Lecture 6 — Comparison of Different Kinds of Incontinence

Now we will consider that incontinence in the matter of anger is less disgraceful than incontinence in pleasure. [1385]

Anger seems to listen to reason to some extent but to hear badly, like hasty servants who hurry off before understanding instructions and then make mistakes in performing them, and again like dogs barking at the first knock before knowing if a friend is coming. In this way, anger listens but, because of the heat and impulsiveness of its nature, moves to inflict punishment without heeding the injunction of reason. When reason or imagination shows a man that he has suffered injury or contempt, he concludes he ought to attack the one who injured him, and immediately becomes angry. But desire, as soon as reason or sense declares a thing delightful, proceeds to enjoy the pleasure. In this respect, anger follows reason in some measure, but not so desire, which is thus more disgraceful. Indeed, the man incontinent in anger is prevailed upon to a degree by reason, but this is not so of one incontinent in sensual desire. [1386–89]

Moreover, a man apparently deserves more pardon for sins about naturally desirable things, because tolerance is more readily extended toward such desires common to all precisely because they are common. But anger is more natural and more difficult to resist than the desires for excessive and unnecessary pleasures, as is evident in the following examples. A certain man, reprimanded for striking his father, answered that the father had struck his own father, who in turn had struck his father; then, pointing to his son, he said, “this boy will strike me when he becomes a man, for it is a family trait.” Another man, when dragged along by his son, bade the son stop at the doorway, as he himself had dragged his own father only that far. [1390]

Again, double-dealing sinners are more unjust. Now, the angry man does not act deceitfully, but openly, nor does anger flare up secretly. On the other hand, desire acts like Venus, who is called the deceitful daughter of Cyprus and is said to wear a multicolored girdle; of her, Homer relates (Iliad 14.214–17.) that she craftily steals the wits of the wisest man. Therefore, incontinence of this kind is more unjust and disgraceful than incontinence of anger; it is incontinence in the unqualified sense and is to some extent a vice. [1393]

In addition, no one feels sad doing an injury. But what anyone does in anger he does with a feeling of sadness, while the one doing injury acts with pleasure. If, then, the more unjust things are those against which we are justly very angry, it follows that incontinence arising from sensual desire is more unjust, because no injury is involved in the anger. Therefore, it is evident that incontinence concerning sensual desires is more disgraceful than that which concerns anger, and that continence and incontinence in the unqualified sense deal with sensual desires and bodily pleasures. [1396]

But we must take up again their differences. As we said in the beginning, some are human and natural both in kind and amount while others are brutish either as a result of inordinate passion or a pathological condition. [1398]

Yet with only the first of these do temperance and intemperance deal. For this reason, we do not call dumb animals temperate or intemperate in the proper sense; we do say, in comparing one animal with another, that one species differs from another in uncleanness, in stupidity, or in voraciousness, but this is a figurative way of speaking, for none of them have choice or reason. They are creatures separated from reason as insane men are. [1399]

However, brutishness has less the nature of vice (but is more frightful), for what is best has not been corrupted as it has in an evil man—it is not present to be corrupt. Therefore, making a comparison to find out which is worse is like comparing an inanimate thing with a living one. The viciousness of that which does not have an intrinsic principle of action is always less blamable, while the intellect is such a principle. So, then, it is like the comparison between injustice as such and the unjust man. The fact is that each is worse in some sense; certainly the evil man can do ten thousand times more evil than a dumb animal. [1401]

1385. Now we will consider that incontinence. After the Philosopher has shown how incontinence has to do with different pleasures in different ways, he now compares different kinds of incontinence with each other.

First, he compares incontinence in the pleasures of touch, which is complete incontinence, with incontinence in the matter of anger, which is incontinence only partially.

Second, at but we must take up (1149b26; [1398]), he compares human incontinence with brutish or pathological incontinence.

He treats the first point in a twofold manner.

First, he states his proposition, that we must consider that incontinence in the matter of anger is less disgraceful than incontinence in pleasures of touch, with which both temperance and intemperance deal.

1386. Second, at anger seems (1149a25), he proves his proposition by four arguments.

In the first, he says that anger listens somewhat to reason, inasmuch as the angry man reasons in some measure that he ought to inflict punishment for injury done to him. But he hears poorly, that is, he listens imperfectly to reason, because he is not careful to heed the judgment of reason about the amount and the mode of punishment. Among animals, who lack reason, we find anger—as also other activities similar to reason—according to natural instinct.

