Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII: Symposium Aristotelicum (Bk. 7)

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Chris Bobonich

NE VII 7: Akrasia and Self-Control

The picture that Aristotle may be suggesting (which is, I think, plausible) is that for something worse than X, e.g. Y, the self-indulgent will feel a strong desire for Y and act on it from choice, while the akratk will not feel (such) a strong desire for Y and will not do Y. For example, the self-indulgent feels a weak desire for a fourth glass of whisky at a party, thinks it good to take it, and does so; the akratic feels a strong desire for that whisky at a party, thinks it best not to take it, but does so anyway. The self-indulgent will also feel a strong desire, e.g. to spend a weekend binge drinking, and will do so; but the akratic will not feel a strong desire for this. nor will he do so. Such a pattern of desires and actions (including counterfactual ones) would plausibly make it seem obvious 'to everyone' that the self-indulgent is worse, without, at any rate, an explicit appeal to the comparative corruption of his principle.

this point that is one of Cook Wilson's main reasons for thinking that book VII is a composite. A narrow construal, according to Cook Wilson, is suggested by the passages on moderation in the unique books of the NE and the EE.

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(3) Finally, 115oa26~7 seems to display a narrow understanding of the pains relevant to these dispositions (Le. it is the pain of frustrated desire), and I take up the general issue in the next section.

The self-controlled is opposed to the akratic, and the enduring to the soft; for endurance (to karterein) depends on resisting (antechein), but self-control depends on being stronger (kratein). And to resist (antechein) and to be stronger (kratein) are different, just as not being weaker (to me hettasthai) is different from winning (nikan). For this reason, self· control is more choiceworthy than endurance.

Section 4 returns to the issue presented at the beginning of this chapter: that is, the relation between the self-controlled/the akratic, and the enduring/the soft. In Section 1 at 11Soa13-15, these pairs are distinguished by their objects: the former are concerned with pleasures, the latter with pains. Commentators sometimes wonder whether l1S0a32-6 is intended to be a supplement to l1S0aB-IS, or whether it supersedes 1150a 13-15 so that, e.g., the self-controlled is one who is stronger than either pleasures or pains, while the enduring (onlyJresists pleasures and pains. On the whole, I think it is better to regard 1150a 32-6 as supplementing 1150aI3~15. Both before and after 1150"32-6 (e.g. llSOb2-8, 17~19) Aristotle distinguishes akrasia and softness in terms of their different objects-pleasure and pain,· respectively-and it is unlikely that he adopts a very different conception here without marking it in some way. This is the most controversial section of our chapter, since, first, it is not clear exactly how Aristotle intends to distinguish self-control from endurance (indeed, several commentators think that Aristotle's claim that the former is more choiceworthy is simply unfounded), and, secondly, it brings to a head the issue of what sorts of pains are relevant to these dispositions. I begin with the latter issue. Assuming that being enduring is a matter of resisting pains, and being self-controlled is a matter of being stronger than pleasures, what pains does Aristotle have in mind here? It is what he finds to be the text's inconsistencies on

Excess about pleasures, then, is clearly self-indulgence and blameworthy; as for pains, one is not, as in the case of courage, called moderate for facing them nor self-indulgent for not doing so, but the self-indulgent is so called because he is pained more than he should at not getting pleasant things (even his pain is caused by pleasure), and the moderate man is so called because he is not pained at the absence of what is pleasant and at his abstinence from it. The self-indulgent... is pained both when he fails to get them [pleasant things} and when he is desiring them (for desire is with pain). (NE 1118h Z? -1119"4)29

The EE texts are, I think, less dear. The man in such a condition as to be deficient in the pleasures which all must in general share in and enjoy is insensible ... the man who is excessive is se1f-indulgent. For all naturally enjoy these objects and conceive desires for them, and neither are, Dor are called self-indulgent; for they neither exceed by enjoying them more than they should when they get them, nor by feeling greater pain than they should when they do not get them. (EE 1231a 26-32)30

The Eudemian Ethics' brief discussion of moderation is focused more on pleasure, and we should not conclude that Aristotle means to restrict the relevant pains to only those arising out of the frustration of desire. In particular, in the above passage, Aristotle seems more concerned to show that one can enjoy many pleasures without being self-indulgent. So his attention is on the differences between the moderate and the self-indulgent, both when they attain the pleasures they seek and when they faiL If VII. 4 and VII. 7 broaden the pains associated with moderation, they are slightly more compatible with the EE passages, I think, than with the NE passages. Cook Wilson also claims in support that in both the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle associates endurance and softness with the objects of courage and cowardice (deilia) and may, e.g., see softness as a form of cowardice.31 But this evidence is weaker than Cook Wilson suggests. NE 11163 12-14 does see softness as a form of cowardice, but this is very much a remark in passing, and it does not seem to be an attempt to make the notion of softness precise. It certainly Cook Wilson also cites 1117b 24-7 and 1119"24-5. It is probab1y wrong to think that the BE's claim (1230b 36-8) that moderation concerns the sensory obiects that other animals enjoy and are pained by entails that its conception of moderation's objects is less restrictive than the NE. The NE (especially III. 10) also emphasizes that moderation's objects are shared by non-human animals, and BE 1231"26-32 mentions only the pains of frustration. Otberpassages are more important (1) NE 114Sa35-6linkssoftness (malakia) and daintiness (trIlphi) and promises a later discussion. The only NE passage that this could refer to is 115fi' 1 if., where the pains include more than those of frustration. Would followers of Cook Wdson delete 1145"35-6 or dismiss it as part of the Eudemian strata of NE book VII? (2) EE 1221'28-9 and 1221"9 clearly have the broader conception of pain fur daintiness (d. Rh. B84a l-2), allhough 1221"9 seems to make 31 Cook Wilson (1912, 33). endurance a virtue distinct from moderation. 19 30

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NE VII. 7: Akrasia and Self-Control

does not exclude the possibility that in the same work Aristotle offers a more precise or strict understanding of softness. But Cook Wilson also claims that the same picture is found in the following passage:

heat and cold (although these are still said to be pleasures of touch and taste).34 Second, and more controversially, it may allow in quite generally, the pains of hunger and thirst and heat and cold. The worry here is that, as noted above, some have thought that Aristode in the unique books of the Nicomachean Ethics (and more questionably the Eudemian Ethics) restricts the relevant pains to those associated with the frustration of desire. But the pain offrustrated desire is distinct from these expanded pains: when I am freezing, it is no doubt usually the case that my desire to be warm is (painfully) frustrated, but it seems also that being cold is painful in itself. Burnet (followed by Gauthier and 10lif and contra Cook Wilson) argues that such broadening is acceptable, and citing the claim at Parts of Animals 646"16 that wet and dry and hot and cold are the matter of 'composite bodies', infers that the pleasures of warmth and coolness arc thus on 'exactly the same footing as the pleasures of nutrition and reproduction' .35 Yet we might have several worries. First, with respect to the gourmand, Ar"istotle is concerned to localize the relevant pleasures of touch to certain body parts, and Burnet's inference threatens to let in all tangible pleasures. Burnet's idea might be that if we first restrict (on some independent grounds) the relevant pleasures of touch to certain parts of the body, then, because the objects enjoyed with those parts are composites of wet and dry and hot and cold, we can see them as pleasures taken in warmth, coolness, and so on. But this, too, seems problematic: if aU sensible composite bodies were in some way composed out of prime matter and form, would this show that these are pleasures taken in prime matter and form? To put it anachronistically, even if the composition claim is true, it does not show that the composite things are desired or enjoyed under that description. 36 But Aristotle does specify hotJcold and dry/wet as objects of touch, and such a claim may rest on some of his basic views about the nature of the elements and of perception. 37 We might also restrict these pleasures in the way suggested above so that they are, more or less, those shared with other animals. The details would still need to be worked out, but we can perhaps see the beginning of a story that would allow pleasures of warmth and coolness to be pleasures of touch. But there is a more basic worry. Aristotle remarks:

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But fear only occurs in connection with the expectations of pain whose nature is to be destructive oflife. Therefore men who are very soft as to some things are brave, and some are hard (:kJeroi) and enduring are cowards ... For if a man were such as to be patient as re~ily be wrong as right, and because his adherence to it comes from self-will rather than from loyalty to right reason as such. Correspondingly, then, to call someone akrates per accidens would be to attribute a psychological state with the same structure as that of the akratic per se, but where the abandoned decision is a bad one, or where at least there is no implication that it is good. Now regret-indeed, what we call a sense of guilt, whether concurrent with the action or springing up in its immediate wake-is an essential 38 Ibis omission to spell out this specific application of the distinction could be taken as eviden.::e of different versions, as could some other features of the text studied in this chapter.

