The Nicomachean Ethics — trans. F. H. Peters (1881)

1, 9-16.] JUSTICE. 139

13 Now, the laws prescribe about all manner of things, aiming at the common interest of all, or of the best men, or of those who are supreme in the state (position in the state being determined by reference to personal excellence, or to some other such standard) ; and so in one sense we apply the term just to whatever tends to produce and preserve the happiness of the community, and the several elements of that u happiness. The law bids us display courage (as not to leave our ranks, or run, or throw away our arms), and temperance (as not to commit adultery or outrage), and gentleness (as not to strike or revile our neighbours), and so on with all the other virtues and vices, enjoining acts and forbidding them, rightly when it is a good law, not so rightly when it is a hastily improvised one.

lo Justice, then, in this sense of the word, is complete virtue, with the addition that it is displayed towards others. On this account it is often spoken of as the chief of the virtues, and such that " neither evening nor morning star is so lovely ; " and the saying has become proverbial, "Justice sums up all virtues in itself."

It is complete virtue, first of all, because it is the exhibition of complete virtue : it is also complete because he that has it is able to exhibit virtue in dealing with his neighbours, and not merely in his private affairs ; for there are many who can be virtuous enough at home, but fail in dealing with their neighbours.

16 This is the reason why people commend the saying of Bias, " Office will show the man ; " for he that

p. 140

Of justice (2) = fairness, how related to justice (1), What is just in distribution distinguished from what is just in correction.

is in office ipso facto stands in relation to others,* and has dealings with them.

This, too, is the reason why justice alone of all the virtues is thought to be another's good, as implying this relation to others ; for it is another's interest that justice aims at — the interest, namely, of the ruler or of our fellow-citizens.

While then the worst man is he who displays vice both in his own affairs and in his dealings with his friends, the best man is not he who displays virtue in his own affairs merely, but he who displays virtue towards others ; for this is the hard thing to do.

Justice, then, in this sense of the word, is not a part of virtue, but the whole of it; and the injustice which is opposed to it is not a part of vice, but the whole of it.

How virtue differs from justice in this sense is 2( plain from what we have said ; it is one and the same character differently viewed : f viewed in relation to others, this character is justice ; viewed simply as a certain character, j it is virtue.

2. We have now to examine justice in that sense in which it is a part of virtue — for we maintain that there is such a justice — and also the corresponding kind of injustice.

That the word is so used is easily shown. In the case of the other kinds of badness, the man who displays them, though he acts unjustly [in one sense

* While his children are regarded as parts of him, and even his wife is not regarded as an independent person : cf. infra, 6, 8.

t Or " differently manifested : " the phrase is used in both senses.

X Putting comma after airXus instead of after e|(s (Trendelenburg).

1, 17-2, 5] JUSTICE. 141

of the word], yet does not take more than his share : for instance, when a man throws away his shield through cowardice, or reviles another through ill temper, or through illiberality refuses to help another with money. But when he takes more than his share, he displays perhaps no one of these vices, nor does he display them all, yet he displays a kind of badness (for we blame him), namely, injustice [in the second sense of the word].

We see, then, that there is another sense of the word injustice, in which it stands for a part of that injustice which is coextensive with badness, and another sense of the word unjust, in which it is applied to a part only of those things to which it is applied in the former sense of " contrary to law."