1387. In clarification of his proposition, he introduces two examples.

The first is of servants who, because they are very precipitate, hasten to act before they hear all their instructions and consequently make mistakes in executing the command that they did not fully understand.

The other example is of dogs barking at the first sound of someone knocking at the door before being aware whether the one knocking is family or friend. So, in anger, a man listens somewhat to reason but, because of the natural heat and swiftness of the bile inducing to anger, he proceeds to administer punishment before he hears the entire injunction of reason.

1388. Aristotle, then, in addition, explains how this may happen, at when reason or imagination (1149a25). That a man has suffered injury or contempt is made known to him sometimes as a result of reason, as when this actually occurred, and other times as a result of imagination, as when the matter seems so to him although it is not true. Then the man in anger apparently concludes he ought to attack the one who injured him and, taking an improper mode of vengeance, immediately bestirs himself in anger to inflict punishment before reason decides for him the mode of punishment. On the other hand, sensual desire, as soon as something is declared delightful to it by reason or sense, moves to enjoy that pleasure without any reasoning.

1389. The reason for this difference is that the pleasing object has the nature of an end desirable in itself and is like a principle in reference to the conclusion. But damage to be inflicted on another is not desirable in itself as an end having the nature of a principle, but as something useful to the end, and it has the nature of a conclusion in things to be done. For this reason, sensual desire does not move by reasoning but anger does. Consequently, anger follows reason in some measure, but not sensual desire, which follows its own impetuosity. In this way, something shameful, which is contrary to reason, results in human affairs. So then, obviously, the man incontinent in sensual desire is more disgraceful than the man incontinent in anger. The reason is that the man incontinent in anger is prevailed upon by reason to a degree, but not the sensually incontinent man.

1390. At moreover, a man (1149b4), he gives the second argument, saying that if a man sins in things that he naturally desires, he is rather deserving of pardon. An indication of this is that tolerance is more readily extended toward the common appetites, such as that of food and drink—since they are natural—if they are taken precisely as common. The desire for food is natural and common, but not that for delicate food. But anger is more natural and more difficult to resist than desires (not the common ones that are necessary and natural, and less frequently the matter of sin, but those desires that seek superfluous and unnecessary things, those that temperance and intemperance treat, as he has said in book 3 [619–24, lec. 20]).

1391. To be a peaceful animal is natural to man from the common nature of the species, inasmuch as he is a social animal (for every gregarious animal is naturally of this kind); but sometimes a strong tendency to anger results from an individual’s nature, which consists in the composition of the body, because of the heat and dryness of easily enkindled humors. The desire for superfluous objects (such as dainty food) follows rather the imagination and is a conscious passion of the soul, rather than a natural temperament.

1392. Hence, the tendency to anger is easily propagated from father to son, following as a result of the natural temperament, as is evident in the examples he adds. A certain man reprimanded for striking his father answered that he himself had also struck his own father, who had in turn struck his father. Then the man, pointing to his son, said, “this boy will strike me when he becomes a man; it is a family trait.” He gives another example of a man who, when he was dragged out of his home by his son, asked the son to stop when they got to the doorway because he himself had dragged his own father only that far. So, then, a person incontinent in anger is less disgraceful because anger is more natural.

1393. At again, double-dealing (1149b13), he gives the third argument, saying that those who sin deceitfully are more unjust because, together with the fact that they cause injury, they also deceive. However, the angry man does not act deceitfully, but obviously wants to take vengeance, for he would not be satisfied unless the one punished should know besides that he is being punished because he had given offense to the avenger. Nor does anger flare up secretly or cunningly, but impulsively. But the desire for pleasures arises in secret and insidiously, so to speak. Since the pleasurable object is designed by nature to move the appetite immediately on perception, it draws the appetite to itself unless reason takes pains to hinder this.

1394. Hence, people speak of the deceitful Cyprian maid, meaning Venus, for she was queen of Cyprus, and so was called a Cyprian, as if born in Cyprus. They attribute to her something of the artful woman, saying her girdle is multicolored, by which we understand sensual desire binding reason, varicolored because it directs one’s course to something apparently good, inasmuch as it is pleasurable but really evil. Likewise, Homer writes that the cunning Venus craftily steals the wits of the very wise man, because she binds the judgment of the reason in particular practical matters.

1395. Therefore, this incontinence concerning sensual desires is more unjust and disgraceful than incontinence concerning anger. If this is true, the incontinence dealing with sensual desires is incontinence in the unqualified sense, as was pointed out previously [1384]; and it is a vice in some measure, inasmuch as it is deceitful, not that it acts by calculation but that it enters by stealth.

