> My criticism of Aristotle: Living the golden mean, like a happy person isnt going to help when your country is invaded. An interesting criticism considering

> My criticism of Aristotle: Living the golden mean, like a happy person isnt going to help when your country is invaded. An interesting criticism considering Aristotle elevated soldiers at war as a prime example. Greek philosophy was generally done by and for noble men, who were expected to deal with war on a regular basis and often actively participate in it. > Aristotle's golden mean (or Temperance) does not account for this. Aristotle gives the example that soldiers should be temperate in their enjoyment of war, not reveling in the bloodshed or pushing farther than they can handle. Work and studies are the same way: regardless of your age the human body has limits that you need to account for. When you're younger you can push past some of the softer limits (stay up late, go without food, etc) but eventually you will hit hard physical limits that, if not respected, will cause irreversible damage and often put you in a worse spot than you started. > "But Wisdom would say that this is acceptable to sacrifice health at points" Does it? How do you weight these virtues as one better than another? To directly answer: Aristotle does say Practical Wisdom (or Prudence) is the highest of the cardinal virtues, and that the cardinal virtues of Prudence,Courage,Temperance, and Justice are more important virtues than others. But that's also sort of the whole point of his ethics, you don't have specific rulings of what to do, you develop the character to make the right decisions for the given circumstance. In this case, you rely on good Practical Wisdom to determine what the moderate amount of work is: a wise person wouldn't slack off at work but also wouldn't work 80 hour weeks at the expense of seeing their family. > Calling for some perfect Platonic form that answers all these questions correctly is a bit of a cop-out. You'll have to take that up with his teacher I suppose.