Book V

A capacity or a science seems to be the same for opposites, but a state that is one of a pair of opposites does not produce the opposite results. For example, health doesn’t give rise to the opposite of healthy actions, only to healthy ones; for we say someone walks healthily when he walks as a healthy person would. Often, then, a state is recognized from its opposite, and often states are recognized from what they are found in. For if good bodily condition is evident, poor condition also becomes evident; and good condition is recognized from what produces it, and what produces it from good condition. If good condition is firmness of flesh, then poor condition must be flabbiness of flesh, and what produces good condition must be what produces firmness in the flesh. And it follows for the most part that if one of a pair of opposites is said in more than one way, so is the other; for example, if “just” is, so is “unjust.”

Justice and injustice seem to be said in more than one way, but because their different meanings are close together, the ambiguity goes unnoticed, and it isn’t as obvious as it is where the meanings are far apart (for there the difference in form is great)—as, for example, the fact that kleis is used ambiguously both for the collarbone of animals and for what we lock doors with. Let us grasp, then, in how many ways someone is called unjust. The lawless person is thought to be unjust, and so is the grasping, unfair person; so clearly the just person will be both the law-abiding and the fair person. The just, then, is the lawful and the fair, and the unjust is the unlawful and the unfair.note

Since the unjust person is grasping, he will be concerned with goods—not all goods, but those that good and bad fortune concern, which are always good without qualification, but not always good for a particular person. Human beings pray for these and pursue them; but they shouldn’t. They should pray that what is good without qualification will also be good for them, and choose what is good for them. The unjust person doesn’t always choose the larger share: in the case of things bad without qualification he chooses the smaller. But because the lesser evil too seems in a way to be good, and grasping is for the good, he seems to be grasping. He is unfair, since this includes both and is common to both.

Since the lawless person was unjust and the law-abiding person just, clearly everything lawful is in a way just. For what is laid down by legislation is lawful, and we say that each of these things is just. The laws pronounce on everything, aiming at the common advantage of all, or of the best, or of those in power, whether on the basis of excellence or in some other such way. So in one way we call just whatever produces and preserves happiness and its parts for the political community.

The law also commands us to do what a courageous person does—for example, not to desert our post, or run away, or throw down our arms; and what a moderate person does—for example, not to commit adultery or assault; and what a gentle person does—for example, not to strike or slander anyone; and similarly with the other excellences and vices, commanding some things and forbidding others. A correctly framed law does this correctly, a hastily improvised one less well. This justice, then, is complete excellence, though not without qualification, but in relation to another. And for this reason justice is often thought to be the greatest of the excellences, and “neither the evening nor the morning star is so wonderful”; and we say in the proverb, “In justice all excellence is summed up.” And it is complete excellence in the fullest sense, because it is the exercise of complete excellence.note

It is complete because the person who has it can exercise his excellence toward another, and not only by himself; for many people can exercise excellence in their own affairs but are unable to in their dealings with another. 1130a And that is why the saying of Bias seems right, that “office will reveal the man,” since one who holds office is by that very fact related to others and in a community. For this same reason justice alone of the excellences is thought to be another’s good, because it is related to another: it does what benefits someone else, whether a ruler or a partner. The worst person, then, is the one who exercises his vice both toward himself and toward his friends; and the best is not the one who exercises his excellence toward himself, but the one who exercises it toward another, since that is a difficult task.note

This justice, then, is not a part of excellence but the whole of excellence, and the injustice opposed to it is not a part of vice but the whole of vice. What the difference is between excellence and this justice is clear from what has been said: they are the same state, but what it is to be each is not the same. Insofar as it is related to another, it is justice; insofar as it is a certain kind of state without qualification, it is excellence.

