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NE 7.8: intemperance destroys first principles
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Thomas
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Dec 17, 2006 13:21 PST
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1150b29-1151a28:
VIII. The profligate, as we said, does not feel remorse, for he abides by his choice; the unrestrained man on the other hand invariably repents his excesses afterwards. Hence the objection that we stated does not hold good; on the contrary, it is the profligate who cannot be cured, whereas the unrestrained man can; for Vice resembles diseases like dropsy and consumption, whereas Unrestraint is like epilepsy, Vice being a chronic, Unrestraint an intermittent evil. Indeed Unrestraint and Vice are entirely different in kind, for Vice is unconscious, whereas the unrestrained man is aware of his infirmity.
[2] Among the unrestrained themselves, the impulsive sort are better than those who know the right principle but do not keep to it; for these succumb to smaller temptations, and they do not yield without deliberation, as do the impulsive; the unrestrained man is like people who get drunk quickly, and with a small amount of wine, or with less than most men.
[3] That Unrestraint is not strictly a vice (though it is perhaps vice in a sense), is clear; for Unrestraint acts against deliberate choice, Vice in accordance with it. But nevertheless in the actions that result from it it resembles Vice: just as Demodocus wrote of the people of Miletus--
Milesians are no fools, 'tis true
But yet they act as fools would do.
Similarly the unrestrained are not unjust, but they do unjust things.
[4] Again, the unrestrained man is so constituted as to pursue bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to right principle without any belief that he ought to do so, whereas the profligate, because he is so constituted as to pursue them, is convinced that he ought to pursue them. Therefore the former can easily be persuaded to change, but the latter cannot. For virtue preserves the fundamental principle [archê], vice destroys it, and the first principle or starting-point in matters of conduct is the end proposed, which corresponds to the hypotheses of mathematics; hence no more in ethics than in mathematics are the first principles imparted by process of reasoning [logos], but by virtue, whether natural or acquired by training in right opinion as to the first principle. The man of principle therefore is temperate,the man who has lost all principle, profligate.
[I think that Irwin's translation is better: "Reason does not teach first principles either in mathematics or in actions; (with actions) it is virtue, either natural or..." Indeed virtue makes practical first principles clear, not mathematical ones. Cf. 1140a14: "for pleasure and pain do not destroy or pervert all beliefs, for instance, the belief that the three angles of a triangle are, or are not, together equal to two right angles, but only beliefs concerning action." Th.]
[5] But there is a person who abandons his choice, against right principle, under the influence of passion, who is mastered by passion sufficiently for him not to act in accordance with right principle, but not so completely as to be of such a character as to believe that the reckless pursuit of pleasure is right. This is the unrestrained man: he is better than the profligate, and not absolutely bad, for in him the highest part of man, the fundamental principle, is still preserved. Opposed to the unrestrained man is another, who stands firm by his choice, and does not abandon it under the mere impulse of passion.
It is clear then from these considerations that Self-restraint is a good quality and Unrestraint a bad one.
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