On Friendship,
Bk. VII of the Nicomachean Ethics [ref. 1145-1154]
In Book VII of the Nich. Ethics, Aristotle discusses the nature
of the inability not to fo what one believes is wrong [ie incontinent
behavior]. In #5, he addresses the issue of pederasty. The whole
chapter is hive here for context, the "homosexual" section
is highlighted.
1
LET us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral
states to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence,
brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident,-one we
call virtue, the other continence; to brutishness it would be
most fitting to oppose superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine
kind of virtue, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector
that he was very good,
For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God's seed came.
Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue,
of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish
state; for as a brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a
god; his state is higher than virtue, and that of a brute is a
different kind of state from vice.
Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found-to use the
epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call
him a 'godlike man'-so too the brutish type is rarely found among
men; it is found chiefly among barbarians, but some brutish qualities
are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by
this evil name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards
by reason of vice. Of this kind of disposition, however, we must
later make some mention, while we have discussed vice before we
must now discuss incontinence and softness (or effeminacy), and
continence and endurance; for we must treat each of the two neither
as identical with virtue or wickedness, nor as a different genus.
We must, as in all other cases, set the observed facts before
us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove,
if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these
affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number
and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections
and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved
the case sufficiently.
Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included
among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and
soft, ness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man
is thought to be continent and ready to abide by the result of
his calculations, or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And
(2) the incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does
it as a result of passion, while the continent man, knowing that
his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle
to follow them (3) The temperate man all men call continent and
disposed to endurance, while the continent man some maintain to
be always temperate but others do not; and some call the self-indulgent
man incontinent and the incontinent man selfindulgent indiscriminately,
while others distinguish them. (4) The man of practical wisdom,
they sometimes say, cannot be incontinent, while sometimes they
say that some who are practically wise and clever are incontinent.
Again (5) men are said to be incontinent even with respect to
anger, honour, and gain.-These, then, are the things that are
said.
2
Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave incontinently.
That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some say is impossible;
for it would be strange-so Socrates thought-if when knowledge
was in a man something else could master it and drag it about
like a slave. For Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in
question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence;
no one, he said, when he judges acts against what he judges best-people
act so only by reason of ignorance. Now this view plainly contradicts
the observed facts, and we must inquire about what happens to
such a man; if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner
of his ignorance? For that the man who behaves incontinently does
not, before he gets into this state, think he ought to act so,
is evident. But there are some who concede certain of Socrates'
contentions but not others; that nothing is stronger than knowledge
they admit, but not that on one acts contrary to what has seemed
to him the better course, and therefore they say that the incontinent
man has not knowledge when he is mastered by his pleasures, but
opinion. But if it is opinion and not knowledge, if it is not
a strong conviction that resists but a weak one, as in men who
hesitate, we sympathize with their failure to stand by such convictions
against strong appetites; but we do not sympathize with wickedness,
nor with any of the other blameworthy states. Is it then practical
wisdom whose resistance is mastered? That is the strongest of
all states. But this is absurd; the same man will be at once practically
wise and incontinent, but no one would say that it is the part
of a practically wise man to do willingly the basest acts. Besides,
it has been shown before that the man of practical wisdom is one
who will act (for he is a man concerned with the individual facts)
and who has the other virtues.
(2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites,
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man
temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor
bad appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites
are good, the state of character that restrains us from following
them is bad, so that not all continence will be good; while if
they are weak and not bad, there is nothing admirable in resisting
them, and if they are weak and bad, there is nothing great in
resisting these either.
(3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and
every opinion, it is bad, i.e. if it makes him stand even by a
false opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon
any and every opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which
Sophocles' Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes will be an instance;
for he is to be praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded
him to do, because he is pained at telling a lie.
