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Introduction to Aristotle's Golden Mean (Episode 184)
39 Plays3 hours ago
In this episode, Michael Tremblay and Caleb Ontiveros explore Aristotle's ethics, focusing on his doctrine of virtue as the golden mean. They break down how Aristotle's view differs from Stoicism—from his three-part soul to his idea that virtues are skills developed through practice. Learn why Aristotle saw courage as a balance between cowardice and rashness, why feeling the right emotions matters as much as doing the right thing, and how this ancient framework applies to modern life.
The conversation unpacks key concepts from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: habituation, the role of pleasure in virtue, and why context matters in ethical decisions.
(08:29) Aristotelian Happiness
(10:47) Parts of the Soul
(12:44) The Kinds of Virtues
(14:04) Virtue as Skill
(18:39) Habituation
(19:42) The Golden Mean
(26:07) Good Reason For Bad Feelings
(28:24) Meaning of Virtue
(31:37) Self-Reinforcing Virtue
(35:31) What the Golden Mean Means
(45:02) Key Ideas For Practice
(48:03) Differences with Stoicism
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Transcript
Introduction to Aristotle's Ethics vs. Stoicism
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Stoic Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Trombley. And today we're going to be talking about Aristotle, walking little off the path from Stoicism and going to be discussing ah different account, one of those classic different accounts of virtue, the good life, happiness, and so on.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to do this episode. um So the the point of this episode, looking at Aristotle's ethics at a high level, so his view on how to live or how to be a good person, um specifically want to focus on this idea of virtue as the golden mean or virtue as a mean between two extremes.
00:00:47
Speaker
That might might be new to some people. That might be ah very familiar concept to others. um So what does that mean? What is Aristotle's account of you know how to live well and and what virtue looks like.
00:01:02
Speaker
And also contrasted at the end with what the Stoics
Importance of Understanding Philosophical Schools
00:01:06
Speaker
think. So both to understand Aristotle better for for our own benefit, and then also to improve our understanding of Stoicism by providing this kind of foil.
00:01:14
Speaker
I really do think one of the best ways to understand what the Stoics are saying is to understand what other schools have said or what people that disagree with them say.
00:01:25
Speaker
And it really draws out the the both theoretical and practical implications of the Stoics better. When Aristotle disagrees, you you really have to make sure you understand what the Stoics are arguing and then decide based on that criteria whether or not you agree with them.
Aristotle's Philosophical Approach
00:01:42
Speaker
um So that's what we'll be doing today. i think Aristotle is this funny one because i found him bit dry. and think everybody who reads Aristotle finds him a bit dry at first, or certainly when you read him next to the Stoics.
00:01:54
Speaker
He was famously the student of Plato. And depending on who you talk to possibly the greatest philosopher of all time, I know in the medieval ages He was referred to as the philosopher because he was just kind of the most profound thinker or kind of seen as the pinnacle of the ancient Greek tradition or Roman tradition.
00:02:17
Speaker
was really like that. was the Aristotle was the guy to a lot of people. um I think that's maybe a bit more contested now. I think there's maybe a bit of a Plato resurgence.
00:02:28
Speaker
But I know Aristotle is one of those ancient Greek philosophers also that's still treated pretty seriously by contemporary philosophy. like It's not unusual to see contemporary philosophers citing or referring to Aristotle, whether that's in meta ah metaphysics, ethics, even political philosophy, even Even if it's just kind of situated as like, you know, the thinking started here with Aristotle, and then it bounced around, and we got to this end point.
00:02:54
Speaker
So, you know, somebody really taken seriously in philosophy. um Another thing about Aristotle's approach to thinking is he was kind of... um inductive.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so there's this this almost like bottom up or like observational approach. And I find when you read Aristotle, he'll start a lot of things. um You know, this the the Stoics make this appeal, something we talk about a lot, Caleb, they make this appeal to nature. And they say, well, to figure out the purpose of life, you've got to look at the nature of a human. And there's this kind of appeal to the natural world and all of ancient philosophy.
00:03:29
Speaker
But Aristotle is almost a bit more like common sense. It's this appeal, like, well, the average person thinks this. Or, you know, if you walked around the marketplace, people would talk about virtue like this.
00:03:41
Speaker
And he almost uses that as a reference point. It's kind of interesting because he was also known for um a lot of advances in biology as well, like went out and um observed a lot of animals, recorded different species, their kind of breeding patterns, how they give birth, their biology.
00:04:04
Speaker
And so he had this real, I guess, reverence. I'm trying to argue you had this reverence for this observation of the world and not just this appeal to nature and this big end kind of stoic conception of the universe, but also um If I want to know how to live, I'm going to go out into the marketplace, i'm gonna talk to people.
00:04:21
Speaker
And maybe they're confused, maybe they're right or wrong, but there's at least something to be gained from almost this deductive, qualitative observation approach. That's something I like about Aristotle. um And so, any other anything else you want to say by way of background before we jump into his thinking?
00:04:38
Speaker
Well, I certainly ah buttress that by saying Aristotle is... um
00:04:47
Speaker
ah Maybe one way to capture what you're saying is that he's an observational philosopher. And he'll say, you know, just as ah we can look around the world and see, and this is something we'll talk about in this podcast a lot, you know the importance of excess and deficiency in health.
00:05:05
Speaker
And then he'll talk about some basic observation about health and then tie that in with ethics. So I think that's ah one way you see this sort of observational method playing out in his thinking.
00:05:17
Speaker
And it is connected to biology. it's he He shares the same assumption with the Stoics about appealing to nature, I would say, but perhaps you know the Stoics really honed in on the rational side of nature, the rational side of ourselves.
00:05:33
Speaker
But perhaps Aristotle didn't hone in as much on a specific attribute, but instead is piecing together a number of different observations he's made about specific organisms about humans and such. So in that way, it's perhaps more detailed. And I think that's one of the, perhaps the joys and frustrations of reading
Nicomachean Ethics: Happiness and Virtues
00:05:54
Speaker
Aristotle's. He's sort of, that he is so detailed.
