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The Mean, the Right and Archery
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (2010) 6798–6804
Selected Papers of Beijing Forum 2007
The Mean, the Right and Archery Yu Jiyuan Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo
Abstract Both Confucian and Aristotelian theories of virtue characterize virtue as the mean. Why does each, independently from each other, develop a doctrine of the mean? Is it purely coincidental, or is there a deep philosophical and historical reason for this striking similarity? This paper seeks to develop a new understanding of Aristotle’s mean as well as Confucius’s mean, and to show that there is deep philosophical reason for their similarity. I argue that, for both ethics, the mean is not a notion of quantity or proportionality, but is identified with what is right. Calling what is right the “mean” happens because both sides follow the model of archery in their effort to explicate the nature of virtue. For both, the doctrine of the mean is meant to show that virtue should be conceived as an archery like quality, and that a virtuous agent who is disposed to act or live rightly is likened to an excellent archer who has the skill to hit the target. A virtuous agent forms and exercises his virtue, just as an archer develops and exercises his archery. Both Confucius and Aristotle characterize virtue as the mean. For Aristotle, virtue is a mean between two vices (Nicomachean Ethics˷NE˹ 1107a2), and a disposition “laying in a mean ˷mesotƝti˹ relative to us.” (NE, 1106b36) Clearly, the mean is essential to what virtue is. iFor Confucius, “Supreme indeed is the mean as virtue.” (Analects, 6:29) The mean is the supreme virtue (de). Since Confucius’s theory of ren (excellence, usually translated as “benevolence” or “humanity”) is his version of the theory of de (virtue), to say that de is the mean amounts to saying that excellence (ren), as virtue in general, is the mean.ii The statement in Analects 6:29 is repeated in The Doctrine of Mean (Zhongyong, chap. 3), which, as one of the Confucian Four Books, can be read as an elaboration of this idea of Confucius. iii Why do Aristotle and Confucius, independently from each other, each develop a doctrine of the mean? Is it purely coincidental, or is there a deep philosophical and historical reason for this striking similarity? This paper seeks to develop a new understanding of Aristotle’s mean as well as Confucius’s mean, and to show that there is deep philosophical reason for their similarity. Section one shows that for both, the mean is divided into inner mean and outer mean. The inner mean manifests itself by hitting the outer mean. In section two, I argue that, for both ethics, the mean is not a notion of quantity or proportionality, but is identified with what is right. Calling what is right the “mean” happens because both sides follow the model of archery in their effort to explicate the nature of virtue. Section three further suggests that, for both, the doctrine of the mean is meant to show that virtue should be conceived as archery like quality, and that a virtuous agent who is disposed to act or live rightly is likened to an excellent archer who has the skill to hit the target. A virtuous agent forms and exercises his virtue, just as an archer develops and exercises his archery. © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1877-0428 © 2010 Beijing Forum. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.05.030
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1. The Mean: Inner and Outer Traditionally, Aristotle’s mean has been understood as moderation. Taken as such, it is thought to be philosophically insignificant and even false. For instance, Bernard Williams dismisses the doctrine of the mean as “one of the most celebrated and least useful parts of his ˷Aristotle’s˹ system.”iv Yet to interpret the mean as moderation is difficult to square with some textual evidence. Aristotle explicitly remarks: “In respect of its substance and the account which states its essence it is a mean, with regard to what is best and right it is an extreme” (NE, 1107a6-8). The mean is not moderate; rather, it becomes an extreme in doing the best and right thing. He also emphasizes that, while a virtue is a mean, there is no mean state within a virtue, and equally there is no mean state within a vice (NE, 1107a22-26). Virtue is simply right, and vice is simply wrong. If the mean is not moderation, what, then what does Aristotle understand by it? What is the point of claiming that virtue is the mean between two extremes? This issue has been a subject of intense debate among Aristotelian commentators. Equally, what is meant by the mean has also been a topic of controversy among Confucian commentators. According to Chan, “In the Analects, zhong yong, often translated the ‘Mean,’ denotes moderation.”v Yet, as is the case in Aristotle, the moderation interpretation is difficult to square with Confucian textual evidence. Confucius says, “The excellent person ˷Junzi, usually translated as “Gentleman”˹ agrees with others without being an echo” (Analects, 13:23). “Without being an echo” means that the excellent person does not invariably follow the trend and stay safe. Indeed, Confucius names the person who tries to please everyone “the village worthy” (shanyuan) and condemns such a person as “the ruin of virtue” (Analects 17:13). When his most beloved disciple Yen-Wei dies, “in weeping for him, the Master showed extreme grief.” Some of his disciples say to him, “Master, your grief is extreme.” “Is it?” Confucius replies, “If I do not feel extreme grief for this man, for whom should I feel?” (Analects 11:9) Apparently he does not think that a moderate response in this circumstance is appropriate. The Chinese term zhongyong is composed of two words: zhong and yong. It is generally agreed that zhong is “middle” or “central;” yet there is an age old debate regarding the meaning of yong in Chinese classical commentaries. Three major interpretations stand out: (1) yong means “to use,” or “to practice;”vi (2) it is “what is unchangeable;” vii (3) it means “ordinary,” or “common.” viii Different definitions of yong lead to different interpretations of what the Confucian mean is, ix and even to different translations of the book that is entitled Zhongyong. x Now let us see whether a comparison of Aristotle and Confucius can clarify the situation a bit in each case. Let us start with the issue of the location of the mean. Aristotle applies the mean both to the inner state of character and to the outer expression of virtue in feelings and actions. On the one hand, virtue itself is said to be “lying in a mean state ˷en mesotƝti˹” (NE, 1106b36), a state between two vices, represented respectively by excess and deficiency (NE, 1107a2-3). I call this the “inner mean.” On the other hand, Aristotle also says that virtue “both finds and chooses that which is the mean˷meson˹” (NE, 1107a5), and that virtue “is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the mean ˷meson˹” (NE, 1106b16-17). Accordingly, the mean is located in passions and actions. I call this the “outer mean.” There has been a debate about which mean, the inner or the outer, is Aristotle’s real concern. This raises the further question of whether the mean disposition should be interpreted independently of the mean expressed in passions and actions, or vice versa. There are two opposing views on this point. In J. O. Urmson’s understanding, Aristotle’s virtue of character is “a mean or intermediate disposition regarding emotions and actions, not that it is a disposition towards mean or intermediate emotions and actions.”xi In other words, it is the inner mean, or the mean disposition, that is Aristotle’s primary interest. The opposite view holds that virtue is a mean state, not because it itself is a mean of something, but because it aims at the mean in passions and actions. For example, Julia Annas says: “The substance of the claim that virtues are mean states must therefore lie in the way that they aim at the mean in feelings or pathƝ.”xii According to this reading, when one interprets the doctrine of the mean, the focus should be on the mean in passions and actions. My own view is that these two sides do not have to be in conflict. Aristotle locates the mean in both the inner and the outer, in both virtuous character and virtuous passions and actions. This is because for him these two aspects are intrinsically inseparable. On the one hand, Aristotle holds that the virtuous passions and actions issue forth from the virtuous state of character that is the mean state. Proper conduct must emanate characteristically from a fixed disposition if it is to be truly virtuous conduct. Whether an act is good or virtuous should be judged in relation to the agent. In NE, 1105a32-b1, Aristotle lists three conditions that an agent must meet in order for his act to be counted
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as virtuous: (a) “he must have knowledge”; (b) “he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes”; and (3) “his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.” Given this, it is the inner state that is more important. On the other hand, virtue is for the human good, i.e., happiness, and happiness consists not merely in the possession of virtue, but in the exercise of it. Happiness must consist in an active life. Aristotle emphasizes: “It matters quite a bit whether we suppose that the best good consists in possessing or in using, i.e., in a state or in an activity” (NE, 1098b33-1099a2). The virtuous agent must manifest his or her virtues in actions. Without achieving the outer mean, the inner mean state does not count for much. It is in pursuing virtuous activities that one obtains happiness. Where, then, is the Confucian mean located? The Analects itself does not give us enough material to reconstruct the location. Yet in the first chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, we read: Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are issued ˷fa˹, one is in a state that is called the mean ˷zhong˹. When these feelings are issued ˷fa˹, and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony ˷he˹.xiii
The passage suggests that the mean (zhong) is an inner state of feeling, and there is also an aspect of “hitting” what is appropriate in one’s life or conduct when this inner mean is exercised. This outer aspect is called “harmony” (he). Apparently, the zhong-he structure corresponds to Aristotle’s inner mean outer mean structure. Since “the mean” is a translation of the Chinese term zhongyong, we are led to ask: Where is the place of yong in this zhong-he structure? How is zhong-he related to zhongyong? As mentioned earlier, there have been three traditional interpretations of yong: “practice,” “unchangeable,” and “ordinary.” For the following reasons, I side with the first interpretation. The earliest Chinese etymological dictionary, Shuowenjiezi, lists “to use” as the basic sense of yong. The word for “to use” sounds the same as yong in Chinese. More importantly, to take yong as “to use” allows us to interpret zhongyong as “using the mean.” “Using the mean” is a recurring idea in Confucianism. In Analects 20:1 it is recorded that the sage king Yao told his successor Shun: “The succession, ordained by Heaven, has fallen on you. Hold to the mean (zhong).” Shun, when handing his position over to his successor (the sage king) Yu, is reported to have spoken these same words to the latter. Accordingly, “to hold to the mean” seems to be the most fundamental dao (way) of the sage kings. Yet “to hold to the mean” amounts to “using or practicing the mean,” as is suggested by the following passage from the Doctrine of the Mean (chap. 6): Shun was fond of questioning others and examining their words, however ordinary. He concealed what was bad in them and displayed what was good. He grasped their two extremes, and then used ˷yong˹ the mean ˷zhong˹ between them in his dealings with the people. This was how he became Shun.