(4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the
syllogism arising from men's wish to expose paradoxical results
arising from an opponent's view, in order that they may be admired
when they succeed, is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought
is bound fast when it will not rest because the conclusion does
not satisfy it, and cannot advance because it cannot refute the
argument). There is an argument from which it follows that folly
coupled with incontinence is virtue; for a man does the opposite
of what he judges, owing to incontinence, but judges what is good
to be evil and something that he should not do, and consequence
he will do what is good and not what is evil.
(5) Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses
what is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does
so as a result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he
is easier to cure since he may be persuaded to change his mind.
But to the incontinent man may be applied the proverb 'when water
chokes, what is one to wash it down with?' If he had been persuaded
of the rightness of what he does, he would have desisted when
he was persuaded to change his mind; but now he acts in spite
of his being persuaded of something quite different.
(6) Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with
any and every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in
the unqualified sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence,
but we say some people are incontinent without qualification.
3
Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these
points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the
field; for the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of
the truth. (1) We must consider first, then, whether incontinent
people act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly; then
(2) with what sorts of object the incontinent and the continent
man may be said to be concerned (i.e. whether with any and every
pleasure and pain or with certain determinate kinds), and whether
the continent man and the man of endurance are the same or different;
and similarly with regard to the other matters germane to this
inquiry. The starting-point of our investigation is (a) the question
whether the continent man and the incontinent are differentiated
by their objects or by their attitude, i.e. whether the incontinent
man is incontinent simply by being concerned with such and such
objects, or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of that, by
both these things; (b) the second question is whether incontinence
and continence are concerned with any and every object or not.
The man who is incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither
concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those
with which the self-indulgent man is concerned, nor is he characterized
by being simply related to these (for then his state would be
the same as self-indulgence), but by being related to them in
a certain way. For the one is led on in accordance with his own
choice, thinking that he ought always to pursue the present pleasure;
while the other does not think so, but yet pursues it.
(1) As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge
against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference to
the argument; for some people when in a state of opinion do not
hesitate, but think they know exactly. If, then, the notion is
that owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are
more likely to act against their judgement than those who know,
we answer that there need be no difference between knowledge and
opinion in this respect; for some men are no less convinced of
what they think than others of what they know; as is shown by
the of Heraclitus. But (a), since we use the word 'know' in two
senses (for both the man who has knowledge but is not using it
and he who is using it are said to know), it will make a difference
whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the knowledge
but is not exercising it, or is exercising it; for the latter
seems strange, but not the former.
(b) Further, since there are two kinds of premisses, there is
nothing to prevent a man's having both premisses and acting against
his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premiss
and not the particular; for it is particular acts that have to
be done. And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is
predicable of the agent, the other of the object; e.g. 'dry food
is good for every man', and 'I am a man', or 'such and such food
is dry'; but whether 'this food is such and such', of this the
incontinent man either has not or is not exercising the knowledge.
There will, then, be, firstly, an enormous difference between
these manners of knowing, so that to know in one way when we act
incontinently would not seem anything strange, while to know in
the other way would be extraordinary.
And further (c) the possession of knowledge in another sense than
those just named is something that happens to men; for within
the case of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference
of state, admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in
a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep,
mad, or drunk. But now this is just the condition of men under
the influence of passions; for outbursts of anger and sexual appetites
and some other such passions, it is evident, actually alter our
bodily condition, and in some men even produce fits of madness.
It is plain, then, that incontinent people must be said to be
in a similar condition to men asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact
that men use the language that flows from knowledge proves nothing;
for even men under the influence of these passions utter scientific
proofs and verses of Empedocles, and those who have just begun
to learn a science can string together its phrases, but do not
yet know it; for it has to become part of themselves, and that
takes time; so that we must suppose that the use of language by
men in an incontinent state means no more than its utterance by
actors on the stage. (d) Again, we may also view the cause as
follows with reference to the facts of human nature. The one opinion
is universal, the other is concerned with the particular facts,
and here we come to something within the sphere of perception;
when a single opinion results from the two, the soul must in one
type of case affirm the conclusion, while in the case of opinions
concerned with production it must immediately act (e.g. if 'everything
sweet ought to be tasted', and 'this is sweet', in the sense of
being one of the particular sweet things, the man who can act
and is not prevented must at the same time actually act accordingly).
