I was really excited today during class when I saw all those ethical philosophies on the board, because all I could think about was my ethics class Junior year. I also was dying to explain them all, just because... I dunno, I would have felt cool. On Monday when we first talked about Ben Franklin's approach to being virtuous all I could think about was the bent stick remedy. I suppose I should explain this more.
In Aristotle's virtue ethics he believed that in order to live a virtuous life we must live the "golden mean" between to opposites. Between humbleness and zealousness there was just pride, or between fear and foolhardiness there was bravery. He believed that if you were too humble, for example, you would aim to be as egotistical as you could because you would end up landing at just pride- like if you have a bent stick you bend it past the midway point so it falls short settles there instead.
Benjamin Franklin used this exact method! And by striving to be the absolute maximum virtuous person, he settled on something in the middle; still virtuous, and still human at the same time. I wouldn't say that's a bad place to settle, would you?
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