It's easy enough to set up a general law or rule. It's when you have to apply the rule in practice that the fun begins. So it is with Aristotle's idea of the mean when applied to the virtue of courage. He defines virtue as a mean between two vices such as "the man of practical wisdom would determine it", for the vices exceed or fall short of "what is right in both passions and actions while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate." Then, when our man of virtue actually goes forth and acts in the world he acts upon three principles: he must have knowledge, must choose his acts for their own sakes, and must proceed from "a firm and unchanging character."
Very good, that is the theory. How does it work out in practice when considering the virtue of courage?
In practice Aristotle wants to privilege a certain kind of courage. It is the courage of the hoplite, the citizen-soldier that stood in line with his fellow citizens to defend his polis. You can understand why. The independence and civic pride of each polis depended upon the courage of its hoplites, the first heavy infantry in history. Heavy infantry is designed for "shock" battle, and victory depends on soldiers with the courage or the discipline to stay in line, not matter how bad things get. How about your Aristotelian mean then?
You might think that the professional soldier, experienced and knowledgeable in the "many empty alarms in war" and the contingencies of fighting, would represent the mean. But the professionals "turn cowards" when things turn against them "while citizen forces die at their posts." In other words, the professional soldier observes the mean of courage, while the citizen-soldier stands at an excess. Perhaps the professional soldier, although possessing knowledge, suffers a defect since he does not choose acts for their own sakes, but subordinate to the job of professional soldiering. Still, he seems to exhibit a firm and unchanging character: he does what is sensible and practical. Does not then the citizen soldier exceed the mean when he continues to fight shoulder to shoulder with his brothers against all odds?
The "sanguine" also merit the back of Aristotle's hand. They are "confident in danger" because they are used to success. But put them in a sudden firefight and they run, unlike the braver man who is "fearless and undisturbed in sudden alarms". The "ignorant" are just as bad as the sanguine, only worse. If "deceived about the facts" they often fly from the battle as soon as they are undeceived And as for courage from "passion", why "wild beasts act under the influence of pain". Men who fight under the influence of passion, when from anger or pain, are "pugnacious but not brave". They act not from honor or rule, but from feeling alone. But Aristotle allows their pugnacity as "something akin to courage." So here Aristotle keeps with his system: passionate courage is all from feeling, not a balanced application of feeling and reason.
To privilege his citizen-soldier, Aristotle must meddle with his definition of courage, defined back in Book II-2 as the mean between the excess of rashness and the defect of cowardice. "For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger become rash." (1104a21-23) Now he wants us to forget that, for his hoplite must not observe the mean but exceed it if his polis is to win the shock battle of heavy infantry. Now he says that the man who "exceeds in fearlessness has no name". Really? I thought he was the rash chap. Not a bit of it. The rash man, it turns out, "is thought to be boastful and only a pretender to courage". Most of the rash men are "a mixture of rashness and cowardice." It turns out that the coward and the rash man are similar. They both of them exceed and they both of them fall short. So Aristotle's new analysis conveniently leaves the courageous man in the middle (rather than at the extreme you'd think he is at since both the rash chap and the cowardly chap fall short in the courage department).
Why all this fol-de-rol? Aristotle could have held with his excess-mean-defect model just by saying that the rash are wild and excessive. They want to rush out and attack the enemy rather than advance in the right way at the right time with the right intention. Sounds like he'd had a bad day in the agora and had forgotten his system for a moment.
So what then is the man of courage? He lives a mean between fear and confidence, but some things he does not fear: "poverty and disease" and "the things that do not proceed from vice". Certainly he should fear "insult to his wife", but he must "stand his ground against what is awe-inspiring" even unto death and be willing to face the noblest death, to fall in battle. Thus he fears what he should, and fears not what he should not, for the "brave man feels and acts according to the merits of the case and in whatever way the rule directs." Courage is the bravery of the hoplite soldier, but not the courage of the professional soldier, not the man in a fury of passion or anger, nor the habitual courage of the "sanguine" person used to conquering, not the courage of the ignorant. Courage is for "facing what is painful", accepting pain for the end aimed at. In the virtuous man, the virtue of courage is all the more excellent since the more virtuous a man is, the more painful is the thought of death.
