Chapter 9
Term 1
The Opinionated
The opionated are glad if they win an argument with their opinions and they are saddened if their opinions are judged as weak.
Term 2
Induction
Induction is a beginning point and is universal.
Term 3
Idea
There is not one idea of all good things.
All those things that share in one idea should convene by reason in a form, such as what snow and white-lead share by reason of their whiteness.
To have precise certainty of an idea is more proper to another science than to philosophy.
Term 4
The Boaster
What a boaster might be.
Term 5
Ignorance
Everything done through ignorance is not done voluntarily, but is not necessarily involuntarily.
A man who acts through ignorance does not feel any saddenness in his action.
To act through ignorance and to do something ignorantly seem to be different things. Such as a man drunk or enraged, who does not know what he is doing, even though ignorance is here not the cause, but drunkeness.
Every wicked man is also somehow ignorant, but a man's ignorance does not make what he ought to do something involuntary, since it is not ignorance that urges him, but vice.
Ignorance in particular cases causes an action to be involuntary, and in these cases one should offer mercy and pardon.
Men are blamed if their ignorance is of a universal thing.
No one is ignorant of every circumstance unless he be insane, no one is ignorant of an action if he is the one doing it.
A father who kills his son, because he thought him to be an assailant against him, does so in ignorance. Just as Merope who killed his son thinking he was an enemy.
Concerning ignorance one could have of an implement, as to to its proper use, and for what motive. He lays out examples.
A man unaware of first principles seems to act without choosing, since his ignorance means what he does is involuntary. There must, however, be remorse and sadness present in his actions.
Ignorant men are punished if they themselves are the cause of their ignorance.
Men are punished if they are ignorant of universal laws, about which one cannot be ignorant, which are not difficult to understand.
We punish men who are ignorant through carelessness since it was in their power to care about such things.
It is a thoroughly senseless man who does not know that repeated activities of a like manner produce like habits.
If a man, through no ignorance, takes some action which would render him unjust, and he does so willingly, he will be unjust. Even so, it is not true that if the unjust man could make himself just by wishing to be so.
Ignorant men appear to be courageous, and they are not far from courageous men who have good hope, but ignorant men are worse off. Courageous men have some dignity because they make their attack knowingly, but the ignorant men have none.
Some men are ignorant of what they say, when what they say are ineffable to them, such as in the mysteries of Aeschylus.
Term 6
Stinginess
Stinginess is always associated with those who are too anxious about wealth.
Stinginess is a lack in giving, but an excess in receiving.
Stinginess is incurable, since old age and every other disability make men stingy.
Stinginess is more connatural to everyone than wastefulness.
The error in stinginess does wrong by a deficiency in giving and an excess in receiving, but to be stingy one need not only go amiss in both ways, but a man may be divided at times.
All stingy men who are called 'miserly' lack in giving and even in taking, because they neither wish to have others' goods nor take them if they are offered to them. These are also called 'close'.
Some are stingy who do not want to give what they have, also refuse to taking anything from others, becuase of a kind of moderation and avoidance of disgrace, that, if they were to give, they might then have to profit another's shamefully.
Some are stingy who do not want to accept anything so as not to be obligated to give in return.
Some stingy men are immoderate in receiving anything at all. Such as those engaging in such ignoble enterprises as pimps and usurers.
Stingy men subject themselves to disgrace for a small gain.
Stingy men are counted with the gambler and the graverobber, and the thief, who deal unlawfully and are met with shame.
All disgraceful gains are stingy, that is, they profit from friends who they should be giving to, and try to gain a profit when none is necessary.
Stinginess is rightly said to be the opposite of generosity and is a greater evil than wastefulness, since many more men act immoderately in this way.
Term 7
The Incontinent Man
The movement of incontinent men is contrary to reason.
The incontinent man does not act in any way by choice.
A man is made incontinent by passing his time drinking.
A man who is incontinent and evil man lays hold of what he wishes to know by reasoning.
Men are called incontinent with respect to anger, honour, and gain.
The incontinent man who is persuaded to do what is pleasant is better than the man who does so out of regard for the opinion of others and not the dictates of reason.
We may apply the proverb to the incontinent man: 'When water chokes, what shall we drink?'
