The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface to the Fifth Edition.
• Book I.: The End.
• 1.: In All He Does Man Seeks Same Good As End Or Means.
• 2.: The End Is the Good; Our Subject Is This and Its Science Politics.
• 3.: Exactness Not Permitted By Subject Nor to Be Expected By Student, Who Needs Experience and Training.
• 4.: Men Agree That the Good Is Happiness, But Differ As to What This Is.
• 5.: The Good Cannot Be Pleasure, Nor Honour, Nor Virtue.
• 6.: Various Arguments to Show Against the Platonists That There Cannot Be One Universal Good.
• 7.: The Good Is the Final End, and Happiness Is This.
• 8.: This View Harmonizes Various Current Views.
• 9.: It Happiness Acquired, Or the Gift of Gods Or of Chance?
• 10.: Can No Man Be Called Happy During Life?
• 11.: Cannot the Fortunes of Survivors Affect the Dead?
• 12.: Happiness As Absolute End Is Above Praise.
• 13.: Division of the Faculties and Resulting Division of the Virtues.
• Book II.: Moral Virtue.
• 1.: Moral Virtue Is Acquired By the Repetition of the Corresponding Acts.
• 2.: These Acts Must Be Such As Reason Prescribes; They Can’t Be Defined Exactly, But Must Be Neither Too Much Nor Too Little.
• 3.: Virtue Is In Various Ways Concerned With Pleasure and Pain.
• 4.: The Conditions of Virtuous Action As Distinct From Artistic Production.
• 5.: Virtue Not an Emotion, Nor a Faculty, But a Trained Faculty Or Habit.
• 6.: Viz., the Habit of Choosing the Mean.
• 7.: This Must Be Applied to the Several Virtues.
• 8.: The Two Vicious Extremes Are Opposed to One Another and to the Intermediate Virtue.
• 9.: The Mean Hard to Hit, and Is a Matter of Perception, Not of Reasoning.
• Book III.
• Chapters 1–5.: the Will.
• 1.: An Act Is Involuntary When Done (a) Under Compulsion, Or (b) Through Ignorance: (a) Means Not Originated By Doer, (b) Means Through Ignorance of the Circumstances: Voluntary Then Means Originated With Knowledge of Circumstances.
• 2.: Purpose, a Mode of Will, Means Choice After Deliberation.
• 3.: We Deliberate On What We Can Do—not On Ends, But Means.
• 4.: We Wish For
• 5.: Virtue and Vice Are Alike Voluntary, Our Acts Are Our Own; For We Are Punished For Them; If This Be Our Character, We Have Made It By Repeated Acts; Even Bodily Vices Are Blamable When Thus Formed. We Cannot Plead That Our Notion of Good Depends On Ou
• Chapters 6—12: the Several Moral Virtues and Vices.
• 6.: Of Courage and the Opposite Vices.
• 7. Of Courage (continued)
• 8. Of Courage Improperly So Called.
• 9.: How Courage Involves Both Pain and Pleasure.
• 10.: Of Temperance.
• 11. Of Temperance (continued)
• 12.: How Profligacy Is More Voluntary Than Cowardice.
• Book IV.: The Several Moral Virtues and Vices— Continued.
• 1.: Of Liberality.
• 2.: Of Magnificence.
• 3.: Of High-mindedness
• 4.: Of a Similar Virtue In Smaller Matters.
• 5.: Of Gentleness.
• 6.: Of Agreeableness.
• 7.: Of Truthfulness.
• 8.: Of Wittiness.
• 9.: Of the Feeling of Shame
• Book V.: The Several Moral Virtues and Vices— Concluded. Justice.
• 1.: Preliminary Two Senses of Justice Distinguished Justice (l) = Obedience to Law = Complete Virtue.
• 2.: Of Justice (2) = Fairness, How Related to Justice (1). What Is Just In Distribution Distinguished From What Is Just In Correction.
• 3.: Of What Is Just In Ditribution and Its Rule of Geometrical Proportion.
• 4.: Of That Which Is Just In Correction, and Its Rule of Arithmetical Proportion.
• 5.: Simple Requital Is Not Identical With What Is Just, But Proportionate Requital Is What Is Just In Exchange; and This Is Effected By Means of Money. We Can Now Give a General Definition of Justice (2).
• 6.: ( One Can Act Unjustly Without Being Unjust. ) That Which Is Just In the Strict Sense Is Between Citizens Only, For It Implies Law.
• 7.: It Is In Part Natural, In Part Conventional.
• 8.: The Internal Conditions of a Just Or Unjust Action, and of a Just Or Unjust Agent.
• 9.: Sundry Questions About Doing and Suffering Injustice
• 10.: Of Equity
• 11.: Can a Man Wrong Himself?
• Book VI.: The Intellectual Virtues.
• 1.: Must Be Studied Because (a) Reason Prescribes the Mean, (b) They Are a Part of Human Excellence. the Intellect Is (1) Scientific, (2) Calculative: We Want the Virtue of Each.
• 2.: The Function of the Intellect, Both In Practice and Speculation, Is to Attain Truth.
