Aristotle's Doctrine Of The Mean

Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean is a system designed by Aristotle to attempt to help people make virtuous decisions. Aristotle’s want to aid humans make virtuous decisions stems from how he perceived humans and their purpose. When trying to explain humans, Aristotle believed that humans can be best explained by the purpose they serve. He then concluded that the good of human beings is to reason and if a human can reason well, then they are serving their function. For Aristotle, reasoning well is being virtuous and being virtuous brings perfect happiness. Perfect happiness to Aristotle, is a telos. A telos is something in which should be our goal to achieve or fulfill in our lifetime. Aristotle makes the distinction that happiness is separate
In an attempt to try and help people make more virtuous decisions, Aristotle came up with a system called the Doctrine of the Mean. This system was created to help people make the ‘golden’ or virtuous decision. In this system there are 12 moral virtues, all the virtues are the mean between two extremes. The 12 moral virtues are; courage, temperance, liberality/generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, right ambition/pride, patience, friendliness, truthfulness, wittiness, modesty, and righteous indignation. The two extremes are the vice of excess and the vice of deficiency. Aristotle says that in order to find the most virtuous decision you must choose the mean between these two extremes. Although, he does recognize that each situation is different and your actions should be based on the specific situation you are in. Therefore, there is no one virtuous action in any situation that is universally applicable, they are all very time and place specific. There are three main ways these virtues can be acquired according to
Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean does in fact help people make more virtuous decisions. It forces people to really consider both extremes (as he calls it) of each situation. It pushes people to not be self-fish nor to be self-less but to find a in between which will benefit both themselves and their community. I also agree that each decision should be situation specific. I like that there is not one virtuous act in any situation. People must not sacrifice themselves for others, but they still must be kind and considerate to others. Although some find that Aristotle’s doctrine has too much space for interpretation, I believe that is the true meaning or test of this doctrine. Aristotle is trying to show people that there is not one way to become virtuous. Even though you react differently than someone else in the same situation, it does not make one person more virtuous than the other. Being a virtuous person is about knowing how to make virtuous decisions. Aristotle left so much room for interpretation because he believed that a virtuous person is not someone who just does what they are told, but is someone who can think and act virtuously on their own. More than this, I agree with Aristotle that the aim of human beings is to achieve perfect happiness. Everything human beings do is to try to achieve happiness and I