Shun uses the mean in politics, and thereby becomes a great sage-king. Yao, Shun, and Yu are sage kings and also personify the Confucian paradigm of the excellent person (junzi). If “using the mean” is what makes them great sage-kings, it is also what makes them excellent persons. We can therefore say that to be an exemplary person is to hold to or to practice the mean. In understanding yong as “to use” or “to practice,” we are in a position to explain the relation between the mean and zhong-he. In the above-quoted passage from the Mean, when the inner state is “issued ˷fa˹, and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony ˷he˹.” I would like to propose that the term fa (to issue, or to exercise) here serves the role of yong, or “practice.” When the inner mean is exercised, the agent hits the target in life and conduct. Taken this way, the term zhongyong (mean) combines two ideas: the mean state, and its use or manifestation. For Aristotle, the exercise of virtue is essential, for otherwise one’s life is lived in a sleeping state. When Confucius conjoins zhong and yong, and calls it “the supreme virtue,” he must be stressing, like Aristotle, that one not only needs to possess virtues, but also must manifest or exercise them. If the foregoing discussion is correct, we see a striking structural parallel between Aristotle’s mean and Confucian mean. Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean involves three aspects: (1) the inner mean in disposition; (2) the outer mean in feeling and actions; and (3) practicing the inner mean to hit the outer mean.
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The Confucian doctrine of the mean also involves three elements: (1) zhong (the inner mean); (2) he (harmony, the outer mean); and (3) yong, practicing the inner mean to hit the outer mean.
Let us proceed to examine in more detail what the outer mean and the inner mean are in both ethics, starting from the outer mean. 2. Hitting the Mean For both Aristotle and Confucius, the mean is the middle point between excess and deficiency. A virtue is a mean because there are two vices corresponding to it. Aristotle remarks: “Virtue is a mean ˷mesotƝs˹ between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect” (NE, 1107a2-3). Confucius thinks in the same way. “Zi Gong asked, ‘Who is superior, Shi or Shang?’ The Master said, ‘Shi goes beyond the due mean, and Shang does not come up to it...’ To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short” (Analects 11:16). Here we have one mean, and two corresponding vices: going beyond and falling short. At Analects 13:21, “The Master said, ‘having failed to find the man who walks in the middle way ˷zhong xing˹ for associates, one should, if there were no alternative, have to turn to the undisciplined and the over scrupulous. The former are enterprising, while the latter will draw the line at certain kinds of action.’” We should keep company with the person who holds the mean. xivHere the two vices corresponding to the mean are lack of discipline and over-scrupulousness. W. D. Ross uses the phrase “trinitarian scheme” to refer to Aristotle’s view that for every virtue there are two distinct vices.xv I think this term can also be neatly applied to the Confucian mean. In addition to the trinitarian scheme, both Aristotle and Confucius frequently identify the mean with “what is right.” For Aristotle: “To feel these feelings at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and the right way, is what is both mean ˷meson˹ and best ˷ariston˹; and this is characteristic of virtue” (NE, 1106b21-23;). Again: “It ˷virtue˹ is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right ˷to deon, or what ought to be done˹ in both passions and actions” (NE, 1107a3-4). Here the mean is characterized in terms of “the right” and “what ought to be done.” It is associated with and even appears to be a synonym for “best” (Eudemian Ethics, 1220b29), for “good” (spoudaion, and enj), and for “noble” (kalon) (NE, 1109a23-29). The same line of thinking can also be discerned in Confucius: “The excellent person, in his dealing with the world, is not invariably for or against anything. He follows only what is appropriate ˷yi˹’” (Analects, 4:10). Since the excellent person is the virtuous agent who has achieved the mean, to say that he follows only what is appropriate indicates the intrinsic relation between the mean and what is appropriate. Such a relation is more clearly established in the Doctrine of the Mean (chap. 25) where we are told that, when the dao (way) of the mean, the supreme virtue, is reached, “whenever it is employed, everything done is right.” In chap. 31, zhong (the mean) and zheng (uprightness, correctness) are sometimes simply grouped together as one term, used as an alternative expression of the mean.xvi There are, then, two views about what the mean is in both Aristotelian and Confucian ethics: (A) The mean lies in the middle of excess and deficiency. (B) The mean is what is right or appropriate.
These two views are clearly different. The first presents the trinitarian scheme and leads many commentators to take the mean as a notion of quantity or proportionality, whereas the second entails that the mean is a normative or prescriptive notion. Since there does not appear to be a direct connection between “what is right” and the middle, one has good reason to wonder why both Aristotle and Confucius conflate them. I find little discussion concerning the relation between these two views in Confucian scholarship. Many Aristotelian commentators, however, tend to believe that there is a sort of conceptual confusion and even contradiction between these two views. For instance, W. D. Ross accepts (B) but rejects (A), saying that “the
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trinitarian scheme of virtue and vices is mistaken”.xvii In contrast, J. David Blankenship maintains (A) and tries to dismiss (B).xviii Yet, since both (A) and (B) are supported by solid textual evidence, we need a better interpretation that can accommodate both. This requires us to show that the middle is also the right, so that the two views are not in tension. Let us start from a clue provided by the Chinese term zhong. In both ancient and contemporary Chinese, zhong is used both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun it has a twofold meaning: “middle” and “appropriateness.” As a verb, it means “to hit the target,” and this usage is related to archery. When an arrow hits the target, it is called zhongdi or mingzhong (“hitting the right target”). The idiom yijian zhongdi (literally, “hitting the target with just one arrow”) is usually used to convey the idea that one gets to the point straightforwardly. Even the Chinese character zhong originally takes the form of a straight line penetrating through a circle in the middle. We are therefore inspired to inquire whether the Confucian mean is related to archery. It becomes immediately clear that this archery analogy can be detected in the Confucian zhong-he (inner mean-outer mean) scheme, presented in the Mean (chap. 1). It indicates that the inner mean (zhong) is the state of feelings before these feelings are issued (fa). “When these feelings are issued (fa), and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony” (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 1). In this passage, the word zhong is used both as a noun and a verb. The passage also employs the verb fa (to issue). In Chinese, fa is directly related to “shooting,” and to the verb zhong (to hit the target). To praise an excellent archer, one says bai fa bai zhong (literally, shooting a hundred arrows and hitting the mark a hundred times). This description of the zhong-he scheme establishes a link between the inner mean of a virtuous agent and the shooting of an arrow by an archer. Earlier I mentioned that fa here serves the role of yong, in the sense of “to use” or “to exercise.” If the current discussion is accurate, yong is not just “to exercise,” but more specifically, “to exercise and to hit the target.” Indeed, Confucius himself explicitly brings the analogy of archery to the fore: In archery we have something resembling the way of the excellent person. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns around and seeks the cause of failure within himself. (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap.14)
The way of the excellent person is the way of the mean, and to miss the target amounts to failure to practice the mean in one’s actions. An archer examines himself if he misses the target, that is, he reviews the skills of archery that he possesses and continues to improve them. Since the mean is likened to the art of archery, we may say that, if a person fails to hit the mean in actions, he should examine himself and continue to cultivate the inner mean. This also indicates that archery is the craft-model for Confucius when he constructs his doctrine of the mean. The same line of thinking is inherited by Mencius, as he likens human excellence (ren) to archery and compares the excellent person to the archer. Thus, we read: “Ren is like archery: an archer makes sure his stance is correct before letting fly the arrow, and if he fails to hit the mark, he does not hold it against his victor. He simply seeks the cause within himself.” (Mencius 2a/7) Again, “An excellent person is full of eagerness when he has drawn his bow, but before he lets fly the arrow, he stands in the middle of the path (zhong dao er li), and those who are able to do so follow him.” (Mencius 7a/41) It is clear to me that the model of archery is behind the Confucian doctrine of the mean. This leads me to ask whether the Aristotelian mean is similarly related to archery. The answer is positive. At the outset of the NE when Aristotle says that the task of his ethics is to grasp the supreme human good, he unambiguously likens his project of pursuing human goodness to archery. If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake..., and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else..., clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should ˷ton deon˹? (NE, 1094a18-24)
