kantian ethics Archives

Is There a Right Amount of Anger?

Golden musical notes, a beautiful harmony — Virtue, like music, depends not on the right amount, but on the right measure.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

This article is a faithful exposition of Aristotle’s account of virtue in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle’s account of moral virtue rests on a simple but demanding idea: that goodness is not something we possess by nature, but something we acquire through practice.

In Book 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics (c. 330 BCE), Aristotle argues that moral virtues are formed through repetition. Unlike sight and hearing, which are given to us at birth, virtue is not in our nature. But neither is it contrary to our nature, which is adapted to receive it. Just as a sculptor becomes a sculptor by sculpting, so the virtuous become virtuous by exercising virtue.

One cannot define virtue with any precision because the goodness of a feeling or action is highly person- and context-dependent. All that can be said is that virtue, like strength, is undermined by a lack or excess of training. For instance, he who flees from everything becomes a coward, while he who runs headlong into every danger becomes rash. Courage, in contrast, is indicated and produced by the mean.

Moral excellence is intimately related to pleasure and pain. For it is in the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain that bad deeds are committed, and good deeds omitted. Hence, it is by pleasure and pain that bad people are bad.

There are three objects of choice, the noble, the advantageous, and the pleasant, and three objects of avoidance which are their contraries, the base, the injurious, and the painful. The good tend to go right about these, whereas the bad tend to go wrong. This is especially true of pleasure, which is common to the animals, and also contained in the advantageous and the noble. The good feel pleasure from the most beautiful, noble [kalos] actions, but the bad or not-good are often confused about what is most pleasant. It is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, but virtue, like art, is concerned with what is harder, and the good is better when it is harder.

A person may perform an apparently virtuous action by chance or under duress. An action is only virtuous if it is recognised as being virtuous and performed for that sake by a person with a set, unvarying character. In sum, an action is only virtuous if it is such as a virtuous person would perform.

The Golden Mean

Three things are found in the soul: passions, faculties, and dispositions [hexeis]. As the virtues are neither feelings nor faculties, they must be dispositions: dispositions to aim at the intermediate, or mean, between deficiency and excess.

The principal virtues, together with their corresponding vices, are listed in the table below.

Aristotle's table of the virtues, with the golden mean, the excess, and the deficiency — Copyright Neel Burton

In any sphere, arriving at the mean is a form of success and worthy of praise. While it is possible to fail in many ways, it is possible to succeed in one way only, which is why the one is easy and the other is difficult. By the same token, men may be bad in many ways, but good in one way only.

So far so good, except that not every passion or action admits of a mean: for instance, not envy or murder. It is never a question of murdering the right person, at the right time, in the right way, for murder is neither a deficiency nor an excess, but always and intrinsically vicious.

The principal virtues along with their corresponding vices are listed in the table below.

In some cases, one vice can be closer to the virtue than the contrary vice, for instance, rashness is closer to courage than cowardice, and prodigality is closer to liberality than meanness. This is partly because the contrary vice, whether cowardice or meanness, is more common. Hence, people oppose not rashness but cowardice to courage, and not prodigality but meanness to liberality.

It is no easy task to be good. To increase the likelihood of hitting the mark, we should (1) avoid the vice that is furthest from the virtue or mean; (2) consider our vices and drag ourselves towards their contrary extremes; and (3) be wary of pleasure and pain.

For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle… anyone can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.

The Golden Mean (Virtue Ethics) vs the Categorical Imperative vs Utilitarianism

Aristotle’s ethics differs fundamentally from the two great ethical systems that came after him. Utilitarianism asks, ‘Which action will produce the most happiness?’ Kantian ethics asks, ‘Which action accords with strict moral duty?’ Aristotle begins somewhere else entirely: ‘What kind of person should I be?’ For him, ethics is not primarily about calculating consequences or obeying rules, but about cultivating character. The virtuous person develops, through practice and experience, the subtle judgement to feel and act in the right way, to the right degree, at the right time, and for the right reasons. Instead of giving us a crude formula for making moral decisions, Aristotle asks us to become the sort of person who can make them intuitively.

Sometimes, we may somewhat miss the mark, for instance, get angry too soon or not enough, yet still be praiseworthy. It is only when we deviate more markedly from the mean that we become blameworthy.

We help others by being virtuous, but we also help ourselves, for virtue is a disposition to happiness, and happiness is the exercise of virtue.