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39 In Sophocles' play, Neoptolemus in fact ha.~ doubts from the first about the honourableness of Odysseus's plan, although initially he accepts it as a practical necessity. It could therefore be said that he was never strongly enough 'persuaded' in the first place for his change of course to resemble a cla.';sic case of akrasilL Tbis aspect of the SloT)' is Simply overlooked in the present dialectical fucus on Neoptolemus as a putative example of'admirable akrasia'. 40 Parts of the complex diS'-'IlSsion ofluex and virtue in EEvlIl. 2 apply to Neoptolemus' s impulsive change.

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Sarah Broadie

primarily think of akratic behaviour as contradicting the better judgement: tbis for us ios the philosophically most interesting thing about it. Obviously, this aspect is of central importance for Aristotle too. However) the portion of NE VII which has been discussed here is also shaped by another interest. This is a concern with ethical switching and ethicalsamerless understood as a single broad topic for investigation, the inquiry being governed by the question of which kinds of switching and which kinds of sameness are praiseworthy and which deplorable (whether or not they are due to or in accordance with rational persuasion). From this point of view, the fact that Neoptolemus's switch did him moral credit is a more salient ground for withholding the pejorative 'ahatic' than the fact that it did not transgress a concurrent dictate of his reason.

7 Nicomachean Ethics VI I. 9 (11 SIb 23 ) - 1 0 : (In)Continence in Context TEUN TIELEMAN

Introduction Pages 1151 b23, 1152a 36, marked off-not unreasonably -by the editors (or at least Bekker and those who follow him in this regard)l as chapter Il, show Aristotle wrapping up his discussion of continence, incontinence, resistance, and softness that takes up the first half of NE Vll.2 This chapter takes the form of a collection ofloosely related observations designed to fit some of the main results of his preceding inquiry into the wider context of the moral theory expounded in books I-VI) These few pages have remained somewhat marginal to most modern interpretations of Aristotle's account of incontinence. But since one of the exegetical issues is precisely that of the definitive position taken by Aristotle, it seems ill-advised to leave aside this concluding chapter. It is well worth trying to establish which information of wider relevance may be elicited from this stretch of text, if pressed anew. Chaptet 11 can be subdivided as follows:

1. 1151 b23-32: the linking of the theory of (in)continence to the doctrine of the mean 2. 1151 b32-1152a 6: the relation of (in)continence to (in)temperance 3. 1152a 6-15: the relation of (in)continenc£ to practical wisdom as distinct from cleverness 4. 1152a l5- 24: the relation of (in)continence to wickedness and injustice

I Note that according the alternative division printed by Bywater (alongside Bekker's chapter numbers) in his ocr edition our text covers the last part of ch. 9 and the whole of ch. JO. Only Bywater's numbering .~ystem is used in Barnes's revised Oxford translation of the complete works of Aristotle (1984). 2 See esp. the chapter's dosing lines, 1152'34-6. 3 As my references will bear out; d. the characterization of the chapter by Gauthier and Jotif

(1970),652.

Teun Tieleman

NE VII. 9 (1151 b23)-1O: (In)Coritinencein Context

5. 1152a 25-33: practical note: the actual condition of people and the possibility of curing their incontinence 6. ll52 a34-6: concluding statement

with reason prevailing only in the case of continence. In each triad of attitudes towards pleasure, there are two incorrect ones and one correct one. Deficient susceptIbility to pleasure, whether of the 'A' or 'B' variety we have dubbed 'insensitivity' and 'under-indulgence' respectively, does not seem very important to Aristotle. He does not analyse this rare phenomenon further.7 As we can all see on a daily basis, people in general are prone to pleasure. Indeed, feeling disgust for pleasure is so exceptional as to seem hardly a human condition at all (cf. 1119a 6-7). In presenting their condition as the true opposite of incontinence, there must be a systematic reason involved: Aristotle wants to present continence as a correct mean and as such occupying a position analogous to temperance.1I Considered in this light, this mean-cum-opposites triad smacks of undue predilection for schematism on the great philosopher's part. Even so, Aristotle's trifold analysis effectively brings home the status of continence as what one might call a semi-virtue typical of someone progressing toward virtue but still lacking a perfect mind in which appetite operates in harmony with reason.!) As Aristotle notes a little further on (II52 a25-7), the behavioural pattern exhibited by most people in actual practice situates them somewhere between the continent and the incontinent type. They do not side with reason against desire as consistently as the continent person does. On the other hand, they perform on the whole better than the incontinent person, who always allows desire to prevail. At 8, ll5Q315-17 Aristotle had made the same observation on people's actual performance in responding to both pleasurable and painful stimuli. With regard to the former, the attitude of most of us lies between incontinence and continence, and with regard to the latter the disposition of most lies between weakness and endurance. Here, however, he is a little bit more precise, in that he specifies that they are more inclined to the bad pole of each pair, viz. to incontinence and weakness. As has often been remarked, the subject of moral progress receives little emphasis in the Aristotelian ethics as compared with his determination of ideal and so fixed types. Indeed, this can even be said to hold for the incontinent and continent. Our chapter, however, does contain a few things of relevance to Aristotle's ideas on how to cure and improve people with a view to attaining

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1. Incontinence as a mean

In section I, according to the above division, Aristotle introduces a new point: viz. that there is another way in which appetite and reason may not be attuned to one another, i.e. a way different from incontinence. Some people take less delight in bodily pleasures than they should and do not abide by (right) reason when it orders them to pursue these pleasures. In so far as they fail to put reason's wish into action, their case is like that of the incontinent. The two types differ in their respective dispositions towards pleasure, i.e. as either deficient or excessive in this regard. Aristotle's analysis in terms of the deficiency/excess opposition permits him to position continence as the right mean between these two forms of incorrect behaviour. Thus, continence is analysed in a way analogous to the moral virtues in books II - V and in particular temperance, sliphrosune (III. 13). Aristotle takes continence to be primarily concerned with normal physical pleasures (VIl. 6, 1l47b 20-114Sa 14); so temperance is the excellence most closely corresponding to continence. 4 Likewise, Aristotle had noted that temperance is not the opposite of intemperance, but an intermediate state between the latter and a very rare fault that lacks an established name but may be called 'insensitivity' (anaisthesia), viz. to physical pleasure (Ill ~ 1-20, esp. 7 -II). Here too, then, Aristotle had maintained the reality of the rare and nameless condition of being insensitive (or insufficiently sensitive) to bodily pleasure. Because of the sheer rarity of this one opposite, people often speak of incontinence as if it were opposed to continence, just as they wrongly speak ofintemperance as the opposite oftemperance (ll51 h30- 2). But clearly, the correct state of rationally counteracting deficient pleasures is not continence, but, it appears, something else that is as unknown and nameless as insensitivity to pleasure itself.6 Aristotle's analysis can be tabulated as follows: A B

Deficiency 'insensitivity' 'under-indulgence'

Correct mean temperance continence

Excess intemperance incontinence

The three conditions in row A have in common that reason and appetite act in harmony in responding to physical pleasure, whereas it is common to the three conditons listed in row B that reason and appetite act in opposition to each other, 4 Aristode at m. \3, 1117b 28- 36 tells us that the tenns 'temperance' and 'intemperance' pertain to behaviour with regard to physical pleasure and pain. 5 That is to say, forcing one's desire to go after more food or sex-which does not seem an easier thing to do than inhibiting one's desire. Aristotle may be thinking of a process of habituation through which normal impulses towards physical pleasure are gradually restored. 6 Cf. Broadie (I991), 307 n. 3.