A virtuous person seeks to grasp the highest good just as an archer seeks to hit the target. In describing how a virtuous agent exercises the inner mean to reach the outer mean in passions and actions, Aristotle repeatedly uses the expression “hitting the mean” (tou mesou stochastikƝ). xix The word “hitting” (stochastikƝ, from the verb, stochazesthai, to aim at or shoot at) strongly suggests that the craft of archery is the model for Aristotle in
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establishing the doctrine of the mean. He also describes someone who can “miss ˷hamartanein˹” in many ways in achieving the mean (NE, 1106b29). The model of archery has, of course, been noticed in both Aristotelian scholarship and Confucian scholarship.xx However, it has never been given a central place in interpreting either Aristotelian or Confucian mean. By putting these two doctrines together, and noting their similarities, we are led to the view that the model of archery must be of key importance in understanding what virtue is. First, the model of archery explains why, for both Aristotle and Confucius, the mean is both the right and the middle. In shooting an arrow, in particular when one is practicing archery, the right target is the bull’s eye, which is the middle point of the target. Here, to hit the right target is precisely to hit the middle. For a virtuous agent, to hit the mean is to say that he, like an archer, hits the right target or gets it right with respect to passions and actions. Second, the model of archery suggests a new answer to the following question: Why does each side, independently, derive a “trinitarian scheme” in which the mean is the middle between excess and defect? There are interpretations for the origin of the trinitarian scheme in the scholarship on both sides. On the Confucian side, Kanaya Osamu relates this scheme to the mode of thinking that has wide currency in ancient Chinese philosophy, that is, the tendency to harmonize opposites. In his understanding, a mean is “marked by a harmonious structure” coming out of two extremes.xxi This view is attractive, but problematic. According to the Confucian structure of zhong (the inner mean)-he (harmony, the outer mean) in the beginning part of the Mean, harmony does not appear to be the cause of the inner mean, but results from the exercise (fa) of the inner mean. Several hypotheses have been presented on Aristotle’s side. The first holds that this trinitarian structure is derived from the Greek medical theory that health lies in balancing contraries. It is suggested that to describe a virtue as a mean indicates that it is a mixture or fusion of a pair of contrary tendencies, a mixture between the associated vices.xxii This is rejected by Charles Young, who points out that in the NE, especially in II.6, the locus classicus of the doctrine of the mean, Aristotle “makes no attempt whatever to construe a virtue as a mixture of contraries”.xxiii In place of this interpretation based on the idea of harmony between contraries, Young takes the mean to be “a pattern of action and passion that falls between the excessive pattern exhibited by persons with one of the vices in that sphere and the deficit pattern exhibited by persons with the other vice”.xxiv In his understanding, the doctrine of the mean is in contrast to the theory of Contrariety (which he ascribes to Plato), according to which each virtue is associated with but a single vice, its opposite or contrary. Aristotle advances his doctrine of the mean because he “believes there is a structure to vice that Contrariety cannot describe and organize”. xxv Young’s position is in turn criticized by J. David Blankenship who points out, among other things, that Aristotle himself does not reject the idea that virtue and vice are contraries, and that it is even problematic to say Plato believes in the theory of Contrariety. Rather, the idea of the mean is implied in Plato.xxvi The model of archery enables us to propose a different explanation for the origin of the trinitarian scheme. The right point is the bull’s eye that is located in the middle, and there are in general two possibilities in which one would miss the bull’s eye. If we view the target vertically, the arrow misses the target because it goes either too high or too low; and if we view the target horizontally, the arrow misses the bull’s eye because it goes either to the left or to the right. In any case, no matter the angle from which we look, the mean or middle point stands between two deviant directions. Analogically, one’s character can be said to err in two ways, and virtue is the mean that stands between two vices. This is apparently what both Aristotle and Confucius are saying. Third, based on the above discussion, the vices of excess and defect cannot be understood strictly as two extreme points. Instead, they are two general headings under which all defective characters and actions are grouped, and under each heading there is a range of characters and actions. This explains why Aristotle sometimes leaves aside the trinitarian scheme, and says that there could be many ways in which one could go wrong (NE, 1106b28-35), and that to hit the mark is difficult, but to miss the mark is easy (NE, 1106b29-33). This is certainly true of the varied and complex situations of human lives and actions. Indeed, the model of archery leads us to appreciate the fact that all vices cannot be equally bad. If point ten is the bull’s eye, points nine to one are all deviant. Nevertheless, hitting nine points is far better than hitting one point. Thus, vices are nothing more than “going beyond” and “falling short,” and, given that “vice” is such a laden term, it is indeed misleading to translate Aristotle’s word kakia as “vices.” Kakia should just mean “defective.” Aristotle says: “The man, however who deviates little from goodness is not blamed, whether he does so in the direction of the more or of the less, but only the man who deviates more widely” (NE, 1109b18-20). At NE, 1106b25-26, he also
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mentions that excess is “a form of failure.” Confucius equally advises not to reject “going beyond” and “falling short” exclusively (Analects 13:21). If you cannot find a person with A+ quality, A- or B+ are also acceptable. Finally, if the model of archery explains why the mean is identified with the right and also how the trinitarian scheme is construed, then we should not take too seriously the idea that the mean is quantitative. On some occasions the right manifests itself as quantified determinations of amount, or as proportions, and it can also be the symmetrical middle on a continuum between excess and defect. However, it can also have nothing to do with a continuum. What is essential is to attain the right. 3. The Inner Mean and Virtue The model of archery makes good sense of “hitting the mean” and hence the outer mean. Now let us extend the model of archery to our inquiry about the inner mean. The outer mean and the inner mean are inseparable and the inner mean-outer mean structure itself reminds one of the image of an archer aiming at the target. What enables the archer to hit the target correctly is his acquired skill in archery. By analogy, for a virtuous agent, since the hitting of the mean in passions and actions is issued from the inner mean, it follows that the inner mean must be a sort of skilllike state in the agent, corresponding to the archer’s skill in archery. In other words, the exercise of the inner mean is analogical to shooting an arrow. The possession and exercise of the skills of archery make one good as an archer; correspondingly, the possession and exercise of the inner mean make one good as a human being. I believe this is precisely the approach that both Aristotelian and Confucian ethics take. For both, the central question of moral philosophy is to explain the state that makes one good as a human being and to discuss how one can achieve this state. This state is what Aristotle calls aretƝ (virtue) and what the Confucius calls ren (excellence). Aristotle says, “The virtue of man also will be the state which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well” (NE, 1106a21-23). Similarly, ren is what makes a person a person. A person of ren, that is, an excellent person exemplifies the mean and is a paradigm of what human life should be (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 2). We have shown that both Aristotle and Confucius use the model of archery in explicating this inner state that makes one good as a human being. The failure of an archer results from his inappropriate grasp or exercise of archery. By the same token, the failure of an agent in life and action must be due to his or her failure in obtaining or exercising the inner mean (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 14). According to a report in The Doctrine of the Mean, chap.10, Confucius characterizes the excellent person as one who “stands in the middle, without leaning to either side.” This trinitarian structure, as we have said, is associated with archery. Mencius most explicitly claims that “Ren is like archery” (Mencius, 2a/7). On Aristotle’s side, we read: If it is, then, that every art ˷or craft, techne˹ does its work well by looking to the mean ˷meson˹ and judging its works by this standard... and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is, then it must have the quality of aiming at the mean ˷meson˹. (NE, 1106b7-16)
This passage presupposes the analogy between a craft and virtue. If every good art is to aim at the mean in its sphere, virtue must be a kind of quality that enables an agent to aim at the outer mean. It is a commonplace that the craft analogy is regarded as one of the major argumentative strategies in Aristotle’s discussion of virtue. Our discussion shows that archery must be the central craft model he uses in his theory that virtue is the mean. As the above quoted passage indicates, the good of a craft is said to aim at the mean, and for Aristotle, “Virtue is a kind of mean, since it aims at what is the mean ˷meson˹” (NE, 1106b27-28). Hence, virtue is a craft-like quality.xxvii Just as possession of the skills of archery enables an archer to hit the target, so possession of virtue makes an agent feel and act rightly. This is the reason why he calls virtue itself the mean state. Why, then, do both sides, independently appeal to archery as a model? My suggestion is as follows. The Greek word aretƝ is related to the Greek god of war, Ares, and thus has association with manly qualities. When aretƝ is translated as virtus (from vir, literally “man”) in Latin (from which the English word “virtue” comes), the relation between this term and the manly qualities seems to be emphasized. On the Confucian side, the term ren was employed in the Book of Poetry to describe noble huntsmen, and it has been thought that ren originally meant “manly,” “manliness,” or “manhood.” I am led to think that this parallel of the original senses of arƝte and ren can