Again, suppose one man commits adultery for profit and makes money by it, while another does so because of appetite, spending money and losing by it. The second would seem to be self-indulgent rather than grasping, the first unjust but not self-indulgent. Clearly, then, it is because of the profit. Again, all other wrongful acts are always traced back to some particular vice: if someone committed adultery, to self-indulgence; if he deserted his comrade in the battle line, to cowardice; if he struck someone, to anger. But if he made a profit, it is traced back to no vice other than injustice.

So it is evident that besides injustice as a whole there is another, particular injustice, which shares its name, because its definition falls within the same genus: 1130b both have their force in relation to another person. But the one is concerned with honor, or money, or safety—or whatever single name we might have that would cover all of these—and is motivated by the pleasure that comes from gain, while the other is concerned with everything that the excellent person is concerned with.

So we must discuss particular justice and particular injustice, and in the same way the just and the unjust in this sense. Let us set aside, then, the justice and injustice that correspond to excellence as a whole—the one being the exercise of excellence as a whole toward another person, the other the exercise of vice as a whole. It is also evident how the just and the unjust that correspond to these are to be marked out. For, roughly speaking, most lawful acts are those prescribed on the basis of excellence as a whole: the law commands us to live in accordance with each excellence and forbids us to live in accordance with each vice. And what produces excellence as a whole are those lawful measures that have been enacted concerning education for life in the community.

This second kind has two parts, since some transactions are voluntary and others involuntary. The voluntary ones are such things as sale, purchase, lending at interest, giving security, lending for use, deposit, and hire (they are called voluntary because the origin of these transactions is voluntary). Of the involuntary ones, some are clandestine—theft, adultery, poisoning, procuring, enticing away slaves, assassination, false witness—and others are violent—assault, imprisonment, murder, robbery with violence, maiming, verbal abuse, and insulting treatment.

And the equality will be the same for the persons as for the things: as the things stand to each other, so the persons stand. If the persons are not equal, they will not have equal shares; this is the source of quarrels and complaints—when equals have or are assigned unequal shares, or unequals equal ones. This is also clear from the principle of distribution according to worth. Everyone agrees that what is just in distributions must accord with worth of some kind, but not everyone means the same kind of worth: democrats mean free birth, oligarchs wealth, others good birth, and aristocrats excellence. The just, then, is something proportional. For proportion is a property not only of numbers made up of units, but of number in general: proportion is an equality of ratios, and involves at least four terms.

That discrete proportion involves four terms is clear. But so does continuous proportion, since it uses one term as two and states it twice: 1131b for example, as line A is to line B, so B is to C. B has been stated twice, so if B is posited twice, the proportional terms will be four. The just, too, involves at least four terms, and the ratio is the same, since the persons and the things are divided in the same way. So as term A is to B, so C will be to D; and therefore, alternating, as A is to C, so B is to D. Hence the whole also stands to the whole in the same ratio. This is the pairing the distribution makes, and if the terms are combined in this way, it pairs them justly.

The conjunction of term A with C and of B with D, then, is what is just in distribution. This just is a mean, and the unjust is what violates the proportion; for the proportional is a mean, and the just is proportional. Mathematicians call this kind of proportion geometrical, since in geometrical proportion it follows that the whole is to the whole as each term is to its counterpart. But this proportion is not continuous, since no single term numerically serves as both person and thing. This, then, is the just: the proportional. The unjust is what violates the proportion. So one share becomes too great and the other too small—which is exactly what happens in practice: the person who does wrong has too much of the good, and the person wronged too little.

With what is bad it is the reverse: the lesser evil counts as a good compared with the greater evil, since the lesser evil is more choiceworthy than the greater, and what is choiceworthy is good, and what is more choiceworthy is a greater good. This, then, is one kind of the just.

