DEI

I call this photo “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” (Harley, two Yamahas, and a Kawasaki Ninja.)

Nicomachean Ethics V.5

After today's reading we will be halfway through Book V. Today's reading is on a Greek version of 'An Eye for an Eye.'

Some think that reciprocity is without qualification just, as the Pythagoreans said; for they defined justice without qualification as reciprocity. Now 'reciprocity' fits neither distributive nor rectificatory justice-yet people want even the justice of Rhadamanthus to mean this:

Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done -for in many cases reciprocity and rectificatory justice are not in accord; e.g. (1) if an official has inflicted a wound, he should not be wounded in return, and if some one has wounded an official, he ought not to be wounded only but punished in addition. Further (2) there is a great difference between a voluntary and an involuntary act.

It does matter to justice, as Aristotle says here, whether you put out the eye on purpose or involuntarily, as perhaps by accident. Even by accident, we might distinguish between an act from negligence when you should have taken more care, over against a pure accident that no one could have seen coming. Even if it were right to put out the eye of the man who intentionally put out another's in a fight, it might not be right to put out the eye of one who did so in a car accident; and especially not if the car accident was caused not by negligence but by circumstance.

But in associations for exchange this sort of justice does hold men together-reciprocity in accordance with a proportion and not on the basis of precisely equal return. For it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together. Men seek to return either evil for evil-and if they cannot do so, think their position mere slavery-or good for good-and if they cannot do so there is no exchange, but it is by exchange that they hold together. This is why they give a prominent place to the temple of the Graces-to promote the requital of services; for this is characteristic of grace-we should serve in return one who has shown grace to us, and should another time take the initiative in showing it.

Confer with the Christian position on this matter of forgiveness and showing each other grace, as the basis for a just society.

This is a longer chapter, and we've had several long readings lately, so I am going to put the rest beyond a jump break. However, many of you will find this chapter very interesting because it is about proto-capitalism and justice in market exchange.

Retributive Justice and the Blood Feud

Today's post on the EN is not the first time I've discussed the blood feud aspect of retributive justice, which is the alternative Aristotle wants to avoid with what he calls "rectificatory justice." It does play up this notion of equality and the seeking to re-balance affairs in matters of vengeance or justice for crimes.

* An aside on the subject of the feud, for Mr. Walker. You write:

My cousin's actions are, by extension, mine. If your cousin killed my cousin, I might just kill you, because one kinsman is pretty much as good (or bad) as another. To us, this seems ridiculous. 

I don't think this is right. I've observed the blood feud at work not only in reading the sagas, and Anglo-Saxon history, but also as it is still lived today among tribal groups in Iraq. The idea isn't that one cousin is as good as another, but rather that the feud is an attempt to balance an account of honor.

Let's say that I kill someone very important in your family (perhaps your father). If I am not also very important, you may not be satisfied with killing me. Killing me won't balance the scales. So, you may go and kill my uncle -- who is a better man than me -- in order to create balance.

The problem is that different families value members of their kinship at different rates than do outsiders. I may think that your father wasn't worth half what my uncle was, even though to you it seemed to even the scale. Thus, I think I now have a blood debt to repay: and so I go and kill your cousin. But to you, this upsets the scale again, so now you feel you have a debt.

This is why the reconciliation system in all of these tribal/honor cultures follows the pattern of getting the elders together to sort out a blood price. A group of people who are respected (or sometimes, if he is respected enough, a single judge) decides where the remaining debt lies, and sets a price that both sides accept. This settles the remaining debt so that peace becomes possible.  The hard part is finding a payment -- weregild or diyya -- that both sides agree makes it even.

In other words, the system actually does make sense once you understand the mechanism at work. My killing your cousin isn't irrational, but rather a measured response based on my sense of how important the various people are within the community of honor.

I think I might have drawn that example of killing the uncle from a passage in a scholarly work, but I have not been able to remember which or to locate in my library or the internet. Even the Scholarly version of the AI doesn't know what I'm talking about, so perhaps my memory is wrong -- more and more often it is not reliable -- but I would happily credit the original source if any of you remember it. I don't know if DanielUSMC happens to be around, but I think I remember discussing it with him long ago; or perhaps Joel Leggett remembers it. Or, as may be more likely, perhaps those old memories are in error. 

Nicomachean Ethics V.4

Book V is quite long; we are perhaps a third of the way through the exploration of aspects of justice.

(B) The remaining one is the rectificatory, which arises in connexion with transactions both voluntary and involuntary. This form of the just has a different specific character from the former. For the justice which distributes common possessions is always in accordance with the kind of proportion mentioned above (for in the case also in which the distribution is made from the common funds of a partnership it will be according to the same ratio which the funds put into the business by the partners bear to one another); and the injustice opposed to this kind of justice is that which violates the proportion.

