This is the final part of Book V, and the close of Aristotle's lengthy examination of justice. We live in a time when the word 'justice' is frequently invoked by people who haven't closely examined it, and often seem like they couldn't explain what they mean by it; at least all of you will now have had the experience of a close examination of the concept.
Whether a man can treat himself unjustly or not, is evident from what has been said.
Is it? Before you read on, decide what you think about that question based on what has been said.
For (a) one class of just acts are those acts in accordance with any virtue which are prescribed by the law; e.g. the law does not expressly permit suicide, and what [the law] does not expressly permit it forbids.
Thank goodness that is not true, at least for laws as practiced in our own time. It would have to be an extraordinarily long and detailed legal code that expressly permitted everything, so that anything not considered could be assumed forbidden. Military law sometimes approaches that level of detail: I recall that at the Baghdad Airport there was a signpost that read, approaching the airport, "No Hat Area," but leaving, "Hats Mandatory Past This Point." Everything not forbidden was required.
An account of justice that leaves so little room for liberty is wanting. I suppose it would be possible to construct express permissions that were very broad, e.g., "As long as you don't hurt anyone with your action, do whatever you want." Here we are asking if you can be unjust to yourself, so that would have to include you in 'don't hurt anyone.'
Again, when a man in violation of the law harms another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he acts unjustly, and a voluntary agent is one who knows both the person he is affecting by his action and the instrument he is using; and he who through anger voluntarily stabs himself does this contrary to the right rule of life, and this the law does not allow; therefore he is acting unjustly.
He is acting unlawfully, not unfairly.
But towards whom? Surely towards the state, not towards himself. For he suffers voluntarily, but no one is voluntarily treated unjustly. This is also the reason why the state punishes; a certain loss of civil rights attaches to the man who destroys himself, on the ground that he is treating the state unjustly.
Is it possible to treat the state unjustly? Socrates is supposed to have claimed that the state had the rights over its citizens that a master has over his slaves, because the state arranged for your safety and upbringing, food and shelter. Certainly many states exercise tyrannical powers over people, denying them their basic rights and freedoms in a manner analogous to slavery. Can a slave be unjust to his master, given the basic injustice of that relationship?
Even in a healthy relationship between citizen and state, the state is not in a position of equality; and the state is not a person, having no feelings to be hurt and no dignity to be insulted. Burning the flag doesn't actually injure anyone, for example.
If justice is lawfulness plus fairness, as Aristotle says, the law can certainly establish standards that citizens have to abide by with regard to the state; then, violating those laws is injustice by definition. Yet if justice is the virtue of respecting the interests of others, the state isn't properly an 'other.' It's a fiction, a legal but not an actual entity. I'm not convinced that you can be unjust to the state.
Further (b) in that sense of 'acting unjustly' in which the man who 'acts unjustly' is unjust only and not bad all round, it is not possible to treat oneself unjustly (this is different from the former sense; the unjust man in one sense of the term is wicked in a particularized way just as the coward is, not in the sense of being wicked all round, so that his 'unjust act' does not manifest wickedness in general). For (i) that would imply the possibility of the same thing's having been subtracted from and added to the same thing at the same time; but this is impossible-the just and the unjust always involve more than one person. Further, (ii) unjust action is voluntary and done by choice, and takes the initiative (for the man who because he has suffered does the same in return is not thought to act unjustly); but if a man harms himself he suffers and does the same things at the same time. Further, (iii) if a man could treat himself unjustly, he could be voluntarily treated unjustly. Besides, (iv) no one acts unjustly without committing particular acts of injustice; but no one can commit adultery with his own wife or housebreaking on his own house or theft on his own property,
Recall that justice was said to be, 'in a way,' complete virtue. Being unjust seems as if it is at least a failure to achieve complete virtue; but here we are talking about a sense in which one can be unjust without being generally wicked. The failure to achieve the whole doesn't mean that you haven't gotten anything right.
In general, the question 'can a man treat himself unjustly?' is solved also by the distinction we applied to the question 'can a man be voluntarily treated unjustly?'
(It is evident too that both are bad, being unjustly treated and acting unjustly; for the one means having less and the other having more than the intermediate amount, which plays the part here that the healthy does in the medical art, and that good condition does in the art of bodily training. But still acting unjustly is the worse, for it involves vice and is blameworthy-involves vice which is either of the complete and unqualified kind or almost so (we must admit the latter alternative, because not all voluntary unjust action implies injustice as a state of character), while being unjustly treated does not involve vice and injustice in oneself. In itself, then, being unjustly treated is less bad, but there is nothing to prevent its being incidentally a greater evil. But theory cares nothing for this; it calls pleurisy a more serious mischief than a stumble; yet the latter may become incidentally the more serious, if the fall due to it leads to your being taken prisoner or put to death as the enemy.)
I think Aristotle answered the question 'can a man be voluntarily treated unjustly' with both yes and no, as for example the virtuous man might take less than he really deserves: this is a proof of his virtue (because it displays his generosity), rather than a charge against it (because he doesn't insist on his rightful share). The drunkard is suffering something he freely chose while he had the power to choose; but now he doesn't have the power to reject it any longer. So, typically, 'yes, but at the same time also no.'
Metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance there is a justice, not indeed between a man and himself, but between certain parts of him; yet not every kind of justice but that of master and servant or that of husband and wife.
Oy. If the relationship between state and citizen is similar to master and slave, I suppose that's less offensive than it would otherwise be; but clearly we are taking 'proportionate equality' to extremes here.
For these are the ratios in which the part of the soul that has a rational principle stands to the irrational part; and it is with a view to these parts that people also think a man can be unjust to himself, viz. because these parts are liable to suffer something contrary to their respective desires; there is therefore thought to be a mutual justice between them as between ruler and ruled.
In other words, the rational part of the soul is meant to be the ruler; the ratio (which, recall, is how Greeks do all mathematics except geometry) is meant to place it in the more powerful and heavily weighted position. Thus, it should stand over the other parts of yourself as ruler to ruled; and if it does, this is not injustice but proper proportion. If you let the appetitive or spirited parts overrule your rational part, you are in fact being unjust to yourself. You are not allowing yourself to be rightly governed.
Let this be taken as our account of justice and the other, i.e. the other moral, virtues.
Ita fiat scriptum.
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