- Here we have specifics on "corrective justice." If you recall, this involves voluntary and involuntary transactions/interactions.
- This type of justice also has to do with equality. But the proportion involved here is "arithmetic" (rather than the geometric one Aristotle proposes in Chapter 3).
- This equation deals with lawfulness and harm done. It doesn't matter who's been hurt (or who does the hurting). If a wrong has been done, the law must address it.
- It's the judge's job to make things right here—to restore the balance of justice. He does this by punishing (i.e. inflicting loss on) a person who's gained in some way from unlawful action.
- Aristotle wants to make sure we understand the terms "gain" and "loss" so that we can arrive at equality (which is the middle term here).
- "Gain" = more of the good; "loss" = less of the good (or more of the bad).
- To re-establish equilibrium, corrective justice seeks that middle place, which may mean inflicting loss on someone who has unrightfully gained something.
- Aristotle says that people go to a judge to resolve their disputes because a judge should be "the just ensouled."
- Their job is to find that place of equality to make things right.
- Aristotle uses geometry again to illustrate how a judge restores equality in each of his cases.
- If we think of a line that has been cut into unequal parts, imagine the judge as one who takes the excess from the larger line and adds it to the smaller line.
- Aristotle provides a more precise arithmetical proportion to calculate by how much a larger line should be reduced to achieve equality.
- Loss and gain belongs to voluntary transactions (i.e. business transactions, one that at least two parties can enter into voluntarily).
- When we take only exactly what we've contributed, then we can say that we have neither lost nor gained.
- Aristotle calls this just distribution: coming out with neither more nor less, but with your skin intact.