The Virtuous Mean.
Today We Will Be Talking About: “The Mean” “The Median” “The Middle Ground” “The Average”.
What do you think we mean, by the mean?
1 - intend to convey or refer to (a particular thing); signify.
"I don't know what you mean"
2 - (of a word) have (something) as its signification in the same language or its equivalent in another language.
"His name means ‘painted rock’ in Native Indian Cherokee"
3 - unwilling to give or share things – not generous.
"she felt mean not giving a tip"
All perfectly fine explanations of “mean” the English language is a confusing one to say the least, we have multiple meanings for words.
So, I mean, it seems mean that the mean is mean – do you know what I mean?
In ancient Greek philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.
Aristotle refers to virtues as character traits or psychological dispositions. Virtues are those particular dispositions that are appropriately related to the situation and, to link back to our function, encourage actions that are in accordance with reason.
Regarding what are the most important virtues, Aristotle proposed the following nine:
Wisdom
Prudence
Justice
Fortitude
Courage
Liberality
Magnificence
Magnanimity
Temperance
What do we mean by virtue?
A virtue is one of your own personal excellent traits of character.
Virtue, by definition, is the moral excellence of a person. Morally excellent people have a character made-up of virtues valued as good. They are honest, respectful, courageous, forgiving, and kind, for example. They do the right thing, and don’t bend to impulses, urges or desires, but act according to values and principles.
Some might say good qualities are innate, but we’re not perfect. Virtues need to be cultivated to become more prevalent in life. With the habit of being virtuous, we take the helm of our own life, redirecting its course towards greater happiness and fulfillment.
Why Practice Virtues?
Virtues are universal and recognised by all cultures as basic qualities of well-being. When we practice virtues and build our “character muscle,” we attract what may have been missing in our life such as fulfilling relationships and achievement of meaningful goals. But it’s not easy. So often we know that it takes perseverance to reach our goals, and we still never get there. We know if we forgive, we’ll be less angry and resentful. We know it takes courage to accomplish great things. So why then, if we know what to do, are we still stuck?
Because we have not yet consciously and boldly applied a virtue to a given situation so as to alter its outcome such as in these examples:
Discipline enables a person to achieve the goal of running a 25-mile race, creating better health.
Kindness towards someone who is having a bad day can make him or her smile and build rapport.
Creativity can result in an idea that changes how people relate to one another such as social media.
Trust in a relationship fosters dependability and intimacy, creating valuable, meaningful relationships.
Gratitude in a job loss can shift our focus from feeling low to how we can have a new, more fulfilling career.
Service to others can change lives, better neighborhoods and create stronger nations.
Virtue: In its simplest terms, behaviour showing high moral standards through your actions and words
The Golden Mean is a scale to determine what is virtuous, correct or morally right. Being morally good means striking a balance between two vices or the two extremes – either excess or deficiency. We need to find the middle ground or the sweet spot.
Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and instruction. Virtue is a matter of having the appropriate attitude toward pain and pleasure.
For example, a coward will suffer undue fear in the face of danger, whereas a rash person will not suffer sufficient fear. Aristotle lists the principle virtues along with their corresponding vices, as represented in the following table. A virtuous person exhibits all the virtues: they do not properly exist as distinct qualities but rather as different aspects of a virtuous life.
Courage – is moderation in the tendencies to feel fear and boldness or confidence. Excess in the propensity to fear combined with deficiency in the propensity to be confident constitutes cowardice. Deficiency of fear and excess of confidence produce rashness or foolhardiness.
Temperance – is moderation in the desire for physical pleasures. An excess of desire is overindulgence. Deficiency has no common name but may be labelled “insensitivity.”
Generosity or Liberality – is moderation in the size of the gifts one is prone to give or accept. The tendency to give in excess and accept too little is spend thriftiness or prodigality. The tendency to accept too much and give too little is stinginess.
Magnificence or Munificence – has the same nature as generosity but applies to large public expenditures.
Pride or High-Mindedness – is moderation in one’s desire for or tendency to demand great honours. The mean here is defined by what one deserves. Desiring more than one deserves is vanity. Desiring less than one deserves is excessive humility.
Ambition – is similar to pride but pertains to smaller honours. There was no name for this virtue in Greek, and in English we use the same word both for the virtue and for the vice of excess (maybe we have trouble distinguishing them). The deficiency we just call “lack of ambition.”
Good temper – is moderation in one’s proneness to anger. The vice of excess is irascibility or irritableness, of deficiency is spiritlessness or passivity (there’s not a good word for it).
Truthfulness – is what Aristotle called moderation in one’s presentation of oneself, with boastfulness as the excess and self-deprecation as the deficiency.
