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common people and those of the better class wish the best men to rule;
for thus and thus alone do all get what they aim at. Unanimity seems,
then, to be political friendship, as indeed it is commonly said to
be; for it is concerned with things that are to our interest and have
an influence on our life.
Now such unanimity is found among good men; for they are unanimous
both in themselves and with one another, being, so to say, of one
mind (for the wishes of such men are constant and not at the mercy
of opposing currents like a strait of the sea), and they wish for
what is just and what is advantageous, and these are the objects of
their common endeavour as well. But bad men cannot be unanimous except
to a small extent, any more than they can be friends, since they aim
at getting more than their share of advantages, while in labour and
public service they fall short of their share; and each man wishing
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NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 122
for advantage to himself criticizes his neighbour and stands in his
way; for if people do not watch it carefully the common weal is soon
destroyed. The result is that they are in a state of faction, putting
compulsion on each other but unwilling themselves to do what is just.
7
Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited, more than
those who have been well treated love those that have treated them
well, and this is discussed as though it were paradoxical. Most people
think it is because the latter are in the position of debtors and
the former of creditors; and therefore as, in the case of loans, debtors
wish their creditors did not exist, while creditors actually take
care of the safety of their debtors, so it is thought that benefactors
wish the objects of their action to exist since they will then get
their gratitude, while the beneficiaries take no interest in making
this return. Epicharmus would perhaps declare that they say this because
they 'look at things on their bad side', but it is quite like human
nature; for most people are forgetful, and are more anxious to be
well treated than to treat others well. But the cause would seem to
be more deeply rooted in the nature of things; the case of those who
have lent money is not even analogous. For they have no friendly feeling
to their debtors, but only a wish that they may kept safe with a view
to what is to be got from them; while those who have done a service
to others feel friendship and love for those they have served even
if these are not of any use to them and never will be. This is what
happens with craftsmen too; every man loves his own handiwork better
than he would be loved by it if it came alive; and this happens perhaps
most of all with poets; for they have an excessive love for their
own poems, doting on them as if they were their children. This is
what the position of benefactors is like; for that which they have
treated well is their handiwork, and therefore they love this more
than the handiwork does its maker. The cause of this is that existence
is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, and that we exist by
virtue of activity (i.e. by living and acting), and that the handiwork
is in a sense, the producer in activity; he loves his handiwork,
therefore,
because he loves existence. And this is rooted in the nature of things;
for what he is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity.
At the same time to the benefactor that is noble which depends on
his action, so that he delights in the object of his action, whereas
to the patient there is nothing noble in the agent, but at most
something
advantageous, and this is less pleasant and lovable. What is pleasant
is the activity of the present, the hope of the future, the memory
of the past; but most pleasant is that which depends on activity,
and similarly this is most lovable. Now for a man who has made something
his work remains (for the noble is lasting), but for the person acted
on the utility passes away. And the memory of noble things is pleasant,
but that of useful things is not likely to be pleasant, or is less
so; though the reverse seems true of expectation.
Further, love is like activity, being loved like passivity; and loving
and its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more active.
Again, all men love more what they have won by labour; e.g. those
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NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 123
who have made their money love it more than those who have inherited
it; and to be well treated seems to involve no labour, while to treat
others well is a laborious task. These are the reasons, too, why mothers
are fonder of their children than fathers; bringing them into the
world costs them more pains, and they know better that the children
are their own. This last point, too, would seem to apply to benefactors.
8
The question is also debated, whether a man should love himself most,
or some one else. People criticize those who love themselves most,
and call them self-lovers, using this as an epithet of disgrace, and
a bad man seems to do everything for his own sake, and the more so
the more wicked he is-and so men reproach him, for instance, with
doing nothing of his own accord-while the good man acts for honour's
sake, and the more so the better he is, and acts for his friend's
sake, and sacrifices his own interest.
But the facts clash with these arguments, and this is not surprising.
For men say that one ought to love best one's best friend, and man's
best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for his
sake, even if no one is to know of it; and these attributes are found
most of all in a man's attitude towards himself, and so are all the
other attributes by which a friend is defined; for, as we have said,
it is from this relation that all the characteristics of friendship
have extended to our neighbours. All the proverbs, too, agree with
this, e.g. 'a single soul', and 'what friends have is common property',
and 'friendship is equality', and 'charity begins at home'; for all
these marks will be found most in a man's relation to himself; he
is his own best friend and therefore ought to love himself best. It
is therefore a reasonable question, which of the two views we should
follow; for both are plausible.
Perhaps we ought to mark off such arguments from each other and
determine
how far and in what respects each view is right. Now if we grasp the
sense in which each school uses the phrase 'lover of self', the truth
may become evident. Those who use the term as one of reproach ascribe
self-love to people who assign to themselves the greater share of
wealth, honours, and bodily pleasures; for these are what most people
desire, and busy themselves about as though they were the best of
all things, which is the reason, too, why they become objects of
competition.
So those who are grasping with regard to these things gratify their
appetites and in general their feelings and the irrational element
of the soul; and most men are of this nature (which is the reason [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
