Is Aristotle right to claim that the incontinent person is like someone 'asleep or mad or drunk'?
The incontinent person (ὁ ἀκρατής) is identified by Aristotle as one who, under the influence of ἐπιθυμία for those pleasures of touch which the licentious person (ὁ ἀκόλαστος) is also concerned with, does those things which the licentious person does, but with the exception that he acts against a rational decision to refrain from such acts. If Aristotle meant to say that the incontinent person is exactly like someone asleep, mad, or drunk he would be wrong. Indeed, it would also be wrong to ignore important differences between those three states among just themselves. Also, if he meant to say that when someone is being incontinent, they are totally deprived of reason, this is inconsistent with what he otherwise says. Furthermore, even people who are drunk or asleep or mad are not always totally deprived of the use of reason, so that, if he meant to imply that, he would be in error as well. As it turns out, and as I hope to argue, Aristotle does not think that these kinds of people (incontinent, drunk, mad, asleep) are always completely deprived of reason. Nor does he mean to exactly equate the state of the incontinent person with those other states. Rather, he means to point to a certain similarity that exists in these states. It seems to me that this similarity has to do with the fact that when someone is mad or dreaming or drunk, their acts are not always (or even ordinarily) the result of the determination of rational πρόαιρεσις for those acts.
When someone is mad, one often acts in a manner Aristotle would regard as involuntary. Incontinent actions, for Aristotle, are, on the other hand, voluntary. Just like the actions of infants and non-rational animals, there is a principle from within which moves the incontinent person to act, and this principle is an elicited appetite for the pleasure grasped. This voluntariness is a lower-level order of voluntariness than that proper to rational agents qua rational. The latter results from an elicited appetite for a good intellectually cognised. There are two such appetitive acts, βούλησις and πρόαιρεσις. Rationally ordered action properly follows πρόαιρεσις. But when Heracles kills his wife and children, neither his rational appetite or sensitive appetites (ἐπιθυμία and θύμος) are directed towards the murder of his wife and children qua such. Such an action is involuntary. His madness did not entail that Heracles could not reason at all. His νοῦς could still consider the universal proposition that Eurystheus and his family were to be killed (which is apt to serve as the major premise in a practical syllogism). It was his sense perception that was deceived. Therefore, he was deceived in the minor premise in the practical syllogism. He thought: “these are Eurystheus and his children.” This was incorrect. It seems that when someone is mad in this sense, then they are actually capable of making a πρόαιρεσις and of acting upon it, but that this πρόαιρεσις does not actually square with the action actually performed, due to illusion.
However, perhaps Aristotle means madness in another sense. Perhaps he means the sort of madness that renders one deprived of the use of their reason, so that they act entirely according to sense perception, or what their imagination presents and they mistakenly intuit to be sense perception. In this case, the acts will either be involuntary or lower-level voluntary (in the manner of infants and brutes). Yet, even if the latter case, there will still be a difference with the incontinent person’s act.
Aristotle seems to indicate that the incontinent person’s reason does actually play a role in their act, even if he wants to downplay the role of reason. He legitimately wants to downplay the role of reason because, when he does so, his point is to emphasise that the incontinent person does not follow the conclusion to a rational practical syllogism. However, the incontinent person still grasps a universal premise (an object of the νοῦς) which does serve as a sort of principle of their action. The relevant text for this is Nic. Eth. 7.3, 1146b31-1147a10 and 1147a26-1147b5. Aristotle says that there is a universal premise which, unproblematically, the incontinent person can well hold. He also says that in a way someone can come to be incontinent ὑπὸ λόγου (1147a35-1147b1). Both the universal proposition that forbids the person to taste sweet things and the universal proposition that says that all sweet things are pleasant are the objects of the intellect. In the case of the incontinent act, the ἀκρατής does not use the latter universal proposition to rationally syllogise to a practical conclusion, which is then adhered to by πρόαιρεσις, but this knowledge does function with the non-rational appetite’s desire (ἐπιθυμία) for the sensible pleasure. This is because ἐπιθυμία per se seeks the pleasant as an end (the bonum delectabile in the language of the Scholastics), whereas the rational appetite is per se ordered towards the intelligible good, which it considers beautiful and fitting (τό καλόν; the bonum honestum). Both the rational appetite’s desire for the intelligible good and the sensitive appetite’s desire for the sensibly pleasant have the ability by themselves to move the human being. In the case of the incontinent person, it is the latter that does so.
