Injustice

Thus, Socrates, injustice on a sufficiently large scale is a stronger, freer, and a more masterful thing than justice, and, as I said in the beginning, it is the advantage of the stronger that is the just, while the unjust is what profits man’s self and is for his advantage.

if it is the business of injustice to engender hatred wherever it is found, will it not, when it springs up either among freemen or slaves, cause them to hate and be at strife with one another, and make them incapable of effective action in common?

You affirm that perfect and complete injustice is more profitable than justice that is complete.

But seeing that a man may commit injustice without actually being unjust, what is it that distinguishes those unjust acts the commission of which renders a man actually unjust under one of the various forms of injustice, for example, a thief or an adulterer or a brigand?

(3) Again, whereas all other unjust acts are invariably ascribed to some particular vice—for example, adultery is put down to Profligacy, desertion from the ranks to Cowardice, assault to Anger—an unjust act by which a man has profited is not attributed to any vice except Injustice.

Injustice on the contrary is similarly related to that which is unjust, which is a disproportionate excess or deficiency of something beneficial or harmful.

Let your anger be a feigned anger, by which you keep command of your resolve and set your adversary straight, so that you are kept safe from the injustice of your anger and stand upon the balance of your feigned anger.

Know that you will never make your revenues abundant save by justice and beneficence, nor make them scarce by anything like injustice and ill-doing;

Is there any injustice in that?

On the other hand, they are of all men most afflicted with unreason who concede that justice is a way of life more noble and more pleasing to the gods than injustice but at the same time believe that those who follow it will live in worse case than those who have chosen the way of evil.

But no such thing can come to pass until you are persuaded that tranquillity is more advantageous and more profitable than meddlesomeness, justice than injustice, and attention to one’s own affairs than covetousness of the possessions of others.

But if you will only listen to me and give me your attention to the end, I believe that you will all impute extreme folly and madness to those who think that injustice is advantageous and who would hold in subjection by force the cities of others, failing to reckon with the disasters which result from such a policy.

and the seventh is injustice (jawr), which is the opposite of justice, because both extremes of justice are injustice (1).

So if it be supposed that the judge between two parties exceeded, in his ruling, the limit laid down by statute, he would be unjust toward the party ruled against;

Injustice is a vice of the soul, by which men become grasping for more than their due.

and the vices of the soul as a whole are injustice, illiberality, and smallness of soul.

It belongs to injustice to transgress the customs of one's fathers and the institutions;

but it differs in this, that the things done improperly toward the gods are called acts of impiety, while those toward one another among men are called acts of injustice.

And surely, it being strange that one should pass over any of those worthy of honour and render no return for the benefaction — as those above all must admit, who think it dreadful even to honour someone more moderately than his worth — how is it not the height of injustice to honour someone, and then, accusing him of nothing, to rob him of what was given?

And many have even died on this account, that they might obtain a statue and a proclamation or some other honour, and might leave to those after them some fair repute and remembrance of themselves.

Consequently he who acts lawfully is just, and he who acts unlawfully is unjust.

I propose, then, that we write J in this column and I in that, and then proceed to place under these letters, J and I, what we take to be the works of justice and injustice respectively.

Then everything that we assigned to injustice should be assigned to justice also?