The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

do not by nature obey the sense of
shame, but only fear, and do not abstain from bad acts because of
their baseness but through fear of punishment; living by passion
they pursue their own pleasures and the means to them, and and the
opposite pains, and have not even a conception of what is noble and
truly pleasant, since they have never tasted it. What argument
would remould such people? It is hard, if not impossible, to remove
by argument the traits that have long since been incorporated in
the character; and perhaps we must be content if, when all the
influences by which we are thought to become good are present, we
get some tincture of virtue.
    Now some think that we are made good by nature, others by
habituation, others by teaching. Nature’s part evidently does not
depend on us, but as a result of some divine causes is present in
those who are truly fortunate; while argument and teaching, we may
suspect, are not powerful with all men, but the soul of the student
must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble joy
and noble hatred, like earth which is to nourish the seed. For he
who lives as passion directs will not hear argument that dissuades
him, nor understand it if he does; and how can we persuade one in
such a state to change his ways? And in general passion seems to
yield not to argument but to force. The character, then, must
somehow be there already with a kinship to virtue, loving what is
noble and hating what is base.
    But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for
virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live
temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially
when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations
should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have
become customary. But it is surely not enough that when they are
young they should get the right nurture and attention; since they
must, even when they are grown up, practise and be habituated to
them, we shall need laws for this as well, and generally speaking
to cover the whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather
than argument, and punishments rather than the sense of what is
noble.
    This is why some think that legislators ought to stimulate men
to virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble, on the
assumption that those who have been well advanced by the formation
of habits will attend to such influences; and that punishments and
penalties should be imposed on those who disobey and are of
inferior nature, while the incurably bad should be completely
banished. A good man (they think), since he lives with his mind
fixed on what is noble, will submit to argument, while a bad man,
whose desire is for pleasure, is corrected by pain like a beast of
burden. This is, too, why they say the pains inflicted should be
those that are most opposed to the pleasures such men love.
    However that may be, if (as we have said) the man who is to be
good must be well trained and habituated, and go on to spend his
time in worthy occupations and neither willingly nor unwillingly do
bad actions, and if this can be brought about if men live in
accordance with a sort of reason and right order, provided this has
force,-if this be so, the paternal command indeed has not the
required force or compulsive power (nor in general has the command
of one man, unless he be a king or something similar), but the law
has compulsive power, while it is at the same time a rule
proceeding from a sort of practical wisdom and reason. And while
people hate men who oppose their impulses, even if they oppose them
rightly, the law in its ordaining of what is good is not
burdensome.
    In the Spartan state alone, or almost alone, the legislator
seems to have paid attention to questions of nurture and
occupations; in most states such matters have been neglected, and
each man lives as he pleases, Cyclops-fashion, ‘to his own wife and
children dealing law’. Now it is best that there should be a public
and proper care for such matters; but if they are neglected by the
community it would seem right for each man to help his children and
friends towards virtue, and that they should have the power, or at
least the will, to do this.
    It would seem from what has been said that he can do this better
if he makes himself capable of legislating. For public control is
plainly effected by laws, and good control by good laws; whether
written or unwritten would seem to make no difference,