Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who was born in 384 B.C.E. and died in 322 B.C.E. One of Aristotle’s teachings was that on “Arête” or virtue. He believed that for one to have a happy life, he or she needed to live morally, using virtues, however, these virtues needed to be balanced. Aristotle came up with the “Doctrine of the Mean”, a theory with several aspects that explain how a person could be morally good. One aspect was that of finding virtues, or traits that were balanced between two vices, and if one followed those virtues, one could live a moral life, along with being a happy and productive member of society. The Central Works of Philosophy explains the theory as a “thesis that each virtue is between two vices, a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. For example, the virtue of mildness comes between two vices, inirascibility and irascibility” (Benson, Clark, Cross, and et al 51). Another example of a virtue would be meekness with its deficiency vice being cowardice and its excess vice being vanity (Benson, Clark, Cross, and et al 51). Aristotle believed that the only way one could reach happiness and morality was to practice these virtues in everyday life. As Introducing Philosophy states, “Human beings are social animals, programmed to live together harmoniously, even if their moral ‘software’ needs to be exercised regularly by choosing the ‘Mean’ between extremes” (Robinson and Groves 33). Aristotle’s Doctrine had no criteria of having to belong to a religion, just be able to apply virtues to daily life in order to be moral.