Section 13: Discussion of the view that pleasure is not the highest good

Furthermore, it is agreed that pain is bad and _[1153b] to be avoided. For some kinds of pain are without qualification bad, and other kinds of pain are bad because they are in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided–insofar as it is something to be avoided and bad–is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, as the greater _[5] is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not successful. For he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a species of evil.

But if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the highest good from being some kind of pleasure, just as the highest good may be some kind of knowledge although certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is even necessary that, if each disposition has unimpeded activities, _[10] they should be the things most worthy of our choice, whether the unimpeded activity that is happiness is an activity of all our dispositions or only one of them. But unimpeded activity is pleasure. Thus the highest good would be some kind of pleasure, [if happiness is some kind of unimpeded activity,] although most pleasures are perhaps bad without qualification.

For this reason, everyone thinks that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into their ideal of happiness. And this is reasonable, _[15] since no activity is complete when it is impeded, and happiness is something complete. This is why the happy person needs the goods of the body and external goods–those of luck–in order that he may not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim being tortured on the rack or the person who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, _[20] talking nonsense.

Now because we need good fortune as well as other things, some people think good fortune the same thing as happiness. But it is not. For even good fortune itself when in excess is an impediment to happiness, and perhaps should then be no longer called “good fortune.” For its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.

Indeed the fact that all things, both wild animals and human beings, _[30] pursue pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the highest good. As the saying goes, “No voice is wholly lost that many people spread.” But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure. Yet all do pursue pleasure. _[30] And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue, but the same pleasure; for all things have by nature something divine in them. But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name “pleasure” both because we often steer our course for them and because all people share in them. Thus, because bodily pleasures are familiar, _[35] people think there are no other pleasures.

It is also evident that if pleasure _[1154a1] is not a good and not an activity, it will not be the case that the happy person lives a pleasant life. For to what purpose should he need pleasure, if we assume it is not a good. On this view couldn’t the happy person even live a painful life? For pain is neither something bad nor something good, if pleasure is something good. Why then should the happy person avoid it? _[5] Therefore, on this assumption, the life of the good person will not be more pleasant than that of anyone else, since his activities are not more pleasant on this view.