PLEASURE
NEXT WE MUST SPEAK ABOUT PLEASURE, SINCE OUR DISCUSSION [20] is about happiness, and all think that happiness is either pleasure and living pleasantly, or at any rate not without pleasure. Even those who are vexed by pleasure, and think that pleasure ought not to be numbered among goods, at least add the absence of pain; now to be without pain is close [25] to pleasure. Therefore we must speak about pleasure, not merely because other people think that we ought, but because it is actually necessary for us to do so. For since our discussion is about happiness, and we have defined and declare happiness to be an activity of virtue in a complete life, and virtue has to do with pleasure and pain, it is necessary to [30] speak about pleasure, since happiness is not found without pleasure.
First, then, let us mention the reasons which some people give for thinking that one ought not to regard pleasure as part of good. First, they say that pleasure is a process, and that a process is something incomplete, but that the good [35] never occupies the place of the incomplete. Secondly, that there are some base pleasures, whereas the good is never to be found in baseness. Again, that it is found in all—in the base man and in the virtuous, and in brutes and in cattle; but [1204b] the good is unmixed with the base and not promiscuous. ***1 And that pleasure is not the best thing, whereas the good is the best thing. And that it is an impediment to noble action, and what tends to hinder the noble cannot be good.
First, then, we must address ourselves to the first argument, [5] that about process, and must endeavour to refute it on the ground of its not being true. To begin with, not every pleasure is a process. For the pleasure which results from contemplation is not a process, nor that which comes from hearing and seeing and smelling. For it does not arise from a [10] lack, as in the other cases—for instance, those of eating and drinking. For these are the result of lack and excess, by replenishing a lack or by removing an excess: that is why they are held to be processes. Now lack and excess are pains. There is therefore pain wherever there is a process of pleasure. But in the case of seeing and hearing and smelling [15] there is no previous pain. For no one in taking pleasure in seeing or smelling was in pain beforehand. Similarly in the case of thought: one may contemplate something with pleasure without having felt any pain beforehand. So there are pleasures which are not processes. If then pleasure, as their argument maintained, is not a good because is a process, but [20] there is some pleasure which is not a process, this pleasure may be good.
But generally no pleasure is a process. For even the pleasures of eating and drinking are not processes: rather, those who say that these pleasures are processes err. For they think that pleasure is a process because it ensues on the supplying [25] of something; but it is not. For there is a part of the soul with which we feel pleasure, and this part of the soul is active and moves simultaneously with the supplying of the things which we lack, and its movement and activity are pleasure. Owing, then, to that part of the soul being active simultaneously [30] with the supplying, or owing to its activity, they think that pleasure is a process since the supplying is plain but the part of the soul obscure. It is like thinking that man is body, because this is perceptible, while the soul is not—but the soul also exists. So it is also in this case; for there is a part of [35] the soul with which we feel pleasure, which is active at the same time as the supplying. That is why no pleasure is a process.
It is, they say, a perceptible restoration to a natural state. But there is pleasure without such restoration to a natural state. For restoration is the replenishing of what by nature is [1205a] lacking; but it is possible, as we maintain, to feel pleasure without any lack. For lack is pain, and we say that there is pleasure without pain and prior to pain. So that pleasure will not be a restoration of a lack. For in such pleasures there is [5] no lack. So that if the reason for thinking that pleasure is not a good was because it is a process, and no pleasure is a process, pleasure may be a good.
But next some pleasures, you say, are not good. One may look at it like this. Since we maintain that good is spoken of [10] in all the categories (in that of substance and relation and quantity and time and generally in all), this much is plain at once: every activity of something good is attended by a certain pleasure, so that, since good is in all the categories, pleasure also will be in all.2 So since the goods and pleasure are [15] found here, and the pleasure that comes from the goods is pleasure, every pleasure will be good. At the same time it is plain from this that pleasures differ in kind. For the categories in which pleasure is found are different. For it is not as in the sciences, for instance grammar or any other science whatever. For if Lampros possesses the science of grammar, [20] he as a grammarian will be disposed by this knowledge of grammar in the same way as anyone else who possesses the science: there will not be two different sciences of grammar, that in Lampros and that in Neleus.3 But in the case of pleasure it is not so. For the pleasure which comes from intoxication and that which comes from sex do not dispose in the [25] same way. That is why pleasures would seem to differ in kind.
Another reason why pleasure was held by them not to be a good was because some pleasures are base. But this sort of thing and this kind of assessment are not proper to pleasure—they apply also to nature and to knowledge. For there is such a thing as a base nature (for example, that of worms [30] and of beetles and of the lower animals generally), but it does not follow that nature is a base thing. In the same way there are base branches of knowledge, for instance the vulgar; nevertheless it does not follow that knowledge is a base thing. Rather, both knowledge and nature are good in kind. For [35] just as one must not consider the quality of a sculptor on the basis of his failures and bad workmanship but on that of his successes, so one must not consider the quality of knowledge or nature or of anything else on the basis of the base but [1205b] on that of the virtuous. Similarly, pleasure is good in kind, though there are base pleasures—of that we ourselves are aware. For since the natures of animals differ in the way of base and virtuous, for instance that of man is virtuous, but [5] that of a wolf or some other brute base, and similarly a horse and a man and an ass and a dog have different natures, and since pleasure is a restoration of each to its own nature from that which runs counter to it, it follows that this will be most pleasant4—the base pleasure to the base nature. For it is not the same for a horse and a man, any more than for any of the [10] rest. But since their natures are different, their pleasures also are different. For pleasure, as we saw, is a restoration, and the restoration, they maintain, restores to nature, so that the restoration of the base nature is base, and that of the virtuous, virtuous.