1396. At in addition, no one (1149b20), he gives his fourth argument: no one inflicting an injury acts with sadness. It has been explained previously in book 5 [1035–36] that a man who acts involuntarily does not do something unjust absolutely speaking, but only incidentally, inasmuch as what he does happens to be unjust. But what we do with sadness we seem to do involuntarily. Now, anyone who acts immediately from anger is sad, not that he grieves about the punishment he inflicted—he is rather glad about this—but he is sad and moved to anger by the injury he has received. So his act is not simply involuntary, for if it were, what he does would not be imputed to him in any way; but it has a mixture of the voluntary and the involuntary. Therefore, what he does is less imputed to him inasmuch as he acts under provocation. But the man who does something apparently unjust in itself, when inflicting an injury, operates voluntarily and with pleasure.

If, then, those things seem to be more unjust against which we are justly very angry, it follows that incontinence arising from sensual desire is more unjust, because we are more justly aroused against it, as against an evil agent acting with complete voluntariness and with pleasure. But injury is not primarily in the anger, but rather in him who has given provocation for the anger. Therefore, we are less justly angry against the angry person who under provocation sins with sadness, and for this reason is less unjust.

1397. Hence, he summarizes in conclusion that, obviously, the incontinence that concerns sensual desires is more disgraceful than that which concerns anger, and that incontinence and continence in the unqualified sense deal with sensual desires and pleasures.

1398. Then, at but we must take up (1149b26), he compares human incontinence with brutish incontinence.

He treats this point in a threefold manner.

First, he takes up again different kinds of sensual desires and pleasures.

Second, at yet with only (1149b30; [1399]), he shows with which of these temperance and intemperance, and consequently continence and incontinence, are concerned.

Third, at however, brutishness (1150a1; [1401]), he compares human with brutish vice or incontinence.

He says first that, since continence and incontinence have to do with bodily pleasures, we must take up their differences. Some of them, as we indicated previously [1368–1371], are human and natural, that is, in keeping with human nature, both in regard to the genus that is considered according to the things sought and in regard to the amount that is considered according to the mode, intense or feeble, of seeking. Others are not natural, but brutish, because of a vicious nature, or they come about by reason of privations and sickness. Among these are evil habits.

1399. Next, at yet only with the first (1149b30), he shows with which of these temperance is concerned. He states that temperance and intemperance have to do only with sensual desires that are human and natural. Hence, properly speaking, we do not call dumb animals either temperate or intemperate. But, figuratively speaking, when one animal is compared with another, we do say that one kind of animal differs from another in defilement. One is more filthy in living a more vile and unclean life, such as the pig opposed to the sheep. In sinamoria (that is, stupidity in general), one is more stupid than another, such as the ass as opposed to the horse. And, in voraciousness, the wolf is most rapacious.

1400. Hence, by a comparison with these animals that are excessive in this way, other kinds of animals are called temperate or prudent by a kind of similitude, but not in the proper sense, because none of them has deliberate choice or can reason, but they are rather separated from rational nature. All insane persons who have lost the use of reason are like this. But we have said before [1361] that a temperate and an intemperate man act with deliberate choice, and so temperance and intemperance are not found in dumb animals, nor in brutish men, nor are they concerned with brutish desires.

1401. At however, brutishness (1150a1), he compares brutishness with human vice or incontinence, saying that brutishness has less of evil in it, considering the condition of a beast (or of a bestial person). But brutishness is more frightening because it does worse things. He proves that brutishness is less evil by the fact that the highest part, the intellect, is not corrupt and depraved in the animal, as in an evil man, but entirely lacking.

1402. Therefore, to compare a beast with a bad man to discover which is worse is like comparing a non-living creature with a living one. Non-living creatures, like fire that burns or rock that crushes, do more damage but are farther from the notion of fault. Badness in a thing without an inner principle of its actions is always less blamable, since less fault can be attributed to it—badness in man is imputable because he has a principle making him master of his own actions. This principle is the intellect, which the brutes lack. Therefore, a beast is compared with a man as injustice with an unjust man.

1403. For the habit of injustice by its very nature has an inclination to evil, but the unjust man retains the power to be good or bad. Each is worse in a measure: the unjust man is worse than injustice and the evil man worse than a brute, because an evil man can do ten thousand times more harm than a beast by his reason, which he can use to devise very diverse evils. Therefore, as a dumb animal is less guilty than an evil man but is more to be dreaded, so also brutish vice or even incontinence is more to be dreaded but is less culpable and more blameless than human incontinence or vice. Consequently, people who are insane or naturally bestial are less severely punished.