00:05:57
Speaker
he's He's a taxonomist of sorts, are drawing distinctions, making observations. And that can be very fruitful and ah sometimes difficult to to go through as well.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah. And another thing that's, um, fun about aristotle i guess two other things i wanted to add in support he's got this observational style and then i think just like funny facts he's kind of notorious for getting some of these things wrong um too like he famously claimed that women have less teeth than men um and humans and so there's this there's this almost this funny like there's there's so much um I don't know. It's just funny when you see something like that because it's like that such a smart person, such this kind of methodical approach, but still these mistakes come in. And I think that's something to keep an eye out for when you're, you know, then getting to these questions of like how to live and how to be.
00:06:52
Speaker
um And another thing about Aristotle, I made a comment about him being really boring at the start or dry, but we've actually lost a lot of his books. And he had ones for popular audiences and then ones which were more you know lecture notes for his students at the Lyceum.
00:07:09
Speaker
And that's kind of that's what we have left over. At least the Nicomachean Ethics, which we're going to get into, is one of those And so he's he's a lot more dry or can be more, I would say, academic than Seneca or Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius. And part of that is probably just his style and disposition. But another part is that we've lost his um his writings that were for more of a popular audience. And we have really his...
00:07:35
Speaker
lecture notes for his students. Certainly the Nicomachean ethics that we'll be talking about falls in that category. And so you can think of like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca reading and reflecting on the more academic of the Stoics, Chrysippus and Zeno, um but we don't really have their writings in in as great of detail, where in Aristotle we still have those kind of original foundational texts where he really systematically lays everything out.
00:08:01
Speaker
um And that's thats that speaks to his style.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose one other thing I should have said, there's no way, if you're making any list of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece, you know there's no way Aristotle's not in the top but top three.
00:08:19
Speaker
I think most people probably put him top two, but you know if you're a Stoic, you you know about Chrysippus, so maybe you tossed Chrysippus in top three as well. but I mean, he's certainly one of the greats. Yeah, definitely.
00:08:30
Speaker
um So cool. So we'll jump into it. So this is, again, Aristotle on the golden mean. what does that What does that mean? What does the mean mean? And um how does it contrast the Stoic view on virtue?
00:08:45
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about Nicomachean ethics. This is named after Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, and it's his most famous work on ethics. It's considered um the most up-to-date one.
00:08:58
Speaker
um So it's like a possibly like the the final... the final stage of his thinking. um And some key claims, we're going focusing a lot on books one and two, mostly on book two, where he actually makes this claim for virtue as a kind of mean.
00:09:14
Speaker
um And some key parts that we get in book one, um leading into book two that lets us get into virtue are the nature of virtue. So in in book one, Aristotle establishes eudaimonistic ethics.
00:09:28
Speaker
And this is this view. i mean, we talk about this all the time, Caleb, was this this idea comes from Aristotle, or at least it's systematically laid out in Aristotle, which is that everything we do has an ends or a goal.
00:09:42
Speaker
If you ask why long enough, you get back to the final goal that all things have, which is happiness. So, you know, why do I wake up in the morning to go to work? Why do I go to work? Well, to, you know, do well in my job. Why do I want to do well in my job?
00:09:57
Speaker
Well, either because I find it meaningful or because I want money. Why do you want meaning or money? or because they make me happy. And everything, every line of question ends up with that final response. You know, we we think, well, that's what is a good life. Like I don't have, i there's no way to justify wanting a good life. That is just the bedrock of, you know, what what you can want.
00:10:18
Speaker
And then, so then Aristotle sets out in the book to say, well, okay, if the if the goal of life then is happiness, that is the telos or the ends for humans. What is the content of that? What does that look like?
00:10:31
Speaker
what is What does it involve? And he ends up arguing that it's got to involve human excellence. It's got to involve virtue. you know So you you can't be happy or have a great life unless you are being a great human.
Virtue as a Craft: Aristotle vs. Stoicism
00:10:45
Speaker
that's That's one of his arguments. Another thing is that... um So that's that's one part. Another thing he talks about in book one, which differentiates himself from the Stoics immediately, and this is pre-Stoicism, so he wasn't differentiating himself, but he just disagrees.
00:11:00
Speaker
is that the soul is divided into three parts. So when you say becoming an excellent human, what is a human? Well, at the very least, it is our soul and our soul has three parts.
00:11:11
Speaker
It's got a vegetative part that's shared with all living things, but it doesn't respond it's not responsive to reason. You can't communicate with it. You've got an appetitive part.
00:11:23
Speaker
So that is, that's what desires things. You know, that's the part of you that maybe, um you know, gets hungry, um you jumps away from pain, um yeah know, maybe gets in ah it gets in ah in a really bad mood if you haven't been sleeping enough and wants to just drop everything, go to sleep. That's me at least.
00:11:44
Speaker
So it desires things. It's kind of connected with the body, but it it can listen to reason. So you can be like, look, you know, you're driving a car.
00:11:56
Speaker
Don't fall asleep now, even though you're really sleepy. You know, just stop. just Just stay a little bit longer and you get so you get a good sleep. Or you're driving. Don't eat at this gas station. Even though you're really hungry, if you keep driving a little bit longer, they'll be an even tastier meal.
00:12:11
Speaker
So you can kind of communicate with the appetitive part of yourself. It can collaborate with reason. The vegetative part of yourself, I should have said, that's something probably, you know, the part of you that makes your bones grow or something, or the part of you that like communicates with your, you know, um makes your makes your muscles respond to weightlifting or something. It's it's not the kind of thing you engage with with reason.
00:12:33
Speaker
And then the third part is the rational part of yourself. That's the part that is ah has reason, is rational, and can order and command the appetitive part. So since we have these these three parts of the soul, virtues then are of two kinds, Aristotle argues.
00:12:50
Speaker
First, there is the intellectual virtues, which are correspond to the rational part of the soul. These are things you learn through instruction and knowledge. um And then there are moral virtues.
00:13:02
Speaker
These are correspond to the irrational, appetitive part of the soul. And these are things that you have to learn through um habituation and practice.