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cast light on the parallel between Aristotle’s mean and the Confucian mean. Both Aristotle and Confucius lived in a time which was still heavily influenced by the values of ancient heroic societies, especially the admiration of heroes in war and hunting. This is probably why, when they start to think about what virtue is in an ethical life, each seeks to establish a virtuous agent as a counterpart of the hero in war and hunting. Now archery, given its central role in war and hunting, is one of the most important skills that make a person a hero in ancient heroic societies. It enables a man to show his “manhood” or “manliness.” Could this be the reason that both Aristotle and Confucius appeal to archery as a model in explicating their conceptions of virtue, leading to the formation of two separate doctrines of the mean? References i
Aristotle uses two Greek words for the “mean”: meson, and mesotƝs. The translations of these two terms differ. The Loeb renders mesotƝs both as “mean” and “mean state,” and meson as “mean.” The Revised Oxford Translation (ROT) translates mesotƝs as “mean,” and meson as “intermediate.” Lesley Brown disputes that to render meson as “intermediate” fails to capture the normative use of this word which means something like “intermediate and correct” or “appropriate.” She chooses instead to translate meson as “mean,” and mesotƝs as “mean state.” See her “What is ‘The Mean Relative to Us’ in Aristotle’s Ethics?” Phronesis 42 (January, 1997): 79, note 6. I replace ROT’s “intermediate” with “mean” in the quotations where meson is used, but will mark the Greek word that is used in the original text whenever the translation word “mean” appears. ii In English translations, “mean” is a rendering of both Chinese words zhongyong and zhong. In quoting Confucian classics, I use “mean” throughout, but will mark which Chinese word is used in the original text. iii The Doctrine of the Mean provides a metaphysical foundation for Confucius’s theory of the mean (and thus also for his ethics as a whole). Kanaya Osamu splits The Doctrine of the Mean into two halves and suggests that the first half but not the second should be discussed together with the Analects. See his “The Mean in Original Confucianism,” in Chinese Language, Thought, and Culture, ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1996), 83. Yet the mean as an ethical disposition and as a metaphysical reality is consistent in Confucianism. iv Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 36. Jonathan Barnes also claims, in his introduction to The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J. A. K. Thomson (London: Penguin, 1976, 24-26), that the doctrine of the mean “has no practical or advisory force.” “Virtue is not, in any literal sense of the term, a matter of picking the mid-point.” “Had Aristotle written a third ethical treatise, the celebrated Doctrine would not, I conjecture, have appeared in it.” See also Rosalind Hursthouse, “A False Doctrine of the Mean,” Aristotelian Society Proceedings (1980—81): 57-72. v Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 96. Probably out of this understanding, Chan treats lightly the idea of the mean in the Analects. Indeed, in his invaluable Source Book, he does not even include the crucial statement of A. 6:29 that the mean is the supreme virtue. vi This position goes back to Zheng Xuan, quoted by Kong Yingda in his Liji zhengyi (The Correct Meanings of the Book of Rites). vii This is held by the Neo Confucian Cheng Yi (1033—1107) and is reported by Zhu Xi in his preface to Zhong Yong Chang-Zhu. James Legge seems to adopt this position when he translates zhongyong in A. 6:27 as “constant mean.” viii This is the position of Zhu Xi who attempts to emphasize that the cultivation of virtue in Confucianism is not a mysterious process, but is in daily and ordinary human affairs. ix In addition to the three traditional positions, Richard Bosley takes the mean to be sufficiency. See his “What Is a Mean?—The Question Considered Comparatively and Systematically,” Philosophy East and West, 36 (January, 1986): 3-12. Kanaya Osamu regards it as “a model of thinking” that harmonizes the opposite extremes (1996, 92). Chan separates the mean in the Analects from the mean in the Zhongyong, and claims that whereas in the former the mean denotes moderation, in the latter “zhong means what is central and yong means what is universal and harmonious” (1963, 96) x For Tu Wei-ming, it is Centrality and Commonality (Albany: State University New York Press, 1989); for Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, it is Focusing the Familiar (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001). xi J.O. Urmson, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. A. O. Rorty (Berkery: University of California Press, 1980), 161. xii Julia Annas, Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 59. See also Charles Young, “The Doctrine of the Mean,” Topoi 19 (March, 1996): 94. xiii Translation is my own. Chan’s translation of this passage is as follows: “Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused it is called equilibrium (chun, centrality, mean). When these feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony” (1963, 98). The translation of Y. Fu and Z. He is: “When joy, anger, sorrow and happiness are not revealed, they are zhong, in the mean. When they are revealed, they are he, in harmony.” (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean ˷Beijing: Sinolingua Press, 1996˹) xiv Mencius also quotes and endorses this passage (see, Mencius 7b/37). xv W.D. Ross, Aristotle (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 206.
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xvi We read at M. 7a/26: “Zi-mo holds on to the middle ˷zhong˹, half way between the two extremes. Holding on to the middle is closer to being right, but to do this without the proper measure ˷or weighing, quan˹ is no different from holding to one extreme. The reason for disliking those who hold to one extreme is that they cripple the Way. One thing is singled out to the neglect of a hundred others.” The passage appears to be saying that holding the mean is merely close to what is right. To get what is exactly right, one further needs quan, “weighing.” The passage is puzzling, for usually quan is the way to determine what the mean (zhong) is and it is called “timing the mean” (shizhong, The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 2). Here Tzu-Mo holds the mean, but he further needs quan to determine what is right. The possible explanation is that zhong here only means a fixed middle point, a result of following the rule rigidly. It is not the zhong that is determined by moral wisdom. xvii Ross, 1959, 205; cf. also Hursthouse, 1980—81, 71. xviii He says: “˷I˹t is difficult to see how there would be anything intermediate about Intermediacy ˷=what I call the “outer mean”˹ if it were defined as Appropriateness. Fortunately there is a plausible alternative: Intermediacy is not defined as Appropriateness, but Appropriateness is the standard which, when met, produces Intermediacy.” See Blankenship, “Commentary on Charles M. Young’s ‘The Doctrine of the Mean,’” Topoi 15 (March, 1996): 102. He does not explain, however, why the outer mean must result when the standard of appropriateness is met. xix NE, 1106b15; 1106b27-28; 1109a23; 1109a30. xx On Aristotle’s side, see, Peter Losin, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (July, 1987): 330-31, although he uses the metaphor of medicine to explain the origin of Aristotle’s mean. On the Confucian side, D. C. Lau translates A. 11:16 as “Shi overshoots the mark,” although the literal version should be that “Shi goes beyond the mean.” Ames and Rosemont translate A. 6.29 as follows: “The excellence required to hit the mark in the everyday is of the highest order” (1998, 110). xxi Osamu, 1990, 91. xxii S.R.L. Clark, Aristotle’s Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 84-97. Some passages in other Aristotelian treatises are in support of this interpretation. For instance, in GA (767a20-35), Aristotle says that proper balance or proportion makes for health and the lack of it produces disease. In GC (334b28-30), Aristotle interprets the formation of a new substance in terms of the mean state between the original four elements. In the Pol. (1294b17), the best form of government lies between oligarchy and democracy. xxiii Young, 1996, 94. xxiv Young, 1996, 94-95. xxv Young, 1996, 96. xxvi Blankenship, 1996, 104-5. xxvii Cf. also 1106b16-17, 1107a2-6, 1108a31, 1109a22. Earlier in this paper I mentioned that there has been a debate regarding whether Aristotle’s primary interest is in the inner mean or the outer mean. The remark that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean becomes the compelling reason for the position that the inner mean depends on the outer mean and is thus derivative. See Young, 1996, 94. This reading, however, does not square with Aristotle’s view that an action is virtuous only if it is issued from the inner mean. Only when what is in question is the formation of virtue does it make sense to say that the inner mean is dependent upon the outer mean. For Virtue as a mean state is cultivated out of the practices of the mean feelings and actions (1105b9-11; cf. 1103a31-b5). That is, a mean state is cultivated by doing what is the mean. However, when Aristotle says that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean, the context is not the formation of virtue, and the doctrine of the mean does not seem to be about the formation of virtue as the inner mean.
