Polytropy

Our topic now is justice, in two senses:

1. Lawfulness.
2. Equity.

That doesn’t mean we’re talking about equality before the law. Instead of lawfulness and equity, we might refer to morality and fairness. What we are really trying to do is understand what Aristotle means, when he says that “the dikaion” (τὸ δίκαιον) is one of the following:

1. “The nomimon” (τὸ νόμιμον).
2. “The ison” (τὸ ἴσον).

Why would we want to do understand this? Well, that last Greek word appears as a suffix in isoskeles (ἰσοσκελής), which has become our word “isosceles” for the same thing. The ison is the equal. A triangle is isosceles when two of its legs are equal. Each of those legs is a skelos (σκέλος), while the remaining side is the basis (βάσις), the base.

Turning problems of life into problems of mathematics is an ongoing aim of some people, who to my mind can be as naive as Glaucon and Adeimantus in the Republic of Plato; I talked about this in “Nature.” See also “Law and History” on the idea that mathematics ought to be able to help history as it has helped physics.

In the reading below, of the first three roman chapters of Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle concludes (in § iii.8),

ἔστιν ἄρα τὸ δίκαιον ἀνάλογόν τι.

The just is therefore some kind of proportion.

The idea seems to be that how much stuff you get should be proportional to how good a person you are. Whether that even makes sense or not, I think we pervert it into the idea that the stuff you have is a measure of how good you are. Social media take advantage of this idea with the “like” button.

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Something recently fought over on social media is addressed by Aristotle. In the last chapter of Book IV of the Ethics, he points out that shame is not a virtue. If you do something, and it’s bad, you don’t make up for it by being ashamed.

Perhaps Aristotle meant to forestall a kind of argument made now in defense of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. It is said that even the Nazis were less bad than Hamas, because the former were ashamed of their cruelties, while the latter delight in them.

Sharing a video in which Douglas Murray made that argument, Rabbi Shmuel Reichman made it again in his own written words, on November 10, 2023:

The Nazis, as fundamentally evil as they were, believed that they were engaging in a necessary evil for an ultimate good; they still had a spark of humanity at their core; thus, their main flaw was that they believed the ends justified the means; even though they fully believed in the “result” of a world without Jews, they were still fundamentally opposed to the “actions” they were taking.

He clarified later:

By suggesting that the Nazis had a spark of humanity, it doesn’t justify the pure evil of what they did; it just emphasizes the exponentially worse nature Hamas’ evil, and forces everyone with a conscience and open mind to rethink which side of history they want to be on.

Some people will immediately reject such an argument. They may not need Aristotle’s help for this. Good for them, if they can make their own counterargument.

I would ask the rabbi this: Does he mean that, under international law, the level of civilian casualties you are allowed to inflict in war should be proportional to the evil of your enemy? If he does mean this, he should be open about it.

One can make the case for attacking a hospital, but I think the justification would have to be that the facility is also being used as a military base, not that the enemy are just really, really bad.

Douglas Murray said last spring (of 2023), “I don’t see why no one should be allowed to love their country because the Germans mucked up twice in a century.”

One might as well say, as some people do: I don’t see why we shouldn’t be allowed to have a Bolshevik revolution again, just because Stalin came out of the first one.

I do not immediately reject either assertion. I question Murray’s, at least, apparently for the same reason that Joseph Rachman reported it in the Independent in the first place. To say that the Germans “mucked up” is somehow dishonest, like saying, as my grandfather did (and I criticized him for it), that America was “too squeamish” to fight the Vietnam War properly.

Murray was speaking at the National Conservatism conference, which “is run” (according to Peter Walker in the Guardian)

by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a Washington DC-based thinktank chaired by Yoram Hazony, an Israeli-US writer whose populist-nationalist ideas were seen as influential on Donald Trump’s administration. In a sometime freewheeling speech on Monday, Hazony said the UK is plagued by “neo-Marxist” agitators and called for a return to mandatory military service.

Hazony is credited, by the Biblical Archeology Society at least, as being “founder of Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college.” The core curriculum there includes ancient Greek philosophy, “The legacy of the civilization that has most shaped our world.” Presumably Aristotle is included.

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I don’t know whether students at Shalem College are subjected to the kind of unpleasantness that Robert Pirsig recalls from a course on Aristotle’s Rhetoric at the University of Chicago.

… another student said, almost as an interruption, “I think there are some very dubious statements here.”

That was all he got out.

“Sir, we are not here to learn what you think!” hissed the Professor of Philosophy. Like acid. “We are here to learn what Aristotle thinks!” Straight in the face. “When we wish to learn what you think we will assign a course in the subject!”

Silence. The student is stunned. So is everyone else.

But the Professor of Philosophy is not done. He points his finger at the student and demands, “According to Aristotle: What are the three kinds of particular rhetoric according to subject matter discussed?”

More silence. The student doesn’t know. “Then you haven’t read it, have you?”

That’s from Chapter 29 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), which can be classified as travel, philosophy, or fiction. The author is a character, and he talks about himself, as Somerset Maugham is and does in The Razor’s Edge. That is a reason why I like both novels. I like reading Plato too, but he is not so much of a pleasure, because while he does give us characters, none of them is himself.

