Certainly, we should try to avoid cowardice and rashness. Aristotle does not tell us where the limits of his sliding scale of morality lie. When does cowardice give way to courage? When does courage give way to recklessness? I remember watching Selma, the movie about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts to change voting rights, the other day. There was a scene on the Edmond Pettus Bridge where many unarmed protesters attempted to cross despite quite loud and armed disagreement from several Alabama state troopers. They end up being beaten and pushed back. Would Aristotle call this rashness? Later, still at the Edmond Pettus Bridge, King led the movement and saw no opposition, but he pushed them back because he was suspicious. Would Aristotle call this, as some of King's allies did, cowardice? It's easy for us to call all this courage, since we know how it happened. How useful is the doctrine of the golden mean in helping us decide what we should do and how we should live our lives if it waits until the results are known to tell us how virtuous we are.