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (2010) 6798–6804
Selected Papers of Beijing Forum 2007
The Mean, the Right and Archery Yu Jiyuan Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo
Abstract Both Confucian and Aristotelian theories of virtue characterize virtue as the mean. Why does each, independently from each other, develop a doctrine of the mean? Is it purely coincidental, or is there a deep philosophical and historical reason for this striking similarity? This paper seeks to develop a new understanding of Aristotle’s mean as well as Confucius’s mean, and to show that there is deep philosophical reason for their similarity. I argue that, for both ethics, the mean is not a notion of quantity or proportionality, but is identified with what is right. Calling what is right the “mean” happens because both sides follow the model of archery in their effort to explicate the nature of virtue. For both, the doctrine of the mean is meant to show that virtue should be conceived as an archery like quality, and that a virtuous agent who is disposed to act or live rightly is likened to an excellent archer who has the skill to hit the target. A virtuous agent forms and exercises his virtue, just as an archer develops and exercises his archery. Both Confucius and Aristotle characterize virtue as the mean. For Aristotle, virtue is a mean between two vices (Nicomachean Ethics˷NE˹ 1107a2), and a disposition “laying in a mean ˷mesotƝti˹ relative to us.” (NE, 1106b36) Clearly, the mean is essential to what virtue is. iFor Confucius, “Supreme indeed is the mean as virtue.” (Analects, 6:29) The mean is the supreme virtue (de). Since Confucius’s theory of ren (excellence, usually translated as “benevolence” or “humanity”) is his version of the theory of de (virtue), to say that de is the mean amounts to saying that excellence (ren), as virtue in general, is the mean.ii The statement in Analects 6:29 is repeated in The Doctrine of Mean (Zhongyong, chap. 3), which, as one of the Confucian Four Books, can be read as an elaboration of this idea of Confucius. iii Why do Aristotle and Confucius, independently from each other, each develop a doctrine of the mean? Is it purely coincidental, or is there a deep philosophical and historical reason for this striking similarity? This paper seeks to develop a new understanding of Aristotle’s mean as well as Confucius’s mean, and to show that there is deep philosophical reason for their similarity. Section one shows that for both, the mean is divided into inner mean and outer mean. The inner mean manifests itself by hitting the outer mean. In section two, I argue that, for both ethics, the mean is not a notion of quantity or proportionality, but is identified with what is right. Calling what is right the “mean” happens because both sides follow the model of archery in their effort to explicate the nature of virtue. Section three further suggests that, for both, the doctrine of the mean is meant to show that virtue should be conceived as archery like quality, and that a virtuous agent who is disposed to act or live rightly is likened to an excellent archer who has the skill to hit the target. A virtuous agent forms and exercises his virtue, just as an archer develops and exercises his archery. © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1877-0428 © 2010 Beijing Forum. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.05.030
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1. The Mean: Inner and Outer Traditionally, Aristotle’s mean has been understood as moderation. Taken as such, it is thought to be philosophically insignificant and even false. For instance, Bernard Williams dismisses the doctrine of the mean as “one of the most celebrated and least useful parts of his ˷Aristotle’s˹ system.”iv Yet to interpret the mean as moderation is difficult to square with some textual evidence. Aristotle explicitly remarks: “In respect of its substance and the account which states its essence it is a mean, with regard to what is best and right it is an extreme” (NE, 1107a6-8). The mean is not moderate; rather, it becomes an extreme in doing the best and right thing. He also emphasizes that, while a virtue is a mean, there is no mean state within a virtue, and equally there is no mean state within a vice (NE, 1107a22-26). Virtue is simply right, and vice is simply wrong. If the mean is not moderation, what, then what does Aristotle understand by it? What is the point of claiming that virtue is the mean between two extremes? This issue has been a subject of intense debate among Aristotelian commentators. Equally, what is meant by the mean has also been a topic of controversy among Confucian commentators. According to Chan, “In the Analects, zhong yong, often translated the ‘Mean,’ denotes moderation.”v Yet, as is the case in Aristotle, the moderation interpretation is difficult to square with Confucian textual evidence. Confucius says, “The excellent person ˷Junzi, usually translated as “Gentleman”˹ agrees with others without being an echo” (Analects, 13:23). “Without being an echo” means that the excellent person does not invariably follow the trend and stay safe. Indeed, Confucius names the person who tries to please everyone “the village worthy” (shanyuan) and condemns such a person as “the ruin of virtue” (Analects 17:13). When his most beloved disciple Yen-Wei dies, “in weeping for him, the Master showed extreme grief.” Some of his disciples say to him, “Master, your grief is extreme.” “Is it?” Confucius replies, “If I do not feel extreme grief for this man, for whom should I feel?” (Analects 11:9) Apparently he does not think that a moderate response in this circumstance is appropriate. The Chinese term zhongyong is composed of two words: zhong and yong. It is generally agreed that zhong is “middle” or “central;” yet there is an age old debate regarding the meaning of yong in Chinese classical commentaries. Three major interpretations stand out: (1) yong means “to use,” or “to practice;”vi (2) it is “what is unchangeable;” vii (3) it means “ordinary,” or “common.” viii Different definitions of yong lead to different interpretations of what the Confucian mean is, ix and even to different translations of the book that is entitled Zhongyong. x Now let us see whether a comparison of Aristotle and Confucius can clarify the situation a bit in each case. Let us start with the issue of the location of the mean. Aristotle applies the mean both to the inner state of character and to the outer expression of virtue in feelings and actions. On the one hand, virtue itself is said to be “lying in a mean state ˷en mesotƝti˹” (NE, 1106b36), a state between two vices, represented respectively by excess and deficiency (NE, 1107a2-3). I call this the “inner mean.” On the other hand, Aristotle also says that virtue “both finds and chooses that which is the mean˷meson˹” (NE, 1107a5), and that virtue “is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the mean ˷meson˹” (NE, 1106b16-17). Accordingly, the mean is located in passions and actions. I call this the “outer mean.” There has been a debate about which mean, the inner or the outer, is Aristotle’s real concern. This raises the further question of whether the mean disposition should be interpreted independently of the mean expressed in passions and actions, or vice versa. There are two opposing views on this point. In J. O. Urmson’s understanding, Aristotle’s virtue of character is “a mean or intermediate disposition regarding emotions and actions, not that it is a disposition towards mean or intermediate emotions and actions.”xi In other words, it is the inner mean, or the mean disposition, that is Aristotle’s primary interest. The opposite view holds that virtue is a mean state, not because it itself is a mean of something, but because it aims at the mean in passions and actions. For example, Julia Annas says: “The substance of the claim that virtues are mean states must therefore lie in the way that they aim at the mean in feelings or pathƝ.”xii According to this reading, when one interprets the doctrine of the mean, the focus should be on the mean in passions and actions. My own view is that these two sides do not have to be in conflict. Aristotle locates the mean in both the inner and the outer, in both virtuous character and virtuous passions and actions. This is because for him these two aspects are intrinsically inseparable. On the one hand, Aristotle holds that the virtuous passions and actions issue forth from the virtuous state of character that is the mean state. Proper conduct must emanate characteristically from a fixed disposition if it is to be truly virtuous conduct. Whether an act is good or virtuous should be judged in relation to the agent. In NE, 1105a32-b1, Aristotle lists three conditions that an agent must meet in order for his act to be counted
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as virtuous: (a) “he must have knowledge”; (b) “he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes”; and (3) “his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.” Given this, it is the inner state that is more important. On the other hand, virtue is for the human good, i.e., happiness, and happiness consists not merely in the possession of virtue, but in the exercise of it. Happiness must consist in an active life. Aristotle emphasizes: “It matters quite a bit whether we suppose that the best good consists in possessing or in using, i.e., in a state or in an activity” (NE, 1098b33-1099a2). The virtuous agent must manifest his or her virtues in actions. Without achieving the outer mean, the inner mean state does not count for much. It is in pursuing virtuous activities that one obtains happiness. Where, then, is the Confucian mean located? The Analects itself does not give us enough material to reconstruct the location. Yet in the first chapter of the Doctrine of the Mean, we read: Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are issued ˷fa˹, one is in a state that is called the mean ˷zhong˹. When these feelings are issued ˷fa˹, and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony ˷he˹.xiii
The passage suggests that the mean (zhong) is an inner state of feeling, and there is also an aspect of “hitting” what is appropriate in one’s life or conduct when this inner mean is exercised. This outer aspect is called “harmony” (he). Apparently, the zhong-he structure corresponds to Aristotle’s inner mean outer mean structure. Since “the mean” is a translation of the Chinese term zhongyong, we are led to ask: Where is the place of yong in this zhong-he structure? How is zhong-he related to zhongyong? As mentioned earlier, there have been three traditional interpretations of yong: “practice,” “unchangeable,” and “ordinary.” For the following reasons, I side with the first interpretation. The earliest Chinese etymological dictionary, Shuowenjiezi, lists “to use” as the basic sense of yong. The word for “to use” sounds the same as yong in Chinese. More importantly, to take yong as “to use” allows us to interpret zhongyong as “using the mean.” “Using the mean” is a recurring idea in Confucianism. In Analects 20:1 it is recorded that the sage king Yao told his successor Shun: “The succession, ordained by Heaven, has fallen on you. Hold to the mean (zhong).” Shun, when handing his position over to his successor (the sage king) Yu, is reported to have spoken these same words to the latter. Accordingly, “to hold to the mean” seems to be the most fundamental dao (way) of the sage kings. Yet “to hold to the mean” amounts to “using or practicing the mean,” as is suggested by the following passage from the Doctrine of the Mean (chap. 6): Shun was fond of questioning others and examining their words, however ordinary. He concealed what was bad in them and displayed what was good. He grasped their two extremes, and then used ˷yong˹ the mean ˷zhong˹ between them in his dealings with the people. This was how he became Shun.
