220 ARISTOTLE
they do not even pursue the pleasure which they think or would say they pursue, but they
all pursue the same [thing], pleasure. For everything has by nature something divine about
it. But the bodily pleasures have arrogated the name “pleasure” unto themselves as their
own private possession, because everyone tends to follow them and participates in them
more frequently than in any others. Accordingly, since these are the only pleasures with
which they are familiar, people think they are the only ones that exist.
It is also evident that if pleasure, i.e., the activity [of our faculties], is not good, it
will be impossible for a happy man to live pleasantly. For to what purpose would he
need pleasure, if it were not a good and if it is possible that a happy man’s life is one of
pain? For if pain is neither good nor bad, pleasure is not, either: so why should he avoid
it? Surely, the life of a morally good man is no pleasanter [than that of anyone else], if
his activities are not more pleasant.- The Views Discussed: (2) Are Most Pleasures Bad?:The subject of the plea-
sures of the body demands the attention of the proponents of the view that, though some
pleasures—for instance, the noble pleasures—are highly desirable, the pleasures of the
body—that is, the pleasures which are the concern of the self-indulgent man—are not.
If that is true, why then are the pains opposed to them bad? For bad has good as its
opposite. Is it that the necessary pleasures are good in the sense in which anything not
bad is good? Or are they good up to a certain point? For all characteristics and motions
which cannot have an excess of good cannot have an excess of pleasure, either; but
those which can have an excess of good can also have an excess of pleasure. Now,
excess is possible in the case of the goods of the body, and it is the pursuit of excess, but
not the pursuit of necessary pleasures, that makes a man bad. For all men get some kind
of enjoyment from good food, wine, and sexual relations, but not everyone enjoys these
things in the proper way. The reverse is true of pain: a bad person does not avoid an
excess of it, but he avoids it altogether. For the opposite of an excess is pain only for the
man who pursues the excess.
It is our task not only to say what is true, but also to state what causes error, since
that helps carry conviction. For when we can give a reasoned explanation why some-
thing which appears to be true is, in fact, not true, it makes us give greater credence to
what is true. Accordingly, we must now explain why the pleasures of the body appear to
be more desirable.
The first reason, then, is that pleasure drives out pain. When men experience an
excess of pain, they pursue excessive pleasure and bodily pleasure in general, in the
belief that it will remedy the pain. These remedial [pleasures] become very intense—
and that is the very reason why they are pursued—because they are experienced in con-
trast with their opposite.
As a matter of fact, these two reasons which we have stated also explain why
pleasure is not regarded as having any moral value: some pleasures are the actions that
spring from a bad natural state—either congenitally bad, as in the case of a beast, or bad
by habit, as in the case of a bad man—while other pleasures are remedial and indicate a
deficient natural state, and to be in one’s natural state is better than to be moving toward
it. But since the remedial pleasures only arise in the process of reaching the perfected
state, they are morally good only incidentally.
The second reason is that the pleasures of the body are pursued because of their
intensity by those incapable of enjoying other pleasures. Take, for example, those who
induce themselves to be thirsty. There is no objection to this practice, if the pleasures
are harmless; but if they are harmful, it is bad. For many people have nothing else to
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