The Place of Pleasure in Aristotle's Ethics

Author(s): Amelie Oksenberg Rorty

Source: Mind , Oct., 1974, New Series, Vol. 83, No. 332 (Oct., 1974), pp. 481-497
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2252842

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

and Oxford University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Mind

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Place of Pleasure in Aristotle's Ethics

AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY

Recent discussions of the role of pleasure in Arist

concentrated, understandably enough, on illumin
dark passages in EN Books 7(A) and io(B). Commentators have
become engrossed in the arguments designed to establish that
pleasure is an energeia rather than a kinesis or the end of a genesis.
This naturally led them to attempt to disentangle the various types
of kinesis theories that Aristotle refutes and to formulate the
criteria that identify energeiai. Prominent in these discussion;s have
been vexed issues: whether the thesis of A(II53aI4-I5), that
pleasure is the unimpeded activity of a natural capacity (anempo-
distos energeia tes kata phusin hexeos), is compatible with the view
presented in B(II74b3z-II75a) that pleasure accompanies and
perfects the activity; whether an action classified as a kinesis or a
genesis under one test or under one description may nevertheless
also qualify as an energeia under another test or description.
Because Aristotle's discussion is so hedged and qualified, com-
mentators have concentrated on exegesis, and have ignored the
questions that prompted his analysis, and that explain the pro-
minence of the discussion of pleasure in the Ethics. No doubt the
primary questions seem too obvious; certainly answering them
depends on having dealt justly with the subtleties of disputed
passages. Nevertheless Aristotle's central concern in these books
was to determine the place pleasure ought to have in the life of the
virtuous and to discover whether a virtuous person might normally
expect to have a pleasurable, as well as a happy life.
Starting with hypotheses about Aristotle's analysis of the value
and the dangers of pleasure, I want to work back from these to the
disputed and difficult passages. This strategy might be thought not
only unscholarly but philosophically perverse: it might be argued
that Aristotle's evaluation of pleasure should follow from his
analysis of its nature and not vice versa. But Aristotle would not
have judged the matter so sharply defined. It is clear, from the
beginning, that he wishes to steer a course between hedonists who
think pleasure is either the good or the measure of goodness, and
i6 48I

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 482 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

anti-hedonists, who think pleasure cannot be a good at all. It is in

the course of his arguments against what seem to him clear mis-
evaluations of pleasure that he comes to his own analysis of its
nature. It is precisely because he does not begin with a clear stake in
the definition of pleasure, but arrives at his position by construct-
ing polemical hedges and fortifications against a number of distinct
fronts, that his views seem labyrinthine, almost impenetrable.

Aristotle's manoeuvres in navigating between the positions of the

hedonists and the anti-hedonists bring him to dangerous shoals.
The discussion of pleasure in Book 7 immediately follows Aristotle's
diagnoses of the difficulties of the akrates who ignores his reasoned
evaluations about the relative merits of goods, in the face of the
immediate prospect of a pleasure. Initially, then, the scales are set
against a hedonistic equation identifying goodness with pleasure.
The greater part of Book 7 is devoted to showing that the anti-
hedonist's detractions of pleasure are ill argued. Their claims that
pleasure is an unsuitable candidate for the good rests on the dubious
premise that pleasure is not self-contained because it is a process
(or the terminus of a process) involving the replenishment of wants
or the restitution of imbalances. But not all pleasures are preceded
by depletion and not all are contrasted to pains. The pleasures of
sight and contemplation, for instance, do not fit the anaplerosis
model.
Moreover, anti-hedonists foist a theory of the nature of pleasure
on hedonists, a theory that ill-accords with the most defensible
version of the thesis that pleasure is a self-sufficient good.
Hedonists' esteem for pleasure would not be well served by treat-
ing it as a process, or even as the terminus of a process. For if
pleasure were a process, it would indeed be open to familiar anti-
hedonistic arguments: since processes are in the class of the
apeiron, the search for pleasure would be endless. Being pleased
would always be an inherently unstable state, always incomplete,
never whole. It cannot be identified, let alone be evaluated, inde-
pendently of its end. How could it, under those circumstances, be
desired as a self-sufficient good? What is worse, the anaplerosis
version of the kinesis account of pleasure relativises it to contrasting,
presumably painful states of depletion. Since a life spent in the
pursuit of pleasure must be one that contains much pain, anti-

