Prof Stephen Brown delivers an Oliver Smithies Lecture at Balliol College, University of Oxford titled ‘Moral Virtue as a Mean and as a Means’, using a pun on the word ‘mean’ to reference Aristotle’s concept of the golden mean, and to stress the point that truly virtuous ends also require virtuous means. Prof Brown is Director of the Institute of Medieval Philosophy and Theology at Boston College, specialising in the 13th and 14th centuries. In this lecture he outlines his thesis using a wide range of examples including Thomas Aquinas, Boetius of Dacia, Roger Bacon among many others. He was introduced by Revd Dr Bruce Kinsey, Chaplain of Balliol College.
