The Scents of Sauce and Prey

In Chapter 10 of Book III, Aristotle decides that temperance must have to do with bodily pleasures. But not those related to sight or hearing, because people do not speak of those who delight too much in the pleasures associated with sight or hearing as dissipated (1118a: 2-6). Yet with regards to smell, there are scents that he thinks remind one of "things they yearn for," such as sauces (reminds one of food) (1118a: 12-14). What follows from taking delight in such scents is a growth in the associated desire.

For instance, the scent of BBQ sauce makes me hungry. Sometimes when I smell BBQ sauce, I wish that I could be eating something with BBQ sauce on it instead of just smelling the BBQ sauce. Is it likely that if I indulged in satisfying my desire to eat something with BBQ sauce on it more frequently, then the delight that comes from smelling BBQ sauce will be greater and thus my desire for ingesting BBQ sauce?

Aristotle does not believe that animals take pleasure in sight, sound, or smell, "except incidentally." (1118a: 18-19) What is odd about his claims about animals is that he does not think that meat-eating animals take pleasure in the smell of their prey, nor in the sight of their prey, nor in the sound of their prey. I wonder if his claim still holds up in modern science. It seems strange to claim that meat-eating animals take pleasure in eating meat (like humans) but do not share the pleasure associated with the scent of food with humans. Based on my own experience, I think dogs react differently to the sight of something they might like to eat than they do to the scent of something they might like to eat, but maybe it is not a pleasurable experience although their behavior suggests otherwise.