(1) Some things are pleasant by nature, and of these (a) some are so without qualification...
Existence itself, for example; almost without qualification beings of all sorts will try to continue to exist, either through themselves or through having children or creating great and memorable works that will survive them.
...and (b) others are so with reference to particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others are not pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of injuries to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits, and (c) others by reason of originally bad natures.
If you've ever tried Jagermeister, "a drink that was once used as a field anesthetic by doctors in World War II," you probably didn't like it the first time.
This being so, it is possible with regard to each of the latter kinds to discover similar states of character to those recognized with regard to the former; I mean (A) the brutish states, as in the case of the female who, they say, rips open pregnant women and devours the infants, or of the things in which some of the tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to delight-in raw meat or in human flesh, or in lending their children to one another to feast upon-or of the story told of Phalaris.
The reference is to his cannibalism, not to his innovative torture and execution device, the brazen bull.
These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of disease (or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed and ate his mother, or with the slave who ate the liver of his fellow), and others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom, e.g. the habit of plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and in addition to these paederasty; for these arise in some by nature and in others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, from habit.
Yes, it's that kind of a day in the study of the Nicomachean Ethics.
Note that this provides Aristotle's assessment of our contemporary 'born this way' controversy, in which he takes both horns of the dilemma: in his opinion, some people are born inclined to pederasty ("by nature") but others because they were victimized from youth and became accustomed to it ("from habit").
For Aristotle as for our contemporaries, to be born that way is to be freed of moral responsibility for it. This makes sense, for as we recall from III.1ff that only voluntary conduct is a matter for ethical judgment. If one has something in them by nature, then it is as involuntary for them as any other natural conduct -- Aristotle makes a direct comparison between these and women who perform similar sexual practices.
Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to women because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor would one apply it to those who are in a morbid condition as a result of habit.
The alternative case, those who have it from habit, is "beyond vice." However, given Aristotle's assumption that the habit grew out of the fact of being victimized from youth until it became habitual, this seems harsh. We normally say that victims are not responsible for being victimized, and thus ought to be at least party relieved of the responsibility for the consequences of having been victimized repeatedly. Aristotle at least leaves the path open for them to master the habits that have been imposed upon them forcibly (or, else he says, 'to be mastered by them'). Such mastery can only be temporary, however, as his return to Phalaris as an example indicates.
To have these various types of habit is beyond the limits of vice, as brutishness is too; for a man who has them to master or be mastered by them is not simple (continence or) incontinence but that which is so by analogy, as the man who is in this condition in respect of fits of anger is to be called incontinent in respect of that feeling but not incontinent simply.
Next we get a helpful distinction between two types of passions that cause excess.
For every excessive state whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-indulgence, or of bad temper, is either brutish or morbid; the man who is by nature apt to fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse, is cowardly with a brutish cowardice, while the man who feared a weasel did so in consequence of disease; and of foolish people those who by nature are thoughtless and live by their senses alone are brutish, like some races of the distant barbarians, while those who are so as a result of disease (e.g. of epilepsy) or of madness are morbid. Of these characteristics it is possible to have some only at times, and not to be mastered by them. e.g. Phalaris may have restrained a desire to eat the flesh of a child or an appetite for unnatural sexual pleasure; but it is also possible to be mastered, not merely to have the feelings. Thus, as the wickedness which is on the human level is called wickedness simply, while that which is not is called wickedness not simply but with the qualification 'brutish' or 'morbid', in the same way it is plain that some incontinence is brutish and some morbid, while only that which corresponds to human self-indulgence is incontinence simply.
We thus end up with three cases of wickedness: that which is simply wicked, that which is brutishly wicked, and that which is morbidly wicked. Ordinary incontinence is only brutishly or morbidly so.
That incontinence and continence, then, are concerned only with the same objects as self-indulgence and temperance and that what is concerned with other objects is a type distinct from incontinence, and called incontinence by a metaphor and not simply, is plain.
You might think we had exhausted this subject, but no, there are several more chapters on incontinence and its associations. This seems to be a major cause of the failure of men of education and character to live up to their virtues, and it has been a puzzle for Socrates and Plato, so Aristotle intends to explore it thoroughly.
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