BOLDLY INTERNALIZING ARISTOTLE
[YESTERDAY. Upon my first reading of this essay from Aristotle, on justice and injustice, I had reacted brusquely, officiously, lordly. "How dare he," I asked? How dare he assert that action does not imply injustice? Surely, nothing better than action describes injustices, I fumed, internally. Then, I read on.
In reading on, I found aspects of myself in reading Aristotle's words.
Indeed, "all mankind has sinned, fallen short of the glory of God !"
So Aristotle's further inquiry into the nature of man's unjust actions, actually relieved me of the burden of being who I am, or once was!
The common tendency is to teach error in others, while excusing our own delicts, deviations, or errors!
Aristotle separates the doer from the deed, by inquiring further into the man and the motivations that made the man do the things that he has done to others and himself.
I am surely indebted to Aristotle for sharpening me, for strengthening me, for blessing me with the mercy to see that making further inquiries into myself, initially; then, looking back over my own life's mistakes, errors, indiscretions, and "unjust actions," then, from the wellsprings of mercy found for me to extend it to fellow men on earth as to me!]
Aristotle, student of Plato, tutor of Alexander the Great, and the sage of Alexandria wrote these words:
"Since acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust, we must ask what sort of unjust acts imply that the doer is unjust with respect to each type of injustice, e.g., a thief, an adulterer, or a brigand. Surely the answer does not turn on the difference between these types. For a man might lie with a woman knowing who she was, but the origin of his act might not be deliberate choice but passion. He acts unjustly, then, but is not unjust; e.g., a man is not a thief, yet he stole, nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery; and similarly in all other cases...
"This is found among men who share their life with a view to self-sufficiency, men who are free and either proportionally or arithmetically equal, so that between those who do not fulfill this condition there is no political justice but justice in a special sense and by analogy. For justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom there is injustice ; for legal justice is the discrimination of the just and the unjust. And between men between whom there is injustice there is also unjust action (though there is not injustice between all between whom there is unjust action ), and this is assigning too much to oneself of things good in themselves and too little of things evil in themselves...
"The justice of the master and of the father are not the same as the justice of citizens, though they are like it; for there can be no injustice in the unqualified sense towards things that are one's own, but a man's chattel, and his child until it reaches a certain age and sets up for itself, are as it were part of himself, and no one chooses to hurt himself (for which reason there can be no injustice towards oneself). Therefore the justice or injustice of citizens is not manifested in these relations; for it was as we saw according to law, and between people naturally subject to law, and these as we saw are people who have an equal share in the ruling and being ruled . Hence justice can more truly be manifested towards a wife than towards children and chattels, for the former is household justice; but even this is different from political justice.
"Of political justice part is natural , part legal--natural, that which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people's thinking this or that; legal, that which is originally indifferent, but when it has been laid down is not indifferent...."
P.1012-1014, "Nicomachean Ethics," THE BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE (1941, 2001)

BOLDLY INTERNALIZING ARISTOTLE
[YESTERDAY. Upon my first reading of this essay from Aristotle, on justice and injustice, I had reacted brusquely, officiously, lordly. "How dare he," I asked? How dare he assert that action does not imply injustice? Surely, nothing better than action describes injustices, I fumed, internally. Then, I read on.
In reading on, I found aspects of myself in reading Aristotle's words.
Indeed, "all mankind has sinned, fallen short of the glory of God !"
So Aristotle's further inquiry into the nature of man's unjust actions, actually relieved me of the burden of being who I am, or once was!
The common tendency is to teach error in others, while excusing our own delicts, deviations, or errors!
Aristotle separates the doer from the deed, by inquiring further into the man and the motivations that made the man do the things that he has done to others and himself.
I am surely indebted to Aristotle for sharpening me, for strengthening me, for blessing me with the mercy to see that making further inquiries into myself, initially; then, looking back over my own life's mistakes, errors, indiscretions, and "unjust actions," then, from the wellsprings of mercy found for me to extend it to fellow men on earth as to me!]
Aristotle, student of Plato, tutor of Alexander the Great, and the sage of Alexandria wrote these words:
"Since acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust, we must ask what sort of unjust acts imply that the doer is unjust with respect to each type of injustice, e.g., a thief, an adulterer, or a brigand. Surely the answer does not turn on the difference between these types. For a man might lie with a woman knowing who she was, but the origin of his act might not be deliberate choice but passion. He acts unjustly, then, but is not unjust; e.g., a man is not a thief, yet he stole, nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery; and similarly in all other cases...
"This is found among men who share their life with a view to self-sufficiency, men who are free and either proportionally or arithmetically equal, so that between those who do not fulfill this condition there is no political justice but justice in a special sense and by analogy. For justice exists only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law exists for men between whom there is injustice ; for legal justice is the discrimination of the just and the unjust. And between men between whom there is injustice there is also unjust action (though there is not injustice between all between whom there is unjust action ), and this is assigning too much to oneself of things good in themselves and too little of things evil in themselves...
"The justice of the master and of the father are not the same as the justice of citizens, though they are like it; for there can be no injustice in the unqualified sense towards things that are one's own, but a man's chattel, and his child until it reaches a certain age and sets up for itself, are as it were part of himself, and no one chooses to hurt himself (for which reason there can be no injustice towards oneself). Therefore the justice or injustice of citizens is not manifested in these relations; for it was as we saw according to law, and between people naturally subject to law, and these as we saw are people who have an equal share in the ruling and being ruled . Hence justice can more truly be manifested towards a wife than towards children and chattels, for the former is household justice; but even this is different from political justice.
"Of political justice part is natural , part legal--natural, that which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people's thinking this or that; legal, that which is originally indifferent, but when it has been laid down is not indifferent...."
P.1012-1014, "Nicomachean Ethics," THE BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE (1941, 2001)

