Book 9
8
When on the other hand the gift is not disinterested but made with a view to a recompense, it is no doubt the best thing that a return should be made such as both parties concur in thinking to be what is due. But failing such concurrence, it would seem to be not only inevitable but just that the amount of the return should be fixed by the party that received the initial service, since the donor will have recovered what the recipient really owes when he has been paid the value of the service to him, or the sum that he would have been willing to pay as the price of the pleasure.
9
For in buying and selling also this seems to be the practiceThe price is fixed by what the buyer is willing to pay.; and in some countries the law does not allow actions for the enforcement of voluntary covenants,Cf. 8.13.6. The phrase occurs in Plat. Rep. 556a: cf. the voluntary private transactions of 5.2.13. on the ground that when you have trusted a man you ought to conclude the transaction as you began it. For it is thought fairer for the price to be fixed by the person who received credit than by the one who gave credit.This sentence seems to come in better at the end of the chapter. The sentences immediately preceding and following have been plausibly rejected as interpolations. For as a rule those who have a thing value it differently from those who want to get it. For one’s own possessions and gifts always seem to one worth a great deal; but nevertheless the repayment is actually determined by the valuation of the recipient. But he ought no doubt to estimate the gift not at what it seems to him to be worth now that he has received it, but at the value he put on it before he received it.