The incontinent and intemperate man differ in a way, because the intemperate man follows after the pleasant from choice as an end, but the incontinent does not perceive himself as doing so but he is overcome by the force of his passions.
Incontinent men imitate the pronouncements of men with understanding without having it themselves.
The ignorance of an incontinent man is removed after a movemenet of passion, just as the case of the wine-drunk man or of one asleep, but this has more to do with natural science than with ethics.
The incontient man is wont to use scientific terminology just as a wine-drunk man recites the words of Empedocles.
What, strictly speaking, constitutes an incontinent man.
It is evident that the incontinent, the continent, the perservering, and the effiminate are all concerned with pleasure and pain.
An incontinent man, strictly speaking, is concerned with bodily pleasures, about which one is temperate and intemperate, not as the temperate or intemperate man, but not in choosing or understanding these pleasures.
The incontinent man and the intemperate man concern the same thing but not in the same way, the former choose something but the latter do not.
A man is called incontinent who is overcome by pleasant things, pleasures which many men are able to resist.
The incontinent man is better than the intemperate man, and is not evil in every sense, he is saved by having the right end as his goal.
The incontinent and the intemperate man are alike in that they both seek after bodily pleasures, but they differ in that the former thinks he ought, while the latter does not.
The incontinent man does the thing that he knows he should avoid, since passion pushes him toward it.
The incontinent man is not prudent, because every prudent man is good and does good, and the incontinent man is not this way.
Term 8
Incontinence
Incontinence does not concern all the passions.
Incontinence and intemperance concern the same thing.
We do not disparage incontinence because it is a mere wrongdoing, but because it is, as a kind of vice, either in a universal or a particular way. But this does not apply to anger, gain, or honour.
Incontinence and continence are related to brutish pleasures, but not absolutely, but with qualification.
Incontinence and continence are spoken about absolutely as they correspond to human intemperance, and with other metaphors.
Incontinence with regard to the appetites is less shameful than incontinence relating to anger.
Incontinence and intemperance are alike in the actions they lead to and are the ends are directed toward.
Incontinece is an evil habit, continence, though, is a good one.
The incontinence that the melancholic suffer is more easily remedied than that of those weak men who do not heed the counsel they receive.
Term 9
The Intemperate Man
We do not call those who enjoy the smell of roses or incense intemperate.
The intemperate man is he who is excessive in his tactile pleasures.
The intemperate man dabbles in every pleasure but shies away from none.
The intemperate man is saddened more than he should be when he lay hold of pleasures. His desire for more makes him sad when this pleasure is not enough to satisfy him.
The intemperate man desires all pleasurable things or what are most pleasurable and is lead by sensual desire to choose rather what is pleasurable more than what reason dictates is is good for him to choose.
The intemperate man is saddened when he does not attain what he desires.
For the intemperate man to heal, it is necessary for him to have few, measure thoughts, and that nothing in them be contrary to reason.
We should disparage the intemperate man more than the incontinent man, because he pursues excess with no control and flees from slight discomforts
The intemperate man is he who makes the choice to pursue superflous pleasures, he has no remorse and is beyond help in the act.
The intemperate man is worse than the incontinent man, since he is not remorseful and therefore beyond aid, but the incontinent man is not.
Term 10
Intemperance
Intemperance is more of a choice than fear, since intemperance is pleasurable but fear is disagreeable.
Intemperance is a more reproachable thing.
'Intemperant' is used to name the faults of boys, but 'fearful' to name the faults of grown men.
Term 11
Understanding
Neither art, science, nor prudence have Understanding as their principle. Since science concerns demonstrable things, whereas art and prudence concern contingent things.
Understanding concerns extreme points and first principles.
Every intellect seeks after and chooses the good for its own sake.
The intellect is a divine thing whose action as accords its own virtue, and its most perfect happiness.
Though understanding be a small thing in us, it has much greater worth and power than all else.
Term 12
For the sake of the intellectual part of the soul
Everything seems to be the sake of intellective part of the soul.
Term 13
To Understand
Understanding and perception are principally good things.
Term 14
Private Citizens
We observe that private citizens do more good even than princes.
Term 15
Intellectual Virtues
We name the intellectual virtues: wisdom, understanding, and prudence.
An intellectual virtue is formed and increased, for the most part, by instruction.
Term 16
The Boaster
The boaster is one who feigns lofty things, things greater than he really has.