The idea of the mean is a great idea. It's just that, when it comes to courage and the defense of the city-state, the mean between excess and defect just doesn't cut it. The deeper Aristotle gets into his analysis of the courageous person the more his model of the mean falls apart. See how he proceeds. In Book III-6 some things are to be feared; some are not. But the epitome of courage is courage in battle, courage against death, "the most terrible of all things". Never mind death at sea or from disease; the courageous man is only concerned with the noblest things: death in battle, which is "honored in city-states and at the courts of monarchs." But this is not a mean between excess and defect, but a striving towards the utmost. He is "brave who is fearless in the face of a noble death." What then becomes of courage as a mean "with regard to feelings of fear and confidence"? They are all forgotten in the celebration of a good death.
But wait, now we are done with Book III-6. In Book III-7, the brave man, "dauntless as may be" may now, Aristotle tells us, "fear even the things that are not beyond human strength". But he will "face them as he ought and as the rule directs". Now the courageous man is not fearless after all, and so we are back at the mean, and the right action at the right time in the right way. But he will, of course, do all this facing of fear only for a noble end.
You can go just so far with that. Then it is best to pull up like Mr. Brooke. In Book III-8 we gather to dispose of the courage of professional soldiers, the passionate, the sanguine and the ignorant, who are said to be courageous but, according to Aristotle, are not. We come to praise only the courage of citizen-soldiers who "die at their posts" rather than admit that discretion is the greater part of valor.
Finally, in Book III-9, Aristotle trims his notion that courage is a mean between confidence and fear. It is really more about fear, the "things that inspire fear", for "facing what is painful" just as the boxer takes the distressing blows for the pleasant aim of winning the "crown and the honors". Thus it is not necessarily always the case that the exercise of virtue is a pleasant, lifelong journey of eudaimonia. Getting there is often painful.
It's all very well to talk of virtue as a mean between excess and defect. But the man of virtue is not in fact living at a delicate balance point between two extremes. The virtuous person is hacking through a jungle armed only with a machete, he is living an arduous life that is located right out on the edge of the Bell Curve. The man practicing the virtue of courage is straining to the utmost to practice that virtue in the right way at the right time for the right reason. He is standing shoulder to shoulder with his fellow citizens slowly advancing towards the opposing line of hoplites. His reward is not to occupy a mean but to cherish the hope that, if he falls in the melée, his awful and painful death will be celebrated as noble and honored by his fellow citizens.
It is telling that the Prussians solved the problem of shock battle with "Prussian discipline" and file closers. They felt that the fear of combat could only be neutralized by the mindlessness of discipline and the fear of the sergeant. It was only the in the 20th century that the Germans turned away from compulsion and General von Seeckt called for soldiers "self-reliant, self-confident, dedicated, and joyful in taking responsibility." So for Seeckt courage came more from confidence, not from overcoming fear or a mean between confidence and fear. Courage is a matter of extremes, as Aristotle accepts, when he shifts his gaze from theory to practice.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
How to Judge Actions
If you are a philosopher like Aristotle or maybe a legislator in the business of judging the actions of lesser mortals, you need a template, a measure, by which to rule and hand out honors and punishments.
To do this you probably need to be able to "distinguish between the voluntary and the involuntary" action. Sometimes, of course, you have to do something, such as throw goods overboard in a storm, that you would normally never do voluntarily. And sometimes you would face death rather than voluntarily do something evil.
But what about things done by reason of ignorance? Obviously, says Aristotle, everything "done by reason of ignorance is not voluntary". Now he makes a fine distinction. Suppose you do something in ignorance that you would presumably not do voluntarily. If you repent of your action, your action is "involuntary." If you do not repent, your action is "not voluntary."
