be altered by training. For instance, a stone naturally tends to fall downwards, and you could not train it to rise upwards, though you tried to do so by throwing it up ten thousand times, nor could you train fire to move downwards, nor accustom anything which naturally behaves in one way to behave in any other way. The virtues, then, come neither by nature nor against nature, but nature gives the capacity for acquiring them, and this is developed by training […]
[W]here we do things by nature we get the power first, and put this power forth in act afterwards: as we plainly see in the case of the senses; for it is not by constantly seeing and hearing that we acquire those faculties, but, on the contrary, we had the power first and then used it, instead of acquiring the power by the use. But the virtues we acquire by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts too. We learn an art by doing that which we wish to do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and harpers by harping. And so by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous […]
[I]t is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men that we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become courageous or cowardly. So, too, with our animal appetites and the passion of anger; for by behaving in this way or in that on the occasions with which these passions are concerned, some become temperate and gentle, and others profligate and ill-tempered. In a word, acts of any kind produce habits or characters of the same kind. Hence we ought to make sure that our acts be of a certain kind; for the resulting character varies as they vary. It makes no small difference, therefore, whether a man be trained from his youth up in this way or in that, but a great difference, or rather all the difference.
We can’t train our eyes to hear or our ears to taste, and we can’t improve our eyesight by constantly using our eyes. Our eyes and ears simply have the natural abilities to see and hear, and we can use them for those purposes. But when it comes to virtue, we are not naturally good people. We have to practice by doing good deeds over and over again until it begins to feel natural, to feel automatic. Education and training are really important because they are the primary ways in which we develop the habits that make us virtuous.
Having shown that we can indeed learn how to be good or bad, Aristotle wants to share the secret to learning how to be good, instead of learning to become bad. We have to associate good deeds with pleasure and bad deeds with pain! Our parents and teachers can help us associate good action with pleasure by rewarding us when we do the right thing.
Book 2.3
For moral virtue or excellence is closely concerned with pleasure and pain. It is pleasure that moves us to do what is base, and pain that moves us to refrain from what is noble. And therefore, as Plato says, man needs to be so trained from his youth up as to find pleasure and pain in the right objects. This is what sound education means. Another reason why virtue has to do with pleasure and pain, is that it has to do with actions and passions or affections; but every affection and every act is accompanied by pleasure or pain […]
There are three kinds of things that move us to choose, and three that move us to avoid them: on the one hand, the beautiful or noble, the advantageous, the pleasant; on the other hand, the ugly or base, the hurtful, the painful. Now, the good man is apt to go right, and the bad man to go wrong, about them all, but especially about pleasure: for pleasure is not only common to man with animals, but also accompanies all pursuit or choice; since the noble, and the advantageous also, are pleasant in idea.
Since we naturally like beautiful things, pleasant things, and things that benefit us, we can be trained to do noble deeds by receiving beautiful, pleasant, or otherwise beneficial rewards in exchange for our good actions. Since we naturally dislike ugly things, painful things, and things that hurt us, we can be trained to avoid evil deeds by receiving ugly, painful, or otherwise harmful consequences for bad action. If we aren’t trained in this way, then we will likely pursue pleasure to an extreme, since pleasure is our instinctual desire as animals.
Keep a journal for a week. Instead of journaling at the same time each day, though, have a friend set 2-4 alarms at random times throughout the day on your phone. When the alarm goes off, stop everything and jot down exactly where you are looking at the moment. Briefly justify it – why are you looking at that thing? The next day, do that for your ears – what are you listening to and why? The next day, do that for your nose – what are you smelling and why? The next day, do that for your sense of touch – what are you feeling and why? The last day, do that for your mind – what are you thinking about and why? On the final day, when the alarms go off, jot down who you are with, where you are located, and why you are at that place with those people.
Once we have been trained to associate good deeds with pleasure, we may have a tendency to do good deeds. But this doesn’t mean that we are truly virtuous yet! If we only do something good because we want to be rewarded for doing it, or because we fear the consequences of not doing it, then we do not yet have real virtue.
