Section 14: Discussion of the view that most pleasures are bad

With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that bodily pleasures should be avoided–that is, the pleasures with which the intemperate person is concerned–yet some pleasures should very much chosen–namely noble pleasures–must ask themselves why _[10] the pains contrary to bodily pleasures are something bad. For the contrary of bad is good.

Are the necessary pleasures good in the sense in which even what is not bad is good? Or are they good up to a point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which there cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the one there can be too much of the other also? Now there can be too much when it comes to bodily goods, _[15] and the bad person is bad due to pursuing the excess, not due to pursuing the necessary pleasures. For everyone enjoys in some way or other cooked foods, wines, and sexual intercourse, but not everyone does so in the way they should. The opposite is the case with pain. For the bad person does not avoid the excess of pain. Instead, he avoids it altogether. And this is peculiar to him, since the alternative to excess of pleasure is not pain, except to the person who pursues _[20] this excess.

Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of error–for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when a reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears true, this tends to produce belief in the true view–we must state _[25] why the bodily pleasures appear more choice worthy. (a) First, it is because they expel pain. Due to the excessive of pain people experience, they pursue excessive and in general bodily pleasures as being a cure for the pain. Now curative agencies produce intense feeling–which is the reason why they are pursued–because they appear against the contrary pain. _[30] (Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good for these two reasons, as has been said, namely that (1) some pleasures are activities belonging to a bad nature–either congenital, as in the case of a wild beast, or due to habit, as in the case of bad people–while (2) others are meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state than to be getting into it, but these arise during the process of being made perfect and are therefore only incidentally _[1154b1] good.) (b) Further, bodily pleasures are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless, the practice is unobjectionable. Yet when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For such people have nothing else _[5] to enjoy beyond bodily pleasures, and, besides, a neutral state is painful to many people because of their nature. For the animal nature is always in travail, as the students of natural science also testify, saying that sight and hearing are painful; but we have become used to this, as they maintain. Similarly, people, when they are young, are in a condition like being tipsy, owing to the growth that is going on. _[10] And so youth is pleasant. Yet people of an excitable nature always need relief. For even their body is ever in torment owing to its special composition, and they are always under the influence of some violent desire. But pain is driven out both by the contrary pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it is strong. For these reasons such people become intemperate and bad.

But the pleasures that do not involve pains _[15] do not admit of excess. And these are among the things pleasant by nature and not incidentally. By things “pleasant incidentally” I mean those that act as cures. Since people are cured through some action of the part that remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought pleasant. By things “naturally pleasant” I mean those that stimulate the action of the healthy nature. _[20]

There is no one thing that is always pleasant, because our nature is not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as we are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does something, this is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two elements are evenly balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor pleasant. For if the nature of anything were simple, the same action would always be most pleasant to it. _[25]

This is why God always enjoys a single and simple pleasure. For there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. But “change in all things is sweet,” as the poet says, because of some vice. For as it is the vicious person that is changeable, so the nature that needs _[30] change is vicious, since it is not simple nor good.

We have now discussed self-control and the lack of self-control, as well as pleasure and pain. We’ve discussed both what each is and in what sense some of them are good and others bad. What remains is to speak of friendship.