“ For men are good in but one way, but bad in many. Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. ”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (c. 334 BC - 330 BC). copy citation
Author | Aristotle |
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Source | Nicomachean Ethics |
Topic | choice state |
Date | c. 334 BC - 330 BC |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | Translated by W. D. Ross |
Weblink | http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.mb.txt |
Context
“(for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult- to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult) ; for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;
For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect;”
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