Extract
Aristotle's Opinions of Addiction
Although Aristotle didn't develop any special theory of addiction, in his Nicomachean Ethics, he gives some notions on this topic.
It is interesting that a similar principle of additional punishing of a driver for a traffic accident under the impact of alcohol was known already in antiquity: 'penalties are doubled in the case of drunkenness; for the moving principle is in the man himself, since he had the power of not getting drunk' (III, 5).1 We know today that an alcoholic can't abstain his drinking, because dependence runs him to this, although one feels tempted to concur with Aristotle's finding: ' For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act...' (Ill, 5). However, Aristotle denies such rationalism and explains dependence correctly from today's point of view: ' Again, it is irrational to suppose that a man who ac...See the full content of this document
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