Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the nature of intellectual virtue (excellence) and moral virtue (ethike) and defines them. He defines virtue as a state of character concerned with choice and lying in a mean, the mean being relative to us.
This mean he says, is determined by a rational principle. It is a mean between two vices namely, excess and defect. Now virtue is concerned with passions and actions in which excess is a form of failure and so is defect whilst the intermediate is regarded as a form of success. Virtue is also the mean because the vices fall short or exceed what is right in both passions and actions whilst virtue both finds and chooses the intermediate. Thus in respect of the definition which states it’s essence, virtue is a mean with regards to what is best and extreme. Things like temperance and courage have no excess or deficiency because what is intermediate is an extreme. Also passions like spite, envy, shamelessness and actions such as mu...