7/11/24

The Nicomachean Ethics & The Polar Express

Trying to work this out in my own head. So far, Aristotle is saying that virtue is the mean between two extremes. For instance, courage is the mean between foolhardiness at one end and cowardice on the other. A virtuous person thus strives to act in the middle. However, depending on the person and the situation one extreme may actually be closer to the mean than the other. For instance, there are times when being a bit of a coward may actual be the right choice.

What the virtuous person does then is act like the conductor on The Polar Express in that scene where the train is going over cracking ice and aiming for a narrow mountain pass. First he steers right, the left, then right, but always keeping his eye on the goal- the tracks between the mountains.

A frivolous comparison maybe, but it helps me to have this mental picture as I work out the overall argument around virtue. No one is going to be perfectly on target every time, but if we are always tacking back to the center then we are making progress. Right?