When, then, the universal opinion is present in us forbidding
us to taste, and there is also the opinion that 'everything sweet
is pleasant', and that 'this is sweet' (now this is the opinion
that is active), and when appetite happens to be present in us,
the one opinion bids us avoid the object, but appetite leads us
towards it (for it can move each of our bodily parts); so that
it turns out that a man behaves incontinently under the influence
(in a sense) of a rule and an opinion, and of one not contrary
in itself, but only incidentally-for the appetite is contrary,
not the opinion-to the right rule. It also follows that this is
the reason why the lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because
they have no universal judgement but only imagination and memory
of particulars.
The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the incontinent
man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of the man
drunk or asleep and is not peculiar to this condition; we must
go to the students of natural science for it. Now, the last premiss
both being an opinion about a perceptible object, and being what
determines our actions this a man either has not when he is in
the state of passion, or has it in the sense in which having knowledge
did not mean knowing but only talking, as a drunken man may utter
the verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is not universal
nor equally an object of scientific knowledge with the universal
term, the position that Socrates sought to establish actually
seems to result; for it is not in the presence of what is thought
to be knowledge proper that the affection of incontinence arises
(nor is it this that is 'dragged about' as a result of the state
of passion), but in that of perceptual knowledge.
This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with
and without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave incontinently
with knowledge.
4
(2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is incontinent
without qualification, or all men who are incontinent are so in
a particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of objects
he is concerned. That both continent persons and persons of endurance,
and incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures
and pains, is evident.
Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while
others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess,
the bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean
both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual
intercourse, i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined self-indulgence
and temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary
but worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honour, wealth,
and good and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, (a)
those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary
to the right rule which is in themselves, are not called incontinent
simply, but incontinent with the qualification 'in respect of
money, gain, honour, or anger',-not simply incontinent, on the
ground that they are different from incontinent people and are
called incontinent by reason of a resemblance. (Compare the case
of Anthropos (Man), who won a contest at the Olympic games; in
his case the general definition of man differed little from the
definition peculiar to him, but yet it was different.) This is
shown by the fact that incontinence either without qualification
or in respect of some particular bodily pleasure is blamed not
only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while none of the people
who are incontinent in these other respects is so blamed.
But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily
enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent
man are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant-and
shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and
cold and all the objects of touch and taste-not by choice but
contrary to his choice and his judgement, is called incontinent,
not with the qualification 'in respect of this or that', e.g.
of anger, but just simply. This is confirmed by the fact that
men are called 'soft' with regard to these pleasures, but not
with regard to any of the others. And for this reason we group
together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the continent
and the temperate man-but not any of these other types-because
they are concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pains;
but though these are concerned with the same objects, they are
not similarly related to them, but some of them make a deliberate
choice while the others do not.
This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man
who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the
excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who
does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former
do, if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain
at the lack of the 'necessary' objects?
Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of things
generically noble and good-for some pleasant things are by nature
worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and others
are intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction-e.g. wealth,
gain, victory, honour. And with reference to all objects whether
of this or of the intermediate kind men are not blamed for being
affected by them, for desiring and loving them, but for doing
so in a certain way, i.e. for going to excess. (This is why all
those who contrary to the rule either are mastered by or pursue
one of the objects which are naturally noble and good, e.g. those
who busy themselves more than they ought about honour or about
children and parents, (are not wicked); for these too are good,
and those who busy themselves about them are praised; but yet
there is an excess even in them-if like Niobe one were to fight
even against the gods, or were to be as much devoted to one's
father as Satyrus nicknamed 'the filial', who was thought to be
very silly on this point.) There is no wickedness, then, with
regard to these objects, for the reason named, viz. because each
of them is by nature a thing worthy of choice for its own sake;
yet excesses in respect of them are bad and to be avoided. Similarly
there is no incontinence with regard to them; for incontinence
is not only to be avoided but is also a thing worthy of blame;
but owing to a similarity in the state of feeling people apply
the name incontinence, adding in each case what it is in respect
of, as we may describe as a bad doctor or a bad actor one whom
we should not call bad, simply. As, then, in this case we do not
apply the term without qualification because each of these conditions
is no shadness but only analogous to it, so it is clear that in
the other case also that alone must be taken to be incontinence
and continence which is concerned with the same objects as temperance
and self-indulgence, but we apply the term to anger by virtue
of a resemblance; and this is why we say with a qualification
'incontinent in respect of anger' as we say 'incontinent in respect
of honour, or of gain'.
