Now a question may be raised whether we have spoken with sufficient
distinctness as to being unjustly dealt with, and dealing unjustly
towards others.
First, whether the case is possible which Euripides has put, saying
somewhat strangely,
“My mother he hath slain; the tale is short,
Either he willingly did slay her willing,
Or else with her will but against his own.”
I mean then, is it really possible for a person to be unjustly dealt
with with his own consent, or must every case of being unjustly dealt
with be against the will of the sufferer as every act of unjust dealing
is voluntary?
And next, are cases of being unjustly dealt with to be ruled all one
way as every act of unjust dealing is voluntary? or may we say that
some cases are voluntary and some involuntary?
Similarly also as regards being justly dealt with: all just acting is
voluntary, so that it is fair to suppose that the being dealt with
unjustly or justly must be similarly opposed, as to being either
voluntary or involuntary.
Now as for being justly dealt with, the position that every case of
this is voluntary is a strange one, for some are certainly justly dealt
with without their will.[27] The fact is a man may also fairly raise
this question, whether in every case he who has suffered what is unjust
is therefore unjustly dealt with, or rather that the case is the same
with suffering as it is with acting; namely that in both it is possible
to participate in what is just, but only accidentally. Clearly the case
of what is unjust is similar: for doing things in themselves unjust is
not identical with acting unjustly, nor is suffering them the same as
being unjustly dealt with. So too of acting justly and being justly
dealt with, since it is impossible to be unjustly dealt with unless
some one else acts unjustly or to be justly dealt with unless some one
else acts justly.
Now if acting unjustly is simply “hurting another voluntarily” (by
which I mean, knowing whom you are hurting, and wherewith, and how you
are hurting him), and the man who fails of self-control voluntarily
hurts himself, then this will be a case of being voluntarily dealt
unjustly with, and it will be possible for a man to deal unjustly with
himself. (This by the way is one of the questions raised, whether it is
possible for a man to deal unjustly with himself.) Or again, a man may,
by reason of failing of self-control, receive hurt from another man
acting voluntarily, and so here will be another case of being unjustly
dealt with voluntarily.
The solution, I take it, is this: the definition of being unjustly
dealt with is not correct, but we must add, to the hurting with the
knowledge of the person hurt and the instrument and the manner of
hurting him, the fact of its being against the wish of the man who is
hurt.
So then a man may be hurt and suffer what is in itself unjust
voluntarily, but unjustly dealt with voluntarily no man can be: since
no man wishes to be hurt, not even he who fails of self-control, who
really acts contrary to his wish: for no man wishes for that which he
does not _think_ to be good, and the man who fails of self-control does
not what he thinks he ought to do.
And again, he that gives away his own property (as Homer says Glaucus
gave to Diomed, “armour of gold for brass, armour worth a hundred oxen
for that which was worth but nine”) is not unjustly dealt with, because
the giving rests entirely with himself; but being unjustly dealt with
does not, there must be some other person who is dealing unjustly
towards him.
With respect to being unjustly dealt with then, it is clear that it is
not voluntary.