Most will already be aware of Aristotle's method of determining virtue by finding the mean between excess and deficiency. But the mean is not always the middle. Perhaps the best example of this is the example of courage. Here's a relevant clip from Nichomean Ethics.

Is Aristotle right? If so, why is it that rashness is closer to courage than is cowardice??

Erring on the side of rashness is in fact the opposite of erring on the side of caution but according to Aristotle it is to be preferred.

Now the challenge I would like to make to you all by starting this thread is to actually find that mean called courage and not merely to demonstrate the many ways we can err on the side of rashness. Are you up to that challenge?

Most will already be aware of Aristotle's method of determining virtue by finding the mean between excess and deficiency. But the mean is not always the middle. Perhaps the best example of this is the example of courage. Here's a relevant clip from Nichomean Ethics.

Is Aristotle right? If so, why is it that rashness is closer to courage than is cowardice?

Erring on the side of rashness is in fact the opposite of erring on the side of caution but according to Aristotle it is to be preferred.

Now the challenge I would like to make to you all by starting this thread is to actually find that mean called courage and not merely to demonstrate the many ways we can err on the side of rashness. Are you up to that challenge?

Do you think there is some important connection between rashness and haughtiness and an excess of pride?

Over appreciative of life?

I am not sure it is important but this they have in common.

Thanks for your comments. It's strange, I think I've been equating rashness with haughtiness or over-prideful behavior but that is simply not what the word means. Or rather I have made too much of the connection between rashness and pridefulness.

To be rash is not necessarily to be over-prideful though sometimes this is the case.

Do you think there is some important connection between rashness and haughtiness and an excess of pride?

Our Queen Wilhelmina had to be forced on a boat to England. Her sense of duty and honor were 19e century. First WW her cousin did not in vade Holland. Next week we celebrate End WW II still German Ambassador is not welcom in Dam-square Amsterdam.

Are you saying that the queen was rash for not boarding the ship? And what has this to do with the fact that Germany did not invade Holland in the First World War? What is this all about?

Find the mean that is courage, which is located between rashness and cowardice.
Each of these words is used to describe a particular action an individual makes. That being said these words are none measureable quantities and as such the only way to apply them to an action is by opinion. And the opinion that does apply them to a given action has been shaped by its own experiences. Which means that thee different opinions could view the same action as rash, courageous, and cowardly.
So in order to find a scale to measure an action, we must find a scenario that produces outcomes that are definitively one of the three. For example "there is a gap between to cliffs, an individual is on one side and wishes to get to the other. The rash man runs to the gap and leaps. The courageous man assess the distance judges it as reachable and leaps. The coward assess the gap believes he can make it but refuses to try."
So it seems the proof that courage is the mean between Rashness and cowardice is this. To appraise a situation and determine that success is probable and to act in an effort to achieve that success, because the rash man will never appraise the situation and the coward will never act.

She was rash because she wanted to stay in Holland. She was sure her cousin Wilhelm II would stop the Germans from invading. Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden was neutral in 1914 .