00:13:13
Speaker
So that, I think, is the first division. The Stoics think of the soul as being unified. You're just a rational thing. um and And Aristotle thinks, no, you've kind of got this these ah these multiple parts of you,
00:13:27
Speaker
And then they become excellent in different ways. The rational part of you becomes excellent through learning. The appetitive part of yourself becomes excellent through habituation and training.
00:13:38
Speaker
um The same way you would think of you know an animal would have an appetitive part of it yourself. How do you make an excellent dog? It's not by sitting down and talking to the dog. It's by training the dog, punishing them when they do something wrong, rewarding them when they do something right.
00:13:51
Speaker
and then you end up with it with an excellent pet. pat And you think of the same kind of thing for yourself or for for people. You can teach them intellectual virtues, but you need to train them in moral virtues.
00:14:04
Speaker
One last part, and then I'll and then see if you have any any thoughts, Caleb, is that virtues are not natural, is another thing he clarifies. We're not born with virtue. Otherwise, we wouldn't require intervention to develop.
00:14:18
Speaker
Virtues are like a skill or a craft. This is actually an interesting response to the Stoics because the Stoics say virtue is knowledge, it's living in accordance with reason, and then the Stoics have to respond, well, if if you know virtue is living in accordance with reason, if being a good person is living in accordance with reason, and why is everybody such terrible people?
00:14:35
Speaker
And the Stoics have to say, well, you kind of get corrupted, things happen. um Aristotle makes a different analogy. He says, no... Virtue is like a craft. It's like a skill. You're not born knowing how to ah shoot a bow and arrow. You're not born knowing how to paint.
00:14:49
Speaker
You have to have to develop this excellence. um you know they're they're either developed or destroyed based on how we act. And I have some quotes here. This is from book two, part one.
00:15:02
Speaker
Aristotle says, the virtues, on the other hand, we acquire by first having actually practiced them, just as we do the arts. We learn an art or craft by doing the things that we shall have to do when when we have learned it.
00:15:15
Speaker
For instance, men become builders by building houses, harpers by playing the harp. Similarly, we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
00:15:28
Speaker
And again, even a later part, he says, again, the actions from or through which any virtue is produced are the same as those through which it is destroyed, just as is the case with skill and arts.
00:15:41
Speaker
For both the good harpers and the bad ones are produced by harping, similarly with builders and all other craftsmen. As you will become a good builder from building well, so you will become a bad one from building badly.
00:15:54
Speaker
And this is another consequence of their skill view is, you know, if you think of that in sport, there's this, there's this almost this sense that it's better to take somebody who's never played tennis than somebody who's played bad tennis and developed all these bad habits.
00:16:10
Speaker
And he's he's saying, so, you know, if you never, if you never encounter anything scary, you just started this exact neutral place. But if you encounter scary things and you act fearfully, you don't display courage.
00:16:26
Speaker
You're actually, the craft is really encountering scary things. If it's temperance, it's encountering things you desire. And then you're either you're either made stronger or weakened by those instances.
00:16:37
Speaker
But you're not anything until you're you're doing the thing that builds it. You don't have any, you are only innate potential until you've built a house or tried to build a house. um Likewise for the virtues.
Happiness and Virtue Development
00:16:49
Speaker
It's a little bit different because I guess we you know people go around not playing instruments all the time, but people don't really go around their day-to-day not encountering situations that require bravery or temperance. sure Sure. His point his point is is is makes sense, but I mean, practically there's a bit of a difference, but it's just that um you only build or weaken them by doing the corresponding thing either well or poorly.
00:17:12
Speaker
So that's the setup I think we need to get to the um to talk about the golden mean. But anything you wanted to add to that? I think that was yeah that was really well summarized. So I suppose, just to put in my own words, we have this this question, this sort philosophical question about you know what is the purpose of life? What does it mean to live a good life that Aristotle is proposing?
00:17:38
Speaker
ah Happiness is the telos of human life. And and particular, eudaimonia doesn't mean happiness. you know As we always clarify, it doesn't exactly just mean happiness in terms of a blissful state and such. It's ah something a deeper state, you know what is, as you say, being an excellent human being.
00:17:59
Speaker
And it's also, it's not just an outcome, but it's better thought of as an activity, you know, being an excellent human being, doing what excellent human beings do. And I'd say that's another important clarification Aristotle makes. And it's sometimes at odds with how ah we think about happiness when we purely think of it as a binary state you're either in or not. You know, if you think I'm happy now, I'm not happy now.
00:18:26
Speaker
For Aristotle, that means in order for you to be happy, you need to be doing the sorts of things that a happy human would be doing. So I think that's an interesting framing when you think about, you know, the the concept but of happiness in your own life.
00:18:39
Speaker
But yeah, that that's well summarized. So I suppose we've got that purpose, some picture of human nature. like Unlike the Stoics, as you say, it involves these ah aspects of the organism that have to do with the body, the vegetative, the appetitive parts of the soul.
00:18:57
Speaker
And then also another distinction between the Stoics that comes out of that is this difference in the kinds of virtues. You know you have the intellectual and the moral virtues. And also that that practical point on you know what does it take to be moral, well, it requires habituation.
00:19:15
Speaker
And I think that's ah ah such a ah you a sense like you just to common sense observation, but really is quite deep and useful if you're thinking about building skills in your own life thinking about virtues, moral virtues as habits.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah. I do think a lot about Aristotle's ideas around habituation. I find that really helpful in my own practice. So now we're in a position to talk about what does the golden mean? you know what's What's going on here?
00:19:49
Speaker
So Aristotle, he's established that you know you've got these intellectual and moral virtues. You build them by doing things that correspond to them like any other craft or skill. You know, nobody's getting better at archery while painting.
00:20:01
Speaker
Maybe there's the kind of, you know, there's the karate kid, wax on, wax off. Maybe that person's getting better at karate. But at the end of the day, you got to do karate to get better at karate. You got to do brave, courageous things to become more courageous and brave.
