Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts by David Baggett; Shawn Klein

Author:David Baggett; Shawn Klein
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780812694550
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
Published: 2004-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

There is one last point we must note about Aristotle’s account of the virtues. Aristotle recognized that all of our important choices in life take place in emotional contexts. What we feel, emotionally, can have an effect on our choices, and good choices are those in which a person gives an appropriate weight to his emotions, neither denying them altogether, nor allowing them to subvert his process of reasoning. A reasonable person gives his emotions the appropriate weight, and chooses his actions in the way which best fits his capabilities and circumstances. Aristotle believed that to be virtuous was to observe what he called the Doctrine of the Mean.83 This just means that a virtuous action is one which represents a kind of middle course between what would be an excessive response (one in which too much weight is given to the emotions) and what would be a deficient response (one in which too little weight is given to the emotions). In either the excessive or deficient cases, a person’s acts will be out of step with his capabilities and circumstances because of his failing to deal with his emotions properly.

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