Ethics: Aristotle
We have seen that Greek philosophy was highly
speculative, especially in metaphysics (Remember
Thales & the others -- the one substance behind all
reality is water? air? fire? earth?), where they tried to
discover the true nature of the world by reason alone.
This had an immediate impact on their ethics; e.g.
Plato considered “goodness” to be a quality prior to
and even greater than God, in which God in some way
participates and so is called “good”, because of the belief he already
had in the theory of forms. The Stoics were strict determinists, who
therefore had to question whether one can even speak of morally
responsible behaviour if behaviour is fixed by natural laws. This nonscientific approach has us try to discover the nature of “the good life”
through simple reflection.
Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean
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Aristotle broke with the ethics of those
who preceded him
o He examined the behaviour and
speech of various people in
everyday life, and built up a fund
of empirical data
o He noticed that we spoke of some people who lead what
others generally consider to be a “good life”, and others a
“bad life”
 It seemed to him that the common element in both
was happiness: good people were happy, and bad
ones weren’t
 This led him to assert (in answer to the first question
classical ethicists addressed; i.e. “What is the good
life for a human being?”) that “The good life is a
life of happiness.”
As it stands, this is too vague: exactly what does the word
“happiness” mean?
o Aristotle tried to clarify this by defining Happiness as “an
activity of the soul in accord with perfect virtue”
 Unfortunately, this is just as vague; no one has ever
been able to figure out exactly what he meant by it
o An interesting point, though, is his idea that happiness is
an activity; it is something dynamic, not static
i.e. it is not a fixed goal that we can arrive at in the
way we arrive at our destination at the end of a trip;
it is a characteristic that accompanies certain
activities as we do them
 in that sense, happiness is like other characteristics
of our lives; e.g. persistence. A student who pursues
their studies persistently does not arrive at a goal
called “persistence”; it is a characteristic of the way
they do their work. Happiness is like this: it is a way
of engaging in the various activities of life.
In answer to the second classical question of ethics (“How should
people behave?”), Aristotle logically went on to argue that
“People ought to behave so as to achieve happiness.”
 This also seems vague, but
Aristotle spells it out in his
“doctrine of the mean” (also
called the “golden mean”)
o Being happy is like being
well-fed.
 How much food should
a person eat in order to
be well fed? There is no
general answer to this
question – there are
too many variables, and the correct amount for each
individual can only be determined through trial and
error, eating various amounts between too much and
too little. This is not the same as eating an “average”
amount, because it varies with the individual.
o Moral behaviour is like that – the proper way for one to
behave is in accordance with the mean, not through the
pursuit of any virtue to an extreme
 for example, courage is the mean between
cowardice and rashness, pride the mean between
vanity and humility, and so on
 to be happy, then, people must act moderately,
striving for the mean between two extremes –
and this will mean different things for different
people
Notice this implies a criticism of & disagreement with Plato
o There is not one and only one good life for all people.
There are various correct ways of living for different
people; there are many good lives. What is good for one
person may not be good for another, and prior to actual
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experimentation one can’t predict the correct way of living
for another through reason alone -- this makes Aristotle a
relativist and empiricist (vs. Plato the absolutist and
rationalist)
o Aristotle also disagreed with Plato’s view of virtues as
habits. Aristotle argued that there is no truly moral
behaviour without understanding and choice – we do not
praise or blame someone if we believe that he/she didn’t
understand what they were doing, or were forced to do it
o Finally, Aristotle also disagreed with Plato’s view that
knowledge of the good will necessarily lead to good
behaviour
 Simple observation is enough to show that people
experience moral weakness and lack of self-control
 Self-discipline (learned in youth) as well as
knowledge is needed if we are to understand what
the “golden mean” means for us in adult life
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Criticisms of Aristotle
o There seem to be two problems with Aristotle’s approach
to ethics
 There are some things in which there is no middle
ground, and therefore no “golden mean”
 E.g. where is the middle between keeping a
promise and breaking it? between telling the
truth and lying? With regard to things like
these, Plato’s absolutism seems to work better
than Aristotle’s relativism
 Aristotle is primarily proposing a philosophy of
moderation, but there are cases where “immoderate”
behaviour is proper behaviour
 a person who is by temperament passionate
and romantic may find that “moderate”
behaviour does not suit them at all, and makes
them miserable rather than happy – can
anyone be happy if “forced” to control oneself
in all situations of life?