The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (185 page)

¹
This has not been said precisely of friendship between dissimilars, but Cf. 1132
^b
31–33, 1158
^b
27, 1159
^a
35-
^b
3, 1162
^a
34-
^b
4, 1163
^b
11.

²
1156
^b
9–12.

³
i. e. the pleasure of expectation.

⁴
Cf. Pl.
Prot
. 328
B, C
.

⁵
1162
^b
6–13.

⁶
1164
^b
31–1165
^a
2.

⁷
1094
^b
11–27, 1098
^a
26–29, 1103
^b
34–1104
^a
5.

⁸
Cf. 1134
^b
18–24.

⁹
1162
^b
23–25.

¹⁰
1156
^b
19–21, 1159
^b
1.

¹¹
1157
^b
22–24.

¹²
ib. 17–24, 1158
^b
33–35.

¹³
1113
^a
22–33, Cf. 1099
^a
13.

¹⁴
(4) above.

¹⁵
(1) above.

¹⁶
(2) above.

¹⁷
sc
. but as no one gains by God’s now having the good, he would not gain if a new person which was no longer himself were to possess it. Cf. 1159
^a
5–11.

¹⁸
(3) above.

¹⁹
(5) above.

²⁰
Cf. 1168
^a
28–1169
^b
2.

²¹
(4) above.

²²
(2) above.

²³
(3) above.

²⁴
(1) above.

²⁵
(5) above.

²⁶
1155
^b
32–1156
^a
5.

²⁷
Eteocles and Polynices (Eur.
Phoen
. 588 ff.).

²⁸
i. e. benefactors.

²⁹
Ch. 4.

³⁰
1098
^a
16
^b
, 31–1099
^a
7.

³¹
1099
^a
14, 21.

³²
i. e. the attribute of goodness and that of being their own.

³³
1099
^a
7–11, 1113
^a
25–33.

³⁴
x. 1–5.

³⁵
1157
^b
19, 1158
^a
3, 10.

1
     After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature, which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought,
(20)
too, that to enjoy
the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on virtue of character. For these things extend right through life, with a weight and power of their own in respect both to virtue and to the happy life,
(25)
since men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is painful; and such things, it will be thought, we should least of all omit to discuss, especially since they admit of much dispute. For some
¹
say pleasure is the good, while others,
²
on the contrary, say it is thoroughly bad—some no doubt being persuaded that the facts are so, and others thinking it has a better effect on our life to exhibit pleasure as a bad thing even if it is not; for most people (they think) incline towards it and are the slaves of their pleasures,
(30)
for which reason they ought to lead them in the opposite direction, since thus they will reach the middle state. But surely this is not correct. For arguments about matters concerned with feelings and actions are less reliable than facts: and so when they clash with the facts of perception they are despised,
(35)
and discredit the truth as well; if a man who runs down pleasure is once seen to be aiming at it, his inclining towards it is thought to imply that it is all worthy of being aimed at; for most people are not good at drawing distinctions.
[1172b]
True arguments seem, then, most useful, not only with a view to knowledge,
(5)
but with a view to life also; for since they harmonize with the facts they are believed, and so they stimulate those who understand them to live according to them.—Enough of such questions; let us proceed to review the opinions that have been expressed about pleasure.

2
     Eudoxus thought pleasure was the good because he saw all things,
(10)
both rational and irrational, aiming at it, and because in all things that which is the object of choice is what is excellent, and that which is most the object of choice the greatest good; thus the fact that all things moved towards the same object indicated that this was for all things the chief good (for each thing, he argued, finds its own good, as it finds its own nourishment); and that which is good for all things and at which all aim was
the
good.
(15)
His arguments were credited more because of the excellence of his character than for their own sake; he was thought to be remarkably self-controlled, and therefore it was thought that he was not saying what he did say as a friend of pleasure, but that the facts really were so. He believed that the same conclusion followed no less plainly from a study of the contrary of pleasure; pain was in itself an object of aversion to all things, and
therefore its contrary must be similarly an object of choice.
(20)
And again that is most an object of choice which we choose not because or for the sake of something else, and pleasure is admittedly of this nature; for no one asks to what end he is pleased, thus implying that pleasure is in itself an object of choice. Further, he argued that pleasure when added to any good, e. g. to just or temperate action, makes it more worthy of choice, and that it is only by itself that the good can be increased.
(25)

This
argument seems to show it to be one of the goods, and no more a good than any other; for every good is more worthy of choice along with another good than taken alone. And so it is by an argument of this kind that Plato
³
proves the good
not
to be pleasure; he argues that the pleasant life is more desirable with wisdom than without,
(30)
and that if the mixture is better, pleasure is not the good; for the good cannot become more desirable by the addition of anything to it. Now it is clear that nothing else, any more than pleasure, can be the good if it is made more desirable by the addition of any of the things that are good in themselves. What, then, is there that satisfies this criterion, which at the same time we can participate in? It is something of this sort that we are looking for.