Some boasters present themselves as greater than they are without a reason, some do so for honour or glory, (such a man is not so worthy of reproach), but others do this for money, and these men are disgraceful.
A man is not made a boaster by his own ability. He comes to it by choice or out of habit, seeking after glory or profit. Those who boast seeking glory, claim accomplishments that draw praise and happiness. These seeking present themselves as doctors, fortune-tellers, or wisemen.
The boaster, because he is a worse character, is more opposed to truthtelling than the self-depreciator.
The mean of boasting is nearly the same, that is, it regards words and deeds in common life.
Term 17
Judge
A man judges well about things known to him.
A judge should be as justice in the flesh.
Judges are called mediators, that is, 'speaking the mean,' since the judge restores the mean.
Term 18
Justice
Justice is a habit by which men are directed to just acts.
Legal justice is a perfect virtue, but not absolutely, it is directed toward another, and that virtue would be the most excellent of the virtues. In such a way that neither the even star nor the morning star is as wonderful as their source.
Infraction of justice in transactions has three types: when an unjust act is committed through ignorance, when it is not done with prior deliberation, and when it is done knowlingly and after deliberation, out of vice.
Justice has every virtue and it is, an especially perfect one. It makes the man who has it good in himself and toward others.
Among the virtues, justice seems to be the only one concerning the good for another, for it works good for thatother, whether for the prince or for the common good.
Legal justice is not a part of some virtue but, it is rather a virtue in itself. Subsequently, its contrary is not only partly vicious but a vice of its own.
Justice, inasmuch as it accomplishes something else, is part of the exercise of all the virtues, but it is a virtue in itself without qualification because it is a habit.
Particular justice has the same name since it is a whole virtue in itself, insofar as each thing has the power to act toward another.
A special kind of justice names what men do for pleasure in gaining and sadness in loss. Legal justice, however, regards all those things related to acting virtuously.
Particular justice is divided into distrubutions and transactions.
Distributive justice consists in the distribution of both honours and weath. Commutative justice, however, conisists in transactions, such as when one receieves something in exchange for another.
Commutative justice includes some voluntary things, such as selling and other similar things, and some involuntary things, such as theft and others which he lists.
In commutative justice the thing is only the difference in damage. It makes no difference if the good man robbed the evil one, or the other way round.
The kind of justice mentioned only exists between those men governed by the law.
A man is called just who acts by choice with the habit of justice and distributes both to himself and to another.
There is a kind of justice that directs voluntary and involuntary transactions. This is distinct from distributive justice.
Justice is called dikaion and the just man dicastes as it were, 'directed to dican,' examples follow. ( ref 1132a 31)
Justice is called the good of another.
We do not call justice the relationship of a lord to his servant or of the father to his son, at least, at any rate, until in any case he grows up to be a certain age.
No part of justice is useful to evil and senseless men, but all of it is harmful to them.
Term 19
The Just Man
The just man and the temperate man are not so called because they do just things, but because they act as just and temperate men do.
A man is not just if he does not take pleasure in doing just acts.
The just man is abides by the law and is fair.
A man who acts justly knowlingly, voluntarily, and by choice, is a just man. But if a man only does it voluntarily, he only acts justly, since he does not act out of a habit of justice.
The just man desires his own life and preservation, especially that of his intellect by the thing by which he gains knowledge.
The just man wishes confer with himself, which he does with pleasure: both to savour in memory past benefactors, in hope of future benefaction. His mind presently is full of topics for contemplation.
Just and temperate things are the things the just man temperate man would do.
Term 20
What is Just
What is just is what is called fair, which seems self-evident to all.
What is just involves at least four terms: two parties in which justice is dealt, and two things which are dealt.
All admit that what is just in distribution is corresponds to some merit.
What is just with regard to distributive justice is proportional.
The same proportion for what is just must included four terms, for it divides both persons and things by two.
What is just in the distribution of common things to the community or society is dealt according to a kind of geometrical proportionality.
In transactions, what is just is not fair with reference to geometric proportion, but according to arithmetric proportion.
In directive justice, what is just is a mean equal of loss and gain. This is why people have recourse to a judge when distributions are made.
What is just is not the same as reciprocation, as the Pythagoreans held, because it does not belong either to distributive justice or directive justice in tranasacting. You are not always obligated to give what is yours for what is mine.