Book 2.4
[I]n the case of the virtues, a man is not said to act justly or temperately [or like a just or temperate man] if what he does merely be of a certain sort—he must also be in a certain state of mind when he does it; i.e., first of all, he must know what he is doing; secondly, he must choose it, and choose it for itself; and, thirdly, his act must be the expression of a formed and stable character.
Practical wisdom, which is a virtue of the mind, serves as a unifying virtue for Aristotle. For a person to genuinely act virtuously in any way, he must have the wisdom to know what he is doing, as opposed to acting accidentally or without regard for thought. He must also know that what he is doing is right, which motivates him to take that specific action. That is, he must choose the good action for its own sake rather than for some other benefit that will come about because of it. Finally, he must have a stable character developed over time, a character that pushes him toward virtuous action. The result is that, to be truly virtuous, a person must have a well-developed mind.
Thomas Aquinas agreed that the mind plays an important role in virtuous action. Indeed, he developed a theory of right action, claiming that a person’s mental state, her intentions, impact whether her physical action is justified. For instance, the Doctrine of Double Effect that Aquinas defends states that a person’s state of mind influences whether an action is right or wrong. For example, when discussing killing a person in self-defense, Aquinas argues, “Therefore this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in “being” as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful, whereas, if he repel force with moderation, his defense will be lawful” (Summa Theologiae II-II, q.64, a.7, respondeo) For more on the Doctrine of Double Effect, see this overview article and this article by Philippa Foot that applies the doctrine to abortion.
What distinguishes good deeds from bad deeds? Aristotle thinks that good deeds are the sort of actions that are appropriate for the particular situation at hand.
Book 2.6
By an equal or fair amount I understand a mean amount, or one that lies between excess and deficiency […] By the mean relatively to us I understand that which is neither too much nor too little for us; and this is not one and the same for all […] If ten pounds of food is too much for a given man to eat, and two pounds too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order him six pounds: for that also may perhaps be too much for the man in question, or too little; too little for Milo, too much for the beginner. The same holds true in running and wrestling. And so we may say generally that a master in any art avoids what is too much and what is too little, and seeks for the mean and chooses it—not the absolute but the relative mean […]
For instance, it is possible to feel fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally to be affected pleasantly and painfully, either too much or too little, in either case wrongly; but to be thus affected at the right times, and on the right occasions, and towards the right persons, and with the right object, and in the right fashion, is the mean course and the best course, and these are characteristics of virtue […]
But it is not all actions nor all passions that admit of moderation; there are some whose very names imply badness, as malevolence, shamelessness, envy, and, among acts, adultery, theft, murder. These and all other like things are blamed as being bad in themselves, and not merely in their excess or deficiency. It is impossible therefore to go right in them; they are always wrong: rightness and wrongness in such things (e.g. in adultery) does not depend upon whether it is the right person and occasion and manner, but the mere doing of any one of them is wrong.
Just as in a coloring book, in which different strokes with different widths and different shapes are required for each page based on the outline given on that page, so too with each circumstance in life Aristotle thinks a unique action is needed, with different degrees of emotions, different timing, and different types of methods and tools for taking action. Yet, for each page of the coloring book, there are clear principles, specific conditions that a person must meet to color entirely within the lines. So too, for each situation a person is in, acting according to the relative mean is acting “within the lines” of goodness or righteousness.
Aristotle thinks that habits promoting physical health are those that lead us to consume just enough of the things we need without consuming too much or too little at any given moment. In the same way, habits promoting moral goodness are those that lead us to do just enough of the things we need to do without doing too much or too little at any given moment.
Book 2.2
To fall short and to exceed are alike fatal. This is plain (to illustrate what we cannot see by what we can see) in the case of strength and health. Too much and too little exercise alike destroy strength, and to take too much meat and drink, or to take too little, is equally ruinous to health, but the fitting amount produces and increases and preserves them. Just so, then, is it with temperance also, and courage, and the other virtues. The man who shuns and fears everything and never makes a stand, becomes a coward; while the man who fears nothing at all, but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. So, too, the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure, and abstains from none, is a profligate, but the man who shuns all (like him whom we call a ‘boor’) is devoid of sensibility. Thus temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and defect, but preserved by moderation […]
[B]y abstaining from pleasure we become temperate, and when we have become temperate we are best able to abstain. And so with courage: by habituating ourselves to despise danger, and to face it, we become courageous; and when we have become courageous, we are best able to face danger.
