Too Much or Too Little

Virtue is the best application of the deep seated passions our souls experience. Each passion and the resulting actions will have extremes. Finding the target, this best application, takes a combination of practice and wisdom in the same way that hitting a target requires a marksman to join his natural talent with practice. Now there are some passions that we would prefer there to be as little as possible; things such as spite, being obnoxious or envious. Some actions are the same way. There is no extreme to being a murderer, an adulterer or a thief. To present these as having a good application is difficult if not impossible. Injustice, cowardly acts and obnoxious behavior are extremes themselves and so they are undesirable at any level. We can also say that discipline and courage are targets and don’t really have degrees by themselves.

But in all of this we still need to avoid judgment because each individual case and the facts surrounding it will vary. Conduct is a personal thing and the observer really never knows all of the facts. This study isn’t about finding fault but examining behaviors in general to give ourselves more understanding. We must avoid the tendency of applying this toward others without facts and also condemning ourselves. 

When we talk about fear, we consider courage the target. Extreme courage has no word for it. It would be like hitting the bull’s-eye’s bull’s-eye. But to have too much confidence is called rash and too little confidence is cowardly. When we talk about pleasures and pains we would call the target temperance and the excess self-indulgence. A person who doesn’t like pleasure is hard to find and we could call them insensible. Even a prude or dull person is after a pleasure that is different from the object they avoid.

This is where the fun begins as we sort passions and actions out according to the extremes and the right applications; When we talk about transactions with money, we consider a liberal person correct and the extreme to the defect as being a prodigal and stingy. A prodigal falls short because he gives out more than he takes in. A stingy person does the opposite and takes in without caring or giving. There are also other dispositions; A great man will have great means and treat a lot of people well as will a liberal man with less. (everyone can be liberal but not everyone has great means). But being great in this way can be spoiled if that person is tasteless and blows money or is vulgar and uses it to ruin himself and others. The deficiency of course would be abusive and selfish. These are different to prodigal or stingy states but we will study this further at a later time.

When we talk about honor, it is right to have proper pride in what we do. The excess would be vanity and the deficiency would be undue humility. Of course in application, we shouldn’t seek more honor than what we ought to. That is where details come in and we shouldn’t seek honor or get credit for things we have a small part in or have no talent. There are dispositions to this. Someone who goes above and beyond is considered ambitious while someone who neglects his gifts would be unambitious. A person who is diligent is considered the right application.

It is hard to get the proper words that describe the concepts mentioned and I hope these ones are working. If you get this, feel free to insert a word of your own… 

It Ain't Easy

Since we concluded that virtue is a state of character, the part of our soul that has standards and choices, let’s look further at what kind of state it is. Virtue can be also called excellence and it has to do with excelling both in condition such as health and in work such as athletics. Virtue will make a person healthy and allow that person to do better at anything that involves physical activity. What would be virtuous for a person’s state of character would be that which makes a person good and allows him to do his work well.

We see that any object that can be divided up into parts will have a middle and two ends. We find the middle in the exact center between the ends with objects. It is different with people. The amount of food needed to maintain good health varies with each person. A good trainer will seek to find the right amount of exercise and nutrition for each particular person. It might depend on the sport, the person’s age and metabolism. This trainer will try to avoid excess and defect and try to give what is right. The intermediate we are talking about won’t necessarily be the same for us.

We judge art this way; too much detail, color or not enough. One that is just right we will say it is good. Too much in either way we will call garbage. That is the way moral virtue applies to lives. It is specific to each person. Every passion we have will contain an intermediate area that will benefit the person’s life the most. Fear, confidence, appetite, anger and pity can all get out of hand if we have too much or too little. It is best to have them at the right times, toward the right objects, and the right people along with the right motives and applied the right way. So virtue itself has excess, defect and intermediate. Our actions will be the same way. As a matter of fact, virtue is defined by a combination of passions and actions. We observe success in others that get it right and approve of them.

There are innumerable ways to fail at anything but few ways to succeed. Doing wrong is very easy but doing what is right takes effort. It is really easy to miss a target but much harder to hit the bulls eye. People are good in only one way but bad in many. Shooting an arrow randomly in any direction might be considered freedom to some but it can also cause damage. It will serve no purpose in making a person a marksman either.

And so virtue is that part of our soul that is the state of character and it is concerned with choices. The right choice will vary with the person and will be an intermediate between extremes. It is found by rational standards that a person with practical wisdom will recognize. Vices are easy to form but using our passions and actions in a way that brings excellence takes much more work.  

Is it a Crime?

