Book III

But things done from fear of greater evils, or for the sake of something fine, are disputed: are they involuntary or voluntary? Suppose, for instance, that a tyrant who had someone’s parents and children in his power ordered him to do something shameful, and that if he did it they would be saved, but if not they would be put to death. Something similar happens with throwing cargo overboard in storms: no one throws things away voluntarily, considered simply, but to save himself and the others anyone with sense does. Such actions, then, are mixed, but they are more like voluntary ones; for they are choiceworthy at the time they are done, and the end of an action depends on the occasion. So the terms “voluntary” and “involuntary” must be applied with reference to the time when someone acts.

And he acts voluntarily; for in such actions the origin of moving the limbs that serve as instruments is in him, and when the origin is in him, it is up to him to do it or not. Such things, then, are voluntary, though considered simply they are perhaps involuntary, since no one would choose any such thing for its own sake. For such actions people are sometimes even praised, when they endure something shameful or painful in return for great and fine things; if it’s the other way round, they are blamed, since to endure the most shameful things for nothing fine, or for something trivial, is the mark of a bad person. In some cases there is no praise, but there is forgiveness, when someone does what he shouldn’t because of pressures that overstrain human nature and that no one could endure.

But some things, perhaps, one cannot be compelled to do; one should rather die after suffering the most terrible things. The things that “compelled” Euripides’ Alcmaeon to kill his mother, for instance, seem ridiculous. It is sometimes hard to judge what should be chosen at what price, and what should be endured in return for what, and harder still to abide by one’s judgment. For as a rule what is expected is painful, and what people are compelled to do is shameful; that is why praise and blame are given according to whether people have been compelled or not. 1110b What sort of things, then, should be called forced? Is it simply those whose cause lies in external things, when the agent contributes nothing? But things that are in themselves involuntary, yet choiceworthy now and in return for these particular things, and whose origin is in the agent, are involuntary in themselves, but now and in return for these things voluntary.note

They are more like voluntary actions, though; for actions are in particulars, and these are voluntary. What should be chosen at what price is not easy to state, since there are many differences among particular cases. If someone were to say that pleasant and fine things are forced (since they compel us from outside), everything would be forced for him; for everyone does everything for the sake of these. And those who act by force and unwillingly act with pain, while those who act for the sake of what is pleasant or fine act with pleasure. It is ridiculous to blame external things rather than oneself for being easily caught by such things, and to hold oneself responsible for fine actions but pleasant things responsible for shameful ones. The forced, then, seems to be that whose origin is outside, the person forced contributing nothing.

Every wicked person is ignorant of what he should do and what he should refrain from, and it is through this sort of error that people become unjust and, in general, bad. But the term “involuntary” is not meant to apply when someone is ignorant of what is beneficial. For ignorance in decision is a cause not of involuntariness but of wickedness; nor is ignorance of the universal (people are blamed for that, at any rate), but ignorance of the particulars, the circumstances and objects of the action. 1111a It is in these that pity and forgiveness come in, since someone ignorant of one of these acts involuntarily. Perhaps, then, it is not a bad idea to distinguish them—what they are and how many: who is acting, what he is doing, about what or in what he is acting, and sometimes also with what (with what instrument, for instance), for the sake of what (safety, for instance), and how (gently or violently, for instance).

No one who isn’t mad could be ignorant of all of these, and obviously not of who is acting either—how could he be ignorant of himself? But someone might be ignorant of what he is doing, as when people say something “slipped out” while they were speaking, or that they didn’t know it was secret, as Aeschylus said about the mysteries; or that they meant only to demonstrate it and it went off, like the man with the catapult. Someone might also think his son was an enemy, as Merope did; or that a pointed spear had a guard on its tip, or that a stone was pumice; or he might kill someone with a drink given to save him; or, wanting just to touch someone, as sparrers do, he might strike him. Since ignorance can concern all these things, the circumstances of the action, someone who is ignorant of any of them seems to have acted involuntarily, especially if ignorant of the most important ones; and the most important seem to be the circumstances of the action and its purpose.note

But when something is called involuntary on the basis of this kind of ignorance, the action must, in addition, be painful and bring regret.

Both are to be avoided, 1111b and non-rational feelings seem to be no less human, so that a person’s actions that come from anger and appetite are human too. It is odd, then, to class these as involuntary.

