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Aristotle on Incontinence

Greek Philosophy

Incontinence is a term which is used by Philosophers. It stems from the Greek term, which is Akrasia, which means lack of mastery -- or when someone is not able to withhold his or her desires. It describes human passion and desires and giving in to one's pleasures, not considering if an act is the right thing to do, according to Aristotle. However, it is believed by Socrates that such a thing does not exist, because if one were to know what the right thing to do was, he would not go the opposite direction because judgment overrules all desires and pleasures. This term is often used to be seen when a person lacks moderation or any type of self-control -- this is because, it is only human to do so. Aristotle believes that incontinence is something which is not necessarily a bad thing, and this is because a person can at times act irrationally. Incontinence does exist and does not mean that a person who gives in to his or her pleasures is of bad judgment; it only means that at that time of the act, he or she was led by passion and desire, not by rational thinking.

It is believed that there are certain things which should be avoided. These things are in regards to character and can be seen as vice, incontinence and brutality. Of the three, brutality is rare, this something which was seen as to exceed so much in a terms of vice that it demeans someone of humanity, and it makes someone hardly ever human. Aristotle believed that man only did what he knew was not the right thing to do because of his passions; however this does not mean all men act that certain way. He claims that the continent man has certain passions also, however does not give in to whatever it is that is bad for because of reason. In this chapter Aristotle, in his argument, made some distinctions between virtue and vice; why a man commits such vices, or why he decides to stick to some virtues. Virtue and vice require for a person to consciously know what they are doing, yet there are many when people act in the spur of the moment and do not really act deliberately; this is because they act according to passion and not then according to reason. Virtue asks of a person to do the right thing and also that he act for the right reason and that his desire should also be correct; this is seen as something very complicated, and it is within an individual's own judgment to be able to discern. Incontinence is "knowing the better" or the right thing to do, however, acting not just accordingly to one's desires, but rather succumbing to one's passions; this makes people selfish. This is not then seen as a vice, since the act was not done deliberately. With incontinence, a person has both the wrong desire and the wrong action even though he has the right reason. A continent person acts according to virtue and does so for the right reason but his desires are bad, he does not act accordingly to his will yet does it deliberately. This makes him not as good as the temperate person. According to how Aristotle saw it, if you rank people from best to worst, temperance would be the best, then continence, then incontinence, and finally intemperance. Intemperance is the worst because the person has both bad desires and bad reasoning; it includes acting deliberately and not necessarily according to passion.

Aristotle is not a hedonist, however, to him; pleasure is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, he shows that it is one of the necessary conditions for a person to be virtuous is that he take pleasure in acting virtuously; so a person needs to know how to act on his passions or pleasures to be able to be a virtuous person. A virtuous person's desires should be in par with right reason so that virtuous action is pleasant; this is the whole nine yards of being virtuous. Additionally, since acting in accordance with right reason - that is, virtuously - is supposed to lead to happiness, it is fitting that that acting virtuously should also be pleasant at least in some sense, even if not in the physical sense. Pleasure is not defended by Aristotle to be the highest good or even an end in itself, but it accompanies the highest good as well as lesser goods, and this comes with being human in nature.

In his argument, Socrates refuses to see that sometimes people just fall because of the weakness of their own judgment or sometimes their own will. He believed that there is no such thing as incontinence because a person's judgment is above all, and therefore a man who knows what the right thing to do is, will always act on the right thing. He did not consider the possibilities of pleasures and passions which come so easily to humans, and how humans can fall short of their own standards of virtue because of an irrational act which was not necessarily done deliberately due to bad judgment. Socrates overlooked the characteristics of humans to be able to make mistakes due to giving into temptation which is led by passion and desires. These passion and desires, for him, are seen as secondary to judgment and there is no possibility for moral incontinence. This comes as a worry because if there is no such thing as incontinence, then everyone who acts on something bad is therefore a bad person and had done this bad thing deliberately, thinking it is bad. This is because no one individual has been acting righteously for his or her entire life.