00:20:12
Speaker
So... so But Aristotle next moves to this question of, well, what actually is virtue? What what does what does that mean? um You know, that seems like a vague question, but for the Stoics, they would say, well, virtue is knowledge, right?
00:20:25
Speaker
It's achieved by um living in accordance with nature, which means understanding nature the way it is. But Aristotle has it has a different answer. He's going to say that virtue is a middle ground. It's a mean between excesses, just like any other desirable state.
00:20:42
Speaker
And I'll quote here from book two, part two of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle says, first of all, then we have to observe that moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency.
00:20:56
Speaker
As we see is the case with bodily strength and health for one is forced to explain what is invisible by means of visible illustrations. Aristotle's just saying, look, I'm just going to make an analogy here.
00:21:07
Speaker
Strength is destroyed is destroyed both by excessive and deficient exercises, and similarly health is destroyed both by too much and by too little food and drink, while they are produced, increased, and preserv preserved by suitable quantities.
00:21:21
Speaker
The same, therefore, is true of temperance, courage, and other virtues. The man who runs away from everything in fear and never endures anything becomes a coward. The man who fears nothing whatsoever but encounters everything becomes rash.
00:21:35
Speaker
Similarly, he that indulges in every pleasure and reflains refrains from none turns out to bri to be profligate. don't actually know that one. um And he that shuns all pleasure, as boorish people do, becomes what may be called insensible.
00:21:50
Speaker
Thus, temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and deficiency and preserved by the observation of the mean." Um, and so what Aristotle is saying here is, look, if you want to build muscle, you can't, you can't lift too much. You'll hurt yourself and you can't lift too little.
00:22:10
Speaker
If you want to be a good body weight, you can't eat too much and you can't eat too little. When we think about, when we talk about developing other kinds of excellence, we think about, uh, reaching the, the correct and appropriate quantity, um, the correct and appropriate amount.
00:22:26
Speaker
And so when we think about virtue, we should think about it the same way. Courage is the is the right amount of fearfulness. It is running away when you should run away, and it's standing your ground when you should stand your ground.
00:22:39
Speaker
um Another thing that he calls out is that um how you feel when acting is important when we talk about virtue. So it's not just, i said I said, you know, courage is running away when you should run away and standing when you should stand.
00:22:54
Speaker
But for Aristotle, that's not enough. He's actually going say, well, you've got to actually feel the right way about it too. And he says, quote, an index of our dispositions is afforded by the pleasure or pain that accompanies our actions.
00:23:06
Speaker
A man is temperate if he abstains from bodily pleasure and finds this abstinence itself enjoyable. Profligate if he feels it's irksome. He is brave if he faces danger with pleasure or at all events without pain.
00:23:20
Speaker
Cowardly if he does so with pain. So in other words, ah you're not truly courage courageous by standing up to the army. You're courageous when you do it and you don't feel distress or in maybe even pleasure in some cases.
Habituation in Virtues
00:23:33
Speaker
So it's this is the first kind of hint we get from Aristotle reading this that it's not just consequentialist kind of picture of what did you do? It's also how did it feel to do it um when we're when we're looking at genuine examples of of virtue. Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
um Anything to add there before we go further? Yeah, i I think that matters. How it feels matters because that's how we become habituated. as you This translation uses the word index, but I suppose you could also think of as measurement or perhaps information.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's easier to form habits that involve the right amount of pleasure that makes it easy you know easy to repeat in action Yeah, the point is not like you're a bad person. he Aristotle's going to say um pretty explicitly that better to be the person that stands up to the army with feel and feels distressed than the person who runs away.
00:24:33
Speaker
You just don't point to that person and say, that's an example of courage. You know, sometimes that we say in contemporary, like sometimes we say today, you know, everybody feels afraid. It's just how you respond to it. And Aristotle's going to say, no, no, no, the great people aren't afraid.
00:24:49
Speaker
But good for you for practicing. um I think of this, you know, you think of this like a like ah instrument. It's like the really great musician is just naturally expressing themselves. And if you're sitting there and you're playing the same song, but it's very intentional, it's taking a lot of effort.
00:25:07
Speaker
You're finding it very uncomfortable. Aristotle is going to say, great, you're practicing. You're not a great musician yet. We don't point to you as an example. The great musicians can do that stuff naturally. They've habituated, as you've said, but you're practicing, you're getting closer.
00:25:20
Speaker
So it's not to knock that kind of behavior. You should still do the right things if it's difficult, but it's to say you you've not really you haven't achieved the end goal yet if it's still difficult for you. The example I give too is like,
00:25:32
Speaker
you know If your friend asks you for a favor, or even in my own, you know I think about this my own relationship, sometimes you my wife will ask for help with something, and sometimes I will do it graciously and quickly, and sometimes they'll be like, oh, I really don't want to do that.
00:25:47
Speaker
I'm enjoying you know relaxing or whatever I'm doing. and you know The action's the same, but you want to try to become the kind of person that that helps um you know helps out of a genuine desire to do so. That is like a better that is a better way to be.
00:26:02
Speaker
And Aristotle thinks you can get there by by doing it enough.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's a yeah but that's ah that's a good clarification. I suppose something else that comes out of this that that I think ah is a useful point is the idea negative feelings, negative emotions can be appropriate for some circumstances.
00:26:22
Speaker
you know, for Aristotle, grief is appropriate when something tragic has happened. But even for perhaps smaller events, you know, feeling nervous before a important performance as a musician, in some sense is, you know, if it's it's to it's too intense, it's not appropriate, but some amount of nervousness could be optimal. You know it signals the the importance of the event.
00:26:46
Speaker
And so if you are not nervous at all, perhaps there's there's be some risk of treating the the performance in too flippant a manner. So I think that's ah another nice upshot is yes ah negative feelings, emotions in Aristotle.
00:27:02
Speaker
um And for the Stoics as well, you know you think about the the role of caution to some extent, um or at least negative the role of negative feelings for the Stoics. But for for Aristotle, I think ah he gives both pleasure and pain a purpose, I suppose is one way to put it.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean we'll get into that in more detail as we go. But I think that the important point is that differentiation between what you do, and then how you're feeling while you're doing it is very important for Aristotle. And mean, it's important for the Stoics too.
