Book 7
2
If so, why are the pains opposed to them evil? since the opposite of evil is good. Perhaps the true view is, that the necessary pleasures are good in the sense that what is not evil is good; or that they are good up to a point: for though you cannot have excessive pleasure from states and movements which cannot themselves be in excess of what is good, you can have excessive pleasure from those which themselves admit of excess. Now you can have an excess of the bodily goods; and it is pursuing this excess that makes a bad man, not pursuing the necessary pleasures, for everybody enjoys savory food, wine, and sexual pleasure in some degree, though not everybody to the right degree. With pain it is the other way aboutWhereas bodily pleasure is good in moderation and bad only in excess, all pain is bad; but this does not mean that the absence of excessive pleasure is bad, for it is not painful to the good man.: one avoids not merely excessive pain, but all pain; for the opposite of excessive pleasure is not pain at all, except to the man who pursues excessive pleasure.
3
We ought however not only to state the true view, but also to account for the false one, since to do so helps to confirm the true; for when we have found a probable explanation why something appears to be true though it is not true, this increases our belief in the truth.
3
We have then to explain why it is that bodily pleasures appear to be more desirable than others.