5
(1) Some things are pleasant by nature, and of these (a) some
are so without qualification, and (b) others are so with reference
to particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others
are not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by
reason of injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of
acquired habits, and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures.
This being so, it is possible with regard to each of the latter
kinds to discover similar states of character to those recognized
with regard to the former; I mean (A) the brutish states, as in
the case of the female who, they say, rips open pregnant women
and devours the infants, or of the things in which some of the
tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to delight-in
raw meat or in human flesh, or in lending their children to one
another to feast upon-or of the story told of Phalaris.
[1148] These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a
result of disease (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the
man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate
the liver of his fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting
from custom, e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing
the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these pederasty
[lit: "the of sexual intercourse for males"]; for these
arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been
the victims of lust from childhood, from habit.
[See K.J. Dover, in Greek Homosexuality, pp168-169 on
this passage. In sum, Dover noted that what seems to concern Aristotle
is enjoyment of "passive" homosexuality. The enjoyment
of active penetration would not have seemed "disease-like"
and the use of a general term such as "pederasty" in
translation here is downright misleading.]
Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would
call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to
women because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor
would one apply it to those who are in a morbid condition as a
result of habit. To have these various types of habit is beyond
the limits of vice, as brutishness is too; for a man who has them
to master or be mastered by them is not simple (continence or)
incontinence but that which is so by analogy, as the man who is
in this condition in respect of fits of anger is to be called
incontinent in respect of that feeling but not incontinent simply.
For every excessive state whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-indulgence,
or of bad temper, is either brutish or morbid; the man who is
by nature apt to fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse,
is cowardly with a brutish cowardice, while the man who feared
a weasel did so in consequence of disease; and of foolish people
those who by nature are thoughtless and live by their senses alone
are brutish, like some races of the distant barbarians, while
those who are so as a result of disease (e.g. of epilepsy) or
of madness are morbid. Of these characteristics it is possible
to have some only at times, and not to be mastered by them. e.g.
Phalaris may have restrained a desire to eat the flesh of a child
or an appetite for unnatural sexual pleasure; but it is also possible
to be mastered, not merely to have the feelings. Thus, as the
wickedness which is on the human level is called wickedness simply,
while that which is not is called wickedness not simply but with
the qualification 'brutish' or 'morbid', in the same way it is
plain that some incontinence is brutish and some morbid, while
only that which corresponds to human self-indulgence is incontinence
simply.
That incontinence and continence, then, are concerned only with
the same objects as selfindulgence and temperance and that what
is concerned with other objects is a type distinct from incontinence,
and called incontinence by a metaphor and not simply, is plain.
6
That incontinence in respect of anger is less disgraceful than
that in respect of the appetites is what we will now proceed to
see. (1) Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but
to mishear it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have
heard the whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or
as dogs bark if there is but a knock at the door, before looking
to see if it is a friend; so anger by reason of the warmth and
hastiness of its nature, though it hears, does not hear an order,
and springs to take revenge. For argument or imagination informs
us that we have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning
as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils
up straightway; while appetite, if argument or perception merely
says that an object is pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it.
Therefore anger obeys the argument in a sense, but appetite does
not. It is therefore more disgraceful; for the man who is incontinent
in respect of anger is in a sense conquered by argument, while
the other is conquered by appetite and not by argument.