So, says Aristotle, if you throw a pointed spear at a friend, thinking that your spear "had a button on it", your action would be involuntary, since you would surely repent of your action. That is action in ignorance that is involuntary. It is hard to think of an action in ignorance that is "not voluntary," i.e., not repented. Suppose you threw a pointed spear at an enemy thinking it had a button on it. Would you regret the action when the poor chap fell down dead? If you didn't regret, the action in ignorance would be "not voluntary." Perhaps a better example would be Candidate Romney saying that he doesn't worry about the "very poor." Everyone thinks that this is a stunning error, because conservatives do too worry about the poor. But if the struggling middle--the folks that Romney says he does worry about--were to wake up and say to themselves, "Wow, finally a politician that cares about us and not the bloody poor!" then Romney would not repent of the action in ignorance. So that would be action in ignorance that is "not voluntary."
But Aristotle is not yet done. He does not want to admit that actions due to anger or appetite could be involuntary. The "wicked man is ignorant of what he ought to do" but that does not make his ignorance involuntary. Actions done in ignorance but where "the moving principle is in the agent himself" are voluntary. Thus we could say that the liberal welfare state policies that have cratered the working class are voluntary. Liberals may have been ignorant of the specific consequences of their policies, but they cannot hide from the results. It is evil to encourage people to exchange their birthright for a mess of pottage. Period.
To do this you probably need to be able to "distinguish between the voluntary and the involuntary" action. Sometimes, of course, you have to do something, such as throw goods overboard in a storm, that you would normally never do voluntarily. And sometimes you would face death rather than voluntarily do something evil.
But what about things done by reason of ignorance? Obviously, says Aristotle, everything "done by reason of ignorance is not voluntary". Now he makes a fine distinction. Suppose you do something in ignorance that you would presumably not do voluntarily. If you repent of your action, your action is "involuntary." If you do not repent, your action is "not voluntary."
So, says Aristotle, if you throw a pointed spear at a friend, thinking that your spear "had a button on it", your action would be involuntary, since you would surely repent of your action. That is action in ignorance that is involuntary. It is hard to think of an action in ignorance that is "not voluntary," i.e., not repented. Suppose you threw a pointed spear at an enemy thinking it had a button on it. Would you regret the action when the poor chap fell down dead? If you didn't regret, the action in ignorance would be "not voluntary." Perhaps a better example would be Candidate Romney saying that he doesn't worry about the "very poor." Everyone thinks that this is a stunning error, because conservatives do too worry about the poor. But if the struggling middle--the folks that Romney says he does worry about--were to wake up and say to themselves, "Wow, finally a politician that cares about us and not the bloody poor!" then Romney would not repent of the action in ignorance. So that would be action in ignorance that is "not voluntary."
But Aristotle is not yet done. He does not want to admit that actions due to anger or appetite could be involuntary. The "wicked man is ignorant of what he ought to do" but that does not make his ignorance involuntary. Actions done in ignorance but where "the moving principle is in the agent himself" are voluntary. Thus we could say that the liberal welfare state policies that have cratered the working class are voluntary. Liberals may have been ignorant of the specific consequences of their policies, but they cannot hide from the results. It is evil to encourage people to exchange their birthright for a mess of pottage. Period.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
No Sex, We're Japanese?
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has two fascinating looks at sex and marriage in Japan. There's a poll out that says the Japanese are uninterested in sex.
Hold on, says an emailer to Glenn. The real problem is the three lost decades in Japan since the meltdown in the 1990s.
And, of course, our Japanese friends have been patiently doing Keynesian economics now for three decades in a conventional attempt to get out of their economic doldrums. They have little to show for it.
This helps put Mitt Romney's bonehead comment about not worrying about the very poor in context. The Democratic Party is an over-under party, a combination of the top 20 percent in their tenured sinecures and the bottom 20 percent in their lifetime benefits. The Republican Party is the party for the people in the middle, the people without benefits and without government sinecures.
The Republican Party better pay attention to the tragic situation of ordinary young people in Japan. Because we must not let that happen here. So it's good that Mitt Romney is paying attention.
The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had “no interest” in or even “despised” sex. That’s almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.
If that’s not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.
Hold on, says an emailer to Glenn. The real problem is the three lost decades in Japan since the meltdown in the 1990s.
The statistics you link to miss the point. Young Japanese guys are as horny and desperate to get laid as any guys in the world. Probably more so, since only young Arabs get less actual sex. Japanese girls are as eager to find an alpha male boyfriend as any other nationality. Japan still produces the most prolific and extraordinary porn in the world. Someone is watching it.