• 3.: Of the Five Modes of Attaining Truth: (1) of Demonstrative Science of Things Invariable.
• 4.: Of Knowledge of Things Variable, Viz. (2) of Art In What We Make;
• 5.: And (3) of Prudence In What We Do, the Virtue of the Calculative Intellect.
• 6.: (4) of Intuitive Reason As the Basis of Demonstrative Science.
• 7.: (5) of Wisdom As the Union of Science and Intuitive Reason. Comparison of the Two Intellectual Virtues, Wisdom and Prudence.
• 8.: Prudence Compared With Statesmanship and Other Forms of Knowledge.
• 9.: Of Deliberation.
• 10.: Of Intelligence
• 11.: Of Judgment of Reason Or Intuitive Perception As the Basis of the Practical Intellect.
• 12.: Of the Uses of Wisdom and Prudence. How Prudence Is Related to Cleverness.
• 13.: How Prudence Is Related to Moral Virtue
• Book VII.
• Chapters 1–10.: Characters Other Than Virtue and Vice.
• 1.: Of Continence and Incontinence, Heroic Virtue and Brutality. of Method. Statement of Opinions About Continence.
• 2.: Statement of Difficulties As to How One Can Know Right and Do Wrong.
• 3.: Solution: to Know Has Many Senses; In What Sense Such a Man Knows.
• 4.: Of Incontinence In the Strict and In the Metaphorical Sense.
• 5.: Of Incontinence In Respect of Brutal Or Morbid Appetites.
• 6.: Incontinence In Anger Less Blamed Than In Appetite.
• 7.: Incontinence Yields to Pleasure, Softness to Pain. Two Kinds of Incontinence, the Hasty and the Weak.
• 8.: Incontinence Compared With Vice and Virtue.
• 9.: Continence and Incontinence Not Identical With Keeping and Breaking a Resolution.
• 10.: Prudence Is Not, But Cleverness Is, Compatible With Incontinence.
• Chapters 11—14.: of Pleasure.
• 11.: We Must Now Discuss Pleasure. Opinions About It.
• 12.: Answers to Arguments Against Goodness of Pleasure. Ambiguity of Good and Pleasant. Pleasure Not a Transition, But Unimpeded Activity.
• 13.: Pleasure Is Good, and the Pleasure That Consists In the Highest Activity Is the Good. All Admit That Happiness Is Pleasant. Bodily Pleasures Not the Only Pleasures.
• 14.: Of the Bodily Pleasures, and the Distinction Between Naturally and Accidentally Pleasant.
• Book VIII.: Friendship Or Love.
• 1.: Uses of Friendship. Differences of Opinion About It.
• 2.: Three Motives of Friendship. Friendship Defined.
• 3.: Three Kinds of Friendship, Corresponding to the Three Motives Perfect Friendship Is That Whose Motive Is the Good.
• 4.: The Others Are Imperfect Copies of This.
• 5.: Intercourse Necessary to the Maintenance of Friendship.
• 6.: Impossible to Have Many True Friends.
• 7.: Of Friendship Between Unequal Persons and Its Rule of Proportion. Limits Within Which This Is Possible.
• 8.: Of Loving and Being Loved.
• 9.: Every Society Has Its Own Form of Friendship As of Justice. All Societies Are Summed Up In Civil Society.
• 10.: Of the Three Forms of Constitution.
• 11.: Of the Corresponding Forms of Friendship.
• 12.: Of the Friendship of Kinsmen and Comrades.
• 13.: Of the Terms of Interchange and Quarrels Hence Arising In Equal Friendships.
• 14.: Of the Same In Unequal Friendships.
• Book IX.: Friendship Or Love— Continued.
• 1.: Of the Rule of Proportion In Dissimilar Friendships.
• 2.: Of the Conflict of Duties.
• 3.: Of the Dissolution of Friendships.
• 4.: A Man’s Relation to His Friend Like His Relation to Himself.
• 5.: Friendship and Goodwill.
• 6.: Friendship and Unanimity
• 7.: Why Benefactors Love More Than They Are Loved.
• 8.: In What Sense It Is Right to Love One’s Self.
• 9.: Why a Happy Man Needs Friends.
• 10.: Of the Proper Number of Friends.
• 11.: Friends Needed Both In Prosperity and Adversity.
• 12.: Friendship Is Realized In Living Together.
• Book X.
• Chapters 1–5.: Pleasure.
• 1.: Reasons For Discussing Pleasure.
• 2.: Arguments of Eudoxus That Pleasure Is the Good.
• 3.: Argument That It Is Not a Quality; That It Is Not Determined; That It Is a Motion Or Coming Into Being. Pleasures Differ In Kind.
• 4.: Pleasure Defined: Its Relation to Activity.
• 5.: Pleasures Differ According to the Activities the Standard Is the Good Man.
• Chapters 6–9.: Conclusion.
• 6.: Happiness Not Amusement, But Life.
• 7.: Of the Speculative Life As Happiness In the Highest Sense.
• 8.: Of the Practical Life As Happiness In a Lower Sense, and of the Relation Between the Two. Prosperity, How Far Needed.
• 9.: How Is the End to Be Realized?

