This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
- bekker page : bekker line
- book : chapter : section
that offers resistance but only a weak one
(like that of persons in two minds about something)—, we could
forgive a man for not keeping to his opinions in opposition to strong desires; but we do
not forgive vice, nor any other blameworthy quality.—(e) Is it
then when desire is opposed by Prudence that we blame a man for yielding? 2.
[5]
for Prudence is extremely strong. But
this is strange, for it means that the same person can be at once prudent and
unrestrained; yet no one could possibly maintain that the prudent man is capable of doing
voluntarily the basest actions. And furthermore it has already been shown1 that Prudence displays itself
in action (for it is concerned with ultimate particulars), and implies
the possession of the other Virtues as well.2.
[6]
Again (d) if Self-restraint implies having strong and evil desires, the
temperate man cannot be self-restrained, nor the self-restrained man temperate; for the
temperate man does not have excessive or evil desires. But a self-restrained man must
necessarily have strong and evil desires; since if a man's desires are good, the
disposition that prevents him from obeying them will be evil, and so Self-restraint will
not always be good; while if his desires are weak and not evil, there is nothing to be
proud of in resisting them; nor is it anything remarkable if they are evil and weak.
2.
[7]
Again (a, b) if Self-restraint makes a man steadfast in
all his opinions, it may be bad, namely, if it makes him persist even in a
false opinion. And if Unrestraint makes him liable to abandon any opinion, in
some cases Unrestraint will be good. Take the instance of Neoptolemus in the
Philoctetes2 of
Sophocles. Neoptolemus abandons a resolution that
he has been persuaded by Odysseus to adopt, because of the pain that it gives him to tell
a lie: in this case inconstancy is praiseworthy.2.
[8]
Again (a, c) there is the difficulty raised by the argument of the
sophists. The sophists wish to show their cleverness by entrapping their adversary into a
paradox, and when they are successful, the resultant chain of reasoning ends in a
deadlock: the mind is fettered, being unwilling to stand still because it cannot approve
the conclusion reached, yet unable to go forward because it cannot untie the knot of the
argument. 2.
[9]
Now one of
their arguments proves that Folly combined with Unrestraint is a virtue. It runs as
follows: if a man is foolish and also unrestrained, owing to his unrestraint he does the
opposite of what he believes that he ought to do; but he believes3 that good things are bad, and that he
ought not to do them; therefore he will do good things and not bad ones.2.
[10]
Again (b, d) one who does and pursues what is pleasant from conviction
and choice,4 might be held to be a better man than one who acts
in the same way not from calculation but from unrestraint, because he is more easy to
cure, since he may be persuaded to alter his conviction; whereas the unrestrained man
comes under the proverb that says ‘when water chokes you, what are you to drink
to wash it down?’ Had he been convinced that what he does is right,
1 Cf. 6.7. 7, 6.12.10.
2 Soph. Phil. 895-916. See further, 9.4.
3 Sc., because he is foolish.
4 i.e., a profligate. This is another sophistic paradox based on the contradiction between (1) the identification of the unrestrained man with the profligate, and (2) the view (2.6) that the former acts contrary to his deliberate conviction (so Burnet).