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 THE PLACE OF PLEASURE -IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 483

hedonists argue that consistent hedonists would have

avoidance of pain, rather than the achievement of p
end (I I52bI5-i6).
According to Aristotle, there is a conceptual, though not an
analytic connection between an activity's being good and its being
pleasurable. Although that connection is not necessary, it is much
stronger than the bland classification of pleasurable activities,
properly conceived, as among the things that are good in themselves.
An understanding of how pleasurable activities are self-sufficient
goods shows how they materially contribute to a virtuous person's
happiness. Aristotle's investigation of the connection between an
activity's being good and its being pleasurable is part of his more
general enquiry into the relation between virtue and happiness.
The positive thesis of A, that the paradigm cases of pleasures are
energeiai, uniinpeded exercises of natural hexeis, sets hedonism in
its proper place.' Only by treating pleasures as energeiai can we
understand why and in what sense pleasures are complete in them-
selves, desired for their own sakes. While preserving the core truth
of the arguments of the anti-hedonists-that processes are not
desired for their own sakes-this view also helps us to understand
why pleasures are attractive enough to account for akrasia.
Here, then, is a skeleton outline of Aristotle's views about the
value and function of pleasure, his attempt to balance out the
merits of the respective claims of the hedonists and the anti-
hedonists.
I. Hedonists are right in claiming that everyone wants pleasure
and wants it for its own sake (IIo4b34-IIo5a5; II53b-II54a).
That something is pleasurable is always an explanation, though not
always a complete explanation, of its being sought. They are right,
too, in treating pleasure as an end, whole and self-contained, not
requiring to be perfected by something else.
2(a) But because it is not the only thing desirable in itself,
pleasure is not the good (II 72b27-33).
(b) Because the pleasures of different activities are sui generis
( I 74a22-27), pleasure is not the measure of goodness. Since the
pleasures of flute playing are different from those of eating, and
both different from the pleasures of contemplation, assessing their
relative values presupposes ranking their relative merits.
Cf. G. E. L. Owen, 'Aristotelian Pleasures', Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, I97I-72, pp. I35-I52. I shall return to a discussion of Owen's view
that A and B are answers to different questions, rather than competing
answers to the same question.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
484 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

3. Because hedonists have confused different senses in which

something can be an end or be good tout court, they have not
understood why pleasure is among the self-contained goods. Ends
may be intrinsic or extrinsic to the activities they accompany; they
may be perfected within activities, or as the consequences of
activities. If pleasures are ontologically distinct from their causes
and objects, it might be possible to identify the state of being pleased
as such. But pleasure is not the name of a particular state or feeling,
nor of an end or class of ends that can be brought about independ-
ently of activities.1
4. Since pleasures are the unimpeded exercise of natural hexeis,
they can give important but not infallible clues for identifying a
person's natural hexeis (I I76a3-30).
5. Generically, virtues are hexeis, capable of becoming a person's
second nature, even though they must be learned and developed
(II03aI4-b2). Though it is hard to form good habits in the face
of pleasures, a person can discover his natural virtues by discover-
ing hexeis whose exercise are pleasurable.
6. But we can be mistaken about what aspect of an activity
pleases, especially when it is complex; having mis-described what
pleases, not fully realizing what we are doing, we can mis-evaluate
an activity (II52b26-i I53a23, II73b20-I74ai).
7. When, however, we have not mistaken our pleasures, and
exercise a natural hexis in the proper way, as complete in itself
rather than as a process or a means to an external end, the pleasure
enhances the activity (I I74b2o-II75a). The virtuous man finds
performing virtuous actions pleasurable, because he is acting
according to his character, naturally. He does what he wants to do,
does it easily, with his attention on the activity, rather than on any
extrinsic gain. It is his activity, rather than a consequence of it,
that constitutes his pleasure.
8. Normally, the life of a virtuous man can be expected to be
pleasurable as well as happy, because much of what he does is
intrinsically pleasurable (io99ai6-zI). His pleasures and his
happiness are less contingent than they would be if they depended
on the consequences of his actions. For such a person the question
of whether he lives to have pleasure, or has pleasure in order to
live, must be senseless (I75aI7-2i); his happiness and his
pleasure lie in the way he lives.
Q. Though a person who is not virtuous may in one sense have
I Cf. W. F. R. Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory (Oxford, I968), p. 298.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 485

the same pleasures as a virtuous person, he will have them in a

different way and consider them in a different light. While their
activities may coincide extensionally, they fall under different
classifications and descriptions (I I73b25-I I74aI).
io. Discovering what pleasures are good requires having identi-
fied virtuous persons and identifying virtuous persons requires
identifying those who take pleasure in doing what is good. But
this apparent circularity does not represent a flaw in ethical theory;
it is the condition for doing moral and political philosophy.

