by Aristotle
Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than he should in bodily things, and does not abide by reason, he who is intermediate between him and the incontinent man is the continent man; for the incontinent man fails to abide by [25] reason because he delights too much in them, and this man because he delights in them too little; while the continent man abides by it and does not change on either account. Now if continence is good, both the contrary states must be bad, as they [30] actually appear to be; but because the other extreme is seen in few people and seldom, as temperance is thought to be contrary only to self-indulgence, so is continence to incontinence.
Since many names are applied analogically, it is by analogy that we have come to speak of the continence of the temperate man; for both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing contrary to reason for the sake of the [1152a1] bodily pleasures, but the former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is such as not to feel pleasure contrary to reason, while the former is such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it. And the incontinent and the self-indulgent man [5] are also like one another; they are different, but both pursue bodily pleasures—the latter, however, also thinking that he ought to do so, while the former does not think this.
10 · Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent; for it has been shown that a man is at the same time practically wise, and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical wisdom not by knowing only but by acting; but the incontinent man is unable to act—there is, however, nothing to [10] prevent a clever man from being incontinent; this is why it is sometimes actually thought that some people have practical wisdom but are incontinent, viz. because cleverness and practical wisdom differ in the way we have described in our first discussions, and are near together in respect of their reasoning, but differ in respect of their choice—nor yet is the incontinent man like the man who knows and is [15] contemplating a truth, but like the man who is asleep or drunk. And he acts voluntarily (for he acts in a sense with knowledge both of what he does and of that for the sake of which he does it), but is not wicked since his choice is good; so that he is half-wicked. And he is not unjust; for he does not act of malice aforethought; of the two types of incontinent man the one does not abide by the conclusions of his deliberation, while the excitable man does not deliberate at all. And thus the [20] incontinent man is like a city which passes all the right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them, as in Anaxandrides’ jesting remark,
‘The city willed it, that cares nought for laws’;
but the wicked man is like a city that uses its laws, but has wicked laws to use.
[25] Now incontinence and continence are concerned with that which is in excess of the state characteristic of most men; for the continent man abides by his resolutions more and the incontinent man less than most men can.
Of the forms of incontinence, that of excitable people is more curable than that of those who deliberate but do not abide by their decisions, and those who are incontinent through habituation are more curable than those in whom incontinence [30] is innate; for it is easier to change a habit than to change one’s nature; even habit is hard to change just because it is like nature, as Evenus says:
I say that habit’s but long practice, friend,
And this becomes men’s nature in the end.
We have now stated what continence, incontinence, endurance, and softness are, and how these states are related to each other.
11 · The study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province of the political [1152b1] philosopher; for he is the architect of the end, with a view to which we call one thing bad and another good without qualification. Further, it is one of our necessary tasks to consider them; for not only did we lay it down that moral excellence and vice are [5] concerned with pains and pleasures, but most people say that happiness involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by a name derived from a word meaning enjoyment.66
Now some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in itself or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the same; others think that some [10] pleasures are good but that most are bad. Again there is a third view, that even if all pleasures are goods, yet the best thing cannot be pleasure. The reasons given for the view that pleasure is not a good at all are (a) that every pleasure is a perceptible process to a natural state, and that no process is of the same kind as its end, e.g. no process of building of the same kind as a house, (b) A temperate man avoids [15] pleasures, (c) A man of practical wisdom pursues what is free from pain, not what is pleasant, (d) The pleasures are a hindrance to thought, and the more so the more one delights in them, e.g. in sexual pleasure; for no one could think of anything while absorbed in this, (e) There is no art of pleasure; but every good is the product of some art. (f) Children and the brutes pursue pleasures. The reasons for the view [20] that not all pleasures are good are that (a) there are pleasures that are actually base and objects of reproach, and (b) there are harmful pleasures; for some pleasant things are unhealthy. The reason for the view that the best thing is not pleasure is that pleasure is not an end but a process.
12 · These are pretty much the things that are said. That it does not follow from these grounds that pleasure is not a good, or even the chief good, is plain from [25] the following considerations. First, since that which is good may be so in either of two senses (one thing good simply and another good for a particular person), natural constitutions and states, and therefore also movements and processes, will be correspondingly divisible. Of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad without qualification but not bad for a particular person, but worthy of his choice, and some will not be worthy of choice even for a particular person, but only at a [30] particular time and for a short period, though not without qualification; while others are not even pleasures, but seem to be so, viz. all those which involve pain and whose end is curative, e.g. the processes that go on in sick persons.
Further, one kind of good being activity and another being state, the processes that restore us to our natural state are only incidentally pleasant; for that matter the activity at work in the appetites for them is the activity of so much of our state and [35] nature as has remained unimpaired; for there are actually pleasures that involve no [1153a1] pain or appetite (e.g. those of contemplation), the nature in such a case not being defective at all. That the others are incidental is indicated by the fact that men do not enjoy the same things67 when their nature is in its settled state as they do when it is being replenished, but in the former case they enjoy the things that are pleasant without qualification, in the latter the contraries of these as well; for then they enjoy [5] even sharp and bitter things, none of which is pleasant either by nature or without qualification. Nor, then, are the pleasures; for as pleasant things differ, so do the pleasures arising from them.
Again, it is not necessary that there should be something else better than pleasure, as some say the end is better than the process; for pleasures are not [10] processes nor do they all involve process—they are activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are becoming something, but when we are exercising some faculty; and not all pleasures have an end different from themselves, but only the pleasures of persons who are being led to the completing of their nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure is a perceptible process, but it should rather be called [15] activity of the natural state, and instead of ‘perceptible’ ‘unimpeded’. It is thought to be a68 process just because they think it is in the strict sense good; for they think that activity is a process which it is not.
The view that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are unhealthy is like saying that healthy things are bad because some healthy things are bad for the pocket; both are bad in the respect mentioned, but they are not bad for that [20] reason—indeed, contemplation itself is sometimes injurious to health.
Neither practical wisdom or any state is impeded by the pleasure arisi
ng from it; it is foreign pleasures that impede, for the pleasures arising from contemplation and learning will make us contemplate and learn all the more.
The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises naturally enough; [25] there is no art of any other activity either, but only of the capacity; though for that matter the arts of the perfumer and the cook are thought to be arts of pleasure.
The arguments that the temperate man avoids pleasure and that the man of practical wisdom pursues the painless life, and that children and the brutes pursue pleasure, are all refuted by the same consideration. We have pointed out in what [30] sense pleasures are good without qualification and in what sense some are not good; now both the brutes and children pursue pleasures of the latter kind (and the man of practical wisdom pursues tranquil freedom from that kind), viz. those which imply appetite and pain, i.e. the bodily pleasures (for it is these that are of this nature) and the excesses of them, in respect of which the self-indulgent man is self-indulgent. [35] This is why the temperate man avoids these pleasures; for even he has pleasures of his own.
[1153b1] 13 · But further it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of Speusippus, that it is just as the greater is contrary both to the less and to the [5] equal, is not successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially a species of evil.
And if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the best thing from being some pleasure—just as knowledge might be, though certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is even necessary, if each state has unimpeded activities, that whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our states or that of some [10] one of them is happiness, this should be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is a pleasure. Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most pleasures might perhaps be bad without qualification. And for this reason all men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into happiness—and [15] reasonably too; for no activity is complete when it is impeded, and happiness is a complete thing; this is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and external goods, i.e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking [20] nonsense. Now because we need fortune as well as other things, some people think good fortune the same thing as happiness; but it is not that, for even good fortune itself when in excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then be no longer called good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.
And indeed the fact that all things, both brutes and men, pursue pleasure in an [25] indication of its being somehow the chief good:
No voice is wholly lost that many peoples. . . .69
But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue [30] not the pleasure they think they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them. But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name both because we oftenest steer our course for them and because all men share in them; thus because they alone are [35] familiar, men think there are no others.
It is evident also that if pleasure and activity is not a good, it will not be the [1154a1] case that the happy man lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life? For pain is neither an evil nor a good, if pleasure is not; why then should he avoid it? [5]
Therefore, too, the life of the good man will not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities are not more pleasant.
14 · With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, but not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, must consider why,70 [10] then, the contrary pains are bad. For the contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures good in the sense in which even that which is not bad is good? Or are they good up to a point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which there cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the one there can be too much of the other also? [15] Now there can be too much of bodily goods, and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the excess, not by virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for all men enjoy in some way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual intercourse, but not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the case with pain; for he does not [20] avoid the excess of it, he avoids it altogether; for the alternative to excess of pleasure is not pain, except to the man who pursues this excess.
Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of error—for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when a reasonable explanation is [25] given of why the false view appears true, this tends to produce belief in the true view—therefore we must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of choice. Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the excesses of pain men pursue excessive and in general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. Now [30] curative agencies produce intense feeling—which is the reason why they are pursued—because they show up against the contrary pain. (Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons, as has been said, viz. that some of them are activities belonging to a bad nature—either congenital, as in the case of a brute, or due to habit, i.e. those of bad men; while others are meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state than to be getting into it, but these [1154b1] arise during the process of being made complete and are therefore only incidentally good.) Further, they are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. At all events some people71 manufacture thirsts for themselves. When these are harmless, the practice is irreproachable; when they are [5] hurtful, it is bad. For they have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, a neutral state is painful to many people because of their nature. For animals are always toiling, as the students of natural science also testify, saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become used to this, as they maintain. Similarly, while, in [10] youth, people are, owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of drunken men, and youth is pleasant, on the other hand people of excitable nature always need relief; for even their body is ever in torment owing to its special composition, and they are always under the influence of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; [15] and for these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. But the pleasures that do not involve pains do not admit of excess; and these are among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally. By things pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as cures (for because as a result people are cured, through some action of the part that remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought pleasant); things naturally [20] pleasant are those that stimulate the action of the healthy nature.
There is no one thing that is always pleasant, because our nature is not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor pleasant; for if the nature of anything were simple, the same action would always be [25] most pleasant to it. This is why God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. But ‘change in all things is sweet’, as the poet says,72 because of some vice; for as it is the
vicious man that is changeable, so [30] the nature that needs change is vicious; for it is not simple nor good.
We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.
BOOK VIII
1 · After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is an excellence or implies excellence, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had [5] all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and [10] in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble actions—‘two going together’—for with friends men are [15] more able both to think and to act. Again, parent seems by nature to feel it for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but among birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members of the same race, and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their fellow men. We may see even in our travels [20] how near and dear every man is to every other. Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel faction as [25] their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.