Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle — Book V, Distributive and corrective justice

This Corrective Justice again has two sub-divisions, corresponding to the two classes of private transactions, those which are voluntary and those which are involuntary. Examples of voluntary transactions are selling, buying, lending at interest, pledging, lending without interest, depositing, letting for hire; these transactions being termed voluntary because they are voluntarily entered upon. Of involuntary transactions some are furtive, for instance, theft, adultery, poisoning, procuring, enticement of slaves, assassination, false witness; others are violent, for instance, assault, imprisonment, murder, robbery with violence, maiming, abusive language, contumelious treatment.

Now since an unjust man is one who is unfair, and the unjust is the unequal, it is clear that corresponding to the unequal there is a mean, namely that which is equal;

for every action admitting of more and less admits of the equal also.

If then the unjust is the unequal, the just is the equal—a view that commends itself to all without proof; and since the equal is a mean, the just will be a sort of mean too.

Again, equality involves two terms at least. It accordingly follows not only (a) that the just is a mean and equal and relative to something and just for certain persons, but also (b) that, as a mean, it implies certain extremes between which it lies, namely the more and the less; (c) that, as equal, it implies two shares that are equal; and (d) that, as just, it implies certain persons for whom it is just.

It follows therefore that justice involves at least four terms, namely, two persons for whom it is just and two shares which are just.

And there will be the same equality between the shares as between the persons, since the ratio between the shares will be equal to the ratio between the persons; for if the persons are not equal, they will not have equal shares; it is when equals possess or are allotted unequal shares, or persons not equal equal shares, that quarrels and complaints arise.

This is also clear from the principle of assignment by desert. All are agreed that justice in distributions must be based on desert of some sort, although they do not all mean the same sort of desert; democrats make the criterion free birth; those of oligarchical sympathies wealth, or in other cases birth; upholders of aristocracy make it virtue.

Justice is therefore a sort of proportion; for proportion is not a property of numerical quantity only, but of quantity in general, proportion being equality of ratios, and involving four terms at least.

(That a discrete proportion has four terms is plain, but so also has a continuous proportion, since it treats one term as two, and repeats it: ^1131.2for example, as the line representing term one is to the line representing term two, so is the line representing term two to the line representing term three; here the line representing term two is mentioned twice, so that if it be counted twice, there will be four proportionals.)

Thus the just also involves four terms at least, and the ratio between the first pair of terms is the same as that between the second pair. For the two lines representing the persons and shares are similarly divided;

then, as the first term is to the second, so is the third to the fourth; and hence, by alternation, as the first is to the third, so is the second to the fourth; and therefore also, as the first is to the second, so is the sum of the first and third to the sum of the second and fourth. Now this is the combination effected by a distribution of shares, and the combination is a just one, if persons and shares are added together in this way.

The principle of Distributive Justice, therefore, is the conjunction of the first term of a proportion with the third and of the second with the fourth; and the just in this sense is a mean between two extremes that are disproportionate, since the proportionate is a mean, and the just is the proportionate.

(This kind of proportion is termed by mathematicians geometrical proportion; for a geometrical proportion is one in which the sum of the first and third terms will bear the same ratio to the sum of the second and fourth as one term of either pair bears to the other term.—

Distributive justice is not a continuous proportion, for its second and third terms, a person and a share, do not constitute a single term.)

The just in this sense is therefore the proportionate, and the unjust is that which violates proportion. The unjust may therefore be either too much or too little; and this is what we find in fact, for when injustice is done, the doer has too much and the sufferer too little of the good in question;

though vice versa in the case of an evil, because a lesser evil in comparison with a greater counts as a good,

since the lesser of two evils is more desirable than the greater, but what is desirable is good, and the more desirable it is, the greater good it is.

This then is one kind of Justice.

The remaining kind is Corrective Justice, which operates in private transactions, both voluntary and involuntary.

This justice is of a different sort from the preceding. For justice in distributing common property always conforms with the proportion we have described (since when a distribution is made from the common stock, it will follow the same ratio as that between the amounts which the several persons have contributed to the common stock); and the injustice opposed to justice of this a kind is a violation of this proportion.

