Book 7
15
Let us next begin a fresh part of the subject by laying down that the states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds—Vice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality.
1
The opposite dispositions in the case of two of the three are obvious: one we call Virtue, the other Self-restraint. As the opposite of Bestiality it will be most suitable to speak of Superhuman Virtue,
20
or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as Homer
2
has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor—
nor seemed to be
The son of mortal man, but of a god.
Hence if, as men say, surpassing virtue changes men into gods, the disposition opposed to Bestiality will clearly be some quality more than human; for there is no such thing as Virtue in the case of a god, any more than there is Vice or Virtue in the case of a beast: divine goodness is something more exalted than Virtue, and bestial badness is different in kind from Vice.
And inasmuch as it is rare for a man to be divine, in the sense in which that word is commonly used by the Lacedaemonians as a term of extreme admiration—
Yon mon’s divine,they say—, so a bestial character is rare among human beings; it is found most frequently among barbarians, and some cases also occur as a result of disease or arrested development. We sometimes also use
bestial as a term of opprobrium for a surpassing degree of human vice.
3
But the nature of the bestial disposition will have to be touched on later; and of Vice we have spoken already. We must however discuss Unrestraint and Softness or Luxury, and also Self-restraint and Endurance.
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Neither of these two classes of character is to be conceived as identical with Virtue and Vice, nor yet as different in kind from them.
Our proper course with this subject as with others will be to present the various views about it, and then, after first reviewing the difficulties they involve, finally to establish if possible all or, if not all, the greater part and the most important of the opinions generally held with respect to these states of mind; since if the discrepancies can be solved, and a residuum of current opinion left standing, the true view will have been sufficiently established.
4
Now the following opinions are held: (a) that Self-restraint and Endurance are good and praiseworthy dispositions, Unrestraint and Softness bad and blameworthy; (b) that the self-restrained man is the man who abides by the results of his calculations, the unrestrained, one who readily abandons the conclusion he has reached; (c) that the unrestrained man does things that he knows to be evil, under the influence of passion, whereas the self-restrained man, knowing that his desires are evil, refuses to follow them on principle; (d) that the temperate man is always self-restrained and enduring; but that the converse is invariably the case some deny, although others affirm it: the latter identify the unrestrained with the profligate and the profligate with the unrestrained promiscuously, the former distinguish between them.
(e) Sometimes it is said that the prudent man cannot be unrestrained, sometimes that some prudent and clever men are unrestrained. (f)Again, men are spoken of as unrestrained
20
in anger, and in the pursuit of honor and of gain. These then are the opinions advanced.
The difficulties that may be raised are the following. (c) How can a man fail in self-restraint when believing correctly that what he does is wrong? Some people say that he cannot do so when he knows the act to be wrong; since, as Socrates held, it would be strange if, when a man possessed Knowledge, some other thing should overpower it, and
drag it about like a slave.
5
In fact Socrates used to combat the view
6
altogether, implying that there is no such thing as Unrestraint, since no one, he held, acts contrary to what is best, believing what he does to be bad, but only through ignorance.
Now this theory is manifestly at variance with plain facts; and we ought to investigate the state of mind in question more closely. If failure of self-restraint is caused by ignorance, we must examine what sort of ignorance it is. For it is clear that the man who fails in self-restraint does not think the action right before he comes under the influence of passion.—
But some thinkers accept the doctrine in a modified form. They allow that nothing is more powerful than knowledge, but they do not allow that no one acts contrary to what he opines to be the better course; and they therefore maintain that the unrestrained man when he succumbs to the temptations of pleasure possesses not Knowledge but only Opinion.
And yet if it is really Opinion and not Knowledge—not a strong belief
1146a
1
that offers resistance but only a weak one (like that of persons in two minds about something)—, we could forgive a man for not keeping to his opinions in opposition to strong desires; but we do not forgive vice, nor any other blameworthy quality.—(e) Is it then when desire is opposed by Prudence that we blame a man for yielding?
for Prudence is extremely strong. But this is strange, for it means that the same person can be at once prudent and unrestrained; yet no one could possibly maintain that the prudent man is capable of doing voluntarily the basest actions. And furthermore it has already been shown
7
that Prudence displays itself in action (for it is concerned with ultimate particulars), and implies the possession of the other Virtues as well.
Again (d) if Self-restraint implies having strong and evil desires, the temperate man cannot be self-restrained, nor the self-restrained man temperate; for the temperate man does not have excessive or evil desires. But a self-restrained man must necessarily have strong and evil desires; since if a man’s desires are good, the disposition that prevents him from obeying them will be evil, and so Self-restraint will not always be good; while if his desires are weak and not evil, there is nothing to be proud of in resisting them; nor is it anything remarkable if they are evil and weak.
Again (a, b) if Self-restraint makes a man steadfast in
all his opinions, it may be bad, namely, if it makes him persist even in a false opinion. And if Unrestraint makes him liable to abandon
any opinion, in some cases Unrestraint will be good. Take the instance of Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes
8
of Sophocles.
20
Neoptolemus abandons a resolution that he has been persuaded by Odysseus to adopt, because of the pain that it gives him to tell a lie: in this case inconstancy is praiseworthy.
Again (a, c) there is the difficulty raised by the argument of the sophists. The sophists wish to show their cleverness by entrapping their adversary into a paradox, and when they are successful, the resultant chain of reasoning ends in a deadlock: the mind is fettered, being unwilling to stand still because it cannot approve the conclusion reached, yet unable to go forward because it cannot untie the knot of the argument.
Now one of their arguments proves that Folly combined with Unrestraint is a virtue. It runs as follows: if a man is foolish and also unrestrained, owing to his unrestraint he does the opposite of what he believes that he ought to do; but he believes
9
that good things are bad, and that he ought not to do them; therefore he will do good things and not bad ones.
