Video Transcript: Aristotle's Golden Mean

Aristotle's golden mean. So in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains the  mean between the extremes, what we call his golden mean. And it's really  interesting that Buddha and other thinkers discovered a similar concept and  talked about it Buddha called it the middle way. It's also interesting that this  concept, the golden mean, really captures the Greeks love for moderation and  harmony and balance and everything. So let's get into this. First of all, a habit is  something that we repeatedly do, and that becomes a disposition a character  trait. Now a virtue is simply a habit that leads to flourishing. It's usually one that  people are drawn to. A virtue is a habit, a disposition, a character trait,  something you usually do that leads to flourishing. A vise is a habit that  diminishes flourishing. So for example, if I smoked cigarettes every day, that  would be a vise to my health. So Aristotle observes that the flourishing person  the good person, the wise person usually exhibits behavior, that's a mean  between two extremes, excess and deficiency. So look at the chart to better  understand this, and I'll talk a bit about the chart. Okay. Number one, courage is  good. Courage is the virtue. So if I'm cowardly, or too shy, I will never ask the girl out on a date, or I may never have the courage to apply for the job or the raise.  Right. On the other hand, I probably won't flourish if I'm at the other extreme, if I  ask everyone out in the date, show no modesty and demand a raise, right. So  there's a mean between those two extremes that captures virtuous behavior, or  describes it, look at the second row. Shame, you should have some shame for  Aristotle, modesty is a virtue, but too much, and you are what he calls shy. And  this again, can cause you to miss opportunities. Now, Aristotle is not saying that  shyness is evil. Rather, he's just saying that too much shame or too much  shyness or whatever can cause me to miss opportunities and there by not reach my full potential not flourish in life. Again, I might be too shy to go to the party,  meet new people, you know, apply for the job. But you don't want to go in the  other extreme either. And be a shameless narcissistic jerk. It's really hard to  flourish and make deep friendships and so on when you're the narcissistic jerk.  So again, there's nothing evil about being shy or shameless. It's just that it won't  lead to the highest levels of flourishing that you're capable of. Right? It won't  lead to higher levels of self actualization. Okay, let's look at the next row or a  row down there conversation. So let's say you and I are at a party and I start  talking about my stapler for five minutes. And I go on and on. Excuse me, and I  say it's black. It's shiny. Look, I can open it up and there's staples in there. I love  my stapler puts things together. Okay, if I talk like five minutes like that, I have a  deficiency. In my deficiency and conversation abilities, Plato called boorish,  okay, I'm deficient in there. On the other hand, you can be a buffoon, the loud  person is obnoxious and really different way. Okay. And you know who you are,  right? So the mean, the virtue is wittiness. All right, look at the social conduct  row. Now, again, I might be the type of person that agrees with everything you  say, I'm a yes person. So if you ask me my political views, I just agree with 

whatever you say. We can call this obsequious behavior. The problem here is  not that obsequious behavior is evil, it's just that it doesn't usually lead to  flourishing, because I can't form deep relationships, and I can't find them  because I'm not my own person, or I'm not revealing who I really am. So the  virtue of the middle the mean is being friendly. So I can state my opinions about  politics and agree with you in some issues and disagree and others, but I do it in a friendly way. I am my own person. When I'm virtuous in the mean, I  understand the boundaries of good relationships. Understand that I must be my  own person before I can be in a meaningful relationship. Now at the other  extreme, we have cantankerous behavior, which is like the cranky old  curmudgeon who disagrees with everything you say, and you know, might have  a superiority complex or might yell at you for being on his lawn or something.  Let's jump down in the row that says when others wrong you. So let's say you  go to your dorm room and your roommate is on your side of the room, eating  your food and using your pillowcase as a Kleenex. This is an injustice you are  being wronged. Now, some of us want to avoid conflict at all costs. And this is  not good. We're pushovers right we're doormats we have that deficiency. Now,  it's not evil to be a pushover, but it just won't lead to the best life possible for  you. So you must create habits and preferably you learn them in childhood. But  you must create habits in which you stand up for yourself in which you have  healthy boundaries. So for Aristotle, the virtue here is to first get angry. Anger is  a virtue, but you shouldn't be too angry or too little angry. It's a virtue as long as  anger is at the right person, for the right reason at the right time to the right  degree. Don't let your roommate get away with this injustice, you should be  angry and take reasonable action. When your roommate makes amends, you  should then forgive, understand and move on. according to Aristotle, this is what the good and flourishing the virtuous person does. Okay? Now on the other  hand, you can lose your mind and just shoot them or something that would be a  deficiency a vice as well. We also know people who might be revengeful and  resentful for the rest of their life. I think we all know little old ladies who get in an  argument and they bounce upside down cake or something, and they don't talk  to each other for 20 years. This sort of attitude is toxic to your well being. It's  being filled with this revenge resentment for 20 years prevents flourishing. In  some ways. It's like a cold dark force in your psyche, that makes all of your  perceptions a bit gloomy attends with resentment. So for Aristotle, the virtue is to let go after one has become angry and forgave and understanding. Now look at  the row below it. This is when you wrong others. Again, I could be indifferent or  remorseless when I wrong others. But that won't lead to very deep relationships. And it's just not the type of person I want to be in probably you want to be.  Rather, we want to be the type of people who don't do wrong, or at least who  acknowledges the wrong that they do and try to make amends for it. Now, on the other hand, I could do wrong and beat myself up for years about it, I could hold 