Appetite is concerned with what is pleasant and painful, but decision is concerned with neither the painful nor the pleasant. Anger is even less like it; for things done from anger seem least of all to be done by decision. Nor, again, is it wish, though it appears closely akin. For there is no decision about impossible things, and if someone said he decided on them, he would seem a fool; but there is wish even for impossible things, such as immortality. And wish concerns also things that could never be brought about by oneself, such as a certain actor or athlete winning; no one decides on such things, only on things he thinks could come about through himself.

Again, wish is more for the end, decision for what contributes to the end. For example, we wish to be healthy, but we decide on the things through which we will become healthy; and we wish to be happy and say so, but it doesn’t fit to say we decide to be happy. For in general decision seems to be about things that are up to us. Nor would it be opinion. For opinion seems to be about everything, no less about eternal and impossible things than about things up to us; and it is divided by falsity and truth, not by bad and good, whereas decision is divided more by these. 1112a Perhaps no one even says that it is the same as opinion in general. But it is not the same as some particular opinion either; for it is by deciding on good or bad things that we are people of a certain kind, not by holding opinions.

And we decide to take or avoid something, or something of that sort, whereas we have opinions about what a thing is, or whom it benefits, or how; we hardly have an opinion to take or avoid something. And decision is praised for being of the right object rather than for being correct, while opinion is praised for being true. And we decide on things we know best to be good, but have opinions about things we don’t really know. Nor does it seem that the same people make the best decisions and have the best opinions; some have better opinions but through vice choose what they shouldn’t. Whether opinion precedes decision or accompanies it makes no difference; that is not what we are investigating, but whether decision is the same as some kind of opinion. What, then, is it, or what sort of thing, since it is none of those mentioned? It appears to be something voluntary, but not everything voluntary is decided on.

Is it, then, what has been deliberated on beforehand? For decision involves reason and thought. Even the name seems to hint at this, as meaning something chosen before other things.note

We deliberate about things that are up to us and can be done—and these are in fact what is left. For the causes of things are thought to be nature, necessity and chance, and in addition intellect and everything that comes about through human agency. And each group of human beings deliberates about the things that can be done through their own efforts. 1112b About the exact and self-sufficient sciences there is no deliberation—about letters, for instance, since we are in no doubt how a word should be spelled. Rather, we deliberate about the things that come about through us but not always in the same way: for instance, about matters of medicine and of making money; and more about navigation than about athletic training, to the extent that it has been worked out less precisely; and likewise about the rest. And we deliberate more about crafts than about sciences, since we are more in doubt about them.

Deliberation concerns what holds for the most part, where it is unclear how things will turn out, and where the answer is not determinate. And on important matters we call in others to deliberate with us, distrusting ourselves as not up to deciding on our own. We deliberate not about ends but about what leads to the ends. A doctor does not deliberate whether he will cure, nor an orator whether he will persuade, nor a statesman whether he will bring about good order, nor does anyone else deliberate about the end. Instead, they set down the end and consider how and by what means it will come about. If it appears that it can come about through several means, they consider by which it will come about most easily and best; if it is achieved by one means only, they consider how it will come about through this one, and through what that one will come about, until they arrive at the first cause, which is the last thing in the order of discovery.

For the person deliberating seems to search and analyze in the way described, as though analyzing a geometrical diagram. (Not all searching appears to be deliberation—mathematical inquiries, for instance, are not—but all deliberation is searching.) And what comes last in the analysis seems to come first in the coming-to-be. If people run into something impossible, they give up—if money is needed, for instance, and it cannot be obtained; but if it appears possible, they set about doing it. By “possible” I mean what could come about through us; for what comes about through our friends in a sense comes about through us, since the starting point is in us. Sometimes what we are searching for is the tools, sometimes the use of them; and similarly in the other cases, sometimes it is the means, sometimes how or through whom.

It seems, then, as has been said, that a human being is a starting point of actions, and deliberation is about the things that can be done by oneself, while actions are for the sake of other things. So the end would not be an object of deliberation, but what leads to the ends. Nor are particulars objects of deliberation— 1113a whether this is bread, for instance, or whether it has been baked as it should be—since these are matters for perception. And if one is always going to deliberate, one will go on to infinity. The object of deliberation and the object of decision are the same, except that the object of decision has already been determined: what has been judged as a result of deliberation is the object of decision. For each of us stops searching for how he will act once he has traced the starting point back to himself, and to the leading part of himself, since that is what decides. This is clear also from the ancient constitutions that Homer depicted: the kings announced to the people what they had decided.

