@sim any clear delineation between virtue and vice, barring the most egregious of acts, is not east to fine and often a matter of one's personality
But generally bad habits are an easy thing to figure out, but difficult to let them go when we have figured them out, and sometimes we cling to them and justify them to ourselves and to others despite this.
@sim yeah I figured it was either Aristotle or Plato, should have guessed from the discussion about the mean
everyone has their own mean I think, so to judge someone for being "vicious" is often projecting our issues onto them, doesn't really help anyone
have you read any Girard? he goes into projection and mimetics alot; things hidden since the foundation of the world almost turned me Christian, it's that trenchant
I'm a bit worried that we speak about our own mean, as if it is a subjective thing based on the person in question and not something objective that we can work out in general without having a person at the centre of it and depending on them. Subjectivity has killed a lot of discussion on this type of thing.
I haven't, and I'm not sure that I will ever get around to doing so because there is so much that I still need to catch up on with the classics as it is. And those are big tomes with several books it seems like.
@sim people are different, a writer who spends their days at a desk and occasionally going for walks will require less protein than an olympic athlete
same with lifestyles, some people can work harder with little need for recreation, others need a little more chaos uncertainty to thrive and be creative
the idea one can provide a single heterogeneous moral mean for all humanity seems detached from reality , unless you're aiming for something very abstract that can be so generalised
@sim
> Suddenly, you are justifying vices as means.
nuance is not watering down the discussion, but dogma can end it
@sim i've given a few examples above; psychedelics and alcohol use might be an example, pre-marital sex another
for some, these are not appealing and morally wrong, for others it forms a healthy part of their life
what's an example of a vice for you
A vice can be a part of your life, but I don't know that I would call that a healthy part. I have my own vices but I don't think of them as being healthy for me. I have other cravings that I have been able to avoid, thankfully. Not an easy thing to do. Especially in modern life. Eventually, I hope to eliminate or really limit my vices, that I don't feel any need to rely on or turn to them. Mastering stress is an important thing for this.
@sim If you define a vice as something that stops an individual reaching their full potential (difficult to define I agree) and a virtue as something that helps them towards it then yes, vices should be reduced where possible and virtue increased.
my point is epistemic; such a definition of virtue and vice is nice as far as it goes but almost impossible to clearly state in an individual case, let alone in general.
@sim particularly as "full potential" involves not only value judgements but also projections into the future - and received wisdom and morality are almost always behind the times
But then I might be talking past you, because when I hear 'our own means', it makes me think about the subjective language and what that has come to mean which I'm cautious about these days. It waters down the discussion so that it becomes meaningless. Suddenly, you are justifying vices as means.