Here is yet another sort of 'proportionate equality,' and indeed another one that we use regularly today: if two people invest in a partnership, one providing 40% of the investment and the other 60%, they will likely receive dividends in exactly that ratio of 4/6 or 2/3. That's appropriate for business: but today Aristotle will be talking about restitution for harms done.

But the justice in transactions between man and man is a sort of equality indeed, and the injustice a sort of inequality; not according to that kind of proportion, however, but according to arithmetical proportion. For it makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man or a bad man a good one, nor whether it is a good or a bad man that has committed adultery; the law looks only to the distinctive character of the injury, and treats the parties as equal, if one is in the wrong and the other is being wronged, and if one inflicted injury and the other has received it. Therefore, this kind of injustice being an inequality, the judge tries to equalize it; for in the case also in which one has received and the other has inflicted a wound, or one has slain and the other been slain, the suffering and the action have been unequally distributed; but the judge tries to equalize by means of the penalty, taking away from the gain of the assailant.

It definitely strikes contemporary readers as strange to say that it doesn't make a difference if a bad man or a good one defrauded the other; after all, what is fraud if not inherently bad? 

Nicomachean Ethics V.3

We continue the exploration of the virtue of justice. This is not intended as a political discussion by Aristotle; he's looking for a human universal that could apply in many different political systems. His political discussion was in the Politics, where he develops a typology of systems and explores each of their advantages, disadvantages, instabilities, and how they can go wrong. Here he is looking at what any sort of society needs its citizens to be like. 

(A) We have shown that both the unjust man and the unjust act are unfair or unequal; now it is clear that there is also an intermediate between the two unequals involved in either case.

Tom was suggesting that this might come up in the earlier discussion. There are two ways to go wrong with justice, unfairness and lawlessness. Here we are talking about fairness. Being unfair involved inequality. Thus, fairness involved equality. 

And this [intermediate] is the equal; for in any kind of action in which there's a more and a less there is also what is equal. If, then, the unjust is unequal, just is equal, as all men suppose it to be, even apart from argument. And since the equal is intermediate, the just will be an intermediate.

Equality poses a number of problems, but here is the first. The principle that equality exists when there is a more and a less is only conceptually true. Assuming you have five things that can't be internally subdivided, there is a more (3) and a less (2) but not an equal. We have ways around this most of the time; for example if there were five rubies, we might sell them and divide the money equally; or we might let the person who got only two rubies choose the two from the five, and the other person got then the three less choice-worthy ones. It is a problem, but not usually an insoluble one. 

Now equality implies at least two things. The just, then, must be both intermediate and equal and relative (i.e. for certain persons).

Here is the second, and practically the much bigger problem:  all men are said to think that equality is fair, but only relative to who they are. Worse than that, men definitely do not agree about what it is that makes them more or less worthy of a larger share of whatever we are dividing: 

Euclid to Einstein

Come for the math, stay for the dueling.

Nicomachean Ethics V.2

 We continue the discussion of justice today, and indeed through the whole of Book V.

But at all events what we are investigating is the justice which is a part of virtue; for there is a justice of this kind, as we maintain. Similarly it is with injustice in the particular sense that we are concerned.

That there is such a thing is indicated by the fact that while the man who exhibits in action the other forms of wickedness acts wrongly indeed, but not graspingly (e.g. the man who throws away his shield through cowardice or speaks harshly through bad temper or fails to help a friend with money through meanness), when a man acts graspingly he often exhibits none of these vices,-no, nor all together, but certainly wickedness of some kind (for we blame him) and injustice. There is, then, another kind of injustice which is a part of injustice in the wide sense, and a use of the word 'unjust' which answers to a part of what is unjust in the wide sense of 'contrary to the law'. Again if one man commits adultery for the sake of gain and makes money by it, while another does so at the bidding of appetite though he loses money and is penalized for it, the latter would be held to be self-indulgent rather than grasping, but the former is unjust, but not self-indulgent; evidently, therefore, he is unjust by reason of his making gain by his act.

This is a strange example. I suppose we are meant to imagine someone committing adultery with a rich married person who bestows presents upon the adulterous lover; or perhaps the adultery is meant to break up a marriage so that the lover can then marry the rich person, thereby increasing their access to wealth. If the adultery is done only out of a desire for the presents and wealth, it is a sort of injustice because it is greedy.

Again, all other unjust acts are ascribed invariably to some particular kind of wickedness, e.g. adultery to self-indulgence, the desertion of a comrade in battle to cowardice, physical violence to anger; but if a man makes gain, his action is ascribed to no form of wickedness but injustice. Evidently, therefore, there is apart from injustice in the wide sense another, 'particular', injustice which shares the name and nature of the first, because its definition falls within the same genus; for the significance of both consists in a relation to one's neighbour, but the one is concerned with honour or money or safety-or that which includes all these, if we had a single name for it-and its motive is the pleasure that arises from gain; while the other is concerned with all the objects with which the good man is concerned.

