Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester} - "Girls and Women"

Austin Dobson - "De Libris: Prose and Verse"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2"

J. M. Barrie - "Better Dead"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ethics

A >> Aristotle >> Ethics




And besides, their Friendship is acted out in intimacy, and so with good
reason they desire this. And whatever in each man's opinion constitutes
existence, or whatsoever it is for the sake of which they choose life,
herein they wish their friends to join with them; and so some men drink
together, others gamble, others join in gymnastic exercises or hunting,
others study philosophy together: in each case spending their days
together in that which they like best of all things in life, for since
they wish to be intimate with their friends they do and partake in those
things whereby they think to attain this object.

Therefore the Friendship of the wicked comes to be depraved; for, being
unstable, they share in what is bad and become depraved in being made
like to one another: but the Friendship of the good is good, growing
with their intercourse; they improve also, as it seems, by repeated
acts, and by mutual correction, for they receive impress from one
another in the points which give them pleasure; whence says the poet,

"Thou from the good, good things shalt surely learn."

Here then we will terminate our discourse of Friendship. The next thing
is to go into the subject of Pleasure.




BOOK X


Next, it would seem, follows a discussion respecting Pleasure, for it is
thought to be most closely bound up with our kind: and so men train the
young, guiding them on their course by the rudders of Pleasure and Pain.
And to like and dislike what one ought is judged to be most important
for the formation of good moral character: because these feelings extend
all one's life through, giving a bias towards and exerting an influence
on the side of Virtue and Happiness, since men choose what is pleasant
and avoid what is painful.

Subjects such as these then, it would seem, we ought by no means to pass
by, and specially since they involve much difference of opinion. There
are those who call Pleasure the Chief Good; there are others who on the
contrary maintain that it is exceedingly bad; some perhaps from a real
conviction that such is the case, others from a notion that it is
better, in reference to our life and conduct, to show up Pleasure as
bad, even if it is not so really; arguing that, as the mass of men have
a bias towards it and are the slaves of their pleasures, it is right to
draw them to the contrary, for that so they may possibly arrive at the
mean.

I confess I suspect the soundness of this policy; in matters respecting
men's feelings and actions theories are less convincing than facts:
whenever, therefore, they are found conflicting with actual experience,
they not only are despised but involve the truth in their fall: he, for
instance, who deprecates Pleasure, if once seen to aim at it, gets the
credit of backsliding to it as being universally such as he said it was,
the mass of men being incapable of nice distinctions.

Real accounts, therefore, of such matters seem to be most expedient, not
with a view to knowledge merely but to life and conduct: for they are
believed as being in harm with facts, and so they prevail with the wise
to live in accordance with them.

But of such considerations enough: let us now proceed to the current
maxims respecting Pleasure.

II Now Eudoxus thought Pleasure to be the Chief Good because he saw all,
rational and irrational alike, aiming at it: and he argued that, since
in all what was the object of choice must be good and what most so the
best, the fact of all being drawn to the same thing proved this thing to
be the best for all: "For each," he said, "finds what is good for itself
just as it does its proper nourishment, and so that which is good for
all, and the object of the aim of all, is their Chief Good."

(And his theories were received, not so much for their own sake, as
because of his excellent moral character; for he was thought to be
eminently possessed of perfect self-mastery, and therefore it was not
thought that he said these things because he was a lover of Pleasure but
that he really was so convinced.)

And he thought his position was not less proved by the argument from the
contrary: that is, since Pain was in itself an object of avoidance to
all the contrary must be in like manner an object of choice.

Again he urged that that is most choiceworthy which we choose, not by
reason of, or with a view to, anything further; and that Pleasure is
confessedly of this kind because no one ever goes on to ask to what
purpose he is pleased, feeling that Pleasure is in itself choiceworthy.

Again, that when added to any other good it makes it more choiceworthy;
as, for instance, to actions of justice, or perfected self-mastery; and
good can only be increased by itself.

