by Aristotle
[30] It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral excellence. But in this way we may also refute the dialectical argument whereby it might be contended that the excellences exist in separation from each other; the same man, it might be said, is not best equipped by nature for all the excellences, so that [35] he will have already acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. This is possible in respect of the natural excellences, but not in respect of those in respect of [1145a1] which a man is called without qualification good; for with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the excellences. And it is plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we should have needed it because it is the excellence of the part of us in question; plain too that the choice will not be right without [5] practical wisdom any more than without excellence; for the one determines the end and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end.
But again it is not supreme over wisdom, i.e. over the superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health; for it does not use it but provides for its coming into being; it issues orders, then, for its sake, but not to it. Further, to [10] maintain its supremacy would be like saying that the art of politics rules the gods because it issues orders about all the affairs of the state.
BOOK VII
[15] 1 · Let us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral states to be avoided there are three kinds—vice, incontinence, brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident—one we call excellence, the other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to oppose superhuman excellence, something heroic and divine, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very [20] good.
For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God’s seed came.60
Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of excellence, of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state; for as a brute has no vice or [25] excellence, so neither has a god; his state is higher than excellence, and that of a brute is a different kind of state from vice.
Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found—to use the epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call him a ‘godlike man’—so too the brutish type is rarely found among men, it is found chiefly among foreigners, [30] but some brutish qualities are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil name those who surpass ordinary men in vice. Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention, while we have discussed vice before; we must now discuss incontinence and softness (or effeminacy), and [35] continence and endurance; for we must treat each of the two neither as identical with excellence or wickedness, nor as a different genus. We must, as in all other [1145b1] cases, set the phenomena before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the reputable opinions about these affections or, [5] failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both resolve the difficulties and leave the reputable opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently.
Now both continence and endurance are thought to be included among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and softness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought to be continent and ready to abide by [10] the result of his calculations, or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And the incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are bad, does not follow them because of his reason. The temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance, while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but [15] others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and the incontinent man self-indulgent indiscriminately, while others distinguish them. The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say, cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are practically wise and clever are incontinent. Again men are said to be incontinent with respect to anger, honour, and gain.—These, then, are the [20] things that are said.
2 · Now we may ask what kind of right belief is possessed by the man who behaves incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some say is impossible; for it would be strange—so Socrates thought—if when knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it about like a slave. For [25] Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one, he said, acts against what he believes best—people act so only by reason of ignorance. Now this view contradicts the plain phenomena, and we must inquire about what happens to such a man; if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner of his ignorance? For that the man who behaves [30] incontinently does not, before he gets into this state, think he ought to act so, is evident. But there are some who concede certain of Socrates’ contentions but not others; that nothing is stronger than knowledge they admit, but not that no one acts contrary to what has seemed to him the better course, and therefore they say that [35] the incontinent man has not knowledge when he is mastered by his pleasures, but opinion. But if it is opinion and not knowledge, if it is not a strong belief that resists [1146a1] but a weak one, as in men who hesitate, we forgive their failure to stand by such convictions against strong appetites; but we do not forgive wickedness, nor any of the other blameworthy states. It is then practical wisdom whose resistance is [5] mastered? That is the strongest of all states. But this is absurd; the same man will be at once practically wise and incontinent, but no one would say that it is the part of a practically wise man to do willingly the basest acts. Besides, it has been shown before that the man of practical wisdom is one who will act (for he is a man concerned with the individual facts) and who has the other excellences.
[10] Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites, the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites are good, the state that restrains us from following them is bad, so that not [15] all continence will be good; while if they are weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in resisting these either.
Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and every opinion, it is bad, i.e. if it makes him stand even by a false opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which Sophocles’ Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes will be an instance; for he is to be [20] praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to do, because he is pained at telling a lie.
Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; for, because they want to produce paradoxical results to show how clever they are, when they succeed the resulting inference presents a difficulty (for thought is bound fast when it will not [25] rest because the conclusion does not satisfy it, and cannot advance because it cannot refute the argument). There is an argument from which it follows that folly coupled with incontinence is excellence; for a man does the opposite of what he believes owing to incontinence, but believes what is good to be evil and something that he [30] should not do, and in consequence he will do what is good and not what is evil.
Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind. But to the incontinent man may be applied the proverb ‘when water chokes, what is one to wash it down with?’ If he had been persuaded of the rightness of what he does, he would have desisted when he was persuaded to change his mind; but now [1146b1] he acts in spite of his being persuaded of something quite different.
Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with any a
nd every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in the unqualified sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence, but we say some people are incontinent without qualification. [5]
3 · Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field; for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth. We must consider first, then, whether incontinent people act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then with what sorts of object the incontinent and the continent man may be said to be concerned (i.e. whether with any and every pleasure and pain or with certain [10] determinate kinds), and whether the continent man and the man of endurance are the same or different; and similarly with regard to the other matters germane to this inquiry. The starting-point of our investigation is the question whether the continent man and the incontinent are differentiated by their objects or by their [15] attitude, i.e. whether the continent man is incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such objects, or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by both these things; the second question is whether incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every object or not. The man who is incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, nor is he characterized by [20] being simply related to these (for then his state would be the same as self-indulgence), but by being related to them in a certain way. For the one is led on in accordance with his own choice, thinking that he ought always to pursue the present pleasure; while the other does not think so, but yet pursues it.
