Acerca da Compreensão do Prazer em Aristóteles

Abstract

This paper intends to reconstruct Aristotle’s theory of pleasure, as it is presented in Nicomachean Ethics III.13 and VII.6, in its relation to the virtue of temperance and the vice of intemperance, as well as in its relation to the intermediate dispositions of continence and incontinence, and, finally, in respect of brutish states. The general goal is to analyze the role of judgment in the sensation of pleasure insofar as this could help us to have a better understanding of moral virtue and vice in its relation to pleasure. As a corollary, we intend to show that the allegedly Aristotelian assertion that the desire for “sex between men” results from a brutish state seems unauthorized by the theory of pleasure that preceded it.