Aristotle Pleasure

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher who was a student of Plato. His work constituted the first comprehensive system of western philosophy. A majority of his work was response to the work of his predecessors such as Socrates and Plato and like them thinks that virtues are essential in leading a well lived life. The Nicomachean ethics was his best known work in the field of ethics and important in development of modern philosophy. In consisted of ten different books in which he looks into and describes the nature of the good life. He says that there is some sort of ultimate good that all humans aim for in the end. Although he more than once says that pleasure is essential for humans he fully explains pleasure in two of his books.

Book 7 and

Philosophers have been critical of pleasure saying that the best thing in the world can't be pleasure and gave opposing views for example how pleasure comes from a process of restoration and a temperate man avoids pleasure. It hinders our thought and is distracting or even harmful so it cannot be a supreme good

Aristotle however attacks these claims saying that none of these things prove pleasure is a bad thing. He responds that pleasure is an activity, hence an end, not a process for example having an interesting conversation is pleasurable throughout and not only in the end. He then goes on to explain why the philosophers were wrong about pleasure.

Firstly he says that what is good or bad can be bad for a particular person at a certain time for example the process that goes into a sick person

Secondly, according to Aristotle, processes that restore us to a hexis are accidentally pleasant but only in incidents. Things that are pleasant by nature are activities that are pleasant in themselves and involve no pain or desire such as