Nicomachean Ethics, Study notes of Ethics

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ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

translated and edited by

ROGER CRISP

St Anne's College, Oxford

Book V

Chapter 1

We must consider justice and injustice ± what sort of actions they are concerned with, what kind of mean justice is, and what are the extremes between which the just is a mean. Let our inquiry be conducted in the same way as our preceding discussions. We see that everyone means by justice the same kind of state, namely, that which disposes people to do just actions, act justly, and wish for what is just. In the same way, by injustice they mean the state that makes people act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. So let us too begin with these assumptions as a rough basis for our discussion. What is true of sciences and capacities is not true of states, since it seems that contraries can both be the concern of the same capacity or science, while a state does not produce results contrary to itself. For example, as a result of health, we do not do actions contrary to health, but only those that are healthy; we say that we are walking healthily when we walk as a healthy person would. One can often identify a contrary state from its contrary, and states from their subjects. If it is clear what the good state is, then the bad state also becomes clear, and the good state is identiÆed from the things that are in that state, and they from it: if the good state is Ærmness of Øesh, then the bad state must be Øabbiness, and what conduces to the good state must be what produces Ærmness of Øesh. It generally follows that if one contrary is spoken of in more than one way, so is the other; if the just, for example, is spoken of in more than one way, so is the unjust. It seems, in fact, that justice and injustice are spoken of in more than one way, but

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Justice in this sense, then, is complete virtue, not without qualiÆca- tion, but in relation to another person. For this reason, it is often held that justice is the greatest of the virtues, and that neither evening star nor morning star is such a wonder'.^29 We express this in the proverb,In justice is all virtue combined'.^30 And it is complete virtue in the fullest sense, because it is the exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue in relation to another person, not only himself. There are many people who can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but are unable to do so in their relations with others. This is why the aphorism of Bias,^31 `OfÆce will reveal the man', seems a good one, since an ofÆcial is, by reason of his position, engaged in relations with other people and the community at large. For the same reason, justice is the only virtue considered to be the good of another,^32 because it is exercised in relation to others: it does what is beneÆcial for another, whether he is in ofÆce over one or is a fellow-citizen. So the worst person is the one who exercises his wickedness in relation to himself and in relation to his friends, and the best is not he who exercises his virtue in relation to himself but the one who exercises it in relation to others, since this is a difÆcult thing to do. Justice in this sense, then, is not a part of virtue, but the whole of virtue, and the injustice contrary to it is not a part of vice, but vice as a whole. The difference between virtue and justice in this sense is clear from what we have said. For they are the same, but what it is to be each of them is different. In so far as it is seen in relation to others, it is justice, while as an unqualiÆed state, it is virtue.

Chapter 2

But, since we say there is such a thing, we are looking for the justice that is a part of virtue and similarly for the injustice that is a part of vice. There is evidence that such a particular form exists. In all other cases of wickedness, the person who exercises it acts unjustly, but is not at all greedy (the person who throws away his shield through cowardice, for example, or speaks abusively through bad temper, or refuses Ænancial

(^29) Euripides, The Wise Melanippe, fr. 486 Nauck. (^30) Theognis, 147. Late seventh-century (or mid-sixth century) elegaic poet, from Megara. (^31) One of the Seven Sages. 32 Cf. Plato, Republic 343c.

