For which reason injustice is excess and defect, viz. because
it is productive of excess and defect-in one's own case excess of what
is in its own nature useful and defect of what is hurtful, while in
the case of others it is as a whole like what it is in one's own case,
but proportion may be violated in either direction. In the unjust
act to have too little is to be unjustly treated; to have too much
is to act unjustly.
Let this be taken as our account of the nature of justice and
injustice, and similarly of the just and the unjust in general.
6
Since acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust, we
must ask what sort of unjust acts imply that the doer is unjust with
respect to each type of injustice, e.g. a thief, an adulterer, or a
brigand. Surely the answer does not turn on the difference between
these types. For a man might even lie with a woman knowing who she
was, but the origin of his might be not deliberate choice but passion.
He acts unjustly, then, but is not unjust; e.g. a man is not a
thief, yet he stole, nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery;
and similarly in all other cases.
Now we have previously stated how the reciprocal is related to the
just; but we must not forget that what we are looking for is not
only what is just without qualification but also political justice.
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