The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
It is plain too that, unless Pleasure and its active working be good,
it will not be true that the happy man’s life embodies Pleasure: for
why will he want it on the supposition that it is not good and that he
can live even with Pain? because, assuming that Pleasure is not good,
then Pain is neither evil nor good, and so why should he avoid it?
Besides, the life of the good man is not more pleasurable than any
other unless it be granted that his active workings are so too.
Some enquiry into the bodily Pleasures is also necessary for those who
say that some Pleasures, to be sure, are highly choice-worthy (the good
ones to wit), but not the bodily Pleasures; that is, those which are
the object-matter of the man utterly destitute of Self-Control.
If so, we ask, why are the contrary Pains bad? they cannot be (on their
assumption) because the contrary of bad is good.
May we not say that the necessary bodily Pleasures are good in the
sense in which that which is not-bad is good? or that they are good
only up to a certain point? because such states or movements as cannot
have too much of the better cannot have too much of Pleasure, but those
which can of the former can also of the latter. Now the bodily
Pleasures do admit of excess: in fact the low bad man is such because
he pursues the excess of them instead of those which are necessary
(meat, drink, and the objects of other animal appetites do give
pleasure to all, but not in right manner or degree to all). But his
relation to Pain is exactly the contrary: it is not excessive Pain, but
Pain at all, that he avoids [which makes him to be in this way too a
bad low man], because only in the case of him who pursues excessive
Pleasure is Pain contrary to excessive Pleasure.
It is not enough however merely to state the truth, we should also show
how the false view arises; because this strengthens conviction. I mean,
when we have given a probable reason why that impresses people as true
which really is not true, it gives them a stronger conviction of the
truth. And so we must now explain why the bodily Pleasures appear to
people to be more choice-worthy than any others.
The first obvious reason is, that bodily Pleasure drives out Pain; and
because Pain is felt in excess men pursue Pleasure in excess, _i.e._
generally bodily Pleasure, under the notion of its being a remedy for
that Pain. These remedies, moreover, come to be violent ones; which is
the very reason they are pursued, since the impression they produce on
the mind is owing to their being looked at side by side with their
contrary.
And, as has been said before, there are the two following reasons why
bodily Pleasure is thought to be not-good.
1. Some Pleasures of this class are actings of a low nature, whether
congenital as in brutes, or acquired by custom as in low bad men.
2. Others are in the nature of cures, cures that is of some deficiency;
now of course it is better to have [the healthy state] originally than
that it should accrue afterwards.
(But some Pleasures result when natural states are being perfected:
these therefore are good as a matter of result.)
Again, the very fact of their being violent causes them to be pursued
by such as can relish no others: such men in fact create violent
thirsts for themselves (if harmless ones then we find no fault, if
harmful then it is bad and low) because they have no other things to
take pleasure in, and the neutral state is distasteful to some people
constitutionally; for toil of some kind is inseparable from life, as
physiologists testify, telling us that the acts of seeing or hearing
are painful, only that we are used to the pain and do not find it out.
Similarly in youth the constant growth produces a state much like that
of vinous intoxication, and youth is pleasant. Again, men of the
melancholic temperament constantly need some remedial process (because
the body, from its temperament, is constantly being worried), and they
are in a chronic state of violent desire. But Pleasure drives out Pain;
not only such Pleasure as is directly contrary to Pain but even any
Pleasure provided it be strong: and this is how men come to be utterly
destitute of Self-Mastery, _i.e._ low and bad.
But those Pleasures which are unconnected with Pains do not admit of
excess: _i.e._ such as belong to objects which are naturally pleasant
and not merely as a matter of result: by the latter class I mean such
as are remedial, and the reason why these are thought to be pleasant is
that the cure results from the action in some way of that part of the
constitution which remains sound. By “pleasant naturally” I mean such
as put into action a nature which is pleasant.
The reason why no one and the same thing is invariably pleasant is that
our nature is, not simple, but complex, involving something different
from itself (so far as we are corruptible beings). Suppose then that
one part of this nature be doing something, this something is, to the
other part, unnatural: but, if there be an equilibrium of the two
natures, then whatever is being done is indifferent. It is obvious that
if there be any whose nature is simple and not complex, to such a being
the same course of acting will always be the most pleasurable.
For this reason it is that the Divinity feels Pleasure which is always
one, _i.e._ simple: not motion merely but also motionlessness acts, and
Pleasure resides rather in the absence than in the presence of motion.
The reason why the Poet’s dictum “change is of all things most
pleasant” is true, is “a baseness in our blood;” for as the bad man is
easily changeable, bad must be also the nature that craves change,
_i.e._ it is neither simple nor good.