Again (b, d) one who does and pursues what is pleasant from conviction and choice,
10
might be held to be a better man than one who acts in the same way not from calculation but from unrestraint, because he is more easy to cure, since he may be persuaded to alter his conviction; whereas the unrestrained man comes under the proverb that says
when water chokes you, what are you to drink to wash it down? Had he been convinced that what he does is right,
1146b
1
a change of conviction might have caused him to desist; but as it is he is convinced that he ought to do one thing and nevertheless does another thing.
11
Again (f) if Self-restraint and Unrestraint can be displayed with reference to anything, what is the meaning of the epithet
unrestrained without qualification? No one has every form of unrestraint, yet we speak of some men as simply
unrestrained.
Such, more or less, are the difficulties that arise. Part of the conflicting opinions we have to clear out of the way, but part to leave standing; for to solve a difficulty is to find the answer to a problem.
12
We have then to consider, first (i) whether men fail in self-restraint knowing what they do is wrong, or not knowing, and if knowing, knowing in what sense; and next (ii) what are to be set down as the objects with which Self-restraint and Unrestraint are concerned: I mean, are they concerned with pleasure and pain of all sorts, or only with certain special pleasures and pains? and (iii) is Self-restraint the same as Endurance or distinct from it? and so on with (iv) the other questions akin to this subject.
A starting-point for our investigation is to ask
13
whether the
differentia
14
of the self-restrained man and the unrestrained is constituted by their objects, or by their dispositions: I mean, whether a man is called unrestrained solely because he fails to restrain himself with reference to certain things, or rather because he has a certain disposition, or rather for both reasons combined. A second question is, can Self-restraint and Unrestraint be displayed in regard to everything, or not? When a man is said to be
unrestrained without further qualification, it does not mean that he is so in relation to everything,
20
but to those things in regard to which a man can be profligate; and also it does not mean merely that he is concerned with these things (for in that case Unrestraint would be the same thing as Profligacy), but that he is concerned with them in a particular manner. The profligate yields to his appetites from choice, considering it right always to pursue the pleasure that offers, whereas the man of defective self-restraint does not think so, but pursues it all the same.
(i) Now the suggestion that it is not Knowledge, but True Opinion, against which unrestrained men act, is of no importance for our argument. Some men hold their opinions with absolute certainty, and take them for positive knowledge;
so that if weakness of conviction be the criterion for deciding that men who act against their conception of what is right must be said to opine rather than to know the right, there will really be no difference in this respect between Opinion and Knowledge; since some men are just as firmly convinced of what they opine as others are of what they know: witness Heracleitus.
15
(1) But the word
know is used in two senses. A man who has knowledge but is not exercising it is said to know, and so is a man who is actually exercising his knowledge. It will make a difference whether a man does wrong having the knowledge that it is wrong but not consciously thinking of his knowledge, or with the knowledge consciously present to his mind. The latter would be felt to be surprising; but it is not surprising that a man should do what he knows to be wrong if he is not conscious of the knowledge at the time.
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(2) Again, reasoning on matters of conduct employs premises of two forms.
16
Now it is quite possible for a man to act against knowledge when he knows both premises but is only exercising his knowledge of the universal premise and not of the particular; for action has to do with particular things. Moreover, there is a distinction as regards the universal term: one universal is predicated of the man himself, the other of the thing; for example, he may know and be conscious of the knowledge that dry food is good for every man and that he himself is a man, or even that food of a certain kind is dry, but either not possess or not be actualizing the knowledge whether the particular food before him is food of that kind. Now clearly the distinction between these two ways of knowing will make all the difference in the world. It will not seem at all strange that the unrestrained man should
know in one way, but it would be astonishing if he knew in another way.
(3) Again, it is possible for men to
have knowledge in yet another way besides those just discussed; for even in the state of having knowledge without exercising it we can observe a distinction: a man may in a sense both have it and not have it; for instance, when he is asleep, or mad, or drunk. But persons under the influence of passion are in the same condition; for it is evident that anger, sexual desire, and certain other passions, actually alter the state of the body, and in some cases even cause madness. It is clear therefore that we must pronounce the unrestrained to
have knowledge only in the same way as men who are asleep or mad or drunk.
Their using the language of knowledge
17
is no proof that they possess it.
20
Persons in the states mentioned
18
repeat propositions of geometry and verses of Empedocles; students who have just begun a subject reel off its formulae, though they do not yet know their meaning, for knowledge has to become part of the tissue of the mind, and this takes time. Hence we must conceive that men who fail in self-restraint talk in the same way as actors speaking a part.
(4) Again, one may also study the cause of Unrestraint scientifically,
19
thus: In a practical syllogism, the major premise is an opinion, while the minor premise deals with particular things, which are the province of perception. Now when the two premises are combined, just as in theoretic reasoning the mind is compelled to affirm the resulting conclusion, so in the case of practical premises you are forced at once to do it. For example, given the premises
All sweet things ought to be tasted and
Yonder thing is sweet—a particular instance of the general class—, you are bound, if able and not prevented, immediately to taste the thing.
When therefore there is present in the mind on the one hand a universal judgement forbidding you to taste and on the other hand a universal judgement saying
All sweet things are pleasant, and a minor premise
Yonder thing is sweet (and it is this minor premise that is active
20
) , and when desire is present at the same time, then, though the former universal judgement says
Avoid that thing, the desire leads you to it (since desire can put the various parts of the body in motion).
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1
Thus it comes about that when men fail in self-restraint, they act in a sense under the influence of a principle or opinion, but an opinion not in itself but only accidentally opposed to the right principle
(for it is the desire, and not the opinion, that is really opposed). Hence the lower animals cannot be called unrestrained, if only for the reason that they have no power of forming universal concepts, but only mental images and memories of particular things.
If we ask how the unrestrained man’s ignorance is dissipated and he returns to a state of knowledge, the explanation is the same as in the case of drunkenness and sleep, and is not peculiar to failure of self-restraint. We must go for it to physiology.
