With respect to being unjustly dealt with then, it is clear that it is
not voluntary.
Chapter XIII.
There remain yet two points on which we purposed to speak: first, is he
chargeable with an unjust act who in distribution has _given_ the
larger share to one party contrary to the proper rate, or he that _has_
the larger share? next, can a man deal unjustly by himself?
In the first question, if the first-named alternative is possible and
it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not he who has the larger
share, then supposing that a person knowingly and willingly gives more
to another than to himself here is a case of a man dealing unjustly by
himself; which, in fact, moderate men are thought to do, for it is a
characteristic of the equitable man to take less than his due.
Is not this the answer? that the case is not quite fairly stated,
because of some other good, such as credit or the abstract honourable,
in the supposed case the man did get the larger share. And again, the
difficulty is solved by reference to the definition of unjust dealing:
for the man suffers nothing contrary to his own wish, so that, on this
score at least, he is not unjustly dealt with, but, if anything, he is
hurt only.
It is evident also that it is the distributor who acts unjustly and not
the man who has the greater share: because the mere fact of the
abstract Unjust attaching to what a man does, does not constitute
unjust action, but the doing this voluntarily: and voluntariness
attaches to that quarter whence is the origination of the action, which
clearly is in the distributor not in the receiver. And again the term
doing is used in several senses; in one sense inanimate objects kill,
or the hand, or the slave by his master’s bidding; so the man in
question does not act unjustly but does things which are in themselves
unjust.
Again, suppose that a man has made a wrongful award in ignorance; in
the eye of the law he does not act unjustly nor is his awarding unjust,
but yet he is in a certain sense: for the Just according to law and
primary or natural Just are not coincident: but, if he knowingly
decided unjustly, then he himself as well as the receiver got the
larger share, that is, either of favour from the receiver or private
revenge against the other party: and so the man who decided unjustly
from these motives gets a larger share, in exactly the same sense as a
man would who received part of the actual matter of the unjust action:
because in this case the man who wrongly adjudged, say a field, did not
actually get land but money by his unjust decision.
Chapter XIV.