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[6]
The profligate therefore desires all pleasures, or those that are the most pleasant, and
is led by his desire to pursue these in preference to everything else. He consequently
feels pain not only when he fails to get them, but also from his desire for them, since
desire is accompanied by pain; paradoxical though it seems that pain should be caused by
pleasure.
[7]
Men erring on the side of deficiency as regards pleasures, and taking less than a proper
amount of enjoyment in them, scarcely occur; such insensibility is not human. Indeed, even
the lower animals discriminate in food, and like some kinds and not others; and if there
be a creature that finds nothing pleasant, and sees no difference between one thing and
another, it must be very far removed from humanity. As men of this type scarcely occur, we
have no special name for them.
[8]
The temperate man keeps a middle course in these matters. He takes no pleasure at all in
the things that the profligate enjoys most, on the contrary, he positively dislikes them;
nor in general does he find pleasure in wrong things, nor excessive pleasure in anything
of this sort; nor does he feel pain or desire when they are lacking, or only in a moderate
degree, not more than is right, nor at the wrong time, et
cetera. But such pleasures as conduce to health and fitness he will try to
obtain in a moderate and right degree; as also other pleasures so far as they are not
detrimental to health and fitness, and not ignoble, nor beyond his means. The man who
exceeds these limits cares more for such pleasures than they are worth. Not so the temperate man; he only cares for them as right principle
enjoins.12.
Profligacy seems to be more voluntary than Cowardice. For the former is caused by
pleasure, the latter by pain, and pleasure is a thing we choose, pain a thing we avoid.
[2]
Also pain makes us beside ourselves: it destroys the
sufferer's nature; whereas pleasure has no such effect. Therefore Profligacy is the more
voluntary vice. And consequently it is the more reprehensible; since moreover it is easier
to train oneself to resist the temptations of pleasure, because these occur frequently in
life, and to practise resistance to them involves no danger, whereas the reverse is the
case with the objects of fear.
[3]
On the other hand, the possession of a cowardly character would seem to be more voluntary
than particular manifestations of cowardice: for cowardliness in itself is not painful,
but particular accesses of cowardice are so painful as to make a man beside himself, and
cause him to throw away his arms or otherwise behave in an unseemly manner; so that
cowardly actions actually seem to be done under compulsion.
[4]
But with the profligate on the contrary the particular acts are
voluntary, for they are done with desire and appetite, but the character in general is
less so, since no one desires to be a profligate.
[5]
The word Profligacy1 or
wantonness we also apply to the naughtiness of children,