Question

Apply Aritotle's golden mean to the dilemma.

Answer 1

Moral behavior is themean between two extremes - at one end is excess, at the other deficiency. Find a moderate position between those two extremes, and you will be acting morally.Aristotle. …to be known as theGolden Mean; it is essentially the same as the Buddha's middle path between self-indulgence and self-renunciation. Thus, courage, for example, is the mean between two extremes: one can have a deficiency of it, which is cowardice, or one can have an excess of it.One of the most celebrated and discussed aspects of Aristotle's Ethics is his Doctrine of the Mean, which holds that every virtue is amean between the vicious extremes of excess and deficiency.He aims at a mean in the sense that he looks for a response that avoids too much or too little attention to factors that must be taken into account in making a wise decision. Perhaps a greater difficulty can be raised if we ask how Aristotle determines which emotions are governed by the doctrine of the mean.The golden mean represents a balance between extremes, i.e. vices. For example, courage is the middle between one extreme of deficiency (cowardness) and the other extreme of excess (recklessness). ... Theimportance of the golden mean is that it re-affirms the balance needed in life.