The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
refusal: we must not say that he either does what is just, or does
justly, except accidentally: and in like manner the man who through
compulsion and against his will fails to restore a deposit, must be
said to do unjustly, or to do what is unjust, accidentally only.
Again, voluntary actions we do either from deliberate choice or without
it; from it, when we act from previous deliberation; without it, when
without any previous deliberation. Since then hurts which may be done
in transactions between man and man are threefold, those mistakes which
are attended with ignorance are, when a man either does a thing not to
the man to whom he meant to do it, or not the thing he meant to do, or
not with the instrument, or not with the result which he intended:
either he did not think he should hit him at all, or not with this, or
this is not the man he thought he should hit, or he did not think this
would be the result of the blow but a result has followed which he did
not anticipate; as, for instance, he did it not to wound but merely to
prick him; or it is not the man whom, or the way in which, he meant.
Now when the hurt has come about contrary to all reasonable
expectation, it is a Misadventure; when though not contrary to
expectation yet without any viciousness, it is a Mistake; for a man
makes a mistake when the origination of the cause rests with himself,
he has a misadventure when it is external to himself. When again he
acts with knowledge, but not from previous deliberation, it is an
unjust action; for instance, whatever happens to men from anger or
other passions which are necessary or natural: for when doing these
hurts or making these mistakes they act unjustly of course and their
actions are unjust, still they are not yet confirmed unjust or wicked
persons by reason of these, because the hurt did not arise from
depravity in the doer of it: but when it does arise from deliberate
choice, then the doer is a confirmed unjust and depraved man.
And on this principle acts done from anger are fairly judged not to be
from malice prepense, because it is not the man who acts in wrath who
is the originator really but he who caused his wrath. And again, the
question at issue in such cases is not respecting the fact but
respecting the justice of the case, the occasion of anger being a
notion of injury.[25] I mean, that the parties do not dispute about the
fact, as in questions of contract (where one of the two must be a
rogue, unless real forgetfulness can be pleaded), but, admitting the
fact, they dispute on which side the justice of the case lies (the one
who plotted against the other, _i.e._ the real aggressor, of course,
cannot be ignorant),[26] so that the one thinks there is injustice
committed while the other does not.
Well then, a man acts unjustly if he has hurt another of deliberate
purpose, and he who commits such acts of injustice is _ipso facto_ an
unjust character when they are in violation of the proportionate or the
equal; and in like manner also a man is a just character when he acts
justly of deliberate purpose, and he does act justly if he acts
voluntarily.
Then as for involuntary acts of harm, they are either such as are
excusable or such as are not: under the former head come all errors
done not merely in ignorance but from ignorance; under the latter all
that are done not from ignorance but in ignorance caused by some
passion which is neither natural nor fairly attributable to human
infirmity.
Chapter XII.
Now a question may be raised whether we have spoken with sufficient
distinctness as to being unjustly dealt with, and dealing unjustly
towards others.
First, whether the case is possible which Euripides has put, saying
somewhat strangely,
“My mother he hath slain; the tale is short,
Either he willingly did slay her willing,
Or else with her will but against his own.”
I mean then, is it really possible for a person to be unjustly dealt
with with his own consent, or must every case of being unjustly dealt
with be against the will of the sufferer as every act of unjust dealing
is voluntary?
And next, are cases of being unjustly dealt with to be ruled all one
way as every act of unjust dealing is voluntary? or may we say that
some cases are voluntary and some involuntary?
Similarly also as regards being justly dealt with: all just acting is
voluntary, so that it is fair to suppose that the being dealt with
unjustly or justly must be similarly opposed, as to being either
voluntary or involuntary.
Now as for being justly dealt with, the position that every case of
this is voluntary is a strange one, for some are certainly justly dealt
with without their will.[27] The fact is a man may also fairly raise
this question, whether in every case he who has suffered what is unjust
is therefore unjustly dealt with, or rather that the case is the same
with suffering as it is with acting; namely that in both it is possible
to participate in what is just, but only accidentally. Clearly the case
of what is unjust is similar: for doing things in themselves unjust is
not identical with acting unjustly, nor is suffering them the same as
being unjustly dealt with. So too of acting justly and being justly
dealt with, since it is impossible to be unjustly dealt with unless
some one else acts unjustly or to be justly dealt with unless some one
else acts justly.
Now if acting unjustly is simply “hurting another voluntarily” (by
which I mean, knowing whom you are hurting, and wherewith, and how you
are hurting him), and the man who fails of self-control voluntarily
hurts himself, then this will be a case of being voluntarily dealt
unjustly with, and it will be possible for a man to deal unjustly with
himself. (This by the way is one of the questions raised, whether it is
possible for a man to deal unjustly with himself.) Or again, a man may,
by reason of failing of self-control, receive hurt from another man
acting voluntarily, and so here will be another case of being unjustly
dealt with voluntarily.