00:27:32
Speaker
So, but as you said, how you're feeling can sometimes, sometimes its appropriate to feel a bit negative, or even very negative. very upset. um So you think about, he's not going idealize that the person who goes on for a performance and doesn't feel any nerves and is nonchalant. That person is probably a bit, um and doesn't have the correct reverence for the importance of a performance.
00:27:55
Speaker
He's going to look at that person who's the right amount of nervous and say, that's great. And then maybe if you can fake it till you make it and look like you're not nervous and go out and perform well, Aristotle is going to say, well, you know, you, you were close to that right middle, but you still need to feel on the inside. still matters what you feel on the inside. doesn't matter if you could pass in front of the crowd or not.
00:28:13
Speaker
Right. Still i get that, that, that just enough nervousness, but not too much. Um, and so I'm, I'm, going back to my notes here, going a bit over what we said, but it's worth repeating as you, as ah as you read through book two, Aristotle notes an issue where he says, you know, if a person's doing something courageous, then how can they be learning anything?
00:28:32
Speaker
Because, um, you know, if, if, if you stand, if you go on stage and you play, how can you be practicing courage? Because clearly you're already courageous. You got on stage and you played and Aristotle saying, well, we, we,
00:28:46
Speaker
ah we're normally just doing courageous acts. We're not being courageous. He makes that distinction again between the inside and the outside. ah We're acting well in the moment, but we're not demonstrating virtue unless we have all the proper components, which is that internal disposition and then the actual action.
00:29:02
Speaker
I think of this like a BJJ competitor. We just used the example of performance versus as as a newbie versus experienced competitor. So one person's imitating one but of a one but building the skill um at the same time.
00:29:18
Speaker
With the other person, it just comes naturally them because they've practiced enough. And he says here, we demonstrate a virtue when we do something for the right reason. um That's knowledge. It's I think the intellectual aspect.
00:29:30
Speaker
um Deliberately. So that ah that is this emotional aspect. We want to do it. We desire to do it. Um, and then also from our disposition, he says, it's not virtue if we do it in the spur of the moment.
00:29:44
Speaker
Um, so sometimes, I mean, sometimes I guess the idea is we can just kind of chance or luck into doing by accident. The broken clock is right twice a day. you just did the objectively right thing, but, um, it wasn't, it wasn't coming from your, it wasn't coming from your disposition.
00:30:02
Speaker
um it's not how you normally act. It was kind of a, I guess if you think of like a musician playing the right note, um you know, unless you have that kind of understanding of why you're doing and it's kind of built into your skill.
00:30:15
Speaker
um So there's a quote here from Aristotle. He says, moreover, the case of the arts is not really analogous to that of the virtues. Works of art have their merit in themselves so that it's enough if they are produced having a certain quality of their own.
00:30:30
Speaker
But acts done in conformity with the virtues are not done justly or temperately if they themselves are of a certain sort, but only if the agent also is in a certain state of mind when he does them.
00:30:41
Speaker
First, he must act with knowledge. Second, he must deliberately choose the act and choose it for its own sake. And thirdly, the act must spring from a fixed and permanent disposition of character.
00:30:53
Speaker
So this is the part that I was speaking to before, but also he's clarifying, again, that consequentialist versus internal picture. um If you make a great work of art, it doesn't matter if you spilt and knocked over the can of paint and it made something cool by accident, there's still something cool in the world.
00:31:10
Speaker
Aristotle's like, no, there's no virtue even if you stumbled into doing the right thing. You've got to do it. You've got to do it for the right reason. got to knowledge. You've got deliberately choose it because it's the right thing to do. You've got want to do it.
00:31:23
Speaker
And then it's got spring from a fixed or permanent disposition of your character, not just a... And can think of this, you know, somebody who's just kind in the moment. It's not really, guess it's not really kind of a robust kindness. It's not the same as the kind of person that has a disposition to be kind.
00:31:37
Speaker
Sure.
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. There's a nice practical point that Aristotle makes around ah around this section where he notes that we become temperate by abstaining from pleasures. At the same time, we are best able to abstain from pleasures when we have become temperate.
00:31:54
Speaker
And so with courage, we become brave by training ourselves to to despise and endure terrors. And we shall best be able to endure terrors when we have become brave. that Just that point that these skills are self-reinforcing.
00:32:08
Speaker
In a way, you know by practicing abstaining from pleasures, it becomes easier to be temperate. And by being temperate, it becomes easier to practice and so on.
00:32:21
Speaker
So I think that's um i think that's that's just a nice observation. Well, there's this kind of idea of you know practice makes perfect. And then people will say in sport, well, no, practice doesn't make perfect.
00:32:32
Speaker
Perfect practice makes perfect. And it's this idea that it's better to drill slowly and correctly a couple times than drill poorly many times. And that's kind of what um'm that's what I think about when I hear that line is that you know, the, the, the good basketball player shoots correctly and you get better by the number of reps you've done with good technique.
00:32:53
Speaker
So the better your technique you are, the better it is to rep the good technique. And so it kind of compounds and builds on itself. And so it kind of requires the most effort at the beginning. It's the most difficult to build the skill at the beginning.
Challenges in Developing Virtues
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's correct. um I think there's also the idea that perhaps progress is ah non-linear. and you know As you get better at any skill, you know someone who is in the advanced or expert ah parts of those skills because they've made so much progress, they're able to combined their traits or they're able to avoid making terrible decisions that would set them back. And because of that, yeah they're just going to be levels above beginners, novices, and so on. So I think maybe there's that point here for the moral domain as well, you know, as you become, say, take moderation as an example, as you become more moderate, you're able to abstain from pleasures. They would set you back a little bit and just repeatedly doing that can put you,
00:33:54
Speaker
ah to the the extent that these sorts of things can be measured, that can put you eons ahead of maybe where you were a year ago or something like this, if you can continue continue that practice. So I think there's there's something inspirational there. And there's also maybe the, there's also the message around risks there that if you don't, you know, have safer pleasures now, then then then you are sending yourself back and in a way, perhaps robbing yourself of that progress as well.