But the just in private transactions, although it is the equal in a sense (and the unjust the unequal), ^1132.1is not the equal according to geometrical but according to arithmetical proportion. For it makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man or a bad one a good one, nor whether it is a good or a bad man that has committed adultery; the law looks only at the nature of damage, treating the parties as equal, and merely asking whether one has done and the other suffered injustice, whether one inflicted and the other has sustained damage.

Hence the unjust being here the unequal, the judge endeavors to equalize it: inasmuch as when one man has received and the other has inflicted a blow, or one has killed and the other been killed, the line representing the suffering and doing of the deed is divided into unequal parts, but the judge endeavors to make them equal by the penalty or loss he imposes, taking away the gain.

(For the term gain is used in a general way to apply to such cases, even though it is not strictly appropriate to some of them, for example to a person who strikes another, nor is loss appropriate to the victim in this case;

but at all events the results are called loss and gain respectively when the amount of the damage sustained comes to be estimated.) Thus, while the equal is a mean between more and less, gain and loss are at once both more and less in contrary ways, more good and less evil being gain and more evil and less good loss; and as the equal, which we pronounce to be just, is, as we said, a mean between them, it follows that Justice in Rectification will be the mean between loss and gain.

This is why when disputes occur men have recourse to a judge. To go to a judge is to go to justice, for the ideal judge is so to speak justice personified. Also, men require a judge to be a middle term or medium—indeed in some places judges are called mediators—, for they think that if they get the mean they will get what is just. Thus the just is a sort of mean, inasmuch as the judge is a medium between the litigants.

Now the judge restores equality: if we represent the matter by a line divided into two unequal parts, he takes away from the greater segment that portion by which it exceeds one-half of the whole line, and adds it to the lesser segment. When the whole has been divided into two halves, people then say that they have their own, having got what is equal.

This is indeed the origin of the word dikaion (just): it means dicha (in half), as if one were to pronounce it dichaion; and a dikast (judge) is a dichast (halver). The equal is a mean by way of arithmetical proportion between the greater and the less.

For when of two equals a part is taken from the one and added to the other, the latter will exceed the former by twice that part, since if it had been taken from the one but not added to the other, the latter would exceed the former by once the part in question only. ^1132.2Therefore the latter will exceed the mean by once the part, and the mean will exceed the former, from which the part was taken, by once that part.

This process then will enable us to ascertain what we ought to take away from the party that has too much and what to add to the one that has too little: we must add to the one that has too little the amount whereby the mean between them exceeds him, and take away from the greatest of the three the amount by which the mean is exceeded by him.

Let the lines AA, BB, CC be equal to one another; let the segment AE be taken away from the line AA, and let the segment CD be added to the line CC, so that the whole line DCC exceeds the line EA by CD+CF; then DCC will exceed BB by CD.

The terms loss and gain in these cases are borrowed from the operations of voluntary exchange. There, to have more than one’s own is called gaining, and to have less than one had at the outset is called losing, as for instance in buying and selling, and all other transactions sanctioned by law;

while if the result of the transaction is neither an increase nor a decrease, but exactly what the parties had of themselves, they say they have their own and have neither lost nor gained. Hence Justice in Involuntary Transactions is a mean between gain and loss in a sense: it is to have after the transaction an amount equal to the amount one had before it.

The view is also held by some that simple Reciprocity is Justice. This was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, who defined the just simply as suffering reciprocally with another.

Reciprocity however does not coincide either with Distributive or with Corrective Justice

(although people mean to identify it with the latter when they quote the rule of Rhadamanthys— An a man suffer even that which he did, Right justice will be done).

For in many cases Reciprocity is at variance with Justice: for example, if an officer strikes a man, it is wrong for the man to strike him back; and if a man strikes an officer, it is not enough for the officer to strike him, but he ought to be punished as well.

Again, it makes a great difference whether an act was done with or without the consent of the other party.

But in the interchange of services Justice in the form of Reciprocity is the bond that maintains the association: reciprocity, that is, on the basis of proportion, not on the basis of equality. The very existence of the state depends on proportionate reciprocity; for men demand that they shall be able to requite evil with evil—^1133.1if they cannot, they feel they are in the position of slaves—and to repay good with good— failing which, no exchange takes place, and it is exchange that binds them together.

This is why we set up a shrine of the Graces in a public place, to remind men to return a kindness; for that is a special characteristic of grace, since it is a duty not only to repay a service done one, but another time to take the initiative in doing a service oneself.

