Kitap 5
6
The several rules of justice and of law are related to the actions conforming with them as universals to particulars, for the actions done are many, while each rule or law is one, being universal.
7
There is a difference between that which is unjust and unjust conduct, and between that which is just and just conduct. Nature or ordinance pronounces a thing unjust: when that thing is done, it is unjust conduct; till it is done, it is only unjust. And similarly with just conduct, a dikaioma (or more correctly, the general term is dikaiopragema, dikaioma denoting the rectification of an act of injustice).
7
We shall have laterPossibly a reference to an intended (or now lost) book of the Politics on laws (Ross). to consider the several rules of justice and of law, and to enumerate their various kinds and describe them and the things with which they deal.
1
Such being an account of just and unjust actions, it is their voluntary performance that constitutes just and unjust conduct. If a man does them involuntarily, he cannot be said to act justly, or unjustly, except incidentally, in the sense that he does an act which happens to be just or unjust.
2
Whether therefore an action is or is not an act of injustice, or of justice, depends on its voluntary or involuntary character. When it is involuntary, the agent is blamed, and only in that case is the action an act of injustice; so that it is possible for an act to be unjust without being an act of injustice, if the qualification of voluntariness be absent.