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assistance through stinginess). But when someone is greedy, his action is often not in accordance with any of these forms of wickedness, still less all of them; but, since we blame him, it is in accordance with some form of wickedness, namely, injustice. There is, then, another kind of injustice, which is part of injustice as a whole, and what is unjust can here be seen as part of the whole of what is unjust in the sense of being contrary to law. Again, someone who commits adultery for gain and makes money out of it would seem unjust, but not intemperate, while another who does so through appetite, though it costs him and he loses money for it, would seem to be intemperate rather than greedy. Obviously, this is because the Ærst acts for gain. Again, all other unjust acts are always attributed to some form of wickedness, such as adultery to intemperance, desertion of a comrade in battle to cowardice, physical assault to anger. But if the person gains by what he does, it is attributed to no other form of wickedness than injustice. Clearly, then, besides universal justice, there is another form of injustice ± particular injustice; it has the same name, because its deÆnition falls under the same genus, both being effective in relation to somebody else. But, whereas the one is concerned with honour or money or security ± or that which includes all of these, if we had a name for it ± and is motivated by the pleasure that results from gain, the other is concerned with all the things with which the good person is concerned. Clearly, then, there are several kinds of justice, and there is one that is distinct from virtue as a whole; we must ascertain what it is and what sort of thing it is. What is unjust has been divided into what is unlawful and what is unfair, and what is just into what is lawful and what is fair. Injustice in the sense above corresponds to what is unlawful. But what is unfair is not the same as what is unlawful, but differs as part from whole (since everything that is unlawful is unfair, while not everything that is unfair is unlawful); and so what is unjust, and injustice in the sense of unfairness, are not the same as what is unjust and injustice in the other sense, but differ as parts from wholes. For this injustice is a part of injustice as a whole, and similarly particular justice a part of justice as a whole. So we must discuss justice and injustice in the particular sense,

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Because equality requires at least two terms, what is just must be a mean, and equal, and relative, namely, just for certain people. And, in so far as it is a mean, it must be between certain extremes (excess and deÆciency); in so far as it is equal, it must involve two terms; and in so far as it is just, it must be so for certain people. So what is just requires at least four terms: the persons for whom it is just are two, and the shares in which its justice consists are two. There will be the same level of equality between persons as between shares, because the shares will be in the same ratio to one another as the persons. For if the persons are not equal, they will not receive equal shares; in fact quarrels and complaints arise either when equals receive unequal shares in an allocation, or unequals receive equal shares. This is clear also from the principle of distribution according to merit. For everyone agrees that justice in distribution must be in accordance with some kind of merit, but not everyone means the same by merit; democrats think that it is being a free citizen, oligarchs that it is wealth or noble birth, and aristocrats that it is virtue. So the just is a sort of proportion. Being proportionate is not a property peculiar to abstract number, but belongs to number in general, since proportion is an equality of ratios, and involves at least four terms. Now it is obvious that discrete proportion involves four terms. But the same is true of continuous proportion, since it treats one term as two, mentioning it twice; for example, as the line A is to the line B, so is B to C. B, then, has been mentioned twice; so if B is set down twice, the proportional terms will be four. What is just will also involve at least four terms, and the ratio is the same, since the persons and the shares are divided in the same ratio. As the term A, then, is to the term B, so will C be to D, and consequently, in permutation, as A is to C, so B is to D. And so whole will bear the same ratio to whole. It is this combination which the distribution brings about, and, if the terms be united in this way, brings about justly. What is just in distribution, therefore, is the conjunction of the term A with the term C, and of the term B with the term D. And the just in this sense is a mean, and the unjust violates the proportion, since what is proportionate is a mean, and the just is proportionate. Mathemati- cians call this kind of proportion geometrical, because in geometrical proportion what happens is that whole is to whole as each part is to each

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part. But this proportion is not continuous, since there is not a single numerical term for person and share. What is just in this sense, then, is what is proportionate. And what is unjust is what violates the proportion: one side becomes too large, the other too small, which is actually what happens in practice, since the one who acts unjustly gets more of what is good, while the one treated unjustly gets less. In the case of evil, the reverse is the case, since the lesser evil is counted as a good in comparison with the greater evil; the lesser evil is more worthy of choice than the greater, what is worthy of choice is a good, and what is more worthy of choice is a greater good. This, then, is the Ærst species of what is just.

