The Doctrine Of The Mean Meaning

The Doctrine of The Mean is the Aristotelian writing of virtues, of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle explains virtue as the excellence and the good of the character, in reflection to the good or the virtues of an action:

“So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency…”

Here Aristotle gives us an outline of his provisional explanation for virtue; where you would find virtue, and its dependency on the situation. Aristotle argues that it is not a person’s actions that reflect their ethics, but it is infact that persons character that is a reflection of their ethics. It is said that a virtuous person is the product of the examples of virtue that person has experienced, this is their training. If a person experiences bad examples of virtue, their virtuous character will not develop:

Nor are we born vicious. Human being is ethical tabula rasa.’

Aristotle explains that the morals and virtues of a person are infact the development of the character of a person, that our viciousness and our virtues are development through training of character; tabula rasa, the epistemological idea that our knowledge comes from our experiences.

In accordance to the Doctrine of the Mean, virtue is the mean states of deficiency and excess. It is written that in finding the mean of virtue relative to ourselves, our character has to find the correct reason it requires. Aristotle introduces his idea of the Doctrine of The Mean, in his book, Nicomachean Ethics, book II. He starts with the analogy;

‘…Both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength […] similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves