ARISTOTLE’S DOCTRINE OF GOLDEN MEAN

                                 by T K Jayaraman IRS (Rtd)

  The  soul  has  an  irrational  as  well as  a  rational  part-the  irrational part includes feeling, desires, appetites. A virtuous soul is a well-ordered soul, one in which the right relation exists between reason, feeling and desire. Aristotle’s doctrine of Golden Mean is well-known. Every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice. Courage is a mean between cowardice and rashness; liberality, between prodigality and meanness; proper pride, between vanity and humility; ready wit between buffoonery and boorishness; modesty, between bashfulness and shamelessness. Some virtues do not seem to fit into this scheme; for instance, truthfulness. Aristotle does not claim that the principle of the mean is universal in its applicability; he frequently abandons it in his discussions as being inapplicable in many cases- some actions and feelings such as malevolence, shamelessness, envy, adultery, theft, and murder, are bad in themselves and not merely in excess or deficiency. The mean is not the same for every individual and under all circumstances; it is “relative to ourselves”, and determined by reason, or as a right-minded man would determine it.