Chapter 4

The other kind of justice is rectiÆcatory, which is found in both voluntary and involuntary transactions. It belongs to a different species from that above. For the just in distribution of common property is always in accordance with the proportion stated above, since if the distribution is from common funds, it will be in the same ratio as are the corresponding investments to one another. And the injustice that is opposed to this kind of justice is what violates the proportion. What is just in transactions is nevertheless a kind of equality, and what is unjust a kind of inequality, in accordance, however, not with that kind of proportion, but with arithmetical proportion. For it makes no difference whether it is a good person who has defrauded a bad or a bad person a good, nor whether it is a good or bad person that has committed adultery. The law looks only to the difference made by the injury, and treats the parties as equals, if one is committing injustice, and the other suffering it ± that is, if one has harmed, and the other been harmed. So the judge, since this kind of injustice is an inequality, tries to equalize it. For even when one party is struck, and the other strikes, or one kills, and the other is killed, the suffering and the action are divided unequally. The judge tries to equalize them with the penalty, decreasing the gain that has been made. For the word gain' is generally employed in such cases, even if it is not appropriate for some of them, such as assault, and the same goes for the use of the wordloss' of the victim. At any rate, when the damage has been assessed, the one is called loss, the other gain.

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party with more, and add to the party with less; for we must add to the party with less the amount by which the mean exceeds what he has, and subtract from the greatest quantity the amount by which it exceeds the mean. Let the lines AA', BB' and CC' be equal to one another. From the line AA', let the segment AE be subtracted, and the segment CD added to the line CC', so that the whole line DCC' exceeds the line EA' by the segment CD and the segment CF; thus it exceeds the line BB' by the segment CD.

Chapter 5

Some hold that reciprocity is just without qualiÆcation. This was the claim of the Pythagoreans, since they deÆned, without qualiÆcation, what is just as reciprocity with another. Reciprocity, however, Æts neither distributive nor rectiÆcatory justice (though people do take even the justice of Rhadamanthus^33 to be a conception of rectiÆcatory justice: `If a person should suffer what he did, right justice would be done'^34 ), since often they conØict. For example, if a person in authority strikes someone, he should not be struck in return, but if someone has wounded an ofÆcial, he should not only be struck in return, but receive an additional punishment. Again, voluntariness and involuntariness make a great difference. When people associate with one another for the purpose of exchange, however, this kind of justice ± reciprocity in accordance with propor- tion, not equality ± is what binds them together, since a city is kept together by proportionate reciprocation. For people seek to return either evil for evil ± otherwise they feel like slaves ± or good for good ± otherwise no exchange takes place, and it is exchange that holds them together. This is why they erect a temple of the Graces in a conspicuous place, so that beneÆts might be repayed. This is the special characteristic of grace, because one ought both to perform a return service to someone who has been gracious, and another time to make the Ærst move by being gracious oneself. It is a diagonal conjunction that produces proportionate reciproca- tion. Let A represent a builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, and D a shoe. The builder must get from the shoemaker the product of his labour, and

(^33) Mythical son of Zeus and Europe, one of the judges of the dead in Elysium. (^34) Hesiod, fr. 174 MW.

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must hand over his own in return. If, Ærst, proportionate equality is established, and then reciprocation takes place, the result we mentioned will follow. If not, there is no equality, and the bargain falls through, since there is no reason why what one produces should not be more valuable than what the other produces, and the products must therefore be equated. This is the case with the other crafts as well. For they would have been ruined if what the passive party received were not the same in quantity and quality as what the active party produced; it is not two doctors who associate for exchange, but rather a doctor and a farmer, and, in general, people who are different and unequal, and must be made equal. This is why everything that is exchanged must be in some way commensurable. This is where money comes in; it functions as a kind of mean, since it is a measure of everything, including, therefore, excess and deÆciency. It can tell us, for example, how many shoes are equal to a house or some food. Then, as builder is to shoemaker, so must the number of shoes be to a house. For without this, there can be no exchange and no association; and it will not come about unless the products are in some sense equal. Everything, then, must be measured by some one standard, as we said before. This standard is in fact demand, which holds everything together; for if people needed nothing, or needed things to different degrees, either there would be no exchange or it would not be the same as it now is. But by social convention money has come to serve as a representative of demand. And this is why money is called nomisma, because it exists not by nature but by convention (nomos), and it is in our power to change its value and to render it worthless. There will be reciprocity, then, when the equation has been made, so that the shoemaker's product is to the farmer's as farmer is to shoe- maker. But we must bring them into the form of a proportion not after they have exchanged goods, but when they still have their own; otherwise one extreme will have both excesses. In this situation, they are equals and capable of association, because it is possible to establish this kind of equality between them. Let A be a farmer, C some food, B a shoemaker, and D his product equated to C; if this kind of reciprocity had been impossible, the two would not have entered into an association with one another. That demand holds things together as a single entity is obvious

