Ethics
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Aristotle >> Ethics
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Again, there is a character liable to be taken off his feet in defiance
of Right Reason because of passion; whom passion so far masters as to
prevent his acting in accordance with Right Reason, but not so far as to
make him be convinced that it is his proper line to follow after such
pleasures without limit: this character is the man of Imperfect Self-
Control, better than he who is utterly destitute of it, and not a bad
man simply and without qualification: because in him the highest and
best part, i.e. principle, is preserved: and there is another character
opposed to him who is apt to abide by his resolutions, and not to depart
from them; at all events, not at the instigation of passion. It is
evident then from all this, that Self-Control is a good state and the
Imperfection of it a bad one.
Next comes the question, whether a man is a man of Self-Control for
abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be they of what kind they
may, or only by the right one; or again, a man of Imperfect Self-Control
for not abiding by his conclusions and moral choice be they of whatever
kind; or, to put the case we did before, is he such for not abiding by
false conclusions and wrong moral choice?
Is not this the truth, that _incidentally_ it is by conclusions and
moral choice of any kind that the one character abides and the other
does not, but _per se_ true conclusions and right moral choice: to
explain what is meant by incidentally, and _per se_; suppose a man
chooses or pursues this thing for the sake of that, he is said to pursue
and choose that _per se_, but this only incidentally. For the term _per
se_ we use commonly the word "simply," and so, in a way, it is opinion
of any kind soever by which the two characters respectively abide or
not, but he is "simply" entitled to the designations who abides or not
by the true opinion.
There are also people, who have a trick of abiding by their, own
opinions, who are commonly called Positive, as they who are hard to
be persuaded, and whose convictions are not easily changed: now these
people bear some resemblance to the character of Self-Control, just as
the prodigal to the liberal or the rash man to the brave, but they are
different in many points. The man of Self-Control does not change by
reason of passion and lust, yet when occasion so requires he will be
easy of persuasion: but the Positive man changes not at the call of
Reason, though many of this class take up certain desires and are led by
their pleasures. Among the class of Positive are the Opinionated, the
Ignorant, and the Bearish: the first, from the motives of pleasure and
pain: I mean, they have the pleasurable feeling of a kind of victory in
not having their convictions changed, and they are pained when their
decrees, so to speak, are reversed: so that, in fact, they rather
resemble the man of Imperfect Self-Control than the man of Self-Control.
Again, there are some who depart from their resolutions not by reason of
any Imperfection of Self-Control; take, for instance, Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes of Sophocles. Here certainly pleasure was the motive of his
departure from his resolution, but then it was one of a noble sort:
for to be truthful was noble in his eyes and he had been persuaded by
Ulysses to lie.
So it is not every one who acts from the motive of pleasure who is
utterly destitute of Self-Control or base or of Imperfect Self-Control,
only he who acts from the impulse of a base pleasure.
Moreover as there is a character who takes less pleasure than he ought
in bodily enjoyments, and he also fails to abide by the conclusion of
his Reason, the man of Self-Control is the mean between him and the man
of Imperfect Self-Control: that is to say, the latter fails to abide by
them because of somewhat too much, the former because of somewhat too
little; while the man of Self-Control abides by them, and never changes
by reason of anything else than such conclusions.
Now of course since Self-Control is good both the contrary States must
be bad, as indeed they plainly are: but because the one of them is seen
in few persons, and but rarely in them, Self-Control comes to be
viewed as if opposed only to the Imperfection of it, just as
Perfected Self-Mastery is thought to be opposed only to utter want of
Self-Control.
[Sidenote: 1152a] Again, as many terms are used in the way of
similitude, so people have come to talk of the Self-Control of the man
of Perfected Self-Mastery in the way of similitude: for the man of
Self-Control and the man of Perfected Self-Mastery have this in common,
that they do nothing against Right Reason on the impulse of bodily
pleasures, but then the former has bad desires, the latter not; and the
latter is so constituted as not even to feel pleasure contrary to his
Reason, the former feels but does not yield to it. Like again are the
man of Imperfect Self-Control and he who is utterly destitute of it,
though in reality distinct: both follow bodily pleasures, but the latter
under a notion that it is the proper line for him to take, his former
without any such notion.
