Book V chapter 9

Assuming that we have sufficiently¹ defined the suffering and doing of injustice², it may be asked (1) whether the truth in expressed in Euripides’ paradoxical words:

I slew³ my mother, that’s my tale in brief.
Were you both willing, or unwilling⁴ both?

Is it truly possible to be willingly treated unjustly, or is all suffering of injustice the contrary involuntary, as all unjust action is voluntary? And is all suffering of injustice of the latter kind or else all of the former, or is it sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary? So, too, with the case of being justly treated; all just action is voluntary, so that it is reasonable that there should be a similar opposition⁵ in either case-that both being unjustly and being justly treated should be either alike voluntary or alike involuntary. But it would be thought paradoxical even in the case of being justly treated, if it were always voluntary; for some are unwillingly⁶ treated justly. (2) One might raise this question also, whether every one who has suffered what is unjust is being unjustly treated, or on the other hand it is with suffering as with acting⁷. In action and in passivity alike it is possible to partake of justice incidentally, and similarly (it is plain) of injustice; for to do what is unjust is not the same as to act unjustly, nor to suffer what is unjust as to be treated unjustly, and similarly in the case of acting justly and being justly treated; for it is impossible to be unjustly treated if the other does not act unjustly, or justly treated unless he acts justly. Now if to act unjustly is simply to harm some one voluntarily, and ‘voluntarily’ means ‘knowing the person acted on, the instrument, and the manner of one’s acting’, and the incontinent man voluntarily harms himself, not only will he voluntarily be unjustly treated but it will be possible to treat oneself unjustly. (This also is one of the questions in doubt, whether a man can treat himself unjustly.) Again, a man may voluntarily, owing to incontinence, be harmed by another who acts voluntarily, so that it would be possible to be voluntarily treated unjustly. Or is our definition incorrect; must we to ‘harming another, with knowledge both of the person acted on, of the instrument, and of the manner’ add ‘contrary to the wish of the person acted on’? Then a man may be voluntarily harmed and voluntarily suffer what is unjust, but no one is voluntarily treated unjustly; for no one wishes to be unjustly treated, not even the incontinent man. He acts contrary to his wish; for no one wishes for what he does not think to be good, but the incontinent man does do things that he does not think he ought to do. Again, one who gives what is his own, as Homer says Glaucus gave Diomede

Armour⁸ of gold for brazen⁹, the price of a hundred beeves for nine, is not unjustly treated; for though to give is in his power, to be unjustly treated is not, but there must be some one to treat him unjustly. It is plain, then, that being unjustly treated is not voluntary.

Of the questions we intended to discuss two still remain for discussion; (3) whether it is the man who has assigned to another more than his share that acts unjustly, or he who has the excessive share, and (4) whether it is possible to treat oneself unjustly. The questions are connected; for if the former alternative is possible and the distributor acts unjustly and not the man who has the excessive share, then if a man assigns more to another than to himself, knowingly and voluntarily, he treats himself unjustly; which is what modest people seem to do, since the virtuous¹⁰ man tends to take less than his share. Or does this statement too need qualification? For (a) he perhaps gets more than his share of some other good, e.g. of honour or of intrinsic nobility. (b) The question is solved by applying the distinction we applied¹¹ to unjust action; for he suffers nothing contrary to his own wish, so that he is not unjustly treated as far as this goes, but at most only suffers harm.

It is plain too that the distributor acts unjustly, but not always the man who has the excessive share; for it is not he to whom what is unjust appertains that acts unjustly, but he to whom it appertains to do the unjust act voluntarily, i.e. the person in whom lies the origin of the action, and this lies in the distributor, not in the receiver. Again, since the word ‘do’ is ambiguous, and there is a sense in which lifeless things, or a hand, or a servant who obeys an order, may be said to slay¹², he who gets an excessive share does not act unjustly, though he ‘does’ what is unjust.