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7 Cf. Aspasius, ad loc. (= In Anst. EN, pp. 139.28-140.1, Heylbut), who raises the question of whether we should take Aristotle to mean that the behaviour of the under-indulgent person can be analysed in tenns of a practical syllogism featuring the (inconect) universal 'One should not indulge in pleasures', which would yield two competing reasonings in a way analogous to that characterizing the predicament of the matic person as offered at VII. 3 (see also further infra, p. 181). Alternatively, Aspasius suggests (but the transmitted text seems unreliable), the under-indulgent behaves as he does under the influence of 'some wish or inational impulse', but he does not further explain this suggestion, which (if the transmitted tr.xt can be relied upon) seems more implausible than the fonner, and in a typical way motivated by Aspasius's bid to retain 'the cleanest possible division of labour between the rational and the iTrational soul' (Sedley 1999,171). 8 Similarly Aspasius, In AnsI. EN p. 139.12-25, Heylbut; Aquinas, In An>1. EN pp. 1146, 1148 Spiazzi (= 451 Litzinger). b 9 Thus at NE IV. 15, 1128 33-5 Aristode observes that not ~en continence may count as a virtue, but rather is a kind of blend, of good reason and suboptimal (because indocile) appetite.

Teurl Tieleman

NE VII. 9 (1151 b23)-1O: (In)Corltinence in Corltext

excellence and happiness. In fact, he is talcing ~p again the fifth .puzz~e raised at the outset, viz. the one found at 1l46a31- 2. Here he had IdentIfied the problem that the intemperate person is better off than the incon~incnt one with a view to their respective chances of being cured (as he calls It). The former acts in line with his rational, albeit incorrect, convictions. These then need to be replaced by correct ones. So he may still be cura~le, and .more easily so than the incontinent person. The latter presents a more dIffIcult, If not hopeless, case in that his correct beliefs have already proved to be insufficiently effective when it comes to mastering his desires. But clearly this is paradoxical. The solution suggested by chapter II is that the road towards mental ,health and excel1e~ce leads for most of us via continence, starting from incontmence or a st.ate lymg close'to it That is to'say, (near- )incontinence is preferable to intemperance after alL Intemperance has been ingrained through habit, all the mor~ so be,cause of the collaboration behveen reason and desire it presupposes. Contmence IS better, since it at least involves reason seeing what the correct course of action is. As we shall see a little further on, Aristolle will have more to say that is relevant to therapy and habituation (see Section 5 below). Here the inc?ntine?t of the fifth puzzle makes his appearance again as one of two types of mcontment that are distinguished: i.e. the type that is contrasted with the impulsive sort. A~ we s~all see, his predicament is presented as more worrying from a therape~tIcal. pOl.nt of view precisely for the reason employed by Aristo~le in cons~ctmg h.IS fifth puzzle: namely, the fact that his correct deliberation IS of proved meffectlveness with a view to correct action.

3. Incontinence, wisdom, and inteUigence

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2. (In}continence and (in)temperance

The difference between temperance and continence is further explained in the second section according to the above division. This distinction is blurred by what people sometimes say: viz. the fact that they call a temperate person con.tinent. To a degree, this is understandable given the outward aspect of the b~havlOur of the two types, since it is typical of both the temperate an~ t?e ~ontment .never to side with physical desire against reason (51 b 34-6). A snmlanty (homolOteta, Sl b 33) like this leads to terms for different things being used indiscriminatcly.lO The difference is that the temperate person no longer experiences strong and bad appetites, whereas the continent still does. ll ]n fact, Aristotle is here repeatin.g a point made in regard to the second puzzle he raised at the o~tset of hIS treatment (3, 1146a 9-16). Likewise, both the intemperate and the mcontment follow ilieir desire, but the former approves of what he is doing, whereas the latter typically does not. Here too, then, the difference lies in reason and desire being attuned or not. to Aristotle had earlier remarked upon the confusion between terms for (in)continence and (in)tcmperance, at least among a number of people; see NE V]L 1, 114Sb 14-16. b 11 See al'lQ NE L 13, 1102 25-9.

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The third section considers the question as to how far (in)continence and practical wisdom (phronesis) are related, taking up some of the conclusions reached. in book VI, most notably chapter 13 (but cf. also chs. 5 and 9; the correspondmg puzzle is found at the outset of the inquiry, viz. in ch. 2, 11 45 b 17 -19). The same person cannot be practically wise and incontinent, 'for it has been demonstrated that the practically wise man is at the same tinle good with respect to character' (1152a 6-8; the reference is to VI. 13, 1144b30-3; cf. 1144a 36-7.) Again Aristotle pretends to be removing a common mistake due to the similarity between the two types of behaviour involved, as in the case of continence and temperance. Here,' then, the mistake is that of confusing two intellectual states, viz. being clever (deinos) and being wise (phronimos). Nothing prevents a clever person from being incontinent, which is why people mistakenly suppose that an incontinent person can be wise. However, wisdom and cleverness are two different things. In book VI cleverness had been defined as an intellectual virtue: namely, as the power to find the means towards a certain end that one has chosen (VI. 13, 1144"23-6)-a section he is clearly taking up here, as is clear from his reference to his 'first discussion', sc. of this subject (VI. 13, 1144a 23- b 14). Cleverness, it had been argued there, is instrumental to both practical wisdom and crookedness. So aliliough it is presupposed by wisdom, it is itself morally neutral, unlike of course 'wisdom, which involves not only the morally correct decision (prohairesis, 1152a 14) but acting upon it (cf. VI. 13, 1144'126-9; III. 4-5).12 Another way of putting it would be to say that wisdom adds to cleverness a moral dimension; viz. it wishes the correct moral goal in addition to its ability to reason correctly about the means to attain iL13 Aristotle repeats what he believes is the kind of knowledge characteristic of the incontinent person: he is not like ilie man who 'knows and attends to' (eidos kai theoron)14 a truth, but rather like someone who is asleep or drunk (I 152a 14-15; cf. ch. 5, esp. 1147a 10-15, b7 -8).

4. Wiclrednes.~ and injustice

The above should not be taken to mean that the incontinent person is bad, even if he acts voluntarily (he acts voluntarily because he knows 'certain things, viz. what he does and for which end', which is in keeping with III. 3, 1111'120, saying that knowledge of the relevant aspects is the mark of voluntary action). Because his decision (prohairesis) is decent (though not put into effect), he is not wicked, b~t rather half-wicked (I 152a 17 -19). But if the incontinent person is half bad, tlus 12 Cf. Gauthier and Jolif, ad loc. Of course, the continent person, unlike the uncontrolled one, also acts upon his prohairesis: see e.g. NE lll. 4, 1111 b 13-15. 13 Cf. Aquinas, ad loc. (1458, 1461 Spiaci 454 Litzinger). l4 On the verb theorein as used bv Aristotle in this moral connection, see Broadie (1991), 295, who persuasively argue. that it conn~tes 'using one's knowledge' as opposed to merely possessing it; cf. Sedley (1999), 169 n. 12.

Teun Tieleman

NE VII. 9 (1151 b23)-1O: (In) Continence in Context

means he or she is also only half good, since, as we have just noticed, one is wise not only through knowledge but through action (l1S2 a8-9); that is to say, the wise person always acts impeccably.1 5 That an agent moved by emotions such as desire or anger acts involuntarily had been denied in book III (2, 11lOb 9-1S; 3, 11l1 a 24- b 3).I 6 (In)continence is considered from the perspective of free will at somewhat greater length at EE II. 8, 1224a8-122Sa 1. The phenomena of continence and incontinence provide a puzzle in regard to the voluntary and its opposite, since in either case the agent can be, and often is, said to act either voluntarily or involuntarily or both at once (cf. e.g. EE II. 8, 1224 b 36-122S a l). Strictly, Aristotle explains there, the expression 'being under constraint' (or acting 'involuntarily') applies not to the agent but rather to the psychic faculty that is being forcibly dragged along by the other: reason by appetite in the incontinent, appetite by reason in the continent person. But the soul as a whole, and hence the agent, acts truly voluntarily, since in any case the moving principle is internal (with the additional prerequisite of full knowledge of the relevant data: cf. EE 11.9, 122S b l-2, and above, p. 177). Apparently, the same position underlies Aristotle's treatment at NE VII. 11. Since he does not act with malicious intent, the incontinent is not unjust either, whether he is the deliberative or the passionate ('melancholic') variety of incontinent. Under the influence of desire, the first does not stick to the conclusion of his deliberation; that is to say, his decision is good, albeit too weak to be put into action. The second is the rash type who does not deliberate at all (lIS2 a 17 -19; cf. 7, l1S0b I9-28). These two kinds are once again distinguished with respect to therapy at the end of the chapter (see Section 5 below). Here the point is that incontinence in its two varieties differs from moral vice, just as continence differs from the virtue of temperance. In fact, both the continent and the incontinent find themselves in an intermediate position between virtue and vice (though obviously at different distances from either), being, in principle, capable of moral progress (see below). What we have here then is another example of how Aristotle fits his theory of (in)continence into the overall structure of his moral theory. Still, this does not explain why he introduces the aspect of volition and voluntariness in a bid to dissociate the incontinent from moral vice. In fact, this passage is not a completely isolated one. One may compare EE II. 6, 1223 a36- b 38, where the incontinent's supposed injustice is similarly considered in the light of his acting voluntarily or not, and this is made into a touchstone of his being wicked or not. The idea rejected by Aristotle, viz. that the incontinent person is unjust, cannot fail to bring to mind Plato's position in the RepublicY In other words, Aristotle is correcting Plato on this particular point. Further, he compares the