X
And it is not possible for the same man to be at once a man of Practical
Wisdom and of Imperfect Self-Control: because the character of Practical
Wisdom includes, as we showed before, goodness of moral character.
And again, it is not knowledge merely, but aptitude for action, which
constitutes Practical Wisdom: and of this aptitude the man of Imperfect
Self-Control is destitute. But there is no reason why the Clever man
should not be of Imperfect Self-Control: and the reason why some men are
occasionally thought to be men of Practical Wisdom, and yet of Imperfect
Self-Control, is this, that Cleverness differs from Practical Wisdom in
the way I stated in a former book, and is very near it so far as the
intellectual element is concerned but differs in respect of the moral
choice.
Nor is the man of Imperfect Self-Control like the man who both has and
calls into exercise his knowledge, but like the man who, having it, is
overpowered by sleep or wine. Again, he acts voluntarily (because he
knows, in a certain sense, what he does and the result of it), but he is
not a confirmed bad man, for his moral choice is good, so he is at all
events only half bad. Nor is he unjust, because he does not act with
deliberate intent: for of the two chief forms of the character, the one
is not apt to abide by his deliberate resolutions, and the other, the
man of constitutional strength of passion, is not apt to deliberate at
all.
So in fact the man of Imperfect Self-Control is like a community which
makes all proper enactments, and has admirable laws, only does not act
on them, verifying the scoff of Anaxandrides,
"That State did will it, which cares nought for laws;"
whereas the bad man is like one which acts upon its laws, but then
unfortunately they are bad ones. Imperfection of Self-Control and
Self-Control, after all, are above the average state of men; because he
of the latter character is more true to his Reason, and the former less
so, than is in the power of most men.
Again, of the two forms of Imperfect Self-Control that is more easily
cured which they have who are constitutionally of strong passions, than
that of those who form resolutions and break them; and they that are so
through habituation than they that are so naturally; since of course
custom is easier to change than nature, because the very resemblance of
custom to nature is what constitutes the difficulty of changing it; as
Evenus says,
"Practice, I say, my friend, doth long endure,
And at the last is even very nature."
We have now said then what Self-Control is, what Imperfection of
Self-Control, what Endurance, and what Softness, and how these states
are mutually related.
XI
[Sidenote: II52b]
To consider the subject of Pleasure and Pain falls within the province
of the Social-Science Philosopher, since he it is who has to fix the
Master-End which is to guide us in dominating any object absolutely evil
or good.
But we may say more: an inquiry into their nature is absolutely
necessary. First, because we maintained that Moral Virtue and Moral Vice
are both concerned with Pains and Pleasures: next, because the greater
part of mankind assert that Happiness must include Pleasure (which by
the way accounts for the word they use, makarioz; chaireiu being the
root of that word).
Now some hold that no one Pleasure is good, either in itself or as a
matter of result, because Good and Pleasure are not identical. Others
that some Pleasures are good but the greater number bad. There is yet a
third view; granting that every Pleasure is good, still the Chief Good
cannot possibly be Pleasure.
In support of the first opinion (that Pleasure is utterly not-good) it
is urged that:
I. Every Pleasure is a sensible process towards a complete state; but
no such process is akin to the end to be attained: _e.g._ no process of
building to the completed house.
2. The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures.
3. The man of Practical Wisdom aims at avoiding Pain, not at attaining
Pleasure.
4. Pleasures are an impediment to thought, and the more so the more
keenly they are felt. An obvious instance will readily occur.
5. Pleasure cannot be referred to any Art: and yet every good is the
result of some Art.
6. Children and brutes pursue Pleasures.
In support of the second (that not all Pleasures are good), That there
are some base and matter of reproach, and some even hurtful: because
some things that are pleasant produce disease.
In support of the third (that Pleasure is not the Chief Good), That it
is not an End but a process towards creating an End.
This is, I think, a fair account of current views on the matter.
XII
But that the reasons alleged do not prove it either to be not-good or
the Chief Good is plain from the following considerations.