As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference to the argument; for some people [25] when in a state of opinion do not hesitate, but think they know exactly. If, then, it is owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are more likely to act against their belief than those who know, there will be no difference between knowledge and opinion; for some men are no less convinced of what they think than others of what [30] they know; as is shown by the case of Heraclitus. But since we use the word ‘know’ in two senses (for both the man who has knowledge but is not using it and he who is using it are said to know), it will make a difference whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or is exercising it; for the latter seems strange, but not the former.
Further, since there are two kinds of propositions, there is nothing to prevent a [1147a1] man’s having both and acting against his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal and not the particular; for it is particular acts that have to be done. And there are also two kinds of universal; one is predicable of the agent, the other of the object; e.g. ‘dry food is good for every man’, and ‘I am a man’, or ‘such and such [5] food is dry’; but whether this food is such and such, of this the incontinent man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge. There will, then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between these manners of knowing, so that to know in one way would not seem anything strange, while to know in the other way would be extraordinary.
[10] And further the possession of knowledge in another sense than those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state, admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk. But now this is just the condition of men under the influence of passions; [15] for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other such passions, it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and in some men even produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that incontinent people must be said to be in a similar condition to these. The fact that men use the language that flows from knowledge proves nothing; for even men under the influence of these passions utter scientific [20] proofs and verses of Empedocles, and those who have just begun to learn can string together words, but do not yet know; for it has to become part of themselves, and that takes time; so that we must suppose that the use of language by men in an incontinent state means no more than its utterance by actors on the stage.
Again, we may also view the cause as follows with reference to the facts of [25] nature. The one opinion is universal, the other is concerned with the particular facts, and here we come to something within the sphere of perception; when a single opinion results from the two, the soul must in one type of case affirm the conclusion, while in the case of opinions concerned with production it must immediately act (e.g. if everything sweet ought to be tasted, and this is sweet, in the sense of being [30] one of the particular sweet things, the man who can act and is not restrained must at the same time actually act accordingly). When, then, the universal opinion is present in us restraining us from tasting, and there is also the opinion that everything sweet is pleasant, and that this is sweet (now this is the opinion that is active), and when appetite happens to be present in us, the one opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us towards it (for it can move each of our bodily parts); [1147b1] so that it turns out that a man behaves incontinently under the influence (in a sense) of reason and opinion, and of opinion not contrary in itself, but only incidentally—for the appetite is contrary not the opinion—to right reason. It also follows that this is the reason why the lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they have no [5] universal beliefs but only imagination and memory of particulars.
The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the incontinent man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of the man drunk or asleep and is not peculiar to this condition; we must go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last proposition both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and [10] being what determines our actions, this a man either has not when he is in the state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having knowledge did not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man may utter the verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is not universal nor equally an object of knowledge with the universal term, the position that Socrates sought to establish actually seems to result; for it is not what is thought to be knowledge proper that the passion [15] overcomes61 (nor is it this that is dragged about as a result of the passion), but perceptual knowledge.
This must suffice as our answer to the question of whether men can act incontinently when they know or not, and in what sense they know.
4 · We must next discuss whether there is any one who is incontinent without [20] qualification, or all men who are incontinent are so in a particular sense, and if so, with what sort of objects. That both continent persons and persons of endurance, and incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures and pains, is evident.
Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, the bodily causes of pleasure [25] being necessary (by such I mean both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse, i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined self-indulgence and temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honour, wealth, and good [30] and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right reason which is in themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger’,—not simply incontinent, on the ground that they are different from incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason of a resemblance. (Compare the case of Man, who won a contest at the Olympic games; in his case the general formula of man differed little from the one peculiar to him, but yet it was [1148a1] different.) This is shown by the fact that incontinence either without qualification or in some particular respect is blamed not only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while none of the others is so blamed.
But of the people who are incontinent wit
h respect to bodily enjoyments, with [5] which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent man are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant—and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold and all the objects of touch and taste—not by choice but contrary to his choice and his judgement, is called incontinent, not with [10] the qualification ‘in respect of this or that’, e.g. of anger, but without qualification. This is confirmed by the fact that men are called soft with regard to these pleasures, but not with regard to any of the others. And for this reason we group together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the continent and the temperate man—but not any of these other types—because they are concerned somehow with the same [15] pleasures and pains; but although these are concerned with the same objects, they are not similarly related to them, but some of them choose them while the others do not choose them.
This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the excesses and avoids moderate [20] pains, than the man who does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former do, if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the lack of the necessary objects?