Self-indulgence is more like a voluntary state than cowardice. For the former is actuated by pleasure, the latter by pain, of which the one is to be chosen and the other to be avoided; and pain upsets and destroys the nature of the person who feels it, while pleasure does nothing of the sort. Therefore self-indulgence is more voluntary.
Is it true that pleasure does not 'upset and destroy the nature' of the person who experiences it? It seems as if sometimes it does; users of crystal meth, for example, often seem to come undone as a result of the pleasure they experience -- to the point that they will find their body covered in scabs and their teeth rotting out for lack of care.
Temperance isn't about pharmakon, though. It is about natural pleasures: food, drink, sex. Those pleasures might destroy you -- drink perhaps especially, but sex can too. They are still all less dangerous than the workings of sorcerers.
Hence also [self-indulgence] is more a matter of reproach [than cowardice]; for it is easier to become accustomed to its objects, since there are many things of this sort in life, and the process of habituation to them is free from danger, while with terrible objects the reverse is the case. But cowardice would seem to be voluntary in a different degree from its particular manifestations; for it is itself painless, but in these we are upset by pain, so that we even throw down our arms and disgrace ourselves in other ways; hence our acts are even thought to be done under compulsion. For the self-indulgent man, on the other hand, the particular acts are voluntary (for he does them with craving and desire), but the whole state is less so; for no one craves to be self-indulgent.
There's a reasonable point that you have a lot more power over the habituation process with self-indulgence, both because you have regular -- probably daily -- opportunities to practice temperance, and because you can do so in a state that is free from danger. Opportunities to be brave are much less common, and by nature entail a state of peril that can disrupt your reasoning. Thus, to the degree that you are self-indulgent you are especially blameworthy.
The name self-indulgence is applied also to childish faults; for they bear a certain resemblance to what we have been considering. Which is called after which, makes no difference to our present purpose; plainly, however, the later is called after the earlier. The transference of the name seems not a bad one; for that which desires what is base and which develops quickly ought to be kept in a chastened condition, and these characteristics belong above all to appetite and to the child, since children in fact live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest. If, then, it is not going to be obedient and subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great lengths; for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable even if it tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite increases its innate force, and if appetites are strong and violent they even expel the power of calculation. Hence they should be moderate and few, and should in no way oppose the rational principle-and this is what we call an obedient and chastened state-and as the child should live according to the direction of his tutor, so the appetitive element should live according to rational principle.
Here we find an interesting insight: the child isn't expected to be temperate yet because they have not yet had their proper upbringing nor the opportunity to habituate temperance. The self-indulgent is thus possessed of a kind of immature character; they are analogously childish. They haven't grown up yet and put away childish things. The tutor of the child is meant to be replaced by the rational principle in us as adults; the proper upbringing is supposed to inculcate an understanding of what to practice as an adult. Once we develop the internal rule, we no longer need -- and should no longer want -- to be ruled from outside ourselves by others. The freedom of adulthood is won by this self-mastery.
Hence the appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with the rational principle; for the noble is the mark at which both aim, and the temperate man craves for the things be ought, as he ought, as when he ought; and when he ought; and this is what rational principle directs.Here we conclude our account of temperance.
Short and succinct compared to the long discussion of courage, but that is because courage serves as a model. Note that it was relatively easy to compare and contrast self-indulgence to cowardice, spell out how they are different, and then we can move on.
In Book IV we will encounter many more virtues.
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