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(and conversely with what is harmful), but what is proportionately equal; and similarly in distributing between two other people. Injustice, on the contrary, is concerned with what is unjust, that is, a disproportionate excess or deÆciency of what is beneÆcial or harmful; so injustice is an excess and a deÆciency, because it is concerned with excess and deÆciency. In one's own case, this is an excess of what is unqualiÆedly beneÆcial, and a deÆciency of what is harmful; in the case of others, though the general result is the same, the proportion may be violated in either direction. In an unjust action, to have too little is to suffer injustice, while to have too much is to commit it. This, then, can be taken as an adequate account of the nature of justice and injustice, and similarly of what is just and unjust in general.

Chapter 6

We have stated above how reciprocity is related to justice. But we must not forget that what we are investigating is not only justice in the unequal sense, but political justice. This is found among people who associate in life to achieve self-sufÆciency, people who are free and either proportionately or arithmetically equal. So between people who are not like this there is nothing politically just, but only something just by approximation. For what is just exists only among people whose relations are governed by law, and law only among those liable to injustice, since legal justice consists in judgement between what is just and what is unjust. Among those liable to injustice will also be found the committing of injustice, though injustice is not found among all those who commit injustice. Committing injustice consists in assigning to oneself too large a share of what is good without qualiÆcation, and too little of what is bad without qualiÆcation. This is why it is not a person that we allow to rule, but rather law, because a person does so in his own interests and becomes a tyrant. The magistrate, however, is a guardian of what is just, and so of what is equal as well. If he is just, he seems not to have more than his share, since he does not assign to himself a greater share of what is unqualiÆedly good, unless it is in proportion to his deserts. He thus seems to labour for others, which is why people say that justice is the good of another, as we mentioned above. He ought therefore to receive some sort of reward,

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namely, honour and privilege; and people who Ænd these insufÆcient are the ones who become tyrants. What is just for a master and for a father are not the same as this, though they are similar. For there is no unqualiÆed injustice in relation to what is one's own, and a man's property, as well as his child until it reaches a certain age and becomes independent, are, as it were, a part of him; and no one rationally chooses to harm himself, which is why there is no injustice in relation to oneself. So nothing politically just or unjust is possible here, because, as we saw, they depend on law, and exist only among people where law is natural, namely, those who share equally in ruling and being ruled. There is therefore more of what is just in relation to one's wife than one's children or possessions, since this is what is just in households; but this too is distinct from what is politically just.

Chapter 7

As regards what is politically just, one part is natural, the other legal. What is natural is what has the same force everywhere and does not depend on people's thinking. What is legal is what originally makes no difference whether it takes one form or another, but does matter when people have adopted it; for example, that the ransom for a prisoner be one mina, or that a goat be sacriÆced and not two sheep, and all the laws that people lay down for particular occasions, such as that sacriÆces be carried out for Brasidas,^35 and decisions made by special decree. Some people think that everything just is like this, since what is natural is unchangeable and has the same force everywhere, as Ære burns both here and in Persia, while they see what is just as changing. As it stands, this is false, though it is true in a sense. Among the gods, indeed, it is probably not true at all, but among us, though there is such a thing as what is natural, everything is nevertheless changeable; but still some things are so by nature, and others are not. It is obvious, in the case of contingent things, which sort are by nature, and which are not, but are legal and conventional, assuming that both are similarly changeable. And the same distinction will hold in other cases: by nature, the right hand is superior, but it is still possible for everyone to become ambidextrous.

