 One’s affirmative responsibilities are all conditioned by circumstances, and mostly are (conditional) implications of the Golden Rule of doing to or for others what you would wish them to do to or for you. For both these reasons, one cannot make sound judgments about what one should be doing – that is, about what is the “mean” of reasonableness – unless one’s wishes are those of a person who understands the opportunities and the circumstances well, and whose concerns and intentions are those of someone whose reasonableness is not corrupted or deflected either by sub-rational desires and aversions or by deformations of will such as pride or presumption. Such a person has the virtues, intellectual and moral, and virtue is thus, and in these respects, required for sound moral judgment. Sometimes the mean of reason, properly assessed by someone of true virtue, calls for heroic virtue (say, immense courage) far beyond conventional measures or expectations of reasonableness, moderation, and the like.