But inasmuch as the last premise, which originates action, is an opinion as to some object of sense, and it is this opinion which the unrestrained man when under the influence of passion either does not possess, or only possesses in a way which as we saw does not amount to knowing it but only makes him repeat it as the drunken man repeats the maxims of Empedocles, and since the ultimate term is not a universal, and is not deemed to be an object of Scientific Knowledge in the same way as a universal term is, we do seem to be led to the conclusion
21
which Socrates sought to establish.
For the knowledge which is present when failure of self-restraint
22
occurs is not what is held to be Knowledge in the true sense, nor is it true Knowledge which is dragged about by passion, but knowledge derived from sense-perception.
So much for the question whether failure of self-restraint can go with knowledge or not, and with knowledge in what sense.
20
(ii) We must next discuss whether any man can be called
unrestrained without qualification, or whether it must always be in relation to certain particular things, and if so, to what sort of things. Now it is plain that men are self-restrained and enduring, unrestrained and soft, in regard to Pleasures and Pains.
But the things that give pleasure are of two kinds: some are necessary,
23
others are desirable in themselves but admit of excess. The necessary sources of pleasures are those connected with the body: I mean such as the functions of nutrition and sex, in fact those bodily functions which we have indicated
24
as the sphere of Profligacy and Temperance. The other sources of pleasure are not necessary, but are desirable in themselves: I mean for example victory, honor, wealth, and the other good and pleasant things of the same sort. Now those who against the right principle within them exceed in regard to the latter class of pleasant things, we do not call unrestrained simply, but with a qualification—unrestrained as to money, gain, honor or anger
25
—not merely
unrestrained ; because we regard them as distinct from the unrestrained in the strict sense, and only so called by analogy, like our familiar example
26
of Man the Olympic winner,
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1
whose special definition is not very different
27
from the general definition of
man, though nevertheless he is really quite distinct from men in general.
28
(That such persons are only called unrestrained by analogy is proved by our blaming unrestraint, whether unqualified or with reference to some particular bodily pleasure, as a vice and not merely an error, whereas we do not regard those unrestrained in regard to money, etc. as guilty of vice.)
But of those who exceed in relation to the bodily enjoyments with regard to which we speak of men as temperate or profligate, he who pursues excessive pleasure, and avoids the extremes
29
of bodily pains such as hunger, heat, cold, and the various pains of touch and taste, not from choice but against his own choice and reason, is described as unrestrained not with a qualification—unrestrained as regards these pleasures and pains—as is one who yields to anger, but just simply as unrestrained.
(A proof that
unrestrained unqualified denotes unrestraint as regards bodily pleasures and pains, is that we speak of men as
soft who yield to these, but not those who yield to anger or the like.) And hence we class the unrestrained man with the profligate (and the self-restrained with the temperate)
30
, but not those who yield to anger or the like, because Unrestraint and Profligacy are related to the same pleasures and pains. But as a matter of fact, although they are related to the same things, they are not related to them in the same way; the profligate acts from choice, the unrestrained man does not. Hence we should pronounce a man who pursues excessive pleasures and avoids moderate pains when he feels only weak desires or none at all, to be more profligate than one who does so owing to
20
intense desires; for what would the former do if he possessed the ardent desires of youth, and felt violent pain when debarred from the
necessary pleasures?
And inasmuch as some desires and pleasures relate to things that are noble and good in kind (for some pleasant things are desirable by nature, others the opposite, while others again are neutral—compare the classification we gave above
31
) : for instance money, gain, victory, honor: and inasmuch as in relation to all these naturally desirable things, as well as to the neutral ones, men are not blamed merely for regarding or desiring or liking them, but for doing so in a certain way, namely to excess (hence those
32
who yield to or pursue, contrary to principle, anything naturally noble and good, for example those who care too much for honor, or for their children and their parents—for parents and children are good things and people are praised who care for them, but nevertheless it is possible even in their case to go to excess, by vying even with the gods like Niobe,
33
or as Satyrus did,
34
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1
who was nicknamed the filial for his devotion to his father, for he was thought to carry it to the point of infatuation—) : well then, there cannot be any actual Vice in relation to these things, because, as has been said, each of them is in itself desirable by nature, although excessive devotion to them is bad and to be avoided.
And similarly there cannot be Unrestraint either, since that is not merely to be avoided, but actually blameworthy; though people do use the term in these matters with a qualification—
unrestraint in whatever it may be—because the affection does resemble Unrestraint proper; just as they speak of someone as a bad doctor or bad actor whom they would not call simply
bad. As therefore we do not call bad doctors and actors bad men, because neither kind of incapacity is actually a vice, but only resembles Vice by analogy, so in the former case it is clear that only self-restraint and lack of restraint in regard to the same things as are the objects of Temperance and Profligacy are to be deemed Self-restraint and Unrestraint proper, and that these terms are applied to anger only by analogy; and so we add a qualification,
unrestrained in anger, just as we say
unrestrained in the pursuit of honor or
gain.
Besides those things however which are naturally pleasant, of which some are pleasant generally and others pleasant to particular races of animals and of men, there are other things, not naturally pleasant, which become pleasant either as a result of arrested development or from habit, or in some cases owing to natural depravity. Now corresponding to each of these kinds of unnatural pleasures we may observe a related disposition of character.
I mean bestial characters,
20
like the creature in woman’s form
35
that is said to rip up pregnant females and devour their offspring, or certain savage tribes on the coasts of the Black Sea, who are alleged to delight in raw meat or in human flesh, and others among whom each in turn provides a child for the common banquet
36
; or the reported depravity of Phalaris.
37
These are instances of Bestiality. Other unnatural propensities are due to disease, and sometimes to insanity, as in the case of the madman that offered up his mother to the gods and partook of the sacrifice, or the one that ate his fellow slave’s liver. Other morbid propensities are acquired by habit, for instance, plucking out the hair, biting the nails, eating cinders and earth, and also sexual perversion. These practices result in some cases from natural disposition, and in others from habit, as with those who have been abused from childhood.
