This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
- bekker page : bekker line
- book : chapter : section
Also (c) it is our reasoned acts that are felt to be in the fullest
sense our own acts, voluntary acts. It is therefore clear that a man is or is chiefly the
dominant part of himself, and that a good man values this part of himself most. Hence the
good man will be a lover of self in the fullest degree, though in another sense than the
lover of self so-called by way of reproach, from whom he differs as much as living by
principle differs from living by passion, and aiming at what is noble from aiming at what
seems expedient.
[7]
Persons therefore who are exceptionally
zealous in noble actions are universally approved and commended; and if all men vied with
each other in moral nobility and strove to perform the noblest deeds, the common welfare
would be fully realized, while individuals also could enjoy the greatest of goods,
inasmuch as virtue is the greatest good.
Therefore the good man ought to be a lover of self, since he will then both benefit
himself by acting nobly and aid his fellows; but the bad man ought not to be a lover of
self, since he will follow his base passions, and so injure both himself and his
neighbors.
[8]
With the bad man therefore, what he does is
not in accord with what he ought to do, but the good man does what he ought, since
intelligence always chooses for itself that which is best, and the good man obeys his
intelligence.
[9]
But it is also true that the virtuous man's conduct is often guided by the interests of
his friends and of his country, and that he will if necessary