What Do You Take From The "Golden Mean" of Aristotle?

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I've thought for some time about this topic. Aristotles argument, that virtue lies in the middle of two extremes, seems irrefutable to me... and actually applicable to almost every aspect in life.

Great question SmoothieKiwi and something we ought to discuss at length.

I has been my view in trying to compare Epicurus to Aristotle that Aristotle's "golden mean" argument is not helpful in the least, and is an extension of his belief in categories that are artificial and built on abstact logic not tied to reality.

How does one know where the 'Extremes" are in order to interpolate a middle? To me what is too much, too little, and just right seems to me to be totally dependent on circumstances, and to imply that there is a "middle" that is always "just right" is probably something that muddies rather than clarifies.

I think this is a good topic to develop because we do come across it a lot so I am very interested in hearing opinions. But my preliminary view has been and is so far that just like there are no "Absolutes" in a atomistic eternal infinite universe, there is also nothing particularly reliable about picking out arbitrary "extremes" or "middle."

We can all understand what is meant in general by too much, too little, and just right, but as far as being able to pin down extremes and a middle, it seems to me that those are also both matters that are totally dependent on circumstances and details, and not something that can be determined "as a rule" or "in general" or through any purely "logical" analysis.

In general, Aristotle's Golden Mean privileges the space between the "extremes" of pleasure and pain.

Epicurus privileges pleasure.

Epicurus' pursuit of pleasure is distinguished from Aristotle's pursuit of excellence. Aristotle thought that an excellent person would necessarily enjoy happiness, whereas Epicurus recognized that an excellent person is only "happy" when enjoying the fruits of their excellence. Excellence, itself, is not the motivating goal. Pleasure is the goal.

The "Epicurean Golden Mean" (to use Aristotle's vocabulary) is always pleasure, not courage, or temperance, but pleasure.

Now, that's not to devalue the profitability of practicing moral virtue, it's simply a recognition that the Golden Mean is not really what motivates us, and that Aristotle is wrong in de-prioritizing pleasure. Both philosophers agreed on the importance of living moderately and avoiding excess. The issue of pleasure is where they disagree on ethics.

I agree with Nate's application of the mean issue to pleasure.

However in addition to that I think there is something more, maybe though just because I have a superficial knowledge of how people talk about a "golden mean."

Superficially, I gather the golden mean is used as a rule of thumb (or logic) postulating that there are always two extremes, and that there is always a "best" that lies in an exact middle ground between the two.

I am sure that is oversimplifying the issue but I do gather that that is what a lot of people take the meaning to be.

And taken on that broad level, I don't think there is a way under the Epicuran view of nature that such a mechanism could function. As "golden mean" is frequently used, the result is a word game implying that it is generally possible to solve problems by looking for extremes, and (so to speak) adding them together and dividing by two. I don't think Epicurus would say that the world works that way in regard to pleasure or anything else either.

So I generally react negatively to "golden mean" analysis.

The "golden mean" implies some kind of perfection, yet perfection is an artificial and abstract idea that doesn't exist in the real world "messiness" of humans. Humans are not mathematical equations.

Quote from Nate

Epicurus' pursuit of pleasure is distinguished from Aristotle's pursuit of excellence. Aristotle thought that an excellent person would necessarily enjoy happiness, whereas Epicurus recognized that an excellent person is only "happy" when enjoying the fruits of their excellence. Excellence, itself, is not the motivating goal. Pleasure is the goal.

There is something so liberating in Epicurus teaching, because being liberated from the "pursuit of excellence" opens one up to true freedom. But still one would wonder...do we still admire people in their pursuit of excellence?

What makes the world "messy" is that things are in flux, and exist in a state of continual change, though some things change so slowly we can't easily see the changes happening. And this messiness is also is why we can't make absolute rules about things.

Quote from Cassius

And taken on that broad level, I don't think there is a way under the Epicuran view of nature that such a mechanism could function. As "golden mean" is frequently used, the result is a word game implying that it is generally possible to solve problems by looking for extremes, and (so to speak) adding them together and dividing by two. I don't think Epicurus would say that the world works that way in regard to pleasure or anything else either.

So we have to instead function in an intuitive way, using our senses to re-access a given situation, prodded by the feeling of wanting what is enjoyable, and combined with a "prudent-calculus" as to what will lead to long-term well-being.

"Well, thats exactly the point Aristotle makes- that there's no absolute virtue, because everything is dependent on..."

Did you mean Aristotle there, or Epicurus?

Quote from smoothiekiwi

Aristotle... wasn't that this position?

Thats a good question that we will have to one day figure out. Do you have a reference that you were thinking of, or anything in particular?

The only thing that I am aware of that may be applicable is that supposedly Aristotle transferred Plato's "ideas" from an external existence I may realm beyond the reach of the senses to an "intrinsic" or "essentialist" existence inside the object under consideration (things that appear yellow have an essence of yellow in them).

But I could not provide you with a good cite to that either, so unfortunately I am not in position to clarify the question.

