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A state of the soul is either (l) an emotion, (2) a
capacity, or (3) a disposition; virtue therefore must be one of these
three things.
[2]
By the emotions, I mean desire, anger,
fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendship, hatred, longing, jealousy, pity; and generally
those states of consciousness which are accompanied by pleasure or pain. The capacities
are the faculties in virtue of which we can be said to be liable to the emotions, for
example, capable of feeling anger or pain1 or pity.
The dispositions are the formed states of character in virtue of which we are well or ill
disposed in respect of the emotions; for instance, we have a bad disposition in regard to
anger if we are disposed to get angry too violently or not violently enough, a good
disposition if we habitually feel a moderate amount of anger; and similarly in respect of
the other emotions.
[3]
Now the virtues and vices are not emotions because we are not pronounced good or bad
according to our emotions, but we are according to our virtues and vices; nor are we
either praised or blamed for our emotions—a man is not praised for being
frightened or angry, nor is he blamed for being angry merely, but for being angry in a
certain way—
1 Probably for ‘pain’ we should read ‘fear.’