For it makes no difference whether a decent person has defrauded a bad one or a bad person a decent one, nor whether it was a decent or a bad person who committed adultery. The law looks only at the difference made by the harm, and treats the parties as equals, asking only whether one did wrong and the other was wronged, and whether one inflicted harm and the other suffered it. So the judge tries to equalize this unjust thing, since it is unequal. When one person is struck and the other strikes, or when one kills and the other dies, the suffering and the action have been divided into unequal parts; but the judge tries to equalize them by means of the penalty, taking away from the gain. For in such cases the term “gain” is used, speaking generally—even if it isn’t the appropriate word in some cases, for instance for the person who struck the blow—and “loss” for the one who suffered. At any rate, once the suffering has been measured, one side is called loss and the other gain.

So the equal is a mean between the more and the less, while gain and loss are more and less in opposite ways: more of the good and less of the bad is gain, and the opposite is loss. The mean between them, as we saw, is the equal, which we say is just. So the corrective just would be the mean between loss and gain. That is why, when people are in dispute, they take refuge with a judge; and going to the judge is going to the just, since the judge means to be, as it were, justice ensouled. People seek a judge who is in the middle, and some call judges “mediators,” on the thought that if they hit on the mean they will obtain what is just. The just, then, is a kind of mean, since the judge is too.

The judge restores equality. It is as though a line had been cut into unequal parts: he takes away the amount by which the larger segment exceeds the half and adds it to the smaller segment. And when the whole has been divided into two halves, people say they “have what is their own,” when they get what is equal. The equal is a mean between the greater and the lesser according to arithmetical proportion. This is also why it is called dikaion (just): because it is dicha (in two), as if one were to say dichaion; and the judge (dikastēs) is a dichastēs, a divider. For when something is taken from one of two equal quantities and added to the other, the other exceeds the first by twice that amount; if it had been taken from the one but not added to the other, the other would exceed it by that amount only. 1132b So the larger exceeds the mean by one such amount, and the mean exceeds the one from which something was taken by one such amount.note

By this, then, we shall recognize what must be taken from the one who has more and what must be added to the one who has less: the amount by which the mean exceeds the lesser must be added to the one who has less, and the amount by which the mean is exceeded must be taken from the greatest. Let the lines AA, BB, and CC be equal to one another. From AA let AE be taken away, and to CC let CD be added, so that the whole line DCC exceeds EA by CD and CZ; therefore it exceeds BB by CD. This holds in the other crafts too: they would be destroyed if what the producer produced, in quantity and quality, were not matched by what the recipient received, of that amount and of that kind.

These terms, “loss” and “gain,” have come from voluntary exchange. Having more than one’s own is called gaining, and having less than one started with is called losing—as in buying and selling, and in all other dealings in which the law has granted freedom. But when people end up with neither more nor less, but with just what they had, through the exchange itself, they say they have what is their own and neither lose nor gain. So the just is a mean between a kind of gain and a kind of loss in transactions that are not voluntary: it is having an equal amount both before and after.

People seek to return either harm for harm— 1133a otherwise it seems like slavery, if one is not to retaliate—or good for good; otherwise there is no exchange, and it is through exchange that they hold together. That is why people set up a shrine of the Graces in a prominent place, so that there may be repayment; for this is the special mark of grace: one should serve in return someone who has done one a favor, and in turn take the lead in doing a favor oneself. Proportional exchange is brought about by cross-conjunction. Let A be a builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, and D a shoe. The builder must get from the shoemaker the shoemaker’s product, and give him his own in return. If, then, there is first proportional equality, and then reciprocity takes place, the result we described will follow.note

If not, the exchange is not equal and does not hold together; for nothing prevents the product of one from being worth more than that of the other, and so these must be equalized. This holds in the other crafts too: they would be destroyed if what the producer produced, in quantity and quality, were not matched by what the recipient received, of that amount and of that kind. For a community is not formed from two doctors, but from a doctor and a farmer, and in general from people who are different and not equal; but they must be equalized. That is why all things that are exchanged must somehow be comparable. It is for this that money has come in, and it becomes in a way a middle term, since it measures everything—and so measures excess and deficiency too—how many shoes are equal to a house or to a quantity of food. So as builder is to shoemaker, so must so many shoes be to a house or to food.

