To determine the virtuous mean in any specific circumstance, John advances an essentially Ciceronian standard: “Discretion with regard to time, place, amount, person and cause readily draws the proper distinction” between virtuous and vicious actions. Indeed, one might understand John to advocate a sort of circumstantialist—though by no means relativist—moral theory, since discretion “is the origin and source of moderation in its widest sense without which no duty is properly performed” (FCP: 37