(^35) d. 422 BCE. Distinguished Spartan general.

Book V

one of the people present, and is unaware that he is his father. A similar distinction may be made in the case of the end, and with regard to the action as a whole. An involuntary action, then, is one performed in ignorance, or, if not in ignorance, beyond the agent's control or under compulsion; there are plenty of things in the course of nature that we do and suffer knowingly, and which have nothing voluntary or involuntary about them, such as growing old or dying. Both unjust and just actions alike may be incidentally just. For if someone returned a deposit involuntarily and through fear, we should say that he is neither doing just actions nor acting justly, except incidentally. In the same way, we should say that someone who is forced involuntarily into not returning a deposit is only incidentally acting unjustly and doing unjust actions. Some of our voluntary actions we do with rational choice, namely, those that are the consequence of previous deliberation; others, those that are not the consequence of such delib- eration, we do without rational choice. So there are three ways in which people can injure one another when they associate. What is done in ignorance is an error, when the person affected, the nature of the act, the instrument used or the end is different from what the agent supposed. He thought, for example, that he was not hitting anyone, or not with this object, or not this person, or not for this end; but the result turned out to be different from what he had thought (he meant, for instance, only to prick the other person, not wound him), or the person hit or the object used was different. When the injury occurs contrary to reasonable expectation, it is a misadventure. When, however, it is not contrary to reasonable expecta- tion, but is without malice, it is an error (someone makes an error when the Ærst principle of the cause is in him, but when it is external he is unfortunate). When the agent acts knowingly, but without previous deliberation, it is an injustice; for example, actions done from spirit and the other feelings that are necessary and natural for human beings. For people who inØict these sorts of harm and make these errors are committing injustice, and their actions are injustices, but it does not follow that the agents are unjust or wicked, because the harm is not due to wickedness. Since one can commit injustice without yet being an unjust person, what sort of unjust acts make the person who commits them, such as a thief, an adulterer, or a pirate, unjust in each type of injustice? Or is the

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quality of the act irrelevant? For a person might have sex with a woman knowing who she was, but through feeling rather than the Ærst principle of rational choice. So he commits injustice, but he is not unjust; a person is not a thief, for example, though he stole, or an adulterer, though he committed adultery, and so on. But a person who acts like this from rational choice is unjust and wicked. This is why actions done from spirit are rightly thought to be unpremeditated, because the Ærst principle is not in the person who acts from spirit, but in the one who made him angry. Again, the dispute is not about whether the action took place or not, but about its justice, since it is an apparent injustice that has given rise to the anger. For they are not disputing the fact, as people do in contracts, where one of the parties must be wicked unless the dispute arises from forgetfulness. Rather they agree about the fact, and dispute about which action was just (whereas a person who has deliberately harmed another is not ignorant of this), so that the one thinks he is being treated unjustly, while the other disagrees. But if a person harms another by rational choice, he does act unjustly; and it is committing these acts of injustice, when they violate propor- tionality or equality, which make a person unjust. Similarly, a person is just when he acts justly by rational choice, but acts justly if he merely acts voluntarily. Some involuntary acts are pardonable, others not. Errors that people make not only in ignorance but through ignorance are pardonable; those made in ignorance through a feeling that is neither natural nor human, and not through ignorance, are not pardonable.

