We had a break while I was off on travel, and will now resume with Book V. We are going to examine the justice or injustice of particular acts. This is different from what we have been interested in so far, which was the character of the actors rather than the justice of any particular action. Recall that in V.6 Aristotle makes this distinction plainly: “He was not a thief, but he stole.” It’s important that the character is not that of a thief, even though technically stealing even once does make the person a thief in a way. In the more important way, perhaps he is a physician who has saved man lives and regularly helps people who stole something in a moment of weakness or drunkeness; his character is basically good in spite of the one bad action.
This is why it took until V.8 to get to the question of actions rather than the virtues and characters of people.
Acts just and unjust being as we have described them, a man acts unjustly or justly whenever he does such acts voluntarily; when involuntarily, he acts neither unjustly nor justly except in an incidental way; for he does things which happen to be just or unjust.
That is another 'in a way/but in another way' move, which I have already pointed out as something that is characteristic of Aristotle's thought. Some philosophers are critical of that kind of move, which can introduce ambiguity into discussions. Remembering from I.3 that strict logic does not belong in the field of ethics, but only probabilistic and analogical thought, I take it to be the mark of correct thinking. It allows for sophisticated discussion and avoids trying to treat ethical categories as if they were categories of strict logic.
Whether an act is or is not one of injustice (or of justice) is determined by its voluntariness or involuntariness; for when it is voluntary it is blamed, and at the same time is then an act of injustice; so that there will be things that are unjust but not yet acts of injustice, if voluntariness be not present as well.
This is a point frequently lost in contemporary socio-political commentary.
By the voluntary I mean, as has been said before, any of the things in a man's own power which he does with knowledge, i.e. not in ignorance either of the person acted on or of the instrument used or of the end that will be attained (e.g. whom he is striking, with what, and to what end), each such act being done not incidentally nor under compulsion (e.g. if A takes B's hand and therewith strikes C, B does not act voluntarily; for the act was not in his own power). The person struck may be the striker's father, and the striker may know that it is a man or one of the persons present, but not know that it is his father; a similar distinction may be made in the case of the end, and with regard to the whole action.
The second example is similar to the plot of Oedipus Tyrannus, which may well have been what Aristotle was thinking of with that analogy.
Therefore that which is done in ignorance, or though not done in ignorance is not in the agent's power, or is done under compulsion, is involuntary (for many natural processes, even, we knowingly both perform and experience, none of which is either voluntary or involuntary; e.g. growing old or dying). But in the case of unjust and just acts alike the injustice or justice may be only incidental; for a man might return a deposit unwillingly and from fear, and then he must not be said either to do what is just or to act justly, except in an incidental way. Similarly the man who under compulsion and unwillingly fails to return the deposit must be said to act unjustly, and to do what is unjust, only incidentally.
One wonders how much debt-paying is only incidentally just, because it is only done from compulsion or fear of repossession. Tax-paying may not always even be incidentally just, since a tax is not a true debt but an arrogation of the state to as much of your property, income, or wealth as it wants. In some places that is conditioned by a legislature; but many things like gerrymandering can make legislatures illegitimate.
Of voluntary acts we do some by choice, others not by choice; by choice those which we do after deliberation, not by choice those which we do without previous deliberation.
"I didn't have time to think about it" is not a complete defense, however, because (as Aristotle points out in III.5 and reinforces occasionally in Book III) one's character informs what one does without thinking. Someone who has developed a courageous character will likely, without needing to deliberate, do the courageous thing. Thus, someone who abandons his post and flees from an instant and immediate danger is still blameworthy even though he didn't have time to think about it.
Thus there are three kinds of injury in transactions between man and man; those done in ignorance are mistakes when the person acted on, the act, the instrument, or the end that will be attained is other than the agent supposed; the agent thought either that he was not hitting any one or that he was not hitting with this missile or not hitting this person or to this end, but a result followed other than that which he thought likely (e.g. he threw not with intent to wound but only to prick), or the person hit or the missile was other than he supposed. Now when (1) the injury takes place contrary to reasonable expectation, it is a misadventure. When (2) it is not contrary to reasonable expectation, but does not imply vice, it is a mistake (for a man makes a mistake when the fault originates in him, but is the victim of accident when the origin lies outside him). When (3) he acts with knowledge but not after deliberation, it is an act of injustice-e.g. the acts due to anger or to other passions necessary or natural to man; for when men do such harmful and mistaken acts they act unjustly, and the acts are acts of injustice, but this does not imply that the doers are unjust or wicked; for the injury is not due to vice. But when (4) a man acts from choice, he is an unjust man and a vicious man.
Notice the hinge that takes us from judging the act back to judging the character, which is Aristotle's real interest. That lets us reconsider the remark about 'not a thief, but he stole'; we now have the furniture to say that, for that to be true, the act of stealing had to be a mistake, a misadventure, or only incidentally unjust because it didn't follow the process of deliberation. In the first case, the man's knowledge was at fault rather than his character. In the second, his reasonable expectations about the outcome didn't pan out due to chance or circumstance. Aristotle has some more to say about the third case:
Hence acts proceeding from anger are rightly judged not to be done of malice aforethought; for it is not the man who acts in anger but he who enraged him that starts the mischief. Again, the matter in dispute is not whether the thing happened or not, but its justice; for it is apparent injustice that occasions rage. For they do not dispute about the occurrence of the act-as in commercial transactions where one of the two parties must be vicious-unless they do so owing to forgetfulness; but, agreeing about the fact, they dispute on which side justice lies (whereas a man who has deliberately injured another cannot help knowing that he has done so), so that the one thinks he is being treated unjustly and the other disagrees.
He also has more to say about the fourth case, in which unjust acts are chosen deliberately.
But if a man harms another by choice, he acts unjustly; and these are the acts of injustice which imply that the doer is an unjust man, provided that the act violates proportion or equality. Similarly, a man is just when he acts justly by choice; but he acts justly if he merely acts voluntarily.
Given what has already been said about 'equality,' both in terms of restitution and politics, we might reasonably ask what kind of acts violate 'proportion OR equality.' For the most part, equality is proportionate and is supposed to be so; only in restitution is equality somewhat arithmetic, and even there one man may be worth more than another in calculations of restitution.
I think the answer lies here: justice is a two-way street, such that I do not steal from you and you do not steal from me, likewise I do not use force against you and you do not use force against me; thus, any violation of justice is in this sense a violation of equality. If you do steal from me, it might be proportionate if I steal an equal sum right back from you; but this is unjust, even though it does not violate proportion. Justice for Aristotle requires restitution through a magistrate, not a second act of chosen theft.
Of involuntary acts some are excusable, others not. For the mistakes which men make not only in ignorance but also from ignorance are excusable, while those which men do not from ignorance but (though they do them in ignorance) owing to a passion which is neither natural nor such as man is liable to, are not excusable.
I'm not sure exactly what Aristotle intends by this final discussion of inexcusable involuntary actions resulting from unnatural passions. That's a lot of negation. It is obvious that he is willing to at least partly excuse actions from natural passions, such as the rage one feels at being treated unjustly or in witnessing unjust actions. Violence arising in that moment of passion is not as blameworthy as violence chosen after deliberation. Passions that are not natural are harder for me to understand, because if they didn't arise from nature they shouldn't affect you. Passions are by nature involuntary things that happen to you in the Ancient Greek mind, and thus they tend to be things that affect the animal parts of the soul that lie beneath the rational part.
Perhaps if a god imposed a passion on you, it might not be coming from nature; but I would think that would be even more excusable than acts of violence during natural rage.
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