00:34:17
Speaker
Well, also, and we've got we've got more to go into, so I don't want to go on this for too long, but I mean, there's also a piece of empathy there, right? Like it's, it's the people that are the worst off have the heart, have it the hardest to get better.
00:34:30
Speaker
Um, I think about this in terms of something like investing, right? Like when you have the least amount of money, there's probably the most upside to developing good habits around, ah you know, financial literacy and skills, but it's actually the most difficult to do so because the safe part of parts of your money is incredibly impactful.
00:34:49
Speaker
Um, um, And so likewise, you know, the, the, the intemperate person, the person who's struggling with, um, drugs or alcohol or food can most benefit from temperance, but has the hardest time doing it because they're the most habituated or disposed already, or, you know, in a cycle.
00:35:11
Speaker
So there is some empathy there too, for people that struggle. And that's why you almost require, I would say this kind of intense intervention, or intense focus in these moments to try to get that cycle swinging in the other direction.
00:35:24
Speaker
And Aristotle is just attuned to that, I think.
00:35:28
Speaker
Absolutely. All right, let's get back on track. Cool. So I wanted to talk about the golden mean a bit more. So we've already framed, okay, Aristotle thinks, okay, virtue is this this middle between excess and deficiency. It's like, you know, a good diet is not eating too much food. It's not eating too little. A good exercise routine is not lifting too much, lifting too little.
00:35:51
Speaker
What are the actual practical implications of this? What does this mean to In more detail. Well, one, it's that virtue is not about absolutes.
00:36:03
Speaker
It's not about, for the Stoics, it's very much about absolutes. Anger is always wrong. It's not in Aristotle's picture. Sometimes it's a right to be angry. Sometimes it's right to be sad or grieve.
00:36:13
Speaker
Sometimes we feel pleasure. Sometimes we feel pain. It's about achieving the right balance and the in the moment relative to you. And so he says in book two, part six, for example, one can be frightened or bold, feel desire or anger or pity and experience experience pleasure and pain in general, either too much or too little, and in both cases wrongly.
00:36:35
Speaker
Whereas to feel these things at the right time on the right occasion towards the right people for the right purpose and in the right manner is to feel the best amount of them. which is the mean amount.
00:36:46
Speaker
And the best amount is, of course, the mark of virtue. So we find the mean, Aristotle says, by experiencing things at the right time in the right place towards the right people for the right reason and in the right way.
00:36:59
Speaker
So a lot of components there. But the takeaway there, as you were alluding to earlier, is that sometimes the right time and right place is to be angry. It's to, know, lash out to out ah out of anger because someone's harmed you and they deserve punishment. Sometimes it is to grieve because a very bad thing has happened to you and it is to feel ah the appropriate amount.
00:37:25
Speaker
you know the the The Stoics build, when when the Stoics say things like anger or grief, they're going to call these passions. So they're already going to build this pejorative language into it where they're necessarily wrong. I'm not an expert on Aristotle's theory of emotions, but the important part here is that like there there isn't there isn an appropriate time for these things, whereas the Stoics are going to deal more in absolutes. No, we never feel anger because that's a passion. Passions are always wrong.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah. So as Aristotle says um in more detail, here's another great quote. Virtue then is a settled disposition of the mind, determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observation of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it.
00:38:14
Speaker
And it is a mean state between two vices, one of excess and one of defect. Furthermore, it is a mean state in that whereas the vices either fall short of or exceed what is right in feelings and in actions, virtue ascertains and adopts the mean.
00:38:30
Speaker
Hence, while in respect of its substance and the definition that states what it really is in essence, virtue is the observation of the mean. In point of excellence and rightness, it is an extreme.
00:38:42
Speaker
I guess there's an interesting point there, which is that it it is in one sense an extreme, but it's the extreme middle. It's the extreme rightness. um And so he's just saying there um there's a bit of circularity there, at least in this quote, which is that you know virtue is is is the disposition of the mind determining the right thing to do and to feel.
00:39:04
Speaker
relative to us and to like who we are and the situation that we're in, you know as the prudent person would determine it, so as the virtuous person would determine it. So there's a bit of, and I think that's a bit of a skillfulness, right? That's where we that's where we're lucky to have the craft analogy, right? the you know The correct play is the play that the excellent soccer player would make if they had your body and were in your position and the score of the game is the score that it is, or it's the note the excellent musician would play.
00:39:33
Speaker
If they were listening to the song and playing along to the song you're playing along to. So there's this, there's this relative, it's relativistic because it um matters who you are in the situation that you're in, but it's, but it's always going to be this balance between excess and and deficiency.
00:39:51
Speaker
So some examples that he lays out, courage is the mean between fear and rashness. Temperance is the mean between being sensible and profligate. Liberality is sharing and liberality in sharing money is the mean between meanness and ah prodigality, so um sharing too much.
00:40:08
Speaker
Honor is the mean between vanity and smallness of soul. I like that idea of... Smallness of soul is is just like not respecting yourself or not like thinking, you know, underestimating how good you really are. Yeah, it's a great phrase. in regard ah In regards to anger, gentleness is the mean between irascibility and spiritlessness.
00:40:28
Speaker
Again, you get that spiritlessness. Yeah. where the Stokes would say anger is never right, Aristotle says, well we don't want to be the person that anything will take you off, but you also don't want to be this person that has no spirit, has nothing that you will stand up for.
00:40:44
Speaker
And righteous and indignation is the mean between envy and malice. um So sometimes one extreme is worse than another. um i would say probably irascibility is worse than spiritlessness.
00:41:01
Speaker
But the mean is not always about landing exactly in the middle. It's about hitting the appropriate balance. And sometimes that appropriate balance is going to be, it's not literally like if one is a one, if it's if it's zero and two, I've always got to hit one.