Those who assert that pleasure is not virtuous are in much [15] the same case as those who, not knowing nectar, think that the gods drink wine, and that there is nothing more pleasant than this. But this is owing to their ignorance. In much the same case are all those who assert that all pleasures are processes, and not good. For owing to their not knowing other than bodily pleasures, and seeing these to be processes and [20] not good, they think in general that pleasure is not a good.
Since, then, there are pleasures both of a nature in the course of being restored and also of one already restored (for instance of the former the replenishments which follow upon lack, and of the latter the pleasures of sight, hearing, and so on), the activities of a restored nature will be better—[25] for the pleasures of both kinds are activities. It is plain, then, that the pleasures of sight, hearing, and thought will be best, since the bodily pleasures result from a replenishment.
Again, this was also said by way of showing that it is not a [30] good: what is found everywhere and is common to all is not good. Such an objection might seem appropriate rather to the case of an ambitious man and ambition. For the ambitious man is one who wants to be sole possessor of something and by some such means to surpass all others: so if pleasure is to be a good, it too must be something of this sort. Or is this not so? Rather, on the contrary, it would seem [35] to be a good for this reason: all things aim at it. For it is the nature of all things to aim at the good, so that, if all things aim at pleasure, pleasure must be good in kind.
[1206a] Again, they denied that pleasure is a good on the ground that it is an impediment. But their asserting it to be an impediment seems to arise from an incorrect view of the matter. For the pleasure that comes from the performance of the action is not an impediment: if it is a different pleasure, it is [5] an impediment (for instance, the pleasure of intoxication is an impediment to action). But in this way one kind of knowledge will be a hindrance to another; for one cannot exercise both at once. But why is knowledge not good if it produces the pleasure that comes from knowledge? And will that pleasure be an impediment or not? Rather, it will intensify the action. [10] For the pleasure is a stimulus to increased action, if it comes from the action itself. For suppose the virtuous man to be performing his acts of virtue, and to be performing them with pleasure: will he not be much more active in the action? And if he acts with pleasure, he will be virtuous; but if he does noble things with pain, he will not be virtuous. For [15] pain attends upon what is due to compulsion, so that if one is pained at doing something noble, he is acting under compulsion; and he who so acts under compulsion is not virtuous.
But it is not possible to perform virtuous acts without pain or pleasure. The middle state does not exist. Why not? Because virtue implies emotion, and emotion pain or pleasure, [20] and there is nothing in the middle. It is plain, then, that virtue is attended with pain or with pleasure. Now if one does what is noble with pain he is not virtuous. So that virtue will not be attended with pain. Therefore with pleasure. Not only, then, is pleasure not an impediment, but it is actually [25] an encouragement to action, and generally virtue cannot exist without the pleasure that comes from it.
There was another argument—that there is no science which produces pleasure. But this is not true either. For cooks and milliners and perfume-makers are engaged in the [30] production of pleasure. There is, therefore, a science productive of pleasure. The other sciences do not have pleasure as their end, but the end is with pleasure and not without it.
Again, there was another argument—that it is not the best thing. But in that way and by the like reasoning you will reject the particular virtues too. For courage is not the best thing. Is it, therefore, not a good? Surely this is absurd. And [35] the same with the rest. Neither, then, is pleasure not a good simply because it is not the best thing.
To pass on, a problem of the following kind might be raised in the case of the virtues. I mean, since the reason sometimes masters the emotions (for we say so in the case of the continent man), and the emotions again conversely master the reason (as happens in the case of the incontinent), [1206b] since, then, the irrational part of the soul, if it is vicious, masters the reason, which is well-disposed (for the incontinent man is of this kind), the reason in like manner, if it is in a base condition, will master the emotions, which are well-disposed and have their appropriate virtue, and if this should [5] be the case, the result will be a bad use of virtue (for the reason being in a base condition and using virtue will use it badly): now such a result would seem to be absurd.
This problem it is easy to answer and resolve from what has been said by us before about virtue. For we assert that [10] there is virtue when the reason being in a good condition is commensurate with the emotions, these possessing their appropriate virtue, and the emotions with the reason; for in such a condition they will accord with one another, so that the reason will always ordain what is best, and the emotions being well disposed find it easy to carry out what the reason [15] ordains. If, then, the reason is in a base condition and the emotions in a good condition, there will not be virtue owing to the failure of the reason (for virtue depends on both). So that it is not possible to make a bad use of virtue.
Quite generally, it is not the case, as the others think, that reason is the originating principle and guide of virtue: [20] rather, the emotions are. For there must first be produced in us (as indeed is the case) an irrational impulse to the noble, and then later on the reason must put the question to the vote and decide it. One may see this from the case of children and those who live without reason. For in these, apart from reason, there spring up, first, impulses of the feelings towards [25] the noble, and the reason, supervening later and giving its vote the same way, makes them perform noble actions. But if they have received from the reason the originating principle of the noble, the feelings do not follow and tell in the same sense but often are contrary to it. That is why a right disposition of the emotions seems to be the originating principle of virtue rather than the reason.
1 Susemihl marks a lacuna, which he supposes to have contained a problem answering to the solution at 1206a26–30.
2 Reading ἐν ἁπάσαις (Rassow) for ἀγαθόν (‘… will be good’).
3 Reading Νηλεῖ, with half the manuscripts, for Ἰλεῖ.
4 Reading ἥδιστον (Aldine) for ἴδιον (‘proper’).