Today, we would like to discuss about Aristotle’s Golden Mean.
The Aristotle’s theory of Golden Mean is extracted from virtue ethics, which concerns with the building of good character. Aristotle argued that everyone will build up a good character trait through practice, ethics and virtue in order to achieve self-happiness. However, everyone has the different definition of happiness. Happiness in here is achievement of virtuous life, that it should be desired for itself. Happiness is not an objective principle, but applied to the circumstance and people. For instance, some of the people feel happiness of their wealth and honor. Besides, the golden mean comes out with a yardstick to evaluate two extreme character traits – excessive and deficiency. Therefore, one is able to determine a moderate way to regulate virtue.
In order to demonstrate the moderation solution suggested in Aristotle’s Golden Mean, we found out recent news within Malaysia context that happened on 10th January 2015.
This news is about K-Pop Band, B1A4 was being blamed as they offended the Muslim’s rule by hugging and kissing Muslim female fans. Nevertheless, those Muslim female fans had been advised to keep an appropriate distance from those idols. However, they were getting too excited once they were invited on stage. Thus, this incident led to Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi)’s investigation and public criticism. From this case, we can determine the three Muslim female fans’ overreaction towards their idols as excessive. The deficiency is being showed when they were invited on stage but they refused to do so. And hence, there would be a waste for them if they missed the chance. Therefore, the mean is they control their desire to get too intimate with their idols like just shake hand to show their friendly towards the idols.
In our opinion, the application of Aristotle’s Golden Mean on this case is not applicable in today’s society. There is no universal middle that can be applied in every situation and also towards every single person. Besides, sometimes we will behave emotionally and leads us to the extremes. For example, if we see our best friend is cheating during examination, what decision should we make? Either we keep quiet or report to the instructor, are we ethical person? In Golden Mean, Aristotle admitted his theory flaws, which is difficult to find certain balance in every situation. In a casebook Media Ethics, Clifford Christians and his colleagues claimed that the determination of mean also is affected by timing, people dealing with, appropriate reason as well as manner (as cited in Louis, 2000).
Below is the video resource of the case study:
Media Ethics 