3.

Argument that it is not a quality; that it is not determined; that it is a motion or coming into being. Pleasures differ in kind.

Again, even though pleasure is not a quality, it does not follow that it is not a good thing. The exercise of virtue, happiness itself, is not a quality.

It is objected, again, that the good is determinate, while pleasure is indeterminate, because it admits of a more and a less.

Now, if they say this because one may be more or less pleased, then the same thing may be said of justice and the other virtues; for it is plain that, with regard to them, we speak of people as being and showing themselves more or less virtuous: some men are more just and more brave than others, and it is possible to act more or less justly and temperately.

But if they mean that one pleasure may be more or less of a pleasure than another, I suspect that they miss the real reason when they say it is because some are pure and some are mixed. Why should it not be the same with pleasure as with health, which, though something determinate, yet allows of more and less? For the due proportion of elements [which constitutes health] is not the same for all, nor always the same for the same person, but may vary within certain limits without losing its character, being now more and now less truly health. And it may be the same with pleasure.

Again, assuming that the good is complete, while motion and coming into being are incomplete, they try to show that pleasure is a motion and a coming into being.

But they do not seem to be right even in saying that it is a motion: for every motion seems necessarily to be quick or slow, either absolutely, as the motion of the universe, or relatively; but pleasure is neither quick nor slow. It is, indeed, possible to be quickly pleased, as to be quickly angered; the feeling, however, cannot be quick, even relatively, as can walking and growing, etc. The passage to a state of pleasure, then, may be quick or slow, but the exercise of the power, i.e. the feeling of pleasure, cannot be quick.

Again, how can pleasure be a coming into being?

It seems that it is not possible for anything to come out of just anything, but what a thing comes out of, that it is resolved into. Pain, then, must be the dissolution of that whose coming into being is pleasure. Accordingly, they maintain that pain is falling short of the normal state, pleasure its replenishment.

But these are bodily processes. If, then, pleasure be the replenishment of the normal state, that in which the replenishment takes place, i.e. the body, must be that which is pleased. But this does not seem to be the case. Pleasure, therefore, is not a replenishment, but while the process of replenishment is going on we may be pleased, and while the process of exhaustion is going on we may be pained.*

This view of pleasure seems to have been suggested by the pleasures and pains connected with nutrition; for there it is true that we come into a state of want, and, after previous pain, find pleasure in replenishment. But this is not the case with all pleasures; for there is no previous pain involved in the pleasures of the mathematician, nor among the sensuous pleasures in those of smell, nor, again, in many kinds of sights and sounds, nor in memories and hopes. What is there, then, of which these pleasures are the becoming? Here there is nothing lacking that can be replenished.

To those, again, who [in order to show that pleasure is not good] adduce the disgraceful kinds of pleasure we might reply that these things are not pleasant. Though they be pleasant to ill-conditioned persons, we must not therefore hold them to be pleasant except to them; just as we do not hold that to be wholesome, or sweet, or bitter, which is wholesome, sweet, or bitter to the sick man, or that to be white which appears white to a man with ophthalmia.

Or, again, we might reply that these pleasures are desirable, but not when derived from these sources, just as it is desirable to be rich, but not at the cost of treachery, and desirable to be in health, but not at the cost of eating any kind of abominable food.

Or we might say that the pleasures are specifically different. The pleasures derived from noble sources are different from those derived from base sources, and it is impossible to feel the just man’s pleasure without being just, or the musical man’s pleasure without being musical, and so on with the rest.

The distinction drawn between the true friend and the flatterer seems to show either that pleasure is not good, or else that pleasures differ in kind. For the former in his intercourse is thought to have the good in view, the latter pleasure; and while we blame the latter, we praise the former as having a different aim in his intercourse.

Again, no one would choose to live on condition of having a child’s intellect all his life, though he were to enjoy in the highest possible degree all the pleasures of a child; nor choose to gain enjoyment by the performance of some extremely disgraceful act, though he were never to feel pain.

There are many things, too, which we should care for, even though they brought no pleasure, as sight, memory, knowledge, moral and intellectual excellence. Even if we grant that pleasure necessarily accompanies them, this does not affect the question; for we should choose them even if no pleasure resulted from them.

It seems to be evident, then, that pleasure is not the good, nor are all pleasures desirable, but that some are desirable, differing in kind, or in their sources, from those that are not desirable. Let this be taken then as a sufficient account of the current opinions about pleasure and pain.

[* ]Adopting Spengel’s conjecture, κενούμενος for τεμνόμενος.