on to toxic guilt and shame for years. And this would be a barrier to flourishing  too you can see this as a deficiency vise. So the mean the virtuous path is to  first acknowledge my wrong after all, we all make mistakes, experience, regret,  try to make amends. And then regardless of whether the wrong person accepts  the amends, I need to forgive myself to let go. So I can move on and flourish in  life. We all make mistakes, and we need to forgive ourselves after learning from  them. So notice, you could go on and on like this, and Aristotle does. He's  describing the virtues and trying to aspire inspire us to be virtuous. And it's  describing the wise person, the virtuous person. So you can love yourself too  much or too little, you can eat too much or too little, and so on. But let's go to  these questions now. So we can more deeply understand what this golden  mean is about. The first one says, Can the golden mean guide me in the same  way utilitarianism or egoism can? And I think the answer is no, the golden mean  is not very action guiding. So for example, what is too much or too little for me to eat? Right? If I'm sitting at the table with Aristotle, who would say don't eat too  much or too little. So, but that doesn't tell me how much to eat. So Aristotle is not so much given us a law that we can follow. Right? Rather, he's describing how  virtuous people actually behave. The virtuous person gravitates towards the  right amount of food towards the mean, and most things, he's not so much  giving ethical advice, in a way he's describing what ethical characters do. And  the virtuous person has this habit or disposition that allows them to see the  mean and act accordingly. Okay, number two, why is it harder to be virtuous  than viceful? Well, it's harder to be virtuous. Because when you look at the  chart, there's one way to be virtuous and two ways to be viceful. You could think  of the virtue as the bullseye, and then you go infinitely in the directions to the left or the right, and to the Viceful directions. Let's look at the next one. How do we  learn the virtues? Okay, Aristotle says that most moral habits are learned  through practice habituation, not primarily thinking, so it's best to learn them as  children, and to set up political systems that habituate us to good habits, habits  that lead to flourishing. So just think of some of the ways you can help your  children. First, don't give them cigarettes or let them smoke. Second, you could  create study habits. So a parent might set aside four to five o'clock every day,  for a time in which the child does homework or read the book. And everyday it's  the same. Okay? We're physical health. Parents can habituate children to eat  healthy and to go to bed at a reasonable time. Manners parents can model and  train children to say thank you right and teach other polite gestures that lubricate the gears of social discourse and friendliness and so on. So we learn these  habits the these moral habits are virtues through practice and preferably in  childhood. And this is one reason why Aristotle believed ethics was a branch of  politics, we should set up political structures that ensure certain habits will be  cultivated. Notice too, that it's really hard to change your habits as an adult. So  imagine one person never had a cigarette. Okay? It's very easy for for him not to

smoke. But imagine my parents gave me cigarettes ever since I was eight year  old child. As an adult, I'm at a disadvantage, I have to work really hard to change my habit, whereas it comes naturally for you to resist cigarettes to do the right  thing, the healthy thing. So our parents and our political structures play  important roles in creating these virtues in young people. And if you neglect to  do this, you're only hurting the child. So Aristotle also talks about weakness, a  will equation, he talks about the incontinent person who wants to do wrong and  does it. He talks about the continent person who wants to do wrong, but doesn't  do it. In the virtuous person who neither wants to do wrong, nor does it. Okay, so we want to cultivate our character so that we naturally habitually do the good.  We're disposed to do the good act. Okay. Here's the next question. What about  murder? Okay. That is the golden mean is not an absolute rule. For example,  Aristotle would not take murder and say the excess would be murdering 10  people, the deficiency would be murdering one person a year. But Bob, he killed five he's virtuous, okay? Now, this silliness doesn't follow from his ethics. And  Aristotle says, ethics is an approximate science not exact, and that some things  are wrong, no matter how much or how little you have, right? So in short, you  should not aim for the mean of murder, because murder is intrinsically bad,  right? He's not laying down rules so much as he is describing virtuous behavior.  The next question is, is Aristotle an egoist or a relativist? or utilitarian? And the  answer is no, he's a virtue theorist. Aristotle would disagree with ethical egoism,  because it violates the golden mean, right? It doesn't lead to harm human  flourishing, because you can be too concerned with your self interest with your  own self interest, and maybe lack true friends. Okay, or excessively concerned  with the interest of others and not take good care of yourself. The mean the  virtue is to balance concern for yourself in others. Aristotle also is not a relativist, because he believes there are, first of all objective components to human  flourishing, a relativist doesn't. But more importantly, he believes there is a best  or correct way to act in each situation. A relativist doesn't Aristotle's a  situationalist, not a relativist. He's a virtue theorist, not a relativist. So here's an  example of situationalism, the ballerina and the sumo wrestler, may need  different amounts of food, but there's an optimal amount of food for each. There  is a correct amount of food for each person, though it varies from person to  person. Since there is an objectively correct amount in each situation, he's not a  relativist. Okay, now, you may want to think on that for a while. So that's his  golden mean. It's a small part of his virtue theory, but an important part. And I'll  explain virtue theory in a later video. But take a look at the chart again, on each  row, evaluate whether you are more towards the excess or deficiency, or if  you're right on target hitting the mean, right? I imagine very few people hit the  mean on everything. I certainly don't. So use this chart of the golden mean, if  you use it in this way, it can help you know make us more aware of our strengths and weaknesses. It guides us and thinking about where our habits come from 

whether we should try to change them the type of thinking that supports them,  and how to change them. That is I don't think it's this golden mean is just a  description of how virtuous people behave. But it's also a tool for self reflection  and self improvement. Thanks