Aristotle’s Ethics was one of the more intriguing reads of this semester.  I wish I had more time to delve into it, and it’s certainly a work I will visit again when I have some spare time.  I found it most interesting when Aristotle defines a happy person, part of his definition is one who is focused on the greater good and has good character.  Assuming the word “good” is synonymous with “virtue” and “virtuous”, what then does it mean to be a virtuous man?

According to Aristotle, there are three things that must be met in order for a person to have done something virtuous:  “he should know what he is doing, … he should deliberately choose to do it and to do it for its own sake, and … he should do it” at the right time and in the right way.  Such is easy enough to agree upon.  Virtue is not virtue without intentionality.  Perhaps a child is told by his or her parent to apologize to his or her sibling.  Of course, the child is right to obey the parent, but the apology is not genuine and therefore not virtuous.  Some may argue that no one can be virtuous for the sake of virtue, for humans are naturally selfish creatures.  Aristotle even states that “no moral virtue is implanted in us by nature”.  Virtue is learned.  This point, too, causes no contention in me.  How then, should virtue be measured?  Many things may be considered virtue.  Aristotle devotes quite a bit of time to the virtue of courage.  According to him, there is what he refers to as the Golden Mean, which is the balancing of virtues and vices, of excess and deficiency.  For example, should one have little or no fear, he or she is called reckless; however, should one fear many things, he or she is called a coward.  The in-between, the mean, is courage.  Now, not all things must be balanced like a Gaussian distribution all the time.  Aristotle states that the mean may be skewed to the right or to the left in order to achieve balance.  He also asserts that there are some things that simply cannot be virtuous such as hate and adultery and envy.  I find it interesting that he cannot pin down an exact and definite universal mean for all virtues.  Or perhaps he intends to say that virtue cannot be explicitly defined?  Of course, I cannot bring myself to believe that all virtues are fluid or that there is room for debate about wrong and right ways of living.  However, that is from a Biblical point of view: there is right and there is wrong.  Is there really a grey area?  A balance between good and bad?