Universals cannot move to action. Action concerns particulars and so, if one acts as the result of a rational practical syllogism, the conclusion, which does have the ability to move to action, must concern particulars. The conclusion results from a universal proposition that serves as a major premise and a minor premise which locates the middle term in the particular circumstances. The result is a conclusion which judges that this act is to be done (or avoided). For example, imagine it is Friday. If I have already decided by a prior πρόαιρεσις that all meat is to be avoided on Friday and I also realise that a particular object is meat, the proposition ‘this is meat’ will apply my prior πρόαιρεσις to the particular circumstances, rendering the conclusion: ‘this is to be avoided.’ Because I have already decided by rational choice that meat is to be avoided on Friday and because, as I have said, the rational appetite by itself has the power to move to action, once the minor premise determines the prior decision to the particular circumstances, then I will infallibly act. Or will I? As Aristotle carefully points out, I will infallibly act if nothing prevents me (1147a30-31).
As has been said, in a practical syllogism, the minor just applies the major, which has already been decided on to the particular circumstances, showing that it applies in this case. This seems a sufficient foundation for the action to go ahead. Intellect and rational appetite will deliberate no longer but will just command the action to be accomplished. Notice though, that there is a gap between the πρόαιρεσις which adheres to the conclusion of the practical syllogism and the actual execution of the action. If I choose to do a certain action, it is plausible that I am frustrated in my choice and so end up not actually acting upon it. Imagine that I deliberate and then choose to reach the top of a hill by the end of the day, but the wind keeps blowing me down the hill every time I try to go up it. What else apart from external force can prevent choice from being acted upon? Because πρόαιρεσις is an act of rational appetite and there is also a sensitive appetite in man, it appears that there is another principle within man that can move him to action (video autem aliam legem in membris meis, as the Apostle says). The passions get in the way of the incontinent man and cloud his judgement.
How exactly do they cloud his judgement? Aristotle says that there is a distinction between having knowledge in the sense of having it habitually and then actively contemplating that knowledge. He also speaks of a particular proposition which it would be a wonder if the incontinent man contemplated in act while performing the incontinent action. What particular proposition is this? Lorenz argues, rightly to my mind, that this particular proposition is not the minor premise of the syllogism. Rather it is the conclusion of the practical syllogism. It is not ‘this is meat’ or ‘this is sweet’ which would be a marvel for the incontinent person to contemplate in act. Rather, it is the conclusion of the practical syllogism which forbids the action. This is because, if the conclusion were present in mind and the rational appetite properly adhered to it, this would constitute a still active πρόαιρεσις which would cause the agent to not do the act. Alternatively, if the agent changed his mind as it were and his rational appetite firmly and positively repudiated the conclusion, which would entail firmly and positively repudiating the universal premise that served as a ratio for the conclusion, then he would in fact become licentious. If he is to be neither continent nor licentious, then there must be a third option. I suggest that this is a certain neglect and giving way in weakness on the part of the rational appetite, under the sway of ἐπιθυμία. This, it seems, is what Aristotle has in mind when he says that the sensitive appetite can move any part of the soul. By this neglect and giving way, the incontinent man leaves the active contemplation of the conclusion to the practical syllogism, which leaves his sensitive appetite free to move of its own accord to the pleasure it per se seeks.
We can see now in what ways the mad man is different from and similar to the incontinent man. He is not completely similar to the incontinent man, as has been explained. However, there is an important way that they are similar. This is that the mad man (either kind discussed) and the incontinent man do not act upon a rational πρόαιρεσις for the act which they carry out. What about sleeping and drunkenness?
Drunkenness is similar to madness, in that there are different kinds. There are different levels of drunkenness. It is a spectrum rather than a unified state. If I have simply drunk usque ad hilaritatem, then however jovial or relaxed I may be, I will not be in a state of drunkenness. If I start noticeably losing balance and co-ordination and get into too low a level of risk calculation ability, then I am ‘tipsy’ and have probably drunk too much. But if I start losing the proper use and control of my reason, then I am drunk. This does not mean that I necessarily lose all reason. For example, I may be able to reason insofar as I can abstract and may even be able to deliberate about means to an end. Still, I will clearly lack the virtues of εὐβουλία, σύνεσις, and φρόνησις. I will not be able to deliberate, judge, and prescribe action for myself well, due to how the excessive alcohol has impaired my neuronal circuits. I may also confuse the uses and purposes of things. However, if I get to a more severe level of drunkenness, I will not even be capable of rational deliberation and practical reasoning (but may still have simple apprehension, the first operation of the intellect). If I get to an even more severe level, I will not be able to use my reason at all, until finally I get to the level where I am knocked out. What kind of drunkenness is Aristotle referring to in the relevant passage? David Charles claims that in the Problems, Aristotle distinguishes between different types of drunkenness. Charles thinks that Aristotle is talking about a lower level of drunkenness when comparing the incontinent person to someone drunk in the Nicomachean Ethics. However, I am not convinced by his argument. The term οἰνωμένοι in Problems 27.4 (948a19;31) seems not even to refer to drunkenness at all but merely to ‘drinking wine.’ Indeed, Aristotle is making a physiological point that identifies courageous people (he does not say merely daring, nor reckless) as people who love wine. However, the term οἰνωμένοι can also be used to refer to those who have become drunk from wine, as it is used in Nicomachean Ethics 7.3. These people can very well be identified with the μεθύοντες in Problems 3.9-35 (872a19-876a29). Indeed, Aristotle does talk about a type of drunkenness which is at a lesser level than that of the μεθύοντες in Problems 3, but these he calls the person who is in this state ὁ ἀκροθώραξ (Problems 3.27, 875a30). ὁ ἀκροθώραξ can judge (κρίνει) but he judges badly (κακῶς κρίνει), whereas ὁ μεθύων cannot judge at all (ibid 875a30-40). I think that, when comparing the incontinent person to someone drunk, he is thinking of someone who is μεθύων, rather than someone who is ἀκροθώραξ, because this accords better with the comparison to the mad person. Aristotle in Problems 3 describes how μεθύοντες are susceptible to visual illusion, such as seeing one thing as many (3.10); and, as was just related, how they cannot judge (by which he presumably means a judgement of the intellect). Each of these traits accords respectively to the two types of mad men referred to above, the one who hallucinates and the one who completely loses reason. Whichever type of mad man Aristotle has in mind in the comparison to the incontinent person, the similarity to the person who is μεθύων seems to be that their actions do not result from a rational choice, a πρόαιρεσις.
