Justice in the narrower sense, is that mode of behaviour whereby a man, in his dealings with others, aims at taking to himself his fair share and no more of the common objects of desire: and willingly consents to endure his fair share of the common hardships. Injustice is the opposite — that by which a man tries to appropriate more than his fair share of the objects of desire, while he tries to escape his fair share of the objects of aversion. To aim at this unfair distribution of the benefits of the society, either in one’s own favour or in favour of any one else, is injustice in the narrow sense (v. 2).
Justice in this narrower sense is divided into two branches — 1. Distributive Justice. 2. Corrective Justice.
Distributive Justice has reference to those occasions on which positive benefits are to be distributed among the members of the community, wealth and honours, &c. (v. 2). In this case, the share of each citizen is to be a share not absolutely of equality, but one proportional to his personal worth (ἀξίαν): and it is in the estimation of this personal worth that quarrels and dissension arise.
Corrective Justice has reference to the individual dealings, or individual behaviour, between man and man: either to the dealings implying mutual consent and contract, as purchase, sale, loan, hire, suretyship, deposit, &c.: or such as imply no such mutual consent, — such as are on the contrary proceedings either by fraud or by force — as theft, adultery, perjury, poisoning, assassination, robbery, beating, mutilation, murder, defamation, &c.
In regard to transactions of this nature, the citizens are considered as being all upon a par — no account is taken of the difference between them in point of individual worth. Each man is considered as entitled to an equal share of good and evil: and if in any dealings between man and man, one man shall attempt to increase his own share of good or to diminish his own share of evil at the expense of another man, corrective justice will interpose and re-establish the equality thus improperly disturbed. He who has been made to lose or to suffer unduly, must be compensated and replaced in his former position: he who has gained unduly, must be mulcted or made to suffer, so as to be thrown back to the point from which he started. The judge, who represents this corrective justice, is a kind of mediator, and the point which he seeks to attain in directing redress, is the middle point between gain and loss — so that neither shall the aggressive party be a gainer, nor the suffering party a loser — “So that justice is a mean between a sort of gain and loss in voluntary things, — it is the having the same after as before� (v. 4). Aristotle admits that the words gain and loss are not strictly applicable to many of the transactions which come within the scope of interference from corrective justice — that they properly belong to voluntary contracts, and are strained in order to apply them to acts of aggression, &c. (ib.).
The Pythagoreans held the doctrine that justice universally speaking consisted in simple retaliation — in rendering to another the precise dealing which that other had first given. This definition will not suit either for distributive justice or corrective justice: the treatment so prescribed would be sometimes more, sometimes less, than justice: not to mention that acts deserve to be treated differently according as they are intentional or unintentional. But the doctrine is to a certain extent true in regard to the dealings between man and man (ἐν ταῖς ἀλλακτικαῖς κοινωνίαις) — if it be applied in the way of general analogy and not with any regard to exact similarity — it is of importance that the man who has been well treated, and the man who has been illtreated, should each show his sense of the proceeding by returning the like usage: “for by proportionate requital the State is held togetherâ€� (v. 5). The whole business of exchange and barter, of division of labour and occupation, — the co-existence of those distinct and heterogeneous ingredients which are requisite to constitute the political communion — the supply of the most essential wants of the citizens — is all founded upon the continuance and the expectation of this assured requital for acts done. Money is introduced as an indispensable instrument for facilitating this constant traffic: it affords a common measure for estimating the value of every service — “And thus if there were no possibility of retaliation, there would be no communionâ€� (v. 5).
Justice is thus a mediocrity — or consists in a just medium — between two extremes, but not in the same way as the other virtues. The just man is one who awards both to himself and to every one else the proper and rightful share both of benefit and burthen. Injustice, on the contrary, consists in the excess or defect which lie on one side or the other of this medium point (v. 5).
Distributive justice is said by Aristotle to deal with individuals according to geometrical ratio; corrective justice, according to arithmetical proportion. Justice, strictly and properly so called, is political justice: that reciprocity of right and obligation which prevails between free and equal citizens in a community, or between citizens who, if not positively equal, yet stand in an assured and definite ratio one to the other (v. 6). This relation is defined and maintained by law, and by judges and magistrates to administer the law. Political justice implies a state of law — a community of persons qualified by nature to obey and sustain the law — and a definite arrangement between the citizens in respect to the alternation of command and obedience — “For this is, as we have said (ἦν), according to law, and among those who can naturally have law; those, namely, as we have said (ἦσαν), who have an equality of ruling and being ruled.â€� As the law arises out of the necessity of preventing injustice, or of hindering any individual from appropriating more than his fair share of good things, so it is felt that any person invested with sovereign authority may and will commit this injustice. Reason therefore is understood to hold the sovereign authority, and the archon acts only as the guardian of the reciprocal rights and obligations — of the constitutional equality — between the various citizens: undertaking a troublesome duty and paid for his trouble by honour and respect (v. 6).
The relation which subsists between master and slave, or father and son, is not properly speaking that of justice, though it is somewhat analogous. Both the slave, and the non-adult son, are as it were parts of the master and father: there can therefore be no injustice on his part towards them, since no one deliberately intends to hurt a part of himself. Between husband and wife there subsists a sort of justice — household justice (τὸ οἰκονομικὸν δίκαιον) — but this too is different from political justice (v. 6).
Political justice is in part natural — in part conventional. That which is natural is everywhere the same: that which is conventional is different in different countries, and takes its origin altogether from positive and special institution. Some persons think that all political justice is thus conventional, and none natural: because they see that rights and obligations (τὰ δίκαια) are everywhere changeable, and nowhere exhibit that permanence and invariability which mark the properties of natural objects. “This is true to a certain extent, but not wholly true: probably among the Gods it is not true at all: but with us that which is natural is in part variable, though not in every case: yet there is a real distinction between what is natural and what is not natural. Both natural justice and conventional justice, are thus alike contingent and variable: but there is a clear mode of distinguishing between the two, applicable not only to the case of justice but to other cases in which the like distinction is to be taken. For by nature the right hand is the stronger: but nevertheless it may happen that there are ambidextrous men. — And in like manner those rules of justice which are not natural, but of human establishment, are not the same everywhere: nor indeed does the same mode of government prevail everywhere, though there is but one mode of government which is everywhere agreeable to nature — the best of allâ€� (v. 7).