Nicomachean Ethics V.1: Justice

These next few sections have gotten a great deal of attention from philosophers.

With regards to justice and injustice we must (1) consider what kind of actions they are concerned with, (2) what sort of mean justice is, and (3) between what extremes the just act is intermediate. Our investigation shall follow the same course as the preceding discussions.

We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act justly and wish for what is just; and similarly by injustice that state which makes them act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. Let us too, then, lay this down as a general basis. For the same is not true of the sciences and the faculties as of states of character. A faculty or a science which is one and the same is held to relate to contrary objects, but a state of character which is one of two contraries does not produce the contrary results; e.g. as a result of health we do not do what is the opposite of healthy, but only what is healthy; for we say a man walks healthily, when he walks as a healthy man would.

Now often one contrary state is recognized from its contrary, and often states are recognized from the subjects that exhibit them; for (A) if good condition is known, bad condition also becomes known, and (B) good condition is known from the things that are in good condition, and they from it. If good condition is firmness of flesh, it is necessary both that bad condition should be flabbiness of flesh and that the wholesome should be that which causes firmness in flesh. And it follows for the most part that if one contrary is ambiguous the other also will be ambiguous; e.g. if 'just' is so, that 'unjust' will be so too.

That's a lot of preamble given how deep we are into the EN, but I trust it's easy to follow given the time we took with the earlier sections. 

Now 'justice' and 'injustice' seem to be ambiguous, but because their different meanings approach near to one another the ambiguity escapes notice and is not obvious as it is, comparatively, when the meanings are far apart, e.g. (for here the difference in outward form is great) as the ambiguity in the use of kleis for the collar-bone of an animal and for that with which we lock a door. Let us take as a starting-point, then, the various meanings of 'an unjust man'. Both the lawless man and the grasping and unfair man are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both the law-abiding and the fair man will be just. The just, then, is the lawful and the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair. 

This is a bit surprising. Normally we want a balancing point between two extremes, but here we have two completely different qualities that are ways of going wrong. The unlawful isn't necessarily unfair at all; nor vice versa. One can imagine a mafiosi cutting you a very fair deal, if he were well inclined to you; one can imagine, and indeed regularly encounters, a legitimate businessman who takes maximal unfair advantage of his position in the market.

So it's not that unfairness is on one extreme and unlawfulness is on the other. Rather, there are two ways of going wrong that seem to be unrelated. 

The most famous inquiry into this problem in the 20th century was John Rawls'; he attempted to cash the whole thing out in terms of fairness alone. As we shall see, the lawfulness component is only intended to compel virtuous behavior under penalty of law; thus, I gather he thought, perhaps if we can get the fairness right the right laws will follow accordingly. That doesn't really eliminate the need for laws: Rawls comes up with a whole list of them, including some fairly extraordinary ones (e.g. because everyone has a need for self-respect, and you can only respect yourself adequately if others treat you with respect, there could be a law commanding you to treat everyone with respect -- even if, in fact, they conduct themselves in ways that don't deserve it). 

To me that doesn't seem plausible. One of the examples will be that the law will compel you to act as if you were courageous in battle; I can't see how that has anything to do with fairness. In fact, it seems to contradict Aristotle's own language about courage itself. You don't get the virtue by being compelled by fear to take certain actions. The virtue is a state of character that is your own, not something compelled from you by fear. Aretḗ: you either got it or you don't. 

Since the unjust man is grasping, he must be concerned with goods-not all goods, but those with which prosperity and adversity have to do, which taken absolutely are always good, but for a particular person are not always good. Now men pray for and pursue these things; but they should not, but should pray that the things that are good absolutely may also be good for them, and should choose the things that are good for them. The unjust man does not always choose the greater, but also the less-in the case of things bad absolutely; but because the lesser evil is itself thought to be in a sense good, and graspingness is directed at the good, therefore he is thought to be grasping. And he is unfair; for this contains and is common to both.

So one way to go wrong is greed that leads you to treat others unfairly. 

Since the lawless man was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding man just, evidently all lawful acts are in a sense just acts; for the acts laid down by the legislative art are lawful, and each of these, we say, is just.

I don't think anyone still says this. It's a surprisingly naive view of legislatures, which Aristotle had reason to doubt: he once fled Athens under some danger of death, as Socrates had been put to death himself. He claimed that he could not let Athens sin twice against philosophy; but it was a fully democratic action that voted Socrates' murder.  

Now the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best or of those who hold power, or something of the sort; so that in one sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for the political society.

So: laws are either just (because they aim at the common advantage of all) or unjust (because they do not). Thus, lawfulness can only really be aligned with justice if there are just laws. Unjust laws seem to be a basic contradiction; obeying them leads to greater injustice. Laws that violate justice aren't, as it were, lawful; but since they are still the law, we end up with a serious problem that isn't adequately addressed here. 

And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert our post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one's lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others; and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not absolutely, but in relation to our neighbour. And therefore justice is often thought to be the greatest of virtues, and 'neither evening nor morning star' is so wonderful; and proverbially 'in justice is every virtue comprehended'. And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense, because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue.

This highlighted passage (emphasis added) is what people tend to focus upon. 

The completeness of virtue that is had in the just isn't real virtue at all, as we have discussed. The brave man is brave; the just man only does what the brave man might do because he is compelled. That isn't real courage even by Aristotle's own standard. The temperate man who forgoes public drunkenness only because of the legal penalties isn't temperate, he is fearful.

Confer with magnanimity, where the internal sense of honor drives the actor to do the virtuous thing it the greatest and fullest way he can imagine. Justice is a very weak virtue by comparison with that.

It is complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbour also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to their neighbour. This is why the saying of Bias is thought to be true, that 'rule will show the man'; for a ruler is necessarily in relation to other men and a member of a society.

"Bias," as a Greek name, means "violence." It was the name of many mythological figures; I'm not sure which one Aristotle intends, but probably the Trojan because of Aristotle's affection for Homer and the Iliad. 

For this same reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be 'another's good', because it is related to our neighbour; for it does what is advantageous to another, either a ruler or a copartner.

Does the magnanimous not also benefit others by doing the greatest and most virtuous acts? It seems so; but it is true that the other isn't really a consideration. The reason to do the best thing is because it is worthy of honor, and honor is personal. Justice as a virtue considers others first, both in terms of treating them fairly and also in terms of avoiding their punishments at law. 

Now the worst man is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself and towards his friends, and the best man is not he who exercises his virtue towards himself but he who exercises it towards another; for this is a difficult task. Justice in this sense, then, is not part of virtue but virtue entire, nor is the contrary injustice a part of vice but vice entire. What the difference is between virtue and justice in this sense is plain from what we have said; they are the same but their essence is not the same; what, as a relation to one's neighbour, is justice is, as a certain kind of state without qualification, virtue.

This seems like a close equivalent to "love thy neighbor as yourself," except that the neighbor here is the chief consideration. Given that self-love is often thought to be the root of immorality -- Kant calls it "radical evil" -- here is a reason why many philosophers have chosen to focus their attention on this particular virtue.