incontinent person who knows the right thing but fails to do it with a city that has all the right decrees and laws but makes no use of them, quoting a line by the comic poet Anaxandrides in illustration (lIS2 a I9-23): 'The city willed it-she that disregards her laws.' This sort of general illustration of the condition of the incontinent is suitable at the conclusion of the discussion, but it involves an analogy between individual and social (in)justice which suits the anti-Platonic thrust of the passage. Aristotle adds that the wicked person is like a city that both has bad laws and lives by them (lIS2 a24). Aristotle's point about the incontinent not being unjust appears to be incongruous with what he says about the relation between appetite and injustice at NE VII. 7, 1149 b 13-23. 18 In our present chapter, as we have noticed, Aristotle is taking malicious intent, or being a plotter (epiboulos) to be the criterion for being unjust. It does not apply to the incontinent, for either his initial decision was good (though characteristically not translated into action because of the influence of appetite) or (in the case of the impulsive type) there was no decision at all. Being no schemer, then, the incontinent cannot be unjust (lIS2 a17-19). In the context of VII. 7, 1149b 13-23 Aristotle offers a comparative evaluation of incontinence about appetite and that about anger in terms of badness. The argument he advances here runs as follows:

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15 See the definition arrived at at NEVI. 5, 1140b4-6: 'It remains, then, that it [Sc. practical wisdom] is a correct and rational disposition to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man.' 16 Similarly, EE II. 9,1225'20-36. On Aristotle's notion of the voluntary see Furley (1997). 17 On (in)justice in the individual see esp. Resp. lV 434c-444e (e.g. 444b: 'Injustice is a kind of strife between these three things [Sc. the soul-parts reason, spirit and appetite], an interfering with each other and meddling in one another's affairs ... ') with Annas (1982), lO9-52. On the use of the term akrasialakrates in the Platonic dialogues, see Ch. 3 above.

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The more plotting people do, the more unjust they are. Now the irascible person does not plot and neither does temper, but is open; whereas appetite is a plotter, just as they say Aphrodite is: For of the weaver ofguile, Cyprus-born ...

And Homer's description of her 'embroidered girdle'Bemusernent, stealing thought from wisest minds. 19

So, if it is true that this kind of incontinence is more unjust and shameful than the kind relating to anger, it will also be incontinence without qualification and, in a sense, badness. As is clear from the last sentence, Aristotle takes incontinence relating to appetite as incontinence in the strict or primary sense. In fact, incontinence as applied to anger (i.e. irascibility, losing one's temper) is used metaphorically (VII. 7, 1149a21-5). Now irascibility, being impulsive, typically excludes plotting, operating as it does in a transparent way. So it is not unjust. Appetite, by contrast, is pictured as a natural schemer, and hence unjust. At 11, l1S2a 19, we have seen that Aristotle, having distinguished an impulsive type of incontinence relating to appetite, similarly uses precisely its impulsivity to infer that it cannot be plotting and unjust. But that leaves the deliberating kind of appetite-related incontinence. Is there a real contradiction between what he says about it in the two passages? Broadie and Rowe in a concise note have pointed out that in the former Aristotle calls not incontinence about appetite but appetite a plotter, whereas in the latter the incontinent person as a whole is at issue: he is said not to be a constitutional plotter, but he can be in the grip of an uncontrolled plotting appetite. 20 This must 18 20

Also noted by Broadie and Rowe (2002), ad lac. (p. 399). Broadie and Rowe (2002), 399.

19

See Hom. II. XIV. 214-17.

Teun Tieleman

NE VII. 9 (1151 b23)-1O: (In) Continence in Context

means he or she is also only half good, since, as we have just noticed, one is wise not only through knowledge but through action (l1S2 a8-9); that is to say, the wise person always acts impeccably.1 5 That an agent moved by emotions such as desire or anger acts involuntarily had been denied in book III (2, 11lOb 9-1S; 3, 11l1 a 24- b 3).I 6 (In)continence is considered from the perspective of free will at somewhat greater length at EE II. 8, 1224a8-122Sa 1. The phenomena of continence and incontinence provide a puzzle in regard to the voluntary and its opposite, since in either case the agent can be, and often is, said to act either voluntarily or involuntarily or both at once (cf. e.g. EE II. 8, 1224 b 36-122S a l). Strictly, Aristotle explains there, the expression 'being under constraint' (or acting 'involuntarily') applies not to the agent but rather to the psychic faculty that is being forcibly dragged along by the other: reason by appetite in the incontinent, appetite by reason in the continent person. But the soul as a whole, and hence the agent, acts truly voluntarily, since in any case the moving principle is internal (with the additional prerequisite of full knowledge of the relevant data: cf. EE 11.9, 122S b l-2, and above, p. 177). Apparently, the same position underlies Aristotle's treatment at NE VII. 11. Since he does not act with malicious intent, the incontinent is not unjust either, whether he is the deliberative or the passionate ('melancholic') variety of incontinent. Under the influence of desire, the first does not stick to the conclusion of his deliberation; that is to say, his decision is good, albeit too weak to be put into action. The second is the rash type who does not deliberate at all (lIS2 a 17 -19; cf. 7, l1S0b I9-28). These two kinds are once again distinguished with respect to therapy at the end of the chapter (see Section 5 below). Here the point is that incontinence in its two varieties differs from moral vice, just as continence differs from the virtue of temperance. In fact, both the continent and the incontinent find themselves in an intermediate position between virtue and vice (though obviously at different distances from either), being, in principle, capable of moral progress (see below). What we have here then is another example of how Aristotle fits his theory of (in)continence into the overall structure of his moral theory. Still, this does not explain why he introduces the aspect of volition and voluntariness in a bid to dissociate the incontinent from moral vice. In fact, this passage is not a completely isolated one. One may compare EE II. 6, 1223 a36- b 38, where the incontinent's supposed injustice is similarly considered in the light of his acting voluntarily or not, and this is made into a touchstone of his being wicked or not. The idea rejected by Aristotle, viz. that the incontinent person is unjust, cannot fail to bring to mind Plato's position in the RepublicY In other words, Aristotle is correcting Plato on this particular point. Further, he compares the

incontinent person who knows the right thing but fails to do it with a city that has all the right decrees and laws but makes no use of them, quoting a line by the comic poet Anaxandrides in illustration (lIS2 a I9-23): 'The city willed it-she that disregards her laws.' This sort of general illustration of the condition of the incontinent is suitable at the conclusion of the discussion, but it involves an analogy between individual and social (in)justice which suits the anti-Platonic thrust of the passage. Aristotle adds that the wicked person is like a city that both has bad laws and lives by them (lIS2 a24). Aristotle's point about the incontinent not being unjust appears to be incongruous with what he says about the relation between appetite and injustice at NE VII. 7, 1149 b 13-23. 18 In our present chapter, as we have noticed, Aristotle is taking malicious intent, or being a plotter (epiboulos) to be the criterion for being unjust. It does not apply to the incontinent, for either his initial decision was good (though characteristically not translated into action because of the influence of appetite) or (in the case of the impulsive type) there was no decision at all. Being no schemer, then, the incontinent cannot be unjust (lIS2 a17-19). In the context of VII. 7, 1149b 13-23 Aristotle offers a comparative evaluation of incontinence about appetite and that about anger in terms of badness. The argument he advances here runs as follows:

178

15 See the definition arrived at at NEVI. 5, 1140b4-6: 'It remains, then, that it [Sc. practical wisdom] is a correct and rational disposition to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man.' 16 Similarly, EE II. 9,1225'20-36. On Aristotle's notion of the voluntary see Furley (1997). 17 On (in)justice in the individual see esp. Resp. lV 434c-444e (e.g. 444b: 'Injustice is a kind of strife between these three things [Sc. the soul-parts reason, spirit and appetite], an interfering with each other and meddling in one another's affairs ... ') with Annas (1982), lO9-52. On the use of the term akrasialakrates in the Platonic dialogues, see Ch. 3 above.