However, this argument at least seems to prove only that it belongs to
the class of goods, and not that it does so more than anything else: for
every good is more choicewortby in combination with some other than when
taken quite alone. In fact, it is by just such an argument that Plato
proves that Pleasure is not the Chief Good: "For," says he, "the life of
Pleasure is more choiceworthy in combination with Practical Wisdom than
apart from it; but, if the compound better then simple Pleasure cannot
be the Chief Good; because the very Chief Good cannot by any addition
become choiceworthy than it is already:" and it is obvious that nothing
else can be the Chief Good, which by combination with any of the things
in themselves good comes to be more choiceworthy.

What is there then of such a nature? (meaning, of course, whereof we can
partake; because that which we are in search of must be such).

As for those who object that "what all aim at is not necessarily good,"
I confess I cannot see much in what they say, because what all _think_
we say _is_. And he who would cut away this ground from under us will
not bring forward things more dependable: because if the argument had
rested on the desires of irrational creatures there might have been
something in what he says, but, since the rational also desire Pleasure,
how can his objection be allowed any weight? and it may be that, even in
the lower animals, there is some natural good principle above themselves
which aims at the good peculiar to them.

Nor does that seem to be sound which is urged respecting the argument
from the contrary: I mean, some people say "it does not follow that
Pleasure must be good because Pain is evil, since evil may be opposed to
evil, and both evil and good to what is indifferent:" now what they say
is right enough in itself but does not hold in the present instance.
If both Pleasure and Pain were bad both would have been objects of
avoidance; or if neither then neither would have been, at all events
they must have fared alike: but now men do plainly avoid the one as bad
and choose the other as good, and so there is a complete opposition. III
Nor again is Pleasure therefore excluded from being good because it
does not belong to the class of qualities: the acts of virtue are not
qualities, neither is Happiness [yet surely both are goods].

Again, they say the Chief Good is limited but Pleasure unlimited, in
that it admits of degrees.

Now if they judge this from the act of feeling Pleasure then the same
thing will apply to justice and all the other virtues, in respect of
which clearly it is said that men are more or less of such and such
characters (according to the different virtues), they are more just or
more brave, or one may practise justice and self-mastery more or less.

If, on the other hand, they judge in respect of the Pleasures themselves
then it may be they miss the true cause, namely that some are unmixed
and others mixed: for just as health being in itself limited, admits of
degrees, why should not Pleasure do so and yet be limited? in the former
case we account for it by the fact that there is not the same adjustment
of parts in all men, nor one and the same always in the same individual:
but health, though relaxed, remains up to a certain point, and differs
in degrees; and of course the same may be the case with Pleasure.

Again, assuming the Chief Good to be perfect and all Movements and
Generations imperfect, they try to shew that Pleasure is a Movement and
a Generation.

Yet they do not seem warranted in saying even that it is a Movement: for
to every Movement are thought to belong swiftness and slowness, and
if not in itself, as to that of the universe, yet relatively: but to
Pleasure neither of these belongs: for though one may have got quickly
into the state Pleasure, as into that of anger, one cannot be in the
state quickly, nor relatively to the state of any other person; but we
can walk or grow, and so on, quickly or slowly.

Of course it is possible to change into the state of Pleasure quickly or
slowly, but to act in the state (by which, I mean, have the perception
of Pleasure) quickly, is not possible. And how can it be a Generation?
because, according to notions generally held, not _any_thing is
generated from _any_thing, but a thing resolves itself into that out
of which it was generated: whereas of that of which Pleasure is a
Generation Pain is a Destruction.

Again, they say that Pain is a lack of something suitable to nature and
Pleasure a supply of it.

But these are affections of the body: now if Pleasure really is a
supplying of somewhat suitable to nature, that must feel the Pleasure in
which the supply takes place, therefore the body of course: yet this
is not thought to be so: neither then is Pleasure a supplying, only a
person of course will be pleased when a supply takes place just as he
will be pained when he is cut.

This notion would seem to have arisen out of the Pains and Pleasures
connected with natural nourishment; because, when people have felt a
lack and so have had Pain first, they, of course, are pleased with the
supply of their lack.

But this is not the case with all Pleasures: those attendant on
mathematical studies, for instance, are unconnected with any Pain; and
of such as attend on the senses those which arise through the sense of
Smell; and again, many sounds, and sights, and memories, and hopes: now
of what can these be Generations? because there has been here no lack of
anything to be afterwards supplied.

