Aristotle's Definition of Non-Rational Pleasure and Pain and Desire
Klaus Corcilius
In Miller, ed., Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: A Critical Guide
Cambridge, 2011

"[T]he perceptual capacity is the *nature* of the animal and the animal's nature is what is ultimately responsible for its specific motions. On this view, then, desiring is not a primitive psychic activity, but itself a *motion* of the ensouled animal prompted by the perception of either pleasurable or painful things. [fn39: 'This matches well with Aristotle's repeated remarks about desire, according to which it is a *moved* mover (and hence a *motion*, DA 433b15; MA 700b35ff, 703a4ff, see also 701b33-702a1), whereas he insists that the soul is an *unmoved* mover. It also matches well De Sensu's claim, according to which pleasure and pain and desire are states of the ensouled animal common to body and soul and which comes about either in conjunction with (meta), or through (dia) perception (436a6-b6)." (CORCILIUS, p. 135) [PSA: note the significance of meta here and the connection to "meta logou" in human psychology; our "accounts" (logoi) of how things are and what we do figure prominently in what we find enjoyable or unenjoyable, as BROADIE-1991 also argues.]

"Aristotle does not think that there is a contradiction in acquiring a certain stable state or a motivational disposition by means of habituation on the one hand and calling this state a 'nature' on the other. [51] For him, biological nature and habituation (ethos, ethizein) work in similar ways, namely by means of a mechanism based on the sensation of non-rational pleasure and pain. The difference is that biological nature does spontaneously what habituation has to achieve by means of a time-consuming effort of conditioning and repetition [PSA: and reflection]; whereas nature disposes us from birth to feel pleasure and pain in doing and feeling certain things, habituation "teaches" us to feel pleasure and pain in relation to things which previously were either indifferent or even painful to us (Rhetoric 1369b15-18). This presupposes a certain *plasticity* of our biological nature such that we are capable of acquiring these states. The NE describes it thus: 'The virtues therefore are engendered neither by nature nor against nature, but we are naturally *disposed* to receive them, and brought to completion by habit.' (1103a23-26) [fn51: In his Physics Aristotle regards habituation as either perfecting nature (in the case of habituation in a virtuous way) or as a departure from it (in the case of acquisition of bad habits) (Physics 246a13-17). His frequent contrasting of habit and nature seems primarily to point to the differences in the ways in which these states are acquired. Problems 928b23-929a5 provides an interesting account of the mechanism underlying the acquisition of habits.]" (CORCILIUS, p. 141)

"I am suggesting ... that there is *one* basic explanation for the mechanism of biological self-preservation common to *all* perceivers in Aristotle, including humans.... [I]n the immediate sequel to the common and basic account of non-rational pleasure and pain and desire in DA 431a8-14 Aristotle applies this account to the special case of the thinking soul in 431a14-16.... [T]his application (see also later in 431b1-12) is a *building upon* his basic and common account rather than the introduction of a new and independent account. Aristotle introduces *further* cognitive capacities in addition to perception (thought and phantasia) and explains how they work *on the basis* of the common mechanism (which is only upgraded by thought and phantasia, not itself changed). A *full* account of Aristotle's notion of the psychological mechanism underlying the acquisition of ethical virtue would presumably have to introduce even more qualifications. For, in his Ethics, he not only attributes a crucially important role to the cognitive possibility of misrepresentation, i.e., the divergence of the appearing good (phainomenon agathon) from what is really good for us, [fn57: See, e.g., NE 1113a22-24, 1113a33-b2; DA 433a26-29; MA 700b29; and elsewhere.] but he also thinks that the range of self-determination in respect of what is good or bad for us is far greater in humans than in animals and with this our ability to shape our own behavior. [fn58: See Politics 1334a4-9.]" (CORCILIUS, pp. 142-143)

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