(2) Further, we pardon people more easily for following natural
desires, since we pardon them more easily for following such appetites
as are common to all men, and in so far as they are common; now
anger and bad temper are more natural than the appetites for excess,
i.e. for unnecessary objects. Take for instance the man who defended
himself on the charge of striking his father by saying 'yes, but
he struck his father, and he struck his, and' (pointing to his
child) 'this boy will strike me when he is a man; it runs in the
family'; or the man who when he was being dragged along by his
son bade him stop at the doorway, since he himself had dragged
his father only as far as that.
(2) Further, those who are more given to plotting against others
are more criminal. Now a passionate man is not given to plotting,
nor is anger itself-it is open; but the nature of appetite is
illustrated by what the poets call Aphrodite, 'guile-weaving daughter
of Cyprus', and by Homer's words about her 'embroidered girdle':
And the whisper of wooing is there, Whose subtlety stealeth the
wits of the wise, how prudent soe'er. Therefore if this form of
incontinence is more criminal and disgraceful than that in respect
of anger, it is both incontinence without qualification and in
a sense vice.
(4) Further, no one commits wanton outrage with a feeling of pain,
but every one who acts in anger acts with pain, while the man
who commits outrage acts with pleasure. If, then, those acts at
which it is most just to be angry are more criminal than others,
the incontinence which is due to appetite is the more criminal;
for there is no wanton outrage involved in anger.
Plainly, then, the incontinence concerned with appetite is more
disgraceful than that concerned with anger, and continence and
incontinence are concerned with bodily appetites and pleasures;
but we must grasp the differences among the latter themselves.
For, as has been said at the beginning, some are human and natural
both in kind and in magnitude, others are brutish, and others
are due to organic injuries and diseases. Only with the first
of these are temperance and self-indulgence concerned; this is
why we call the lower animals neither temperate nor self-indulgent
except by a metaphor, and only if some one race of animals exceeds
another as a whole in wantonness, destructiveness, and omnivorous
greed; these have no power of choice or calculation, but they
are departures from the natural norm, as, among men, madmen are.
Now brutishness is a less evil than vice, though more alarming;
for it is not that the better part has been perverted, as in man,-they
have no better part. Thus it is like comparing a lifeless thing
with a living in respect of badness; for the badness of that which
has no originative source of movement is always less hurtful,
and reason is an originative source. Thus it is like comparing
injustice in the abstract with an unjust man. Each is in some
sense worse; for a bad man will do ten thousand times as much
evil as a brute.
7
With regard to the pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions
arising through touch and taste, to which both self-indulgence
and temperance were formerly narrowed down, it possible to be
in such a state as to be defeated even by those of them which
most people master, or to master even those by which most people
are defeated; among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures
are incontinence and continence, those relating to pains softness
and endurance. The state of most people is intermediate, even
if they lean more towards the worse states.
Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not,
and are necessary up to a point while the excesses of them are
not, nor the deficiencies, and this is equally true of appetites
and pains, the man who pursues the excesses of things pleasant,
or pursues to excess necessary objects, and does so by choice,
for their own sake and not at all for the sake of any result distinct
from them, is self-indulgent; for such a man is of necessity unlikely
to repent, and therefore incurable, since a man who cannot repent
cannot be cured. The man who is deficient in his pursuit of them
is the opposite of self-indulgent; the man who is intermediate
is temperate. Similarly, there is the man who avoids bodily pains
not because he is defeated by them but by choice. (Of those who
do not choose such acts, one kind of man is led to them as a result
of the pleasure involved, another because he avoids the pain arising
from the appetite, so that these types differ from one another.
Now any one would think worse of a man with no appetite or with
weak appetite were he to do something disgraceful, than if he
did it under the influence of powerful appetite, and worse of
him if he struck a blow not in anger than if he did it in anger;
for what would he have done if he had been strongly affected?
