Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

Profligacy seems to be more voluntary than Cowardice. For the former is caused by pleasure, the latter by pain, and pleasure is a thing we choose, pain a thing we avoid. [2] Also pain makes us beside ourselves: it destroys the sufferer's nature; whereas pleasure has no such effect. Therefore Profligacy is the more voluntary vice. And consequently it is the more reprehensible; since moreover it is easier to train oneself to resist the temptations of pleasure, because these occur frequently in life, and to practise resistance to them involves no danger, whereas the reverse is the case with the objects of fear. [3]

On the other hand, the possession of a cowardly character would seem to be more voluntary than particular manifestations of cowardice: for cowardliness in itself is not painful, but particular accesses of cowardice are so painful as to make a man beside himself, and cause him to throw away his arms or otherwise behave in an unseemly manner; so that cowardly actions actually seem to be done under compulsion. [4] But with the profligate on the contrary the particular acts are voluntary, for they are done with desire and appetite, but the character in general is less so, since no one desires to be a profligate. [5]

The word Profligacy¹ or wantonness we also apply to the naughtiness of children,