Chapter 7: A Brief Note on the Mean

In their article ‘Forsaking the Mean for the Extreme: A Response to Provis’ (REIO v. 23, pp. 151–162), Schwartz and Comer take issue with my 2017 REIO article, ‘Modern Business and the Doctrine of the Mean’ (v. 18, pp. 115–130). Their article is extremely interesting, and shows clearly that there is scope for extended and fruitful discussion of the topic. However, there are a couple of points that I would like to address regarding their comments on my own article.

Schwartz and Comer (2020, p. 152) quite rightly say that I approve of the Doctrine of the Mean, but my article is very clearly oriented towards the Doctrine’s application in business. While it may be well that there is scope for wider application of the Doctrine, my article did not suggest that the mean is something to be sought always in every context. Schwartz and Comer suggest that my article ignores views that ‘advocated forsaking that Mean and pursuing the extreme’ (Schwartz & Comer, 2020, p. 152), and they say that ‘Provis (2017) argues against any act “oriented towards maximisation” ’ (p. 152). That is not accurate. My article did not try to argue against maximization per se: it is careful to not to do so. The abstract of my article says that classical Aristotelian and Confucian views emphasize a need to consider particular circumstances rather than ‘blindly’ maximizing value (p. 115), and the article’s Conclusion is in part that the idea of a mean can be a metaphor that is useful in cautioning us against ‘unbridled’ maximization (p. 127).