179

The more plotting people do, the more unjust they are. Now the irascible person does not plot and neither does temper, but is open; whereas appetite is a plotter, just as they say Aphrodite is: For of the weaver ofguile, Cyprus-born ...

And Homer's description of her 'embroidered girdle'Bemusernent, stealing thought from wisest minds. 19

So, if it is true that this kind of incontinence is more unjust and shameful than the kind relating to anger, it will also be incontinence without qualification and, in a sense, badness. As is clear from the last sentence, Aristotle takes incontinence relating to appetite as incontinence in the strict or primary sense. In fact, incontinence as applied to anger (i.e. irascibility, losing one's temper) is used metaphorically (VII. 7, 1149a21-5). Now irascibility, being impulsive, typically excludes plotting, operating as it does in a transparent way. So it is not unjust. Appetite, by contrast, is pictured as a natural schemer, and hence unjust. At 11, l1S2a 19, we have seen that Aristotle, having distinguished an impulsive type of incontinence relating to appetite, similarly uses precisely its impulsivity to infer that it cannot be plotting and unjust. But that leaves the deliberating kind of appetite-related incontinence. Is there a real contradiction between what he says about it in the two passages? Broadie and Rowe in a concise note have pointed out that in the former Aristotle calls not incontinence about appetite but appetite a plotter, whereas in the latter the incontinent person as a whole is at issue: he is said not to be a constitutional plotter, but he can be in the grip of an uncontrolled plotting appetite. 20 This must 18 20

Also noted by Broadie and Rowe (2002), ad lac. (p. 399). Broadie and Rowe (2002), 399.

19

See Hom. II. XIV. 214-17.

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these expectations are not fulfilled in the chapters dedicated to pleasure. Instead of the promised systematic treatment of the three points, Aristotle focuses almost exclusively on the objections by certain philosophers to pleasure as a good or as the ultimate good. Only in passing does he bring in some bits and pieces of information concerning his own conception of pleasu re, which shed a certain light on his reply to the three questions. It must be of some importance for a political philosopher to see why different arguments against hedonism fail. But this does not alter the fact that the promise of a comprehensive treatment of pleasure and pain is not really fulfilled. . That Aristotle should address the question of the nature of pleasure and pam via a critique of philosophical arguments against hedonism is quite an anomaly in the NE. In the earlier books Aristotle pays little attention to rival philosophical theories, with the exception of Plato's conception of the Good in I. 6 and a few references to Socrates' intellectualism here and there. His list of reputable opinions (endoxa) at the beginning ofthe discussion oflack of self-control (akrasia) in VII. 1 may seem like a parallel, but (pace Cooper in Chapter 1 above) it is not. Aristotle does not here list reputable opinions on the nature of pleasure and pain as such, or try to elucidate their nature by solving certain puzzles (aporiai) that emerge f~om those endoxa, as he did in the case of akrasia. Instead, he concentrates exclUSIvely on philosophical theories that deny that pleasure is a good, let alone the highest good. In addition, the arguments against hedonism that Aristotle attacks clearly have a common source: Plato and the Academy. This character of the treatment of pleasure is shared to some degree by its quasi- Doppelganger in X. 1-5, but it is notably absent in the rest of the NE.J Several possibilities might explain this peculiarity. First, Aristotle may originally have intended to give a more comprehensive treatment of the nature of pleasure and pain in a way that would at the same time be relevant to political questions. 1 If the discussion of the anti-hedonist positions was initially meant as an overture, Aristotle may have changed his mind, because he came to regard his remarks on the nature of pleasure as sufficienl 5 In any case, the resume at the end of chapter 14 indicates that Aristotle (if he is the summary's author) regarded his remain open questions. Little attention has also been paid to physical pain or mental distress. Some consequences of the effects of Aristotle's step-fatherly neglect of these questions will be taken up later. J A comparison of the two essays on pleasw'e would exceed the limits of this article. as would a discussion of the issues raised by G. E. L. Owen's (1971-2) plea for a 'divisjon ofIabour' between the two essays. • There are repeated references in NE to the statesman as the 'architect' who is in cbarge of the good ofthe community (d. I. 1-2, 1094a 18- b 11; 13, 1102'7-26), most specifically to II. 3,1105'10-16: 'Por this reason too the whole concern both for virtue and for political expertise (palitike) is with pleasure and pain ... ' As 1152b 1-2 indicates, Aristotle here speaks in the name of the political philosopher; d. b his promise to complete 'the philosophy of human nature' in X. 9, 1181 12-15. , Some enlightenment on (a) the relationship between pleasure and the overall end of human life can be extracted from Aristotle's stipulation that pleasure is an unimpeded activity of a natural b disposition, in contradistinction to accidentally pleasant restorations in 12, 1152 33-115Y7: The b explanation in ]3, 1153 9-19 on the 'interweaving' of pleasure and activity in the happy life mdkales what the answer to question (c) concerning the relationship of pleasure and happiness would be, but

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mission as accomplished ( 1154 b32- 5). Second, the discussion of the anti-hedonist arguments may originally have been a separate treatise that Aristotle appended at a fairly late stage to the rest of book VIL6 In order to indicate that the perspective of the treatment of pleasure and pain differs significantly from that in the preceding chapters on akrasia et al., he somewhat overstates the importance of his refutation of hedonism by claiming political dimensions for its content. Third, a later editor may have looked for a suitable place for certain 'loose leaves' containing the anti-hedonist discussion and inserted them-faute de mieux-at this place.? Whatever the truth of the matter may be, the fact that Aristotle nowhere in his subsequent treatment of the deficiencies of certain kinds of pleasure refers back to the kinds of perverse or morbid pleasures discussed in the·preceding elucidation of akrasia, brutishness, self-indulgence or softness, speaks in favour of the assumption that the little treatise on pleasure was a fairly late addition. What strengthens this impression is the marked difference in the discussion's character. The short treatise seems to reflect a debate within the Academy, a debate 'On pleasure and the good', where Aristotle locked borns with Academic opponents who were critical of the claim that pleasure was a good, or the ultimate good. 8 That the purpose of the discussion of pleasure is to defeat a set of arguments against hedonism is confirmed by the methodical procedure. In chapter 11 Aristotle first presents three different anti-hedonist positions, followed by a summary of the justifications for each ofthem. Chapter 12 contains Aristotle's counter-arguments to the anti-hedonist rejection of pleasure as althe good. Chapters 13 and 14 offer further support for these counter-arguments. In chapter 13 Aristotle argues inter alia that the badness of pain is a proof that pleasure must be good, and in chapter 14 he explains that undue preoccupation with the pleasures of the body is responsible for pleasure's overall undeserved bad reputation. Aristotle's own conception of the nature of pleasure emerges only now and then in his retorts to his opponents. He does not elaborate on what appears to be his own definition of pleasure as an 'unimpeded natural activity>.9 Thus he does not comment on the relationship between the different types of pleasure that are implied in his discussion of the virtues and vices, and of virtuous and vicious actions, found in the NE's earlier books. This is a serious omission, because the different roles assigned to pleasure and pain in those books represent a kind of conundrum. On the one hand, pleasure and pain seem to function as the the relationship of pleasure and pain to virtuous and vicious actions (b), a central issue in the NE, is not explicitly discussed . 6 A book 'Peri hedones' is mentioned in Diogenes Lacrtius's list of Aristotle's works (V. 24). The chapters inserted here may well have been part of that book. 7 If an editor composed the introduction, he may not have realized that the chapters on pleasure do not really JUlfil the promise of further treatment of this issue in II. 3, 1105'10-16 (see n. 4). • The imperfect tense in the reference to Speusippus in 13, 1153b S (l:7T"Ua'7T7TO~ lA1Jf') suggests that Aristotle refers to a historical event (on this issue see Ch. 9 below). Natali (1999). nn. 790, 791, 793, 797, treats Speusippus as the prime target of Aristotle's main points of criticism. • The definition is introduced in passing and without comment in 12, 1153"14-15 and referred to again in 13, 1153b9-12.