It is clear, then, that there is more than one kind of justice, and that there is one which is distinct from virtue entire; we must try to grasp its genus and differentia.

This is a challenge that Socrates raises regularly in the Platonic dialogues. Socrates usually presents it as a problem: can you say what a virtue is that is not just 'virtue entire,' but that closely defines what that virtue is that is separate from others? Usually in the Platonic dialogues the discussion proves incapable of doing so; for example, in the Laches they prove incapable of defining courage even though the discussion is among men who have demonstrated courage in battle (including Socrates, who fought heroically at times).  

What Did You Just Read?

Adobe has inserted an AI assistant I didn't ask for into the blog. I let it summarize 'the document,' by which I think it just means what you can see. Here's what it told me about what I wrote.

The document primarily explores the following themes:

Philosophical Analysis of Justice and Virtue: The document delves into Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, particularly Book V.1, discussing justice as a virtue, its relationship to fairness and lawfulness, and its role in societal harmony. ​ It also critiques modern interpretations, such as those by John Rawls, and contrasts Aristotle's views with contemporary ideas.

Ethical Reflections and Personal Philosophy: The author shares personal ethical guidelines inspired by John Wayne movies and Stoic philosophy, emphasizing individual autonomy, respect, and personal growth. ​

Historical and Cultural Achievements: The document highlights notable accomplishments, such as Hannah Linzay-Wade's completion of the Húsafell carry, marking a significant milestone in strength sports for women. ​

Contemporary Social and Political Commentary: The document includes reflections on current events, such as the deployment of National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., and broader societal issues like censorship, free speech, and the role of government in addressing inequality. ​

Critique of Modern Trends and Ideas: The author critiques modern societal behaviors, such as performative progressivism, the influence of progressive ideologies in academia, and the challenges of addressing humanitarian crises. ​

Literary and Cultural Appreciation: The document references and appreciates various literary works, music, and cultural traditions, including Americana music and philosophical texts.

Personal Observations and Anecdotes: The author shares personal experiences, reflections, and opinions on a range of topics, blending philosophical insights with everyday observations.

These themes collectively reflect a blend of philosophical inquiry, ethical reflection, cultural appreciation, and commentary on contemporary issues.

It's weird how subtly inaccurate that is. For example, I wasn't 'highlighting notable accomplishments, such as Hannah Linzay-Wade's,' I was honoring her particular accomplishment. There's a whole set of little things like that which aren't quite right. It's not exactly wrong, but it's not exactly right. That adds up over time.

My work uses Slack, which now has a similar AI summary of what has happened in a given channel over the last day. No way: you'd better go read it yourself, or you'll miss something crucial. 

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. 

Two Rules

I realized due to an issue that came up recently, one that required some reflection, that I really only have two rules to guide me; and, on further reflection, that they both appear in John Wayne movies. That should probably be embarrassing for someone who has spent so much time with philosophy; I endorse Stoicism and obviously Aristotelian ideas about virtue. Still, in practical action, it comes down to these two things.

Hondo:

1. "Well, a long time ago I made me a rule. I let people do what they want to do."

The Shootist: 

2. “I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

I had two rules for my son, too, when he was coming up. They were easier to remember. 

1. No whining.

2. Grow stronger.

Maybe it's helpful if an ethical code is distilled. 

Female Fullsterkur

As a rule I find the 'first woman to X' thing to be a little dated; at this point, there's almost nothing that women haven't done. Increasingly those headlines are 'first woman to X while also Y and Z and Q' to get to a genuinely unique accomplishment. 

Yet there remain a few things that truly are worthy of notice. For the first time in recorded history, a woman -- Hannah Linzay-Wade -- has completed the Húsafell carry.

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She is thereby rated "full-strength" according to the old test, which dates to Viking-era Iceland. 

Some New Americana

The young people working in this genre, which seems to include a lot of what we used to call country music as well as some other things, produce some good stuff. Sometimes it's covers of old Hank songs. Most of them are original, though. There's some good writing. 


Hank Jr. always had good writing.

The Lord and cold beer/
You can find both 'round here/
They'll take you, just as you are...

She asked me to dance, I could see/
She let 'em all think I could lead.

Well I lost my job today because the bossman's out of pay/
He said the price of life has gone astray and he just can't afford my cowboy wage/
I've got a wild horse, and a wild woman/
I'm gonna load 'em up in my pick-em up truck/
And head back down to the Land of Luck.

Bless his liver and his honky-tonk heart...
UPDATE: I like this one; she reminds me of Loretta Lynn.