In the sixth section of the fourth book of The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the virtue of amiability.
The various translators I’ve been
consulting have come up with an evocative set of prospective translations
for the words Aristotle uses to describe people who have an excess or
deficiency of amiability, or who hit the mark and approximate the golden mean
of just enough:
Various translations of the descriptions of people who have the virtue and vices concerning agreeability
Vice of deficiency |
Virtue (golden mean) |
Vice of excess |
churlish cross contentious quarrelsome peevish surly antagonistic cross-grained cantankerous litigious morose |
friendly polite amiable courteous |
obsequious over-complaisant officious men-pleasing fawning flattering |
Ross goes with “friendliness” to describe
the virtue, but this can be a little misleading, since the virtue doesn’t have
to do with forming or maintaining friendships so much as it has to do with how
you relate to people whether or not they are your friends. (In
Ross’s defense, he seems to be following
Aristotle’s lead, as he says that there is no word in Greek for the virtue,
but “friendship” is closest.) “Amiability” seems the best of the lot to me,
of the English language proposals.
At first, this looks like just sort of a common-sense “things I learned in
kindergarten” sort of virtue. But it actually has a very commonplace and
challenging element of conscience attached to it: A good example of a
situation in which we struggle to find the golden mean of this virtue would
be one in which we are among a group of casual acquaintances and one of them
tells a joke that depends for its humor on the shared assumption of an
offensive racial stereotype. Do we laugh in order to be agreeable, or do we
signal our disapproval? When does our obligation to be agreeable and tolerant
get eclipsed by our obligations to insist on better standards of behavior or
our disgrace at being associated with shameful behavior? “Go along to get
along” is a real problem, and it comes from being inattentive to the
balancing act this virtue requires.
An amiable person regularly is pleasing to those around him or her, and avoids
giving offense. But when a harsh word is called for, or “when acquiescence in
another’s action would bring disgrace,” he or she will draw the line and not
be afraid to offend.
Index to the Nicomachean Ethics series
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics