The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  (c) 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 processes nor do they all involve process—they are activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are becoming something, (10) 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 perfecting of their nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure is perceptible process, (15) but it should rather be called activity of the natural state, and instead of ‘perceptible’ ‘unimpeded’. It is thought by some people to be process just because they think it is in the strict sense good; for they think that activity is process, which it is not.

  (B)39 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 money-making; both are bad in the respect mentioned, (20) but they are not bad for that reason—indeed, thinking itself is sometimes injurious to health.

  Neither practical wisdom nor any state of being is impeded by the pleasure arising from it; it is foreign pleasures that impede, for the pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.

  (C)40 The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises naturally enough; there is no art of any other activity either, (25) but only of the corresponding faculty; though for that matter the arts of the perfumer and the cook are thought to be arts of pleasure.

  (D)41 The arguments based on the grounds 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 out42 in what 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), (30) 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. This is why the temperate man avoids these pleasures; for even he has pleasures of his own. (35)

  13 [1153b] But further (E) 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 pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, (5) as the greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a species of evil.

  And (F)43 if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded activities, (10) that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is 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 their ideal of happiness—and reasonably too; for no activity is perfect when it is impeded, (15) and happiness is a perfect 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 nonsense. (20) 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, (25) both brutes and men, pursue pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:

  No voice is wholly lost that many peoples …

  But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best for all, (30) neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue 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 familiar, (35) men think there are no others. [1154a]

  It is evident also that if pleasure, i. e. the activity of our faculties, is not a good, it will not be the 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, (5) if pleasure is not; why then should he avoid it? 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 (G)44 With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, (10) but not the bodily pleasures, i. e. those with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary things 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? Now there can be too much of bodily goods, (15) 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 avoid the excess of it, (20) he avoids it altogether; and this is peculiar to him, 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 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. (25) (a) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive and in general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. (30) Now 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,45 viz. that (a) 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 (β) 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 arise during the process of being made perfect and are therefore only incidentally good.) [1154b] (b) Further, they are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless, the practice is irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For they have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, (5) a neutral state is painful to many people because of their nature. For the animal nature is always in travail, 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 youth, people are, owing to the growth that is going on, in a situation like that of drunken men, and youth is pleasant,46 on the other hand people of exc
itable nature47 always need relief; for even their body is ever in torment owing to its special composition, (10) 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; and for these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. (15) 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); by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate the action of the healthy nature.

  There is no one thing that is always pleasant, (20) 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, (25) the same action would always be 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, because of some vice; for as it is the vicious man that is changeable, (30) so 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.

  * * *

  1 Il. xxiv. 258 f.

  2 Ch. 5.

  3 Bks. II–V.

  4 Pl. Prot. 352 B, C.

  5 1140b 4–6.

  6 1141b 16, 1142a 24.

  7 1144b 30–1145a 2.

  8 ll. 895–916.

  9 i. e., if I am to be able to deduce from (a) ‘dry food is good for all men’ that ‘this food is good for me’, I must have (b) the premiss ‘I am a man’ and (c) the premisses (i) ‘x food is dry’, (ii) ‘this food is x’. I cannot fail to know (b), and I may know (c i); but if I do not know (c ii), or know it only ‘at the back of my my mind’, I shall not draw the conclusion.

  10 i. e. in scientific reasoning.

  11 i. e. determines action (Cf. b10).

  12 Cf. a10–24.

  13 1145b 22–24.

  14 Even before the minor premiss of the practical syllogism has been obscured by passion, the incontinent man has not scientific knowledge in the strict sense, since his minor premiss is not universal but has for its subject a sensible particular, e. g. ‘this glass of wine’.

  15 III. 10.

  16 i. e. the definition appropriate to him was not ‘rational animal’ but ‘rational animal who won the boxing contest at Olympia in 456 B. C.’

  17 i. e. the temperate and the self-indulgent, not the continent and the incontinent.

  18 1147b 23–31, where, however, the ‘contraries’ are not mentioned.

  19 Nothing is really known about the Satyrus referred to, but Prof. Burnet’s suggestion that he was a king of Bosporus who deified his father seems probable.

  20 Answering to (2 c).

  21 sc. and the bull. But Cf. 1149a 14.

  22 Answering to (2 a).

  23 Answering to (2 b).

  24 Il. xiv. 214, 217.

  25 1148b 15–31.

  26 And therefore cannot be called self-indulgent properly, but can be so called by a metaphor.

  27 III. 10.

  28 In ll. 19–25.

  29 Not softness proper, which is non-deliberate avoidance of pain (ll. 13–15).

  30 a 21.

  31 1146a 31-b 2.

  32 i. e. the assumptions of the existence of the primary objects of mathematics, such as the straight line or the unit.

  33 1146a 16–31.

  34 1144a 11-b 32.

  35 1144a 23-b4.

  36 1104b 8–1105a 13.

  37 makarios from mala chairein!

  38 (A) is the answer to (1 a) and (3).

  39 Answer to (2 b) and (1 d).

  40 Answer to (1 e).

  41 Answer to (1 b), (1 c), (1 f).

  42 1152b 26–1153a 7.

  43 Answer to (2 a).

  44 Answer to (2).

  45 1152b 26–33.

  46 i. e. the growth or replenishment that is going on produces exhilaration and pleasure.

  47 Lit., melancholic people, those characterized by an excess of black bile.

  BOOK VIII

  1 [1155a] After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, (5) and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had 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, (10) the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and 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’1—for with friends men are more able both to think and to act. (15) 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, (20) and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their fellowmen. We may see even in our travels 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 their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice, (25) while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.

  But it is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends. (30)

  Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define it as a kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence come the sayings ‘like to like’, ‘birds of a feather flock together’, (35) and so on; others on the contrary say ‘two of a trade never agree’. [1155b] On this very question they inquire for deeper and more physical causes, Euripides saying that ‘parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth’, and Heraclitus that ‘it is what opposes that helps’ and ‘from different tones comes the fairest tune’ and ‘all things are produced through strife’; while Empedocles, (5) as well as others, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like. The physical problems we may leave alone (for they do not belong to the present inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character and feeling, (10) e. g. whether friendship can arise between any two people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked, and whether there is one species of friendship or more than one. Those who think there is only one because it admits of degrees have relied on an inadequate indication; for even things different in species admit of degree. (15) We have discussed this matter previously.

  2 The kinds of friendship may perhaps be cleared up if we first come to know the object of love. For not everything seems to be loved but only the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it would seem to be that by which some good or pleasure is produced that is useful, so that it is the good and the useful that are lovable as ends. Do men love, (20) then, the good, or what is good for them? These sometimes clash. So too wit
h regard to the pleasant. Now it is thought that each loves what is good for himself, and that the good is without qualification lovable, and what is good for each man is lovable for him; but each man loves not what is good for him but what seems good. (25) This however will make no difference; we shall just have to say that this is ‘that which seems lovable’. Now there are three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, (30) it is that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add ‘when it is recognized’? (35) For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. [1156a] These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons. (5)

  3 Now these reasons differ from each other in kind; so, therefore, do the corresponding forms of love and friendship. There are therefore three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are loveable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that respect in which they love one another. (10) Now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them pleasant. (15) Therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant. And thus these friendships are only incidental; for it is not as being the man he is that the loved person is loved, but as providing some good or pleasure. (20) Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him.