Since the object of decision is something up to us that we desire after deliberating, decision too would be a deliberative desire for things up to us. For once we have come to a judgment as a result of deliberating, we desire in accordance with our deliberation. Let this, then, serve as an outline account of decision: what sort of things it is about, and that it concerns what leads to the ends.

For the excellent person, then, it will be what is truly good; for the bad person, whatever it happens to be. It is just as with bodies: for those in good condition, what is healthy is what truly is so, while for those in poor health it is other things; and the same holds for what is bitter, sweet, hot, heavy, and so on. For the excellent person judges each case correctly, and in each case the truth appears to him. Each state of character has its own fine and pleasant things, and perhaps what most distinguishes the excellent person is that he sees the truth in each case, being as it were the standard and measure of them. In most people, deception seems to come about because of pleasure: it appears good when it is not. 1113b So they choose the pleasant as good and avoid pain as bad.

And if it is up to us to do fine and shameful things, and likewise not to do them, and this, as we saw, is what being good or bad consists in, then it is up to us to be decent or base. The saying that “no one is willingly wicked or unwillingly blessed” seems to be partly false and partly true. For no one is blessed unwillingly, but wickedness is voluntary. Otherwise we must dispute what has just been said, and deny that a human being is a starting point and begetter of his actions as he is of his children. But if these things appear to be so, and we cannot trace our actions back to any starting points other than those in us, then the things whose starting points are in us are themselves up to us and voluntary.

This seems to be borne out both by individuals in private life and by lawgivers themselves. They punish and take penalties from those who do wicked things—unless they acted under force or through ignorance for which they were not themselves responsible—and they honor those who do fine things, intending to encourage the latter and deter the former. Yet no one encourages us to do things that are neither up to us nor voluntary, since there is no point in being persuaded not to get hot, or feel pain, or be hungry, or anything else of that sort; we will feel these things all the same. In fact they punish people for the ignorance itself, if the person seems responsible for it: penalties are doubled for those who are drunk, for instance, since the starting point is in the person himself, who had it in his power not to get drunk, and that was the cause of his ignorance.

They also punish those who are ignorant of something in the laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, 1114a and likewise in other cases where people seem to be ignorant through carelessness, on the ground that it was up to them not to be ignorant, since they had it in their power to take care. But perhaps someone is the sort of person not to take care. Yet people are themselves responsible for having become that sort, by living slackly; and for being unjust or self-indulgent, some by doing harm, others by spending their time drinking and the like. For activities of each kind make people of a corresponding kind. This is clear from those who train for any contest or action: they spend their time constantly engaged in the activity. Not to know that states come about from being active in particular ways is the mark of someone utterly obtuse. Moreover, it is unreasonable to suppose that someone who does unjust things does not wish to be unjust, or that someone who acts self-indulgently does not wish to be self-indulgent.

If someone, not in ignorance, does the things that will make him unjust, he will be unjust voluntarily. It does not follow, though, that if he wishes, he will stop being unjust and be just—any more than a sick person will become healthy that way. Yet he may well be sick voluntarily, by living without self-control and disobeying his doctors. At that point it was open to him not to be sick; but once he has let himself go, it no longer is—just as, once you have let go of a stone, you can no longer get it back. Still, throwing it was up to you, since the starting point was in you. In the same way, it was open to the unjust and the self-indulgent person at the outset not to become such people, which is why they are so voluntarily; but once they have become so, it is no longer possible for them not to be.

And not only are the vices of the soul voluntary; in some people those of the body are too, and we censure them for these. No one censures those who are ugly by nature, but we do censure those who are so through lack of exercise and neglect. The same goes for weakness and disability: no one would reproach someone blind by nature, or from disease or a blow—rather, they would pity him—but everyone would censure someone blind from heavy drinking or some other self-indulgence. So among the vices of the body, those that are up to us are censured, and those that are not up to us are not. If so, then in other cases too, the vices that are censured would be up to us.