Shun uses the mean in politics, and thereby becomes a great sage-king. Yao, Shun, and Yu are sage kings and also personify the Confucian paradigm of the excellent person (junzi). If “using the mean” is what makes them great sage-kings, it is also what makes them excellent persons. We can therefore say that to be an exemplary person is to hold to or to practice the mean. In understanding yong as “to use” or “to practice,” we are in a position to explain the relation between the mean and zhong-he. In the above-quoted passage from the Mean, when the inner state is “issued ˷fa˹, and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony ˷he˹.” I would like to propose that the term fa (to issue, or to exercise) here serves the role of yong, or “practice.” When the inner mean is exercised, the agent hits the target in life and conduct. Taken this way, the term zhongyong (mean) combines two ideas: the mean state, and its use or manifestation. For Aristotle, the exercise of virtue is essential, for otherwise one’s life is lived in a sleeping state. When Confucius conjoins zhong and yong, and calls it “the supreme virtue,” he must be stressing, like Aristotle, that one not only needs to possess virtues, but also must manifest or exercise them. If the foregoing discussion is correct, we see a striking structural parallel between Aristotle’s mean and Confucian mean. Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean involves three aspects: (1) the inner mean in disposition; (2) the outer mean in feeling and actions; and (3) practicing the inner mean to hit the outer mean.
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The Confucian doctrine of the mean also involves three elements: (1) zhong (the inner mean); (2) he (harmony, the outer mean); and (3) yong, practicing the inner mean to hit the outer mean.
Let us proceed to examine in more detail what the outer mean and the inner mean are in both ethics, starting from the outer mean. 2. Hitting the Mean For both Aristotle and Confucius, the mean is the middle point between excess and deficiency. A virtue is a mean because there are two vices corresponding to it. Aristotle remarks: “Virtue is a mean ˷mesotƝs˹ between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect” (NE, 1107a2-3). Confucius thinks in the same way. “Zi Gong asked, ‘Who is superior, Shi or Shang?’ The Master said, ‘Shi goes beyond the due mean, and Shang does not come up to it...’ To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short” (Analects 11:16). Here we have one mean, and two corresponding vices: going beyond and falling short. At Analects 13:21, “The Master said, ‘having failed to find the man who walks in the middle way ˷zhong xing˹ for associates, one should, if there were no alternative, have to turn to the undisciplined and the over scrupulous. The former are enterprising, while the latter will draw the line at certain kinds of action.’” We should keep company with the person who holds the mean. xivHere the two vices corresponding to the mean are lack of discipline and over-scrupulousness. W. D. Ross uses the phrase “trinitarian scheme” to refer to Aristotle’s view that for every virtue there are two distinct vices.xv I think this term can also be neatly applied to the Confucian mean. In addition to the trinitarian scheme, both Aristotle and Confucius frequently identify the mean with “what is right.” For Aristotle: “To feel these feelings at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and the right way, is what is both mean ˷meson˹ and best ˷ariston˹; and this is characteristic of virtue” (NE, 1106b21-23;). Again: “It ˷virtue˹ is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right ˷to deon, or what ought to be done˹ in both passions and actions” (NE, 1107a3-4). Here the mean is characterized in terms of “the right” and “what ought to be done.” It is associated with and even appears to be a synonym for “best” (Eudemian Ethics, 1220b29), for “good” (spoudaion, and enj), and for “noble” (kalon) (NE, 1109a23-29). The same line of thinking can also be discerned in Confucius: “The excellent person, in his dealing with the world, is not invariably for or against anything. He follows only what is appropriate ˷yi˹’” (Analects, 4:10). Since the excellent person is the virtuous agent who has achieved the mean, to say that he follows only what is appropriate indicates the intrinsic relation between the mean and what is appropriate. Such a relation is more clearly established in the Doctrine of the Mean (chap. 25) where we are told that, when the dao (way) of the mean, the supreme virtue, is reached, “whenever it is employed, everything done is right.” In chap. 31, zhong (the mean) and zheng (uprightness, correctness) are sometimes simply grouped together as one term, used as an alternative expression of the mean.xvi There are, then, two views about what the mean is in both Aristotelian and Confucian ethics: (A) The mean lies in the middle of excess and deficiency. (B) The mean is what is right or appropriate.
These two views are clearly different. The first presents the trinitarian scheme and leads many commentators to take the mean as a notion of quantity or proportionality, whereas the second entails that the mean is a normative or prescriptive notion. Since there does not appear to be a direct connection between “what is right” and the middle, one has good reason to wonder why both Aristotle and Confucius conflate them. I find little discussion concerning the relation between these two views in Confucian scholarship. Many Aristotelian commentators, however, tend to believe that there is a sort of conceptual confusion and even contradiction between these two views. For instance, W. D. Ross accepts (B) but rejects (A), saying that “the
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trinitarian scheme of virtue and vices is mistaken”.xvii In contrast, J. David Blankenship maintains (A) and tries to dismiss (B).xviii Yet, since both (A) and (B) are supported by solid textual evidence, we need a better interpretation that can accommodate both. This requires us to show that the middle is also the right, so that the two views are not in tension. Let us start from a clue provided by the Chinese term zhong. In both ancient and contemporary Chinese, zhong is used both as a noun and as a verb. As a noun it has a twofold meaning: “middle” and “appropriateness.” As a verb, it means “to hit the target,” and this usage is related to archery. When an arrow hits the target, it is called zhongdi or mingzhong (“hitting the right target”). The idiom yijian zhongdi (literally, “hitting the target with just one arrow”) is usually used to convey the idea that one gets to the point straightforwardly. Even the Chinese character zhong originally takes the form of a straight line penetrating through a circle in the middle. We are therefore inspired to inquire whether the Confucian mean is related to archery. It becomes immediately clear that this archery analogy can be detected in the Confucian zhong-he (inner mean-outer mean) scheme, presented in the Mean (chap. 1). It indicates that the inner mean (zhong) is the state of feelings before these feelings are issued (fa). “When these feelings are issued (fa), and each and all hit due measure and degree ˷zhongjie˹, one is in a state that is called harmony” (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 1). In this passage, the word zhong is used both as a noun and a verb. The passage also employs the verb fa (to issue). In Chinese, fa is directly related to “shooting,” and to the verb zhong (to hit the target). To praise an excellent archer, one says bai fa bai zhong (literally, shooting a hundred arrows and hitting the mark a hundred times). This description of the zhong-he scheme establishes a link between the inner mean of a virtuous agent and the shooting of an arrow by an archer. Earlier I mentioned that fa here serves the role of yong, in the sense of “to use” or “to exercise.” If the current discussion is accurate, yong is not just “to exercise,” but more specifically, “to exercise and to hit the target.” Indeed, Confucius himself explicitly brings the analogy of archery to the fore: In archery we have something resembling the way of the excellent person. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns around and seeks the cause of failure within himself. (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap.14)
The way of the excellent person is the way of the mean, and to miss the target amounts to failure to practice the mean in one’s actions. An archer examines himself if he misses the target, that is, he reviews the skills of archery that he possesses and continues to improve them. Since the mean is likened to the art of archery, we may say that, if a person fails to hit the mean in actions, he should examine himself and continue to cultivate the inner mean. This also indicates that archery is the craft-model for Confucius when he constructs his doctrine of the mean. The same line of thinking is inherited by Mencius, as he likens human excellence (ren) to archery and compares the excellent person to the archer. Thus, we read: “Ren is like archery: an archer makes sure his stance is correct before letting fly the arrow, and if he fails to hit the mark, he does not hold it against his victor. He simply seeks the cause within himself.” (Mencius 2a/7) Again, “An excellent person is full of eagerness when he has drawn his bow, but before he lets fly the arrow, he stands in the middle of the path (zhong dao er li), and those who are able to do so follow him.” (Mencius 7a/41) It is clear to me that the model of archery is behind the Confucian doctrine of the mean. This leads me to ask whether the Aristotelian mean is similarly related to archery. The answer is positive. At the outset of the NE when Aristotle says that the task of his ethics is to grasp the supreme human good, he unambiguously likens his project of pursuing human goodness to archery. If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake..., and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else..., clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should ˷ton deon˹? (NE, 1094a18-24)