Those who object that that at which all things aim is not necessarily good are,
(35)
we may surmise, talking nonsense. For we say that that which every one thinks really is so; and the man who attacks this belief will hardly have anything more credible to maintain instead.
[1173a]
If it is senseless creatures that desire the things in question, there might be something in what they say; but if intelligent creatures do so as well, what sense can there be in this view? But perhaps even in inferior creatures there is some natural good stronger than themselves which aims at their proper good.

Nor does the argument about the contrary of pleasure seem to be correct.
(5)
They say that if pain is an evil it does not follow that pleasure is a good; for evil is opposed to evil and at the same time both are opposed to the neutral state—which is correct enough but does not apply to the things in question. For if both pleasure and pain belonged to the class of evils they ought both to be objects of aversion,
(10)
while if they belonged to the class of neutrals neither should be an object of aversion or they should both be equally so; but in fact people evidently avoid the one as evil and choose the other as good; that then must be the nature of the opposition between them.

3
     Nor again, if pleasure is not a quality, does it follow that it is not a good; for the activities of virtue are not qualities either, nor is happiness.

They say,
⁴
(15)
however, that the good is determinate, while pleasure is indeterminate, because it admits of degrees. Now if it is from the feeling of pleasure that they judge thus, the same will be true of justice and the other virtues, in respect of which we plainly say that people of a certain character are so more or less, and act more or less in accordance with these virtues; for people may be more just or brave,
(20)
and it is possible also to act justly or temperately more or less. But if their judgement is based on the various pleasures, surely they are not stating the real cause,
⁵
if in fact some pleasures are unmixed and others mixed. Again, just as health admits of degrees without being indeterminate,
(25)
why should not pleasure? The same proportion is not found in all things, nor a single proportion always in the same thing, but it may be relaxed and yet persist up to a point, and it may differ in degree. The case of pleasure also may therefore be of this kind.

Again, they assume
⁶
that the good is perfect while movements and comings into being are imperfect,
(30)
and try to exhibit pleasure as being a movement and a coming into being. But they do not seem to be right even in saying that it is a movement. For speed and slowness are thought to be proper to every movement, and if a movement, e. g. that of the heavens, has not speed or slowness in itself, it has it in relation to something else; but of pleasure neither of these things is true. For while we may
become
pleased quickly as we may become angry quickly, we cannot
be
pleased quickly, not even in relation to some one else, while we
can
walk, or grow, or the like, quickly.
[1173b]
While, then, we can change quickly or slowly into a state of pleasure, we cannot quickly exhibit the activity of pleasure, i. e. be pleased. Again, how can it be a coming into being? It is not thought that any chance thing can come out of any chance thing,
(5)
but that a thing is dissolved into that out of which it comes into being; and pain would be the destruction of that of which pleasure is the coming into being.

They say, too,
⁷
that pain is the lack of that which is according to nature, and pleasure is replenishment. But these experiences are bodily. If then pleasure is replenishment with that which is according to nature, that which feels pleasure will be that in which the
replenishment takes place, i. e. the body; but that is not thought to be the case; therefore the replenishment is not pleasure,
(10)
though one would be pleased when replenishment was taking place, just as one would be pained if one was being operated on.
⁸
This opinion seems to be based on the pains and pleasures connected with nutrition; on the fact that when people have been short of food and have felt pain beforehand they are pleased by the replenishment. But this does not happen with all pleasures; for the pleasures of learning and,
(15)
among the sensuous pleasures, those of smell, and also many sounds and sights, and memories and hopes, do not presuppose pain. Of what then will these be the coming into being? There has not been lack of anything of which they could be the supplying anew.

In reply to those who bring forward the disgraceful pleasures one may say that these are not pleasant; if things are pleasant to people of vicious constitution,
(20)
we must not suppose that they are also pleasant to others than these, just as we do not reason so about the things that are wholesome or sweet or bitter to sick people, or ascribe whiteness to the things that seem white to those suffering from a disease of the eye. Or one might answer thus—that the pleasures are desirable,
(25)
but not from
these
sources, as wealth is desirable, but not as the reward of betrayal, and health, but not at the cost of eating anything and everything. Or perhaps pleasures differ in kind; for those derived from noble sources are different from those derived from base sources, and one cannot get the pleasure of the just man without being just, nor that of the musical man without being musical,
(30)
and so on.

The fact, too, that a friend is different from a flatterer seems to make it plain that pleasure is not a good or that pleasures are different in kind; for the one is thought to consort with us with a view to the good, the other with a view to our pleasure, and the one is reproached for his conduct while the other is praised on the ground that he consorts with us for different ends.
[1174a]
And no one would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his life, however much he were to be pleased at the things that children are pleased at, nor to get enjoyment by doing some most disgraceful deed, though he were never to feel any pain in consequence. And there are many things we should be keen about even if they brought no pleasure,
(5)
e. g. seeing, remembering, knowing, possessing the virtues. If pleasures necessarily do accompany these, that makes no odds; we should choose these even if no pleasure resulted. It seems to be clear, then,
that neither is pleasure the good nor is all pleasure desirable,
(10)
and that some pleasures
are
desirable in kind or in their sources from the others. So much for the things that are said about pleasure and pain.