For without this there will be no exchange and no community. And this will not happen unless the goods are somehow equal. So everything must be measured by some one thing, as was said before. In truth this is need, which holds everything together: if people needed nothing, or did not need things in a similar way, there would either be no exchange or not the same exchange. But money has become, by convention, a kind of stand-in for need. And that is why it has the name nomisma: because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos), and it is in our power to change it and make it useless. There will be reciprocity, then, when the goods have been equalized, so that as farmer is to shoemaker, so the shoemaker’s product is to the farmer’s.

But we must not bring them into the form of a proportion once they have made the exchange (otherwise one extreme will have both excesses), but while they still have their own goods. In this way they are equals and partners, because this equality can be established in their case. Let A be a farmer, C food, B a shoemaker, and D his product, equalized with C. If reciprocity were not possible in this way, there would be no community. That need holds things together as a single unit is shown by the fact that when people are not in need of each other—both of them, or one—they do not exchange—as when someone needs what one has oneself, wine for example, and people give leave for the export of grain. So this must be equalized. And for a future exchange—in case someone needs nothing now—money serves us as a kind of guarantor that the exchange will be there if he does need something; for someone who brings money must be able to get what he wants.note

Money, it is true, is subject to the same thing: its value is not always equal. Still, it tends to be more stable. That is why everything should have a price set on it; for in this way there will always be exchange, and if there is exchange, community. Money, then, acting like a measure, makes things commensurable and equalizes them. For there would be no community without exchange, no exchange without equality, and no equality without commensurability. In truth it is impossible for things that differ so much to become commensurable, but with reference to need they can become so sufficiently. There must, then, be some one unit, fixed by agreement—which is why it is called nomisma. For this makes all things commensurable, since all things are measured by money. Let A be a house, B ten minas, C a bed.note

A is half of B, if the house is worth five minas, or equal to that; and the bed, C, is a tenth of B. It is clear, then, how many beds are equal to a house: five. And it is clear that exchange took place in this way before there was money; for it makes no difference whether five beds are given for a house or the value of five beds.

The unjust is excess and deficiency of what is beneficial or harmful, contrary to proportion. That is why injustice is excess and deficiency: because it is concerned with excess and deficiency—in one’s own case, excess of what is beneficial without qualification and deficiency of what is harmful; in the case of others, the result as a whole is similar, but the violation of proportion may go either way. Of the unjust act, the lesser part is being wronged, and the greater part is doing wrong. Let this be our account of justice and injustice and the nature of each, and likewise of the just and the unjust in general.

Political justice exists among people who share a life aimed at self-sufficiency, people who are free and equal, whether proportionally or numerically. So among those for whom this is not the case, there is no political justice in their relations with one another, but only justice of a sort, by resemblance. For there is justice among those whose relations are governed by law; and there is law among those between whom there is injustice, since a legal judgment is a discrimination of the just and the unjust. Where there is injustice there is also doing wrong (though where there is doing wrong there is not always injustice), and injustice is assigning oneself too much of what is good without qualification and too little of what is bad without qualification. That is why we do not allow a human being to rule, but reason, since a human being does this for himself 1134b and becomes a tyrant. The ruler is a guardian of the just, and if of the just, then of the equal too.

Since the ruler seems to get nothing extra for himself, if he is just (for he does not assign himself more of what is good without qualification unless it is proportional to him; that is why he labors for another, and why people say justice is “another’s good,” as was said before), some reward must be given him, and this is honor and privilege. Those for whom such things are not enough become tyrants.

