The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  But since the work which the housebuilder produces is of more value than that of the shoemaker, and the shoemaker had to exchange his work with the [20] housebuilder, but it was not possible to get a house for shoes; under these circumstances they had recourse to using something for which all these things are purchasable, to wit silver, which they called money, and to effecting their mutual exchanges by each paying the worth of each product, and thereby holding the political communion together. [25]

  Since, then, the just is in those things and in what was mentioned before, the justice which is concerned with these things will be an habitual impulse attended with choice about and in these things.

  Reciprocation also is just; not, however, as the Pythagoreans maintained. For they thought that it was just that a man should suffer in return what he had done. [30] But this cannot be the case in relation to all persons. For the same thing is not just for a servant as for a freeman. For if the servant has struck the freeman, it is not just that he should merely be struck in return, but many times. And reciprocal justice, also consists in proportion. For as the freeman is to the slave in being [35] superior, so is retaliation to aggression. It will be the same with one freeman in relation to another. For it is not just, if a man has knocked out somebody’s eye, merely that he should have his own knocked out, but that he should suffer more, if he is to observe the proportion. For he was the first to begin and did a wrong, and is in the wrong in both ways, so that the acts of injustice are proportional, and for him [1194b1] to suffer more than he did is just.

  But since the term ‘just’ is used in more senses than one, we must determine what kind of justice it is about which our inquiry is.

  There is, then, a sort of justice, as they say, for a servant as against his master, [5] and a son as against his father. But the just in these cases would seem to be homonymous with political justice (for the justice about which we are inquiring is political justice); for this above all consists in equality (for citizens are a sort of partners, and tend to be on a par by nature, though they differ in character), but a [10] son against his father or a servant against his master would not seem to have any justice at all, any more than my foot or my hand has any justice against me, and in the same way with each of the members. The same, then, would seem to be the case with the son as against his father. For the son is, as it were, a part of his father, except when he has already attained to the position of a man and has been separated [15] from him; then he is the equal and peer of his father. Now citizens are supposed to be on that footing. And in the same way neither has a servant any justice as against his master for the same reason. For the servant is a part of his master. Or if he has [20] any justice against him, it is in the way of economic justice. But this is not what we are in search of, but political justice; for political justice seems to lie in equality and similarity. Though, indeed, the justice that there is in the partnership between wife and husband comes near to political justice. For the wife is inferior to the husband, [25] but more intimately connected with him, and partakes in a way more of equality, because their life is an approximation to political society, so that justice between man and wife is more than any other like that between citizens. Since, then, the just is that which is found in political society, justice also and the just man will be concerned with the politically just.

  [30] Things are just either by nature or by law. But we must not regard the natural as being something which cannot by any possibility change; for even the things which are by nature partake of change. I mean, for instance, if we were all to practice always throwing with the left hand, we should become ambidextrous. But [35] still by nature left is left, and the right is none the less naturally superior to the left hand, even if we do everything with the left as we do with the right. Nor because things change does it follow that they are not by nature. But if for the most part and for the greater length of time the left continues thus to be left and the right right, [1195a1] this is by nature. The same is the case with things just by nature. Do not suppose that, if things change owing to our use, there is not therefore a natural justice; because there is. For that which continues for the most part can plainly be seen to be naturally just. As to what we establish for ourselves and practise, that is thereby [5] just, and we call it just according to law. Natural justice, then, is better than legal. But what we are in search of is political justice. Now the politically just is the legal, not the natural.

  The unjust and the unjust act might seem to be the same, but they are not. For [10] the unjust is that which is determined by law; for instance, it is unjust to steal a deposit, but the unjust act is the actual doing of something unjustly. And in the same way the just is not the same as a just act. For the just is what is determined by law, but a just act is the doing of just deeds.

  When, therefore, have we the just, and when not? Generally speaking, when [15] one acts in accordance with choice and voluntarily (what was meant by the voluntary has been stated by us above), and when one does so knowing the person, the means, and the end, those are the conditions of a just act. In the very same way the unjust man will be he who knows the person, the means, and the end. But when without knowing any of these things one has done something that is unjust, one is [20] not unjust oneself, but unfortunate. For if a man has slain his father under the idea that he was slaying an enemy, though he has done something that is unjust, still he is not doing injustice to anybody, but is unfortunate.