II

Is the apparently sharp distinction between kinesis and energeia

incompatible with what appear to be instances of cross classifica-
tion? The discussion of the pleasures of house building (iI 75a30-35)
might seem to violate the thesis of A, especially since building is
given as an example of movement in I I74ai9-39. Convalescence is
also classified as a complex process, yet acknowledged to be
pleasurable (I I52b33-II53a5). If Aristotle had taken these as
paradigmatic pleasures, instead of focusing as he did on such simple
energeiai as seeing, he could not have shown how complex processes
can seem, and even be, pleasurable. He gives a coherent account of
pleasure, by revealing the energeia aspect of some processes.
An energeia is said to need no telos to complete it: it is whole and
perfect in itself. One way of construing this is to give the gram-
matical tense test. An energeia is fully and completely identifiable
as the energeia it is, at any and every moment of its duration. As
Ackrill has argued, this need not be taken to mean that energeiai
are durationless.1 On the contrary, energeiai will characteristically
last over a period of time. Arguing against Ryle (among others), he
says '[Aristotle's] distinction depends on whether an activity is or
is not "perfect with respect to any time whatsoever", and this
surely is a question whether or not one can apply the same descrip-
tion-ascribe the same "form"-to every substretch of a given
stretch'.2 Certainly many pleasures are continuously attributable
under the same description throughout the period during which
they are at all attributed. For them, Ackrill's grammatical test goes
smoothly: 'If at every moment in a period of X-ing it is true to say
"he has Xed," then X-ing is not a kinesis.'3 But Ackrill points to a
I J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle's Distinction Between Energeia and Kinesis', New
Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough (London, I965), pp.
121-142. 2 Ibid. p. 134. 3 Ibid. p. I30; EN 1o48b23-3o.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 486 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

difficulty: he argues that the gramm

kineseis as well as to energeiai. 'Fo
The solution to this cannot be th
descriptions for the parts of a
principle, this might be equally t
flute sonata or proving a theorem o
Perhaps we can be helped by pay
that Aristotle makes the energeia-
distinction. We should perhaps con
to descriptions of actions, rather th
of actions. If I understand him,
Penner's proposal that an action ca
tion, and an energeia under anoth
the matter still further: description
description of action types (e.g. th
or seeing) or descriptions of action
doing philosophy at a particular tim
description in a particular contex
always, show whether an action is d
Descriptions of action types can, I
or kineseis only in what might b
standard normic form, the descri
would be used to teach the concep
carry presumptions for the descri
type, but they do not rule over or
tokens. A particular action whose s
described as an energeia can also b
being disqualified as a token of th
Examples may make this thesis m
is standardly described as a kines
Grantchester on a particular occa
when it is described as self-containe
and that his walk gave him exercise
of his walk, treated as incidental
there is no such thing as walking
walked from one place to another,
cise, he will have had some exercis
energeia when he will have done w
I Ibid. p. 13 I .
2 T. Penner, 'Verbs and the Identity of Actions-A Philosophical
the Interpretation of Aristotle', in Ryle, ed. by 0. Wood an
Pitcher (New York, 1970), pp. 393-453, esp. ? II.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS 487

