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It is not the case that The mean of reason, when properly assessed by a person of true virtue, can call for heroic virtue far beyond conventional measures of reasonableness.
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Reasons For
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Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
Aristotle's phronimos determines the mean relative to us, not relative to an abstract ideal, making the mean inherently indexed to human psychological limits.
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2.
Actions requiring capacities beyond ordinary human motivation cannot function as practical norms for virtue, which must be action-guiding for actual agents.
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3.
Aquinas's distinction between heroic virtue and ordinary virtue in the Summa (ST II-II q.123) treats them as categorically different, not on a single continuum of reason's mean.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Kant's formalism holds that a genuinely rational moral standard must be universalizable, but 'heroic' demands by definition cannot be universally required of all rational agents.
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2.
If the mean of reason can expand indefinitely to require heroic sacrifice, the concept loses its normative determinacy and collapses into supererogation without principled limits.
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Reasons Against
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1.
The mean of reasonableness is determined by someone of true virtue assessing circumstances correctly.
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2.
Circumstances sometimes demand, for example, immense courage far beyond conventional expectations.
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