00:41:14
Speaker
it's It's about sometimes the situation is going to demand more of vanity and sometimes it's going to demand more smallness of soul. Sometimes it's going to demand more fear. Sometimes going to demand more rashness.
00:41:24
Speaker
It's about hitting that that um that right balance.
00:41:35
Speaker
Anything to add to that? Maybe one quick, quick aside that I should state is, um I think there's, some there is some interpretive debate about how, you know, how to properly understand the doctrine of the mean, you know, is it, to what extent does Aristotle think all virtues fall on ah you know, make form mean, is this more of a heuristic, you know, maybe a rule of thumb,
00:42:03
Speaker
he is clear that not all actions and emotions follow this rule. um So, you know, there are some actions that are simply intrinsically wrong. You know, there's the list's malice or shamelessness. You know, there's no, there's no mean to find there.
00:42:21
Speaker
ah but But, but, you know however you answer this interpretive question, i think he gives us a number of examples, courage, temperance, liberality, honor, that, uh, you know, prove this is a useful notion.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah. I think we're like, I think we need to be really careful with language too. Cause what I take Aristotle to be saying is that when we think about the right thing to do, it's best to think about everything as a spectrum and you're trying to land in the right middle ground of that spectrum.
00:42:53
Speaker
And so, you know, you have the bully and you have the kid that's bullied and then the the right middle ground is the person who can stand up for themselves and but doesn't go around bullying other people. right that's the the that's the That's the right mix between overtly aggressive and overtly passive.
00:43:08
Speaker
And so when you say something like malice, you know you're not talking about a spectrum there. You're talking about ah an end point that is just a bad one.
00:43:19
Speaker
So I think it's like, and we're mixing the Greek and the English. So I think it's just like, I think it's, I mean, I agree with you. um ah if if if Aristotle says that, that makes sense, that there's going to be some things that you know we just don't think of in terms of a spectrum.
00:43:32
Speaker
It just doesn't make sense to talk about them that way. um But but i it's just this idea of of instead of a binary, we think about things on a spectrum And in that case, every spectrum is going to have no-goes on either end of it.
00:43:45
Speaker
um and But that but the where we land on the spectrum is you know relative relative to ourselves and our circumstance.
Virtue: Knowledge, Emotions, and Context
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know he's very clear that he says emotions and specific emotions and actions do not fall within a mean, but virtue is not an emotion or an action.
00:44:06
Speaker
Oh, okay. that's That's the distinction. I got it now. It's ah you know this dispositional thing that, you know as you say, dealing with continuums, complexity and such. And I think that's that's where the mean comes in. Okay. I got it. So like you think about some sort of terrible action, you know, I can't, you know, I can think of some, but like, I can't, um, think of some terrible, the most terrible thing you could imagine that you would never want to do.
00:44:29
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, there's never going to be a situation where that is what somebody with virtue does, but that's not really what we're talking about. The, we're talking about, um, as you said, the disposition that, that balance between being ah overly aggressive and overly passive,
00:44:45
Speaker
That makes you the kind of person that stands up for yourself and stands up for people weaker than you, but doesn't go around starting fights. And there are some things that person would never do, but that disposition, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about that disposition.
00:44:57
Speaker
um Yeah, that's a great distinction. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So some things that this means in practice that finishes off, I just wanted to, you know, that was a lot of theory. I wanted to bring it back. some So some practical implications of this, what does the golden mean mean for us or mean for Aristotle? Yeah.
00:45:13
Speaker
In plain words, first first thing, this means that virtue is um multifaceted. So it involves knowledge and pleasure, which is habituated. So it involves knowing the right thing to do and feeling the right way about it.
00:45:25
Speaker
You've got to do the right thing for the right reason and feel good. So it's not it's noting it doesn't have one dimension. has multiple dimensions. It combines the moral and the intellectual in Aristotle's words. Second is that virtue is finding the right balance between extremes.
00:45:40
Speaker
um It is that disposition, the correct disposition on a spectrum of dispositions. um The third point is that the balance depends on you and the situation. I think this is where the art metaphor is most important.
00:45:53
Speaker
The skilled musician picks the right note. Skilled athlete knows when to sprint and when to hold back. The perfect painting can have nothing added or removed to it. So the virtuous person um is the same way when deciding how much anger to feel, for example. you know they they they just they just they've got They've developed a skill through habituated practice um that lets them you know land on the right note, so to speak.
00:46:20
Speaker
i would I put here, and maybe this is what what we were clarifying, that no category of action is really off limits. That's another point. Only context dependent. For Aristotle, there are times when when we can feel really angry. There are times when we can feel afraid or grieve.
00:46:34
Speaker
We just need to find the right amount. Maybe the distinction I would make now, since what you said, Caleb, is category is kind of vague. Maybe there are some specific emotions and actions that are out of bounds. No, there will be no context where that is the right...
00:46:47
Speaker
thing to fall on but there is no i guess spectrum that you need to always remain on one end of um like if you if you told the stoics there was ah but and a spectrum of anger the stoics would say well you can't you can't dip your foot into it you can't do anything with it and that's not really the way aristotle's gonna think about it yeah or maybe another way to put it is uh For Aristotle, I think for the Stoics as well, there's no simple decision procedure you can follow for every
00:47:20
Speaker
um every circumstance. Whereas perhaps for other ethical systems, you know, they'll get you sufficient rules that'll ah illuminate what you're supposed to do.
00:47:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so the last part I wanted to get into then, so that that's that's the old mean. I think it's a cool idea. It's a different way of thinking about it. And I'll i'll contrast it now with the differences with Stoicism.
00:47:47
Speaker
So the the implications and the differences are really clear. First is that for the Stoics, virtue is just knowledge. Pleasure follows from knowledge. Um, It feels good to do the thing you know is right for the Stoics.
00:48:00
Speaker
So there's no need to habituate yourself to enjoy something. In Stoicism, you only need to understand its goodness. Now, we want to be careful when we say habituation because Aristotle means something specific about it.
00:48:12
Speaker
I do think in Stoicism, you want to do things continually. and think in Stoicism, you want to develop habits. But when Aristotle talks about habituation, he taught he means training a non-rational part of yourself the same way your animalistic part of yourself. That picture does not exist in Stoicism.