Again, if the distributor gave his judgement in ignorance, he does not act unjustly in respect of legal justice, and his judgement is not unjust in this sense, but in a sense it is unjust (for legal justice and primordial¹³ justice are different); but if with knowledge he judged unjustly, he is himself aiming at an excessive share either of gratitude¹⁴ or of revenge. As much, then, as if he were to share in the plunder¹⁵, the man who has judged unjustly for these reasons has got too much; the fact that what he gets is different from what he distributes makes no difference, for even if he awards land with a view to sharing in the plunder he gets not land but money.

Men think that acting unjustly is in their power, and therefore that being just is easy. But it is not; to lie with one’s neighbour’s wife, to wound another, to deliver a bribe¹⁶, is easy and in our power, but to do these things as a result of a certain state of character is neither easy nor in our power. Similarly to know what is just and what is unjust requires, men think, no great wisdom, because it is not hard to understand the matters dealt with by the laws (though these are not the things that are just, except incidentally); but how actions must be done and distributions effected in order to be just, to know this is a greater achievement than knowing what is good for the health; though even there, while it is easy to know that honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, and the use of the knife are so, to know how, to whom, and when these should be applied with a view to producing health, is no less an achievement than that of being a physician. Again, for this very reason men think that acting unjustly is characteristic of the just man no less than of the unjust, because he would be not less but even more capable of doing each of these unjust acts; for he could lie with a woman or wound a neighbour; and the brave man could throw away his shield and turn to flight in this direction or in that. But to play the coward or to act unjustly consists not in doing these things, except incidentally, but in doing them as the result of a certain state of character, just as to practise medicine and healing consists not in applying or not applying the knife, in using or not using medicines, but in doing so in a certain way.

Just acts occur between people who participate in things good in themselves and can have too much or too little of them; for some beings (e.g. presumably the gods) cannot have too much of them, and to others, those who are incurably¹⁷ bad, not even the smallest share in them is beneficial but all such goods are harmful, while to others they are beneficial up to a point; therefore justice is essentially¹⁸ something human.

1 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

2 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

3 slew   

v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多

参考例句：

• He slewed the car against the side of the building.他的车滑到了大楼的一侧，抵住了。
• They dealt with a slew of other issues.他们处理了大量的其他问题。

4 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

5 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

6 unwillingly   

adv.不情愿地

参考例句：

• He submitted unwillingly to his mother. 他不情愿地屈服于他母亲。
• Even when I call, he receives unwillingly. 即使我登门拜访，他也是很不情愿地接待我。

7 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

8 armour   

（=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队

参考例句：

• His body was encased in shining armour.他全身披着明晃晃的甲胄。
• Bulletproof cars sheathed in armour.防弹车护有装甲。

9 brazen   

adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的

参考例句：

• The brazen woman laughed loudly at the judge who sentenced her.那无耻的女子冲着给她判刑的法官高声大笑。
• Some people prefer to brazen a thing out rather than admit defeat.有的人不愿承认失败，而是宁肯厚着脸皮干下去。

10 virtuous   

adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的

参考例句：

• She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性，人人都尊敬她。
• My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。

11 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

12 slay   

v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮

参考例句：

• He intended to slay his father's murderer.他意图杀死杀父仇人。
• She has ordered me to slay you.她命令我把你杀了。

13 primordial   

adj.原始的；最初的

参考例句：

• It is the primordial force that propels us forward.它是推动我们前进的原始动力。
• The Neanderthal Man is one of our primordial ancestors.的尼安德特人是我们的原始祖先之一.

14 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

15 plunder   

vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠

参考例句：

• The thieves hid their plunder in the cave.贼把赃物藏在山洞里。
• Trade should not serve as a means of economic plunder.贸易不应当成为经济掠夺的手段。

16 bribe   

n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通

参考例句：

• He tried to bribe the policeman not to arrest him.他企图贿赂警察不逮捕他。
• He resolutely refused their bribe.他坚决不接受他们的贿赂。

17 incurably   

ad.治不好地

参考例句：

• But young people are incurably optimistic and women have a special knack of forgetting their troubles. 可是青年人，永远朝着愉快的事情想，女人们尤其容易忘记那些不痛快。
• For herself she wanted nothing. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious. 她为她自己并无所求，可为父亲和我，却有着无法遏制的野心。

18 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。