Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (little readers .TXT) 📕

incontinent with respect to this particular thing, as anger, but simply incontinent.

A proof of this is that people are also called soft in these latter matters, but not in any of the former [honour, gain, etc.].

And on this account we group the incontinent with the profligate and the continent and the temperate (but do not class with them any of those who are metaphorically called continent and incontinent), because they are in a way concerned with the same pleasures and pains. They are, in fact, concerned with the same matters, but their behaviour is different; for whereas the other three deliberately choose what they do, the incontinent man does not.

And so a man who, without desire, or with only a moderate desire, pursues excess of pleasure, and avoids even slight pains, would more properly be called profligate than one who is impelled so to act by violent desires; for what would the former do if the violent passions of youth were added, and if it were violent pain to him to forego the satisfaction of his natural appetites?

But some of our desires and pleasures are to be classed as noble and good (for some of the things that please us are naturally desirable), while others are the reverse of this, and others are intermediate between the two, as we explained before,189⁠—such things as money, gain, victory, and honour falling within the first class. With regard both to these, then, and to the intermediate class, men are blamed not for being affected by them, or desiring them, or caring for them, but only for doing so in certain ways and beyond the bounds of moderation. So we blame those who are moved by, or pursue, some good and noble object to an unreasonable extent, as, for instance, those who care too much for honour, or for their children or parents: for these, too, are noble objects, and men are praised for caring about them; but still one might go too far in them also, if one were to fight even against the gods, like Niobe, or to do as did Satyrus, who was nicknamed Philopator from his affection for his father⁠—for he seemed to carry his affection to the pitch of folly.

In these matters, then, there is no room for vice or wickedness for the reason mentioned, viz. that all these are objects that are in themselves desirable, though excess in them is not commendable, and is to be avoided.

Similarly, in these matters there is no room for incontinence strictly so called (for incontinence is not only to be avoided, but is actually blamable), but because of the similarity of the state of mind we do here use the term incontinence with a qualification, saying “incontinent in this or in that,” just as we apply the term “bad physician” or “bad actor” to a man whom we should not call bad simply or without a qualifying epithet. Just as in the latter case, then, the term badness or vice is applied, not simply, but with a qualification, because each of these qualities is not a vice strictly, but only analogous to a vice, so in this case also it is plain that we must understand that only to be strictly incontinence (or continence) which is manifested in those matters with which temperance and profligacy are concerned, while that which is manifested with regard to anger is only metaphorically called so; and therefore we call a man “incontinent in anger,” as “in honour” or “in gain,” adding a qualifying epithet.

V

While some things are naturally pleasant (of which some are pleasant in themselves, others pleasant to certain classes of animals or men), other things, though not naturally pleasant, come to be pleasant (1) through organic injuries, or (2) through custom, or again (3) through an originally bad nature; and in each of these three classes of things a corresponding character is manifested.

For instance [taking (3) first], there are the brutal characters, such as the creature in woman’s shape that is said to rip up pregnant females and devour the embryos, or the people who take delight, as some of the wild races about the Black Sea are said to take delight, in such things as eating raw meat or human flesh, or giving their children to one another to feast upon; or, again, in such things as are reported of Phalaris.

These, then, are what we call brutal natures [corresponding to (3)]: but in other cases the disposition is engendered by disease or madness; for instance, there was the man who slew and ate his mother, and that other who devoured the liver of his fellow-slave [and these correspond to (1)].

Other habits are either signs of a morbid state, or the result of custom [and so come either under (1) or under (2)]; e.g. plucking out the hair and biting the nails, or eating cinders and earth, or, again, the practice of unnatural vice; for these habits sometimes come naturally,190 sometimes by custom, as in the case of those who have been ill treated from their childhood.

Whenever nature is the cause of these morbid habits, no one would think of applying the term incontinence, any more than we should call women incontinent for the part they play in the propagation of the species; nor should we apply the term to those who, by habitual indulgence, have brought themselves into a morbid state.191

Habits of this kind, then, fall without the pale of vice, just as the brutal character does; but when a man who has these impulses conquers or is conquered by them, this is not to be called [continence or] incontinence strictly, but only metaphorically, just as the man who behaves thus in the matter of his angry passions cannot be strictly called incontinent. For even folly and cowardice, and profligacy, and ill temper, whenever they are carried beyond a certain pitch, are either brutal or morbid When a man