When nature is responsible, no one would describe such persons as showing Unrestraint, any more than one would apply that term to women because they are passive and not active in sexual intercourse; nor should we class as Unrestraint a morbid state brought about by habitual indulgence.
Now these various morbid dispositions in themselves
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1
do not fall within the limits of Vice, nor yet does Bestiality; and to conquer or yield to them does not constitute Unrestraint
38
in the strict sense, but only the state so called by analogy; just as a man who cannot control his anger must be described as
unrestrained in that passion, not
unrestrained.
(Indeed folly, cowardice, profligacy, and ill-temper, whenever they run to excess, are either bestial or morbid conditions.
One so constituted by nature as to be frightened by everything, even the sound of a mouse, shows the cowardice of a lower animal; the man who was afraid of a weasel was a case of disease. So with folly: people irrational by nature and living solely by sensation, like certain remote tribes of barbarians, belong to the bestial class; those who lose their reason owing to some disease, such as epilepsy, or through insanity, to the morbid.)
With these unnatural propensities it is possible in some cases merely to have the disposition and not to yield to it: I mean, for instance, Phalaris
39
might have had the desire to eat a child, or to practise unnatural vice, and refrained; or it is possible not merely to possess but to yield to the propensity.
As therefore with Vice, that natural to man is called simply vice, whereas the other kind
40
is termed not simply vice, but vice with the qualifying epithet bestial or morbid, similarly with Unrestraint, it is clear that the bestial and morbid kinds are distinct from unrestraint proper, and that the name without qualification belongs only
20
to that kind of unrestraint which is co-extensive with Profligacy of the human sort.
It is clear then that Self-restraint and Unrestraint relate only to the objects to which Temperance and Profligacy are related, and that unrestraint in relation to anything else is of another kind, which is only so called metaphorically and with a qualification.
Let us now consider the point that Unrestraint in anger
41
is less disgraceful than Unrestraint in the desires.
Now it appears that anger does to some extent hear reason, but hears it wrong, just as hasty servants hurry out of the room before they have heard the whole of what you are saying, and so mistake your order, and as watch-dogs bark at a mere knock at the door, without waiting to see if it is a friend. Similarly anger, owing to the heat and swiftness of its nature, hears, but does not hear the order given, and rushes off to take vengeance. When reason or imagination suggests that an insult or slight has been received, anger flares up at once, but after reasoning as it were that you ought to make war on anybody who insults you. Desire on the other hand, at a mere hint from [the reason or
42
] the senses that a thing is pleasant, rushes off to enjoy it.
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1
Hence anger follows reason in a manner, but desire does not. Therefore yielding to desire is more disgraceful than yielding to anger, for he that fails to restrain his anger is in a way controlled by reason, but the other
43
is controlled not by reason but by desire.
Again, when impulses are natural, it is more excusable to follow them, since even with the desires it is more excusable to follow those that are common to all men, and in so far as they are common. But anger and bad temper are more natural than desire for excessive and unnecessary pleasures; witness the man who was had up for beating his father and who said in his defence, “Well, my father used to beat his father, and he used to beat his, and (pointing to his little boy) so will my son here beat me when he grows up; it runs in our family”; and the man who, when his son was throwing him out of the house, used to beg him to stop when he got to the door,
because he only used to drag his father as far as that.
44
Again, the craftier men are, the more Unjust they are.
As therefore unrestraint in desire is more unjust as well as more disgraceful than unrestraint as regards anger, unrestraint in desire is Unrestraint in the strict sense, and
20
is even in a certain sense Vice.
Again, a wanton outrage
47
gives pleasure to the doer, never pain, whereas an act done in anger always causes him a feeling of pain. If then things are unjust in proportion to the justice of the anger they arouse in the victim, unrestraint arising from desire is more unjust than that arising from anger; for anger contains no element of wanton insolence.
It is clear therefore that unrestraint in one’s desires is more disgraceful than unrestraint in anger, and that it is in relation to bodily desires and pleasures that Self-restraint and Unrestraint are really manifested.
But we must distinguish among the bodily desires and pleasures themselves. As was said at the beginning,
48
some of these are human and natural both in kind and degree, some bestial, and some due to arrested development or disease. Now it is only with the first class that Temperance and Profligacy are concerned; hence we do not use the terms temperate or profligate of the lower animals, except metaphorically, of certain entire species distinguished from the rest by their exceptionally lascivious, mischievous, or omnivorous habits; for animals have neither the faculty of choice nor of calculation: they are aberrations from nature,
49
like men who are insane.
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1
Bestiality
50
is less 〈evil〉 than vice, though more horrible: for 〈in a bestial man as in an animal〉 the highest part 〈i.e. the intellect〉 is not corrupted, as it is in a man 〈who is wicked in a human way〉, but entirely lacking. So that it is like comparing an inanimate with an animate thing, and asking which is the more evil; for the badness of a thing which has no originating principle—and intelligence is such a principle—is always less capable of mischief.
51
(It is therefore like comparing Injustice with an unjust man: one is worse in one way and the other in another). For a bad man can do ten thousand times more harm than an animal 〈or a bestial man〉.
(iii) But in relation to the pleasures and pains of touch and taste, and the corresponding desires and acts of avoidance, which have already
52
been defined as the sphere in which Profligacy and Temperance are displayed, it is possible on the one hand to have such a disposition as to succumb even to those temptations to which most men are superior, or on the other hand to conquer even those to which most men succumb. These two dispositions, when manifested in relation to pleasure, constitute Unrestraint and Restraint respectively; when in relation to pain, Softness and Endurance. The disposition of the great majority of men lies between the two, though they incline rather to the worse extremes.