Wittiness – is moderation in the desire to amuse others. Excess desire is buffoonery, and deficient desire is boorishness.
Friendliness – is moderation in the desire to please others generally. The excess is obsequiousness, and the deficiency is quarrelsomeness.
Modesty or a sense of shame – is moderation in one’s susceptibility to shame or embarrassment. Shyness or bashfulness is the excess, and the deficiency is shamelessness.
Righteous Indignation (nemesis) – is moderation in one’s tendency to feel pain at the good fortune of others or pleasure at their bad fortune. Moderation consists in feeling pain at good fortune which is contrary to desert (when bad people do well), and pleasure when the good fortune is deserved. It also means feeling pain at undeserved bad fortune and pleasure when people get their comeuppance. To feel pain at all good fortune, whether deserved or not, is envy. To feel pleasure at the bad fortune of others, regardless of desert, is malice.
Justice - consists in a propensity to give or return to a person the right amount (what is due to them), whereas injustice allots them either more or less than what is due. We might label the vices “favouritism” and “discrimination.”
The Virtues
In a general way we have already defined virtue as the fulfilment of humanity’s distinctive function and as the mean between two extremes.
Another way to describe Aristotle’s concept of virtue is to consider each virtue as the product of the rational control of the passions. In this way we can combine all aspects of human behaviour.
Human nature consists for Aristotle not simply in rationally but in the full range covered by the vegetative, sensitive or appetitive, and the rational soul. Virtue does not imply the negation or rejection of any of these natural capacities.
The moral person employs all of his or her capacities, physical, and mental.
Happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim. All our activities aim at some end, though most of these ends are means toward other ends.
For example, we go grocery shopping to buy food, but buying food is itself a means toward the end of eating well and thriftily. Eating well and thriftily is also not an end but a means to other ends. Only happiness is an end, so it is the ultimate end at which all our activities aim.
As such, it is the supreme good.
The difficulty is that people don’t agree on what makes for a happy or good life, so the purpose of the Ethics is to find an answer to this question. By its nature, the investigation is imprecise because there are so many variables involved when considering a person’s life.
Aristotle defines the supreme good as an activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue for the Greeks is equivalent to excellence. A man has virtue as a flautist, for instance, if he plays the flute well, since playing the flute is the distinctive activity of a flautist.
A virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well. Rationality is our distinctive activity, that is, the activity that distinguishes us from plants and animals.
All living things have a nutritive soul, which governs growth and nutrition.
Humans and animals are distinct from plants in having a sensitive soul, which governs locomotion and instinct.
Humans are distinct above all for having also a rational soul, which governs thought. Since our rationality is our distinctive activity, its exercise is the supreme good.
We can only be held responsible for actions we perform voluntarily and not for cases involving physical compulsion or unavoidable ignorance. The best measure of moral judgement is choice, since choices are always made voluntarily by means of rational deliberation.
We always choose to aim at the good, but people are often ignorant of what is good and so aim at some apparent good instead, which is in fact a vice.
Let me give you an example: an old man is being robbed in front of your eyes, do you a) jump in and stop the robbery from happening or b) do nothing with a fear of becoming the victim yourself?
So let’s look at this decision on the scale.
We have excess (recklessness) and deficiency (cowardice)
How do you think this can help you make a decision?
Where would the ideal area be for you to sit at on the line?
Of course, the middle. Well just above the middle bordering on the excessive side ever so slightly in this situation.
Why do you think we border on this side more so than the other?
Because courage would prevail over cowardice in this situation so you should always border the more positive end of the scale.
So, true courage would be a balance between too much courage (recklessness) and too little courage (cowardice).
Now obviously we have certain circumstances that will help you make your decision. For example,
If the robber is 6’3 and has a shot gun in his hand would it be wise to intervene physically?
Alternatively, if the robber is 4’5 and not wielding a gun would it be wise to intervene physically?
We must take a lot of things in to consideration when forming a decision.
Ask Yourself what YOU Really want or what is really important ...
Ask for Advice ...
Question your Motives ...
Weigh the Pros & Cons ...
Ask Yourself if you will be Hurting Yourself or Others with your Future Decision.
Look at your Potential Choices Without Rose Tinted Glasses
So the actual scale doesn’t make the decision for you, it lets you conduct your decision in the most ethical way possible, in the correct way.
Let me change things up and give you another example:
Your oldest friend has recently lost a very close family member, they come to you for support in their time of need.
Do you a) be overtly empathetic and sensitive letting their emotions impact you as well as them or b) be insensitive, sound uninterested, irrational and unconcerned?