The justice of a master and that of a father are not the same as these, though they are similar. For there is no injustice without qualification toward what is one’s own; and a piece of property, or a child until it reaches a certain age and becomes independent, is as it were a part of oneself, and no one decides to harm himself. That is why there is no injustice toward oneself, and therefore nothing politically just or unjust either. For that, as we saw, is according to law, and exists among those who are naturally subject to law, and these, as we saw, are people who share equally in ruling and being ruled. That is why justice exists more toward a wife than toward children and property; for this is household justice. But this too is different from political justice.note

This is not so, though it is so in a way. Among the gods, perhaps, it is not so at all; but among us there is something that is by nature, even though all of it is changeable. Nevertheless, some is by nature and some not by nature. Among things that can be otherwise, which kind is by nature, and which is not by nature but legal and conventional, given that both are equally changeable, is clear. And the same distinction will fit other cases too: by nature the right hand is stronger, and yet it is possible for everyone to become ambidextrous. The just things that rest on convention and expediency 1135a are like measures: measures of wine and grain are not equal everywhere, but larger where people buy and smaller where they sell.

Likewise, the things that are just not by nature but by human arrangement are not the same everywhere, since constitutions are not the same either; yet only one constitution is everywhere by nature the best. Each of the things that are just and lawful is related to actions as universals are to particulars: the things done are many, but each of those is one, since it is universal. There is a difference between an unjust act and what is unjust, and between a just act and what is just. Something is unjust by nature or by ordinance; and this same thing, once it has been done, is an unjust act, but before it is done it is not yet that—only something unjust. Likewise with a just act; though the general term is rather “just action” (dikaiopragēma), while dikaiōma means the correction of an unjust act. As for each of these, what kinds there are, how many, and what they are concerned with, we must examine later.

By voluntary I mean, as was also said before, whatever a person does among the things that are up to him, knowingly and not in ignorance of the person affected, the instrument, or the purpose—for example, whom he is striking, with what, and for what purpose—and each of these not incidentally, nor by force (as when someone takes his hand and strikes another with it, he does not do so voluntarily, since it was not up to him). It is possible for the person struck to be one’s father, and for the striker to know that he is a human being, or one of those present, but not know that he is his father. Let the same distinction be drawn in the case of the purpose, and with regard to the action as a whole. What is done in ignorance, then, or not in ignorance but not up to the agent, or by force, is involuntary.

For there are many natural processes, too, 1135b that we do or undergo knowingly, none of which is either voluntary or involuntary—growing old, for example, or dying. And with unjust and just acts alike there is also the incidental. Someone might return a deposit involuntarily and out of fear; he should not be said to do just things or to act justly, except incidentally. Likewise, someone who under compulsion and involuntarily fails to return a deposit should be said to do wrong and do unjust things only incidentally. Of voluntary actions, some we do by decision and others not by decision: by decision, those we have deliberated about beforehand; not by decision, those we have not deliberated about beforehand.

There are, then, three kinds of harm that occur in dealings between people. Those done in ignorance are mistakes, when the person affected, the act, the instrument, or the purpose is not what the agent supposed. He thought he was not throwing at all, or not with this, or not at this person, or not for this purpose; but the result was not what he intended—for instance, he threw not to wound but only to prick—or it was not the person he thought, or not with the instrument he thought.

When the harm occurs contrary to reasonable expectation, it is a misfortune. When it is not contrary to reasonable expectation, but occurs without vice, it is a mistake (for a person makes a mistake when the origin of the cause lies in himself, and suffers misfortune when it lies outside him). When someone acts knowingly but without prior deliberation, it is an unjust act—for instance, acts done through anger or other feelings that are necessary or natural to human beings. For in doing these harms and making these mistakes people do wrong, and the acts are unjust acts; yet the agents are not thereby unjust or wicked, since the harm is not due to vice. But when the act comes from decision, the agent is unjust and wicked. That is why acts done from anger are rightly judged not to be premeditated; for the one who starts it is not the person acting in anger but the one who made him angry. Further, the dispute is not about whether the thing happened but about whether it was just; for anger is a response to apparent injustice.