dently of getting to Grantchester or getting exercise. The walk to

Grantchester is described as a kinesis when it is described in such a
way that it would have been imperfect or incomplete (i.e.
would not have been that action) unless he got to Grantchester.
His walking is then described as part of another description:
'walking to Grantchester' rather than 'walking to (as it may be)
Grantchester' (or 'walking for exercise' rather than 'walking and
(as it may be) exercising'.
Suppose B is a an accomplice in a plot to steal a painting
from the Fitzwilliam Museum.' He has been hired to stand in a
certain spot and gaze at a statue. When his gazing is described as
'gazing at the statue to earn money', or 'earning money by gazing
at the statue', B would not have done his gazing under that
description unless he'd done it long enough to satisfy his employers,
done it long enough to warrant being paid. The application of the
grammatical test reveals the difference between this description of
B.'s activity, and a description of his gazing at the statue, when as a
statue-struck art student, he came to the Museum just to gaze at
the statue, from the same vantage point, for the same length of
time.
The point about using the grammatical test as an initial screen is
that it tells us under what description an action can be considered
as self-contained, if it can be done for its own sake at all. The
grammatical test does not of course determine the motive. It sets
the formal conditions for an action's being described so that the
end is inseparable from the performance; this is the grammatical
condition for an action's being described as capable of being done
for its own sake. When an action is described so that its end falls
outside of the description of what is done, the end being treated as
a consequence of the act rather than as constituting (part of) it, the
action has the intentionality status of a means rather than an end.
We can put it this way: applying the grammatical test forces us to
specify the description of the action. 'B is gazing at the statue' does
not by itself tell us whether that action token satisfies the tense test
for an energeia. It only gives a presumption for the action-type,
because gazing and contemplating are, as action types, paradig-
matically described as energeiai.
Ackrill's warning against solutions which supplement the gram-
matical test with an intentionality test helps to bring out the dif-
ference between energeia descriptions of actions types and action
I I am grateful to Richard Kraut for this example and for his comments.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 488 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

tokens. He remarks that if Aristotle had wanted us to treat the

kinesis-energeia distinction as one between what is done for the
sake of an external end and what is done for its own sake, he could
have said so without fuss or muss. Expressions such as telos and
hou heneka appear throughout the Aristotelian corpus without
implying conscious intentions and purposes. And indeed this is so:
but Aristotle's use of such terms takes protective colouring from
the contexts in which they are used, and our context is ethics, the
heartland of intentionality.
The intentionality test need not be thought of in psychological
terms, as distinguishing energeiai from kineseis by the motives of
the agent.' Ackrill is quite right in suggesting that this has an un-
Aristotelian ring. The intentionality test supplements the gram-
matical test by focusing on the difference between what is con-
tained within the description of the action-type (what constitutes
the action), and what is a consequence of its being performed. Of
course this distinction is not a sharp one. Sometimes the connection
between an action and its consequence is so strong that the con-
sequences get drawn in, as it were, to the description of the action-
type. Nevertheless, the distinction may apply as a general rule.
We 'psychologize' the intentionality of actions when we start
looking for motives that lie beyond those already imbedded in the
standard description of the action. In particular difficult cases, it
may be important to do this, especially when we are ascribing
responsibility. But when we begin psychologizing, the firmness of
the classification of the action description recedes.
Some action types are standardly described as energeiai or as
kineseis: there is a strong presumption about the classification of
individual descriptions of acts of contemplating and seeing as
descriptions of energeiai, and of walking as descriptions of kineseis,
walkings to -. Other descriptions of action types are less strongly
marked; standard type descriptions of writing poetry are, for in-
stance, not clearly classified as descriptions of energeiai or kineseis.
There is no strong presumption about whether the poem is treated
as an outcome, a consequence of the writing, or whether the stand-
ard action is writing-a-poem. Nor, for that matter, is there a strong
presumption that writing-a-poem is characteristically a section of
some larger action description, rather than being a self-contained
whole, a unit of intentional action, motivationally self-explanatory.

I Cf. G. E. M. Anscombe, 'The Intentionality of Sensation', in Analytical

Philosophy, ed. R. Butler (Oxford, i965), PP. 158-i8o.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 489