Of course, the middle ground again prevails.
So let’s look at this decision on the scale.
We have excess (overly empathetic) and deficiency (overly apathetic)
You can probably work out in this instance again, that the “sweet spot” and it would be closer to the “empathy” than “apathy” 100% of the time if we border the correct end of the line you will naturally offer the best version of you to any situation thus causing you to form a logically correct decision.
Why is it important that we are not overly empathetic?
Why is it not a good idea to dive head first in to the excessive end of the line?
Empathetic Reactivity – too much empathy is bad. With empathy, you will feel their stress, anxiety, and anger in your body. You might feel their pain emotionally and physically.
Taking on other people's feelings so that you live their experience can make you susceptible to feelings of depression or hopelessness.
Do you think either of you will benefit from that?
No, you must apply understanding and honest ethics to the situation – your friend will be much more appreciative with your morality hovering around
So it may seem or sound a little more difficult than you first imagined but don’t worry, its not. Have an understanding that the middle ground will always be your sweet spot, we quite obviously have to border toward either end depending on situations, circumstances etc. But, if you take the middle path you know you will be on the right lines. This will become more natural the more you practise this.
“Make sure that you are seeing each person on your team with fresh eyes every day. People evolve, and so your relationships must evolve with them. Care personally; don’t put people in boxes and leave them there.”
― Kim Malone Scott
How often do you refrain from saying something completely honestly because you don’t want to embarrass someone. Or what about the time somebody called you out on something in front of the team?
Sure, you may have needed that feedback, but what happens to your relationship with that person?
Blunt honesty can not only be harsh, but downright devastating to hear. How then are we meant to move beyond the complications of honest communication and get to a place where our being honest actually provides room for everyone to grow?
Candor: Frankness or sincerity of expression; openness.… while candor does relate to honesty, it usually has a sense of being not only honest, but direct, frank, or otherwise outspoken. So it’s quite possible to state something honestly, but not particularly candidly by beating around the bush or being especially tactful.
Radical Candor is the ability to give feedback in a way that challenges people directly and shows you care about them personally. Radical Candor will help you and all the people you work with do the best work of your careers, and it will improve your relationships. Radical Candor is a framework for giving feedback, specifically directed at leaders and managers from Candor Inc. A co-founder, Kim Scott, held a presentation on Radical Candor.
Radical Candor
When you care personally and are in a place to challenge directly.
Obnoxious Aggression
When you challenge, but don’t care about how your words are received.
Ruinous Empathy
When you care, but don’t challenge.
Manipulative Insincerity
When neither care, nor challenge
Examples
Sarah has had a spinach omelette for breakfast. She comes out of breakfast, flashes her smile and there’s a huge piece of spinach lodged between her front teeth.
Responses
Obnoxious Aggression: Laughing out loud, you point at Sarah and say: “Look at this! Have she ever flossed in her life? Oh my god! Get that piece of spinach out of your teeth!”
This is obviously a horrible way to let someone know they need to attend to the spinach in their teeth. At the same time though, it’s as effective, if not even more so than Radical Candor-approach. Someones feelings may be hurt, but they are made aware of the spinach and can do something about it.
Ruinous Empathy: You think you don’t want to make her feel bad so you don’t say anything. It’s not a big deal… she’ll figure it out.
The problem is that they then go on to back-to-back customer meetings for the rest of the day. Afterwards they find the spinach and think: “Oh my god! Have I just been talking to someone with that sticking out of my teeth for the past 6 hours?”.
Manipulative Insincerity: You whisper to your friends: “Can you believe the spinach she has in her teeth? Does she even look in the mirror. Does she even own floss? If that happened to my teeth, I would have caught it.
We all know these people …
Radical Candor: Gently grab her by the elbow, take her to the side and say: “Sarah, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you have a giant piece of spinach in your teeth. I would want to know; do I think you should take care of that in the bathroom.
Here you have the somewhat uncomfortable conversation with Sarah, yet you do so by showing empathy and being candid.
How Do I Observe the Golden Mean?
It is difficult for you to hit the “the sweet spot” all of the time, some general advice to help you observe The Golden Mean: First, you need to recognise which end of the line is more opposed to the mean. So, which vice or extreme most contrasts the mean.
This will help you quickly make the correct decision.
Of the two extremes; one will be more of a serious error than the other – recognise the extreme. Since hitting the mean is a difficult thing to do, this will help you identify the direction you absolutely shouldn’t go in.
The golden mean focuses on the middle ground between two extremes, but as Aristotle suggests, the middle ground is usually closer to one extreme than the other.