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ARISTOTLE AND THE PAIN OF ANIMALS: NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 1154B7–9
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2023
Abstract
This paper explains the motivation behind Aristotle's appeal in Nicomachean Ethics 1154b7–9 to the physiologoi who notoriously declare that animals are constantly in pain. It argues that the physiologoi are neither the critical target of this chapter nor invoked to verify Aristotle's commitment to the imperfection of the human condition. Rather, despite doctrinal disagreement, they help Aristotle develop a naturalistic story about how ordinary people easily indulge in sensory pleasures.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
I thank audiences at the Humboldt University, Berlin and at Renmin University for helpful discussion; Tianqin Ge, Frank de Jong, Wei Liu, Stephen Menn, David Merry, Philip van der Eijk, Katja Vogt and especially Christof Rapp for comments on a draft; Rhodes Pinto and Christine Baker for proofreading my original typescript; and CQ's Editor and the anonymous reader for helpful suggestions. This research is supported by The Institute of Foreign Philosophy at PKU and by The National Social Science Fund of China No. 21BZX086.
References
1 All references to Aristotle not preceded by the name of a work are to the Nicomachean Ethics. I use I. Bywater's edition (Oxford, 1894) and T. Irwin's translation (Indianapolis, 2019), with modifications where necessary.
2 7.12, 1152b34–5; 14.1154b1, 17–19.
3 Reading Richards's τινές for the manuscripts’ τινάς at 1154b4. This conjecture is accepted, for example by Rackham, H., Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge, MA, 1926), 444Google Scholar; Gauthier, R.A. and Jolif, J.Y., L’Éthique à Nicomaque II, 2 (Louvain, 2002), 812Google Scholar; and Natali, C., Aristotele: Etica Nicomachea (Rome and Bari, 2003), 306Google Scholar.
4 This reading of physiologoi follows Aspasius; it is adopted by Bywater (n. 1) and it is also transmitted by the Arabic tradition. Except for physikoi (Kb), by contrast, physikoi logoi are found in the manuscript tradition.
5 As opposed to the proposal of Ross, Festugieré and Aubry, who replace the full stop after ἡ νεότης in 1154b11 with a comma—G. Aubry, ‘Nicomachean Ethics 7.14 (1154a22–b34): the pain of the living and divine pleasure’, in C. Natali (ed.), Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII (Oxford, 2009), 238–63, at 250—I keep the text of Bywater (n. 1) unchanged (thus also F. Susemihl, Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea [Leipzig, 1887]).
6 Francis, S., ‘Under the influence—the physiology and therapeutics of akrasia in Aristotle's ethics’, CQ 61 (2011), 143–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 157, 162–3; Anonymous, In Eth. Nic. 458, 28–31; see also Joachim, H., Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics: A Commentary (Oxford, 1955), 240Google Scholar; Leunissen, M., ‘Aristotle on knowing natural science for the sake of living well’, in Henry, D. and Nielsen, K.M. (edd.), Bridging the Gap between Aristotle's Science and Ethics (Cambridge, 2015), 214–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 226–7.
7 This characterization is espoused by some ancient scholars (Alexander, P. Eth. 134.29–135.13; Anonymous, Ιn Eth. Nic. 458, 28–31) as well as by Brentano, F., Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (London, 1995), 114Google Scholar, albeit more cautiously.
8 K.D. Keele, Anatomies of Pain (Oxford, 1957), 37. ‘Sensation’ in Keele's account is equivalent to ‘perception’ used here.
9 The μηδέτερον includes, yet is broader than, what Frede, D., Aristoteles. Nikomachische Ethik (Berlin, 2020), 796Google Scholar calls the ‘neutral[e] Tätigkeiten’. In the concluding part of this chapter, Aristotle reaffirms the existence of the neutral state (1154b23–4).
10 For Aristotle's well-known belief that the actualization of natural capacities in the normal state should be—and actually is—pleasant (and not painful), see 1153a13–15, 1153b9–10, 1174b14–1175a3. Frede (n. 9), 796 realizes this tension but is silent on the question why Aristotle appeals to the physiologoi here.
11 ταῦτα δὲ οὐχ ὡς συγκατατιθέμενος λέγει ἀλλ᾽ ἱστορῶν, Aspasius 156.15. Aspasius is followed by e.g. Burnet, J., The Ethics of Aristotle (London, 1990), 342Google Scholar; H. Diels (in 59A94 DK); Walzer, R., Magna Moralia und Aristotelische Ethik (Berlin, 1929), 79Google Scholar; Dirlmeier, F., Aristoteles: Nikomachische Ethik (Darmstadt, 1964), 506Google Scholar; Gauthier and Jolif (n. 3), 813; Warren, J., ‘Anaxagoras on perception, pleasure, and pain’, OSAPh 33 (2007), 19–54Google Scholar. For a critical assessment of Aspasius’ interpretation, see Cheng, W., ‘A battle against pain? Aristotle, Theophrastus and the physiologoi in Aspasius, On Nicomachean Ethics 156.14–20’, Phronesis 62 (2017), 392–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Warren (n. 11), 22 believes that the notion at 1154b12–15—pleasure, as the opposite of pain, is able to drive pain out—can be used, and was adopted by Theophrastus, to undermine UPT. Mulvany, Yet C., ‘A supposed fragment of Theophrastus’, CR 33 (1919), 18–19Google Scholar and Fortenbaugh, W.W., Theophrastus of Eresus. Commentary Volume 6.1: Sources on Ethics (Leiden, 2011), 655–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar have doubted whether this is relevant for this purpose. I have further argued (n. 11 above) that neither 1154b12–15 nor the other passages of 7.14 seem levelled against UPT.
