Aristotle's Doctrine of the MeanWhen we think about questions of how we should live our lives, we often look for a schema that we can use to help us categorize actions or qualities as good, bad or indifferent. Such a mode of organization would indeed make it easier to determine what the right thing to do is. Aristotle once attempted to formulate a similar plan. His ethos used a system by which characteristics could be measured and the right quantity achieved. Such an explanation is known as the doctrine of averaging. Aristotle's doctrine aims to illuminate the nature of eudaimonia, which can be briefly defined as success or flourishing, the key to which is arête. To better understand where ethics fits into Aristotle's system, we need to briefly step back and look at the whole system. picture. Aristotle divides knowledge into three different categories. The first is theoretical and consists of describing reality. The second is practical, it is about acting, doing or committing. The third is productive, which is expressed in poetry, art, literature, etc. Aristotle places ethics in the second category of practical knowledge. He believed that ethical issues largely concerned how we lived and naturally affected our actions. Aristotle further divided his thinking on ethics into two categories, intellectual virtue and moral/social/political virtue. Regarding his views on moral virtue, Aristotle developed a doctrine that shows that virtue remains in the golden mean, the doctrine of the golden mean. “Moral virtue is a means…” (Aristotle 109). This doctrine asserted that having the right amount of a characteristic would be virtuous and most often falls between having too much or too little ...... middle of paper ...... n, remember that there are two types of virtues, moral and intellectual. Moral virtue, as it relates to virtue in general, must be an excellent defining characteristic. In other words, someone who is morally virtuous will be able to perform their moral duties well. This illustrates how Aristotle is able to apply the notion of arete to moral virtue. For Aristotle, the doctrine of the average is a means of categorizing (one of his favorite activities) moral virtue; there are, however, some exceptions, as Aristotle noted, which leave a gap that must be filled. The doctrine is very useful and works, but one must be wary of the exceptions and think carefully for oneself whether these things are true. Works Cited Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Rep. in Ethical Theories: A Book of Readings, second edition. Ed. AI Melden. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1967. 106-109.