Now proportionate requital is effected by diagonal conjunction. For example, let A be a builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, and D a shoe. It is required that the builder shall receive from the shoemaker a portion of the product of his labor, and give him a portion of the product of his own. Now if proportionate equality between the products be first established, and then reciprocation take place, the requirement indicated will have been achieved; but if this is not done, the bargain is not equal, and intercourse does not continue. For it may happen that the product of one of the parties is worth more than that of the other, and in that case therefore they have to be equalized.

This holds good with the other arts as well; for they would have passed out of existence if the active element did not produce, and did not receive the equivalent in quantity and quality of what the passive element receives. For an association for interchange of services is not formed between two physicians, but between a physician and a farmer, and generally between persons who are different, and who may be unequal, though in that case they have to be equalized.

Hence all commodities exchanged must be able to be compared in some way. It is to meet this requirement that men have introduced money; money constitutes in a manner a middle term, for it is a measure of all things, and so of their superior or inferior value, that is to say, how many shoes are equivalent to a house or to a given quantity of food. As therefore a builder is to a shoemaker, so must such and such a number of shoes be to a house, or to a given quantity of food; for without this reciprocal proportion, there can be no exchange and no association; and it cannot be secured unless the commodities in question be equal in a sense.

It is therefore necessary that all commodities shall be measured by some one standard, as was said before. And this standard is in reality demand, which is what holds everything together, since if men cease to have wants or if their wants alter, exchange will go on no longer, or will be on different lines. But demand has come to be conventionally represented by money; this is why money is called nomisma (customary currency), because it does not exist by nature but by custom (nomos), and can be altered and rendered useless at will.

There will therefore be reciprocal proportion when the products have been equated, so that as farmer is to shoemaker, so may the shoemaker’s product be to the farmer’s product. ^1133.2And when they exchange their products they must reduce them to the form of a proportion, otherwise one of the two extremes will have both the excesses; whereas when they have their own, they then are equal, and can form an association together, because equality in this sense can be established in their case (farmer A, food C, shoemaker B, shoemaker’s product equalized D); whereas if it were impossible for reciprocal proportion to be effected in this way, there could be no association between them.

That it is demand which, by serving as a single standard, holds such an association together, is shown by the fact that, when there is no demand for mutual service on the part of both or at least of one of the parties, no exchange takes place between them as when someone needs something that one has oneself, for instance the state offering a license to export corn in exchange for wine. This inequality of demand has therefore to be equalized.

Now money serves us as a guarantee of exchange in the future: supposing we need nothing at the moment, it ensures that exchange shall be possible when a need arises, for it meets the requirement of something we can produce in payment so as to obtain the thing we need. Money, it is true, is liable to the same fluctuation of demand as other commodities, for its purchasing power varies at different times; but it tends to be comparatively constant. Hence the proper thing is for all commodities to have their prices fixed; this will ensure that exchange, and consequently association, shall always be possible. Money then serves as a measure which makes things commensurable and so reduces them to equality. If there were no exchange there would be no association, and there can be no exchange without equality, and no equality without commensurability. Though therefore it is impossible for things so different to become commensurable in the strict sense, our demand furnishes a sufficiently accurate common measure for practical purposes.

There must therefore be some one standard, and this accepted by agreement (which is why it is called nomisma, customary currency); for such a standard makes all things commensurable, since all things can be measured by money. Let A be a house, B ten minae and C a bedstead. Then A=B/2 (supposing the house to be worth, or equal to, five minae), and C (the bedstead) =B/10; it is now clear how many bedsteads are equal to one house, namely five.

It is clear that before money existed this is how the rate of exchange was actually stated—five beds for a house—since there is no real difference between that and the price of five beds for a house.

We have now stated what Justice and Injustice are in principle. From the definition given, it is plain that just conduct is a mean between doing and suffering injustice, for the former is to have too much and the latter to have too little. And Justice is a mode of observing the mean, though not in the same way as the other virtues are, but because it is related to a mean, while Injustice is related to the extremes. ^1134.1Also, Justice is that quality in virtue of which a man is said to be disposed to do by deliberate choice that which is just, and, when distributing things between himself and another, or between two others, not to give too much to himself and too little to his neighbor of what is desirable, and too little to himself and too much to his neighbor of what is harmful, but to each what is proportionately equal; and similarly when he is distributing between two other persons.