What is Right Reason?

Men should choose the mean instead of either the excess or defect.

The mean is according to the dictates of Right Reason.

For in all the habits which we have expressly mentioned, as likewise in all the others, there is, so to speak, a mark with his eye fixed on which the man who has Reason tightens or slacks his rope;[1] and there is a certain limit of those mean states which we say are in accordance with Right Reason, and lie between excess on the one hand and defect on the other.

Now to speak thus is true enough but conveys no very definite meaning: as, in fact, in all other pursuits requiring attention and diligence on which skill and science are brought to bear; it is quite true of course to say that men are neither to labour nor relax too much or too little, but in moderation, and as Right Reason directs; yet if this were all a man had he would not be greatly the wiser; as, for instance, if in answer to the question, what are proper applications to the body, he were to be told, “Oh! of course, whatever the science of medicine, and in such manner as the physician, directs.”

And so in respect of the mental states it is requisite not merely that this should be true which has been already stated, but further that it should be expressly laid down what Right Reason is, and what is the definition of it.

Chapter 2

The Excellences of the Soul has 2 types:

1. The Moral
2. The Intellectual

The Soul consists of two parts:

1. Rational

This has Reason

2. Irrational

The Rational has 2 parts:

1. That which is apt to know

(for there must be, answering to things generically different, generically different parts of the soul naturally adapted to each, since these parts of the soul possess their knowledge in virtue of a certain resemblance and appropriateness in themselves to the objects of which they are percipients);[3]

This is how we realise those existences whose causes cannot be otherwise than they are

2. That which is apt to calculate

This is because deliberating and calculating are the same. No one ever deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise than they are: and so the Calculative will be one part of the Rational faculty of the soul.

This is how we realise those which can be otherwise than they are,[2]

Which is the best state of each of these, as the Excellence of each?

This is relative to the work each has to do.[4]

The Soul has 3 functions on which depend moral action and truth:

1. Sense
2. Intellect
3. Appetition whether vague Desire or definite Will.

Of these, Sense is the originating cause of no moral action – brutes have Sense but are in no way partakers of moral action.[5]

[Intellect and Will are thus connected,] what in the Intellectual operation is Affirmation and Negation that in the Will is Pursuit and Avoidance.

Since Moral Virtue is a State apt to exercise Moral Choice and Moral Choice is Will consequent on deliberation, the Reason must be true and the Will right, to constitute good Moral Choice, and what the Reason affirms the Will must pursue.[6]

This Intellectual operation and this Truth is what bears upon Moral Action; of course truth and falsehood must be the good and the bad of that Intellectual Operation which is purely Speculative, and concerned neither with action nor production, because this is manifestly the work of every Intellectual faculty, while of the faculty which is of a mixed Practical and Intellectual nature, the work is that Truth which, as I have described above, corresponds to the right movement of the Will.

The starting-point of moral action is Moral Choice, (I mean, what actually sets it in motion, not the final cause,)[7] and of Moral Choice, Appetition, and Reason directed to a certain result: and thus Moral Choice is neither independent of intellect, i. e. intellectual operation, nor of a certain moral state: for right or wrong action cannot be, independently of operation of the Intellect, and moral character.

But operation of the Intellect by itself moves nothing, only when directed to a certain result, i. e. exercised in Moral Action: (I say nothing of its being exercised in production, because this function is originated by the former: for every one who makes makes with a view to somewhat further; and that which is or may be made, is not an End in itself, but only relatively to somewhat else, and belonging to some one:[8] whereas that which is or may be done is an End in itself, because acting well is an End in itself, and this is the object of the Will,) and so Moral Choice is either[9] Intellect put in a position of Will-ing, or Appetition subjected to an Intellectual Process. And such a Cause is Man.

But nothing which is done and past can be the object of Moral Choice; for instance, no man chooses to have sacked Troy; because, in fact, no one ever deliberates about what is past, but only about that which is future, and which may therefore be influenced, whereas what has been cannot not have been: and so Agathon is right in saying

“Of this alone is Deity bereft, To make undone whatever hath been done.”

Thus then Truth is the work of both the Intellectual Parts of the Soul; those states therefore are the Excellences of each in which each will best attain truth.