Aristotle is more difficult. One can have Pirsig’s own response:

What I find in Aristotle is mainly a quite dull collection of generalizations, many of which seem impossible to justify in the light of modern knowledge, whose organization appears extremely poor, and which seems primitive in the way old Greek pottery in the museums seems primitive.

There is a fascinating explanation for this, which may provide another reason to read the Philosopher:

Perhaps Aristotle has seemed disorganized since Pierre Ramee (Petrus Ramus, 1515–1583 [sic]) developed the method of information presentation that presently strikes us as reasonable.

That predicate, “presently strikes us as reasonable”: one might take it as another rhetorical move, akin to saying that Germans “mucked up,” or Americans were “too squeamish.” However, I am open to the possibility that Aristotle had good reason for writing as he did – or for lecturing as he did, in words that others wrote down, as best they could, and have presented to us as Aristotle’s. It’s not that he was trying to write for us and doing a bad job. He did attract students, and we could have been among them.

The authors of the words about Ramus are Ronald L. DiSanto and Thomas J. Steele, writing in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1990). I don’t know whether their reported year of death for Ramus represents

• a simple error – he died before 1583;
• uncertainty as to whether he was killed in the St Bartholemew’s Day Massacre, which occurred in 1572;
• uncertainty as to whether the Massacre actually took place in 1572.

Probably the authors just confused the date. As for the Catholic killers of Ramus and other Protestants during the Massacre, I wonder whether they did their work with the kind of glee now attributed to Hamas.

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The text of our current Aristotle reading is below (preceded by a summary). As I said, the subject is justice. More precisely, the subject is dikaiosynê (δικαιοσύνη). This isn’t just something governed by a formal judiciary system. Waterfield translates δικαιοσύνη as “morality,” in his version of Plato’s Republic, and the same English word may work for Aristotle too.

Scholars today who detect in the Republic an esoteric meaning, which could be that, despite appearances, a eugenicist totalitarian dictatorship would not actually be a good idea: do these scholars think Aristotle understood this meaning, and do they think he agrees with it? He says in § ii.10, with translation by Joe Sachs,

σχεδὸν γὰρ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν νομίμων
τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς ὅλης ἀρετῆς προσταττόμενά ἐστιν·
καθ᾽ ἑκάστην γὰρ ἀρετὴν προστάττει ζῆν
καὶ καθ᾽ ἑκάστην μοχθηρίαν κωλύει ὁ νόμος.

For pretty much the bulk of the things that are lawful
are the things that are ordered from complete virtue,
since the law orders one to live in accord with each virtue,
and forbids one to live in accord with each vice.

Perhaps Aristotle is addressing people who think this is obvious, or who believe at least that law does in principle control every aspect of our lives. These people can perhaps then be led to agree that law ought to rule for the sake of virtue.

For the Greek word nomos (νόμος) here, the lexicon offers “custom” as well as “law.” Aristotle may be referring to “the most sacred laws of society,” which Henry David Thoreau takes up in Walden, in a passage that I looked at in “One & Many” (which was mainly about Zen and the Art …):

It is not for a man … but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.

Thoreau could be describing somebody like the magnanimous or “great-souled” man, described in an earlier reading from the Ethics.

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I summarize here the longer of the comments that I have added to Aristotle’s text below.

• At § i.3, I look again at why I want to follow Apostle in using “habit” to translate hexis (which is what a virtue or a vice is), even though, as I noted in the beginning, according to Sachs, “A hexis is not only not the same as a habit, but is almost exactly its opposite.”
• At § i.5, I take up the analogy that justice is to injustice as health is to disease.
• At § i.8, I ask whether Aristotle can distinguish between custom and law.
• At § 1.13, the question is whether Aristotle really thinks the laws
  • “talk publicly about everything” (Sachs) or only
  • “deal with all matters which aim at what is commonly expedient” (Apostle).
• At § ii.1, a list the virtues that we have looked at so far, and a note on whether virtue is really many or one.
• At § ii.2, the question of whether the injustice of grasping is really different from the vice of stinginess.
• At § ii.6, a suggestion that not every resource is a fixed quantity (which would be why not every vice is of the grasping kind).
• At § iii.7, a reminder that even a democracy is a class system: it has two classes, free and enslaved.

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Another argument for the value of Aristotle is found in an article of August 19, 2019, by Anne Kniggendorf, on the St John’s College website, about David Bolotin and his translation of Aristotle’s treatise On Soul:

Over the years, Bolotin has come to think of Aristotle as superior to other philosophers. While Descartes has argued that the world as it appears to us is illusory, and Kant that we know only the world of appearance (rather than things in themselves), Aristotle was right, in Bolotin’s view, to think that the world as it is given to us is the true world, or reality in the truest sense.

This is backed up with a direct quotation:

“Aristotle presents the true teaching about what our relation to the world must be, if, as I believe, the world as it’s given to us, the world in which we’re born, the world in which we die, is not just illusory or apparent, but it’s the truth,” Bolotin says. “It’s the most real thing there is. It’s not just the necessary beginning of our thinking, but the truest object of our thinking as well.”

Claims that every appearance is an illusion are certainly suspect. I have recently been reminded of a common belief that free will is an illusion, and I ask in response: An illusion of what? An optical illusion looks like something that we are able to recognize correctly sometimes. Thus, if freedom is sometimes an illusion, presumably at other times it isn’t.