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subject matter of certain virtues. Temperance, for instance, consists in the proper co~portment towards corporeal pleasure, while courage is the right attitude towards fear and confidence with respect to injury and death in battle, i.e. towards physical pain. On the other hand, pleasure and pain are also integral parts of virtuous (or vicious) activities: while they are not their ultimate aims, they are important concomitants. Aristotle explicitly treats it as a sign of virtue if the .age~t does what he does not only willingly but also with pleasure. Thus, he explams m NE 1. 8, 1099a 10-12: ' ... and in the same way what is just is also pleasant to the lover of justice, and generally the things in accordance with virtue to the lover of virtue'. If a person does not enjoy such actions, that is an indication. tha~ he or .she does not possess the virtue in question: 'no one would call a person Just Ifhe failed to delight in acting justly, or open-handed if he failed to delight in open-handed actions; and similarly in other cases' (1099 a 18-20»)O In his discussion of the virtues of character in book II, Aristotle expands on this issue. As he explains at length in chapter 3, the pleasures and pains that supervene on the respective activities are crucial indicators of an agent's virtuous or vicious disposition of character (I 104b 3-11OSa 16). Aristotle's comments on temperance suggest that it can hardly have escaped his notice that there are two sorts of pleasures (and pains) involved in certain kinds of moral actions: 'Someone who holds back from bodily pleasures (aw/WTtKWV r,oovwv) and does so cheerfully (Xa{pwv) is a temperate person, while someone who is upset at doing so is self-indulgent' (l104 b S-ll). The pleasures involved here dearly represent two different types. One type is the physical pleasure from which the temperate person abstains. This kind of pleasure is the subject matter of this particular virtue. The other type is the 'moral' pleasure. he or she tak~s in acting with temperance, which concerns the mode of the actIOn. Although It is dear that Aristotle is aware of the difference between the physical and the moral pleasure involved in the actions, since he uses chairein in connection with the activity, he does not comment on their difference. A similar duplication of pleasure and pain is involved in the case of courage and cowardice: 'Someone who withstands frightening things and does so cheerfully (Xatpwv), or anyway without distress (IL~ AV710VILEVOC;) , is a courageous person, while someone who is distressed (aXeOILEIlO,» at them is cowardly' (II. 3, 1104b7-8). \'\'hat is pleasant or at least satisfying to the agent is his courageous comportment itself. These pleasures must be of the sort that characterize the activities themselves and n?t their objects, because not all virtues are concerned with ei~her ple~sure or p.am as their subject matter.!! Concerning the objects of the actIOns, ArIstotle claIms quite generally: 'For virtue of character has to do with pleasures and pains: it is because of pleasure that we do bad things and because of pain that we hold back

'Ibe translation follows (with some modifications) that of Broadie and Rowe (2002). In the case of open-handedness, e.g., the object is money (1107b S-16), and in ~e case of greamess of soul it is honour (l107 b ZI-7); perhaps 'love ot. .. ' could be supplemented ill an appropnat.e1y modified way in those cases, but the object of the virtue concerned with anger is painful, just. as is the 10

II

object of collIage.

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from doing fine things' (l104b 8-11). The twofold use of pleasure and pain in an 'adverbial' and an 'adjectival' sense l2 is also manifest in the survey of the virtues in II. 7, where Aristotle indicates the subject matter that is characteristic for each virtue and its respective excess and defect. Apart from temperance and courage, there are certain social graces like wittiness and friendliness that are associated with pleasure or agreeableness (1108 a 23-30). Though pleasure in its 'adverbial' sense is an integral part of the action, it dearly is not its ultimate end. The just person does not act justly for the sake of the pleasure that it gives her or him, but because it is the right thing to do-and that is why it pleases her or him. A closer inspection of the analyses of the different virtues and vices in books III and IV would confirm that this is Aristotle's basic assumption for all virtuous or vicious aciions. The discussion of courage, for example, confirms that the pleasure of aCiing courageously is neither its ultimate aim nor its subject matter. Aristotle does not regard the opportunity to die for the fatherland as a matter of sheer delight. Instead, he thinks that the virtuous person, though dying nobly,13 is distressed more by an untimely death than a less worthy person because he has more to lose.t 4 The pleasure in question concerns only the noble comportment in facing up to injury or death itself. While in the case of courage we are not tempted to confuse the feeling accompanying the action with its subject matter, because the latter is painful and the former pleasant or at least satisfying, in the case of temperance it is harder to separate the two kinds, because both the activity and its object are pleasant. However, the situation is the same in principle. On the one side, we find pleasure as the object, the physical pleasure with which temperance is concerned, and on the other side, we find the 'adverbial' pleasure of acting temperately. The latter is due to the fact that I enjoy what I enjoy in the right way, by the right means, to the right degree, etc)5 The case of temperance, then, involves both the enjoyment of food, drink, and sex as such and the moral pleasure of comporting oneself in the right way towards these enjoyments. 16 While the former pleasures are open to children and animals as well, the latter are not. The pleasures and pains that constitute the subject matter of certain virtues like courage and temperance are right or wrong, depending on their consistency and measure. The same condition also holds, mutatis mutandis, in the case of those virtues that are not directly concerned with pleasure or pain. The open-handed person's actions, for instance, consist in open-handedness towards others. The pleasure that such a person takes in his or her own generosity is an integral part of the activity, but it is neither its subject matter nor its end. In the same way, all virtuous or vicious activities display the 'adverbial' type of pleasure or pain as their 12 The choice of these grammatical tenns to distinguish between the action (pleasantly/painfully) and its subjeli matter (what. is pleasant/what is painful) may seem clumsy, but teems like 'subjective' or 'subjectival' etc. would bring in quite unsuitable associations. b 13 Cf. III. 6,1115'24-35; 7, 11lSblO-24 ctpassim. 14 Ill. 9, I1l7 7-16. 15 Cf. III. 11, 1119" 11-18, b IS-IS: skapos gar to kalon. ,. Analogous conditions apply in the case of the 'minor virtues' of friendliness (IV. 6) and wittiness (IV. 8).

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subject matter of certain virtues. Temperance, for instance, consists in the proper co~portment towards corporeal pleasure, while courage is the right attitude towards fear and confidence with respect to injury and death in battle, i.e. towards physical pain. On the other hand, pleasure and pain are also integral parts of virtuous (or vicious) activities: while they are not their ultimate aims, they are important concomitants. Aristotle explicitly treats it as a sign of virtue if the .age~t does what he does not only willingly but also with pleasure. Thus, he explams m NE 1. 8, 1099a 10-12: ' ... and in the same way what is just is also pleasant to the lover of justice, and generally the things in accordance with virtue to the lover of virtue'. If a person does not enjoy such actions, that is an indication. tha~ he or .she does not possess the virtue in question: 'no one would call a person Just Ifhe failed to delight in acting justly, or open-handed if he failed to delight in open-handed actions; and similarly in other cases' (1099 a 18-20»)O In his discussion of the virtues of character in book II, Aristotle expands on this issue. As he explains at length in chapter 3, the pleasures and pains that supervene on the respective activities are crucial indicators of an agent's virtuous or vicious disposition of character (I 104b 3-11OSa 16). Aristotle's comments on temperance suggest that it can hardly have escaped his notice that there are two sorts of pleasures (and pains) involved in certain kinds of moral actions: 'Someone who holds back from bodily pleasures (aw/WTtKWV r,oovwv) and does so cheerfully (Xa{pwv) is a temperate person, while someone who is upset at doing so is self-indulgent' (l104 b S-ll). The pleasures involved here dearly represent two different types. One type is the physical pleasure from which the temperate person abstains. This kind of pleasure is the subject matter of this particular virtue. The other type is the 'moral' pleasure. he or she tak~s in acting with temperance, which concerns the mode of the actIOn. Although It is dear that Aristotle is aware of the difference between the physical and the moral pleasure involved in the actions, since he uses chairein in connection with the activity, he does not comment on their difference. A similar duplication of pleasure and pain is involved in the case of courage and cowardice: 'Someone who withstands frightening things and does so cheerfully (Xatpwv), or anyway without distress (IL~ AV710VILEVOC;) , is a courageous person, while someone who is distressed (aXeOILEIlO,» at them is cowardly' (II. 3, 1104b7-8). \'\'hat is pleasant or at least satisfying to the agent is his courageous comportment itself. These pleasures must be of the sort that characterize the activities themselves and n?t their objects, because not all virtues are concerned with ei~her ple~sure or p.am as their subject matter.!! Concerning the objects of the actIOns, ArIstotle claIms quite generally: 'For virtue of character has to do with pleasures and pains: it is because of pleasure that we do bad things and because of pain that we hold back

'Ibe translation follows (with some modifications) that of Broadie and Rowe (2002). In the case of open-handedness, e.g., the object is money (1107b S-16), and in ~e case of greamess of soul it is honour (l107 b ZI-7); perhaps 'love ot. .. ' could be supplemented ill an appropnat.e1y modified way in those cases, but the object of the virtue concerned with anger is painful, just. as is the 10

II

object of collIage.

