How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

by Michael Schur

The mean, or “golden mean,” as it’s commonly referred to (though never by Aristotle himself16), is the most important cog in Aristotle’s ethical machine. It’s also, in my opinion, the most beautiful. And the most annoying. And the slipperiest, and the most elegant, and the most infuriating. Think of any of these qualities we’re seeking—generosity, temperance, whatever—as a perfectly balanced seesaw, parallel to the ground. If we sit right in the middle, everything will remain upright, even, and harmonious. That’s the golden mean of this quality: that perfect middle spot, representing the exact amount of the quality in question that keeps the seesaw level. Shifting toward either end, however, will throw it out of whack; one side of the seesaw will plummet to the ground, and we’ll hurt our butts. (In this metaphor, our butts = our personalities.) The two extreme ends represent (1) a deficiency of the quality, and, on the other side, (2) an excess of the quality—way too little, or way too much. Extreme deficiency or excess of any one quality then becomes a vice, which is obviously what we’re trying to avoid. Philosophers sometimes think of this as the “Goldilocks rule.” For every aspect of our character, Aristotle’s basically telling us to be: not too hot, not too cold… just right. As an example, let’s take mildness, which Aristotle describes as “the mean concerned with anger.” People with a deficiency of anger are those who are not angered by the right things, or in the righ...