I understand Descartes’s key insight to be this, that while everything else in the world may be an illusion, the fact remains that we are there, in the world: this at least, can be no illusion.

Looking back at Julian Baggini’s book Freedom Regained (2015), I see that the author has a nice summary of the idea of Kant that Kniggendorf refers to:

Kant believed that the scientific world view makes free will impossible, and free will makes the scientific world view impossible. Given these two facts, there appear to be only two options: we either have to give up the notion of free will or the idea that the physical world, the world as it appears to us (in science as well as in everyday life), is the real world. Kant chose to save freedom rather than the reality of the physical world. He did this by proposing that the world as it appears to us, the world studied by science, is not the ultimate reality.

I think Kant’s proposal is correct, in the sense that what natural science studies is is not all there is.

Etymology speaking, truth in English may be that which has the solidity of a tree; but in Greek, it’s the unhidden (alêthês, ἀληθής). As a mathematician, I work to reveal mathematical truth, which is not something given by the senses (as I discussed in “Anthropology of Mathematics”).

The object of our thinking as ethicists is also not given by the senses. Aristotle may well disagree, but then I would share Pirsig’s sense that Aristotle is “primitive.” He hasn’t got the “principle of limited objective,” which Collingwood described in The New Leviathan (1942) as a key factor in the success of modern science.

In the “Prologue” of Speculum Mentis (1924), Collingwood described a kind of unity that was lost in the Renaissance:

The middle ages thus represent, in their spiritual life, a mind content with its lot, at peace with itself, growing in sun and shower like a tree, hardly seeking ‘to know the law whereby it prospers so’; the Renaissance represents the same mind coming to a new consciousness of the depth and seriousness of life, realizing that it must choose its vocation, making its choice and thus breaking with the easy life of compromise when it could be in fancy, like a dreaming boy, everything at once. Henceforth all is disunion. Priests and artists and scientists no longer live together peaceably, either uniting these functions in one single individual or at least combining them without thought of friction in a single social organism; it is now a war of all against all, art against philosophy and both against religion.

There are people who want to go back to the middle ages, and I talked about an example in “Community,” agreeing with Elizabeth Bruenig that there is no going back.

In any case, the medieval mind is not the Greek mind, and indeed Collingwood has said in his own previous paragraph,

the artist of the Renaissance, like him of ancient Greece, peers into a darkness that no eye can penetrate, and is happy only by defying his despair.

In The New Leviathan, Collingwood traces the “principle of limited objective” to Christianity:

The principle of limited objective, applied to physics with memorable results by Galileo, was not first laid down by Galileo. It was first expounded by those too little known writers (if they were better known the main lines of European history would be better understood) whom we call the Christian Fathers.

This gets to a big question for me, of how Christianity has changed the world since Aristotle. In contrast to Aristotle’s seeming totalitarian vision, a limited objective for government might be traced, symbolically, to the saying of Jesus, “Render unto Caesar.”

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Where we have been in the Nicomachean Ethics:

• Book I
  • Eudemony
• Book II
  • Manliness
• Book III
  • Excuses
  • Valor
  • Sanity
• Book IV
  • Freeness
  • Coolness
  • Truth

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Contents

All in Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics

Chapters

• Chapter I
  • Chapter 1 (§§ 1–6)
  • Chapter 2 (§§ 7–11)
  • Chapter 3 (§§ 12–20)
• Chapter II
  • Chapter 4 (§§ 1–6)
  • Chapter 5 (§§ 7–13)
• Chapter III
  • Chapter 6 (§§ 1–11)
  • Chapter 7 (§§ 12–7)

Sections

• Chapter I. JUSTICE (ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗ).
  • Intro.
    • We are to investigate:
      • What kinds of actions are just and unjust?
      • What kind of mean is justice?
      • What is it the mean of (§ i.1)?
    • Let us proceed as before (§ i.2).
  • How to find justice.
    • It is a habit (ἕξις) (§ i.3).
    • Thus,
      • unlike a science or a capacity,
      • like health,

    it does not produce opposites (§ i.4).

    • Therefore it can be known from
      • its opposite (ἀπὸ τῆς ἐναντίας),
      • what it inheres in (ἀπὸ τῶν ὑποκειμένων),

      as with good physical condition (εὐεξία) (§ i.5).

    • If it has several meanings,
      then so has injustice (§ i.6).
  • What justice is.
    • It has several meanings,
      though closer to one another than those of κλείς (key, clavicle) (§ i.7).
    • The unjust man can be either
      • lawbreaking (παράνομος) or
      •  
        • grasping (πλεονέκτης),
        • unfair, inequitable (ἄνισος).
    • This tells us:
      • the just man (ὁ δίκαιος) is
        • lawful (νόμιμος) or
        • fair, equitable (ἴσος);
      • the just (τὸ δίκαιον) is
        • the lawful (τὸ νόμιμον) or
        • the equal (τὸ ἴσον);
      • the unjust (τὸ ἄδικον) is
        • the unlawful (τὸ παράνομον),
        • the unequal (τὸ ἄνισον) (§ i.8).
  • The grasping (πλεονέκτης) unjust man
    • wants what is simply good (τὰ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὰ);
    • should want, as all should, that it be good for them (αὑτοῖς ἀγαθά) (§ i.9);
    • is still that, even when wanting less of what is simply bad (§ i.10);
    • is thus inequitable (ἄνισος) (§ i.11).
  • Overall justice.
    • What is lawful (τὰ νόμιμα) is also somehow just (§ i.12).
    • Thus justice engenders and preserves the happiness of the community (§ i.13).
    • Law tells us what to do (§ i.14).
    • Thus justice is complete virtue in relation to others (§§ i.15–19).
    • Virtue and justice itself are
      • the same (ἔστι μὲν γὰρ ἡ αὐτή),
      • not the same in being (τὸ δ᾽ εἶναι οὐ τὸ αὐτό):
        • quâ relation to others, justice,
        • quâ habit, virtue (§ i.20).
• Chapter II
  • We have not yet catalogued every vice.
    • There are
      • a particular justice,
      • a particular injustice (§ ii.1).
    • The latter is grasping:
      • There are vices, such as
        • cowardice,
        • harshness (a new one),
        • stinginess,