This is why the self-indulgent man is worse than the incontinent.)
of the states named, then, the latter is rather a kind of softness;
the former is self-indulgence. While to the incontinent man is
opposed the continent, to the soft is opposed the man of endurance;
for endurance consists in resisting, while continence consists
in conquering, and resisting and conquering are different, as
not being beaten is different from winning; this is why continence
is also more worthy of choice than endurance. Now the man who
is defective in respect of resistance to the things which most
men both resist and resist successfully is soft and effeminate;
for effeminacy too is a kind of softness; such a man trails his
cloak to avoid the pain of lifting it, and plays the invalid without
thinking himself wretched, though the man he imitates is a wretched
man.
The case is similar with regard to continence and incontinence.
For if a man is defeated by violent and excessive pleasures or
pains, there is nothing wonderful in that; indeed we are ready
to pardon him if he has resisted, as Theodectes' Philoctetes does
when bitten by the snake, or Carcinus' Cercyon in the Alope, and
as people who try to restrain their laughter burst out into a
guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus. But it is surprising if a
man is defeated by and cannot resist pleasures or pains which
most men can hold out against, when this is not due to heredity
or disease, like the softness that is hereditary with the kings
of the Scythians, or that which distinguishes the female sex from
the male.
The lover of amusement, too, is thought to be self-indulgent,
but is really soft. For amusement is a relaxation, since it is
a rest from work; and the lover of amusement is one of the people
who go to excess in this.
Of incontinence one kind is impetuosity, another weakness. For
some men after deliberating fail, owing to their emotion, to stand
by the conclusions of their deliberation, others because they
have not deliberated are led by their emotion; since some men
(just as people who first tickle others are not tickled themselves),
if they have first perceived and seen what is coming and have
first roused themselves and their calculative faculty, are not
defeated by their emotion, whether it be pleasant or painful.
It is keen and excitable people that suffer especially from the
impetuous form of incontinence; for the former by reason of their
quickness and the latter by reason of the violence of their passions
do not await the argument, because they are apt to follow their
imagination.
8
The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent; for
he stands by his choice; but incontinent man is likely to repent.
This is why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation
of the problem, but the selfindulgent man is incurable and the
incontinent man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such
as dropsy or consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy;
the former is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness.
And generally incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice
is unconscious of itself, incontinence is not (of incontinent
men themselves, those who become temporarily beside themselves
are better than those who have the rational principle but do not
abide by it, since the latter are defeated by a weaker passion,
and do not act without previous deliberation like the others);
for the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly
and on little wine, i.e. on less than most people.
Evidently, then, incontinence is not vice (though perhaps it is
so in a qualified sense); for incontinence is contrary to choice
while vice is in accordance with choice; not but what they are
similar in respect of the actions they lead to; as in the saying
of Demodocus about the Milesians, 'the Milesians are not without
sense, but they do the things that senseless people do', so too
incontinent people are not criminal, but they will do criminal
acts.
Now, since the incontinent man is apt to pursue, not on conviction,
bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to the right
rule, while the self-indulgent man is convinced because he is
the sort of man to pursue them, it is on the contrary the former
that is easily persuaded to change his mind, while the latter
is not. For virtue and vice respectively preserve and destroy
the first principle, and in actions the final cause is the first
principle, as the hypotheses are in mathematics; neither in that
case is it argument that teaches the first principles, nor is
it so here-virtue either natural or produced by habituation is
what teaches right opinion about the first principle. Such a man
as this, then, is temperate; his contrary is the self-indulgent.
But there is a sort of man who is carried away as a result of
passion and contrary to the right rule-a man whom passion masters
so that he does not act according to the right rule, but does
not master to the extent of making him ready to believe that he
ought to pursue such pleasures without reserve; this is the incontinent
man, who is better than the self-indulgent man, and not bad without
qualification; for the best thing in him, the first principle,
is preserved. And contrary to him is another kind of man, he who
abides by his convictions and is not carried away, at least as
a result of passion. It is evident from these considerations that
the latter is a good state and the former a bad one.