What about sleeping? Clearly, Aristotle does not mean that kind of sleeping that is completely blank without any dreams. Otherwise, the comparison would make no sense. Therefore, he is talking about the person who is dreaming. It is false to say that we cannot reason when we are dreaming. I have abstracted and understood things in dreams. I have even performed syllogisms and mathematical equations in dreams. One time, I tested to see if I was in a dream by pinching myself, because I had heard that you don’t feel it in dreams and I saw something weird in my dream, which seemed off. I didn’t feel the pinch and realised that I was in a dream. Aristotle, in De Insomniis, a phenomenal text, also recognises that we can in fact reason in dreams and that we do have δόξα about the things which we imagine. What is shut off in dreams is external sense perception. Now, it does appear that we can make πρόαιρεσεις in dreams and, to some extent, are capable of some agency. For example, when I decided to pinch myself. Also, we clearly have agency in lucid dreams (which Aristotle talks about in De Insomniis). But we don’t always have agency and aren’t always completely in control of our dream-selves or what we imagine ourselves to do. Sometimes, we are actually incapable of prior deliberation and found ourselves doing something. Sometimes, we try to run away but are paralysed and cannot move because this dream world of our imagination has, as it were, a will of its own. St Augustine, in Confessions X.30.41, also realises that ratio is not shut down when our eyes shut. However, he also does talk about relief upon waking when we did not really do a sinful thing which nonetheless was somehow done in us (quod tamen in nobis quoquo modo factum esse), which is regrettable (but does not disturb our conscientiae requiem). The relieving peace of conscience upon waking is testimony to the involuntariness of the act. As I said, we are not always in complete control of what we imagine even ourselves doing in a dream. I am often quite a powerful dreamer but, as it happens, lucid dreams and prohairetic acts in dreams are the exception rather than the rule. Usually in dreams, as St Thomas Aquinas says (ST IIa IIae Q.154 a.5), reason is hindered to the extent that it is unable to make free judgements (liberum judicium being a judgement of the intellect which presupposes liberum arbitrium, which is located in the act of the will called electio, which is the Scholastic version of πρόαιρεσεις). In another place (Gen. ad lit. 12.15), St Augustine makes the point that images of the imagination even when we are awake (and even when they involve ourselves) are not always voluntary (and so our in fact involuntary if we reject them) so long as we do not consent to them, but what happens in dreams is that we are incapable (with the exception of some lucid dreams) of distinguishing between the phantasms of our imagination and reality. Ultimately, what Aristotle realises is that ordinarily the acts in our dreams that we imagine ourselves to be doing are not the result of rational deliberation and a resulting πρόαιρεσις.
Therefore, what links incontinent acts with acts of someone “asleep or mad or drunk” is that the acts are not the result of πρόαιρεσις. This then, I think, is what Aristotle means by the comparison. He does not mean that they are exactly the same, but only secundum quid, under a certain formality. As I hope I have made clear, there are important differences between these states, but there is this similarity.
In Euripides’s version, he thinks that they are Eurystheus and Eurystheus’s children.
Here, as it should be clear, I am concentrating on the ‘weak’ sort of incontinent person rather the ‘swift’ or ‘melancholic’ type.
D. Charles, "Acrasia: The Rest of the Story?" in G. Pearson and M Pakaluk (eds), Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle (OUP 2011), 190
It is therefore actually possible to feel remorse and consternation at the same time as one finds oneself supposedly committing a wrong act in a dream, though such concurrent remorse is not required for the act to not be the result of πρόαιρεσις.