We have now said our say about Self-Control and its opposite; and about
Pleasure and Pain. What each is, and how the one set is good the other
bad. We have yet to speak of Friendship.
BOOK VIII
Chapter I.
Next would seem properly to follow a dissertation on Friendship:
because, in the first place, it is either itself a virtue or connected
with virtue; and next it is a thing most necessary for life, since no
one would choose to live without friends though he should have all the
other good things in the world: and, in fact, men who are rich or
possessed of authority and influence are thought to have special need
of friends: for where is the use of such prosperity if there be taken
away the doing of kindnesses of which friends are the most usual and
most commendable objects? Or how can it be kept or preserved without
friends? because the greater it is so much the more slippery and
hazardous: in poverty moreover and all other adversities men think
friends to be their only refuge.
Furthermore, Friendship helps the young to keep from error: the old, in
respect of attention and such deficiencies in action as their weakness
makes them liable to; and those who are in their prime, in respect of
noble deeds (“They _two_ together going,” Homer says, you may
remember), because they are thus more able to devise plans and carry
them out.
Again, it seems to be implanted in us by Nature: as, for instance, in
the parent towards the offspring and the offspring towards the parent
(not merely in the human species, but likewise in birds and most
animals), and in those of the same tribe towards one another, and
specially in men of the same nation; for which reason we commend those
men who love their fellows: and one may see in the course of travel how
close of kin and how friendly man is to man.
Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and
legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even. I
mean, Unanimity is somewhat like to Friendship, and this they certainly
aim at and specially drive out faction as being inimical.
Again, where people are in Friendship Justice is not required;[1] but,
on the other hand, though they are just they need Friendship in
addition, and that principle which is most truly just is thought to
partake of the nature of Friendship.
Lastly, not only is it a thing necessary but honourable likewise: since
we praise those who are fond of friends, and the having numerous
friends is thought a matter of credit to a man; some go so far as to
hold, that “good man” and “friend” are terms synonymous.
Chapter II.
Yet the disputed points respecting it are not few: some men lay down
that it is a kind of resemblance, and that men who are like one another
are friends: whence come the common sayings, “Like will to like,”
“Birds of a feather,” and so on. Others, on the contrary, say, that all
such come under the maxim, “Two of a trade never agree.”[2]
Again, some men push their enquiries on these points higher and reason
physically: as Euripides, who says,
“The earth by drought consumed doth love the rain,
And the great heaven, overcharged with rain,
Doth love to fall in showers upon the earth.”
Heraclitus, again, maintains, that “contrariety is expedient, and that
the best agreement arises from things differing, and that all things
come into being in the way of the principle of antagonism.”
Empedocles, among others, in direct opposition to these, affirms, that
“like aims at like.”
These physical questions we will take leave to omit, inasmuch as they
are foreign to the present enquiry; and we will examine such as are
proper to man and concern moral characters and feelings: as, for
instance, “Does Friendship arise among all without distinction, or is
it impossible for bad men to be friends?” and, “Is there but one
species of Friendship, or several?” for they who ground the opinion
that there is but one on the fact that Friendship admits of degrees
hold that upon insufficient proof; because things which are different
in species admit likewise of degrees (on this point we have spoken
before).
Chapter III.
Our view will soon be cleared on these points when we have ascertained
what is properly the object-matter of Friendship: for it is thought
that not everything indiscriminately, but some peculiar matter alone,
is the object of this affection; that is to say, what is good, or
pleasurable, or useful. Now it would seem that that is useful through
which accrues any good or pleasure, and so the objects of Friendship,
as absolute Ends, are the good and the pleasurable.
A question here arises; whether it is good absolutely or that which is
good to the individuals, for which men feel Friendship (these two being
sometimes distinct): and similarly in respect of the pleasurable. It
seems then that each individual feels it towards that which is good to
himself, and that abstractedly it is the real good which is the object
of Friendship, and to each individual that which is good to each. It
comes then to this; that each individual feels Friendship not for what
_is_ but for that which _conveys to his mind the impression of being_
good to himself. But this will make no real difference, because that
which is truly the object of Friendship will also convey this
impression to the mind.
There are then three causes from which men feel Friendship: but the
term is not applied to the case of fondness for things inanimate
because there is no requital of the affection nor desire for the good
of those objects: it certainly savours of the ridiculous to say that a
man fond of wine wishes well to it: the only sense in which it is true
being that he wishes it to be kept safe and sound for his own use and
benefit.[3] But to the friend they say one should wish all good for his
sake. And when men do thus wish good to another (he not reciprocating
the feeling), people call them Kindly; because Friendship they describe
as being “Kindliness between persons who reciprocate it.” But must they
not add that the feeling must be mutually known? for many men are