Book 5
14
while if the result of the transaction is neither an increase nor a decrease, but exactly what the parties had of themselves, they say they have their own and have neither lost nor gained. Hence Justice in Involuntary Transactions is a mean between gain and loss in a sense: it is to have after the transaction an amount equal to the amount one had before it.
1
The view is also held by some that simple Reciprocity is Justice. This was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, who defined the just simply as suffering reciprocally with another.That is, retaliation: A shall have done to him what he has done to B.
2
Reciprocity however does not coincide either with Distributive or with Corrective Justice
3
(although people mean to identify it with the latter when they quote the rule of Rhadamanthys— An a man suffer even that which he did, Right justice will be done).
4
For in many cases Reciprocity is at variance with Justice: for example, if an officer strikes a man, it is wrong for the man to strike him back; and if a man strikes an officer, it is not enough for the officer to strike him, but he ought to be punished as well.
5
Again, it makes a great difference whether an act was done with or without the consent of the other party.Literally whether the act was voluntary or involuntary; see first note on 2.13.
6
But in the interchange of services Justice in the form of Reciprocity is the bond that maintains the association: reciprocity, that is, on the basis of proportion, not on the basis of equality. The very existence of the state depends on proportionate reciprocity; for men demand that they shall be able to requite evil with evil—if they cannot, they feel they are in the position of slaves—and to repay good with good— failing which, no exchange takes place, and it is exchange that binds them together.