Suppose someone says that everyone aims at the apparent good, but that we have no control over how things appear to us; 1114b rather, the end appears to each person in a way that corresponds to the sort of person he is. Then, if each person is in some way responsible for his own state, he will also be in some way responsible for how things appear to him. If not, no one is responsible for his own wrongdoing; instead he does these things through ignorance of the end, thinking that through them he will get what is best for himself. And on this view, one’s aiming at the end is not self-chosen: one has to be born with something like sight, by which to judge well and choose what is truly good, and a person is well endowed by nature if he is well endowed in this respect. For it is the greatest and finest thing, something one cannot get or learn from another, but will have just as one was born with it; and to be well and finely endowed with it by nature would be complete and true natural endowment.

If this is true, how will excellence be any more voluntary than vice? For to both alike, the good person and the bad, the end appears and is set by nature or in whatever way, and they act by referring everything else to it, in whatever way they act. So whether the end, whatever it is, does not appear to each person by nature but is also partly due to him, or the end is natural but excellence is voluntary because the excellent person does the rest voluntarily, in either case vice will be no less voluntary. For the bad person likewise has what is due to himself in his actions, even if not in the end.

If, then, as is said, the excellences are voluntary—for we are ourselves in some way jointly responsible for our states, and it is by being people of a certain kind that we set up an end of a certain kind—the vices too will be voluntary, since the same holds for them.

We do call him that too, by a resemblance; for some people who are cowardly in the dangers of war are generous and face the loss of money with confidence. Nor is someone a coward if he fears outrage against his children or wife, or envy, or anything of that sort; nor courageous if he is confident when about to be flogged. With what sort of frightening things, then, is the courageous person concerned? Surely with the greatest? For no one endures terrible things better than he does. And death is the most frightening of all, since it is an end, and nothing further seems to be either good or bad for the dead. But the courageous person would not seem to be concerned even with death in every circumstance—at sea, for instance, or in illness. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the finest? And such are deaths in war, since they occur in the greatest and finest danger.

The honors given in cities and at the courts of monarchs agree with this. In the strict sense, then, the courageous person would be the one who is fearless in the face of a fine death and of whatever situations bring death suddenly upon us; and such situations belong above all to war. Still, the courageous person is fearless at sea and in illness too, 1115b though not in the way that sailors are. For the courageous have given up hope of safety and are distressed at a death of that kind, whereas the sailors are hopeful because of their experience. Besides, people show courage in situations where there is room for prowess, or where dying is fine; and in deaths of these kinds neither is the case.

The one who endures and fears the right things, for the right reason, in the right way and at the right time, and is confident in the same way, is courageous; for the courageous person feels and acts as the situation merits and as reason directs. The end of every activity is what accords with the state. And to the courageous person courage is something fine. So the end too is of that kind, since each thing is defined by its end. It is for the sake of the fine, then, that the courageous person endures and does what courage requires. Of those who go to excess, the one who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (we said earlier that many states are nameless); but he would be a madman or insensible to pain if he feared nothing, neither earthquake nor waves, as they say of the Celts. The one who exceeds in confidence about frightening things is rash.

The rash person also seems to be a boaster, one who pretends to courage. At any rate, he wants to appear to be disposed toward frightening things the way the courageous person actually is; so where he can, he imitates him. That is why most of them are rash cowards: they put on a bold front in these situations but do not endure what is frightening. The one who exceeds in fearing is a coward, since he fears what he should not, and in the way he should not, and all the other failings of this kind attach to him. 1116a He is also deficient in confidence, but he is more conspicuous for exceeding in pain. The coward, then, is a sort of despairing person, since he fears everything. The courageous person is the opposite, since confidence belongs to someone hopeful.

The coward, the rash person and the courageous person, then, are concerned with the same things, but they are differently disposed toward them. The first two exceed and fall short, while the third holds the middle position, as he should. Rash people are headlong: they are eager before the dangers arrive but pull back once in them, whereas the courageous are keen in action but calm beforehand.

One might also put in the same class those who are compelled by their commanders. But they are worse, inasmuch as they act not from a sense of shame but from fear, avoiding not what is shameful but what is painful. For their masters compel them, as Hector does: “Whomever I see cowering apart from the battle, he will not escape the dogs.” Those who post soldiers in the line and beat them if they retreat do the same, 1116b as do those who draw them up with trenches and the like behind them: they are all using compulsion. But one should be courageous not because of compulsion but because it is fine. Experience of particular situations is also thought to be courage; that is why Socrates thought that courage was knowledge.note

