218 ARISTOTLE
that (1) pleasure is not a good, or (3) that it is not the highest good. In the first place, [to
answer argument (1a) and (3),] we use the word “good” in two senses: a thing may be good
in the unqualified sense, or “good” for a particular person. Hence the term has also two
meanings when applied to natural states and characteristics [of persons], and consequently
also when applied to their motions and processes. This means that motions and processes
which are generally held to be bad are partly bad without qualification, but not bad for a
particular person, and even desirable for him; and partly not even desirable for a particular
person except on occasion and for a short time, though they are not desirable in an unqual-
ified sense. Others again are not even pleasures, but only appear to be, for example, all
processes accompanied by pain and undergone for remedial purposes, such as the
processes to which the sick are subjected.
Secondly, the good has two aspects: it is both an activity and a characteristic. Now,
the processes which restore us to our natural characteristic condition are only inciden-
tally pleasant; but the activity which is at work when our appetites [want to see us
restored] is the activity of that part of our characteristic condition and natural state which
has been left unimpaired. For that matter, there are pleasures which do not involve pain
and appetite (e.g., the activity of studying) and we experience them when there is noth-
ing deficient in our natural state. [That processes of restoration are only incidentally
pleasant] is shown by the fact that the pleasant things which give us joy while our natural
state is being replenished are not the same as those which give us joy once it has been
restored. Once restored, we feel joy at what is pleasant in the unqualified sense, but while
the replenishment goes on, we enjoy even its opposite: for instance, we enjoy sharp and
bitter things, none of which are pleasant either by nature or in the unqualified sense.
Consequently, the pleasures [derived from them, too, are not pleasant either by nature or
in the unqualified sense], for the difference that exists between various pleasant things is
the same as that which is found between the pleasures derived from them.
In the third place, there is no need to believe that there exists something better
than pleasure which is different from it, just as, according to some, the end is better than
the process which leads to it. For pleasures are not processes, nor do all pleasures
involve processes: they are activities and an end, and they result not from the process of
development we undergo, but from the use we make of the powers we have. Nor do all
pleasures have an end other than themselves; that is only true of the pleasures of those
who are being led to the perfection of their natural states. For that reason, it is not
correct, either, to say that pleasure is a process perceived [by the subject]: one should
rather call it an “activity of our characteristic condition as determined by our natural
state,” and instead of “perceived” we should call it “unobstructed.” (There are some
who believe pleasure to be process on the ground that it is good in the true sense of the
word, for they think that activity is process, but it is, as a matter of fact, different.)
The argument (2b) that pleasures [are bad, because] some pleasant things may
cause disease, is like arguing that wholesome things are bad, because some of them are
bad for making money. Both pleasant and wholesome things are bad in the relative
senses mentioned, but that does not make them bad in themselves: even studying is
occasionally harmful to health.
Also, (1d) neither practical wisdom nor any characteristic is obstructed by the
pleasure arising from it, but only by alien pleasures extraneous to it. The pleasures
arising from study and learning will only intensify study and learning, [but they will
never obstruct it].
The argument (1e) that no pleasure is the result of an art makes good sense. For
art never produces any activity at all: it produces the capacity for the activity.30351153 a
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