We have concluded that ethics is a study on things that benefit and bring enjoyment to our lives verses the things that destroy and bring deficiency. Virtue describes what is best for certain arenas of the soul. But to know what these are specifically, we have to sort out the different parts of the soul. The three parts are passions, faculties, and states of character. We have feelings that come with pleasure and pain such as longing, envy, confidence, joy, appetite, anger and fear. The feelings themselves belong to the passion part of our soul. We have memories, sight, sounds and associations. The capacity to feel comes from our faculties. There are standards that tell us how much of each passion to apply in order for it to be good. It might be bad to act out in rage or wrong to be passive about something. This is our state of character.

We can’t say that virtue and vices are passions because feelings aren't chosen so we shouldn't make judgments according to how someone feels. Feelings aren't bad in themselves, it is how they are applied. To be angry over nothing or to care too little can both be bad. Anger is a passion we need. We approve of those who apply it properly. Passions are not a choice since we talk of how certain things move us and not the other way around. Virtue and vice concern purpose and choice.  Since having the capacity to feel a certain way or to have a certain kind of personality isn't a crime then we have to conclude that virtue must be a state of character. We avoid the generality that clams abstaining from our natural passions is the only way to be happy. This allows us to focus better and learn what brings improvement to our character and happiness to our souls by getting the most out of our passions. 

A Quick Fix?

The last point is an important one. In our post-modern era, we want quick fixes. psychology and religion in our culture claim by therapy or conversion character issues can immediately be resolved. This results in frustration for both the minister and the patient. We tend to become arrogant and judgmental without realizing that people will gravitate toward what they desire and what brings them comfort. There are so many factors involved in our desires that shouldn't be ignored. Personality styles, upbringing, life experiences and circumstances to name a few. It is a tall order to change what a person wants. A person who is passive shouldn't judge a person who is passionate. A passive person will have a much easier time dealing with certain things. If the passive person had the same level of passion, the roles would probably be reversed.

Once someone is an adult, laying down the law won’t change how that person feels. All parties involved end up miserable and there is disappointment when the subject falls off the wagon and goes back to what brought relief to them. How do we mold our desires and get to the point where doing what is good for us is enjoyable? That has always been the big question. But it is worth examining both for ourselves and to help give us patience with others. We see here that ground zero is to want change. Laws serve no purpose but of a band aid to troubled souls. A person first needs to want improvement and be willing to take the actions necessary in order for there to be a true change.  Happiness is having the ability to get what we want. But what if what we want isn't good? That is what needs to be addressed and there is no easy answer. We find them through study, support and example.

A life devoid of passion has no creativity and makes for a miserable person. A life devoid of reason is haphazard and accomplishes little. For each person and each situation there is a proper amount of adjustment that will allow both accomplishment and joy. Each talent, each personality in order to improve themselves will have to find the place where they excel the most. A bookkeeper might need to improve his grasp concerning facts and reason while a writer of fiction would lean toward creative writing. We have seen scandals and failure when they mix these up. The kind of study we are doing now may seem general but gives us more of an ability to examine our own motives, sort out what needs to be improved on and why.

I personally enjoy this kind of examination when it is devoid of dogma. Recently psychology has made a swing toward validating our feelings. Rather than making one feel guilty, they say that we should accept them at face value. It is only then that we can examine ourselves without stress and see where we should improve while steering clear from dogma that leads too far in either direction; to inflexibility or loose living. Where do I need help and to what point will a change benefit my personality and interests? We need to answer these for ourselves and studying ethics is a vehicle. 

Like it or not.

We agree that our life is improved or damaged in two ways: By the things we abstain from and the things we choose to do. The things we chose are those we consider noble, things that are advantageous and things that bring enjoyment. Things we avoid are things that are undignified, that which causes injury and things that bring pain. Someone with good character will tend to get it right and bad men get it wrong. The biggest stumbling block is pleasure. Even animals choose what brings them the most pleasure. But there can also be pleasure in noble and advantageous things.  

Passions that have been formed from infancy are difficult to adjust. And we take action more or less by the rule of pleasure and pain. It is important to examine these because feeling delight and being pained by the correct things will affect the outcome of our actions. Virtue is affected by what gives us pleasure and what bothers us. The decisions made accordingly will either create or destroy the good in our lives. If actions are actualized by the right passions causing us to do the right things, we will bring increase and good to ourselves while enjoying it at the same time.

Doesn't it work this way with the arts? Even though a person is talented, he will need to learn grammar to use his skill in the best way possible. A lack of diligence in this area will cause him to fail while his talent will be actualized by paying attention to grammar. There is a difference, however, between actualizing art and virtue. What is produced by good art is good in itself; a song, poem or novel. But virtue isn't as evident. Performing a good act doesn't always mean the motive is good. There are conditions that have to be met. He must first have knowledge, secondly do it on purpose and thirdly the action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. An artist need only have the knowledge and skill to produce his product. Virtue has conditions that are more important than mere knowledge. Motive and consistency has to be at the core of our actions in order to have excellence of character.

