Aristotle: The means of an end

In book 2, Aristotle gives the characteristics of the mean and the extreme states for different virtues. He explains that it is very hard to achieve the mean or average in the virtues. In every virtue there is a place of excessiveness and on the opposite end there is a place of deficiency. For example he shows courage:

rashness(excessiveness)———acceptable mean———- cowardice (deficiency)

In another class, we defined courage as: being afraid of what you should be afraid of and not being afraid of what you should not be afraid of. In other words, having the right amount of fear. So on the scale we see the characteristics of having too much fear and also the result of having too little fear.

In book 4, Aristotle displays some of the virtues and one in particular stood out to me: friendliness.

He explains the two opposite end vices on the friendliness scale:

people pleaser (excessiveness) ——–?????—————-jerk (deficiency)

The ‘people pleaser’ is the friend who “to give pleasure praise everything and never oppose but think it is their duty to give no pain to the people they meet”. The ‘jerk’ is the friend that “opposes everything and care not a whit about giving pain”.

However, he goes on to show that being a good friend is not really about compassion towards loved ones because a person who has achieved the mean will behave the same to those that he knows and those that he doesn’t know. But unless the case calls for it because it is not good to give the same type of friendship to strangers and best friends.

But eventually, he states that the middle has no clear name since if you are only trying to give pleasure, you are submissive, and if your only goal is to be contrary then you are harsh and if you are seeking to give pleasure for motive then you are a flatterer. However, I believ that there is no name for the middle because human actions can only fit into those three categories: to be contrary to what is before them; to try to give pleasure with no ulterior motive, and to give pleasure with ulterior motive. Therefore since there is no object outside of these three, then there can be no mean here.