Even when there are very strong presumptions a

fications of standard action types, as there are for contemplating
and walking, we can cross-classify particular token descriptions,
by constructing energeia descriptions of actions standardly de-
scribed as kineseis: descriptions of a paraplegic managing to walk,
or someone just taking a walk. Similarly, we can construct kinesis
descriptions of actions standardly described as energeiai: someone's
doing philosophy can be described as engaging in combat by doing
philosophy, or acquiring fame by doing philosophy. If we were
constantly to cross-classify such actions, we could not teach anyone
what they really were. When we speak of contemplation as an
energeia or walking as a kinesis, we speak elliptically, about their
favoured or standard descriptions in normal context. It is under
such descriptions that we can apply the intentionality criterion
without undue psychologizing; and it is under such descriptions
that the grammatical and the intentionality test for energeiai are
mutually co-ordinate, determining actions whose standard de-
scriptions are self-contained, motivationally self-explanatory. But
of course a particular act-token can receive many descriptions, and
so be classified as an energeia by some descriptions and as a kinesis
by others. It is, then, descriptions of particular action tokens that are
classified as descriptions of energeiai or kineseis without cross-classi-
fication. When it seems as if the application of the grammatical-
intentionality test gives conflicting results, it is because we are
treating a particular description of a particular action as para-
digmatic of a more general type, and doing so in a misleading way.
This sort of confusion is most likely to arise in cases of complex
energeiai, such as flute playing, whose standard action-type
descriptions require descriptions of action types standardly de-
scribed as kineseis (putting fingers on the stops).
When the kinesis-energeia distinction is seen in this light it
becomes clear how the speed test (II73a3off) is to be applied.
Actions that are described as means to external ends can achieve
those ends quickly or slowly, but actions described as having self-
contained ends have achieved those ends throughout their duration.
We are now in a position to deal with what has sometimes been
thought a flaw in the grammatical test for energeiai: the inter-
ruption of pleasurable activities. Under their proper energeia
description, playing flute sonatas and making love are perfect,
self-contained throughout their duration; yet an interruption
causes discomfort, leaving the pleasure in the activity not altogether

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
490 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

unaffected. Some interrupted activ

when they are properly described a
Some energieai are not only comp
self-contained but having a beginn
falls within the energeia description
But when intrinsic ends are tempo
interrupted. When writing a poem
writing is not treated as a means to t
yet the emergence of the poem is par
the writing. And so too, for energe
the various kineseis involved (which
descriptions) are not treated as me
ruption of complex energeiai wh
sequential, leaves them in one sens
were continuously described as the
When the living of a life is describ
energeia, a youthful death is an int
complete and unperfected, even whe
any point. That is why there is a spec
young.
It might be argued that since eve
described as self-contained, my i
qualify every action as an energeia.
description could fail to pass the en
becomes more difficult than ever t
distinction was thought by Aris
Aristotle is not confusing grammat
issues: he is using grammatical criteri
towards which a particular sort of
taken. This in turn can reveal some
activities. As the moral philosopher's
better known to us to what is bette
moves from what is said to what ou
descriptions of actions to the pro
action types. Of course actions can
principle, it is possible to construct an
action type. But it is part of the bu
separate out possible action-type de
reveal the real nature of the action, d
self-contained from those that are
I I am grateful to Myles Burnyeat for ra

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS 49I

sequences identifying the hexeis exercised, and determiining

their priorities. In this analysis the moral philosopher is guided
by descriptions of the activities of virtuous men. The correct
descriptions of their (token) actions reveal the standard descrip-
tions of the action (type).

III

Does Aristotle claim that whenever an activity is described as self-

contained, it is pleasurable under that description? Does this mean
that because the proper description of contemplation reveals it to
be a self-contained activity, and because all men desire to know,
everyone finds contemplation pleasurable? But surely this would
be a mistake: a courageous soldier need not find contemplation
pleasurable, not to mention find it his favourite pleasure.
The analysis of pleasure in B helps to resolve these worries.
Pleasures are a subclass of energeiai: those that involve the un-
impeded exercise of a natural hexis, kata phusin hexeos. The correct
description of an action type not only determines whether it is an
energeia; it also identifies the natural hexeis which are exercised.
Only when the appropriate hexeis are exercised rightly, on the right
objects, with the organs in the right condition, is the activity pro-
perly pleasurable. It is under such conditions that the action
description passes the grammatical-intentionality test as the
energeia it is, because the description reveals the natural hexeis
which are exercised. Someone who has not really got the hang of
contemplation, who isn't suited to it, but does it desiring the fame
it may bring, doesn't really find contemplation pleasurable, except
perhaps incidentally. The description of his contemplating will
reveal that what he does is either not self-contained, or that it is the
exercise of natural hexeis which are incidental, rather than intrinsic,
to contemplation.
How are we to identify the class of energeiai that are kata phusin
hexeos? How can we tell whether such complex activities as flute
playing and proving theorems, which can also be described as
kineseis, should properly be described as energeiai? And how are
we to identify the natural hexeis which are exercised, especially
when the hexeis themselves have to be developed and learned? One
of the clues we use is to see whether the early exercise of such
hexeis is, even in the process of their development, pleasurable.
Simple energeiai, like seeing, are generally perfectly performed in