And to those who bring forward disgraceful Pleasures we may reply that
these are not really pleasant things; for it does not follow because
they are pleasant to the ill-disposed that we are to admit that they are
pleasant except to them; just as we should not say that those things
are really wholesome, or sweet, or bitter, which are so to the sick,
or those objects really white which give that impression to people
labouring under ophthalmia.

Or we might say thus, that the Pleasures are choiceworthy but not as
derived from these sources: just as wealth is, but not as the price of
treason; or health, but not on the terms of eating anything however
loathsome. Or again, may we not say that Pleasures differ in kind? those
derived from honourable objects, for instance are different from those
arising from disgraceful ones; and it is not possible to experience
the Pleasure of the just man without being just, or of the musical man
without being musical; and so on of others.

The distinction commonly drawn between the friend and the flatterer
would seem to show clearly either that Pleasure is not a good, or that
there are different kinds of Pleasure: for the former is thought to have
good as the object of his intercourse, the latter Pleasure only; and
this last is reproached, but the former men praise as having different
objects in his intercourse.

[Sidenote: 1174a]

Again, no one would choose to live with a child's intellect all his
life through, though receiving the highest possible Pleasure from such
objects as children receive it from; or to take Pleasure in doing any of
the most disgraceful things, though sure never to be pained.

There are many things also about which we should be diligent even though
they brought no Pleasure; as seeing, remembering, knowing, possessing
the various Excellences; and the fact that Pleasures do follow on these
naturally makes no difference, because we should certainly choose them
even though no Pleasure resulted from them.

It seems then to be plain that Pleasure is not the Chief Good, nor is
every kind of it choiceworthy: and that there are some choiceworthy in
themselves, differing in kind, _i.e._ in the sources from which they
are derived. Let this then suffice by way of an account of the current
maxims respecting Pleasure and Pain.

[Sidenote: IV]

Now what it is, and how characterised, will be more plain if we take up
the subject afresh.

An act of Sight is thought to be complete at any moment; that is to say,
it lacks nothing the accession of which subsequently will complete its
whole nature.

Well, Pleasure resembles this: because it is a whole, as one may say;
and one could not at any moment of time take a Pleasure whose whole
nature would be completed by its lasting for a longer time. And for this
reason it is not a Movement: for all Movement takes place in time of
certain duration and has a certain End to accomplish; for instance, the
Movement of house-building is then only complete when the builder has
produced what he intended, that is, either in the whole time [necessary
to complete the whole design], or in a given portion. But all the
subordinate Movements are incomplete in the parts of the time, and are
different in kind from the whole movement and from one another (I
mean, for instance, that the fitting the stones together is a Movement
different from that of fluting the column, and both again from the
construction of the Temple as a whole: but this last is complete as
lacking nothing to the result proposed; whereas that of the basement,
or of the triglyph, is incomplete, because each is a Movement of a part
merely).

As I said then, they differ in kind, and you cannot at any time you
choose find a Movement complete in its whole nature, but, if at all, in
the whole time requisite.

[Sidenote: 1174_b_]

And so it is with the Movement of walking and all others: for, if motion
be a Movement from one place to another place, then of it too there are
different kinds, flying, walking, leaping, and such-like. And not only
so, but there are different kinds even in walking: the where-from and
where-to are not the same in the whole Course as in a portion of it;
nor in one portion as in another; nor is crossing this line the same as
crossing that: because a man is not merely crossing a line but a line in
a given place, and this is in a different place from that.

Of Movement I have discoursed exactly in another treatise. I will now
therefore only say that it seems not to be complete at any given moment;
and that most movements are incomplete and specifically different, since
the whence and whither constitute different species.

But of Pleasure the whole nature is complete at any given moment: it
is plain then that Pleasure and Movement must be different from one
another, and that Pleasure belongs to the class of things whole and
complete. And this might appear also from the impossibility of moving
except in a definite time, whereas there is none with respect to the
sensation of Pleasure, for what exists at the very present moment is a
kind of "whole."

