But to play the coward or to act unjustly
consists not in doing these things, except incidentally, but in
doing them as the result of a certain state of character, just as to
practise medicine and healing consists not in applying or not applying
the knife, in using or not using medicines, but in doing so in a
certain way.
Just acts occur between people who participate in things good in
themselves and can have too much or too little of them; for some
beings (e.g. presumably the gods) cannot have too much of them, and to
others, those who are incurably bad, not even the smallest share in
them is beneficial but all such goods are harmful, while to others
they are beneficial up to a point; therefore justice is essentially
something human.
10
Our next subject is equity and the equitable (to epiekes), and their
respective relations to justice and the just. For on examination
they appear to be neither absolutely the same nor generically
different; and while we sometime praise what is equitable and the
equitable man (so that we apply the name by way of praise even to
instances of the other virtues, instead of 'good' meaning by
epieikestebon that a thing is better), at other times, when we
reason it out, it seems strange if the equitable, being something
different from the just, is yet praiseworthy; for either the just or
the equitable is not good, if they are different; or, if both are
good, they are the same.
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175