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who does not stand on his rights unduly, but is
content to receive a smaller share although he has the law on his side. And the
disposition described is Equity; it is a special kind of Justice, not a different quality
altogether.11.
The foregoing discussion has indicated the answer to the question, Is it possible or not
for a man to commit injustice against himself? (1) One class of just
actions consists of those acts, in accordance with any virtue, which are ordained by
law.1 For instance, the law does not sanction
suicide (and what2 it does not
expressly sanction, it forbids).
[2]
Further, when a
man voluntarily (which means with knowledge of the person affected and the
instrument employed) does an injury (not in retaliation) that
is against the law, he commits injustice. But he who kills himself in a fit of passion,
voluntarily does an injury (against the right principle3) which the law does
not allow.
[3]
Therefore the suicide commits injustice; but
against whom? It seems to be against the state rather than against himself; for he suffers
voluntarily, and nobody suffers injustice voluntarily. This is why the state exacts a
penalty; suicide is punished by certain marks of dishonor,4 as
being an offense against the state.
[4]
(2) Moreover, it is not possible to act unjustly towards oneself in the
sense in which a man is unjust who is a doer of injustice only and not universally wicked.
(This case is distinct from the former, because Injustice in one sense is a
special form of wickedness, like Cowardice, and does not imply universal wickedness; hence
it is necessary further to show that a man cannot commit injustice against himself in this
sense either.) For (a) if it were, it would be possible for the
same thing to have been taken away from and added to the same thing at the same time. But
this is impossible:
1 The argument seems to be, that suicide does not prove the possibility of a man's committing ‘injustice,’ in the wider sense of any illegal injury, against himself. Suicide is an act of injustice in this sense, since it is the voluntary infliction of bodily harm not in retaliation and therefore contrary to law; but it is an offense not against oneself but against the State, since it is punished as such.
2 Or perhaps ‘and any form of homicide that it does not expressly permit.’
3 i.e., the principle of retaliation.
4 At Athens a suicide's hand was buried apart from the body; Aeschin. 3.244.