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
492 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

their first exercise. Characteristically, there is no problem in

developing or learning the appropriate dispositions, and we are not
likely to be mistaken about what is pleasurable in their exercise.
Other things being equal, when one is engaged in a simple energeia,
one time to stop is as good as another. If I am just seeing, and not
looking for something, it does not matter when I close my eyes.
The complexity of an energeia has been confused with its per-
sisting through time; but while it is true that most complex
energeiai do indeed last through a period of time, they are not
complex on that account. A complex energeia is not homogeneous,
but can be analysed into other activities or processes. In playing
the flute, the finger is first on one stop, then on another. All of
these motions are required for flute playing, and integral to it;
but one could not teach someone what flute playing was, by
treating it as the sum of these motions. The flute player takes his
pleasures primarily and paradigmatically in the whole activity,
and only incidentally in the motion of his fingers. (Though of
course, if his fingers are just recovering from paralysis, his being
able to place his fingers on the stops is just what gives him
pleasure.)
The processes that restore us to a natural state-processes
like those of convalescence-are pleasurable kata sumbebekos
(II 5zb34-5). That the satisfaction of a want or the cessation of a
pain are pleasurable kata sumbebekos does not mean that it is an
unpredictable accident that they are pleasurable. Owen has given
us a test: If X is P kata sumbebekos, it is in virtue of some other
property, Q, that X is P, where Q and P can occur independently
of one another. As he puts it, 'An A which is a B is only incidentally
so when it is not the nature of As to be B, or it is not qua A that this
one is B.'1 When a complex cycle of a want and repletion is a
natural process-as, for example, the cycJe of normal hunger and
nourishment-then many natural hexeis will be exercised in the
process. By extension (the exercise of a hexis in) the relief of a pain
or the satisfaction of a want can come to be regarded as pleasurable
kata sumbebekos, even when it is not part of a natural process. By
further extension, any relief from pain or satisfaction of a want can
be described as pleasurable kata sumbebekos.
If, however, we were to take such processes as paradigmatic of
pleasures, we might mistakenly focus on their descriptions as
processes, rather than attending to the descriptions that reveal the
I Op. Cit. p. 144.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 493

natural hexeis which are exercised. In this way, we might come to

think of the satisfaction of any want as crucial to our well-being.
A mistaken analysis would not only violate Aristotle's explanatory
strategies, but have dangerous ethical and political consequences.
If in analysing the correct description of action-types, the moral
philosopher concentrates on kinesis descriptions of such natural
processes as convalescence and eating, he runs the risk of mis-
identifying the natural hexeis involved, and may thus misdiagnose
natural wants and needs.
Hexeis whose exercise can become pleasurable, though they were
not so initially, are of course crucial to normal moral development.
Often the development of such hexeis can itself be pleasurable. A
pupil learning to play the flute may not initially take pleasure in
just those skills that will eventually become second nature to him.
His pleasures are not yet the same as those of the accomplished
player. Indeed though the pupil learns to play the flute by playing
it, his earliest attempts are described as flute playing by extended
courtesy, by reference to what is expected to come of efforts that
are only comprehensible when described as efforts at flute playing.
Some pupils find even their initial practice intrinsically pleasurable:
that they do so is the best indication that they are 'natural' flute
players. But taking pleasure in the processes of learning cannot be
the paradigm for defining pleasures, if only because the pleasures
of learning are defined by reference to their ends.
Normally, the virtuous take pleasure in their virtuous actions:
they are proper exercises of hexeis on the right objects. But the
pleasures of virtuous actions may be misconceived when they are
misdescribed. And even when they are learnt, they can be im-
properly exercised. If, for example, extrinsic rewards are stressed,
it may be difficult for a person to focus on the real nature of his
activity. There are of course people who never succeed in exercis-
ing their virtues as the virtuous man does, as actions complete in
themselves. The virtues of such people cannot be relied upon, for
when they cease to believe that virtuous actions serve their ends,
they will cease to perform them. For them, the hexeis exercised in
virtuous actions are not character traits, their second natures.
When what they do is most accurately described as serving an
external end, their actions are not properly speaking energeiai, and
so are only pleasurable kata sumbebekos.
When a person performs an action whose standard normic
description qualifies it as an energeia, and correctly describes what