It isn’t like disputes over contracts, where the parties argue about whether the thing happened at all; there one of the two must be wicked, unless they act out of forgetfulness. Here they agree about the facts and dispute which side is in the right (whereas someone who has plotted against another knows perfectly well what he is doing), so that one thinks he is being wronged and the other doesn’t. 1136a But if someone does harm by decision, he does wrong; and it is when he commits wrongs of this kind, which violate proportion or equality, that the wrongdoer is at last an unjust person. Similarly a person is just when he acts justly by decision; if he merely acts voluntarily, he only does just things. Of involuntary acts, some are forgivable and others are not. Errors people make not only in ignorance but because of ignorance are forgivable; those they make not because of ignorance, but in ignorance that stems from a feeling neither natural nor human, are not forgivable.

Next, one might also raise this difficulty: is everyone who has suffered something unjust thereby wronged, or is it with suffering as it is with doing? For in both cases it is possible to have a share in just things incidentally, and clearly the same holds for unjust things. Doing unjust things is not the same as doing wrong, and suffering unjust things is not the same as being wronged; and likewise with acting justly and being treated justly. For it is impossible to be wronged unless someone does wrong, or to be treated justly unless someone acts justly. Now if doing wrong is simply harming someone voluntarily, and “voluntarily” means knowing whom one affects, with what, and how, and the uncontrolled person voluntarily harms himself, then he would be wronged voluntarily, and it would be possible to wrong oneself. This too is one of the open questions: 1136b whether it is possible to wrong oneself.

Again, through lack of self-control someone might voluntarily be harmed by another who acts voluntarily, so that it would be possible to be wronged voluntarily. Or is the definition incorrect, and must we add to “harming someone knowing whom, with what, and how” the words “against his wish”? Someone may, then, be harmed voluntarily and suffer unjust things, but no one is wronged voluntarily. For no one wishes it, not even the uncontrolled person; he acts against his wish. No one wishes for what he doesn’t think worthwhile, and the uncontrolled person does what he doesn’t think he ought to do. And someone who gives away what is his own—as Homer says Glaucus gave Diomedes “gold for bronze, a hundred oxen’s worth for nine”—is not wronged. Giving is up to him, but being wronged is not up to him: there has to be someone who wrongs him. So it is clear that being wronged is not voluntary.note

It is evident, too, that the distributor does wrong, but the one who has more does not always do so. For it is not the person who ends up with the unjust thing who does wrong, but the person who voluntarily does it; and that is the one in whom the action originates, which is the distributor, not the recipient. Again, since “doing” is said in many ways, and in one sense inanimate things kill, or a hand does, or a servant acting on orders, these do not do wrong, though they do unjust things. Again, if a judge gave his verdict in ignorance, he does not do wrong according to legal justice, nor is his verdict unjust—though in a way it is unjust, since legal justice is different from justice in the primary sense. But if he knowingly judged unjustly, 1137a he too is getting more than his share, either of gratitude or of revenge.

So the man who judges unjustly for these reasons has more, just as if he had taken a share of the proceeds of the wrong; for someone who awards the field on those terms gets not a field but money. People think that doing wrong is up to them, and so they think that being just is easy too. But it isn’t. Sleeping with the neighbor’s wife, hitting the man next to you, handing over the bribe—these are easy and up to us; but doing them from a certain state of character is neither easy nor up to us.

Similarly, people think it takes no wisdom to know what is just and what is unjust, because it isn’t hard to understand what the laws say (though these are not the just things, except incidentally). But how actions must be done and distributions made in order to be just—that is a bigger task than knowing what is healthy. Even there it is easy to know about honey, wine, hellebore, cautery and surgery; but knowing how to dispense them to produce health, and to whom, and when, is as big a task as being a doctor. For this very reason people think that doing wrong belongs no less to the just person, since the just person would be no less able, and in fact more able, to do each of these things: to sleep with a woman, to hit someone; and the brave person could throw away his shield, turn, and run in any direction.note

But being a coward or doing wrong is not doing these things, except incidentally; it is doing them from a certain state—just as practicing medicine and healing is not cutting or not cutting, giving drugs or not giving them, but doing so in a certain way. Just things exist among those who have a share in things good without qualification, and who can have too much or too little of them. For some beings can have no excess of these goods—the gods, perhaps; for others, the incurably bad, no portion of them is beneficial, but all of it does harm; and for others they are beneficial up to a point. That is why justice is something human.

