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

2 be just or unjust.* For whether an act is or is not to be called an act of injustice (or of justice) depends upon whether it is voluntary or involuntary ; for if it be voluntarv the agent is blamed, and at the same time the act becomes an act of injustice : so something unjust may be done, and yet it may not be an act of injustice, i.e. if this condition of voluntariness be absent.

3 By a voluntary act I mean, as I explained before, anything which, being within the doer's control, is done knowdngly {i.e. with knowledge of the person, the instrument, and the result ; e.g. the person whom and the instrument with which he is striking, and the effect of the blow), without the intervention at any point of accident or constraint; e.g. if another take your hand and with it strike a third person, that is not a voluntary act of yours, for it was not within your control ; again, the man you strike may be yonr father, and you may know that it is a man, or perhaps that it is one of the company, that you are striking,

* Cf. § 4.

166 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS OP AKISTOTLE. [Bk. V.

but not know that it is your father ; and it must be understood that the same distinction is to be made with regard to the result, and, in a word, to the whole act. That then which either is done in ignorance, or, though not done in ignorance, is nol under our control, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary ; besides which, there are many natural processes in which we knowingly take an active or a passive part, which cannot be called either voluntary or involuntary, such as growing old and dying.

An accidentally unjust act and an accidentally just 4 act are equally possible ; e.g. a man might restore a deposit against his will for fear of consequences, and then you could not say that he did what was just or acted justly except accidentally : * and, similarly, a man who against his will was forcibly prevented from restoring a deposit would be said only accidentally to act unjustly or to do that which is unjust.

Voluntary acts, again, are divided into (1) those 5 that are done of set purpose, and (2) those that are done without set purpose ; i.e. (1) those that are done after previous deliberation, and (2) those that are done without previous deliberation.

Now, there are three ways in which we may hurt 6 our neighbour. Firstly, a hurt done in ignorance is generally called a mistake when there is a misconception as to the person affected, or the thing done, or the instrument, or the result ; e.g. I may not think to hit,

* i.e. he willed the act not as just, but as a means of avoiding the painful consequences ; the justice of it, therefore, was not part of the essence of the act to him, was not among the qualities of the act which moved him to choose it, or, in Aristotle's language, was " accidental."

8. 4-9.] JUSTICE. 167

or not to hit with this instrument, or not to hit this person, or not to produce this effect, but an effect follows other than that which was present to my mind ; I may mean to inflict a prick, not a wound, or not to wound the person whom I wound, or not to deal a wound of this kind.

But [if we draw the distinction more accurately] when the hurt comes about contrary to what mio^ht reasonably be expected, it may be called a mishap : but when, though it is not contrary to what might reasonably be expected, there is stiU no ^^cious intention, it is a mistake ; for a man makes a mistake when he sets the train of events in motion,* but he is unfortunate when an external agency interferes.!

Secondly, when the agent acts with knowledge but without previous deliberation, it is an act of injustice ; e.g. when he is impelled by anger or any of the other passions to which man is necessaiily or naturally subject. In doing such hurt and committing such en-ors, the doer acts unjustly and the acts are acts of injustice, though they are not such as to stamp him as unjust or wicked; for the hurt is not done out of wickedness.

But, thirdly, when it is done of set purpose, the doer is unjust and wicked.