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
494 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

he does in those terms, his

about the activity rather than on some extrinsic or external con-
sequence. His activity is enhanced by the sort of pleasure he takes
in it. Of course it is no easy matter to deterrnine where attention
should go when an activity is complex; and it is certainly difficult
to determine the correct action-type descriptions of complexly
structured energeiai, especially when the structure is, as it happens,
temporally sequential. But these difficulties are just the difficulties
involved in doing moral and political philosophy.
Some shifts in description are shifts from energeiai to kineseis.
For instance, doing philosophy is properly standardly described as
enquiring into truths of a certain sort. But when a particular
person's doing philosophy is correctly described as a means to his
achieving fame (i.e. what he does in doing philosophy is described
so that some other means could be substituted without loss), his
doing philosophy is described as a kinesis. Other shifts in descrip-
tion retain the energeia classification, but relocate the hexeis
exercised. For instance, a particular person's doing philosophy may
be an energeia if what he does is properly described as intellectual
combat, not for the sake of winning the argument, but for the sake
of playing the game, a self-contained exercise of the appropriate
intellectually combative faculties. Such a person's activity in doing
philosophy would be enhanced if he took the appropriate sort of
pleasure in it, that is, if he properly conceived what he was doing
as enquiry rather than combat. His pleasure would, of course, be
transformed as well. In one sense, he would be doing what he had
been doing before; in another, not. In a sense, the person who does
philosophy as intellectual combat is not doing philosophy under its
proper description, even though he is engaging in an activity
described as an energeia, and may, kata sumbebekos, discover more
truths than the truth seeker.
It is in this way that the pleasures of the wise and virtuous differ
from those of the foolish and vicious. The virtuous are not assured
of quantitatively more pleasure than the vicious, for the actions of
the vicious can quite often be described as energeiai, and as pleasur-
able. But the descriptions of the actions of the vicious do not fit the
standard normic descriptions of those action-types. Just as a virtu-
ous person finds pleasure in the exercise of his natural hexeis, not
treating his activities as means to pleasures, so too he does not
regard his virtues as ways of achieving happiness. His happiness
consists in the exercise of his virtues. But this is only possible

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 495

because what he does can be described as energeiai, as self-

contained. In describing his actions rightly, the virtuous person also
has the right conception of happiness, as an end which is intrinsic
to what he does, constituted by his activities rather than a con-
sequence of his exercising them.
We are now ready to turn to the puzzling passage in B, where
Aristotle says that pleasure perfects the exercise of natural hexeis
like the bloom of youth in their prime (II74b33-35). This is
initially puzzling: every energeia is by definition whole and com-
plete, as perfect as it can be. But pleasurable activities need not be
universally or necessarily pleasurable for all who perform them.
Every youth is young, but not every young person has the bloom of
youth, has the shining quality of living his youth in just the right
way, exercising the appropriate hexeis is the appropriate way. The
youth of those who are not only young, but who have the bloom of
youth, is fully accomplished and perfected: their youth is every-
thing youth should be.
Having praised Aristotle for avoiding the common error of
assimilating the enjoyment of activities to the enjoyment of feelings,
Urmson accuses him of assimilating the enjoyment of feelings to
the enjoyment of activities.' But Aristotle is not making an error:
he is making a recommendation about how the virtuous man ought
to regard his pleasures, what aspect of them he ought to focus on,
and how he ought properly to describe them. There is an un-
Aristotelian ring to Urmson's terminology: 'enjoyment of feelings'
is elliptical. One must fill in: 'enjoying the taste of apples',
'enjoying the feel of velvet'. When someone is playing a flute
sonata, his attention must be carefully balanced between con-
centrating on exercising his hexeis and concentrating on the flute
sonata. If he errs on the skin-side, focusing on the hexeis, his
pleasure in the sonata is diminished; if his concentration is wholly
on the sonata, what he is doing is more accurately described as
attending to the sonata.
Aristotle's answer to the question of how a person ought to
regard his pleasures is clear. One should focus on the whole
activity (and on the activity as a whole), including the object (when
there is normally an object), and not merely on the feeling side. (It
is wonderful what apples can add to the pleasure of tasting apples.)
In the case of taste and touch, this is difficult to do, because the