  The possibility, then, of not committing injustice when one does things that are unjust lies in being ignorant of what was mentioned a little above, viz. when one does not know whom one is hurting, nor with what, nor to what end. But we must [25] now define the ignorance, and say how the ignorance must arise if a man is not to be doing an injustice to the person whom he hurts. Let this, then, be the definition. When the ignorance is the cause of his doing something, he does not do this voluntarily, so that he does not commit injustice; but when he is himself the cause of his ignorance and does something in accordance with the ignorance of which he is himself the cause, then he is guilty of injustice, and such a person will justly be [30] called unjust. Take for instance people who are drunk. Those who are drunk and have done something bad commit injustice. For they are themselves the causes of their ignorance. For they need not have drunk so much as not to know that they were beating their father. Similarly with the other sorts of ignorance which are due to men themselves, the people who commit injustice from them are unjust. But [35] where they are not themselves the causes, but their ignorance is the cause of their doing what they do, they are not unjust. This sort of ignorance is that which comes from nature; for instance, children strike their parents in ignorance, but the [1195b1] ignorance which is in them, being due to nature, does not make the children be called unjust owing to this conduct. For it is ignorance which is the cause of their behaving thus, and they are not themselves causes of their ignorance, for which reason they are not called unjust either.

  But how about being injured? Can a man be injured voluntarily? Surely not. [5] We do indeed voluntarily perform just and unjust acts, but we cannot be said to be injured voluntarily. For we avoid being punished, so that it is evident that we would not voluntarily let ourselves be injured. For no one voluntarily endures to be hurt. Now to be injured is to be hurt.

  Yes, but there are some who, when they ought to have an equal share, give way [10] to others, so that if, as we have seen, to have the equal is just, and to have less is to be injured, and a man voluntarily has less, it follows, it is maintained, that he is injured voluntarily. But from the following consideration it is evident, on the other hand, that this is not so. For all who accept less get compensation for it in the way of honour, or praise, or glory, or friendship, or something of that sort. But he who takes [15] compensation of some kind for what he forgoes cannot be said to be injured; and if he is not injured, then he is not injured voluntarily.

  Yet again, those who get less and are injured in so far as they do not get w
hat is equal, pride and plume themselves on such things, for they say, ‘Though I might have had my share, I did not take it, but gave way to an elder’ or ‘to a friend’. But no [20] one prides himself on being injured. But if they do not pride themselves upon suffering acts of injustice and do pride themselves upon such things, it follows generally that they will not be injured by thus getting less. And if they are not injured, then they will not be injured voluntarily.

  But as against these and the like arguments16 we have a counter-argument in [25] the case of the incontinent man. For the incontinent man hurts himself by doing bad acts, and these acts he does voluntarily; he therefore hurts himself knowingly, so that he is voluntarily injured by himself. But here if we add a distinction, it will impede the force of the argument. And the distinction is this, that no one wishes to [30] be injured. The incontinent man does with his own wish what is prompted by his incontinence, so that he injures himself; he therefore wishes to do to himself what is bad. But no one wishes to be injured, so that even the incontinent man will not voluntarily be doing an injury to himself.

  [35] But here again one might perhaps raise a difficulty. Is it possible for a man to be unjust to himself? Judging from the incontinent man it would seem possible. [1196a1] And, again, in this way. If it is just to do those things which the law ordains to be done, he who does not do these is committing injustice; and if when he does not do them to him to whom the law commands, he is doing an injustice to that person, but the law commands one to be temperate, to possess property, to take care of one’s body, and all other such things, then he who does not do these things is doing an [5] injustice to himself. For it is not possible to refer such acts of injustice to anyone else.

  But these statements can hardly be true, nor is it possible for a man to be unjust to himself. For it is not possible for the same man at the same time to have more and less, nor at once to act voluntarily and involuntarily. But yet he who does [10] injustice, in so far as he does it, has more, and he who suffers it, in so far as he suffers it, has less. If therefore a man does injustice to himself, it is possible for the same man at the same time to have more and less. But this is impossible. It is not therefore possible for a man to be unjust to himself.

  Again, he who does injustice does it voluntarily, and he who suffers it suffers it involuntarily, so that, if it is possible for a man to be unjust to himself, it would be [15] possible at the same time to do something involuntarily and voluntarily. But this is impossible. So in this way also it is not possible for a man to be unjust to himself.

  Again, one might look at the question from the point of view of particular acts of injustice. Whenever men commit injustice, it is either by stealing a deposit, or [20] committing adultery, or thieving, or doing some other particular act of injustice; but no one ever robbed himself of a deposit, or committed adultery with his own wife, or stole his own property; so that if the commission of injustice lies in such things, and it is not possible to do any of them to oneself, it will not be possible to commit injustice against oneself.

  [25] Or if so, it will not be an act of injustice of the political, but rather of the economic type. For the soul being divided into several parts has in itself a better and a worse, so that if there is any act of injustice within the soul, it will be done by the parts against one another. Now we distinguished the economic act of injustice by its [30] being directed against the better or worse, so that in this sense a man may be unjust or just to himself. But this is not what we are investigating, but the political act of injustice. So that in such acts of injustice as form the subject of our inquiry, it is not possible for a man to commit injustice against himself.