A virtuous person seeks to grasp the highest good just as an archer seeks to hit the target. In describing how a virtuous agent exercises the inner mean to reach the outer mean in passions and actions, Aristotle repeatedly uses the expression “hitting the mean” (tou mesou stochastikƝ). xix The word “hitting” (stochastikƝ, from the verb, stochazesthai, to aim at or shoot at) strongly suggests that the craft of archery is the model for Aristotle in
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establishing the doctrine of the mean. He also describes someone who can “miss ˷hamartanein˹” in many ways in achieving the mean (NE, 1106b29). The model of archery has, of course, been noticed in both Aristotelian scholarship and Confucian scholarship.xx However, it has never been given a central place in interpreting either Aristotelian or Confucian mean. By putting these two doctrines together, and noting their similarities, we are led to the view that the model of archery must be of key importance in understanding what virtue is. First, the model of archery explains why, for both Aristotle and Confucius, the mean is both the right and the middle. In shooting an arrow, in particular when one is practicing archery, the right target is the bull’s eye, which is the middle point of the target. Here, to hit the right target is precisely to hit the middle. For a virtuous agent, to hit the mean is to say that he, like an archer, hits the right target or gets it right with respect to passions and actions. Second, the model of archery suggests a new answer to the following question: Why does each side, independently, derive a “trinitarian scheme” in which the mean is the middle between excess and defect? There are interpretations for the origin of the trinitarian scheme in the scholarship on both sides. On the Confucian side, Kanaya Osamu relates this scheme to the mode of thinking that has wide currency in ancient Chinese philosophy, that is, the tendency to harmonize opposites. In his understanding, a mean is “marked by a harmonious structure” coming out of two extremes.xxi This view is attractive, but problematic. According to the Confucian structure of zhong (the inner mean)-he (harmony, the outer mean) in the beginning part of the Mean, harmony does not appear to be the cause of the inner mean, but results from the exercise (fa) of the inner mean. Several hypotheses have been presented on Aristotle’s side. The first holds that this trinitarian structure is derived from the Greek medical theory that health lies in balancing contraries. It is suggested that to describe a virtue as a mean indicates that it is a mixture or fusion of a pair of contrary tendencies, a mixture between the associated vices.xxii This is rejected by Charles Young, who points out that in the NE, especially in II.6, the locus classicus of the doctrine of the mean, Aristotle “makes no attempt whatever to construe a virtue as a mixture of contraries”.xxiii In place of this interpretation based on the idea of harmony between contraries, Young takes the mean to be “a pattern of action and passion that falls between the excessive pattern exhibited by persons with one of the vices in that sphere and the deficit pattern exhibited by persons with the other vice”.xxiv In his understanding, the doctrine of the mean is in contrast to the theory of Contrariety (which he ascribes to Plato), according to which each virtue is associated with but a single vice, its opposite or contrary. Aristotle advances his doctrine of the mean because he “believes there is a structure to vice that Contrariety cannot describe and organize”. xxv Young’s position is in turn criticized by J. David Blankenship who points out, among other things, that Aristotle himself does not reject the idea that virtue and vice are contraries, and that it is even problematic to say Plato believes in the theory of Contrariety. Rather, the idea of the mean is implied in Plato.xxvi The model of archery enables us to propose a different explanation for the origin of the trinitarian scheme. The right point is the bull’s eye that is located in the middle, and there are in general two possibilities in which one would miss the bull’s eye. If we view the target vertically, the arrow misses the target because it goes either too high or too low; and if we view the target horizontally, the arrow misses the bull’s eye because it goes either to the left or to the right. In any case, no matter the angle from which we look, the mean or middle point stands between two deviant directions. Analogically, one’s character can be said to err in two ways, and virtue is the mean that stands between two vices. This is apparently what both Aristotle and Confucius are saying. Third, based on the above discussion, the vices of excess and defect cannot be understood strictly as two extreme points. Instead, they are two general headings under which all defective characters and actions are grouped, and under each heading there is a range of characters and actions. This explains why Aristotle sometimes leaves aside the trinitarian scheme, and says that there could be many ways in which one could go wrong (NE, 1106b28-35), and that to hit the mark is difficult, but to miss the mark is easy (NE, 1106b29-33). This is certainly true of the varied and complex situations of human lives and actions. Indeed, the model of archery leads us to appreciate the fact that all vices cannot be equally bad. If point ten is the bull’s eye, points nine to one are all deviant. Nevertheless, hitting nine points is far better than hitting one point. Thus, vices are nothing more than “going beyond” and “falling short,” and, given that “vice” is such a laden term, it is indeed misleading to translate Aristotle’s word kakia as “vices.” Kakia should just mean “defective.” Aristotle says: “The man, however who deviates little from goodness is not blamed, whether he does so in the direction of the more or of the less, but only the man who deviates more widely” (NE, 1109b18-20). At NE, 1106b25-26, he also
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mentions that excess is “a form of failure.” Confucius equally advises not to reject “going beyond” and “falling short” exclusively (Analects 13:21). If you cannot find a person with A+ quality, A- or B+ are also acceptable. Finally, if the model of archery explains why the mean is identified with the right and also how the trinitarian scheme is construed, then we should not take too seriously the idea that the mean is quantitative. On some occasions the right manifests itself as quantified determinations of amount, or as proportions, and it can also be the symmetrical middle on a continuum between excess and defect. However, it can also have nothing to do with a continuum. What is essential is to attain the right. 3. The Inner Mean and Virtue The model of archery makes good sense of “hitting the mean” and hence the outer mean. Now let us extend the model of archery to our inquiry about the inner mean. The outer mean and the inner mean are inseparable and the inner mean-outer mean structure itself reminds one of the image of an archer aiming at the target. What enables the archer to hit the target correctly is his acquired skill in archery. By analogy, for a virtuous agent, since the hitting of the mean in passions and actions is issued from the inner mean, it follows that the inner mean must be a sort of skilllike state in the agent, corresponding to the archer’s skill in archery. In other words, the exercise of the inner mean is analogical to shooting an arrow. The possession and exercise of the skills of archery make one good as an archer; correspondingly, the possession and exercise of the inner mean make one good as a human being. I believe this is precisely the approach that both Aristotelian and Confucian ethics take. For both, the central question of moral philosophy is to explain the state that makes one good as a human being and to discuss how one can achieve this state. This state is what Aristotle calls aretƝ (virtue) and what the Confucius calls ren (excellence). Aristotle says, “The virtue of man also will be the state which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well” (NE, 1106a21-23). Similarly, ren is what makes a person a person. A person of ren, that is, an excellent person exemplifies the mean and is a paradigm of what human life should be (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 2). We have shown that both Aristotle and Confucius use the model of archery in explicating this inner state that makes one good as a human being. The failure of an archer results from his inappropriate grasp or exercise of archery. By the same token, the failure of an agent in life and action must be due to his or her failure in obtaining or exercising the inner mean (The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 14). According to a report in The Doctrine of the Mean, chap.10, Confucius characterizes the excellent person as one who “stands in the middle, without leaning to either side.” This trinitarian structure, as we have said, is associated with archery. Mencius most explicitly claims that “Ren is like archery” (Mencius, 2a/7). On Aristotle’s side, we read: If it is, then, that every art ˷or craft, techne˹ does its work well by looking to the mean ˷meson˹ and judging its works by this standard... and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is, then it must have the quality of aiming at the mean ˷meson˹. (NE, 1106b7-16)
This passage presupposes the analogy between a craft and virtue. If every good art is to aim at the mean in its sphere, virtue must be a kind of quality that enables an agent to aim at the outer mean. It is a commonplace that the craft analogy is regarded as one of the major argumentative strategies in Aristotle’s discussion of virtue. Our discussion shows that archery must be the central craft model he uses in his theory that virtue is the mean. As the above quoted passage indicates, the good of a craft is said to aim at the mean, and for Aristotle, “Virtue is a kind of mean, since it aims at what is the mean ˷meson˹” (NE, 1106b27-28). Hence, virtue is a craft-like quality.xxvii Just as possession of the skills of archery enables an archer to hit the target, so possession of virtue makes an agent feel and act rightly. This is the reason why he calls virtue itself the mean state. Why, then, do both sides, independently appeal to archery as a model? My suggestion is as follows. The Greek word aretƝ is related to the Greek god of war, Ares, and thus has association with manly qualities. When aretƝ is translated as virtus (from vir, literally “man”) in Latin (from which the English word “virtue” comes), the relation between this term and the manly qualities seems to be emphasized. On the Confucian side, the term ren was employed in the Book of Poetry to describe noble huntsmen, and it has been thought that ren originally meant “manly,” “manliness,” or “manhood.” I am led to think that this parallel of the original senses of arƝte and ren can