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from doing fine things' (l104b 8-11). The twofold use of pleasure and pain in an 'adverbial' and an 'adjectival' sense l2 is also manifest in the survey of the virtues in II. 7, where Aristotle indicates the subject matter that is characteristic for each virtue and its respective excess and defect. Apart from temperance and courage, there are certain social graces like wittiness and friendliness that are associated with pleasure or agreeableness (1108 a 23-30). Though pleasure in its 'adverbial' sense is an integral part of the action, it dearly is not its ultimate end. The just person does not act justly for the sake of the pleasure that it gives her or him, but because it is the right thing to do-and that is why it pleases her or him. A closer inspection of the analyses of the different virtues and vices in books III and IV would confirm that this is Aristotle's basic assumption for all virtuous or vicious aciions. The discussion of courage, for example, confirms that the pleasure of aCiing courageously is neither its ultimate aim nor its subject matter. Aristotle does not regard the opportunity to die for the fatherland as a matter of sheer delight. Instead, he thinks that the virtuous person, though dying nobly,13 is distressed more by an untimely death than a less worthy person because he has more to lose.t 4 The pleasure in question concerns only the noble comportment in facing up to injury or death itself. While in the case of courage we are not tempted to confuse the feeling accompanying the action with its subject matter, because the latter is painful and the former pleasant or at least satisfying, in the case of temperance it is harder to separate the two kinds, because both the activity and its object are pleasant. However, the situation is the same in principle. On the one side, we find pleasure as the object, the physical pleasure with which temperance is concerned, and on the other side, we find the 'adverbial' pleasure of acting temperately. The latter is due to the fact that I enjoy what I enjoy in the right way, by the right means, to the right degree, etc)5 The case of temperance, then, involves both the enjoyment of food, drink, and sex as such and the moral pleasure of comporting oneself in the right way towards these enjoyments. 16 While the former pleasures are open to children and animals as well, the latter are not. The pleasures and pains that constitute the subject matter of certain virtues like courage and temperance are right or wrong, depending on their consistency and measure. The same condition also holds, mutatis mutandis, in the case of those virtues that are not directly concerned with pleasure or pain. The open-handed person's actions, for instance, consist in open-handedness towards others. The pleasure that such a person takes in his or her own generosity is an integral part of the activity, but it is neither its subject matter nor its end. In the same way, all virtuous or vicious activities display the 'adverbial' type of pleasure or pain as their 12 The choice of these grammatical tenns to distinguish between the action (pleasantly/painfully) and its subjeli matter (what. is pleasant/what is painful) may seem clumsy, but teems like 'subjective' or 'subjectival' etc. would bring in quite unsuitable associations. b 13 Cf. III. 6,1115'24-35; 7, 11lSblO-24 ctpassim. 14 Ill. 9, I1l7 7-16. 15 Cf. III. 11, 1119" 11-18, b IS-IS: skapos gar to kalon. ,. Analogous conditions apply in the case of the 'minor virtues' of friendliness (IV. 6) and wittiness (IV. 8).

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theory on the nature of pleasure. In the Philebus, Socrates starts his attack on hedonism with the broad challenge: 'While most of them are bad but some are good, as we hold ... ' (13b; d. 12c-d). This stance agrees with Plato's position in Republic IX (583b-587a), where he extols the philosophers' pleasures as true, good, and pure in contradistinction to all others, which are deemed as mere 'bastard pleasures' because they involve pain and do not have pure and true being as their objects. 35 But since it is a common rule of prudence that some pleasures are to be avoided as base or harmful, Aristotle need not be thinking of Plato at all. Whether there was a separate group arguing that pleasure cannot be the best thing even if all pleasures are good (3) is unclear, because both positions share the premiss of position (1) that pleasure is not an end but a genesis (J 152b22-3).36 The fact that Aristotle introduces this position with a concessive conditional 'even if' (1l52 b ll: €Z KUC) may indicate that the argument was originally used for dialectical purposes only. But it is also possible that certain members of the Academy accepted Plato's explanation that pleasure is a genesis but took exception to the inference that it is therefore not a good, while agreeing that it cannot be the highest good. 37 That they were Platonists is suggested by the fact that in his refutation in chapter 12 Aristotle attributes to them the definition of pleasure presupposed in position (1) that pleasure is a 'perceived process of coming to be' (1153 a 12-15). If there was such a parly, their conciliatory attitude towards pleasure may be based on Plato's treatment of the purf' pleasures in the Philebus. Not only does he accept them in the final mixture of the good life and give them a place on the final scale of goods (66c), he also associates them with health, temperance, and the pursuit of virtue (63e). The conciliatory tendency in the last part of the Philebus clearly encourages such a lenient stance. In conclusion, although Aristotle's list of arguments against hedonism in chapter 11 shows that his main target is the conception, advocated in Plato's Philebus, that pleasure is a process of becoming, an examination of the general character of Aristotle's treatment of these arguments suggests that it is unlikely that his discussion directly relies on Plato's text. Aristotle shows no interest in a full assessment of the finer points of the Platonic position, but rather confines himself to the ontology of pJeasure as a process. In addition, he takes up some more general objections to the view that pleasure is a good or the ultimate good, which do not presuppose that pleasure is a genesis but represent an amalgam of philosophical objections to the aforementioned view.

3. The rebuttal of arguments against hedonism in chapter 12

The first move against the denial that pleasure is a good (1), both as such and accidentally, is to show that even if one accepts the view that pleasure is a genesis (which Aristotle does not), the denial that it is good is mistaken. Such a denial ignores that what is good is so in two ways: either good without qualificatimi or good for someone. Similarly. there are processes of change or generation that are bad as such but good for a particular person in special conditions and for a short period of time and not always.39 Because Aristotle does not elaborate on this distinction and does not provide examples, it remains unclear whether the distinction between 'good as such' and 'good for someone' applies only to processes of change and forms of generation or also to the things' own nature and dispositions. Perhaps Aristotle means to support only the conditional that if the distinction between 'good as such' and 'good for someone' applies to a thing's nature and dispositions, it must also apply to the kind of change and generation that are their cause. Thus, if being healthy, ambitious, or tall is good as such or good for someone, so is getting healthy, acquiring an ambitious character, or

The passage in the Republic claims that pleastue is a form of kinesis, a motion either from the middle up, or fwm the bottom to the middle point of neither pleastue nor pain (5B3e; 5B4d; 585d-e; 586a), as well as a 'filling' (585a-586b: pleriisis), but not that it is a getlesis or a restoration (katastasis). Plato holds that a motion or filling can be a good per se because his philosopher's pleasure consists in filling himself with tnle and pure being. 36 Gauthier and Jolif (2002, 785) suggest that the third position may be only a 'fausse-fenCtrc' placed here for symmetry's sake, on the ground that three arguments look better than two. 37 Some members of the 'genesis-party' even held that pleasure i5 good in the primary sense (12, 1153"15-17).

'" To get a coherent view of the Aristotelian conception of pleasure, one has to paste together his scattered remarks. At first, Aristotle states that some fonns of good are activities (energeiai: I 152b 33) and uses this notion to explain what is pleasant in processes of replenishment (1l52 b 35-7). In 1153"2-4 he points to the difference between pleasures of restoration and the pleasures ofthe 'restored nature', In 1153"10-11 he claims that not all pleasures are gmeseis, but some are energeiai, and in 1153" 14-15 he finally introduces his own definition of plea~ure as the 'unimpeded activity of the subject's nattual diposition', a definition he repeats in 13, 1153b 10- 14. 39 Because Aristotle is concerned here with what is good in a relative sense quite generally, I prefer in 1152b 3 Susemihl's adoption of Rassow's supplement of 'dEt' to Bywater's adoption of 'a1T'\w~', following Aspasius.