        that are not grasping, but

      • grasping is a vice (§ ii.2).
    • So there is a particular injustice,
      apart from overall injustice,
      which is lawbreaking (§ ii.3).
    • Adultery may be an instance of
      • licence or
      • grasping (§ ii.4).
    • Of unjust acts,
      • others are referred to particular vices;
      • grasping, only to injustice (§ ii.5).
    • Of the two injustices, the two concerns:
      • of grasping, gain over others;
      • of overall injustice, everything one can be serious (σπουδαῖος) about § ii.6
  • Part and whole.
    • As the inequitable and unlawful are part and whole,
      so one justice is part of the other (§ ii.9).
    • Laws produce complete virtue through education, but
      maybe being a good man and citizen are different (§ ii.11).
    • Particular justice can be
      • distributive (τὸ ἐν ταῖς διανομαῖς), of
        • honor,
        • money,
        • whatever can be equal or unequal;
      • corrective in transactions (τὸ ἐν τοῖς συναλλάγμασι διορθωτικόν) (§ ii.12).
        Transactions can be
        • willing,
        • unwilling,
          • by stealth,
          • by force (§ ii.13).
• Chapter III
  • The unjust being inequitable,
    there is a mean, (§ iii.1)
    namely the equitable (§ iii.2).
  • Equality is of at least two things.
    The just is, quâ
    • mean, of things (where there is greater and less),
    • equal, of two things,
    • just, of persons (§ iii.4).
  • The just is in at least four terms:
    • two persons,
    • two things (§ iii.5).
  • It is an equality (ἰσότης) (§ iii.6).
  • Everybody agrees that
    justice in distributions (ἐν ταῖς νομαῖς)
    is according to merit –
    • for the democrat, being free [not enslaved];
    • for the oligarch, being rich [already];
    • for somebody, being wellborn;
    • for the aristocrat, being virtuous (§ iii.7).
  • The just is a proportion [A : B :: C : D]:
    • an equality of ratios (ἰσότης ἐστὶ λόγων),
    • in at least four terms (§ iii.8).
  • Actually, the ratio is the same (ὁ λόγος ὁ αὐτός) (§ iii.10).
  • Justice is the linking of A with C and B with D (§§ iii.12–17).

Chapter I

Chapter 1

§ i.1

[1129^a]

• περὶ
  • ποίας τε τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι πράξεις, καὶ
  • ποία μεσότης ἐστὶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη, καὶ
  • τὸ δίκαιον τίνων μέσον.

§ i.2

ἡ δὲ σκέψις ἡμῖν ἔστω κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν μέθοδον τοῖς προειρημένοις.

§ i.3

• ἀφ᾽ ἧς πρακτικοὶ τῶν δικαίων εἰσὶ καὶ
• ἀφ᾽ ἧς
  • δικαιοπραγοῦσι καὶ
  • βούλονται τὰ δίκαια·

τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ περὶ ἀδικίας,

• ἀφ᾽ ἧς ἀδικοῦσι καὶ βούλονται τὰ ἄδικα.

διὸ καὶ ἡμῖν πρῶτον ὡς ἐν τύπῳ ὑποκείσθω ταῦτα.

§ i.4

οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν ἔχει τρόπον

• ἐπί τε τῶν
  • ἐπιστημῶν καὶ
  • δυνάμεων καὶ
• ἐπὶ τῶν ἕξεων.

• • δύναμις μὲν γὰρ καὶ
  • ἐπιστήμη

  δοκεῖ τῶν ἐναντίων ἡ αὐτὴ εἶναι,

• ἕξις δ᾽ ἡ ἐναντία τῶν ἐναντίων οὔ,

§ i.5

• πολλάκις μὲν οὖν γνωρίζεται ἡ ἐναντία ἕξις ἀπὸ τῆς ἐναντίας,
• πολλάκις δὲ αἱ ἕξεις ἀπὸ τῶν ὑποκειμένων·

§ i.6

ἀκολουθεῖ δ᾽ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ,
ἐὰν θάτερον πλεοναχῶς λέγηται,
καὶ θάτερον πλεοναχῶς λέγεσθαι,

Chapter 2

§ i.7

ἔοικε δὲ πλεοναχῶς λέγεσθαι

• ἡ δικαιοσύνη καὶ
• ἡ ἀδικία,

ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ σύνεγγυς εἶναι

• τὴν ὁμωνυμίαν αὐτῶν λανθάνει καὶ
• οὐχ ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῶν πόρρω δήλη μᾶλλον,
  (ἡ γὰρ διαφορὰ πολλὴ ἡ κατὰ τὴν ἰδέαν)

§ i.8

εἰλήφθω δὴ ὁ ἄδικος ποσαχῶς λέγεται.

