Aristotle’s Golden Mean: Vague and Inapplicable?

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210609.001How to use a DOI?

Keywords

“Nicomachean Ethics”, “Aristotle”, “Golden Mean”, “form and matter’

Abstract

The principle of the Golden Mean, according to which “every virtue of character lies between two correlative faults of vices”[1], presented in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, is one of the most controversial concepts among philosophers. Some appreciate it to be a substantive theory on virtue, while others demonstrate their criticism. This essay will examine two of the strongest criticisms against the theory of the Golden Mean: the accusation of uselessness and the accusation of semantic fallacy. Based on textual analyses of Nicomachean Ethics, the author defends Aristotle’s principle against these two criticisms, with the central argument that Aristotle’s metaphysical understanding of “form” and “matter” can respond to both accusations.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuetong Zhou
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/10
TI  - Aristotle’s Golden Mean: Vague and Inapplicable?
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Language, Art and Cultural Exchange (ICLACE 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1
EP  - 5
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210609.001
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210609.001
ID  - Zhou2021
ER  -