Aristotle Is Wrong about Incontinence

Aristotle is wrong about incontinence. A bold statement, sure, but one that needs to be made. In Aristotle’s  Nicomachean Ethics, he attempts to define three things to avoid and their opposites. The things to avoid are “vice, lack of self-restraint, and brutishness” (1145a17). Aristotle also says, “The contraries of two of these are clear: the one contrary we call virtue, the other self-restraint” (1145a17-18). Self-restraint parallels continence, and lack of self-restraint parallels incontinence. While Aristotle claims that lack of self-restraint is something to avoid, he gives plenty of examples where it is forgivable. How can someone conclude that something is bad, do it anyway, and not be considered vicious?

Aristotle writes, “First, then, is to examine whether those who act without self-restraint do so knowingly or not, and how they might do so knowingly” (1146b8-9). It should be an established logic that if you know that something is bad, and you partake in it, you have done something bad knowingly. For example, if you were to drink while underage, knowing the law, you have knowingly broken the law. It is excusable to an extent if you unknowingly did it. Taking the same example, if a European came to visit North America at nineteen and drank, not knowing the age to drink in America is twenty-one, his plea is ignorance, that he did not knowingly commit a crime. According to this example, Aristotle’s logic is sound. However, if he knows about the law being different here.

Aristotle states, “For in the case of having but not using science, we see that the ‘having’ is different, such that a person both has it in a way and does not have it—for example, someone who is asleep, mad, or drunk” (1147a11-14). For example, a programmer might have the knowledge of another language and be able to create something, but not while he is overtaken by sleep, intoxication, or madness, as these statuses inhibit one's ability to optimally function. However, these should be the absolute list, as these actions scientifically inhibit the mind’s function completely.

Aristotle says, “But surely those in the grip of the passions are disposed in this way: for outbursts of spiritedness, the sexual desires, and certain other such things clearly bring about a change in the body too, and in some people they even cause madness” (1147a14-17). He tries to expand this absolute list into a broader sense, and this is just simply incorrect. One thing he claims is equivalent to sleep is “the sexual desires.” Lust cannot cloud your brain’s function to reason between good and bad to the same extent as literally not being conscious. Lust also is not an equivalent to drunkenness, as being drunk literally prevents your brain from correctly making decisions to a chemical level. This leaves madness.

Madness is defined by law to mean “a lack of culpability based on a mental illness.” Based on a mental illness is key here. A mental illness affects the brain’s function of reasoning on a chemical level. For example, OCD causes real anxiety when things aren’t done in an expected way. Something like lust is not equivalent to madness because it does not cloud your judgement in the same way that a literal mental illness does.

The key criterion  concerning whether that person should be held accountable for his actions is whether the mental status  the person is in affects the brain’s reasoning in the same way that being asleep, being mentally ill, or being drunk does. That is to say, being unconscious literally keeps one from employing reason and being mentally ill  and/or drunk inhibits the brain’s activity, which makes it more difficult for one to use reason effectively. If madness were to be actually defined in the book, it would cause less confusion.

In conclusion, Aristotle was a great philosopher and a remarkably intuitive man. His book Nicomachean Ethics tries to create a definition of goodness and how we should act. In doing so, he suggests that incontinence is forgivable in certain situations, and some of those situations don’t seem logically correct.