Study Guide

The Nicomachean Ethics Book 5, Chapter 7 (1134b18-1135a16)

Book 5, Chapter 7 (1134b18-1135a16)

Political justice has two parts: natural and conventional. Natural justice is a general concept that applies everywhere. This is a universal idea of justice, one that no one anywhere would debate.
Conventional justice is more particular and community-specific. It regulates everyday transactions (i.e. how much to pay for ransom, when to make a sacrifice).
Aristotle muses on the changeability of justice. Isn't all justice really merely conventional, changing with values and beliefs?
He waffles some more by saying that there's a universal sense of what is just—but that it may also be variable.
Aristotle compares conventional justice to the trading of wine and corn in different places. The measures of these commodities may differ in different kingdoms.
But Aristotle says there's one regime that upholds natural justice, and it's the best one (in which the common good is promoted? In which the virtuous receive merit?).
Justice in the general sense differs from a more particular sense in other ways. What is just by nature does not become particular (conventional) justice until a just act is done.
So natural justice is a kind of universal idea; conventional (particular) justice is the performance of just acts, as interpreted by law.
And injustice/unjust acts? The same ideas apply.

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