Aristotle, Temperance, Pleasure, and Pain :: Philosophy Research Papers

Aristotle, abstemiousness, Pleasure, and Pain(1)ABSTRACT Aristotle argues that temperance is the mean concerned with pleasure and distress (NE 1107b5-9 and 1117b25-27). Most commentators focus on the moderation of pleasures and hardly discuss how this celibacy relates to pain. In what follows, I consider the place of pain in Aristotles discussion of temperance and resolve contradictory interpretations by turning to the sideline question is temperance ever properly painful? In cleave unitary, I examine the textual evidence and conclude that Aristotle would answer no to our question. The temperate person does not feel pain at the absence of appropriately desired objects. In parts two and three, I bushel more or less reasons why Aristotle would hold such a view based. My discussion here is based upon Aristotles discussion of continence and the unity of the virtues. trance the accounts of temperance in the Eudemian Ethics and the Nichomachean Ethics share some similarities, th e manipulation of the topic in the latter is much more developed.(2) As Charles new-made argues, Aristotle draws a distinction in the midst of common appetites and shady appetites. The appetite for feed when one hasnt eaten for several hours is a common, natural appetite. The appetite for a particular food or a particular amount is peculiar. Temperance most properly concerns the peculiar appetites, because, Aristotle says, people dont break away to go wrong about common appetites since the appetite disappears with replenishment (NE 1118b15-19).(3) A further refinement in the Nicomachean account comes at 1119a16-20. Here Aristotle distinguishes between pleasures conducive to health (called healthful foods by Young) and pleasures that do not interpose with health (called treats by Young). On this more positive account of temperance, one has temperance just in case ones peculiar appetites for food, sex, and drink are determined by judgments about the contribution to or compatibi lity with healthfulness.(4) One nice result of this account is that temperance loses any connotations of nonindulgence that it might have had. For a temperate person, on Aristotles account, enjoys treats to the termination that they are compatible with health.This quick summary of the Nicomachean and Eudemian treatments of temperance, while showing some of the subtlety of Aristotles position, has selectively omitted a range of issues. The focus has been on pleasure rather than pain. Clearly the intemperate person enjoys consuming foods to an excess. However, it in like manner surely is true that the intemperate person is pained by the absence of those peculiar things he desires.