And inasmuch as some pleasures are necessary and others not, and the former are only necessary within certain limits, excessive indulgence in them not being necessary, nor yet deficient indulgence
53
either, and inasmuch as the same holds good also of desires and of pains, one who pursues excessive pleasures, or pursues things
54
to excess
20
and from choice, for their own sakes and not for the sake of some ulterior consequence, is a profligate; for a man of this character is certain to feel no regret for his excesses afterwards, and this being so, he is incurable,
55
since there is no cure for one who does not regret his error. The man deficient in the enjoyment of pleasures is the opposite of the profligate; and the middle character is the temperate man. And similarly, he who avoids bodily pains not because his will is overpowered but of deliberate choice, is also profligate.
(Those on the other hand who yield not from choice, are prompted either by the pleasure of indulgence, or by the impulse to avoid the pain of unsatisfied desire. Hence there is a difference between deliberate and non-deliberate indulgence. Everyone would think a man worse if he did something disgraceful when he felt only a slight desire, or none at all, than if he acted from a strong desire, or if he struck another in cold blood than if he did so in anger; for what would he have done had his passions been aroused? Hence the profligate man is worse than the unrestrained.)
Of the dispositions described above, the deliberate avoidance of pain is rather a kind
56
of Softness; the deliberate pursuit of pleasure is Profligacy in the strict sense.
Self-restraint is the opposite of Unrestraint, Endurance of Softness; for Endurance means only successful resistance, whereas Restraint implies mastery, which is a different matter: victory is more glorious than the mere avoidance of defeat. Hence self-restraint is a more valuable quality than Endurance.
1150b
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One who is deficient in resistance to pains that most men withstand with success, is soft or luxurious (for Luxury is a kind of Softness) : such a man lets his cloak trail on the ground to escape the fatigue and trouble of lifting it, or feigns sickness, not seeing that to counterfeit misery is to be miserable.
The same holds good of Self-restraint and Unrestraint. It is not surprising that a man should be overcome by violent and excessive pleasures or pains: indeed it is excusable if he succumbs after a struggle, like Philoctetes in Theodectes when bitten by the viper, or Kerkyon in the
Alope of Karkinos, or as men who try to restrain their laughter explode in one great guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus.
57
But we are surprised when a man is overcome by pleasures and pains which most men are able to withstand, except when his failure to resist is due to some innate tendency, or to disease: instances of the former being the hereditary effeminacy
58
of the royal family of
Scythia
, and the inferior endurance of the female sex as compared with the male.
People too fond of amusement are thought to be profligate, but really they are soft; for amusement is rest, and therefore a slackening of effort, and addiction to amusement is a form of excessive slackness.
59
But there are two forms of Unrestraint, Impetuousness and Weakness.
20
The weak deliberate, but then are prevented by passion from keeping to their resolution; the impetuous are led by passion because they do not stop to deliberate: since some people withstand the attacks of passion, whether pleasant or painful, by feeling or seeing them coming, and rousing themselves, that is, their reasoning faculty, in advance, just as one is proof against tickling if one has just been tickled already.
60
It is the quick and the excitable who are most liable to the impetuous form of Unrestraint, because the former are too hasty and the latter too vehement to wait for reason, being prone to follow their imagination.
The profligate, as we said,
61
does not feel remorse, for he abides by his choice; the unrestrained man on the other hand invariably repents his excesses afterwards. Hence the objection that we stated
62
does not hold good; on the contrary, it is the profligate who cannot be cured, whereas the unrestrained man can; for Vice resembles diseases like dropsy and consumption, whereas Unrestraint is like epilepsy, Vice being a chronic, Unrestraint an intermittent evil. Indeed Unrestraint and Vice are entirely different in kind, for Vice is unconscious, whereas the unrestrained man is aware of his infirmity.
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1
Among the unrestrained themselves, the impulsive
63
sort are better than those who know the right principle but do not keep to it; for these succumb to smaller temptations, and they do not yield without deliberation, as do the impulsive; the unrestrained
64
man is like people who get drunk quickly, and with a small amount of wine, or with less than most men.
That Unrestraint is not strictly a vice (though it is perhaps vice in a sense), is clear; for Unrestraint acts against deliberate choice, Vice in accordance with it. But nevertheless in the actions that result from it it resembles Vice: just as Demodocus wrote of the people of
Miletus
—
Similarly the unrestrained are not unjust, but they do unjust things.
Milesians are no fools, ’tis true
But yet they act as fools would do.
Again,
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the unrestrained man is so constituted as to pursue bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to right principle without any belief that he ought to do so, whereas the profligate, because he is so constituted as to pursue them, is convinced that he ought to pursue them. Therefore the former can easily be persuaded to change,
66
but the latter cannot. For virtue preserves the fundamental principle,
67
vice destroys it, and the first principle or starting-point in matters of conduct is the end proposed, which corresponds to the hypotheses
68
of mathematics; hence no more in ethics than in mathematics are the first principles imparted by process of reasoning, but by virtue, whether natural or acquired by training in right opinion as to the first principle. The man of principle therefore is temperate,
20
the man who has lost all principle, profligate.
But there is a person who abandons his choice, against right principle, under the influence of passion, who is mastered by passion sufficiently for him not to act in accordance with right principle, but not so completely as to be of such a character as to believe that the reckless pursuit of pleasure is right. This is the unrestrained man: he is better than the profligate, and not absolutely bad, for in him the highest part of man, the fundamental principle, is still preserved. Opposed to the unrestrained man is another, who stands firm by his choice, and does not abandon it under the mere impulse of passion.
It is clear then from these considerations that Self-restraint is a good quality and Unrestraint a bad one.
Is then a man self-restrained if he stands by a principle or choice of any sort, or must it be the right choice? and is a man unrestrained if he fails to stand by a choice or principle of any sort, or only if he fails to stand by the true principle and the right choice? This difficulty was raised before.
