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admit the latter alternative, because not all voluntary unjust
action implies injustice as a state of character), while being
unjustly treated does not involve vice and injustice in oneself. In
itself, then, being unjustly treated is less bad, but there is nothing
to prevent its being incidentally a greater evil. But theory cares
nothing for this; it calls pleurisy a more serious mischief than a
stumble; yet the latter may become incidentally the more serious, if
the fall due to it leads to your being taken prisoner or put to
death the enemy.)
Metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance there is a
justice, not indeed between a man and himself, but between certain
parts of him; yet not every kind of justice but that of master and
servant or that of husband and wife. For these are the ratios in which
the part of the soul that has a rational principle stands to the
irrational part; and it is with a view to these parts that people also
think a man can be unjust to himself, viz. because these parts are
liable to suffer something contrary to their respective desires; there
is therefore thought to be a mutual justice between them as between
ruler and ruled.
Let this be taken as our account of justice and the other, i.e.
the other moral, virtues.
BOOK_6|CH_1
BOOK VI
1
-
SINCE we have previously said that one ought to choose that which is
intermediate, not the excess nor the defect, and that the intermediate
is determined by the dictates of the right rule, let us discuss the
nature of these dictates. In all the states of character we have
mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man
who has the rule looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity
accordingly, and there is a standard which determines the mean
states which we say are intermediate between excess and defect,
being in accordance with the right rule. But such a statement,
though true, is by no means clear; for not only here but in all
other pursuits which are objects of knowledge it is indeed true to say
that we must not exert ourselves nor relax our efforts too much nor
too little, but to an intermediate extent and as the right rule
dictates; but if a man had only this knowledge he would be none the
wiser e.g. we should not know what sort of medicines to apply to our
body if some one were to say 'all those which the medical art
prescribes, and which agree with the practice of one who possesses the
art'. Hence it is necessary with regard to the states of the soul also
not only that this true statement should be made, but also that it
should be determined what is the right rule and what is the standard
that fixes it.
We divided the virtues of the soul and a said that some are
virtues of character and others of intellect. Now we have discussed in
detail the moral virtues; with regard to the others let us express our
view as follows, beginning with some remarks about the soul. We said
before that there are two parts of the soul-that which grasps a rule
or rational principle, and the irrational; let us now draw a similar
distinction within the part which grasps a rational principle. And let
it be assumed that there are two parts which grasp a rational
principle-one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose
originative causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate
variable things; for where objects differ in kind the part of the soul
answering to each of the two is different in kind, since it is in
virtue of a certain likeness and kinship with their objects that
they have the knowledge they have. Let one of these parts be called
the scientific and the other the calculative; for to deliberate and to
calculate are the same thing, but no one deliberates about the
invariable. Therefore the calculative is one part of the faculty which
grasps a rational principle. We must, then, learn what is the best
state of each of these two parts; for this is the virtue of each.
BOOK_6|CH_2
2
-
The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work. Now there
are three things in the soul which control action and truth-sensation,
reason, desire.
Of these sensation originates no action; this is plain from the fact
that the lower animals have sensation but no share in action.
What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance
are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character
concerned with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both
the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to
be good, and the latter must pursue just what the former asserts.
Now this kind of intellect and of truth is practical; of the intellect
which is contemplative, not practical nor productive, the good and the
bad state are truth and falsity respectively (for this is the work
of everything intellectual); while of the part which is practical
and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right
desire.
The origin of action-its efficient, not its final cause-is choice,
and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This
is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or
without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist
without a combination of intellect and character. Intellect itself,
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