Unfortunately, three lost economic decades has resulted in a plethora of un- or under-employed young beta men, without real jobs or prospects of success, and young women who look at these prospective suitors and despair.
And, of course, our Japanese friends have been patiently doing Keynesian economics now for three decades in a conventional attempt to get out of their economic doldrums. They have little to show for it.
This helps put Mitt Romney's bonehead comment about not worrying about the very poor in context. The Democratic Party is an over-under party, a combination of the top 20 percent in their tenured sinecures and the bottom 20 percent in their lifetime benefits. The Republican Party is the party for the people in the middle, the people without benefits and without government sinecures.
The Republican Party better pay attention to the tragic situation of ordinary young people in Japan. Because we must not let that happen here. So it's good that Mitt Romney is paying attention.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Romney's "Gaffes"
First we learned that Mitt Romney enjoyed firing people. Yeah, I know the context was that he enjoyed firing insurance companies, but coming from the private equity guy at Bain Capital, it was a bit jarring.
Now "foot-in-mouth" Mitt has dropped another one. He says he's not worried about the very poor.
But we all know that the Democrats are chuckling this morning. They think they are going to bury Romney with his gaffes.
Only maybe people worry about gaffes too much. I remember back in the spring of 1980 that a Democratic friend was rubbing his hands with glee over all the gaffes that Ronald Reagan had made over the years. He reckoned that the Dems would demolish Reagan come the Fall. Didn't quite work out that way, did it?
What Mitt Romney has to do is turn lemon into lemonade. Yeah, he enjoys firing people. Not hardworking Americans but arrogant politicians that bury the nation in debt. Yeah, he worries about the poor, about how the poor have been culturally nuked by 50 years of Great Society liberalism. And once he's got the "heart of America" back to work then he'll start to worry about the liberal-created underclass that is going badly wrong. But the people he really cares about are the folks that are struggling in today's Obama-wrecked economy.
And isn't it convenient that "big book" Charles Murray has just published Coming Apart?
Now "foot-in-mouth" Mitt has dropped another one. He says he's not worried about the very poor.
"I’m in this race because I care about Americans," Romney said. "I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it."Yeah, I know the context, and I agree that the people that are really struggling are the people that want to get a job, pay their taxes, obey the law, and follow the rules.
...
"I’m not concerned about the very rich — they’re doing just fine," he said. "I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95% of Americans who right now are struggling. I’ll continue to take that message across the nation."
But we all know that the Democrats are chuckling this morning. They think they are going to bury Romney with his gaffes.
Only maybe people worry about gaffes too much. I remember back in the spring of 1980 that a Democratic friend was rubbing his hands with glee over all the gaffes that Ronald Reagan had made over the years. He reckoned that the Dems would demolish Reagan come the Fall. Didn't quite work out that way, did it?
What Mitt Romney has to do is turn lemon into lemonade. Yeah, he enjoys firing people. Not hardworking Americans but arrogant politicians that bury the nation in debt. Yeah, he worries about the poor, about how the poor have been culturally nuked by 50 years of Great Society liberalism. And once he's got the "heart of America" back to work then he'll start to worry about the liberal-created underclass that is going badly wrong. But the people he really cares about are the folks that are struggling in today's Obama-wrecked economy.
And isn't it convenient that "big book" Charles Murray has just published Coming Apart?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
End of Mitt Milquetoast
The Republican voters, the pollsters tell us, are interested in one thing: a candidate that can beat Barack Obama. Presumably that's why we fell in love with Newt Gingrich for half an hour when he beat up the media and liberals in the debates before the South Carolina primary.
The Romney campaign learned something from South Carolina and we learned something about the Romneyites.
To get back on top after the South Carolina loss the Romney campaign had to fight back against the surging Newt Gingrich. The New York Times chappies Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny helpfully gave us a little insight into the Romney operation as it responded to the Gingrich challenge.
That's what we have been wanting to read for months. We want to know that the Romney campaign has the depth and the toughness to take on the Obama Chicago machine. We want to know that the Romney campaign has the will to win. Now we know.