69
Perhaps the answer is, that though accidentally it may be any principle or choice, essentially it is the true principle and the right choice that the one stands by and the other does not; in the sense that if a man chooses or pursues
b as a means to
a,
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a is essentially,
b only accidentally, his object and his choice. And by
essentially we mean
absolutely ; hence while in a sense it is any sort of opinion, speaking absolutely it is the true opinion that the one stands by and the other abandons.
But there are some persons who stand by their opinion whom we call
obstinate, meaning that they are hard to convince, and not easily persuaded to change their convictions. These bear some resemblance to the self-restrained man, as the prodigal does to the liberal, and the reckless to the brave; but they are really different in many respects. The self-restrained man stands firm against passion and desire: he will be ready on occasion to yield to persuasion; but the obstinate stand firm against reason: they are not proof against desire, and are often led by pleasure.
Types of obstinacy are the opinionated, the stupid, and the boorish. The motives of the opinionated are pleasure and pain: the agreeable sense of victory in not being persuaded to change their minds, and the annoyance of having the decrees of their sovereign will and pleasure annulled. Hence they really resemble the unrestrained more than the restrained.
And there are some who fail to abide by their resolves from some other cause than lack of self-restraint, for instance, Neoptolemus
70
in the
PhiIoctetesof Sophocles. It is true that his motive for changing was pleasure, though a noble pleasure,
20
since it was pleasant
71
for him to speak the truth, and he had only told a lie at the instigation of Odysseus. In fact, not everyone whose conduct is guided by pleasure is either profligate and base, or unrestrained, but only those who yield to disgraceful pleasures.
There is also a character
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that takes less than the proper amount of pleasure in the things of the body, and that fails to stand by principle in that sense. The self-restrained man therefore is really intermediate between the unrestrained man and the type described. The unrestrained man departs from principle because he enjoys bodily pleasures too much, the person described does so because he enjoys them too little; while the self-restrained man stands by principle and does not change from either cause. And inasmuch as Self-restraint is good, it follows that both the dispositions opposed to it are bad, as indeed they appear to be; but because one of the two is found only in a few people, and is rarely displayed, Unrestraint is thought to be the sole opposite of Self-restraint, just as Profligacy is thought to be the sole opposite of Temperance.
Many terms are used in an analogical sense, and so we have come to speak by analogy of the
self-restraint of the temperate man, because the temperate man, as well as the self-restrained, is so constituted as never to be led by the pleasures of the body to act against principle.
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But whereas the self-restrained man has evil desires,
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the temperate man has none; he is so constituted as to take no pleasure in things that are contrary to principle, whereas the self-restrained man does feel pleasure in such things, but does not yield to it.
There is also a resemblance between the unrestrained man and the profligate, though they are really distinct: both pursue bodily pleasures, but the profligate thinks it right to do so, the man who lacks self-restraint does not.
Again, the same person cannot be at once unrestrained and prudent, for it has been shown
74
that Prudence is inseparable from Moral Virtue.
Also, Prudence does not consist only in knowing what is right, but also in doing it; but the unrestrained man does not do the right.
75
(Cleverness on the other hand is not incompatible with Unrestraint—which is why it is sometimes thought that some people are prudent and yet unrestrained—because Cleverness differs from Prudence in the manner explained in our first discourse
76
: as being intellectual faculties
77
they are closely akin, but they differ in that Prudence involves deliberate choice.)
Nor indeed does the unrestrained man even know the right in the sense of one who consciously exercises his knowledge, but only as a man asleep or drunk can be said to know something. Also, although he errs willingly (for he knows in a sense both what he is doing and what end he is aiming at) , yet he is not wicked, for his moral choice is sound, so that he is only half-wicked. And he is not unjust, for he does not deliberately design to do harm,
78
since the one type of unrestrained person does not keep to the resolve he has formed after deliberation, and the other, the excitable type, does not deliberate at all.
20
In fact the unrestrained man resembles a state which passes all the proper enactments, and has good laws, but which never keeps its laws: the condition of things satirized by Anaxandrides—
The state, that recks not of the laws, would fain . .
whereas the bad man is like a state which keeps its laws but whose laws are bad.
Both Self-restraint and Unrestraint are a matter of extremes as compared with the character of the mass of mankind; the restrained man shows more and the unrestrained man less steadfastness than most men are capable of.
Reformation is more possible with that type of Unrestraint which is displayed by persons of an excitable temperament than it is with those who deliberate as to what they ought to do, but do not keep to the resolution they form. And those who have become unrestrained through habit are more easily cured than those who are unrestrained by nature, since habit is easier to change than nature; for even habit is hard to change, precisely because it is a sort of nature, as Evenus says:
Mark me, my friend, ’tis
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long-continued training,
And training in the end becomes men’s nature.
We have now discussed the nature of Self-restraint and Unrestraint, and of Endurance and Softness, and have shown how these dispositions are related to one another.
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It is also the business of the political philosopher to examine the nature of Pleasure and Pain; for he is the master-craftsman, and lays down the end which is the standard whereby we pronounce things good or bad in the absolute sense.
Moreover this investigation is fundamental for our study, because we have established
80
that Moral Virtue and Vice are concerned with pleasures and pains, and most people hold that pleasure is a necessary adjunct of Happiness, which is why the word denoting
supreme bliss is derived from the verb meaning
to enjoy.
81
Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good thing, whether essentially or accidentally. They argue that Good and Pleasure are two distinct things.
(2) Others hold that though some pleasures are good, most are bad.
(3) There is also a third view, that even if all pleasures are good, nevertheless pleasure cannot be the Supreme Good.
82
(1) To prove that pleasure is not a good at all, it is argued that
(a) Every pleasure is a conscious process towards a natural state; but a process can in no case belong to the same order of things as its end; for example, the process of building cannot be a thing of the same sort as the house built.
(b) The temperate man avoids pleasures.