ὥστε δῆλον ὅτι καὶ

• τὸ μὲν δίκαιον ἄρα
  • τὸ νόμιμον καὶ
  • τὸ ἴσον,
• τὸ δ᾽ ἄδικον
  • τὸ παράνομον καὶ
  • τὸ ἄνισον. [1129^b]

§ i.9

ἐπεὶ δὲ πλεονέκτης ὁ ἄδικος,

• περὶ τἀγαθὰ ἔσται,
  οὐ πάντα,
  ἀλλὰ
• περὶ
  • ὅσα
    • εὐτυχία καὶ
    • ἀτυχία,
  • ἃ ἐστὶ
    • μὲν ἁπλῶς ἀεὶ ἀγαθά,
    • τινὶ δ᾽ οὐκ ἀεί.

ἀλλ᾽

• εὔχεσθαι μὲν
  τὰ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὰ
  καὶ αὑτοῖς ἀγαθὰ εἶναι,
• αἱρεῖσθαι δὲ τὰ αὑτοῖς ἀγαθά.

§ i.10

ὁ δ᾽ ἄδικος

• οὐκ ἀεὶ τὸ πλέον αἱρεῖται,
• ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἔλαττον ἐπὶ τῶν ἁπλῶς κακῶν·

ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι δοκεῖ καὶ τὸ μεῖον κακὸν ἀγαθόν πως εἶναι,
τοῦ δ᾽ ἀγαθοῦ ἐστὶν ἡ πλεονεξία,
διὰ τοῦτο δοκεῖ πλεονέκτης εἶναι.

§ i.11

ἔστι δ᾽ ἄνισος·

τοῦτο γὰρ

• περιέχει καὶ
• κοινόν.

Chapter 3

§ i.12

ἐπεὶ δ᾽

• ὁ παράνομος ἄδικος ἦν
• ὁ δὲ νόμιμος δίκαιος,

δῆλον ὅτι πάντα τὰ νόμιμά ἐστί πως δίκαια·

• τά τε γὰρ ὡρισμένα ὑπὸ τῆς νομοθετικῆς νόμιμά ἐστι, καὶ
• ἕκαστον τούτων δίκαιον εἶναί φαμεν.

§ i.13

οἱ δὲ νόμοι ἀγορεύουσι περὶ ἁπάντων,
στοχαζόμενοι

• ἢ τοῦ κοινῇ συμφέροντος πᾶσιν
• ἢ τοῖς ἀρίστοις
• ἢ τοῖς κυρίοις

• [κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν] ἢ
• κατ᾽ ἄλλον τινὰ τρόπον τοιοῦτον·

§ i.14

προστάττει δ᾽ ὁ νόμος

• καὶ τὰ τοῦ ἀνδρείου ἔργα ποιεῖν,
  οἷον μὴ λείπειν τὴν τάξιν μηδὲ φεύγειν μηδὲ ῥιπτεῖν τὰ ὅπλα,
• καὶ τὰ τοῦ σώφρονος,
  οἷον μὴ μοιχεύειν μηδ᾽ ὑβρίζειν,
• καὶ τὰ τοῦ πράου,
  οἷον μὴ τύπτειν μηδὲ κακηγορεῖν,
  ὁμοίως δὲ
• καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἄλλας ἀρετὰς καὶ μοχθηρίας

• τὰ μὲν κελεύων
• τὰ δ᾽ ἀπαγορεύων,

• ὀρθῶς μὲν ὁ κείμενος ὀρθῶς,
• χεῖρον δ᾽ ὁ ἀπεσχεδιασμένος.

§ i.15

αὕτη μὲν οὖν ἡ δικαιοσύνη

• ἀρετὴ μέν ἐστι τελεία,
• ἀλλ᾽
  • οὐχ ἁπλῶς
  • ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἕτερον.

καὶ διὰ τοῦτο
πολλάκις κρατίστη τῶν ἀρετῶν εἶναι δοκεῖ
ἡ δικαιοσύνη, καὶ

καὶ τελεία μάλιστα ἀρετή,
ὅτι τῆς τελείας ἀρετῆς χρῆσίς ἐστιν.

τελεία δ᾽ ἐστίν,
ὅτι ὁ ἔχων αὐτὴν

• καὶ πρὸς ἕτερον δύναται τῇ ἀρετῇ χρῆσθαι,
• ἀλλ᾽ οὐ μόνον καθ᾽ αὑτόν·

πολλοὶ γὰρ

• ἐν μὲν τοῖς οἰκείοις τῇ ἀρετῇ δύνανται χρῆσθαι,
• ἐν δὲ τοῖς πρὸς ἕτερον ἀδυνατοῦσιν. [1130^a]

§ i.16

• πρὸς ἕτερον γὰρ καὶ
• ἐν κοινωνίᾳ

ἤδη ὁ ἄρχων.

