Single Idea 53

[catalogued under 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure]

Full Idea

To feel pleasure or pain rightly or wrongly affects our conduct, so our whole enquiry must be concerned with them.

Gist of Idea

Feeling inappropriate pleasure or pain affects conduct, and is central to morality

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1105a07)

Book Reference

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.96


A Reaction

Apparently the Nazi staff at Auschwitz said that they all felt largely 'indifferent' to what they were doing. Aristotle hopes you can teach these right feelings, but children can develop very unpredictably.