golden mean

golden mean, in philosophy, an approach to ethics that emphasizes finding the appropriate medium, or middle ground, between extremes. The phrase golden mean is most frequently applied to the ethical ideas described by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 bce) in his treatise Nicomachean Ethics. Similar ideas can be found in many cultures, notably in the teachings of Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, in the “middle way” principle found in Buddhist philosophy, and in the “doctrine of the mean,” or zhongyong, in Confucianism. The principle of moderation between extremes is influential today not only in practical ethics but also in religion, politics, and personal health.

Although Aristotle is credited with describing an ethics of moderation, there were many examples of this idea in Greek culture prior to his work. One of the most famous stories of ancient Greek mythology is the tale of Icarus and his father, Daedalus, who attempted to fly over the sea using wings made of wax and feathers. After Icarus, ignoring his father’s warnings, flew too close to the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. “Nothing in excess” was also one of the sayings reportedly carved at the entrance to the temple of the oracle at Delphi. In the Republic, a dialogue by Aristotle’s teacher Plato (428/27–348/47 bce), the character Socrates expresses similar views, citing moderation as one of three virtues—the others being wisdom and courage—necessary for a city-state to exhibit in order to be just.

In Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle goes further. He argues that all virtues lie at a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess. He compares virtues to health, suggesting that, as both deficient and excess physical exercise can destroy one’s strength, deficiency and excess can both destroy virtue. Courage, for example, is a virtue that lies between a deficient condition—cowardice—and a condition of excess—rashness. A coward has excessive fear and flees from all danger, while a rash person has insufficient fear and confronts all danger, while a courageous person judges which dangers should be confronted and which should not and feels the appropriate amount of fear.

For Aristotle, all virtues represent a mean between deficiency and excess in some feeling or behaviour. However, he did not believe that the extremes between which a given virtue lies are always exhibited in common and familiar vices. Indeed, in the case of the virtue of temperance, or self-restraint, it is easy to find the excess of self-indulgence in the physical pleasures, but the opposite error, insufficient concern for such pleasures, scarcely exists. Aristotle also does not argue that strong actions or emotions are always to be avoided—when circumstances demand strong actions and emotions, including even anger, such responses would be virtuous. Virtuous feelings and behaviour consist of appropriate reactions in appropriate situations, in contrast with extreme reactions in either direction.

One notable proponent of Aristotle’s ideas was the medieval Jewish philosopher and physician Moses Maimonides (1135–1204). Maimonides identified the moderate path between extremes as “the way of the Lord” and taught that moderation was necessary for both spiritual and physical health. Like Aristotle, Maimonides taught that moderation needs to be habitual, and he encouraged people to sometimes act against their own natural inclinations to avoid veering too far in one direction or another. Maimonides’ comprehensive commentary on Jewish law, the Mishne Torah, describes these ideas in detail, and they have become important to Jewish ethics.

In Buddhist teachings, the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is said to have taken a “middle way” or “middle path” between the extremes of self-satisfaction and self-denial. According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born a wealthy prince, but when he began to study the origins of suffering he went to live as an ascetic and maintained such austerity in his search for enlightenment that he nearly died of starvation. Eventually, he decided that neither the extreme of luxury nor the extreme of asceticism was correct, and he achieved enlightenment by adopting a middle path.

The Buddha’s middle path also extended to the contrasting Buddhist doctrines of eternalism—the idea that there is a self that persists forever—and nihilism—the idea that the self is destroyed at or before death. The Buddha reconciled these ideas with a middle path that questions whether such a self exists at all.

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The Confucian text Zhongyong, often translated as “Doctrine of the Mean,” is an influential book said to have been written by Confucius’s grandson Zisi. It describes the concept of zhongyong, a broad ideal of moderation, balance, and centredness that can be applied to almost every aspect of life.