Should we be careful or daring in life?

A READER WRITES: “These great French writers seem to me be contradicting themselves. Voltaire is quoted as saying “Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy”. This sounds to me like a recommendation for moderation in all things. But then Voltaire goes on to say “They only live who dare”, which sounds to me like recommending the opposite. And then we have La Rochefoucauld saying that “moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit”. So he is saying that moderation is for losers. So is moderation a good thing or a bad thing?

BB SAYS: Yes, it does appear that great philosophers sometimes recommend moderation (and even abstinence), but other philosophers equally recommend daring and excess. So there is a contradiction here.

As William Blake once said: “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom … for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” Or Nietzsche: “The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously”.

So should we be cautious, moderate and temperate, like many philosophers recommend, or should we be bold, impetuous and daring, like Blake and Nietzsche recommend?

The philosopher Machiavelli seems to have a nuanced view. In the Prince he says:

“One can see of two cautious men the one attain his end, the other fail; and similarly, two men by different observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the other impetuous; all this arises from nothing else than whether or not they conform to the circumstances they find themselves in.

To one who governs himself with caution and patience, times and affairs converge in such a way that he meets with success; but if times and affairs change, he is ruined if he does not change his course of action. But a man is not often found sufficiently circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to, and also because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is well to leave it; and, therefore, the cautious man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his conduct with the times fortune would not have changed”.

It would follow that the reverse is also true: a naturally adventurous, impetuous person does not know how to change when circumstances require caution, and hence he is ruined - but had he changed his conduct with the times, his fortune would not have changed.

If one needed to draw a conclusion from this contradictory advice I think it would be the following: the best life is a judicious blend of excess and temperance, a kind of Golden Mean between daring and caution. Wisdom consists in knowing when to be moderate and cautious, and when to be adventurous and daring. Two of the cardinal virtues of the Ancient Greeks were moderation and courage. A full life requires both moderation and courage.

However, in the same chapter in the Prince, Machiavelli goes on to recommend the following:

“I hold that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; because one sees that she lets herself be won by the bold, rather than by those who proceed coldly. And therefore, like a woman, fortune is always a friend to the young, because they are less cautious, fiercer, and master her with greater audacity”.

Not very politically correct. But I suspect that the reason Machiavelli recommended this is because he knew that people who are excessively adventurous and impetuous are unlikely to sit around reading works of philosophy by people like Machiavelli. Instead, Machiavelli judged that most of his readers are likely to be thoughtful, cautious, moderate types, so he advocated excess and impetuosity for them, in the hope of dragging them towards the illusive Golden Mean – and thus encouraging the excessively cautious to stand up to the excessively impetuous. Good people must sometimes act basely, in order to avoid being controlled and manipulated by baser people. Good people must learn cunning, lest they become the victims of the cunning. That is Machiavelli's message.

One is reminded of Shakespeare's two characters, Hamlet and Macbeth. The former is excessively thoughtful, contemplative and cautious. The latter is excessively impetuous and daring. In both cases, it leads to disaster and tragedy. Some have suggested that the character of Prospero in the Tempest is Shakespeare's example of a character who has attained the Golden Mean between moderation and courage, between thought and action. At the beginning of the Tempest, Prospero is a bit like Hamlet - a good man who devotes himself to contemplation. As a result of this, like Hamlet, he loses his kingdom to a lesser man. But unlike Hamlet, Prospero learns his lesson from this failure - he learns to be cunning, he becomes a contemplative man of action, and thereby restores his position.