Now we know that when the Romney campaign got behind, it had the organization, the means and the will to mount a kill-and-destroy mission to shoulder its way back into the lead.
That's what we have been waiting for.
The Romney campaign learned something from South Carolina and we learned something about the Romneyites.
To get back on top after the South Carolina loss the Romney campaign had to fight back against the surging Newt Gingrich. The New York Times chappies Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny helpfully gave us a little insight into the Romney operation as it responded to the Gingrich challenge.
In a call last Sunday morning, just hours after Mr. Romney’s double-digit loss to Mr. Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, the Romney team outlined the new approach to the candidate. Put aside the more acute focus on President Obama and narrow in on Mr. Gingrich.
Find lines of attack that could goad Mr. Gingrich into angry responses and rally mainstream Republicans. Swarm Gingrich campaign events to rattle him. Have Mr. Romney drop his above-the-fray persona and carry the fight directly to his opponent, especially in two critical debates scheduled for the week.
That's what we have been wanting to read for months. We want to know that the Romney campaign has the depth and the toughness to take on the Obama Chicago machine. We want to know that the Romney campaign has the will to win. Now we know.
Now we know that when the Romney campaign got behind, it had the organization, the means and the will to mount a kill-and-destroy mission to shoulder its way back into the lead.
That's what we have been waiting for.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Leaders Must Be Winners
Why are leaders such cowards? Why do they duck the hard decisions for decades? Why is Jerry Brown, in his 70s, unwilling to stand up to the unions in California? Steven Greenhut:
Since politicians long to be of consequence, what's the problem? Why do they duck the hard issues? Jay D. Homnick listened in on Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) as he spoke to some Jewish voters in Florida about the problem.
There is a paradox here. For a politician to be remembered, he needs to hold office at a time when tough decisions are needed. But politicians know that they can't "face tough issues" when the voters don't want the tough issues faced. That way leads to electoral defeat and the end of a political career. But people want to be led by winners. There is something instinctual about that.
Rahm Emanuel is right. You should never let a crisis go to waste. But let us look at his cynical comment seriously. Between the lines he is saying that you cannot get the voters to agree to change unless things are falling apart. For years, Republicans have wanted to "reform entitlements," but the American people didn't want them to. Why? Because they are not broken. Not yet. When the crisis finally comes, then the American people will be ready for a strong leader to reform entitlements and lead them to the Promised Land.
Of course, Republicans and conservatives say that The Obamis have utterly bungled their crisis opportunity in the winter of 2009. Instead of courageous action to fix the budget they used the crisis to double down on their failed big-government project with stimulus for Dems and ObamaCare for the uninsured and crony capitalism for green energy.
This year, we are going to find out if the American people agree with the Republicans about Obama. You'd have to say that, if they do, Mitt Romney, crisis manager and corporate turnaround specialist, is just the president that Hollywood central casting would choose. Mitt looks like a strong leader, and he has the record of a strong leader and a winner.
And people want winners to lead them through tough times. It's in the genes.
Many of us had hoped that Brown, who no longer seeks higher office, would embrace the tough work of real governance and take on his own allies—i.e., the public sector unions—who are the key obstacle to reviving California.
Since politicians long to be of consequence, what's the problem? Why do they duck the hard issues? Jay D. Homnick listened in on Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) as he spoke to some Jewish voters in Florida about the problem.
Firstly, they like to be popular and do not look forward to butting heads with an entrenched hostile constituency. Secondly, they always want to be associated with success and removed from failure; why take on challenges where the likelihood of emerging as a victor is minimal?
"When was the last time you heard a candidate for Governor build his campaign around the pledge to revitalize urban education?"
There is a paradox here. For a politician to be remembered, he needs to hold office at a time when tough decisions are needed. But politicians know that they can't "face tough issues" when the voters don't want the tough issues faced. That way leads to electoral defeat and the end of a political career. But people want to be led by winners. There is something instinctual about that.
