| Summary: | <p>In this thesis I build on the scholarship on Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean that has proposed an interpretation closely connected to ideas of harmony and especially Aristotle’s notion of the καλόν. The central question of this paper is whether Aristotle’s application of the idea of harmony to ethics presents, as for example Hursthouse has argued, a fruitless spillover of a vacuous principle or rather a substantial ethical position. As a first step, I will argue that Aristotle envisages the doctrine of the mean to be at its core concerned with the intensity of a person’s affective response. Having established this central connection of the doctrine with the emotions, I will situate the emotions in the wider terrain of Aristotle’s ethics in particular with respect to moral formation and motivation. Having followed the argument for a reading of the mean as tied to ideas of harmony, as epitomised in Aristotle’s notion of the καλόν, I contrast two fundamentally different readings of the harmony Aristotle envisages. McDowell seems to suggest that such a harmony stems from a silencing of contrary reasons due to the distinct perception of the virtuous person, while Hartmann, who seems largely overlooked in the anglophone debate, understands the mean as the expression of a fundamental tension at the heart of ethics. In light of the textual material in the Nicomachean Ethics, I argue against McDowell’s silencing account as an interpretation of Aristotle and building on Hartmann argue that the doctrine of the mean may be read as a position of substantial insight in terms of ethics and moral psychology. In particular, I argue, the doctrine of the mean may be read as capturing the remarkable dual demands the virtuous person has to integrate on the level of personality. The contrast between McDowell and Hartmann, furthermore, elucidates what I read as Aristotle’s attempt to accommodate for two distinct senses of human excellence – one as essentially responsive, the other informed by and reflecting a correct understanding of values. </p>
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