The solution, I take it, is this: the definition of being unjustly
dealt with is not correct, but we must add, to the hurting with the
knowledge of the person hurt and the instrument and the manner of
hurting him, the fact of its being against the wish of the man who is
hurt.
So then a man may be hurt and suffer what is in itself unjust
voluntarily, but unjustly dealt with voluntarily no man can be: since
no man wishes to be hurt, not even he who fails of self-control, who
really acts contrary to his wish: for no man wishes for that which he
does not _think_ to be good, and the man who fails of self-control does
not what he thinks he ought to do.
And again, he that gives away his own property (as Homer says Glaucus
gave to Diomed, “armour of gold for brass, armour worth a hundred oxen
for that which was worth but nine”) is not unjustly dealt with, because
the giving rests entirely with himself; but being unjustly dealt with
does not, there must be some other person who is dealing unjustly
towards him.
With respect to being unjustly dealt with then, it is clear that it is
not voluntary.
Chapter XIII.
There remain yet two points on which we purposed to speak: first, is he
chargeable with an unjust act who in distribution has _given_ the
larger share to one party contrary to the proper rate, or he that _has_
the larger share? next, can a man deal unjustly by himself?
In the first question, if the first-named alternative is possible and
it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not he who has the larger
share, then supposing that a person knowingly and willingly gives more
to another than to himself here is a case of a man dealing unjustly by
himself; which, in fact, moderate men are thought to do, for it is a
characteristic of the equitable man to take less than his due.
Is not this the answer? that the case is not quite fairly stated,
because of some other good, such as credit or the abstract honourable,
in the supposed case the man did get the larger share. And again, the
difficulty is solved by reference to the definition of unjust dealing:
for the man suffers nothing contrary to his own wish, so that, on this
score at least, he is not unjustly dealt with, but, if anything, he is
hurt only.
It is evident also that it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not
the man who has the greater share: because the mere fact of the
abstract Unjust attaching to what a man does, does not constitute
unjust action, but the doing this voluntarily: and voluntariness
attaches to that quarter whence is the origination of the action, which
clearly is in the distributor not in the receiver. And again the term
doing is used in several senses; in one sense inanimate objects kill,
or the hand, or the slave by his master’s bidding; so the man in
question does not act unjustly but does things which are in themselves
unjust.
Again, suppose that a man has made a wrongful award in ignorance; in
the eye of the law he does not act unjustly nor is his awarding unjust,
but yet he is in a certain sense: for the Just according to law and
primary or natural Just are not coincident: but, if he knowingly
decided unjustly, then he himself as well as the receiver got the
larger share, that is, either of favour from the receiver or private
revenge against the other party: and so the man who decided unjustly
from these motives gets a larger share, in exactly the same sense as a
man would who received part of the actual matter of the unjust action:
because in this case the man who wrongly adjudged, say a field, did not
actually get land but money by his unjust decision.
Chapter XIV.
Now men suppose that acting Unjustly rests entirely with themselves,
and conclude that acting Justly is therefore also easy. But this is not
really so; to have connection with a neighbour’s wife, or strike one’s
neighbour, or give the money with one’s hand, is of course easy and
rests with one’s self: but the doing these acts with certain inward
dispositions neither is easy nor rests entirely with one’s self. And in
like way, the knowing what is Just and what Unjust men think no great
instance of wisdom because it is not hard to comprehend those things of
which the laws speak. They forget that these are not Just actions,
except accidentally: to be Just they must be done and distributed in a
certain manner: and this is a more difficult task than knowing what
things are wholesome; for in this branch of knowledge it is an easy
matter to know honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, or the use of the
knife, but the knowing how one should administer these with a view to
health, and to whom and at what time, amounts in fact to being a
physician.
From this very same mistake they suppose also, that acting Unjustly is
equally in the power of the Just man, for the Just man no less, nay
even more, than the Unjust, may be able to do the particular acts; he
may be able to have intercourse with a woman or strike a man; or the
brave man to throw away his shield and turn his back and run this way
or that. True: but then it is not the mere doing these things which
constitutes acts of cowardice or injustice (except accidentally), but
the doing them with certain inward dispositions: just as it is not the
mere using or not using the knife, administering or not administering
certain drugs, which constitutes medical treatment or curing, but doing
these things in a certain particular way.
Again the abstract principles of Justice have their province among
those who partake of what is abstractedly good, and can have too much
or too little of these.[28] Now there are beings who cannot have too
much of them, as perhaps the gods; there are others, again, to whom no
particle of them is of use, those who are incurably wicked to whom all