Different people have this kind of experience in different situations, and in matters of war it is professional soldiers who have it. For war seems to be full of false alarms, which these men have seen through better than anyone; so they appear courageous because the others do not know what these things are. Then too, their experience makes them best able to inflict harm without suffering it, since they can use their weapons and have the sort of equipment that is best for both attack and defense. So they fight like armed men against unarmed, or trained athletes against amateurs; for in contests of this sort too, it is not the most courageous who are the best fighters, but those who are strongest and in the best physical condition. But professional soldiers turn coward when the danger becomes too great and they are outmatched in numbers and equipment. They are the first to run, while the citizen troops stand their ground and die—which is just what happened at the Hermaeum.note

For to the citizens, flight is shameful, and death is more choiceworthy than safety bought that way; whereas the professionals ran the risk from the start on the assumption that they were stronger, and once they realize otherwise they run, fearing death more than disgrace. The courageous person is not like that. People also count spirit as courage. Those who act from spirit, like wild animals rushing at those who have wounded them, also seem courageous, because the courageous are spirited too; for spirit is the thing most eager to rush into danger. Hence Homer’s “he put strength into his spirit,” “he roused his might and spirit,” “bitter might rose up in his nostrils,” and “his blood boiled.” All expressions of this kind seem to signify the arousal and surge of spirit.

The courageous, then, act because of the fine, and spirit works alongside them; but wild animals act because of pain—because they have been struck, or because they are afraid; for if they are in a forest or a marsh, they do not come at you. It is not courage, then, to rush into danger driven by pain and spirit, foreseeing none of the dangers; for in that case even donkeys would be courageous when hungry, since they do not leave off grazing even when beaten. 1117a Adulterers, too, do many daring things because of their appetite. So things driven into danger by pain or spirit are not courageous. Still, the courage that comes from spirit seems to be the most natural kind, and to be courage once decision and the proper aim are added to it.

Human beings, too, feel pain when they are angry and pleasure when they take revenge. Those who fight for these reasons are good fighters, but not courageous, since they fight not because of the fine, nor as reason directs, but because of feeling; though they have something close to courage. Nor are the hopeful courageous. Because they have often won, and against many opponents, they are confident in dangers. They resemble the courageous, since both are confident; but the courageous are confident for the reasons given earlier, whereas the hopeful are confident because they think they are the strongest and would suffer nothing. People who get drunk behave this way too, since they become hopeful. But when things do not turn out that way for them, they run; whereas, as we saw, it is the mark of the courageous person to endure things that are and appear frightening to a human being, because doing so is fine and not doing so is shameful.

That is why it seems a mark of greater courage to be fearless and undisturbed in sudden alarms than in those that are foreseen; for this comes more from one’s state, because it comes less from preparation. What is foreseen one might choose on the basis of calculation and reasoning, but what is sudden one chooses in accordance with one’s state. Those who act in ignorance also appear courageous, and they are not far from the hopeful; but they are worse, inasmuch as they have no self-esteem, whereas the hopeful do. That is why the hopeful hold out for some time, whereas those who have been deceived run away if they learn, or suspect, that things are otherwise—which is what happened to the Argives when they fell in with the Spartans, thinking they were Sicyonians. We have now said what the courageous are like, and what those who seem courageous are like.note

Still, the end that courage aims at would seem to be pleasant, though obscured by the circumstances surrounding it, as happens in athletic contests too. For boxers, the end for the sake of which they fight—the wreath and the honors—is pleasant, but being hit is agonizing, since they are flesh and blood, and painful, as is all the toil. And because these things are many, and the end for the sake of which they fight is small, it appears to have nothing pleasant in it. If courage too is like this, death and wounds will be painful to the courageous person, and he will suffer them unwillingly; but he will endure them because it is fine to do so, or because not doing so is shameful.

And the more fully he has excellence in its entirety, and the happier he is, the more pain he will feel at death. For to such a person life is most worth living, and he is knowingly being deprived of the greatest goods; and this is painful. But he is no less courageous for that—perhaps even more so, because he chooses what is fine in war in preference to those goods. So it is not true of all the excellences that exercising them is pleasant, except insofar as one attains the end. Perhaps, though, nothing prevents the best professional soldiers from being not people of this kind but those who are less courageous and have no other good; for these are ready to face dangers, and they trade their lives for small gains. So much, then, for courage; from what has been said it is not hard to grasp what it is, at least in outline.