In this passage, Aristotle uses an argument from analogy – Aristotle claims that, because two items are the same in one respect, they are the same in another. Aristotle thinks it is obvious that becoming healthy and strong requires doing things in the middle relative to the situation, and he thinks that becoming morally good is analogous, or relevantly similar, to becoming physically healthy and strong, so becoming morally good requires doing things in the middle relative to the situation. Let’s look at this argument in premise/conclusion form:
Premise 1: Strength and health are beneficial states of body that we develop through instruction and learning and then improve upon and preserve through practice and repetition.
Premise 2: Moral virtues are beneficial states of character that we develop through instruction and learning and then improve upon and preserve through practice and repetition.
Premise 3: Physical strength and health are the types of states that require consuming the fitting, or intermediate, amount of food in any situation (not eating too much or too little) and exercising an appropriate amount in any situation (not exercising too much or too little) to preserve and improve them.
Inductive Premise: The development of and improvement of any given state of the body, mind, or character is directly tied to the type of state that it is, such that states which develop and are preserved in similar ways are likely of the same type, at least as regards their preservation and improvement.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is likely that the moral virtues are the types of states that require acting in the fitting, or intermediate, amount in any situation (not doing too much or too little) and feeling emotion in the fitting amount in any situation (not feeling too much or too little) to preserve and improve them.
Arguments from analogy involve reasoning from things known to things unknown or uncertain, and so are not valid forms of reasoning, strictly speaking. However, some analogical arguments are better than others, and Aristotle’s inductive argument here relies on an implied premise, which says that the core features required for development and improvement of bodily states are likely of the same general type as those core features required for the development and improvement of mental states and states of moral character. If the inductive step is strong, then the argument from analogy will be strong too! Do we have reason to think that if two things are cultivated in similar fashion, then they likely have some core characteristic that explains the parallel development processes of both?
How can we tell if some habit is a vice? Aristotle says that the virtues are tendencies to do good deeds or to have good emotional responses. When we have virtuous habits, we have tendencies to act in between too much action and too little, between excess and deficiency. So, the vices must be the habits that we have when we are likely to do bad deeds, which are actions at the extremes. When we have a vice, we end up doing either too much or too little, or feeling too much or too little.
Book 2.8
There are […] three classes of disposition, viz. two kinds of vice, one marked by excess, the other by deficiency, and one kind of virtue, the observance of the mean. Now, each is in a way opposed to each, for the extreme dispositions are opposed both to the mean or moderate disposition and to one another, while the moderate disposition is opposed to both the extremes.
Aristotle explains that every virtue is located between a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency. Consider, for example, the virtues of industriousness and courage below.
| Type of Action | Deficiency | Virtue | Excess |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Effort in One's Work |
Laziness:
General unwillingness or disinclination to work
|
Industriousness:
Diligent and persevering occupation with productive activities
|
Single-Minded Obsessiveness: Tendency to focus one’s effort on only one thing |
|
Response to Fear |
Cowardice:
General failure to take necessary risks in the face of fear
|
Courage:
Strength and willingness to face and respond appropriately to fear, pain, and other obstacles with resoluteness and confidence
|
Rashness:
Carelessness in the face of danger by refusing to appreciate the consequences
|
Are all virtues at the mean between two vices? Are all vices either too little or too much of something? Or are there some virtues that are themselves at an extreme? For example, consider that practical wisdom is the tendency to correctly judge the best way to act across a wide variety of circumstances. Is it really possible to know too much about how to do the right thing in the right circumstances? Or consider honesty, the virtue of being truthful to oneself and others. Of course we can be deficient in truthfulness, as is the case when we lie to others because we have a vice. But is it possible to be excessive in truthfulness, to tell the truth too much or to tell too much of the truth?
