Section 4: Lack of self-control in the strict and extended senses

(2) We must next discuss whether there is anyone who lacks self-control without qualification, or whether everyone who lacks self-control does so in a particular sense, and if there is anyone who lacks self-control without qualification, with what sort of objects he is concerned. That both self-controlled people and people of endurance, and people who lack self-control and are soft, are concerned with pleasures and pains is evident.

Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, the bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean both those concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse, i.e. the bodily matters with which we defined self-indulgence and temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but worthy of choice in themselves (e.g. victory, honor, wealth, and good and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, (a) those who go to excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in themselves, are not said to lack self-control simply, but rather to lack self-control with the qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honor, or anger’–not simply lacking self-control, on the ground that they are different from people who lack self-control and are said to lack self-control by reason of a resemblance. (Compare the case of Anthropos (Man), who won a contest at the Olympic games; in his case the general definition of man differed little from the definition peculiar to him, but yet it was different.) This is shown by the fact that lacking self-control either without qualification or in respect of some particular bodily pleasure is blamed not only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while none of the people who lack self-control in these other respects—namely with respect to money, gain, honor, or anger—is blamed as vicious.

But (b) of the people who lack self-control with respect to bodily enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the intemperate man are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant–and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold and all the objects of touch and taste–not by choice but contrary to his choice and his judgement, is said to lack self-control, not with the qualification ‘in respect of this or that’, e.g. of anger, but just simply. This is confirmed by the fact that men are called ‘soft’ with regard to these pleasures, but not with regard to any of the others. And for this reason we group together the person who lacks self-control and the intemperate person, the self-controlled person and the temperate person–but not any of these other types–because they are concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pains; but though these are concerned with the same objects, they are not similarly related to them, but some of them make a deliberate choice while the others do not.

This is why we should describe as intemperate rather the man who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former do, if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the lack of the ‘necessary’ objects?

Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of things generically noble and good-for some pleasant things are by nature worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and others are intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction–e.g. wealth, gain, victory, honor. And with reference to all objects whether of this or of the intermediate kind men are not blamed for being affected by them, for desiring and loving them, but for doing so in a certain way, i.e. for going to excess. (This is why all those who contrary to the rule either are mastered by or pursue one of the objects which are naturally noble and good, e.g. those who busy themselves more than they ought about honor or about children and parents, are not wicked; for these too are good, and those who busy themselves about them are praised; but yet there is an excess even in them–if like Niobe one were to fight even against the gods, or were to be as much devoted to one’s father as Satyrus nicknamed ‘the filial’, who was thought to be very silly on this point. There is no wickedness, then, with regard to these objects, for the reason named, viz. because each of them is by nature a thing worthy of choice for its own sake; yet excesses in respect of them are bad and to be avoided. Similarly there is no lack of self-control with regard to them; for lack of self-control is not only to be avoided but is also a thing worthy of blame; but owing to a similarity in the state of feeling people apply the name “lack of self-control” or “weakness of will,” adding in each case what it is in respect of, as we may describe as a bad doctor or a bad actor one whom we should not call bad, simply. As, then, in this case we do not apply the term without qualification because each of these conditions is no badness but only analogous to it, so it is clear that in the other case also that alone must be taken to be self-control and the lack of self-control which is concerned with the same objects as temperance and intemperance, but we apply the term to anger by virtue of a resemblance; and this is why we say with a qualification ‘lacking self-control in respect of anger’ as we say ‘lacking self-control in respect of honor, or of gain’.