Kitap 5
12
The principle of Distributive Justice, therefore, is the conjunction of the first term of a proportion with the third and of the second with the fourth; and the just in this sense is a mean between two extremes that are disproportionate,i.e., A’s just share lies between too large a share and too small a one, too large and too small here meaning more or less than is proportionate to A’s claim. Cf. Bk. 2.6.4, third note, and 6.7. since the proportionate is a mean, and the just is the proportionate.
13
(This kind of proportion is termed by mathematicians geometrical proportionWe call this a proportion simply: cf. 4.3 and note.; for a geometrical proportion is one in which the sum of the first and third terms will bear the same ratio to the sum of the second and fourth as one term of either pair bears to the other term.—
14
Distributive justice is not a continuous proportion, for its second and third terms, a person and a share, do not constitute a single term.)
14
The just in this sense is therefore the proportionate, and the unjust is that which violates proportion. The unjust may therefore be either too much or too little; and this is what we find in fact, for when injustice is done, the doer has too much and the sufferer too little of the good in question;
15
though vice versa in the case of an evil, because a lesser evil in comparison with a greater counts as a good,
