Plato and Aristotle 63Aristotle maintains that one must choose the “Golden Mean,”
the virtue itself, not it’s excess or deficiency. Courage is a virtue.
A deficiency of courage would be cowardice, an excess of
courage would be foolhardiness. Courage is the mean, the virtue
to be chosen, and one must develop the character, through habit,
necessary to choose the virtue at all times. He lists many virtues
along with their excesses and deficiencies, such as modesty, the
virtue; timidity, the excess; shamelessness, the deficiency. Other
virtues that he lists are temperance, liberality, gentleness, truth
fulness, friendliness, magnificence, wittiness, magnanimity,
and ambition. Justice is the sum of all the virtues, and the just
man not only understands but acts according to them.
Aristotle has often been called the philosopher of “common
sense.” One reason may be that beyond his concept of modera
tion, he is wise enough to see that it is not enough for man’s
intellect to gain philosophical wisdom without the ability to
translate that wisdom into human action. We must pursue truth
to gain philosophical wisdom, but we must also have practical
wisdom, which is wise conduct. Plato had asserted that to know
the good was to do it; Aristotle disagreed. Knowledge of the
good does not automatically bring with it the desire to act upon
that knowledge. In addition to knowing the good, we must
develop the habit and attitude which impels us to do the good,
since often we may know what is right, but if we have not
developed the habit of making our reason dominate our emo
tions, we might yield to temptations.
According to Aristotle, God, perfect and eternal, exists as
pure reason, contemplating Himself. Thus, the reason within us
is in a sense, divine. And the exercise of that reason, the life of
contemplation, would be the way to happiness. But, Aristotle
concludes that this type of existence is “too high for man,” and
that “eudaemonia” (happiness) cannot be achieved by man
through pure thought. The good life for man on earth consists in
activity with moral choices, in accordance with moral virtue,
living the Golden Mean. As he said, through philosophical and
practical wisdom we achieve happiness, “the activity of the soul
(mind), in pursuit of virtue.”
Thus man too is form and matter. He can contemplate, and
when he does he is at his best, closest to God. But he also lives