§ i.17

διὰ δὲ τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο καὶ
ἀλλότριον ἀγαθὸν δοκεῖ εἶναι
ἡ δικαιοσύνη μόνη τῶν ἀρετῶν,
ὅτι πρὸς ἕτερόν ἐστιν·

ἄλλῳ γὰρ τὰ συμφέροντα πράττει,

• ἢ ἄρχοντι
• ἢ κοινωνῷ.

§ i.18

• κάκιστος μὲν οὖν ὁ
  • καὶ πρὸς αὑτὸν
  • καὶ πρὸς τοὺς φίλους

  χρώμενος τῇ μοχθηρίᾳ,

• ἄριστος δ᾽
  • οὐχ ὁ πρὸς αὑτὸν τῇ ἀρετῇ
  • ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἕτερον·

τοῦτο γὰρ ἔργον χαλεπόν.

§ i.19

αὕτη μὲν οὖν ἡ δικαιοσύνη

• οὐ μέρος ἀρετῆς
• ἀλλ᾽ ὅλη ἀρετή ἐστιν,

• οὐδ᾽ ἡ ἐναντία ἀδικία μέρος κακίας
• ἀλλ᾽ ὅλη κακία.

§ i.20

τί δὲ διαφέρει

δῆλον ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων·

• ἔστι μὲν γὰρ ἡ αὐτή,
• τὸ δ᾽ εἶναι οὐ τὸ αὐτό,

ἀλλ᾽

Chapter II

Chapter 4

§ ii.1

ζητοῦμεν δέ γε

• τὴν ἐν μέρει ἀρετῆς δικαιοσύνην·
  ἔστι γάρ τις,
  ὡς φαμέν.
  ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ
• περὶ ἀδικίας τῆς κατὰ μέρος.

§ ii.2

σημεῖον δ᾽ ὅτι ἔστιν·

• κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὰς ἄλλας μοχθηρίας ὁ ἐνεργῶν
  • ἀδικεῖ μέν,
  • πλεονεκτεῖ δ᾽ οὐδέν,
  οἷον ὁ

  • ῥίψας τὴν ἀσπίδα διὰ δειλίαν ἢ
  • κακῶς εἰπὼν διὰ χαλεπότητα ἢ
  • οὐ βοηθήσας χρήμασι δι᾽ ἀνελευθερίαν·
• ὅταν δὲ πλεονεκτῇ,
  πολλάκις
  • κατ᾽ οὐδεμίαν τῶν τοιούτων,
  • ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ κατὰ πάσας,
     
  • κατὰ πονηρίαν δέ γε τινά
    (ψέγομεν γάρ) καὶ
  • κατ᾽ ἀδικίαν.

§ ii.3

ἔστιν ἄρ᾽

• ἄλλη τις ἀδικία ὡς μέρος
  τῆς ὅλης, καὶ
• ἄδικόν τι ἐν μέρει
  τοῦ ὅλου ἀδίκου
  τοῦ παρὰ τὸν νόμον.

§ ii.4

§ ii.5

ἔτι

• περὶ μὲν τἆλλα πάντα ἀδικήματα γίνεται ἡ ἐπαναφορὰ
  ἐπί τινα μοχθηρίαν ἀεί,

  οἷον

  • εἰ ἐμοίχευσεν,
    ἐπ᾽ ἀκολασίαν,
  • εἰ ἐγκατέλιπε τὸν παραστάτην,
    ἐπὶ δειλίαν,
  • εἰ ἐπάταξεν,
    ἐπ᾽ ὀργήν·

• εἰ δ᾽ ἐκέρδανεν,
  ἐπ᾽ οὐδεμίαν μοχθηρίαν ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ἐπ᾽ ἀδικίαν.

§ ii.6

ὥστε φανερὸν
ὅτι ἔστι τις ἀδικία

• παρὰ τὴν ὅλην
• ἄλλη ἐν μέρει,
• συνώνυμος,
  ὅτι ὁ ὁρισμὸς ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ γένει· [1130^b]

ἄμφω γὰρ
ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἕτερον
ἔχουσι τὴν δύναμιν,
ἀλλ᾽

• ἣ μὲν
  • περὶ
    • τιμὴν ἢ
    • χρήματα ἢ
    • σωτηρίαν, ἢ
    • εἴ τινι ἔχοιμεν ἑνὶ ὀνόματι
      περιλαβεῖν ταῦτα πάντα, καὶ
  • δι᾽ ἡδονὴν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ κέρδους,
• ἣ δὲ
  • περὶ ἅπαντα περὶ ὅσα ὁ σπουδαῖος.

Chapter 5

§ ii.7

• ὅτι μὲν οὖν εἰσὶν αἱ δικαιοσύναι πλείους, καὶ
• ὅτι ἔστι τις καὶ ἑτέρα παρὰ τὴν ὅλην ἀρετήν,

δῆλον·

• τίς δὲ καὶ
• ποία τις,

ληπτέον.

§ ii.8

διώρισται δὴ

• τὸ ἄδικον
  • τό τε παράνομον καὶ
  • τὸ ἄνισον,
• τὸ δὲ δίκαιον
  • τό τε νόμιμον καὶ
  • τὸ ἴσον.

κατὰ μὲν οὖν τὸ παράνομον
ἡ πρότερον εἰρημένη ἀδικία ἐστίν.

