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Also, Justice is that quality
in virtue of which a man is said to be disposed to do by deliberate choice that which is
just, and, when distributing things between himself and another, or between two others,
not to give too much to himself and too little to his neighbor of what is desirable, and
too little to himself and too much to his neighbor of what is harmful, but to each what is
proportionately equal; and similarly when he is distributing between two other persons.
[18]
Injustice on the contrary is similarly related to that
which is unjust, which is a disproportionate excess or deficiency of something beneficial
or harmful. Hence Injustice is excess and defect, in the sense that it results in excess
and defect: namely, in the offender's own case, an excess of anything that is generally
speaking beneficial and a deficiency of anything harmful, and in the case of others,1 though the result as a
whole is the same, the deviation from proportion may be in either direction as the case
may be.
Of the injustice done, the smaller part is the suffering and the larger part the doing of
injustice.
[19]
So much may be said about the nature of Justice and Injustice, and of the Just and the
Unjust regarded universally.2
6. But seeing that a man
may commit injustice without actually being unjust, what is it that distinguishes those
unjust acts the commission of which renders a man actually unjust under one of the various
forms of injustice, for example, a thief or an adulterer or a brigand? Or shall we rather
say that the distinction does not lie in the quality of the act? For a man may have intercourse with a woman knowing who she is, yet
not from the motive of deliberate choice, but under the influence of passion;
[2]
in such a case, though he has committed injustice, he is not an
unjust man: for instance, he is not a thief, though guilty of theft, not an adulterer,
though he has committed adultery, and so forth.
[3]
The relation of Reciprocity to Justice has been stated already.
[4]
But we must not forget that the subject of our investigation is at once Justice in the
absolute sense and Political Justice. Political Justice means justice as between free and
(actually or proportionately) equal persons, living a common life for
the purpose of satisfying their needs. Hence between people not free and equal political
justice cannot exist, but only a sort of justice in a metaphorical sense. For justice can
only exist between those whose mutual relations are regulated by law, and law exists among
those between whom there is a possibility of injustice, for the administration of the law
means the discrimination of what is just and what is unjust. Persons therefore between
whom injustice can exist can act unjustly towards each other (although unjust
action does not necessarily involve injustice): to act unjustly meaning to assign
oneself too large a share of things generally good and too small a share of things
generally evil.
[5]
This is why we do not permit a man to
rule, but the law, because a man rules in his own interest,
1 That is, when A distributes unjustly not between himself and B but between B and C, the result for either B or C may be either excess or defect, either too large a share or too small of something beneficial (and either too small a share or too large of something harmful).
2 6.1-2 are an irrelevant fragment which Jackson would insert in 8.8 after βλαβή; 6.3 he would transpose to the beginning of chap. 10; 6.4 continues the end of chap. 5.