The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

as being concerned), while the
others are not necessary but worthy of choice in themselves (e.g.
victory, honour, wealth, and good and pleasant things of this
sort). This being so, (a) those who go to excess with reference to
the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in themselves, are
not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the
qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger’,-not
simply incontinent, on the ground that they are different from
incontinent people and are called incontinent by reason of a
resemblance. (Compare the case of Anthropos (Man), who won a
contest at the Olympic games; in his case the general definition of
man differed little from the definition peculiar to him, but yet it
was different.) This is shown by the fact that incontinence either
without qualification or in respect of some particular bodily
pleasure is blamed not only as a fault but as a kind of vice, while
none of the people who are incontinent in these other respects is
so blamed.
    But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily
enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent
man are concerned, he who pursues the excesses of things
pleasant-and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst
and heat and cold and all the objects of touch and taste-not by
choice but contrary to his choice and his judgement, is called
incontinent, not with the qualification ‘in respect of this or
that’, e.g. of anger, but just simply. This is confirmed by the
fact that men are called ‘soft’ with regard to these pleasures, but
not with regard to any of the others. And for this reason we group
together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the continent and
the temperate man-but not any of these other types-because they are
concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pains; but though
these are concerned with the same objects, they are not similarly
related to them, but some of them make a deliberate choice while
the others do not.
    This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man
who without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the
excesses of pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who
does so because of his strong appetites; for what would the former
do, if he had in addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain
at the lack of the ‘necessary’ objects?
    Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of
things generically noble and good-for some pleasant things are by
nature worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and
others are intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction-e.g.
wealth, gain, victory, honour. And with reference to all objects
whether of this or of the intermediate kind men are not blamed for
being affected by them, for desiring and loving them, but for doing
so in a certain way, i.e. for going to excess. (This is why all
those who contrary to the rule either are mastered by or pursue one
of the objects which are naturally noble and good, e.g. those who
busy themselves more than they ought about honour or about children
and parents, (are not wicked); for these too are good, and those
who busy themselves about them are praised; but yet there is an
excess even in them-if like Niobe one were to fight even against
the gods, or were to be as much devoted to one’s father as Satyrus
nicknamed ‘the filial’, who was thought to be very silly on this
point.) There is no wickedness, then, with regard to these objects,
for the reason named, viz. because each of them is by nature a
thing worthy of choice for its own sake; yet excesses in respect of
them are bad and to be avoided. Similarly there is no incontinence
with regard to them; for incontinence is not only to be avoided but
is also a thing worthy of blame; but owing to a similarity in the
state of feeling people apply the name incontinence, adding in each
case what it is in respect of, as we may describe as a bad doctor
or a bad actor one whom we should not call bad, simply. As, then,
in this case we do not apply the term without qualification because
each of these conditions is no shadness but only analogous to it,
so it is clear that in the other case also that alone must be taken
to be incontinence and continence which is concerned with the same
objects as temperance and self-indulgence, but we apply the term to
anger by virtue of a resemblance; and this is why we say with a
qualification ‘incontinent in respect of anger’ as we