Ghazali's Theory of Mean for Moral Virtues

Ghazālī's moral theory is a version of virtue theory, consisting in fact of three philosophical, traditional (hadith-based) and mystical aspects, with the latter two playing a more prominent role than the former. On the one hand, he follows the Aristotelian theory of the mean according to which moral virtue is a mean between the two extremes of vice, and on the other hand, in addition to rational reasoning, he takes Sharia to be a criterion of virtues as well, determining moral virtues on the basis of Quranic verses and hadiths. In general, he takes wellbeing to be the particular perfection of a being, and in particular, he takes human wellbeing to be knowledge of the natures of things. It seems, however, that in addition to knowledge, he takes four other factors-external good, bodily virtues, moral virtues and afterlife wellbeing-to be part of human wellbeing, the first three of which play a preparatory role in the latter. The real human wellbeing, he thinks, is meeting God. Ghazālī has his own contributions in the theory of mean concerning moral virtues, such as adding a faculty of justice to Plato's three faculties, a new definition of practical reason whose function is to move the body and to manipulate appetitive and anger faculties, a new definition of the virtue of justice, adding the criterion of Sharia to that of reason as a criterion for determining the mean, providing a hadith-based argument for the theory of the mean, adding religious and sufistic virtues to the inventory of moral virtues.