Moderation, then, would be concerned with bodily pleasures, though not with all of these either. People who delight in the objects of sight, such as colors, shapes and painting, are called neither moderate nor self-indulgent; and yet it would seem possible to delight in these too as one should, and to excess or deficiency. The same goes for the objects of hearing: no one calls those who delight excessively in music or acting self-indulgent, nor those who do so as they should moderate. Nor do we call people so for the pleasures of smell, except incidentally. We do not call people self-indulgent who delight in the smell of apples or roses or incense, but rather those who delight in the smell of perfumes or rich dishes; for self-indulgent people delight in these because they remind them of the objects of their appetites.

One can also see other people, when they are hungry, delighting in the smell of food; but to delight in such things is the mark of a self-indulgent person, since these are the objects of his appetites. Nor do the other animals take pleasure through these senses, except incidentally. Dogs do not delight in the scent of hares, but in eating them; the scent merely made them aware of the hares. Nor does the lion delight in the lowing of the ox, but in devouring it; he perceived through the lowing that the ox was near, and so he appears to delight in the sound. Similarly, it is not the sight or discovery of a deer or a wild goat that pleases him, but the prospect of a meal. Moderation and self-indulgence are concerned with the kind of pleasures that the other animals share in too, which is why they appear slavish and brutish. These are touch and taste.

But they seem to make little or no use even of taste. For taste has to do with discriminating flavors, which is what people do when they test wines or season dishes; and people don’t much enjoy doing that—or at least the self-indulgent don’t. What they enjoy is the gratification, which comes about entirely through touch, in food and drink and in what are called the pleasures of sex. That is why a certain glutton prayed that his throat might become longer than a crane’s, since it was the touching that gave him pleasure. 1118b So the sense that self-indulgence is concerned with is the most widely shared of the senses; and it would seem justly open to reproach, since it belongs to us not insofar as we are human but insofar as we are animals. To enjoy such things, then, and to like them most of all, is brutish.note

For even the most refined of the pleasures of touch are excluded, such as those produced in the gymnasium by massage and warmth; for the self-indulgent person’s touching does not concern the whole body, only certain parts of it.

It is people who are excessively slavish who turn out like this. But with the pleasures peculiar to individuals many people go wrong, and in many ways. People called “fond of” this or that are so called either for enjoying what they shouldn’t, or for enjoying it more than most people do, or not in the way they should; but the self-indulgent exceed in all these ways. They enjoy some things they shouldn’t (since those things are hateful), and if there are some such things one should enjoy, they enjoy them more than one should and more than most people do.

It is clear, then, that excess in pleasures is self-indulgence and is blameworthy. With pains, though, it is not as with courage: one is not called moderate for enduring them, or self-indulgent for not enduring them. Rather, the self-indulgent person is so called for being more pained than he should be at not getting pleasant things (even his pain is produced by pleasure), and the moderate person for not being pained at their absence and at abstaining from what is pleasant.

The moderate person is in a middle condition with respect to these things. He takes no pleasure in what the self-indulgent person most enjoys—rather, it annoys him—nor at all in what he shouldn’t, nor intensely in anything of this sort. He is not pained at their absence and has no appetite for them, or only moderately, and not more than he should, nor when he shouldn’t, nor anything of that kind at all. But whatever pleasant things make for health or fitness he will desire moderately and as he should, and other pleasant things too, provided they do not hinder these, and are not contrary to what is fine or beyond his means. For someone who is disposed that way loves such pleasures more than they are worth; the moderate person is not like that, but loves them as correct reason prescribes.

We also apply the name “self-indulgence” to the faults of children, 1119b since they bear a certain resemblance. Which is named after which makes no difference for present purposes, but clearly the later is named after the earlier. And the transfer seems not a bad one. For what needs to be chastened is whatever desires shameful things and has great capacity for growth, and that is above all what appetite and a child are like: children too live by appetite, and the desire for what is pleasant is strongest in them. So if it is not obedient and under the authority of the ruling part, it will go far. For in someone without sense the desire for what is pleasant is insatiable and comes from every direction; the exercise of appetite increases what is akin to it; and if the appetites are great and intense, they even knock out reasoning.note

That is why appetites must be moderate and few, and must not oppose reason in anything—this is what we call obedient and chastened. Just as a child should live according to the instructions of his tutor, so the appetitive part should live according to reason. So in the moderate person the appetitive part should be in harmony with reason, since the aim of both is the fine; the moderate person has an appetite for the things he should, in the way he should, and when he should, and this is also what reason prescribes. So much, then, for moderation.note