To determine whether or not one is in full possession of a particular virtue or excellence, the pleasure or pain that accompanies the exercise of that quality can be used as an index. This is because moral excellence is primarily a matter of concern with pleasure and pain. The following points are relevant here:
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The pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the main causes of evil action, for pleasure can make men do base things and pain can deter them from doing noble things. This is why Plato said that right education is a matter of making men feel pleasure and pain for the right reasons.
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Virtue is concerned with actions and feelings or emotions and these may be accompanied by pleasure or pain.
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Pain is used as an instrument of punishment, for nature works by means of opposites and pain can have a remedial effect in the case of vicious men.
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Every characteristic of the soul shows its true nature in regard to those factors which can make it better or worse. Men become corrupted through pleasure and pain, either by pursuing or avoiding pleasure or pain of the wrong kind, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. This indicates that the object of ethics is to learn to feel pleasure or pain for the right reasons. We may assume that virtue enables men to act in the best way in matters involving pleasure and pain, and that vice does the opposite.
At this point it has been determined that moral goodness is a quality disposing men to act in the best way while dealing with pleasures and pains, and that vice disposes them to act in the worst way in the same situation.