Wasn't Aristotle's position something like courage is absolutely definitely a virtue and therefore good in itself, but to strike the balance between cowardice and recklessness you need phronesis.

Meanwhile Epicurus would say that courage is definitely good but not absolutely, only instrumentally, and the measure of its goodness is the pleasure it brings to your life.

In Book II of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identifies a number of virtues by name: "[Virtue] is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defects [...] 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. With regard to pleasures and pains [...] the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence. [...] With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. [...] With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the excess is known as a sort of 'empty vanity', and the deficiency is undue humility [...] With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean [...] let us call the mean good temper; [...] With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called truthfulness [...] With regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready-witted and the disposition ready wit [...] With regard to the remaining kind of pleasantness, that which is exhibited in life in general, the man who is pleasant in the right way is friendly and the mean is friendliness [...] he who falls short or is not ashamed of anything at all is shameless, and the intermediate person is modest. Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite" (1107a - 1108b)

Temperance, Liberality, Proper Pride, Good Temper, Truthfulness, Ready Wit, Friendliness, and Righteous Indignation are always virtues for Aristotle, even if adherence to those virtues leads to evil consequences.

Quote from Nate

Temperance, Liberality, Proper Pride, Good Temper, Truthfulness, Ready Wit, Friendliness, and Righteous Indignation are always virtues for Aristotle, even if adherence to those virtues leads to evil consequences

Ah! So, the Virtues themselves are the Mean per Aristotle! Thanks for that!

Epicurus recognized pleasure as including both katastematic ("static", "stable") pleasures as well as kinetic ("active") pleasures. Aristotle (as did most other ancient philosophers) saw pleasure as an excited state that deviates from a preferable state of "balance". Within this context, Epicurus partially saw pleasure as the preferable state of "balance".

For Epicurus, virtue is an instrument to achieve the good. For Aristotle, virtue is the good. The good in Epicurean philosophy is not a balance between two excesses, but rather, pleasure, total absence of all forms of pain.

"Even so, I don't find any fault in the idea that the virtue is the balance between two excesses; probably Epicurus would've agreed to that. So why not pleasure as well?"

I would say that this points out the problem and that Epicurus would not agree. Pleasure is a feeling that nature gives us as a canonical perception. We don't feel pain according to a set formula, and Aristotle is suggesting that there are extremes which can be identified prior to circumstances and experience, and these extremes give rise to the mean and therefore the optimum results. The problem is that these extremes are like Platonic ideals - they have no independent existence and to the extent we can estimate some kind of approximation, we do so based on the nature of the operation of the atoms and void involved, not on the basis of logical reasoning based on absolutes.

Someone can probably do better than that in piercing the issue but I am very appreciative of Nate finding that reference.

In all, I do think what we have here the difference between seeing virtue as something relative to the circumstances (the Epicurean perspective of identifying virtue by results that occur afterward), vs doing the reverse and trying to evaluate circumstances based on their adherence to some preset arbitrary standard of virtue that exists only in the human mind as a tool for prediction (the Atostotelian/Platonic perspective). Plato and Aristotle may look for their absolutes in different places, but in reality they are doing the same thing and Epicurus is in total opposition to both.

I am trying to "unpack" Aristotle's perfectionistic and absolutist way of thinking, because I was raised in Christianity which has been a continued source of this kind of thinking (and may have left-over "brain-wiring" from that).

Modern English would use different words in some instances. I think what I find unnerving is the labeling and the use of judging which doesn't take into account the specific situation. Also, it doesn't take into account the "feeling" of things. For example: fear is judged as a defect, yet fear is a normal emotion which helps keep us alive, and we feel it very viscerally when our life is in danger. Yet, in marches the concept of "courage" to convince us that it is good to risk our lives for some abstract ideals that someone else has convinced us is correct. So these ideals can be used to manipulate people. I would like to suggest that an Epicurean would rarely need to force the virtue of courage, even when it is for the sake of pleasure, because they would very rarely take on something risky (but I may have differing beliefs on this than others here on the forum).

I made this table based on the Nicomachean Ethics source provided above by Nate. I left some boxes empty due to not being listed in the source.

Thank you! I think producing a table like that is very helpful for illustrating that all these are "labels" for which would have to have some way of measuring and identifying them precisely in order to use them.

Lacking that, they all reduce - to me - to nothing more than "too much" "just right" and "too little" - isn't that a nursery story of some kind about some bears? https://americanliterature.com…locks-and-the-three-bears

"And then she went to the porridge of the Little Wee Bear, and tasted it, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and she liked it so well that she ate it all up, every bit!"

Quote from Cassius

Lacking that, they all reduce - to me - to nothing more than "too much" "just right" and "too little" - isn't that a nursery story of some kind about some bears? https://americanliterature.com…locks-and-the-three-bears

"And then she went to the porridge of the Little Wee Bear, and tasted it, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and she liked it so well that she ate it all up, every bit!"

I've been thinking of Goldilocks this entire time, Cassius.