(c) The prudent man pursues freedom from pain, not pleasure.
(d) Pleasures are a hindrance to prudent deliberation, and the more so the more enjoyable they are; for instance, sexual pleasure: no one could think of anything while indulging in it.
(e) There is no art of pleasure; yet with every good thing there is an art which produces it.
(f) Children 20 and animals pursue pleasures.
(a) Every pleasure is a conscious process towards a natural state; but a process can in no case belong to the same order of things as its end; for example, the process of building cannot be a thing of the same sort as the house built.
(b) The temperate man avoids pleasures.
(c) The prudent man pursues freedom from pain, not pleasure.
(d) Pleasures are a hindrance to prudent deliberation, and the more so the more enjoyable they are; for instance, sexual pleasure: no one could think of anything while indulging in it.
(e) There is no art of pleasure; yet with every good thing there is an art which produces it.
(f) Children 20 and animals pursue pleasures.
(2) To prove that not all pleasures are good, it is argued that
(a) Some pleasures are disgraceful, and discredit the man who indulges in them.
(b) Some pleasures are harmful, for certain pleasant things cause disease.
(a) Some pleasures are disgraceful, and discredit the man who indulges in them.
(b) Some pleasures are harmful, for certain pleasant things cause disease.
(3) To prove that pleasure is not the Supreme Good, it is argued that it is not an end but a process.
These then, more or less, are the current views.
But the following considerations will show that these arguments are not conclusive to prove (1) that pleasure is not a good at all, nor (3) that it is not the Supreme Good.
(1) (a) In the first place (i.)
the good has two meanings: it means both that which is good absolutely, and that which is good for somebody, or relatively. Consequently the term
good has the same double meaning when applied to men’s natures and dispositions; and therefore also when applied to movements and to processes. Also those processes which are thought to be bad will in some cases, though bad absolutely, be not bad relatively, but in fact desirable for a particular person, or in other cases, though not even desirable generally for the particular person, nevertheless desirable for him in particular circumstances and for a short time, although not really desirable. And some such processes
83
are not really pleasures at all, but only seem to be so: I mean the painful processes that are undergone for their curative effects, for instance, treatment applied to the sick.
Again (ii.) , the good is either an
activity or a
state. Now the pleasures that restore us to our natural
state are only accidentally pleasant; while the
activity of desire is the activity of that part of us which has remained in the natural state
84
: for that matter, there are some pleasures which do not involve pain or desire at all
1153a
1
(for instance, the pleasure of contemplation), being experienced without any deficiency from the normal having occurred. That restorative pleasures are only accidentally pleasant is indicated by the fact that we do not enjoy the same things while the natural state is being replenished as we do after it has been restored to the normal; in the normal state we enjoy things that are absolutely pleasant, but during the process of replenishment we enjoy even their opposites; for instance, sour and bitter things, none of which are naturally or absolutely pleasant, so that the pleasures we get from them are not naturally or absolutely pleasant either, since there is the same distinction between various pleasures as there is between the pleasant things from which they arise.
Again (iii.) , it does not follow, as some argue, that as the end is better than the process towards it, so there must be something better than pleasure. For pleasures are not really processes, nor are they all incidental to a process: they are activities, and therefore an end; nor do they result from the process of acquiring our faculties, but from their exercise; nor have they all of them some end other than themselves: this is only true of the pleasures of progress towards the perfection of our nature. Hence it is not correct to define pleasure as a
conscious process ; the term should rather be
activity of our natural state, and for
conscious we must substitute
unimpeded. Some thinkers hold that pleasure is a process on the ground that it is good in the fullest sense, because in their view an activity is a process; but really an activity is different from a process.
To argue (2) (b) that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are detrimental to health is the same as to argue that health is bad because some healthy things are bad for the pocket. Both pleasant things and healthy things can be bad in a relative sense, but that does not make them really bad;
20
even contemplation may on occasion be injurious to health.
(1) (d) Neither prudence nor any other quality is hampered by its own pleasure, but only by alien pleasures
85
; the pleasures of contemplation and study will enable us to contemplate and study better.
(1) (e) That there should be no art devoted to the production of any form of pleasure is only natural; an art never produces an activity, but the capacity for an activity. Though in point of fact the arts of perfumery and cookery are generally considered to be arts of pleasure.
The arguments (1) (b) that the temperate man avoids pleasure, and (1) (c) that the prudent man pursues freedom from pain, and (1) (f) that animals and children pursue pleasure, are all met by the same reply. It has been explained
86
how some pleasures are absolutely good, and how not all pleasures are good.
87
Now it is those pleasures which are not absolutely good that both animals and children pursue, and it is freedom from pain arising from the want of those pleasures that the prudent man pursues
88
: that is, the pleasures that involve desire and pain, namely the bodily pleasures (for these are of that nature) , or their excessive forms, in regard to which Profligacy is displayed. That is why the temperate man avoids excessive bodily pleasures: for even the temperate man has pleasures.
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That pain moreover is an evil and to be avoided is admitted; since all pain is either absolutely evil, or evil as being some way an impediment to activity. But that which is the opposite of something to be avoided—opposed to it as a thing to be avoided and evil—must be good. It follows therefore that pleasure is a good. Speusippus attempted to refute this argument
89
by saying that, as the greater is opposed to the equal as well as to the less, so pleasure is opposed to a neutral state of feeling as well as to pain. But this refutation does not hold good; for Speusippus would not maintain that pleasure is essentially evil.
But granting (2) that some pleasures are bad, it does not therefore follow (3) that a certain pleasure may not nevertheless be the Supreme Good; just as a certain form of knowledge may be supremely good, although some forms of knowledge are bad. On the contrary (i) since every faculty has its unimpeded activity, the activity of all the faculties, or of one of them (whichever constitutes Happiness) , when unimpeded, must probably be the most desirable thing there is; but an unimpeded activity is a pleasure; so that on this showing the Supreme Good will be a particular kind of pleasure, even though most pleasures are bad, and, it may be, bad absolutely. This is why everybody thinks that the happy life must be a pleasant life, and regards pleasure as a necessary ingredient of happiness; and with good reason, since no impeded activity is perfect, whereas Happiness is essentially perfect; so that the happy man requires in addition the goods of the body, external goods and the gifts of fortune, in order that his activity may not be impeded through lack of them.