In dealings of exchange, what is just does contain reciprocation, proportionally but not equally.
What is just for a master and a father are not the same in distributive and commutive justice, but they are similar.
What is just and unjust in politics is nothing other than what is just and unjust between those subject to the law who have equal authority to rule and be ruled.
Some things are called just by legal justice, acts that accord with every virtue, things prescribed by the law.
What is just and unjust are not said of one man, they always involve others.
Some think that one need not be wise to know what things are just or unjust, because the laws regarding these are not difficult to understand. But these are only just materially and incidentally.
Things are just, formally speaking, when they are rightly applied to particular cases according to special modes of action. This is more than knowing what is good for one's health.
Just things are found, strictly speaking, in those men who possess goods used by men. Some have excess of these and some lack, some cannot have excess, such as the gods.
What is just in the home concerns more one's wife than to his children or possessions or slaves. This is domestic justice which is distinct from political justice.
Term 21
Justice, Natural and Legal
In political justice, there is natural justice and legal justice. Natural justice has the same force for everyone, and everywhere the same way, and it does not depend on what men may or may not think. The difference of legal justice, however, is that it differs in its application, as he shows.
What is just in legal matters depends on the laws that are enacted and applied, just as measures are not always the same everywhere. Similarly, natural and human things are different among different peoples, but there is one nevertheless which is best.
Each just thing, whether natural or legal, is as particular actions of a universal, since there are many actions and they are ruled by one universal.
If a man returns a deposit unwillingly and on account of fear, it should not be called acting justly nor an act of justice (dycaioprage), except incidentally, and so too with the unjust.
It is not really proper to speak of a man as being just to himself, except metaphorically, and out of a certain resemblance.
Any man, qua man, can have a kind of justice toward another who can take part in a law or agreement, and the same is true of friendship.
What is just is twofold: somthing unwritten, and something set down in law.
Term 22
Injustice
Some kinds of injustice are set apart from justice considered generally speaking, and this is evident in many vices.
and covetous men which is in receiving more
Unequal injustice belongs to the covetous man who takes more than his share of the whole.
Injustice works many evil deeds, formally speaking, but it is the unjust man who does so in effect.
Injustice, which is contrary to justice, is the operative of the unjust man. And this is an excess and defect either in utility or harm that is out of proportion.
Injustice is not in all those who act unjustly. Whoever takes on himself more good works than evil ones, is unbalanced, but it does not nor then follow that the man man is guilty of injustice.
Injustice can be toward oneself because it can happen that in the powers of the soul that one suffers something contrary to its own desire. In this way, there is a kind of justice as there is between the ruler and the ruled.
Term 23
The Unjust Man
The unjust man seems to be law-breaking, covetous, and unfair.
The unjust man does not always choose too much, but sometimes too little, such as choosing too few things that are evil outright.
He asks which works make someone unjust.
A man is not unjust except by deliberate choice, so that if he has intercourse with another woman and not by deliberate choice, because of innate passion, he does something unjust but is not an unjust man.
Men who act out of anger or other unnatural passions are not called unjust men, but harmful men or erring men who act wrongly and unrightly. Nevertheless, these men are not called evil or unjust since their acts do not come from injustice, but passion.
A man is unjust and evil when he acts by choice and with the intention of injuring.
Term 24
What is Unjust / an injustice
An injustice can be disproportionate in two ways, in excess and defect, and this can even occur in acts of distributive justice. The one who commits the injustice has in excess, whereas the one suffering under it has less of a good.
It is not possible for a man to do injustice to himself, because then he willingly suffers injustice (and here examples are given of particular injustices), no one commits adultery with his own wife, but another's, nor does he knock down his own door. The reason for this is that for injustice to occur, a man must suffer against his will.
No one willingly commits injustice against himself.
A man commits an injustice to the city if he kills himself, because the city suffers a loss, and the city's good name is somewhat tarnished. This is why its laws direct that such men not be buried.
A man is not committing injustice against himself if he commits only one unjust act. He is not entirely evil, having vice in the abstract, which is part of illegal injustice.
All injustice done is done so willingly and by choice.
It seems that A man who suffers a wrong and resists it does not commit injustice.
