The Greek word for virtue is ἀρετή, or arete. An arête is also, for mountaineers, a sharp ridge, with steep cliffs falling away on either side. It is a good metaphor for Aristotle’s vision of arete as moral virtue. An Aristotelian virtue is like a narrow path with a chasm of vice to right and left. Courage is the virtuous path between rashness and cowardice, righteous indignation the path between envy and spitefulness. To act virtuously in accordance with reason is for Aristotle to observe a balance between excess and deficiency in all things, to thread a path along the arête between the vices
...more
