Nicomachean Ethics

​And one must make the pleasure or pain that supervenes upon actions a sign of the states; for he who abstains from bodily pleasures and rejoices in this very thing is temperate, while he who is vexed is self-indulgent; and he who endures terrifying things and rejoices, or at least is not pained, is brave, while he who is pained is cowardly. For moral virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains; for on account of pleasure we perform base actions, and on account of pain we abstain from noble ones. Therefore, we must have been led in some way immediately from youth, as Plato says, so as to rejoice and be pained by the things we ought; for this is the right education. Moreover, if virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and every passion and every action is followed by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue would be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is also indicated by punishments being inflicted through these; for they are certain cures, and cures are by nature effected by contraries. Moreover, as we said recently, every state of the soul has its nature in relation to and concerned with those very things by which it is by nature made worse and better; and it is on account of pleasures and pains that people become base, by pursuing and avoiding these, either those which they ought not, or when they ought not, or as they ought not, or in however many other ways such things are distinguished by reason. Therefore people even define the virtues as certain states of impassibility and calmness; but they do not do so well, because they speak absolutely, and not ‘as one ought’ and ‘as one ought not’ and ‘when’, and whatever other things are added. It is assumed, then, that virtue of this kind is productive of the best things concerning pleasures and pains, and vice is the contrary. And it would become manifest to us also from the following things that they are concerned with the same things. For since there are three things for choice and three for avoidance—the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the shameful, the harmful, the painful—concerning all these the good man is apt to go right and the bad man to go wrong, but especially concerning pleasure; for this is common to animals, and it accompanies all things under choice; for even the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant. And furthermore, it has grown up with all of us from infancy; therefore it is difficult to rub off this passion which is colored into our life. And we regulate our actions also, some of us more and some less, by pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, it is necessary that our whole study be concerned with these; for to rejoice and be pained well or badly is of no small importance for actions. And furthermore, it is harder to fight against pleasure than against anger, as Heraclitus says, and both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; for indeed the ‘well’ is better in this. So that also for this reason the whole study, both for virtue and for political science, is concerned with pleasures and pains; for he who uses these well will be good, and he who uses them badly will be bad. Let it have been said, then, that virtue is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that by the things from which it is produced, it is also increased and destroyed when they are not done in the same way, and that it also acts in those very things from which it was produced.