(Consequently those who say
90
that, if a man be good,
20
he will be happy even when on the rack, or when fallen into the direst misfortune, are intentionally or unintentionally talking nonsense.)
But because Happiness requires the gifts of fortune in addition, some people think that it is the same thing as good fortune; but this is not so, since even good fortune itself when excessive is an impediment to activity, and perhaps indeed no longer deserves to be called good fortune, since good fortune can only be defined in relation to Happiness.
(ii.) Moreover, that all animals and all human beings pursue pleasure is some indication that it is in a sense the Supreme Good:
No rumor noised abroad by many peoples
Comes utterly to naught.
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But they do not all pursue the same pleasure, since the natural state and the best state neither is nor seems to be the same for them all; yet still they all pursue pleasure. Indeed it is possible that in reality they do not pursue the pleasure which they think and would say they do, but all the same pleasure; for nature has implanted in all things something divine.
92
But as the pleasures of the body are the ones which we most often meet with, and as all men are capable of these, these have usurped the family title; and so men think these are the only pleasures that exist, because they are the only ones which they know.
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(iii.) Moreover, it is clear that if pleasure is not good and activity is not pleasure,
93
the life of the happy man will not necessarily be pleasant. For why should he need pleasure if it is not good? On the contrary, his life may even be painful; for if pleasure is neither good nor evil, no more is pain either, so why should he avoid it? And if the good man’s activities are not pleasanter than those of others, his life will not be pleasanter either.
On the subject of the bodily pleasures, we must examine the view of those who say that though it is true that some pleasures, which they call the noble pleasures, are highly desirable, yet bodily pleasures and those which are the objects of the profligate are not desirable.
If so, why are the pains opposed to them evil? since the opposite of evil is good. Perhaps the true view is, that the necessary pleasures are good in the sense that what is not evil is good; or that they are good up to a point: for though you cannot have excessive pleasure from states and movements which cannot themselves be in excess of what is good, you can have excessive pleasure from those which themselves admit of excess. Now you can have an excess of the bodily goods; and it is pursuing this excess that makes a bad man, not pursuing the necessary pleasures, for everybody enjoys savory food, wine, and sexual pleasure in some degree, though not everybody to the right degree. With pain it is the other way about
94
: one avoids not merely excessive pain, but all pain;
20
for the opposite of excessive pleasure is not pain at all, except to the man who pursues excessive pleasure.
We ought however not only to state the true view, but also to account for the false one, since to do so helps to confirm the true; for when we have found a probable explanation why something appears to be true though it is not true, this increases our belief in the truth.
We have then to explain why it is that bodily pleasures appear to be more desirable than others.
(1) Now the first reason is that pleasure drives out pain; and excessive pain leads men to seek excessive pleasure, and bodily pleasure generally, as a restorative. And these restorative pleasures are intense, and therefore sought for, because they are seen in contrast with their opposite. (The view that pleasure is not a good at all is also due to these two facts, as has been said,
95
(a) that some pleasures are actions indicative of an evil nature, whether it be depraved from birth, like the nature of an animal,
96
or corrupted by habit, as is the case with evil men, and (b) that others are restoratives of a defective state,
97
and to be in the natural state is better than to be in process of returning to it.
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But as a matter of fact the latter sort of pleasures accompany a process towards perfection, so that accidentally they are good.)
(2) Another reason is that bodily pleasures are sought for, just because of their intensity, by people who are incapable of enjoying others (for instance, some deliberately take steps to make themselves thirsty) : not that there is any objection to this if the pleasures are innocuous, but it is bad if they are productive of harmful results. The fact is that some men have no other sources of enjoyment; and also many are so constituted that a neutral state of feeling is to them positively painful. (This is because a state of strain is the normal condition of an animal organism, as physiology testifies; it tells us that sight and hearing are in fact painful, but we have got used to them in course of time—such is the theory.)
Similarly the young are in a condition resembling intoxication, because they are growing, and youth is pleasant in itself; but persons of an excitable nature need a restorative perpetually, because their temperament keeps their bodies in a constant state of irritation, and their appetites are continually active; and any pleasure, if strong, drives out pain, not only the opposite pleasure. This is why excitable men become profligate and vicious.
Pleasures unaccompanied by pain, on the other hand—and these are those derived from things naturally and not accidentally pleasant—do not admit of excess. By things accidentally pleasant I mean things taken as restoratives; really their restorative effect is produced by the operation
98
of that part of the system which has remained sound, and hence the remedy itself is thought to be pleasant.
20
Those things on the contrary are naturally pleasant which stimulate the activity of a given nature.
99
Nothing however can continue to give us pleasure always, because our nature is not simple, but contains a second element (which is what makes us perishable beings), and consequently, whenever one of these two elements is active, its activity runs counter to the nature of the other, while when the two are balanced, their action feels neither painful nor pleasant. Since if any man had a simple nature, the same activity would afford him the greatest pleasure always. Hence God enjoys a single simple pleasure perpetually. For there is not only an activity of motion: but also an activity of immobility, and there is essentially a truer pleasure in rest than in motion. But change in all things is sweet, as the poet says,
100
owing to some badness in us; since just as a changeable man is bad, so also is a nature that needs change; for it is not simple nor good.
We have now discussed the nature of Self-restraint and Unrestraint, and of Pleasure and Pain, and have shown in either case in what sense one of the two is good and the other evil. It remains for us to speak of Friendship.
Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle. Harris Rackham (Translator). London. 1926.
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