Book 5: The Several Moral Virtues and Vices—Concluded. Justice.
Book 5: The Several Moral Virtues and Vices—Concluded. Justice.
Chapter 1: Preliminary Two senses of justice distinguished justice (l) = obedience to law = complete virtue.
We now have to inquire about justice and injustice, and to ask what sort of acts they are concerned with, and in what sense justice observes the mean, and what are the extremes whose mean is that which is just. And in this inquiry we will follow the same method as before.
We see that all men intend by justice to signify the sort of habit or character that makes men apt to do what is just, and which further makes them act justly and wish what is just; while by injustice they intend in like manner to signify the sort of character that makes men act unjustly and wish what is unjust. Let us lay this down, then, as an outline to work upon.
We thus oppose justice and injustice, because a habit or trained faculty differs in this respect both from a science and a faculty or power. I mean that whereas both of a pair of opposites come under the same science or power, a habit which produces a certain result does not also produce the opposite result; e.g. health produces healthy manifestations only, and not unhealthy; for we say a man has a healthy gait when he walks like a man in health.
[Not that the two opposites are unconnected.] In the first place, a habit is often known by the opposite habit, and often by its causes and results: if we know what good condition is, we can learn from that what bad condition is; and, again, from that which conduces to good condition we can infer what good condition itself is, and conversely from the latter can infer the former. For instance, if good condition be firmness of flesh, it follows that bad condition is flabbiness of flesh, and that what tends to produce firmness of flesh conduces to good condition.
And, in the second place, if one of a pair of opposite terms have more senses than one, the other term will also, as a general rule, have more than one; so that here, if the term “just” have several senses, the term “unjust” also will have several.
And in fact it seems that both “justice” and “injustice” have several senses, but, as the different things covered by the common name are very closely related, the fact that they are different escapes notice and does not strike us, as it does when there is a great disparity—a great difference, say, in outward appearance—as it strikes every one, for instance, that the κλείς (clavis, collar-bone) which lies under the neck of an animal is different from the κλείς (clavis,key) with which we fasten the door.
Let us then ascertain in how many different senses we call a man unjust.
Firstly, he who breaks the laws is considered unjust, and, secondly, he who takes more than his share, or the unfair man.
Plainly, then, a just man will mean (1) a law-abiding and (2) a fair man.
A just thing then will be (1) that which is in accordance with the law, (2) that which is fair; and the unjust thing will be (1) that which