It happens more often that one who distributes, and who does so willingly, does an injustice, (because he originated that act), but the receiver of this does not always commit an injustice unless it is in his willingness, which he may more have by some scheming.
A man can be said to act unjustly in many ways: whether by initiating it or as an accomplice, such as a hand, or as one acting independently such as a servant or a hatchet lends assists, but these do not act unjustly formally speaking, but materially.
A man does not, formally speaking, commit injustice if he is ignorant of both legal and natural law, , since he does not judge with reference to either kind of justice. If however, he knowingly judges unjustly, his action is, properly covetous and unjust, he acts for the sake of someone's favour or out of fear of punishment.
The man who judges unjustly because of a friendship has more than his due of the case, since the matter about which he judges does not yield land but money.
Men judge it an easy thing to do what is unjust. This, however, is not so. True, it is easy and within their power to have intercourse with a neighbour's wife, or to kill their neighbour, but this, formally speaking, is not acting unjustly. Acting as unjust men do is, however, neither easy nor in their power, unless it springs from a habit of character.
Formally speaking, 'to act unjustly' in itself, is to act as an unjust man does and to do so out of habit. Merely prescribing a drug, such as a laxative, does not constitute medical care, but doing the job of a physician does.
Euripedes unseemingly maintained that suffering injustice is voluntary.
Whether a man may do himself injustice.
For a man to suffer injustice, he must be suffering against his will.
No one willingly, not even the incontinent man, suffers injustice, it is rather against his will.
A man who gives what is his own does not suffer injustice. A proof of this is given by citing the Homer: a man named Glaucus gave gold things to Diomedes in exchange for bronze, and another, one hundred oxen for ten. This is giving unjustly, in a material way, but it is in his power to not suffer this injustice. There must be another who commits the unjust thing. (Il. vi. 236)
Term 25
What is Unjust
To do what it is unjust and to suffer it are both evil things, because they both stray from the mean of the good of justice, one by excess and the other difficiency.
Doing what is unjust is worse than suffering it because it always it is always accompanied with vice, whether entirely or mostly, and is blameworthy. Suffering what is unjust, however, neither brings vice nor justice upon oneself.
Suffering injsutice is in itself less evil than doing it, but nothing prevents a worse evil from ocoming about incidentally. Just as a cut on one's foot can incidentally be worse than a pleurisy if it causes one to fall, be captured by adversaries and die. Even though, strictly speaking, a doctor would rank the pleurisy worse.
Whether a man who knowlingly and willingly distributes more to another than to himself does what is unjust.
A man giving himself less than he deserves does not do himself an injustice, but only a nuisance.
What is unjust is not the same what is unjustified, because something is called unjust by its order or nature, but what is unjustified is what is carried out in an action.
A man does what is just and what is unjust when he acts willingly. When he is unwilling, his actions are only said to be just or unjust incidentally.
Term 26
Just Action
A just action is commonly called a dikeopraema, that is, an activity of justice.
Just actions and actions of justice are defined in terms of a voluntary thing and an involuntary thing.
An action can by no means be just if it is not done voluntarily.
Term 27
Anger
A man prone to anger may be convinced by reason in some way, but not so with a man drawn by concupiscence, therefore it is the more shameful of the two.
Anger is more natural to man than desires for excessive pleasures.
Anger and desire for sexual pleasures transform men and make them mad.
We do not say that something pre-meditated is done in a fit of anger, and so it seems that the man who provokes the outrage commits the greater evil, rather than the one acting out anger.
An excess of anger is possible in all circumstances, since one can be angered with those one should not be, or about the wrong things, these are not all found in the same person.
Irascibility is an excess in anger.
An angry man turns remorseful, but a man seeking injury delights in it and learns how to commit it.
The man who is only a little angry is to be excused, but the man who gets too angry is blameworthy. A man is worthy of blame if he has too much or lacks too much anger.
Anger is a kind of passion, it arises from many and differing causes.
Anger and sensual desire are reasonable passions.
We should praise the man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, when and in the degree appropriate.
It seems to belong to the foolish man to never be angry at what he should, since he does not seem either to feel or be pained at these things.
A man who strays but a little from the mean, whether in excess or dificiency, is not to be blamed, but rather praised. We call men lacking a little in anger meek.
We praise angry men as manly or capable of taking charge.
