What is a Virtue?

My middle school “language arts” textbook had a unit about how your vocabulary can make you sound more or less formal. The textbook had a graphic with three pieces. The top piece had the word “displeased” and a picture of a top hat. The middle piece had the word “angry” and a less fancy hat. The bottom piece had the phrase “blowing a gasket” and a baseball cap with a pinwheel on top. The textbook said that “displeased,” “angry,” and “blowing a gasket” all meant the same thing but suggested different levels of formality. I didn’t agree. It seemed to me that “displeased” actually means something different from “blowing a gasket.” “Displeased” means slightly upset and “blowing a gasket” means extremely upset. The reason that “displeased” sounds higher-status than “blowing a gasket” is because of a cultural difference between high-status people and low-status people. Higher status people tend to be more emotionally reserved, and lower status people tend to be more rowdy and emotionally effusive (and I think this tendency was even more pronounced 100 years ago when people said “displeased” and wore top hats).

Different people seem to be set to different levels of exuberance in their speech and we can imagine a sliding scale which represents a person’s level of speech-exuberance. Some people habitually tend to overstate things - especially their own and others emotional reactions. A person who says that their boss was “blowing a gasket” about something is probably overstating their boss’s true level of anger. Some people habitually tend to understate things - especially their own and others emotional reactions. A person who says that their boss was “displeased” is probably understating their boss’s true level of anger.

The “settings” of a reckless, generous, and a bit too friendly person

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that a virtue is like a setting on a sliding scale. Consider a sliding scale which measures your willingness to jump into risky situations. When you are too low on the scale, you have the vice of Cowardice. When you are too high on the scale you have the vice of Recklessness. In the middle of the scale you have the virtue of Courage. Aristotle believed that all virtues were like this: golden means between a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess.

I think that Aristotle’s explanation is kind of a cop out. It sounds too much like saying “on the one hand it could be like this, but on the other hand it very well could be like that!” Let’s return to my language arts textbook’s example of different levels of speech formality. It is not good to be the kind of person who exaggerates and dramatizes everything and goes around saying your friends were “blowing a gasket” when they were actually just mildly annoyed. It is also not good to understate everything and say someone was merely displeased when they were actually pretty upset - that’s not honest. But the right way to live is not to choose a middle position on the scale, a golden mean between the two vices. The right approach is to describe things in the accurate way. If someone actually was blowing a gasket, you should say so. If he was just somewhat upset, you should say he was just somewhat upset, and if he was only slightly displeased, you should say that.

Suppose a philosopher is advising you on how to speak. He proposes that there is a vice of Excessive Formality (“he was displeased”) and a vice of Excessive Informality (“he was blowing a gasket”) and the philosopher tells you to steer between these two vices and take the golden mean of Just Right Formality. That philosopher’s analysis would have missed the key variable. By explaining the right approach as the midpoint on the variable of Formality, he would have missed the variable of accuracy which is the variable which is actually important. Saying that someone is “blowing a gasket” is not always wrong, it is wrong only if it is inaccurate. Saying that someone is “displeased” is not always wrong. It is wrong only if it is inaccurate. In our analysis of the right and virtuous way to speak, the variable of Formality can be discarded entirely. Accuracy is what matters.

Aristotle also alleges that there is a golden mean on the variable of your tendency to give your money to others. On one extreme there is the vice of Stinginess and on the other extreme there is the vice of Profligacy. The golden mean between them is the virtue of Generosity. In practice, I imagine that to practice Aristotle’s virtue of Generosity you would feel the instinct to help others, and you would sometimes act on it and sometimes not. Here is a more cogent analysis of charity: It is generally morally wrong to give to another person. Giving someone charity demeans them, because it short circuits their ability to seek their own destiny and triumph over adversity through their own merit. However you can and should give to your own children, and through prudent stewardship of your resources, you can build institutions, businesses and communities which provide opportunity to many people.

Another golden mean which Aristotle posits is the virtue of Friendliness. The corresponding vices are Obsequiousness (kissing up to people) and Cantankerousness. Friendliness is the midway point between Obsequiousness and Cantankerousness. Here is a more cogent analysis of the way you should interact with people: You should stand up straight and treat everyone as your equal. Don’t bully people. Stand up for yourself if people try to bully you.

With charity, generosity, and friendliness, Aristotle claims that we should be at the midpoint of variable X. But when we look at things more closely, we see that we should actually be at the maximum of some other variable Y. Instead of being at the midpoint between Formality and Informality, we should be at maximum Honesty/Accuracy. Instead of the midpoint between Stinginess and Profligacy we should reject direct hand-outs on principle and instead emphasize how prudent and industrious stewardship of one’s resources creates opportunities for everyone. Instead of being at the midpoint between Obsequiousness and Cantankerousness you should instead maximize the honesty and forthrightness with which you approach everyone in every situation. In many cases, people who have been influenced by Aristotle should practice less golden mean virtue and instead adopt a bit more of the competing concept of principle.

So does that mean that we should discard Aristotle’s golden mean idea entirely? I think not. Certainly there are people who need to be shaken and told to stop justifying bad behavior with “Everything in moderation, I’m not an extremist”. But unlike the example where Accuracy turned out to be the real variable of import hiding behind the spectrum of Formality, there are many things on which there isn’t a clear optimum. For example, some people are very trusting and some people are very suspicious of others, but I can’t think of a variable Y in this case. For trustingness, it seems you really should adopt something like a golden mean. An Aristotelian virtue should be thought of like a rule of thumb. If I could find the right principle, I probably would know exactly what to do, but since I don’t know the right principle, I’ll adopt moderation as a safe bet.