First. Good being either absolute or relative, of course the natures and
states embodying it will be so too; therefore also the movements and the
processes of creation. So, of those which are thought to be bad
some will be bad absolutely, but relatively not bad, perhaps even
choiceworthy; some not even choiceworthy relatively to any particular
person, only at certain times or for a short time but not in themselves
choiceworthy.
Others again are not even Pleasures at all though they produce that
impression on the mind: all such I mean as imply pain and whose purpose
is cure; those of sick people, for instance.
Next, since Good may be either an active working or a state, those
[Greek: _kinaeseis_ or _geneseis_] which tend to place us in our natural
state are pleasant incidentally because of that *[Sidenote: 1153a]
tendency: but the active working is really in the desires excited in the
remaining (sound) part of our state or nature: for there are Pleasures
which have no connection with pain or desire: the acts of contemplative
intellect, for instance, in which case there is no deficiency in the
nature or state of him who performs the acts.
A proof of this is that the same pleasant thing does not produce the
sensation of Pleasure when the natural state is being filled up or
completed as when it is already in its normal condition: in this latter
case what give the sensation are things pleasant _per se_, in the former
even those things which are contrary. I mean, you find people taking
pleasure in sharp or bitter things of which no one is naturally or in
itself pleasant; of course not therefore the Pleasures arising from
them, because it is obvious that as is the classification of pleasant
things such must be that of the Pleasures arising from them.
Next, it does not follow that there must be something else better than
any given pleasure because (as some say) the End must be better than
the process which creates it. For it is not true that all Pleasures
are processes or even attended by any process, but (some are) active
workings or even Ends: in fact they result not from our coming to be
something but from our using our powers. Again, it is not true that the
End is, in every case, distinct from the process: it is true only in
the case of such processes as conduce to the perfecting of the natural
state.
For which reason it is wrong to say that Pleasure is "a sensible process
of production." For "process etc." should be substituted "active working
of the natural state," for "sensible" "unimpeded." The reason of its
being thought to be a "process etc." is that it is good in the highest
sense: people confusing "active working" and "process," whereas they
really are distinct.
Next, as to the argument that there are bad Pleasures because some
things which are pleasant are also hurtful to health, it is the same as
saying that some healthful things are bad for "business." In this sense,
of course, both may be said to be bad, but then this does not make
them out to be bad _simpliciter_: the exercise of the pure Intellect
sometimes hurts a man's health: but what hinders Practical Wisdom or
any state whatever is, not the Pleasure peculiar to, but some Pleasure
foreign to it: the Pleasures arising from the exercise of the pure
Intellect or from learning only promote each.
Next. "No Pleasure is the work of any Art." What else would you expect?
No active working is the work of any Art, only the faculty of so
working. Still the perfumer's Art or the cook's are thought to belong to
Pleasure.
Next. "The man of Perfected Self-Mastery avoids Pleasures." "The man
of Practical Wisdom aims at escaping Pain rather than at attaining
Pleasure."
"Children and brutes pursue Pleasures."
One answer will do for all.
We have already said in what sense all Pleasures are good _per se_ and
in what sense not all are good: it is the latter class that brutes and
children pursue, such as are accompanied by desire and pain, that is the
bodily Pleasures (which answer to this description) and the excesses of
them: in short, those in respect of which the man utterly destitute of
Self-Control is thus utterly destitute. And it is the absence of the
pain arising from these Pleasures that the man of Practical Wisdom
aims at. It follows that these Pleasures are what the man of Perfected
Self-Mastery avoids: for obviously he has Pleasures peculiarly his own.
[Sidenote: XIII 1153_b_] Then again, it is allowed that Pain is an evil
and a thing to be avoided partly as bad _per se_, partly as being a
hindrance in some particular way. Now the contrary of that which is to
be avoided, _qua_ it is to be avoided, _i.e._ evil, is good. Pleasure
then must be _a_ good.