Term 28
Inirascibility
Inirascibility is a defect.
Term 29
The Hot-Tempered
The hot-tempered are those who get angry quickly and at things or for reasons they ought not to, they are angrier they they should be. Their anger flares up and quickly ceases. Their best quality is that they do not let anger build up, but let it out.
The hot-tempered man is not a schemer.
Term 30
Being Angered
It is not easy to determine in what circumstances or tow what degree one should be angry, and to what degree one acts rightly or wrongly.
Term 31
The Angry Man
The angry man suffers pain before his revenge, but delights when exacting it.
Angry men who fight because of anger are not courageous, because they are so called not for the good, nor for reason, but on account of passion.
Term 32
The Irrational
The irrational part of the soul shares in some way in the rational.
Term 33
A Swallow
A single swallow does not make spring spring and neither does one fine day; neither can one virtue nor a short time make a man happy.
Term 34
Involuntary
Concerning actions under compulsion, there can be a mix between voluntary and involuntary. There is the example of the tyrannt, or of the sailor who throws his possessions into the sea during a storm. Such actions seem to have mixed motives, and are more like voluntary actions
If a thing is involuntary in itself, and yet the doer has power in him to act, then it is voluntary, such as the man who has in possessions in his boat during a storm.
Term 35
Involuntary out of Ignorance
Regarding what is involuntary out of ignorance.
Term 36
What is Involuntary
When dealing with involuntary actions, we should have mercy and pardon.
A thing is said to be involuntary, if it is done out of ignorance or compulsion.
A thing is involuntary if remorse or repentence accompany it.
We should not call the things a man should seek after 'involuntary,' or things that should anger him.
Every involuntary thing causes us discomfort, but what we desire is pleasurable.
It is unreasonable to treat actions that arise out of anger or sensual desire involuntary.
Some involuntary acts are excusable, mistakes made in ignorance or by ignorant men. Those made not by ignorant men, but by men who are ignorant because of passion, are not excusable.
Term 37
The Poor Man
The poor man cannot be magnificent.
Term 38
Sickness
Bodily sickness is voluntary when its cause is also voluntary. We blame, for example, a man who ruined his own eyesight.
Term 39
The Shameless Man
The shameless man is called courageous by a metaphor, since he resembles him in not being afraid.
Term 40
The Insensible Man
Men who are very lacking in pleasures touch are called insensible.
Term 41
The Sick Man
Just as a sick man who hears his doctor's advice but does not heed it will not regain his health. Men who philosophise about virtue and do nothing to act on it will not be well in their soul.
Term 42
The Obstinate
The obstinate are opinionated, undisciplined, and boorish.
Term 43
Niobe
Innordinate love made Niobe rebel against the gods.
Term 44
Judgment
Judgment of singular things comes through the senses, and the virtues through particular things.
Term 45
The Young
Young people are amorous because they pursue many things for pleasure and passion, they live amorously.
The young are quick to fall in and out of love and out again. They do so many times even in the same day.
The young wish to spend their whole days and lives together, their friendship remains while they are delight in one another.
The young become friends quickly, but not as wholy perfect friends, becasue they do not thereafter remain together in friendship. To remain together and take joy in one another seem to be most characteric of friendship. Taking this into account, these young people are not friends, but only wish each other well.
Term 46
Those in Misfortune
A friend ought to go promptly without being called to visit those in misfortune to do good for them, especially for those who would not presume to ask. This is better and more pleasant for both the one being helped in necessity and the other acting virtously to him.
Term 47
The Young Man
The young become geometricians, but that does not make them prudent.
From his youth, Plato says, a young man should accustom himself take joy and sadness at the right things and at the right times.
As the young grow, the humours of their bodies flux, even as drunk men, and so they are heated in desiring pleasures.
A young man is not a good student of political science, for he is inexperienced in the ways of life.
A man who is young by his age and a man young by his manners are no different.
It is not easy for a young man to take to a virtuous habit, unless he is brought up under the right laws.
Works of virtue are not in themselves pleasurable for young men whose passions are inflamed.
For young men and boys to be good, they must have laws to order their upbringing.
It is not enough that one be brought up correctly in his youth, but he must come of age and accustome himself to works of virtue. This is why we need laws throughout our whole life.
Chapter 9 of 19