How do we recognize proper actions? We make an association with our observations of others and the standard within us. When someone does something admirable it is pleasant for us and we want to have the same traits. So it takes observable actions and the right inner motives to produce acts that show good character. A just person will emulate justice and do what it takes to become better at it.

Most people, however, think because they have been taught theory and know what is right that it is enough and they are good by default. This is like a person who is advised to lose weight and exercise by his doctor yet does nothing. He obviously will not have an improvement in his health. In the same way, someone who follows this course in philosophy cannot be made well in his soul.  

Your True Self

When we talk of character and goals, there is a myriad of options, conditions and motivations. That is why human behavior is so hard to catalogue. We want to improve ourselves, but at the same time, need to be true to ourselves. This can be a frustrating undertaking. When a job is incompatible with a person’s personality, it can be difficult. People we interact with day to day who have unreal expectations can cause stress. That is why religions and psychology can mess with people’s well-being  The further away the true person is from the expected person, the more frustration and instability there is. I am not saying that we should all be lazy or go on treks to find ourselves. But I do think we should take time every day and do the things we enjoy and celebrate the person we are. God made each of us into individuals on purpose and we don’t need to follow someone else’s format all the time. I enjoy singing. Some people in the past felt I could be famous. The thing is that I hate accolades and performing. It all seems disingenuous as compared to just privately playing and singing a song I enjoy. It is the same with writing. The more we do things just for the pure enjoyment without a carrot in front of us, the better it ends up. Don’t do anything for other people’s scrutiny, just compete with yourself. Do the best you can while enjoying your gifts the most. If it is annoying to others, guess they shouldn't be scrutinizing. So build, write, sing, dance, and create as though you yourself were the entire audience. The objective isn't to impress anyone; the product is your own satisfaction. 

Pleasure or Pain

We pointed out that destruction is cause by excess and defect each particular area of life: A person becomes a coward by running away and a self-indulgent person would be corrupted by pleasure. But with the proper application, the area in between, we get benefits. These are the things we “ought” to do. Someone who lifts weights will have more strength and someone who eats well will be healthy. He ought to work out a certain amount each week and to be healthy a person ought to eat certain foods. A person who is temperate will have self-discipline toward pleasure. When we hate the extremes enough to form habits of doing what we ought, avoiding extremes becomes easier. This is how to form good character. 

It can be assumed that a person who has good character can be identified by how he enjoys doing the right things or whether he despises them. A person who delights in abstaining from bodily pleasures is temperate and the person who is annoyed by discipline is self-indulgent. A person who likes to stand his ground is courageous and one who is pained by it is a coward. When we talk about moral excellence we see that it concerns pleasures and pains. Since we tend to do what brings us pleasure, those who are raised to delight in doing what is right will have a much easier time with those kind of actions. Plato said that the right education is to delight and be pained by the things we ought.

Since we assume virtue is a combination of actions and passions, pleasure and pain are the results that accompany them. Virtue therefore depends on pleasures and pains. The cure for many things is to apply the contrary. We apply cold to reduce fevers etc. Punishment is given by giving some kind of pain for bad behaviors and reward is given to encourage good behavior to bring pleasure.

We have been examining different states of the soul and the things that make life better or worse. Having pleasure and pain for the wrong things can steer people in the wrong direction. This can cause us to do what we ought not to do. We should pay attention to what brings us comfort and why. Some say that virtue is a passive state and only comes through abstaining, but in reality it is a matter of applying our passions in the way we ought to. Having excellence of virtue will help us to do what is best with our passions and bring happiness while vice, by ignoring what we ought to do, is apt to cause misery.  

A Lush or a Prude

Here is a summary of the next section in Ethics book 2

We want to avoid making an exercise in dogma by putting labels on people. But we are interested in improving ourselves. So rather than presenting theories, we will examine actions. How does a person bring himself to do what is right? We don’t form good character by agreement with others, but good character is the sum of a person’s actions. The fact there is right and wrong rules that we all ascribe to is a given. How these apply to everyday situations will be discussed later.

It is important to understand that there are so many situations and exceptions that we can’t address them all. People are unique and they have different needs and applications for virtue, in much the same way individual needs would vary concerning health issues. Even navigation depends on where a person is before giving them directions. It is the same way with virtue.

There is a uniform rule that applies to these things. Health, strength and virtue are destroyed by access and defect. Strength and health are affected negatively by too much food while too little food also has a diverse affect. Too much exercise or too little exercise can have the same effect on the body, either injury or apathy. But the right amount not only brings health, but it brings increase to us. It works the same way with virtue; A person who runs away is a coward while a person who is reckless is considered rash. A man who indulges in every pleasure is self-indulgent while someone who shuns every pleasure is a Prude. Preservation and increase all come somewhere in between. So how do we find this middle ground and how do we keep ourselves there? Next time…