Rahm Emanuel is right. You should never let a crisis go to waste. But let us look at his cynical comment seriously. Between the lines he is saying that you cannot get the voters to agree to change unless things are falling apart. For years, Republicans have wanted to "reform entitlements," but the American people didn't want them to. Why? Because they are not broken. Not yet. When the crisis finally comes, then the American people will be ready for a strong leader to reform entitlements and lead them to the Promised Land.
Of course, Republicans and conservatives say that The Obamis have utterly bungled their crisis opportunity in the winter of 2009. Instead of courageous action to fix the budget they used the crisis to double down on their failed big-government project with stimulus for Dems and ObamaCare for the uninsured and crony capitalism for green energy.
This year, we are going to find out if the American people agree with the Republicans about Obama. You'd have to say that, if they do, Mitt Romney, crisis manager and corporate turnaround specialist, is just the president that Hollywood central casting would choose. Mitt looks like a strong leader, and he has the record of a strong leader and a winner.
And people want winners to lead them through tough times. It's in the genes.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Are Incontinent Fools Wise?
You might wonder why Aristotle is so interested in incontinence that he devotes the whole of Book VII of his Nichomachean Ethics to it. Is that really a problem for philosophers to worry about?
Well, it is, at least the kind of incontinence that Aristotle worries about.
The continent man is one "ready to abide by the result of his calculations" while the incontinent man is "ready to abandon them." Why does the continent man abide by his calculations? Because he knows "his appetites are bad, and refuses on account of his rational principles to follow them." The incontinent man, on the other hand, abandons his rational principles "as a result of passion."
But if you chop logic like the sophists, worries Aristotle, then you might end up unraveling your rational spaghetti into believing that "folly coupled with incontinence is virtue." For if continence makes a man stand by a false opinion, then it is good if an incontinent man, that abandons "any and every opinion", abandons a false opinion.
Aristotle briskly clears away the problem of this sophistical mirage, the virtuous incontinent, for he argues that the incontinent man is in the position of someone "having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk." He is like a city that "passes all the right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them". He is neither good nor bad, just a muddle.
But what about the continent man with the wrong opinion? Well, Aristotle says, these are likely strong-headed people, "hard to persuade in the first instance and not easily persuaded to change". This is to suggest that an continent man can be consumed with "passion and appetite". On the contrary, the "continent man will be easy to persuade". For being a man of rational principle, he is not led by his appetites and his pleasures, but readily bows to rational persuasion.
But let us not confuse the incontinent man with the self-indulgent. The first stands by his choice, and is not apt to repent his follies, while the incontinent man means well but is led astray by his passions. The self-indulgent man is "incurable and the incontinent curable." Think of the difference between dropsy and epilepsy, says Aristotle. The "former is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness."
So that's all right!
Well, it is, at least the kind of incontinence that Aristotle worries about.
The continent man is one "ready to abide by the result of his calculations" while the incontinent man is "ready to abandon them." Why does the continent man abide by his calculations? Because he knows "his appetites are bad, and refuses on account of his rational principles to follow them." The incontinent man, on the other hand, abandons his rational principles "as a result of passion."
But if you chop logic like the sophists, worries Aristotle, then you might end up unraveling your rational spaghetti into believing that "folly coupled with incontinence is virtue." For if continence makes a man stand by a false opinion, then it is good if an incontinent man, that abandons "any and every opinion", abandons a false opinion.
Aristotle briskly clears away the problem of this sophistical mirage, the virtuous incontinent, for he argues that the incontinent man is in the position of someone "having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk." He is like a city that "passes all the right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of them". He is neither good nor bad, just a muddle.
But what about the continent man with the wrong opinion? Well, Aristotle says, these are likely strong-headed people, "hard to persuade in the first instance and not easily persuaded to change". This is to suggest that an continent man can be consumed with "passion and appetite". On the contrary, the "continent man will be easy to persuade". For being a man of rational principle, he is not led by his appetites and his pleasures, but readily bows to rational persuasion.
But let us not confuse the incontinent man with the self-indulgent. The first stands by his choice, and is not apt to repent his follies, while the incontinent man means well but is led astray by his passions. The self-indulgent man is "incurable and the incontinent curable." Think of the difference between dropsy and epilepsy, says Aristotle. The "former is a permanent, the latter an intermittent badness."
So that's all right!
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