Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle [most read books of all time .txt] 📗

may be greedy (ἁπλῶς), or greedy for a particular kind of food. ↩

Called also ἁπλῶς ἀγαθά, “good in themselves,” as in V 1 (“… not all good things, but those with which good and illfortune are concerned⁠ ⁠…”), (cf. V 2⁠—“… such things as honour, wealth, security⁠ ⁠…”), and ἐκτὸς ἀγαθά, “external goods,” as in I 8 (“… good things have been divided into three classes, external goods on the one hand⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

As we do not know the facts to which Aristotle alludes we can only conjecture his meaning. It may be that the man in question had certain physical peculiarities, so that though he “passed for a man” he was not quite a man in the common meaning of the name. So Locke asks (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding iv 4, 13), “is a changeling a man or a beast?” ↩

As in an earlier section of this chapter (“Of the sources of pleasure, some are necessary, and others⁠ ⁠…”) only two classes are given, it is probable that these words are an interpolation, and that these paragraphs (which pave the way for the next chapter) were intended to replace that explanation. The intermediate class just above (“… others are intermediate between the two⁠ ⁠…”) is the “necessary” of that previous section. ↩

I.e. here “by disease:” φύσις bears three different senses in the space of a few lines⁠—(1) in the first paragraph of this chapter, beginning, “natural” = in accordance with the true nature of the thing, the thing as it ought to be; (2) also in that paragraph, end, “natural” = what a man is born with, as opposed to subsequent modifications of this; (3) in this paragraph “natural” includes what my body does by powers in it over which I have no control, e.g. modifications of my nature produced by disease. ↩

Because incontinence is a human weakness; these acts are brutal or morbid. ↩

Homer’s Iliad, xiv 214, 217. ↩

E.g. cruelty in the heat of battle rouses less indignation than ill-treatment of women afterwards. For a similar reason profligacy was said (III 12) to be worse than cowardice. ↩

This comparison is rendered superfluous by the preceding one (which probably was meant to be substituted for it), and is not very apt as it stands. We should rather expect πρὸς τὸ ἄδικον: the sense would then be, “injustice is morally worse than an unjust act which does not proceed from an unjust character, but the latter may be a worse evil;” e.g. humanity has suffered more by well-meaning persecutors than by the greatest villains. Cf. V 11 (“… to be unjustly treated is less bad, but there is nothing to prevent its being accidentally the greater evil⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

Dropping the second ἢ or substituting εἰ for it. If we take it thus, the distinction may be illustrated by the distinction which opinion in England draws between opium smoking and tobacco smoking. Opium smoking is commonly regarded by us as a ὑπερβολή, as a pleasure that in any degree is beyond the pale of legitimate pleasures; a man who is too much given to tobacco-smoking is regarded as pursuing καθ᾿ ὑπερβολάς (in excess) a pleasure which in moderation is legitimate. If we adopt Ingram Bywater’s conjecture ἦ ὑπερβολαί the sense will be, “he who pursues excessive pleasures as such, that is of deliberate purpose.” ↩

Cf. Chapter 2, starting with “Again, he who pursues and does what is pleasant from conviction.⁠ ⁠…” ↩

The incontinent man, when the fit is over and the better part of him reasserts itself (cf. “… the best part of our nature⁠ ⁠… still survives” further on in this Chapter), recognizes the badness of his act; but the vicious man, though he is aware that his acts are called bad, dissents from the judgments of society (cf. Chapter 9 “the profligate⁠ ⁠… pursue[s] bodily pleasures⁠ ⁠… on principle”), and so may be said not to know: cf. III 1 (“… the person compelled contributing nothing thereto”). ↩

The weak (ἀσθενεῖς) are worse than the hasty (προπετεῖς): cf. the previous chapter (“There are two kinds of incontinence, the hasty and the weak.”) ↩

I.e. the definitions; not the axioms, since in Aristotle’s language a ὑπόθεσις, strictly speaking, involves the assumption of the existence of a corresponding object. ↩

Cf. Chapter 2 (the two paragraphs starting from “Again, if continence makes a man apt⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

Literally, thinking that he ought (οἰόμενος δεῖν); i.e. adopting them as his end. ↩

Cf. VI 12 (“There is a faculty which we call cleverness⁠ ⁠…”). ↩

Though they do what is unjust or wrong. It must be remembered that above (V 1 starting at “We found that the lawbreaker is unjust⁠ ⁠…” and continuing through the end of the chapter) it was laid down that all vicious action, when viewed in relation to others, is unjust (in the wider sense of the term). ↩

Cf. Chapter 14 (“These are the pleasures derived from things⁠ ⁠…”). I have frequently in this chapter rendered ἕξις by faculty, in order to express the opposition to ἐνέργεια, activity or exercise of faculty; but no single word is satisfactory. ↩

The argument in full would be thus: pleasure is good; but good is exercise of faculty (ἐνέργεια), and this is a process or transition (γένεσις); ∴ pleasure is a transition. But according