From these considerations then it is plain that people are not warranted
in saying that Pleasure is a Movement or a Generation: because these
terms are not applicable to all things, only to such as are divisible
and not "wholes:" I mean that of an act of Sight there is no Generation,
nor is there of a point, nor of a monad, nor is any one of these a
Movement or a Generation: neither then of Pleasure is there Movement or
Generation, because it is, as one may say, "a whole."

Now since every Percipient Faculty works upon the Object answering to
it, and perfectly the Faculty in a good state upon the most excellent of
the Objects within its range (for Perfect Working is thought to be much
what I have described; and we will not raise any question about saying
"the Faculty" works, instead of, "that subject wherein the Faculty
resides"), in each case the best Working is that of the Faculty in its
best state upon the best of the Objects answering to it. And this will
be, further, most perfect and most pleasant: for Pleasure is attendant
upon every Percipient Faculty, and in like manner on every intellectual
operation and speculation; and that is most pleasant which is most
perfect, and that most perfect which is the Working of the best Faculty
upon the most excellent of the Objects within its range.

And Pleasure perfects the Working. But Pleasure does not perfect it in
the same way as the Faculty and Object of Perception do, being good;
just as health and the physician are not in similar senses causes of a
healthy state.

And that Pleasure does arise upon the exercise of every Percipient
Faculty is evident, for we commonly say that sights and sounds are
pleasant; it is plain also that this is especially the case when the
Faculty is most excellent and works upon a similar Object: and when both
the Object and Faculty of Perception are such, Pleasure will always
exist, supposing of course an agent and a patient.

[Sidenote: 1175_a_]

Furthermore, Pleasure perfects the act of Working not in the way of an
inherent state but as a supervening finish, such as is bloom in people
at their prime. Therefore so long as the Object of intellectual or
sensitive Perception is such as it should be and also the Faculty which
discerns or realises the Object, there will be Pleasure in the Working:
because when that which has the capacity of being acted on and that
which is apt to act are alike and similarly related, the same result
follows naturally.

How is it then that no one feels Pleasure continuously? is it not that
he wearies, because all human faculties are incapable of unintermitting
exertion; and so, of course, Pleasure does not arise either, because
that follows upon the act of Working. But there are some things which
please when new, but afterwards not in the like way, for exactly the
same reason: that at first the mind is roused and works on these Objects
with its powers at full tension; just as they who are gazing stedfastly
at anything; but afterwards the act of Working is not of the kind it was
at first, but careless, and so the Pleasure too is dulled.

Again, a person may conclude that all men grasp at Pleasure, because all
aim likewise at Life and Life is an act of Working, and every man works
at and with those things which also he best likes; the musical man, for
instance, works with his hearing at music; the studious man with his
intellect at speculative questions, and so forth. And Pleasure perfects
the acts of Working, and so Life after which men grasp. No wonder then
that they aim also at Pleasure, because to each it perfects Life, which
is itself choiceworthy. (We will take leave to omit the question whether
we choose Life for Pleasure's sake of Pleasure for Life's sake; because
these two plainly are closely connected and admit not of separation;
since Pleasure comes not into being without Working, and again, every
Working Pleasure perfects.)

And this is one reason why Pleasures are thought to differ in kind,
because we suppose that things which differ in kind must be perfected by
things so differing: it plainly being the case with the productions of
Nature and Art; as animals, and trees, and pictures, and statues, and
houses, and furniture; and so we suppose that in like manner acts of
Working which are different in kind are perfected by things differing in
kind. Now Intellectual Workings differ specifically from those of the
Senses, and these last from one another; therefore so do the Pleasures
which perfect them.

This may be shown also from the intimate connection subsisting between
each Pleasure and the Working which it perfects: I mean, that the
Pleasure proper to any Working increases that Working; for they who
work with Pleasure sift all things more closely and carry them out to a
greater degree of nicety; for instance, those men become geometricians
who take Pleasure in geometry, and they apprehend particular points more
completely: in like manner men who are fond of music, or architecture,
or anything else, improve each on his own pursuit, because they feel
Pleasure in them. Thus the Pleasures aid in increasing the Workings, and
things which do so aid are proper and peculiar: but the things which are
proper and peculiar to others specifically different are themselves also
specifically different.