I J. 0. Urmson, 'Aristotle on Pleasure' in Aristotle, ed. by J. M. E. Moravcsik

(New York, I967), p. I43.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
496 AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY:

feeling side is strong and our apprehension of the objects is rela-

tively diminished. This is why Aristotle thinks that akrasia is most
common in matters of taste and touch, food and sex. Because our
sensations are strong, intense and subtle, it is difficult to keep the
whole activity-and-object in mind. For a person of weak character,
acting on better judgment is difficult in such circumstances pre-
cisely because he is focusing only on an aspect of his activity, even
when he has the whole picture correctly in mind. Though the
akrates knows that he is doing, there is a sense in which he focuses
improperly.'
We are now in a better position to determine whether the account
of pleasure in B is a violation of the account in A; or whether, as
Owen has argued, it is an answer to a different, and much more
sophisticated question. Owen certainly is quite right in saying that
in A, Aristotle concentrates on describing the sorts of things that
are pleasurable and enjoyable in themselves, attacking the pre-
suppositions of the theories that either make pleasure the good, or
not good at all; in B, he concentrates on the nature of enjoying and
its relation to what is enjoyed. But though these are distinct, the
analysis in B rests on an understanding of descriptions of paradigm
cases of what is pleasurable and enjoyable. Since Aristotle's general
aim is to analyse the connections between pleasure, virtue and
happiness, the discussion of pleasure in A, as an energeia tes kata
phusin hexeos, is a necessary preparation, especially since that
analysis gives pleasure a legitimate if not actually honorific status
as a guide to natural hexeis. It is sensible of Aristotle to begin, in A,
with the sorts of simple energeiai which, like seeing, are pleasurable
and perfectly performed in their first exercise. We need neither
learn to perform these activities nor learn what is pleasurable about
them. With paradigmatic simple energeiai in mind, Aristotle can
turn, as he does in B, to more complex activities, which must be
properly described to reveal the natural hexeis involved, especially
when those hexeis must be developed, and sometimes checked. We
would not understand what is properly pleasurable about complex
energeiai which can have kinesis descriptions unless we had the
analysis of A to set us clear about the energeia descriptions of
paradigmatic cases. Had we begun with complex energeiai, with
complex descriptions, we might have been misled about why they
are pleasurable, when they are pleasurable kata sumbebekos.

I Cf. my 'Plato and Aristotle on Belief, Habit and Akrasia', American

Philosophical Quarterly, 1970.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN ARISTOTLE S ETHICS 497

Owen thinks that the account in A stands under a Platonic

shadow, cast by a concern about whether we can be mistaken about
our pleasures; in B, however, he finds Aristotle 'his own man', no
longer primarily worried about that problem. But it is the dis-
cussion of the relation between enjoyment and its objects that best
solves the problem of error. For when complex pleasures can be
described in several ways, as either energeiai or kineseis, their being
pleasurable can be misleading. When a person is misled in this
way, his pleasures will not bring him happiness.
Establishing that a hexis is natural, and that its exercise is
pleasurable does not, by itself, determine what place, if any, it
should have in a well ordered life. Pleasures can interfere with one
another, and concentration on some pleasures-especially those
that tend to be intense-can prevent our developing other natural
hexeis. Weighting the importance of various and sometimes con-
flicting pleasures would already presuppose already having ordered
the relative importance of the natural hexeis involved. Yet the
difficulties of balancing out the claims of various natural hexeis do
not disqualify pleasure as a clue to identifying them, and thus as a
guide, a fallible and insufficient one, but a guide nevertheless, to
what is good.'

LIVINGSTONE COLLEGE, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

I An earlier draft of this paper received the benefit of harsh criticism from
participants of a meeting of the Southern Association for Ancient Philosophy
held at Oxford, in September 1972. Although I would be surprised if they
were satisfied with my analysis, I am grateful to Jim Dybikowski, Malcolm
Schofield and David Hamlyn for their constructive suggestions.

This content downloaded from

95.234.211.227 on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:49:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms