Moderation

{{Short description|Process of eliminating or lessening extremes}}

File:The Yuza-no-ki.jpg (Japan) to teach students the importance of moderations. The cup is inclined when it's empty. When you pour water into it, it goes upright. If you pour more water, it becomes inclined again.]]

Moderation is the process or trait of eliminating, lessening, or avoiding extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include:

A way of life emphasizing perfect amounts of everything, not indulging in too much of one thing.
A moderator may remove unsuitable contributions from the website, forum or chat room they represent in accordance with their moderation system.
Ensuring consistency and accuracy in the marking of student assessments.
A "moderator" is one name for the formal position of one who presides over a discussion, helping to ensure that the discussion is balanced among its many voices, for example in the Methodist church's use of the term for the heads of its conferences.
A neutron moderator is used to slow down neutrons in a nuclear reactor.

History

= Ancient Greece =

Moderation is also a principle of life. In ancient Greece, the temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription {{transliteration|grc|Meden Agan}} ({{lang|grc|μηδὲν ἄγαν}})—"Nothing in excess". Doing something "in moderation" means not doing it excessively. For instance, someone who moderates their food consumption tries to eat all food groups, but limits their intake of those that may cause deleterious effects to harmless levels.

According to the historian and sociologist of science Steven Shapin:{{cite book|author-link=Steven Shapin|last=Shapin|first=Steven|year=2010|title=Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority|edition=2nd|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|page=245|isbn=978-0801894213}}

{{Block quote|From the pre-Socratics through the Hippocratic and Galenic corpus, and in the writings of such Stoic philosophers as Epictetus and Seneca, health was seen to flow from observing moderation—in exercise, in study, and in diet.}}

= Christianity =

File:Venne Merrymaking peasants.jpg by Adriaen van de Venne, 1650s, National Museum in Warsaw]]

In Christianity, moderationism is the position that drinking alcoholic beverages temperately is permissible, though drunkenness is forbidden (see Christianity and alcohol).

In the apocryphal Book of Wisdom moderation is listed among the greatest virtues.{{cite web|url=https://bible.usccb.org/bible/wisdom/8#7|title=The Book of Wisdom: Chapter 8|website=United States Conference of Catholic Bishops}}

=Islam and Judaism=

Wasat, also called {{transliteration|ar|wasatiyyah}} ({{langx|ar|وسطية}}) is the Arabic word for best, middle, centered, balanced. In the Islamic context, it refers to the "middle way" or "moderation"—a justly balanced way of life, avoiding extremes and experiencing things in moderation.{{multiref2

|1={{cite book |last1=Kamali |first1=Mohammad Hashim |title=The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam: The Qurʼānic Principle of Wasaṭiyyah |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780190226831 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HffzCAAAQBAJ |language=en}}

|2={{cite book |title=Moderation in Islam: In the Contex[t] of Muslim Community in Singapore: a Compilation of Working Papers Presented in the PERGAS Ulama Convention 2003, Held on 13th and 14th September 2003, which Carried the Theme of Moderation in Islam |year=2004 |publisher=PERGAS |isbn=9789810510329 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R__XAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}

|3={{cite book |last1=Hashem |first1=Ahmad Omar |title=Moderation in Islam |year=1999 |publisher=United Printing Publishing and Distributing |pages=177 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EGnltQEACAAJ |language=en}} }}

Moderate Muslims use contextual relativism{{jargon inline|date=August 2023}} to interpret the Quran.

The Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who was heavily influenced by Islamic and Aristotelian thought, also set forth moderation as an ideal within Judaism.{{cite journal|last=Saks|first=Jeffrey|url=https://traditiononline.org/the-extremes-are-more-consistent-but-absurd/|title=The Extremes Are More Consistent But Absurd|journal=Tradition|year=2021|volume=53|number=3}}

= Taoism =

Moderation is considered a key part of one's personal development in Chinese Taoist philosophy and religion. It is one of the three jewels of Taoist thought. There is nothing that cannot be moderated including one's actions, one's desires, and even one's thoughts. It is believed that by doing so one achieves a more natural state, faces less resistance in life, and recognises one's limits.{{cite web|first=Bill|last=Mason|url=http://www.taoism.net/articles/mason/ethics.htm#Moderation|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720082244/http://www.taoism.net/articles/mason/ethics.htm#Moderation|archive-date=2018-07-20|title=Taoist Ethics|website=www.taoism.net}} Moderation as a guiding principle is complex and can be difficult to not only accept, but also understand and implement. It can also be recursive in that one should moderate how much one moderates (i.e. to not be too worried about moderating everything or not to try too hard to find the perfect middle ground)

Moderation as a principle of Taoist philosophy turns up in all three of its main texts.

= Others =

Moderation is a characteristic of the Swedish national psyche, more specifically described by the Swedish synonym {{lang|sv|Lagom}}.

References

External links

{{Wiktionary-inline}}

Category:Concepts in ethics

Category:Virtue ethics