00:48:30
Speaker
um That's not to say Stoics don't have habits or practices or things that they do repeatedly. They also have dispositions, right? You can have a disposition or a habit as a Stoic to question your first impressions of situations.
00:48:44
Speaker
That's something you train and practice and develop, but it's not something, um again, it's not it's not an animalistic response to pleasure or pain that you've cultivated over time through training.
00:48:57
Speaker
Another change with stoicism is that virtue is in stoicism, virtue is not about finding a balance between extremes, it's binary. Virtue is doing the right thing. It's knowing the right thing and then hence doing it.
00:49:09
Speaker
Vice is anything that is wrong. So it's not, ah it's again, it's not about finding your look you the correct location on a spectrum.
00:49:22
Speaker
um It is, I would say, there' There's going to be either you're allowed to feel that thing or you're not. And either this is the appropriate context to feel it or it isn't.
00:49:35
Speaker
But there's a lot more things that are out of bounds. So revenge, jealousy, grief, anger, envy, all of these things are out of bounds for the Stoics. and they're not going to think about, well, this is a situation that deserves more anger.
00:49:48
Speaker
So it's okay that you got more angry. um that That to be said, the stoics for the Stoics, sometimes virtue is context dependent. So how to act appropriately does depend on your roles and your relationships. um So there is there is some a strong contextual feature to living correctly in Stoicism.
Are Virtues Unitary or Distinct?
00:50:08
Speaker
But sometimes virtue is absolute. um So acting ignorantly or being angry is always wrong, for example. and So another another point I want to call it is that the Stoics exclude certain categories of behavior. Maybe categories isn't the right way to talk about this, but the sage never feels distress at something present, for example.
00:50:28
Speaker
So there there is no case as a Stoic where we're feeling distressed, and extremely upset, passionately upset about something we're experiencing is appropriate.
00:50:42
Speaker
There's no mean. There's no, ah you've you've got to grieve the right amount. You've got to be angry the right amount. um Because they have this binary axiology, it just doesn't make sense to talk about the appropriate amount of anger.
00:50:57
Speaker
And then the last point I would say is that Aristotle's virtue is more permissive. um It allows differing kinds of experiences for the great person who encounters different scenarios. I would say Stoicism, you only really ever encounter one good thing and one bad thing, virtue and vice.
00:51:15
Speaker
And so the sage emotionally, this is my argument, the emotionally sages would be pretty similar. Okay. if you had a bunch of stoic sages hanging out, I think they would be dispositionally, uh, pretty similar. Maybe they have, you know, one has more of a sense of humor. One's a bit quieter. Um, but they're responding to the situations they encounter.
00:51:39
Speaker
ah with with a similar emotional situation, a similar emotional response. Whereas I think for Aristotle, there might be great people could kind of look different.
00:51:50
Speaker
You could have this great person who's maybe a bit more aggressive and angry and assertive, and you could have a great person who's a bit more, I don't know, maybe intellectual, long-term thinking. um i think i think the Aristotle's picture of great people allows different kinds of great people in a way that maybe Stoicism doesn't. but that's That's my own thinking.
00:52:12
Speaker
What do you think about those? so Nice. I think that's a solid list. I understand more what you mean by categories now. So I think, ah yeah, that's a good point. And um perhaps one other bit to add to that list is that for the Stoics, virtue is unitary, just as a self is unitary.
00:52:28
Speaker
So you're either virtuous or you're not, whereas Aristotle's happy to say you can be courageous even if you are not exemplifying other virtues. the you know The Stoics, they thought if you're truly being courageous, then all the other virtues must be present as well.
00:52:44
Speaker
So I actually was doing some reading on this, and apparently there is this view that Aristotle believes in the unitary nature of the virtues, and which seems really weird to me. It's something I need to do a bit more reading up on because I read it in a book and I was like, that's silly.
00:53:01
Speaker
Only the Stoics think that. And then it was like, apparently it's, and I don't know if it's universally agreed. I'm not an Aristotle expert, but it's like some people think it, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. And it like really ruins my perspective of Aristotle. Cause the way I understand Aristotle is the same one you you did, Kayla, which is like,
00:53:19
Speaker
yeah, you're courageous because you did the right thing at the right time for the right reason in relation to courage. That doesn't have anything to do with you know how you act as a in in in terms of justice, like how you allocate punishments or something.
00:53:33
Speaker
um But apparently there's some controversy of that in the academic literature. Oh, no. you're You're probably right. I think what I just said, what I strictly said is probably wrong in the sense that... um If you're courageous, the other virtues for Aristotle probably do need to be present.
00:53:51
Speaker
You're probably right about that. But maybe they' he wants to say they're metaphysically distinct in a way the Stoics don't. And maybe that's where there's going to be debates. And perhaps there's some scholarly debate about that as well.
00:54:03
Speaker
We'll get ready for the follow-up episode. We'll do the the unitary nature of the virtues because it doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, we don't need, we're going to end on on this. like um But as you said, i think I think we can both agree on the metaphysical distinction, which is that it's like a multi-sided object for the Stoics. Like you can talk about courage, but what you're really talking about is also temperance and justice because you're always just talking about knowledge.
00:54:27
Speaker
Where for Aristotle, even if he believes in the unitary nature of the virtues, it's courage is going to be a different thing than temperance. Maybe he's got some sort of perspective that it's impossible to be courageous if your lack of temperance is getting in the way, but they're not literally the same thing because, um, you know, they're not, they're not all just knowledge. They're also this habituation and this moral, moral aspect as well.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:54:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that was an awesome summary of Aristotle. Great introduction to, um, You're really a deep, deep thinker and philosopher. So thanks for listening. Thanks for putting that together, Michael.
00:55:06
Speaker
Yeah, it was fun. Thanks, Caleb. Peace.
00:55:12
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more stoic.
00:55:32
Speaker
And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientliar.com. And finally, please get in touch with us.
00:55:44
Speaker
Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.