Reply Obj. 1:  The virtuous and the useful depend on accordance with reason, and consequently nothing is virtuous or useful, without being good.  But the pleasant depends on agreement with the appetite, which tends sometimes to that which is discordant from reason.  Consequently not every object of pleasure is good in the moral order which depends on the order of reason.

Reply Obj. 2:  The reason why pleasure is not sought for the sake of something else is because it is repose in the end.  Now the end may be either good or evil; although nothing can be an end except in so far as it is good in respect of such and such a man:  and so too with regard to pleasure.

Reply Obj. 3:  All things seek pleasure in the same way as they seek good:  since pleasure is the repose of the appetite in good.  But, just as it happens that not every good which is desired, is of itself and verily good; so not every pleasure is of itself and verily good. ________________________

THIRD ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 34, Art. 3]

Whether Any Pleasure Is the Greatest Good?

Objection 1:  It would seem that no pleasure is the greatest good.  Because nothing generated is the greatest good:  since generation cannot be the last end.  But pleasure is a consequence of generation:  for the fact that a thing takes pleasure is due to its being established in its own nature, as stated above (Q. 31, A. 1).  Therefore no pleasure is the greatest good.

Obj. 2:  Further, that which is the greatest good cannot be made better by addition.  But pleasure is made better by addition; since pleasure together with virtue is better than pleasure without virtue.  Therefore pleasure is not the greatest good.

Obj. 3:  Further, that which is the greatest good is universally good, as being good of itself:  since that which is such of itself is prior to and greater than that which is such accidentally.  But pleasure is not universally good, as stated above (A. 2).  Therefore pleasure is not the greatest good.

On the contrary, Happiness is the greatest good:  since it is the end of man’s life.  But Happiness is not without pleasure:  for it is written (Ps. 15:11):  “Thou shalt fill me with joy with Thy countenance; at Thy right hand are delights even to the end.”

I answer that, Plato held neither with the Stoics, who asserted that all pleasures are evil, nor with the Epicureans, who maintained that all pleasures are good; but he said that some are good, and some evil; yet, so that no pleasure be the sovereign or greatest good.  But, judging from his arguments, he fails in two points.  First, because, from observing that sensible and bodily pleasure consists in a certain movement and “becoming,” as is evident in satiety from eating and the like; he concluded that all pleasure arises from some “becoming” and movement:  and from this, since “becoming” and movement are the acts of something imperfect, it would follow that pleasure is not of the nature of ultimate perfection.  But this is seen to be evidently false as regards intellectual pleasures:  because one takes pleasure, not only in the “becoming” of knowledge, for instance, when one learns or wonders, as stated above (Q. 32, A. 8, ad 2); but also in the act of contemplation, by making use of knowledge already acquired.