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cast light on the parallel between Aristotle’s mean and the Confucian mean. Both Aristotle and Confucius lived in a time which was still heavily influenced by the values of ancient heroic societies, especially the admiration of heroes in war and hunting. This is probably why, when they start to think about what virtue is in an ethical life, each seeks to establish a virtuous agent as a counterpart of the hero in war and hunting. Now archery, given its central role in war and hunting, is one of the most important skills that make a person a hero in ancient heroic societies. It enables a man to show his “manhood” or “manliness.” Could this be the reason that both Aristotle and Confucius appeal to archery as a model in explicating their conceptions of virtue, leading to the formation of two separate doctrines of the mean? References i
Aristotle uses two Greek words for the “mean”: meson, and mesotƝs. The translations of these two terms differ. The Loeb renders mesotƝs both as “mean” and “mean state,” and meson as “mean.” The Revised Oxford Translation (ROT) translates mesotƝs as “mean,” and meson as “intermediate.” Lesley Brown disputes that to render meson as “intermediate” fails to capture the normative use of this word which means something like “intermediate and correct” or “appropriate.” She chooses instead to translate meson as “mean,” and mesotƝs as “mean state.” See her “What is ‘The Mean Relative to Us’ in Aristotle’s Ethics?” Phronesis 42 (January, 1997): 79, note 6. I replace ROT’s “intermediate” with “mean” in the quotations where meson is used, but will mark the Greek word that is used in the original text whenever the translation word “mean” appears. ii In English translations, “mean” is a rendering of both Chinese words zhongyong and zhong. In quoting Confucian classics, I use “mean” throughout, but will mark which Chinese word is used in the original text. iii The Doctrine of the Mean provides a metaphysical foundation for Confucius’s theory of the mean (and thus also for his ethics as a whole). Kanaya Osamu splits The Doctrine of the Mean into two halves and suggests that the first half but not the second should be discussed together with the Analects. See his “The Mean in Original Confucianism,” in Chinese Language, Thought, and Culture, ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1996), 83. Yet the mean as an ethical disposition and as a metaphysical reality is consistent in Confucianism. iv Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 36. Jonathan Barnes also claims, in his introduction to The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J. A. K. Thomson (London: Penguin, 1976, 24-26), that the doctrine of the mean “has no practical or advisory force.” “Virtue is not, in any literal sense of the term, a matter of picking the mid-point.” “Had Aristotle written a third ethical treatise, the celebrated Doctrine would not, I conjecture, have appeared in it.” See also Rosalind Hursthouse, “A False Doctrine of the Mean,” Aristotelian Society Proceedings (1980—81): 57-72. v Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 96. Probably out of this understanding, Chan treats lightly the idea of the mean in the Analects. Indeed, in his invaluable Source Book, he does not even include the crucial statement of A. 6:29 that the mean is the supreme virtue. vi This position goes back to Zheng Xuan, quoted by Kong Yingda in his Liji zhengyi (The Correct Meanings of the Book of Rites). vii This is held by the Neo Confucian Cheng Yi (1033—1107) and is reported by Zhu Xi in his preface to Zhong Yong Chang-Zhu. James Legge seems to adopt this position when he translates zhongyong in A. 6:27 as “constant mean.” viii This is the position of Zhu Xi who attempts to emphasize that the cultivation of virtue in Confucianism is not a mysterious process, but is in daily and ordinary human affairs. ix In addition to the three traditional positions, Richard Bosley takes the mean to be sufficiency. See his “What Is a Mean?—The Question Considered Comparatively and Systematically,” Philosophy East and West, 36 (January, 1986): 3-12. Kanaya Osamu regards it as “a model of thinking” that harmonizes the opposite extremes (1996, 92). Chan separates the mean in the Analects from the mean in the Zhongyong, and claims that whereas in the former the mean denotes moderation, in the latter “zhong means what is central and yong means what is universal and harmonious” (1963, 96) x For Tu Wei-ming, it is Centrality and Commonality (Albany: State University New York Press, 1989); for Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, it is Focusing the Familiar (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001). xi J.O. Urmson, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. A. O. Rorty (Berkery: University of California Press, 1980), 161. xii Julia Annas, Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 59. See also Charles Young, “The Doctrine of the Mean,” Topoi 19 (March, 1996): 94. xiii Translation is my own. Chan’s translation of this passage is as follows: “Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused it is called equilibrium (chun, centrality, mean). When these feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony” (1963, 98). The translation of Y. Fu and Z. He is: “When joy, anger, sorrow and happiness are not revealed, they are zhong, in the mean. When they are revealed, they are he, in harmony.” (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean ˷Beijing: Sinolingua Press, 1996˹) xiv Mencius also quotes and endorses this passage (see, Mencius 7b/37). xv W.D. Ross, Aristotle (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 206.
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xvi We read at M. 7a/26: “Zi-mo holds on to the middle ˷zhong˹, half way between the two extremes. Holding on to the middle is closer to being right, but to do this without the proper measure ˷or weighing, quan˹ is no different from holding to one extreme. The reason for disliking those who hold to one extreme is that they cripple the Way. One thing is singled out to the neglect of a hundred others.” The passage appears to be saying that holding the mean is merely close to what is right. To get what is exactly right, one further needs quan, “weighing.” The passage is puzzling, for usually quan is the way to determine what the mean (zhong) is and it is called “timing the mean” (shizhong, The Doctrine of the Mean, chap. 2). Here Tzu-Mo holds the mean, but he further needs quan to determine what is right. The possible explanation is that zhong here only means a fixed middle point, a result of following the rule rigidly. It is not the zhong that is determined by moral wisdom. xvii Ross, 1959, 205; cf. also Hursthouse, 1980—81, 71. xviii He says: “˷I˹t is difficult to see how there would be anything intermediate about Intermediacy ˷=what I call the “outer mean”˹ if it were defined as Appropriateness. Fortunately there is a plausible alternative: Intermediacy is not defined as Appropriateness, but Appropriateness is the standard which, when met, produces Intermediacy.” See Blankenship, “Commentary on Charles M. Young’s ‘The Doctrine of the Mean,’” Topoi 15 (March, 1996): 102. He does not explain, however, why the outer mean must result when the standard of appropriateness is met. xix NE, 1106b15; 1106b27-28; 1109a23; 1109a30. xx On Aristotle’s side, see, Peter Losin, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (July, 1987): 330-31, although he uses the metaphor of medicine to explain the origin of Aristotle’s mean. On the Confucian side, D. C. Lau translates A. 11:16 as “Shi overshoots the mark,” although the literal version should be that “Shi goes beyond the mean.” Ames and Rosemont translate A. 6.29 as follows: “The excellence required to hit the mark in the everyday is of the highest order” (1998, 110). xxi Osamu, 1990, 91. xxii S.R.L. Clark, Aristotle’s Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 84-97. Some passages in other Aristotelian treatises are in support of this interpretation. For instance, in GA (767a20-35), Aristotle says that proper balance or proportion makes for health and the lack of it produces disease. In GC (334b28-30), Aristotle interprets the formation of a new substance in terms of the mean state between the original four elements. In the Pol. (1294b17), the best form of government lies between oligarchy and democracy. xxiii Young, 1996, 94. xxiv Young, 1996, 94-95. xxv Young, 1996, 96. xxvi Blankenship, 1996, 104-5. xxvii Cf. also 1106b16-17, 1107a2-6, 1108a31, 1109a22. Earlier in this paper I mentioned that there has been a debate regarding whether Aristotle’s primary interest is in the inner mean or the outer mean. The remark that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean becomes the compelling reason for the position that the inner mean depends on the outer mean and is thus derivative. See Young, 1996, 94. This reading, however, does not square with Aristotle’s view that an action is virtuous only if it is issued from the inner mean. Only when what is in question is the formation of virtue does it make sense to say that the inner mean is dependent upon the outer mean. For Virtue as a mean state is cultivated out of the practices of the mean feelings and actions (1105b9-11; cf. 1103a31-b5). That is, a mean state is cultivated by doing what is the mean. However, when Aristotle says that virtue is a mean because it aims at what is the mean, the context is not the formation of virtue, and the doctrine of the mean does not seem to be about the formation of virtue as the inner mean.