[sc. Something that is] true.
"The virtues of characters,[1] especially justice, are means, not extremities."[2]
*meso/ths: a)lhqe/s. o(/ti meso/thte/s ei)sin ou)k a)kro/thtes ai( tw=n h)qw=n a)retai/, ma/lista h( dikaiosu/nh.
cf. generally
mu 669.
[1] Or “moral virtues”: see
Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics 1103a5-15. According to
Aristotle’s canonical definition of moral virtue, a virtue is a dispositional state (
e(/cis) concerned with choice, state consisting in a mean relative to us, this mean being determined by prudent’s person reason (
Nicomachean Ethics 1106b36-1107a2). So virtue finds and chooses what is intermediate between two extremities. Note, however, that
Aristotle also places emphasis on the fact that, with regard to what is best and good, virtue
is an extremity or extreme. Thus a moral virtue is not an extremity insofar as it is neither excessive nor deficient; but in another sense it
is an extremity because it describes the best or the highest condition (
Nicomachean Ethics 1107a6-8).
[2] Quotation not identified by Adler, but a TLG search reveals it to be
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
Roman Antiquities 8.61.2.
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