Aristotle just told us that the virtues, the perfectly good habits, are in the center between vicious extremes – doing or feeling too much of something and not doing or feeling enough of it. Now he’s going to tell us not to aim for the center between the extremes, not to aim for perfect virtue! Let’s figure out why he thinks this is a good idea.
Book 2.8-9
[I]t is a hard thing to be good […] [A]ny one can be angry—that is quite easy; any one can give money away or spend it: but to do these things to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right object, and in the right manner, is not what everybody can do, and is by no means easy; and that is the reason why right doing is rare and praiseworthy and noble […]
[W]e must consider, each for himself, what we are most prone to—for different natures are inclined to different things—which we may learn by the pleasure or pain we feel. And then we must bend ourselves in the opposite direction; for by keeping well away from error we shall fall into the middle course, as we straighten a bent stick by bending it the other way […] So much then is plain, that the middle character is in all cases to be praised, but that we ought to incline sometimes towards excess, sometimes towards deficiency; for in this way we shall most easily hit the mean and attain to right doing.
When we drive a car, we want the car to sit perfectly in the middle of the lane we are driving in. But we also know that the driver’s seat is on one side of the car, not in the middle of the car. So, our perspective is off – we can’t tell exactly where the center of the lane is, at least not from our position inside the car! Instead of truly aiming for the middle of the lane from our perspective, we should aim a little bit to one side, knowing that not aiming for the center will actually help us stay in the center, right where we want to be.
Consider a bad habit you have, a vice that you want to get rid of. Do you tell white lies to your instructor so that you can get an excused absence or get credit for a late assignment? Are you stingy with money, food, or time even when you know someone is in need of help? To try to overcome your lack of generosity, tell all your friends and family that you want to give more of your time and money to others. Ask them to put pressure on you to do more for them and for strangers. By doing this, you very well may be shooting for the extreme, giving up too much and not saving enough money for your financial security. To try to overcome your dishonesty, for an entire week put sticky notes in your house and in your notebooks, maybe even setting alarms throughout the day reminding you not to lie, sugarcoat, mislead, or omit any truths. You very well may be aiming for another extreme, being too blunt or insensitive to the opinions of others. Do you think these will help you reach the middle position, being generous instead of stingy, honest instead of dishonest? Try it and see for yourself!
Aristotle thinks that good habits are intermediate states, sandwiched between two extreme vices, that we develop through instruction and education. Good habits are preserved and improved upon through practice and repetition. Once we have good habits, we can act virtuously by knowing the right thing to do in any given situation, because we know we should do the right thing, because we care about the good nature of the action, and because we have developed a tendency to do the right thing. To develop good habits, sometimes we have to aim for the opposite extreme of the position we are in at the moment, so that we can offset the bad habits that we currently have.
If you’re interested in the role that thinking and deliberating play in Aristotle’s theory of virtue, check out Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics. If you’re interested in the connection between virtue and interpersonal relationships, check out Book VIII. If you want to learn how to apply Aristotle’s virtue ethics to real life, check out this public philosophy article on using social media virtuously.
This work has been adapted from The Nicomachean Ethics, a title from the eCampusOntario Public Domain Core Collection. This work is in the public domain. All images were created using Midjourney and are the property of the Philosophy Teaching Library. Thanks to the editors of the Teaching Library and to an anonymous reviewer for comments that helped improve the essay.
Sweet, Katherine. 2024. “Don’t Be So Extreme: Getting Virtue Just Right. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book II” The Philosophy Teaching Library. Edited by Robert Weston Siscoe, <https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/dont-be-so-extreme/>.
God as God – The phrase “God as God” is basically a synonym for “God the subject.” In other words, it refers to God precisely in God’s status as an incomprehensible divine Other.
Incarnation – The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is the notion that the word of God became fully human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is closely associated with the doctrine of the trinity, which asserts that God the Father, God the Son (Jesus as the word made flesh), and God the Holy Spirit are one God.
Religious Fanaticism – In Feuerbach’s use of the term, a religious fanatic is someone who is unwaveringly faithful to God as an utterly mysterious superhuman being. They subordinate other things—especially the love of other humans—to submission before this divine other.
