Thread by @EveKeneinan

I ask my students “What is 2 + 2?” After I assure them it’s not a trick question, they get it right.

Then I ask “How many right answers are there to this question?”

Then I ask them “How many WRONG answers are there to the question?”

This shows something about 𝙚𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙧.

Many people, it seems, can become stuck on the idea of “balance” and believe that all contraries have an “equal and opposite” structure, as far as I can tell because someone once showed them a picture like this:

Two of the most important binaries, true and false, and good and evil (or right and wrong, if you prefer) 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 have a Yin-Yang “equal and opposite” structure.

Neither do Being and Nothing.

This is fundamental to grasp when thinking about these things.

I usually begin with the example of truth. Truth is often hard to find. Falsehood is easy. One can produce falsehoods at will. A question such as “Who was the murderer?” will have only one rights answer, but an indefinite (and thus far FAR greater) number of wrong answers.

Goodness or right or virtue is like truth is that respect. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙. Moral badness or vice is easy, and there are many MANY more ways to 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙠 than to hit it.

The target is in one place. Not-the-target is everywhere else.

I have fairly regularly seen people make the argument that the “best” state, that is the maximally good state of affairs, is a state wherein good and evil are “balanced.”

This seems to be an insane idea, just on its face—but people seem to make it.

(( It’s always fun to have your computer lock up during a thread. Yay! 😄 ))

You can of course learn all this from Aristotle, but who reads Aristotle these days, besides a few stogy pedants like me?

Of course the better question is: Who 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 read Aristotle? And the answer to that is “literally every single human being.”

Anyway, here’s A:

“It is possible to go wrong in many ways, but there is only one way to get something right.”

Nailed it. That’s an Aristotelian Categorical Statement, by the way, not a universal statement.

An Aristotelian Categorical Statement (ACS) is a general statement about the truth of things in reference to their nature or essence, not in respect to the set of all concrete particulars.

For example, it is a true Aristotelian Categorical Statement that “Human beings are sighted creatures.”

This is not refuted by the existence of some blind people, because a human being who cannot see is always such for 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣.

We know, a priori, when a human being cannot see, there was or is some accidental event that damaged or impaired his ability to see, or caused it not to develop properly.

Since there are many ways to miss the mark and only one way to hit it, “the good are good simply, and the bad are bad in all sorts of ways.”

This means a virtuous (good) action is a complex whole and will fall short or miss the mark if any part of it misses the mark or falls short. Everything has to be right for the whole thing to be right. If any part is wrong, the whole thing falls short.

So Virtue is difficult.

In the 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘴, Kant says “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or even beyond it, that can be considered good without qualification except a good will.”

My answer: 𝙖 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙙.

I think the reason people get stuck on the idea of “balance” in a Yin Yang sort of way is the recognition that Virtue is indeed a sort of mean—but one with regard to excess and defect, not with regard to fittingness or goodness.