Kitap 1
10.3
Let injustice, then, be defined as voluntarily causing injury contrary to the law. Now, the law is particular or general. By particular, I mean the written law in accordance with which a state is administered; by general, the unwritten regulations which appear to be universally recognized. Men act voluntarily when they know what they do, and do not act under compulsion. What is done voluntarily is not always done with premeditation; but what is done with premeditation is always known to the agent, for no one is ignorant of what he does with a purpose.προαίρεσις (premeditation, deliberate or moral choice) is always voluntary, but all voluntary action is not premeditated; we sometimes act on the spur of the moment. Choice is a voluntary act, the result of deliberate counsel, including the use of reason and knowledge. In Aristot. Nic. Eth. 11 Aristotle defines προαίρεσις as a deliberate appetition of (longing for, ὄρεξις) things in our power, as to which we should necessarily be well-informed.
10.4
The motives which lead men to do injury and commit wrong actions are depravity and incontinence. For if men have one or more vices, it is in that which makes him vicious that he shows himself unjust; for example, the illiberal in regard to money, the licentious in regard to bodily pleasures, the effeminate in regard to what makes for ease,Or, in the matter of ease, taking τὰ ῥάθυμα as = ῥαθυμία. the coward in regard to dangers, for fright makes him desert his comrades in peril; the ambitious in his desire for honor, the irascible owing to anger, one who is eager to conquer in his desire for victory, the rancorous in his desire for vengeance; the foolish man from having mistaken ideas of right and wrong, the shameless from his contempt for the opinion of others. Similarly, each of the rest of mankind is unjust in regard to his special weakness.