These, roughly, are the considerations that create the difficulty about the equitable. Yet all of them are in a way correct, and none contradicts the others. The equitable, while better than one kind of just, is just; it is not better than the just by being something of a different kind. So the just and the equitable are the same, and while both are excellent, the equitable is superior. What creates the difficulty is that the equitable is just, but not just according to law; it is a correction of legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal, but about some things it is not possible to speak correctly in universal terms. So in cases where it is necessary to speak universally but not possible to do so correctly, the law takes what holds for the most part, not unaware of the error this involves.

And it is no less correct for that. The error lies not in the law, nor in the lawmaker, but in the nature of the thing, since the material of practical matters is simply like that. So when the law speaks universally, and a case arises that falls outside the universal, then it is right—where the lawmaker has left a gap and erred by speaking without qualification—to correct the omission: to say what the lawmaker himself would have said had he been present, and would have written into law had he known. That is why the equitable is just, and better than one kind of just—not better than the just without qualification, but than the error that arises from its being stated without qualification. And this is the nature of the equitable: a correction of law where it falls short because of its universality. This is also the reason why not everything is governed by law: about some things it is impossible to lay down a law, so that a decree is needed.

For when a thing is indefinite, the rule for it is indefinite too, like the lead rule used in Lesbian building: the rule shifts to fit the shape of the stone and does not stay fixed, and so the decree adapts to the facts. So it is clear what the equitable is, and that it is just and better than one kind of just. From this it is also evident who the equitable person is: someone who decides on and does such things, and 1138a who does not insist on the strict letter of justice to the detriment of others but tends to take less, even though he has the law on his side, is equitable; and this state is equity, which is a kind of justice and not some different state.note

Again, in the sense in which someone who does wrong is merely unjust, and not bad in every way, it is not possible to wrong oneself. (This sense is different from the other: the unjust person is in a way bad in the same manner as the coward, not as having badness as a whole, so it is not in respect of badness as a whole that he does wrong either.) For then the same thing would at the same time have been taken from and added to the same person, and this is impossible; the just and the unjust always require more than one person. Again, doing wrong is voluntary, by decision, and comes first; someone who does the same thing back because he has suffered it is not thought to do wrong. But someone who wrongs himself suffers and does the same things at the same time. Again, it would then be possible to be wronged voluntarily. Besides, no one does wrong without committing some particular kind of wrong; but no one commits adultery with his own wife, or breaks through his own wall, or steals his own property.

In general, the question of wronging oneself is also resolved by the distinction we drew about being wronged voluntarily. It is evident, too, that both are bad, being wronged and doing wrong (for one is having less and the other having more than the mean, as with what is healthy in medicine and what makes for fitness in athletic training). Still, doing wrong is worse. Doing wrong involves badness and is blameworthy—badness that is either complete and unqualified or close to it (for not every voluntary act involves injustice)—while being wronged involves no badness or injustice. In itself, then, being wronged is less bad, 1138b but nothing prevents it from being incidentally a greater evil.

But the craft doesn’t concern itself with that: it calls pleurisy a worse illness than a stumble, even though the stumble might sometimes turn out incidentally worse—if, say, a man stumbled, fell, and as a result was captured by the enemy or killed. By metaphor and resemblance there is a justice not between a person and himself but between certain parts of him—not every kind of justice, but the kind between master and slave, or within a household. For in these discussions the part of the soul that has reason is set apart from the non-rational part. It is with these parts in view that there seems to be such a thing as injustice toward oneself, because they can suffer something contrary to their own desires; so there is thought to be a kind of justice between them, as between ruler and ruled. Let this, then, be our account of justice and the other excellences, those of character.