13 1152b31–2, 1153a4–7, 1153a32–3, 1154a28–b1, 1173b13–15.
14 According to Socrates, people commit this mistake because they do not know what true and pure pleasure is, but misunderstand the transition from pain to the neutral state as being from the neutral state to pleasure (Resp. 586a–c). For this argument in Plato, see e.g. Erginel, M., ‘Inconsistency and ambiguity in Republic IX’, CQ 61 (2011), 493–520CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Warren, J., ‘Socrates and the patients: Republic IX 583c–585a’, Phronesis 56 (2011), 113–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfsdorf, D., ‘Pleasure and truth in Republic 9’, CQ 63 (2013), 110–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 The ‘nature’ here should be broadly understood, as the opening of Eth. Nic. 7.14 tells us (1154a32–4), as comprising inborn constitutions (ἐκ γενετῆς) and dispositions from habituation (δι᾽ ἔθος).
16 Aubry (n. 5), 247.
17 οἱ δὲ μελαγχολικοὶ τὴν φύσιν δέονται ἀεὶ ἰατρείας, 1154b11–12; καὶ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα δακνόμενον διατελεῖ διὰ τὴν κρᾶσιν, καὶ ἀεὶ ἐν ὀρέξει σφοδρᾷ εἰσίν, 1154b12–13.
18 No matter whether it means that the animal is always in pain or in toil, I cannot find any evidence in Aristotle's extant works which indicates that he would espouse this description.
19 Aristotle does not deny their expertise, even if he thinks that many of their concrete explanations are mistaken or insufficient: Ph. 213b1–2; Cael. 298b29–32; Part. an. 641a7–8; Gen. an. 763b31–2, 769a5–8; Metaph. 988b27–30; Eth. Nic. 1147b9.
20 Aristotle takes the mastery of medical art to be a part of natural research (Sen. 436a17–21; Resp. 480b21–30): P.J. van der Eijk, ‘Aristotle on “distinguished physicians” and on the medical significance of dreams’, in H.F.J. Horstmanshoff et al. (edd.), Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context (Leiden, 1995), 447–59. It is interesting to see that the author of [Pr.] 30.1 also appeals to medical doctors, a kind of physiologoi, in his explanation of the nature of melancholics (953b24–5).
21 For the role of the physiologoi in Aristotle's account of akrasia, see Francis (n. 6); P.J. van der Eijk and S. Francis, ‘Aristoteles, Aristotelismus, und antike Medizin’, in C. Brockmann et al. (edd.), Antike Medizin im Schnittpunkt von Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften (Berlin, 2009), 226–33.
22 Arist. Rh. 1389a4–9; [Pr.] 953b21–3, 954b35–955a22; cf. Pl. Leg. 653d, 664e.
23 For the close affinity between being drunk and the melancholic, see [Pr.] 953b27 ὅμοια ὅ τε οἶνος καὶ ἡ κρᾶσις [sc. the melancholic mixture], 953b30–3 καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ὅ τε οἶνος ἀφροδισιαστικοὺς ἀπεργάζεται, καὶ ὀρθῶς Διόνυσος καὶ Ἀφροδίτη λέγονται μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων εἶναι, καὶ οἱ μελαγχολικοὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι λάγνοι εἰσίν; also 953a34–b14, 953b36–8, 954a4–6, 955a30–5; Insomn. 461a23–5.
24 Cf. [Pr.] 953a29–30, 954a12–13, 954b33–4.
25 Div. Somn. 464a32, 464b1, 464b4, cf. also 463b17.
26 For the melancholic in Aristotle, see van der Eijk, P.J., Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, 2005), chs. 5, 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leunissen, M., From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle (Oxford, 2017), 39–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 διὰ ταῦτα ἀκόλαστοι καὶ φαῦλοι γίνονται, 1154b14–15. A similar shift—from the melancholic to various character traits—is described in [Pr.] 30.1, 954a28–34. In particular, we see that some of the melancholic become ‘erotic and easily moved to anger and desire’ (954a32–3, my translation).
28 τὰ ἰατρεύοντα, ἰατρεύεσθαι, 1154b18; ὑγιοῦς, 1154b19.
29 This, on my interpretation, supplements Leunissen's systematic reconstruction of the physiological roots of Aristotle's ethics (n. 26 above), in which Eth. Nic. 7.14 is almost completely neglected.
30 Romeyer-Dherbey, G., ‘Une conception tragique du sentir: Anaxagore, fragments A 92, 94 DK’, in Romeyer-Dherbey, G., La parole archaïque (Paris, 1999), 14–39Google Scholar.
31 1175a3–5, Somn. 454a25–34.
32 In Cheng (n. 11), I have argued that Anaxagoras cannot be the person behind the physiologoi in Eth. Nic. 7.14. For a detailed discussion of Theophrastus’ criticism of Anaxagoras, see W. Cheng, ‘“Every perception is accompanied by pain!”: Theophrastus’ criticism of Anaxagoras’, JHP (forthcoming).
33 Translated by Stratton, G.M., Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology before Aristotle (London and New York, 1917)Google Scholar.