Nicomachean Ethics: Book VII
1,2,3,4) People say all sorts of contradictory things about continence. Do incontinent people act knowingly or not, and with what sort of knowledge? With what sorts of objects are the incontinent and continent concerned? The incontinent person's knowledge is impaired by passion, when particular opinion is inconsistent with universal judgment. It is possible to be incontinent while still having universal knowledge. People also can be incontinent with respect to particular objects that are valuable in themselves but admit of excess, such as wealth and victory. He who is called incontinent, without qualifiers, pursues the same bodily pleasures as does the self-indulgent man. But the incontinent pursues them deliberately, whereas the self-indulgent merely gives into strong appetite.
5) Things wrongly pursued as pleasures are pursued as a result of injury, custom, or bad nature. Continence and incontinence are concerned with human pleasures, those that are naturally pleasurable. When one desires something not naturally pleasurable, one is morbid or brutish, not incontinent.
6) Anger is a result of hasty reasoning, it is more natural than excessive desire, it is an act of passion, and it is painful for the person angry -- for all of these reasons, it is less disgraceful than incontinence proper, which obeys sense rather than reason, is more unnatutural, is an act of plotting, and is pursued with pleasure.
7) Self-indulgence and temperance, related to pleasure is incontinence and continence, related to pain is softness and endurance. People may be incontinent in contrasting ways -- impetuosity and weakness, those who do not deliberate but follow their passions, and those who deliberate but fail to stand by their conclusions.
8) The continent man willingly and knowingly acts against universal principles -- as such he is curable. The self-indulgent man follows appetites blindly, and so is not curable, and has no regrets. Vice is unconscious of itself, but incontinence is conscious. Becaue self-indulgence is not curable, it is worse than incontinence.
9) The obstinate man is closely related to the continent man -- both stand by principles -- but the former will not yield to argument, and the latter will.
10) Though both cleverness and practical wisdom involve similar reasoning skills, the latter is incompatible with incontinence, while the former is not. This is because practical wisdom includes the ability to act according to right ends, whereas the incontinent does not act on the right ends.
11, 12) Pleasures can be both activities and ends. Some pleasures are unqualified goods, good for all men. Some pleasures are qualified goods -- good for some men, or good at certain times. To pursue these at the wrong times, or as the wrong person, is self-indulgence or incontinence.
13) Pleasure is considered an important part of a happy life. It is a good.
14) Some pleasures are only incidentally good, because of their curative properties. If these are pursued violently, out of fear of pain, or because one is unable to enjoy other pleasures, this is vice or brutishness or morbidity. However, some pleasures are naturally good, pursued by healthy men.