Let us next begin a fresh part of the subject by laying down that the states of moral character to be avoided are of three kinds—Vice, Unrestraint, and Bestiality. Footnote 1Or Brutality: the two English words have acquired slightly different shades of meaning, which are combined in the Greek. The opposite dispositions in the case of two of the three are obvious: one we call Virtue, the other Self-restraint. As the opposite of Bestiality it will be most suitable to speak of Superhuman Virtue,
or goodness on a heroic or divine scale; just as Homer Footnote 2Hom. Il. 24.258. The preceding words are, Hector, who was a god.
has represented Priam as saying of Hector, on account of his surpassing valor—
nor seemed to be The son of mortal man, but of a god.
Hence if, as men say, surpassing virtue changes men into gods, the disposition opposed to Bestiality will clearly be some quality more than human; for there is no such thing as Virtue in the case of a god, any more than there is Vice or Virtue in the case of a beast: divine goodness is something more exalted than Virtue, and bestial badness is different in kind from Vice.
And inasmuch as it is rare for a man to be divine, in the sense in which that word is commonly used by the Lacedaemonians as a term of extreme admiration—Yon mon’s divine,
they say—, so a bestial character is rare among human beings; it is found most frequently among barbarians, and some cases also occur as a result of disease or arrested development. We sometimes also use bestial
as a term of opprobrium for a surpassing degree of human vice. Footnote 3Lit. for those who surpass (the rest of) men in Vice
(i.e., human, not bestial wickedness).
But the nature of the bestial disposition will have to be touched on later; and of Vice we have spoken already. We must however discuss Unrestraint and Softness or Luxury, and also Self-restraint and Endurance. Neither of these two classes of character is to be conceived as identical with Virtue and Vice, nor yet as different in kind from them.
Our proper course with this subject as with others will be to present the various views about it, and then, after first reviewing the difficulties they involve, finally to establish if possible all or, if not all, the greater part and the most important of the opinions generally held with respect to these states of mind; since if the discrepancies can be solved, and a residuum of current opinion left standing, the true view will have been sufficiently established. Footnote 4Aristotle holds (1.8.7) that the opinions of the mass of mankind, and of philosophers, on matters of conduct are likely to be substantially true; although being stated from different points of view, and sometimes in ambiguous language, they often seem mutually contradictory. The business of Ethics is to state them clearly, examine their apparent contradictions, discard such parts of them as really refute each other, and elicit the common residuum of truth: see infra, 2.12.
Now the following opinions are held: (a) that Self-restraint and Endurance are good and praiseworthy dispositions, Unrestraint and Softness bad and blameworthy; (b) that the self-restrained man is the man who abides by the results of his calculations, the unrestrained, one who readily abandons the conclusion he has reached; (c) that the unrestrained man does things that he knows to be evil, under the influence of passion, whereas the self-restrained man, knowing that his desires are evil, refuses to follow them on principle; (d) that the temperate man is always self-restrained and enduring; but that the converse is invariably the case some deny, although others affirm it: the latter identify the unrestrained with the profligate and the profligate with the unrestrained promiscuously, the former distinguish between them.
(e) Sometimes it is said that the prudent man cannot be unrestrained, sometimes that some prudent and clever men are unrestrained. (f)Again, men are spoken of as unrestrained in anger, and in the pursuit of honor and of gain. These then are the opinions advanced.