Chapter 9

Assuming our deÆnitions of suffering and committing injustice are adequate, someone might wonder, Ærst of all, whether things are as Euripides suggests in the odd lines:

I killed my mother; that's my story in brief.'Both voluntarily, or involuntarily both?'.^36

For is it really possible to suffer injustice voluntarily, or is it always

(^36) Euripides, Alcmaeon fr. 68 Nauck.

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that of nine',^37 does not suffer injustice. To give is in his power, but to suffer injustice is not; there must be someone to treat him unjustly. Clearly, then, suffering injustice is not voluntary. Two of the topics we rationally chose to discuss still remain, namely, whether it is the person who distributes more to someone than he deserves who is committing injustice or the person who receives it, and whether a person can treat himself unjustly. If the Ærst suggestion is possible, and it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not the person who has more than he should, and if someone can knowingly and voluntarily assign more to someone else than to himself, this is a case of a person's treating himself unjustly. And indeed this is what moderate people seem to do, since a good person will tend to take less than his share. Or is this too simple? For perhaps he is greedy for some other good, such as honour or what is unqualiÆedly noble. Again, a solution to the problem can be found in our deÆnition of acting unjustly. He does not suffer anything contrary to his own wish, so that he is not unjustly treated in this respect at any rate; and if he does suffer anything, it is only harm. Clearly it is the distributor who acts unjustly, and not always the person who receives more than his share. For it is not the person who possesses what is unjust who acts unjustly, but he who voluntarily does what is unjust, namely, the person in whom we Ænd the Ærst principle of the action ± and this is in the distributor, not the recipient. Also, since doing is spoken of in many different ways, and there is a sense in which soulless things, or a hand, or a slave at the order of his master can kill, the recipient does not act unjustly, though he does do something unjust. Again, if the distributor gave judgement in ignorance, he does not act unjustly as far as legal justice goes, nor is his judgement unjust, except in a sense (legal justice and primary justice being different). But if he knew what he was doing when he judged unjustly, then he himself is also greedy, either for favour or for revenge. The person who has judged unjustly for these reasons, then, has more than his share, quite as though he has a share of the unjust award: when he judges on that condition about land, he took not land but money. People think that acting unjustly is within their power, and therefore

(^37) Homer, Iliad vi.236.

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that justice is an easy matter, when in fact it is not. While having sex with a neighbour's wife, punching the person next to us, putting money in somebody's hands, are easy and in our power, doing these things through having a certain character is neither easy nor in our power. In the same way, people think that knowing what is just and what is unjust does not require any wisdom, because it is not difÆcult to grasp what the laws say, though the acts they prescribe are not just other than in an incidental way. But knowing how acts are to be done and distrib- utions to be effected if they are to be just is more of a job than knowing what health requires. Though, even in the case of health, knowing about honey, wine, hellebore, cautery and surgery may be easy, knowing how one should prescribe them to make people healthy, and to whom and at what time, is as demanding a task as it is to be a doctor. Again, for this same reason, people suppose that acting unjustly is no less a characterstic of a just person than of an unjust, because the just person would be no less but even more able to do each act. For he could have sex with a woman or hit somebody; and a courageous person could throw away his shield and turn to run in either direction. But to act in a cowardly or unjust way is not to do things of this kind, except incidentally, but to do them on the basis of having a certain character. In the same way, being a doctor or curing a patient is a matter not merely of operating or not operating, of prescribing or not prescribing, but of doing them in a particular way. What is just is found among people who have a share of things that are good without qualiÆcation, and whose share can be excessive or deÆcient. No share can be excessive for some ± for example, I suppose, the gods ± and for others ± those who are incurably vicious ± none of them is beneÆcial, but they are all harmful; there are yet others for whom they are beneÆcial up to a point. So what is just is a human affair.

Chapter 10

We have next to say something about equity and what is equitable ± about how equity is related to justice, and what is equitable to what is just. On examination they seem to be neither without qualiÆcation the same nor generically different. Sometimes we praise what is equitable and the person with that quality, so that when we are praising someone for other things we even transfer the term `equitable', as an equivalent

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