§ ii.9

ἐπεὶ δὲ

• οὐ ταὐτὸν
• ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερον
  ὡς μέρος πρὸς ὅλον
  • (τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἄνισον ἅπαν παράνομον,
  • τὸ δὲ παράνομον οὐχ ἅπαν ἄνισον),

καὶ

• τὸ ἄδικον καὶ
• ἡ ἀδικία

• οὐ ταὐτὰ
• ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερα ἐκείνων,

• τὰ μὲν ὡς μέρη
• τὰ δ᾽ ὡς ὅλα·

• μέρος γὰρ αὕτη ἡ ἀδικία
  τῆς ὅλης ἀδικίας,
• ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἡ δικαιοσύνη
  τῆς δικαιοσύνης.

ὥστε

• καὶ περὶ τῆς ἐν μέρει δικαιοσύνης
• καὶ περὶ τῆς ἐν μέρει ἀδικίας

λεκτέον,

• καὶ τοῦ δικαίου
• καὶ ἀδίκου ὡσαύτως.

§ ii.10

ἡ μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὴν ὅλην ἀρετὴν τεταγμένη

• δικαιοσύνη καὶ
• ἀδικία,

• ἣ μὲν τῆς ὅλης ἀρετῆς οὖσα χρῆσις πρὸς ἄλλον
• ἣ δὲ τῆς κακίας,

ἀφείσθω.

• καὶ τὸ δίκαιον δὲ
• καὶ τὸ ἄδικον τὸ κατὰ ταύτας

φανερὸν ὡς διοριστέον·

σχεδὸν γὰρ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν νομίμων
τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς ὅλης ἀρετῆς προσταττόμενά ἐστιν·

• καθ᾽ ἑκάστην γὰρ ἀρετὴν προστάττει ζῆν καὶ
• καθ᾽ ἑκάστην μοχθηρίαν κωλύει

ὁ νόμος.

§ ii.11

τὰ δὲ ποιητικὰ τῆς ὅλης ἀρετῆς ἐστὶ τῶν νομίμων
ὅσα νενομοθέτηται περὶ παιδείαν τὴν πρὸς τὸ κοινόν.

περὶ δὲ τῆς καθ᾽ ἕκαστον παιδείας,
καθ᾽ ἣν ἁπλῶς ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός ἐστι,

• πότερον τῆς πολιτικῆς ἐστὶν
• ἢ ἑτέρας,

ὕστερον διοριστέον·

§ ii.12

• τῆς δὲ κατὰ μέρος δικαιοσύνης καὶ
• τοῦ κατ᾽ αὐτὴν δικαίου

• ἓν μέν ἐστιν εἶδος τὸ ἐν ταῖς διανομαῖς
  • τιμῆς ἢ
  • χρημάτων ἢ
  • τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα μεριστὰ τοῖς κοινωνοῦσι τῆς πολιτείας

  (ἐν τούτοις γὰρ ἔστι

  • καὶ ἄνισον ἔχειν
  • καὶ ἴσον

  ἕτερον ἑτέρου), [1131^a]

• ἓν δὲ τὸ ἐν τοῖς συναλλάγμασι διορθωτικόν.

§ ii.13

τούτου δὲ μέρη δύο·

τῶν γὰρ συναλλαγμάτων

• ἑκούσια μὲν τὰ τοιάδε

  οἷον

  • πρᾶσις
  • ὠνὴ
  • δανεισμὸς
  • ἐγγύη
  • χρῆσις
  • παρακαταθήκη
  • μίσθωσις

  (ἑκούσια δὲ λέγεται,
  ὅτι ἡ ἀρχὴ τῶν συναλλαγμάτων τούτων ἑκούσιος),

• τῶν δ᾽ ἀκουσίων

  • τὰ μὲν λαθραῖα,

    οἷον

    • κλοπὴ
    • μοιχεία
    • φαρμακεία
    • προαγωγεία
    • δουλαπατία
    • δολοφονία
    • ψευδομαρτυρία,

  • τὰ δὲ βίαια,

    οἷον

    • αἰκία
    • δεσμὸς
    • θάνατος
    • ἁρπαγὴ
    • πήρωσις
    • κακηγορία
    • προπηλακισμός.

Chapter III

Chapter 6

§ iii.1

ἐπεὶ δ᾽

• ὅ τ᾽ ἄδικος ἄνισος καὶ
• τὸ ἄδικον ἄνισον,

δῆλον ὅτι καὶ

• μέσον τι ἔστι τοῦ ἀνίσου.

§ iii.2

• τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ ἴσον·

ἐν ὁποίᾳ γὰρ πράξει

• ἔστι
  • τὸ πλέον καὶ
  • τὸ ἔλαττον,
• ἔστι καὶ
  • τὸ ἴσον.

§ iii.3

εἰ οὖν τὸ ἄδικον ἄνισον,
τὸ δίκαιον ἴσον·

ὅπερ καὶ ἄνευ λόγου δοκεῖ πᾶσιν.

ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ ἴσον μέσον,
τὸ δίκαιον μέσον τι ἂν εἴη.

§ iii.4

ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἴσον ἐν ἐλαχίστοις δυσίν.

ἀνάγκη τοίνυν τὸ δίκαιον

• μέσον τε καὶ
• ἴσον

εἶναι καὶ

• πρός τι καὶ
• τισίν,

καὶ

§ iii.5

ἀνάγκη ἄρα τὸ δίκαιον ἐν ἐλαχίστοις εἶναι τέτταρσιν·

• οἷς τε γὰρ δίκαιον τυγχάνει ὄν,
  δύο ἐστί,
  καὶ
• ἐν οἷς,
  τὰ πράγματα,
  δύο.