God the Subject – When Feuerbach refers to God as a subject, he is referring to the commonplace religious belief that God is a being who has various attributes, like a loving nature.
Faith Separates Man From God – Faith separates God from man in this sense: it treats God as a mysterious other, a being radically distinct from us.
Faith – Belief in and fidelity to a transcendent divine subject like God.
Orthodoxy – Orthodoxy refers to “right belief,” and it is concern with identifying heresies and ensuring that people believe and practice correctly.
Indirect Form of Self-Knowledge – Feuerbach’s view is that religious belief is a naive way of relating to our human nature and its perfections. It is naive or childlike because it treats these as external realities that belong to God. He believes a mature and contemplative person realizes these don’t belong to God, but rather to our species, abstractly conceived.
Above the Individual Man – The human perfections are “above the individual” insofar as no particular individual ever perfectly realizes them. They are abstractions.
Divine Trinity – Feuerbach is having fun here. He is using the theological phrasing of the Trinity to talk about human perfections. In calling reason, love, and freedom of the will “divine,” he means they are absolutely good; they are activities whose goodness is intrinsic to their practice or exercise. This isn’t a novel philosophical view. For example, Immanuel Kant argued that autonomy or a good will is the only thing which is unconditionally good.
Perfections – The end to which a faculty or power is ordered. For example, omniscience would be the perfection of the intellect. Traditionally, God is said to possess all perfections.
Love – When Feuerbach writes about love, he is referring to unconditional concern for others and the desire for fellowship with them. He is here asserting that love, understood in this sense, is the perfect activity of the affective faculty. In other words, our feelings and passions are fully actualized and engaged in an intrinsically valuable activity when we genuinely love others.
Infinite – The infinite is whatever can be understood as unbounded or unlimited. Human nature in the abstract is unbounded and unlimited. It is only bounded or limited in its concrete form as it is realized by particular material individuals.
Higher Consciousness – The sort of consciousness that mature human beings possess, but which other animals do not. It is “higher” than animal consciousness because it involves thinking abstractly about the form or essence of things.
Science – Feuerbach uses the term science in its classical sense, meaning systematically organized knowledge. Any body of knowledge founded on an understanding of first principles and the essences of things is a science in this sense.
Popular Sovereignty – The view that a government’s authority to rule comes from the people, making a ruler subject to the will of their citizens.
The Divine Right of Kings – The theory that kings are chosen by God and thus that political revolt is a rebellion against the will of God.
Synthesis – The prefix ‘syn-’ means “together,” so a synthesis “brings together” or combines elements of both a thesis and its antithesis.
Antithesis– An antithesis is the contradiction of a thesis. For example, internationalism could be understood as the antithesis of nationalism.
Thesis – In Hegelian terms, a thesis can be understood as a position or theory. Examples include any of the “-isms” that we discuss in science, history, and philosophy, such as Darwinism, capitalism, nationalism, etc.
Progressor’s Temptation – a unique temptation for those making progress in which pride impedes their further progress and leads to backsliding.
Progressors – those who are not yet expert Stoic practitioners, but who are also aware of the fact that they must change their lives in that direction. They are working on making progress.
Intellectualism – the philosophical view that our motivations and emotions are all judgments. The reason why you do something, your motivation, is because you believe it’s the right thing to do. The reason why you feel good or bad about something, an emotion, is because you believe that something good or bad happened to you.
Duties – acts of service, obedience, and respect that we owe to each other. The duties we owe to each other depend on what kind of relationship we have.
Askeses – exercises of Stoic thought and practice that make the lessons and habits of Stoic philosophy second-nature for Stoic practitioners.
Externals – things that are not under our control but that are all-too-easily confused with things that should be important to us, like wealth, status, and pleasure. Too many people believe externals like these are necessary for the good life, and the Stoic path is to focus not on these things but rather what is up to us.
The Fundamental Division – the division between things that are under our direct control and those that are not. The important lesson is to care only about the things we can control.
The Greatest Happiness Principle – A principle which says that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness and wrong insofar as they promote unhappiness