9
Is the man continent who abides by any and every rule and any
and every choice, or the man who abides by the right choice, and
is he incontinent who abandons any and every choice and any and
every rule, or he who abandons the rule that is not false and
the choice that is right; this is how we put it before in our
statement of the problem. Or is it incidentally any and every
choice but per se the true rule and the right choice by which
the one abides and the other does not? If any one chooses or pursues
this for the sake of that, per se he pursues and chooses the latter,
but incidentally the former. But when we speak without qualification
we mean what is per se. Therefore in a sense the one abides by,
and the other abandons, any and every opinion; but without qualification,
the true opinion.
There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, who are
called strong-headed, viz. those who are hard to persuade in the
first instance and are not easily persuaded to change; these have
in them something like the continent man, as the prodigal is in
a way like the liberal man and the rash man like the confident
man; but they are different in many respects. For it is to passion
and appetite that the one will not yield, since on occasion the
continent man will be easy to persuade; but it is to argument
that the others refuse to yield, for they do form appetites and
many of them are led by their pleasures. Now the people who are
strong-headed are the opinionated, the ignorant, and the boorish-the
opinionated being influenced by pleasure and pain; for they delight
in the victory they gain if they are not persuaded to change,
and are pained if their decisions become null and void as decrees
sometimes do; so that they are liker the incontinent than the
continent man.
But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not
as a result of incontinence, e.g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philoctetes;
yet it was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand fast-but
a noble pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, but
he had been persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every
one who does anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent
or bad or incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.
Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than
he should in bodily things, and does not abide by the rule, he
who is intermediate between him and the incontinent man is the
continent man; for the incontinent man fails to abide by the rule
because he delights too much in them, and this man because he
delights in them too little; while the continent man abides by
the rule and does not change on either account. Now if continence
is good, both the contrary states must be bad, as they 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' the temperate man; for
both the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do
nothing contrary to the rule for the sake of the 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 the rule, while
the former is such as to feel pleasure but not to be led by it.
And the incontinent and the self-indulgent man are also like 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 being able to act; but the incontinent
man is unable to act-there is, however, nothing to 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
purpose-nor yet is the incontinent man like the man who knows
and is contemplating a truth, but like the man who is asleep or
drunk. And he acts willingly (for he acts in a sense with knowledge
both of what he does and of the end to which he does it), but
is not wicked, since his purpose is good; so that he is half-wicked.
And he is not a criminal; 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 incontinent man 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.
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 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 a 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 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 virtue and vice
are 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.
Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in
itself or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the
same; (2) others think that some pleasures are good but that most
are bad. (3) Again there is a third view, that even if all pleasures
are good, yet the best thing in the world cannot be pleasure.
(1) 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 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. (2) The reasons for the view
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.
(3) The reason for the view that the best thing in the world 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 the following considerations. (A)
(a) 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 of being, and therefore
also the corresponding movements and processes, will be correspondingly
divisible. Of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad
if taken 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 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.
(b) 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 nature as has remained unimpaired; for there are actually
pleasures that involve no 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 pleasant objects 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
even sharp and bitter things, none of which is pleasant either
by nature or without qualification. The states they produce, therefore,
are not pleasures naturally or without qualification; for as pleasant
things differ, so do the pleasures arising from them.
(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 leasures are not 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 perfecting
of their nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure
is perceptible process, 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) 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, 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) The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises
naturally enough; there is no art of any other activity either,
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) 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 out
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), 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-indulent. This is why
the temperate man avoids these pleasures; for even he has pleasures
of his own.
13
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, 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) 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, 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, 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. 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 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, 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, men think there
are no others.
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, 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) 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, 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? 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 avoid the excess of it, 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. (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. 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, 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 (b) 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.) (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, 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, 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; 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);
by things naturally pleasant I mean 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 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, 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.
Source. Aristotle: On Friendship,
Bk. VII of the Nicomachean Ethics [ref. 1145-1154] , Written ca. 350 B.C., Translated by W. D. Ross
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