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No lack of anything has
occurred that may be replenished.
[8]
In reply to those who bring forward the disreputable pleasures, one may
(a) deny that these are really pleasant: for granted they are pleasant
to ill-conditioned people, it cannot therefore be assumed that they are actually pleasant,
except to them, any more than things healthy or sweet or bitter to invalids are really so,
or any more than things that seem white to people with a disease of the eyes are really
white.
[9]
Or
(b) one may take the line that, though the pleasures themselves are
desirable, they are not desirable when derived from those sources; just as wealth is
desirable, but not if won by treachery, or health, but not at the cost of eating anything
and everything.
[10]
Or
(c) we may say that pleasures differ in specific quality; since
(a) those derived from noble sources are not the same as those derived
from base sources, and it is impossible to feel the pleasures of a just man without being
just, or the pleasures of a musician without being musical, and so on.
[11]
And also ( β) the distinction between a friend and a flatterer
seems to show that pleasure is not a good, or else that pleasures are specifically
different; since a friend is thought to aim at doing good to his companion, a flatterer at
giving pleasure; to be a flatterer is a reproach, whereas a friend is praised because in
his intercourse he aims at other things.