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is even in a certain sense Vice.
[4]
Again, a wanton outrage1 gives
pleasure to the doer, never pain, whereas an act done in anger always causes him a feeling
of pain. If then things are unjust in proportion to the justice of the anger they arouse
in the victim, unrestraint arising from desire is more unjust than that arising from
anger; for anger contains no element of wanton insolence.
[5]
It is clear therefore that unrestraint in one's desires is more disgraceful than
unrestraint in anger, and that it is in relation to bodily desires and pleasures that
Self-restraint and Unrestraint are really manifested.
[6]
But we must distinguish among the bodily desires and pleasures themselves. As was said at
the beginning,2 some of
these are human and natural both in kind and degree, some bestial, and some due to
arrested development or disease. Now it is only with the first class that Temperance and
Profligacy are concerned; hence we do not use the terms temperate or profligate of the
lower animals, except metaphorically, of certain entire species distinguished from the
rest by their exceptionally lascivious, mischievous, or omnivorous habits; for animals
have neither the faculty of choice nor of calculation: they are aberrations from
nature,3
like men who are insane.
1 ὕβρις means any injury that is insulting to the victim, but here the writer is thinking specially of outrage prompted by lust. The argument is based on the feelings of both agent and victim. Anger, being a painful feeling, does not show wantonness or insolence, for wanton acts are pleasant to the doer. An injury done in anger therefore arouses less anger in return, less resentment in the victim, than does wanton outrage due to unrestrained desire. Therefore it is less ‘unjust,’ less of an injury. Cf. Aristot. Rh. 1380a 34（anger is not so much resented, because it does not show contempt for its victim）.
2 See 5.1, and also 1.3.
3 The writer here seems to regard all animals as unnatural, in the sense of imperfectly developed, because irrational. The order precludes our taking this clause of the exceptional species （asses, wild boars, and pigs according to Greek zoology） just alluded to; moreover, as the excessive appetites of these are analogous to Profligacy in men, they are not aberrations from animal nature any more than profligates are from human nature.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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