Nicomachean Ethics

​With regard to the pleasures and pains of touch and taste, and desires and avoidances (concerning which licentiousness and temperance were previously defined), it is possible to be in such a state as to be defeated even by those things which most people are superior to, and it is possible to master even those things which most people are defeated by. Of these persons, the one concerned with pleasures is incontinent and the other continent, while the one concerned with pains is soft and the other resistant. The state of most people is in between, even if they lean more toward the worse states. Since some pleasures are necessary and others are not, and the former are necessary only up to a certain point, but their excesses are not, nor are their deficiencies, and the same holds true for desires and pains, the person who pursues excesses of pleasant things, or pursues them to excess, and does so by choice, for their own sake and not for any other result, is licentious. For such a person must not be prone to regret, and is therefore incurable; for the person without regret is incurable. The one who falls short is the opposite, and the one in the middle is temperate. Similarly, the person who avoids bodily pains, not through being defeated but by choice, is also licentious. Of those who do not act by choice, one is led because of pleasure, and the other because of avoiding the pain that comes from desire, so they differ from one another. And everyone would judge that a person is worse if, without desiring or desiring only weakly, they should do something shameful, than if they did so while desiring strongly; and if they should strike someone without being angry than if they did so while angry. For what would they do if they were in the grip of passion? Therefore, the licentious person is worse than the incontinent. Of the states mentioned, then, the former is rather a form of softness, while the latter is licentiousness. The continent person is opposed to the incontinent, and the resistant to the soft; for resisting consists in holding out, while continence consists in mastering, and holding out is different from mastering, just as not being defeated is different from winning. Therefore, continence is more desirable than resistance. But the person who falls short in resisting those things which most people hold out against and are capable of, is soft and effeminate; for effeminacy is a kind of softness. Such a person drags their cloak so as not to suffer the pain of lifting it, and by mimicking a sick person, does not think themselves wretched, though they are like a wretched person. The same holds true concerning continence and incontinence. For it is not surprising if someone is defeated by strong and overwhelming pleasures or pains, but rather pardonable if they hold out against them, like Philoctetes in the play of Theodectes when bitten by the viper, or Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus, or like people who, trying to restrain their laughter, burst into a loud guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus. But it is surprising if someone is defeated by and cannot resist those things which most people are capable of holding out against, unless this is due to the nature of their race or to disease, like the hereditary softness among the kings of the Scythians, or the way the female is distinguished from the male. The lover of amusement is also thought to be licentious, but is actually soft. For amusement is relaxation, since it is a rest; and the lover of amusement is one of those who exceed in this. Of incontinence, one kind is impetuosity, and the other is weakness. For some people, having deliberated, do not abide by what they deliberated because of passion, while others are led by passion because they have not deliberated. For some, just as those who have tickled themselves beforehand do not feel tickled, so also by perceiving and seeing beforehand, and by rousing themselves and their reason beforehand, are not defeated by passion, whether it is pleasant or painful. It is especially the quick-tempered and the melancholic who are incontinent with the impetuous kind of incontinence; for the former because of their swiftness and the latter because of their intensity do not wait for reason, because they are prone to follow their imagination.