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In his Nicomachean Ethics, written in the 4th century BC, Aristotle argued that each virtue sits between two vices, one of too little and one of too much. Courage lies between cowardice and recklessness; generosity lies between meanness and extravagance.

Nicomachean Ethics, Book II

Philosophy

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The Greek word Aristotle used is mesotēs, the mean or middle. He stressed that it is not an arithmetical halfway point but a mean “relative to us”: a trainer would not give every athlete the same amount of food, since what suits a champion wrestler is too much for a beginner. The right response depends on the situation, and virtue means feeling and acting at the right time, towards the right people, for the right reason and in the right way. Nor is the mean always in the exact centre: courage lies closer to recklessness than to cowardice. Some acts, such as theft or murder, have no mean at all. Other traditions reached similar ideas: the Confucian classic known in English as The Doctrine of the Mean praises balance, and a Turkish proverb says that a little of everything is right, and too much of it is harm.

Türkçe oku
Aristoteles, MÖ 4. yüzyılda yazdığı Nikomakhos'a Etik'te her erdemin iki kusurun ortasında durduğunu savunur: Biri eksiklikten, öteki aşırılıktan doğar. Cesaret korkaklık ile pervasızlığın, cömertlik de cimrilik ile savurganlığın ortasındadır.
Nikomakhos'a Etik, II. Kitap

Aristoteles'in kullandığı Yunanca sözcük mesotes, yani “orta”dır. Ama bu, aritmetikteki gibi tam yarı yol değil, “bize göre orta”dır: Bir antrenör her sporcuya aynı miktarda yemek vermez; usta bir güreşçiye yeten miktar, yeni başlayan biri için fazladır. Doğru tepki duruma göre değişir; erdem, doğru zamanda, doğru kişilere karşı, doğru nedenle ve doğru biçimde hissedip davranmaktır. Orta her zaman tam merkezde de değildir: Cesaret, korkaklıktan çok pervasızlığa yakındır. Hırsızlık ya da cinayet gibi bazı eylemlerin ise ortası yoktur. Benzer düşünceler başka geleneklerde de karşımıza çıkar: Konfüçyüs geleneğinin klasiklerinden Zhongyong (“Orta Yol”) dengeyi över. Türkçede de aynı fikri anlatan bir atasözü vardır: “Her şeyin azı karar, çoğu zarar.”

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Golden mean (philosophy)
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