et every danger and abstains from none becomes reckless. . . . We may thus conclude that virtue . . . is a characteristic involving choice, and that it consists in observing the mean relative to us, a mean which is defined by a rational principle (36; 43).
Virtue, then, is not a matter of extremism, but is an application of practical wisdom in avoidance of the two vices of excess and deficiency.
Aristotle then introduces the role of pleasure and pain in the creation, or self-creation, or the morally virtuous individual. At the same time, he introduces the reason why one person is morally virtuous and another person is not morally virtuous, and he finds that this is a matter of the moral education of the child:
An index to our characteristics is provided by the pleasure or pain which follows upon the tasks we have achieved. A man who abstains from bodily pleas
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