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While this chapter's main objective is to refute the arguments of the cntICs of pleasure proposed in chapter 11, it also includes some information about Aristotle's own conception of pleasure.38 He does not strictly follow the order of the arguments in the previous chapter, but focuses on what for him is clearly the crucial ontological claim in the debate: that pleasure is a process of generation. As he announces at the outset, he wants to refute the conclusion of position (1) that pleasure is not a good and also of (3) that it cannot be the highest good. Little attention is paid to position (2), because it makes no claim about the nature of pleasure, whereas the supplementary arguments for position (1) are met quite briefly in the last section of the chapter. The order and the amounl of space devoted to the different arguments show the significance that Aristotle attributes to them: argument I flI52 b25-33): argument 2 (1152 b33-1153"S): argument 3 (1153'8-17): argument 4 (1153'17 -20): argument 5 (1153"20-3): argument 6 (1153"23-7): argument 7 (1153'27-35):

against (1) against (1.1) against (Ll), (3,1) against (2.2) against (1.4) against (1.5) against (1.6), (1.2), (1.3)

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growing. But it is hard to extend this explanation to the negative conditional, i.e. that a bad disposition and natUTC cannot be good and worthy of choice for anyone: only a process of liberation from such a state can be good ior that person and under these particular circumstances. That Aristotle confines the 'bad cases' to forms of change (kineseis) and processes of generation (geneseis) only is suggested by the way he leads over to a third type of change, the kind that involves pain and consists in the cure of sickness. Such CUTes are clearly processes-and Aristotle excludes them from being pleasUTes at all. This move must be designed to put out of court the most troublesome types of '(re) generation' in Plato's Philebus: the pleasures intrinsically mixed with pain. 40 Because Aristotle here denies that they are pleasUTes at all, the semblance of pleasure must be due to the fact that-as he is going to explain in the next section-processes of restoration are accidentally pleasant. In what follows he does not consistently stick to that exclusion;41 and it should be noted that if processes connected with pain like those in medical cures arc not pleasures, it is undear what pleasures Aristotle has in mind as 'bad unconditionally but good for some persons under certain circumstances'. Perhaps laborious, but not physically painful, processes like some of Odyssws's tribulations would fill the bill. Given that Aristotle rejects the conception of pleasure as a genesis, it seems curious that he troubLes himself with tlle conditions of the goodness of processes of generation at all. He may, however, be concerned to state with precision the reasons for and the extent of his disagreement with the Platonist position: that is, that he rejects the conception of pleasure as a genesis for reasons not connected with it~ claim to goodness. It should be noted, however, that if Plato is the addressee of counter-argument (I), this argument ignores the fact that Plato explicitly acknowledges that pleasure under certain circumstances is a good: namely, as a replenishment of a deficiency, and that he does not regard all such pleasures as mixed with pain. For Plato, pure pleasures are processes that are not mixed with pain but are based on an 'unfelt lack' .42 Argument (2) explains why Aristotle rejects the Platonic conception that processes of restoration (kathistasai)43 are pleasures. He does so, on the grounds that because the good is either an activity (energcia) or a disposition (he.xis), processes of restoration are pleasant only incidentally. This narrow conlinement of pleasure to eTlergeia has the curious consequence that Aristotle attributes the pleasure of restoration to the activity of a part that has remained unaffected by the condition that causes pain and desire: 'The activity (energeia) in the case of the appetites belongs to the disposition and nature that has been left unimpaired'

(I 152b 35: T7j,> lmo'Ao17rol1 €'6:w,> Kal ¢vaEw,». His reference to painless activities like theorizing (1153 a 1) does nothing to vindicate his attribution of pleasure to an unimpaired faculty. That certain pleasures, like those ofthinking, involve neither pain nor desire nor any kind of deficiency does not show that in the case of restorations an unimpaired part accounts for the pleasure. 44 Surely, Aristotle does not want to claim that in the case of the restoration of a desire it is the concurrent activity of the theoretic mind that makes that process appear pleasant. That the reference to the activity of some unimpaired part is neither a slip nor a momentary Geistesblitz of Aristotle's is confirmed by the fact that in chapter 14 he mentions it again,4:' and twice repeats the claim that in cases of regeneration the pleasures are only accidentally good or accidentally pleasant. 46 This gives rise to the question of the relationship he assumes between the process of restoration and the pleasant activity of the unimpaired part of soul and body. It is uniikely that he wants to assign them to two separate parts, because there would then be no connection between the restoration of the impaired part and the pleasure in the unimpaired one. Jf he assigns them to the same capacity, so that, for instance, the faculty of touch is involved both in the filling of an empty stomach and in the pleasant tasting of the respective food, it would seem quite artificial to treat these experiences as only accidentally connected. Unfortunately, the text provides no further information on this question.4'l It would seem that Aristotle is forced to adopt this contrived solution because (a) he favours the definition of pleasure as an 'unimpeded activity of one's unimpaired nature' and (b) he does not want to rule out that certain restorations are pleasant-at least in a way. The 'sign' (semeion) that Aristotle treats as a confirmation of his theory (ltS3" 2-7) does not justify his claim that in the case of pleasant restorations it is an unaffected part that does the enjoying. That we enjoy quite different things when we are completely healthy and fully active from when we are sick or recovering is, of course, a well~known phenomenon. We may relish extra sour pickles, herring, or hot chilli peppers while recuperating from a hangover, but detest them when we are well. But this clearly indicates that we lake pleasure in different things under different conditions. If the pleasure was due to the activity of the part that has remained intact ~while we recuperate, it should be caused by the same objects

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.., Cf. Phlb.44d-47c. At the end of this chapter Aristotle claims that the phTOnimos avoids the connected with desire and pain, but he does not deny that they are pleasures (I15:\·31-~). the present point he wants to deny only that there are pleasures involved in 'medicalcascs' in the strict sense, In 14, 1154'26-31, however, he treats the remedial pleasures as particularly intensive because they arc antidotes to pain, a pointthat be further elaborates in 1154b 2,5. 42 C[ Phlb, SIb. .., The nouns to which the participle KalJwroom in 1152 b34 refers cannot be (vip),au or l{;.ri7TTETm). (Ibid.) As these comments show, the dichotomy of 'adverbial' versus 'adjectival' pleasure is still too crude to do justice to the complexity of this phenomenon: pleasure and pain may be contained in both the subject matter (injury and death in battle) and the mode of action (acting courageously while forgoing the pleasures of a good life). Though acting courageously can be quite painful, and though courageous warriors may not live to see the end for which they fight, the painful activity contains an element of pleasure, or at least the satisfaction of acting courageollsly. Given all these complications that stand in the way of making a clean separation between the pleasure of the action and the pleasures provided by its subject matter, which are most prominent in the case of courage, but which also extend to other kinds of virtuolls activities,68 one cannot help wondering to what extent Aristotle's definition of pleasure as a natural unimpeded activity can do justice to moral actions. What, we may ask, is natural and unimpeded about acts of courage? It is time to turn to that question by way of coming to a conclusion.

5. Unimpeded natural activities The problems presented by Aristotle's simple-seeming definition of pleasure are not limited to moral activities: they also concern the explanation of sensual pleasures. What is problematic in their case can be stated very briefly. First, the actualization of sense perception is often not pleasant but neutral, despite the fact that there is neither an impediment nor anything unnatural about it. It would be question-begging to claim that in the case of a pleasant taste the object is 'more natural' andlor that the activity is unimpeded, while in the case of a neutral or an unpleasant taste either the object is neutral or unnatural and the activity is impeded or at least not as unimpeded as it should be to be experienced as pleasant. Second, sense perceptions, especially in their pleasant or painful aspect, seem to be affections rather than a(.lions. They are the kind of experience that is better explained as a pathesis in the sense indicated in the De anima, where Aristotle explains sense perceptions as affections of the soul,69 and in the Physics where he states that all processes-including alteration-take 68 This is not the place to give an analysis of Aristotle's depiction of the specific activities of the different virtues. While the acts of temperance are relatively simple cases, the acts of liberality and munificence (N. 1 and 2), of greatness of soul (megalopsuchiaJ (3 and 4) or those dealing with anger (5) are more complex. 6. De an. III. 2,426°8-11

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place in the pa., as in '32 (d. also 1153'1). We thus respect the parallel:i5rn between the two propositions introduced by p.tl' and ai O€. Ifwe maintain on, we must understand ,mp"la; flaw after it, as:is done by Festugii>re, who translates: 'those which are remedies because thev cure it defective state', 20 We may wonder to what noun the