1. What is happiness?

"Happiness (eudaimonia) is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue (arete)." (I.13)

2. Mean concerned with passion and action:

"...for it is [moral virtue] that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect and the intermediate (meson). For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly, with regard to actions, there is also excess, defect and the intermediate." (II.6)

3. Mean not arithmetical:

"In everything that is continuous and divisible it is possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an intermediate (meson) between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate relative to us that which is neither too much nor too little -- and this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object; for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this is intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little -- too little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises." (II.6)

4. Accuracy in Ethics:

"We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premises to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and, in speaking about things which are only for the most part true, and with premises of the same kind, to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs." (I.3)

5. What does the doctrine maintain?

6. Doing an action for the wrong reason:

"Might we rather consider how one does something for the wrong reason, and find all sorts of ways to go quantitatively wrong? In doing an action for the wrong reason, one might be insufficiently concerned with the noble, too concerned for pleasure, too eager to avoid effort, too little attentive to certain people's interests, too stubborn, and so on. The relevant continua need to be found contextually; it seems likely that acting for the right reasons might involve avoidance of excess and defect in quantities of various sorts." (Welton & Polansky, 91)

7. Method in Ethics:

"We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also apply it to the individual facts. For among statements about conduct, those which are more general apply more widely, but those which are particular are more true, since conduct has to do with individual cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these cases" (II.7)

8. Some of Aristotle's states of character:

 

Emotions		States of Character
concerning	excess	mean	defect
touch	self-indulgence	temperance	insensibility (no name)
fearful things	rashness, excess fearlessness	courage	cowardice
money	prodigality	liberality	meanness
more money	vulgarity	magnificence	niggardliness
honor	'empty vanity'	proper pride	undue humility
more honor	ambition	(no name)	unambitious
amusement	buffoonery	ready wit	boorishness

9. Courage:

"With regard to feelings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward." (II.7)

10. Continence and Virtue:

"...both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing contrary to the rule for the sake of the bodily pleasures, but the former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is such as not to feel pleasure contrary to the rule, while the former is such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it." (VII.9)

11. Education:

"But we must consider the things towards which we ourselves also are easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing; some to another; and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening sticks that are bent." (II.9)

Works Cited

W. Hardie, "Virtue is a Mean" in Aristotle's Ethical Theory (Oxford, 1986)

Mark McCullagh, "Mediality and Rationality in Aristotle's Account of Excellence of Character," in Aristotle, Virtue and the Mean, eds R.Bosley et al (Edmonton, 1995)

W. D. Ross, Aristotle (Methuen, 1930), 187-235

J. O. Urmson, "Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed A. Rorty (Berkeley, 1980)

William Welton and Ronald Polansky, "The Viability of Virtue in the Mean," in Aristotle, Virtue and the Mean