Section 1: Six kinds of character

Let us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral states to be avoided there are three kinds: vice, weakness of will, and inhumanity. The contraries of two of these are evident: one we call virtue, the other self-control; to inhumanity it would be most fitting to oppose superhuman virtue, a heroic and divine kind of virtue, as Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good:

For he seemed not, he,
The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God’s seed came.

Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of this kind must evidently be the state opposed to the inhuman or beastly state; for as a beast has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his state is higher than virtue, and that of a beast is a different kind of state from vice.

Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found–to use the epithet of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call him a ‘godlike man’–so too the inhuman or beastly type is rarely found among men; it is found chiefly among barbarians, but some inhuman qualities are also produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil name those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice. Of this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention, while we have discussed vice before we must now discuss lack of self-control and softness (or effeminacy), and self-control and endurance; for we must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or wickedness, nor as a different genus. We must, as in all other cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently.

Now (1) both self-control and endurance are thought to be included among things good and praiseworthy, and both lack of self-control and softness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is thought to be self-controlled and ready to abide by the result of his calculations, or to lack self-control and ready to abandon them. And (2) the person who lacks self-control, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of emotion, while the self-controlled person, knowing that his desires are bad, refuses on account of his reasoning to follow them. (3) The temperate man all men call self-controled and disposed to endurance, while the self-controlled man some maintain to be always temperate but others do not; and some call the intemperate person someone who lacks self-control and the person who lack’s self-control intemperate indiscriminately, while others distinguish them. (4) The prudent person, they sometimes say, cannot lack self-control, while sometimes they say that some who are prudent and clever do lack self-control. Again (5) men are said to lack self-control even with respect to anger, honor, and gain. These, then, are the things that people say.