Section 7: Lack of self-control and softness

With regard to the pleasures and pains and desires and aversions arising through touch and taste, in terms of which temperance and intemperance were earlier defined, _[10] it possible to be in such a state as to give in to even by those of them that most people control, or to control even those to which most people give in. Among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures are self-control and the lack of self-control, those relating to pains softness and endurance. The state of most people is intermediate, even if they lean more _[15] toward the worse states.

Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not, and are necessary up to a point while the excesses or deficiencies of them are not, and this is equally true of desires and pains, someone who pursues the excesses of pleasant things, or pursues to excess necessary pleasures–and does so by deliberate choice, for their own sake and not at all for the sake of any result distinct from them–is _[20] intemperate. For such a person is of necessity unlikely to repent, and therefore incurable, since a person who cannot repent cannot be cured. Someone who is deficient in his pursuit of these pleasures is the opposite of intemperate, while someone who is intermediate is temperate. Similarly, there is the person who avoids bodily pains not because he is gives in, but who avoids them deliberate choice.

Of those who do not deliberately choose such actions, one kind of person is led to them as a result of the _[25] pleasure involved, another because he avoids the pain arising from the desire, so that these types differ from one another. Now anyone would think worse of a person if he were to do something shameful even if he did so with no desire or with a weak desire to do so, compared to a person under the influence of a powerful desire to do so. And anyone would think worse of a person who hit someone without being angry, than someone who git someone due to anger. For what would such a non-angry person have done if he had been strongly moved by anger? This is why the intemperate person [30] is worse than the person who lacks self-control.

Of the states of character named, the person who avoid bodily pains because he gives in exhibits a kind of softness, while the person who avoids bodily pains because by deliberate choice is intemperate.

The person who lacks self-control is opposed the self-controlled person, whereas the person of endurance is opposed to the soft person. For endurance consists in resisting, while self-control consists in conquering, and resisting and conquering are different, just as _[35] not giving in is different from winning. This is why self-control is also more worthy of choice than endurance.

Now the person who is defective in respect of resistance to the things that most people _[1150b1] resist and resist successfully is soft and effeminate. For effeminacy too is a kind of softness. Such a man trails his cloak on the ground to avoid the pain of lifting it, and acts like a sick person without thinking himself wretched, although he imitates someone wretched.

The case is similar _[5] with regard to self-control and the lack of self-control. For if someone gives in to violent and excessive pleasures or pains, there is nothing wonderful in that. Indeed, we are ready to forgive him if he has resisted, as Theodectes’ Philoctetes does when bitten by the snake, or Carcinus’ Cercyon in the Alope, and as people who try to _[10] restrain their laughter burst out into a guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus. But it is surprising if someone gives in to and cannot resist pleasures or pains that most men can hold out against, unless this is due to congenital nature or disease, like the softness that is hereditary with the kings of the Scythians, or that which distinguishes the female sex _[15] from the male.

The lover of amusement is also thought to be intemperate, but is really soft. For amusement is a relaxation, since it is a rest from work. And the lover of amusement is one of the people who go to excess in this.

Of the lack of self-control, one kind is impetuosity, another weakness. For some people fail after deliberating to stand by the conclusions of their deliberation, _[20] due to their emotions. Others, in contrast, fail because they have not actually deliberated, but are led by their emotion. For just as people who first tickle others are not tickled themselves, so some people, if they have first perceived and seen what is coming and have first roused themselves and their reasoning capacity, are not defeated by their emotion, whether it be pleasant or painful.

It is keen and excitable people _[25] that suffer especially from the impetuous form of lacking self-control. For the former by reason of their quickness and the latter by reason of the violence of their passions do not wait for the argument, because they are prone to follow appearances.