  Which of the two, again, commits injustice, and with which of the two does the [35] act of injustice lie, when a man has anything unjustly? Is it not with him who has judged and made the award, as in the games? For he who takes the palm from the president who has adjudged it to him is not committing injustice, even if it be wrongly awarded to him; but without doubt it is he who has judged badly and given [1196b1] it who commits injustice. And he is in a way committing injustice, while in a way he is not. For in that he has not judged what is really and naturally just, he is committing an injustice, while in that he has judged what appears to him to be just, he is not committing an injustice.

  34 · Now since we have spoken about the excellences in general, saying what they are and in what and about what, and about each of them in particular, how we [5] must do the best in accordance with right reason, to say no more than this, namely, ‘to act in accordance with right reason’, would be much the same as if one were to say that health would be best secured if one were to adopt the means of health. Such a statement is unilluminating. I shall have it said to me, ‘Explain what are the means of health’. So also in the case of reason, ‘What is reason and which is right [10] reason?’

  Perhaps it is necessary first of all to make a division of that in which reason is found. A distinction, indeed, was made in outline about soul before, how one part of it is possessed of reason, while there is another part of the soul that is irrational. But the part of the soul which is possessed of reason has two divisions, of which one is the [15] deliberative faculty, the other the faculty by which we know. That they are different from one another will be evident from their subject-matter. For as colour and flavour and sound and smell are different from one another, so also nature has rendered the senses whereby we perceive them different (for sound we recognize by [20] hearing, flavour by taste, and colour by sight), and in like manner we must suppose it to be the same with all other things. When, then, the subject-matters are different, we must suppose that the parts of the soul whereby we recognize these are also different. Now there is a difference between the object of thought and the [25] object of sense; and these we recognize by soul. The part of the soul, therefore, which is concerned with objects of sense will be different from that which is concerned with objects of thought. But the faculty of deliberation and choice has to do with objects of sense that are liable to change, and generally all that is subject to generation and destruction. For we deliberate about those things which depend upon us and our choice to do or not to do, about which there is deliberation and [30] choice as to whether to do them or not. And these are sensible objects which are in process of change. So that the part of the soul in which choice resides will correspond to sensible objects.

  These points having been settled, we must go on as follows. The question is one of truth, and the subject of our inquiry is how the truth stands, and we have to do [35] with knowledge, wisdom, intuition, philosophy, belief. What, then, is the object of each of these?

  Now knowledge deals with the object of knowledge, and this through a process accompanied with demonstration and reason, but wisdom with matters of action, in [1197a1] which there is choice and avoidance, and it is in our power to do or not to do.

  When things are made and done, that which makes and that which does them are not the same. For the arts of making have some other end beyond the making; [5] for instance, beyond housebuilding, since that is the art of making a house, there is a house as its end beyond the making, and similarly in the case of carpentry and the other arts of making; but in the processes of doing there is no other end beyond the [10] doing; for instance, beyond playing the harp there is no other end, but just this is the end, the activity and the doing. Wisdom, then, is concerned with doing and things done, but art with making and things made; for it is in things made rather than in things done that artistic contrivance is displayed.

  So that wisdom will be a state of choosing and doing things which it is in our [15] own power to do or not to do, so far as they are of actual importance to welfare. Wisdom is an excellence, it would seem, not a science. For the wise are praiseworthy, and praise is bestowed on excellence. Again, every science has its excellence, but wisdom has no excellence, but, as it seems, is itself an excellence.

  [20] Intuition has to do with the first principles of things intelligibl
e and real. For knowledge has to do with things that admit of demonstration, but the principles are indemonstrable, so that it will not be knowledge but intuition that is concerned with the principles.

  Philosophy is compounded of knowledge and intuition. For philosophy has to [25] do both with the principles and with what can be proved from the principles, with which knowledge deals. In so far, then, as it deals with the principles, it itself partakes of intuition, but in so far as it deals with demonstrative conclusions from the principles, it partakes of knowledge. So that it is evident that philosophy is compounded of intuition and knowledge, so that it will deal with the same things with which intuition and knowledge do.

  [30] Belief is that whereby we are left in doubt about all things as to whether they are in a particular way or not.

  Are wisdom and philosophy the same thing? Surely not! For philosophy has to do with things that can be demonstrated and are eternally the same, but wisdom has [35] not to do with these, but with things that undergo change. I mean, for instance, straight or crooked or convex and the like are always what they are, but things expedient do not follow this analogy, so as never to change into anything else; they do change, and a given thing is expedient now, but not to-morrow, to this man but [1197b1] not to that, and is expedient in this way, but not in that way. Now wisdom has to do with things expedient, but philosophy not. Therefore philosophy and wisdom are not the same.