Also, 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.
[
18]
Injustice on the contrary is similarly related to that
which is unjust, which is a disproportionate excess or deficiency of something beneficial
or harmful. Hence Injustice is excess and defect, in the sense that it results in excess
and defect: namely, in the offender's own case, an excess of anything that is generally
speaking beneficial and a deficiency of anything harmful, and in the case of others,
1 though the result as a
whole is the same, the deviation from proportion may be in either direction as the case
may be.
Of the injustice done, the smaller part is the suffering and the larger part the doing of
injustice.
[19]
So much may be said about the nature of Justice and Injustice, and of the Just and the
Unjust regarded universally.2
6. But seeing that a man
may commit injustice without actually being unjust, what is it that distinguishes those
unjust acts the commission of which renders a man actually unjust under one of the various
forms of injustice, for example, a thief or an adulterer or a brigand? Or shall we rather
say that the distinction does not lie in the quality of the act?
