The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

pointed out in
what sense pleasures are good without qualification and in what
sense some are not good; now both the brutes and children pursue
pleasures of the latter kind (and the man of practical wisdom
pursues tranquil freedom from that kind), viz. those which imply
appetite and pain, i.e. the bodily pleasures (for it is these that
are of this nature) and the excesses of them, in respect of which
the self-indulgent man is self-indulent. This is why the temperate
man avoids these pleasures; for even he has pleasures of his
own.
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    But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided;
for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad
because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary
of that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and
bad, is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer
of Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good,
as the greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is
not successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially
just a species of evil.
    And (F) if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the
chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be
some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad.
Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded
activities, that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our
dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should
be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is
pleasure. Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most
pleasures might perhaps be bad without qualification. And for this
reason all men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave
pleasure into their ideal of happiness-and reasonably too; for no
activity is perfect when it is impeded, and happiness is a perfect
thing; this is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and
external goods, i.e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may
not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim on the
rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is
good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense. Now
because we need fortune as well as other things, some people think
good fortune the same thing as happiness; but it is not that, for
even good fortune itself when in excess is an impediment, and
perhaps should then be no longer called good fortune; for its limit
is fixed by reference to happiness.
    And indeed the fact that all things, both brutes and men, pursue
pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:
No voice is wholly lost that many peoples…
    But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the
best for all, neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all
pursue pleasure. And perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure
they think they pursue nor that which they would say they pursue,
but the same pleasure; for all things have by nature something
divine in them. But the bodily pleasures have appropriated the name
both because we oftenest steer our course for them and because all
men share in them; thus because they alone are familiar, men think
there are no others.
    It is evident also that if pleasure, i.e. the activity of our
faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that the happy
man lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he need pleasure,
if it is not a good but the happy man may even live a painful life?
For pain is neither an evil nor a good, if pleasure is not; why
then should he avoid it? Therefore, too, the life of the good man
will not be pleasanter than that of any one else, if his activities
are not more pleasant.
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    (G) With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, but
not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which the self-indulgent
man is concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary pains are
bad. For the contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures
good in the sense in which even that which is not bad is good? Or
are they good up to a point? Is it that where you have states and
processes of which there cannot be too much, there cannot be too
much of the corresponding pleasure, and that where there can be too
much of the one there can be too much of the other also? Now there
can be too much of bodily goods, and the bad man is