The attempted answer of Speusippus, "that Pleasure may be opposed and
yet not contrary to Pain, just as the greater portion of any magnitude
is contrary to the less but only opposed to the exact half," will not
hold: for he cannot say that Pleasure is identical with evil of any
kind. Again. Granting that some Pleasures are low, there is no reason
why some particular Pleasure may not be very good, just as some
particular Science may be although there are some which are low.
Perhaps it even follows, since each state may have active working
unimpeded, whether the active workings of all be Happiness or that of
some one of them, that this active working, if it be unimpeded, must be
choiceworthy: now Pleasure is exactly this. So that the Chief Good may
be Pleasure of some kind, though most Pleasures be (let us assume) low
_per se_.
And for this reason all men think the happy life is pleasant, and
interweave Pleasure with Happiness. Reasonably enough: because Happiness
is perfect, but no impeded active working is perfect; and therefore
the happy man needs as an addition the goods of the body and the goods
external and fortune that in these points he may not be fettered. As for
those who say that he who is being tortured on the wheel, or falls into
great misfortunes is happy provided only he be good, they talk nonsense,
whether they mean to do so or not. On the other hand, because fortune
is needed as an addition, some hold good fortune to be identical with
Happiness: which it is not, for even this in excess is a hindrance, and
perhaps then has no right to be called good fortune since it is good
only in so far as it contributes to Happiness.
The fact that all animals, brute and human alike, pursue Pleasure, is
some presumption of its being in a sense the Chief Good;
("There must be something in what most folks say,") only as one and
the same nature or state neither is nor is thought to be the best, so
neither do all pursue the same Pleasure, Pleasure nevertheless all do.
Nay further, what they pursue is, perhaps, not what they think nor what
they would say they pursue, but really one and the same: for in all
there is some instinct above themselves. But the bodily Pleasures have
received the name exclusively, because theirs is the most frequent form
and that which is universally partaken of; and so, because to many these
alone are known they believe them to be the only ones which exist.
[Sidenote: II54a]
It is plain too that, unless Pleasure and its active working be good, it
will not be true that the happy man's life embodies Pleasure: for why
will he want it on the supposition that it is not good and that he can
live even with Pain? because, assuming that Pleasure is not good, then
Pain is neither evil nor good, and so why should he avoid it?
Besides, the life of the good man is not more pleasurable than any other
unless it be granted that his active workings are so too.
XIV
Some inquiry into the bodily Pleasures is also necessary for those who
say that some Pleasures, to be sure, are highly choiceworthy (the good
ones to wit), but not the bodily Pleasures; that is, those which are the
object-matter of the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.
If so, we ask, why are the contrary Pains bad? they cannot be (on their
assumption) because the contrary of bad is good.
May we not say that the necessary bodily Pleasures are good in the sense
in which that which is not-bad is good? or that they are good only up
to a certain point? because such states or movements as cannot have too
much of the better cannot have too much of Pleasure, but those which can
of the former can also of the latter. Now the bodily Pleasures do admit
of excess: in fact the low bad man is such because he pursues the excess
of them instead of those which are necessary (meat, drink, and the
objects of other animal appetites do give pleasure to all, but not in
right manner or degree to all). But his relation to Pain is exactly the
contrary: it is not excessive Pain, but Pain at all, that he avoids
[which makes him to be in this way too a bad low man], because only
in the case of him who pursues excessive Pleasure is Pain contrary to
excessive Pleasure.
It is not enough however merely to state the truth, we should also show
how the false view arises; because this strengthens conviction. I mean,
when we have given a probable reason why that impresses people as true
which really is not true, it gives them a stronger conviction of the
truth. And so we must now explain why the bodily Pleasures appear to
people to be more choiceworthy than any others.
The first obvious reason is, that bodily Pleasure drives out Pain; and
because Pain is felt in excess men pursue Pleasure in excess, _i.e._
generally bodily Pleasure, under the notion of its being a remedy for
that Pain. These remedies, moreover, come to be violent ones; which is
the very reason they are pursued, since the impression they produce
on the mind is owing to their being looked at side by side with their
contrary.
And, as has been said before, there are the two following reasons why
bodily Pleasure is thought to be not-good.
1. Some Pleasures of this class are actings of a low nature, whether
congenital as in brutes, or acquired by custom as in low bad men.
2. Others are in the nature of cures, cures that is of some deficiency;
now of course it is better to have [the healthy state] originally than
that it should accrue afterwards.
[Sidenote: 1154b] But some Pleasures result when natural states are
being perfected: these therefore are good as a matter of result.
Again, the very fact of their being violent causes them to be pursued by
such as can relish no others: such men in fact create violent thirsts
for themselves (if harmless ones then we find no fault, if harmful then
it is bad and low) because they have no other things to take
pleasure in, and the neutral state is distasteful to some people
constitutionally; for toil of some kind is inseparable from life, as
physiologists testify, telling us that the acts of seeing or hearing are
painful, only that we are used to the pain and do not find it out.
Similarly in youth the constant growth produces a state much like
that of vinous intoxication, and youth is pleasant. Again, men of the
melancholic temperament constantly need some remedial process (because
the body, from its temperament, is constantly being worried), and they
are in a chronic state of violent desire. But Pleasure drives out Pain;
not only such Pleasure as is directly contrary to Pain but even any
Pleasure provided it be strong: and this is how men come to be utterly
destitute of Self-Mastery, _i.e._ low and bad.
But those Pleasures which are unconnected with Pains do not admit of
excess: _i.e._ such as belong to objects which are naturally pleasant
and not merely as a matter of result: by the latter class I mean such
as are remedial, and the reason why these are thought to be pleasant is
that the cure results from the action in some way of that part of the
constitution which remains sound. By "pleasant naturally" I mean such as
put into action a nature which is pleasant.
The reason why no one and the same thing is invariably pleasant is that
our nature is, not simple, but complex, involving something different
from itself (so far as we are corruptible beings). Suppose then that one
part of this nature be doing something, this something is, to the other
part, unnatural: but, if there be an equilibrium of the two natures,
then whatever is being done is indifferent. It is obvious that if there
be any whose nature is simple and not complex, to such a being the same
course of acting will always be the most pleasurable.
For this reason it is that the Divinity feels Pleasure which is always
one, _i.e._ simple: not motion merely but also motionlessness acts, and
Pleasure resides rather in the absence than in the presence of motion.
The reason why the Poet's dictum "change is of all things most pleasant"
is true, is "a baseness in our blood;" for as the bad man is easily
changeable, bad must be also the nature that craves change, _i.e._ it is
neither simple nor good.
We have now said our say about Self-Control and its opposite; and about
Pleasure and Pain. What each is, and how the one set is good the other
bad. We have yet to speak of Friendship.
BOOK VIII
[Sidenote: I 1155_a_] Next would seem properly to follow a dissertation
on Friendship: because, in the first place, it is either itself a virtue
or connected with virtue; and next it is a thing most necessary for
life, since no one would choose to live without friends though he should
have all the other good things in the world: and, in fact, men who are
rich or possessed of authority and influence are thought to have special
need of friends: for where is the use of such prosperity if there be
taken away the doing of kindnesses of which friends are the most usual
and most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without
friends? because the greater it is so much the more slippery and
hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities men think
friends to be their only refuge.
Furthermore, Friendship helps the young to keep from error: the old, in
respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as their weakness
makes them liable to; and those who are in their prime, in respect of
noble deeds ("They _two_ together going," Homer says, you may remember),
because they are thus more able to devise plans and carry them out.
Again, it seems to be implanted in us by Nature: as, for instance, in
the parent towards the offspring and the offspring towards the parent
(not merely in the human species, but likewise in birds and most
animals), and in those of the same tribe towards one another, and
specially in men of the same nation; for which reason we commend those
men who love their fellows: and one may see in the course of travel how
close of kin and how friendly man is to man.
Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and
legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even. I
mean, Unanimity is somewhat like to Friendship, and this they certainly
aim at and specially drive out faction as being inimical.
Again, where people are in Friendship Justice is not required; but, on
the other hand, though they are just they need Friendship in addition,
and that principle which is most truly just is thought to partake of the
nature of Friendship.
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