§ iii.6

καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ ἔσται ἰσότης,

• οἷς καὶ
• ἐν οἷς·

ὡς γὰρ ἐκεῖνα ἔχει,
τὰ ἐν οἷς,
οὕτω κἀκεῖνα ἔχει·

εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἴσοι,
οὐκ ἴσα ἕξουσιν,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐντεῦθεν

• αἱ μάχαι καὶ
• τὰ ἐγκλήματα,

ὅταν

• ἢ μὴ ἴσα ἴσοι
• ἢ μὴ ἴσοι ἴσα

• ἔχωσι καὶ
• νέμωνται.

§ iii.7

ἔτι ἐκ τοῦ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν τοῦτο δῆλον·

• τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον ἐν ταῖς νομαῖς
  ὁμολογοῦσι πάντες
  κατ᾽ ἀξίαν τινὰ δεῖν εἶναι,
• τὴν μέντοι ἀξίαν οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν λέγουσι πάντες ὑπάρχειν,
  ἀλλ᾽
  • οἱ μὲν δημοκρατικοὶ ἐλευθερίαν,
  • οἱ δ᾽ ὀλιγαρχικοὶ πλοῦτον,
  • οἳ δ᾽ εὐγένειαν,
  • οἱ δ᾽ ἀριστοκρατικοὶ ἀρετήν.

§ iii.8

ἔστιν ἄρα τὸ δίκαιον ἀνάλογόν τι.

τὸ γὰρ ἀνάλογον

• οὐ μόνον ἐστὶ μοναδικοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ἴδιον,
• ἀλλ᾽ ὅλως ἀριθμοῦ·

§ iii.9

• ἡ μὲν οὖν διῃρημένη

ὅτι ἐν τέτταρσι,
δῆλον.
ἀλλὰ καὶ

• ἡ συνεχής·
  τῷ γὰρ ἑνὶ
  • ὡς δυσὶ χρῆται καὶ
  • δὶς λέγει, [1131^b]

  οἷον ὡς ἡ τοῦ α πρὸς τὴν τοῦ β,
  οὕτως ἡ τοῦ β πρὸς τὴν τοῦ γ.

  δὶς οὖν ἡ τοῦ β εἴρηται·

  ὥστ᾽ ἐὰν ἡ τοῦ β τεθῇ δίς,
  τέτταρα ἔσται τὰ ἀνάλογα.

§ iii.10

ἔστι δὲ

διῄρηται γὰρ ὁμοίως

• οἷς τε καὶ
• ἅ.

§ iii.11

ἔσται ἄρα ὡς ὁ α ὅρος πρὸς τὸν β,
οὕτως ὁ γ πρὸς τὸν δ,

καὶ ἐναλλὰξ ἄρα,

ὡς ὁ α πρὸς τὸν γ,
ὁ β πρὸς τὸν δ.

ὥστε καὶ τὸ ὅλον πρὸς τὸ ὅλον·

ὅπερ ἡ νομὴ συνδυάζει,
κἂν οὕτω συντεθῇ,
δικαίως συνδυάζει.

Chapter 7

§ iii.12

τὸ δ᾽ ἄδικον τὸ παρὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον·

τὸ γὰρ ἀνάλογον μέσον,
τὸ δὲ δίκαιον ἀνάλογον.

§ iii.13

καλοῦσι δὲ τὴν τοιαύτην ἀναλογίαν γεωμετρικὴν
οἱ μαθηματικοί·

ἐν γὰρ τῇ γεωμετρικῇ συμβαίνει
καὶ τὸ ὅλον πρὸς τὸ ὅλον
ὅπερ ἑκάτερον πρὸς ἑκάτερον.

§ iii.14

ἔστι δ᾽ οὐ συνεχὴς αὕτη
ἡ ἀναλογία·

οὐ γὰρ γίνεται εἷς ἀριθμῷ ὅρος,

• ᾧ καὶ
• ὅ.

• τὸ μὲν οὖν δίκαιον τοῦτο,
  τὸ ἀνάλογον·
• τὸ δ᾽ ἄδικον
  τὸ παρὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον.

γίνεται ἄρα

• τὸ μὲν πλέον
• τὸ δ᾽ ἔλαττον,

ὅπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἔργων συμβαίνει·

• ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἀδικῶν πλέον ἔχει,
• ὁ δ᾽ ἀδικούμενος ἔλαττον τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ.

§ iii.15

ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ κακοῦ ἀνάπαλιν·

ἐν ἀγαθοῦ γὰρ λόγῳ
γίνεται
τὸ ἔλαττον κακὸν
πρὸς τὸ μεῖζον κακόν·

§ iii.16

ἔστι γὰρ τὸ ἔλαττον κακὸν μᾶλλον αἱρετὸν τοῦ μείζονος,
τὸ δ᾽ αἱρετὸν ἀγαθόν,
καὶ τὸ μᾶλλον μεῖζον.

§ iii.17

τὸ μὲν οὖν ἓν εἶδος τοῦ δικαίου τοῦτ᾽ ἐστίν.