Yet even more clearly may this be shown from the fact that the Pleasures
arising from one kind of Workings hinder other Workings; for instance,
people who are fond of flute-music cannot keep their attention to
conversation or discourse when they catch the sound of a flute; because
they take more Pleasure in flute-playing than in the Working they are
at the time engaged on; in other words, the Pleasure attendant on
flute-playing destroys the Working of conversation or discourse. Much
the same kind of thing takes place in other cases, when a person is
engaged in two different Workings at the same time: that is, the
pleasanter of the two keeps pushing out the other, and, if the disparity
in pleasantness be great, then more and more till a man even ceases
altogether to work at the other.

This is the reason why, when we are very much pleased with anything
whatever, we do nothing else, and it is only when we are but moderately
pleased with one occupation that we vary it with another: people,
for instance, who eat sweetmeats in the theatre do so most when the
performance is indifferent.

Since then the proper and peculiar Pleasure gives accuracy to the
Workings and makes them more enduring and better of their kind, while
those Pleasures which are foreign to them mar them, it is plain there
is a wide difference between them: in fact, Pleasures foreign to any
Working have pretty much the same effect as the Pains proper to it,
which, in fact, destroy the Workings; I mean, if one man dislikes
writing, or another calculation, the one does not write, the other does
not calculate; because, in each case, the Working is attended with some
Pain: so then contrary effects are produced upon the Workings by the
Pleasures and Pains proper to them, by which I mean those which arise
upon the Working, in itself, independently of any other circumstances.
As for the Pleasures foreign to a Working, we have said already that
they produce a similar effect to the Pain proper to it; that is they
destroy the Working, only not in like way.

Well then, as Workings differ from one another in goodness and badness,
some being fit objects of choice, others of avoidance, and others in
their nature indifferent, Pleasures are similarly related; since its own
proper Pleasure attends or each Working: of course that proper to a good
Working is good, that proper to a bad, bad: for even the desires for
what is noble are praiseworthy, and for what is base blameworthy.

Furthermore, the Pleasures attendant on Workings are more closely
connected with them even than the desires after them: for these last
are separate both in time and nature, but the former are close to the
Workings, and so indivisible from them as to raise a question whether
the Working and the Pleasure are identical; but Pleasure does not seem
to be an Intellectual Operation nor a Faculty of Perception, because
that is absurd; but yet it gives some the impression of being the same
from not being separated from these.

As then the Workings are different so are their Pleasures; now Sight
differs from Touch in purity, and Hearing and Smelling from Taste;
therefore, in like manner, do their Pleasures; and again, Intellectual
Pleasures from these Sensual, and the different kinds both of
Intellectual and Sensual from one another.

It is thought, moreover, that each animal has a Pleasure proper to
itself, as it has a proper Work; that Pleasure of course which is
attendant on the Working. And the soundness of this will appear upon
particular inspection: for horse, dog, and man have different Pleasures;
as Heraclitus says, an ass would sooner have hay than gold; in other
words, provender is pleasanter to asses than gold. So then the Pleasures
of animals specifically different are also specifically different, but
those of the same, we may reasonably suppose, are without difference.

Yet in the case of human creatures they differ not a little: for the
very same things please some and pain others: and what are painful and
hateful to some are pleasant to and liked by others. The same is the
case with sweet things: the same will not seem so to the man in a fever
as to him who is in health: nor will the invalid and the person in
robust health have the same notion of warmth. The same is the case with
other things also.

Now in all such cases that is held to _be_ which impresses the good man
with the notion of being such and such; and if this is a second maxim
(as it is usually held to be), and Virtue, that is, the Good man, in
that he is such, is the measure of everything, then those must be real
Pleasures which gave him the impression of being so and those things
pleasant in which he takes Pleasure. Nor is it at all astonishing that
what are to him unpleasant should give another person the impression of
being pleasant, for men are liable to many corruptions and marrings; and
the things in question are not pleasant really, only to these particular
persons, and to them only as being thus disposed.

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