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both being treated unjustly and being
treated justly are similarly opposed to acting unjustly and acting justly respectively:
that either both are voluntary or both involuntary. But it would seem paradoxical to
assert that even being treated justly is always voluntary; for people are sometimes
treated justly against their will.
[3]
The fact is that the
further question might be raised, must a man who has had an unjust thing done to him
always be said to have been treated unjustly, or does the same thing hold good of
suffering as of doing something unjust? One may be a party to a just act, whether as its
agent or its object, incidentally.1 And
the same clearly is true of an unjust act: doing what is unjust is not identical with
acting unjustly, nor yet is suffering what is unjust identical with being treated
unjustly, and the same is true of acting and being treated justly; for to be treated
unjustly requires someone who acts unjustly, and to be treated justly requires someone who
acts justly.
[4]
But if to act unjustly is simply to do harm voluntarily, and voluntarily means knowing
the person affected, the instrument, and the manner of injury, it will follow both that
the man of defective self-restraint, inasmuch as he voluntarily harms himself, voluntarily
suffers injustice, and also that it is possible for a man to act unjustly towards himself
1 Cf. 8.1.