Section 1: Introduction to the virtue of justice

Introduction to the virtue of justice

_[1129a1] With regards to justice and injustice we must (1) consider what kind of actions they are concerned with, (2) what sort of mean justice is, and (3) between what extremes the just action is intermediate. Our investigation _[5] will follow the same course as the preceding discussions.

We see that everyone means by justice that kind of state of character that makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act justly and wish for what is just. Similarly, we see that by injustice everyone means that state of character that makes people act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. Let us too, then, _[10] lay this down as a general foundation for our inquiry.

For capacities and kinds of knowledge do not operate in the same way that states of character do. A capacity or a kind of knowledge that is one and the same is held to relate to contrary objects. But a state of character which is one of two contraries does not produce the contrary results. For example, we only do what is healthy as a result of health, _[15] not what is the opposite of healthy. For we say a person walks healthily, when he walks as a healthy person would.

Now often one contrary state is recognized from its contrary, and often states are recognized from the subjects that exhibit them. For (A) if good condition is known, bad condition also becomes known, _[20] and (B) good condition is known from the things that are in good condition, and they from it. If good condition is firmness of flesh, it is necessary both that bad condition should be flabbiness of flesh and that the wholesome should be that which causes firmness in flesh. And it follows for the most part that if one contrary is ambiguous the other also will be ambiguous; for example, if “just” is ambiguous, _[25] the “unjust” will be too.

Now “justice” and “injustice” seem to be ambiguous. But because their different meanings approach near to one another the ambiguity escapes notice and is not obvious as it is, comparatively, when the meanings are far apart. (For example–since here the difference in outward form is great–as the ambiguity in the use of kleis [a Greek word meaning both “clavicle” and “key”] for the collar-bone of an animal and for that with which we lock a door.) _[30]

Justice as the lawful (universal justice) and justice as the fair (particular justice)

Let us take as a starting-point, then, the various meanings of “an unjust person.” Both the lawless person and the grasping and unfair person are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both the law-abiding and the fair person will be just. The just, then, is the lawful and the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair.

The unjust person as greedy (the person contrary to particular justice)

Since _[1129b1] the unjust person is greedy, he must be concerned with goods. Not all goods, though, but only those related to prosperity and adversity, which taken absolutely are always good, but for a particular person are not always good. Now people pray for and pursue these things. But they should not. Instead, they should pray that the things that are good absolutely may also _[5] be good for them, and should choose the things that are good for them.

The unjust person does not always choose the greater. He also chooses the lesser in the case of things bad absolutely. But because the lesser evil is itself thought to be in a sense good, and greediness is directed at the good, he is therefore thought to be greedy. And he is “unfair,” since this term contains and _[10] is common to both.

The unjust person as lawless (the person contrary to universal justice)

Since the lawless person was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding person just, evidently all lawful actions are in a sense just actions. For the actions laid down by the legislative art are lawful, and each of these, we say, is just. Now the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common advantage either of all the people, of the best people, _[15] or of those who hold power in accordance with virtue or something of the sort. The result is that in one sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for a political community.

And the law bids us do both the actions of a brave person (for example, not to leave our post nor to flee _[20] nor to throw away our weapons), and those of a temperate person (for example, not to commit adultery nor wanton aggression), and those of a even-tempered person (for example, not to strike another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness, commanding some actions and forbidding others. The rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well.

This _[25] sort of justice, then, is complete virtue, although not absolutely, but in relation to our neighbor. Therefore, justice is often thought to be the greatest of virtues, and “neither evening nor morning star” is so wonderful; and proverbially “in justice is every virtue comprehended.” And it is complete virtue in its highest degree, _[30] because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbor also. For many people can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to their neighbor.

This is why the saying of Bias is thought to be true, that “ruling office _[1130a1] will show the man.” For a ruler is necessarily in relation to other people and a member of a society. Because of this, justice alone among the virtues is thought to be “another’s good,” since it is related to our neighbor. For it does what is advantageous to another, either a ruler or a member of one’s community.

Now the worst person _[5] is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself and towards his friends. And the best person is not he who exercises his virtue towards himself but he who exercises it towards another, since this is a difficult task. Justice of this sort, then, is not part of virtue but virtue entire. Nor is the contrary injustice a part of vice but vice entire. What the difference is _[10] between virtue and justice of this sort is plain from what we have said. They are the same but their essence is not the same. What, as a relation to one’s neighbor, is justice is, as a certain kind of disposition without qualification, virtue.