Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

1 In what follows δικαιοσύνη is found to possess both the wider meaning of Righteousness in general, covering all right conduct in relation to others, and the narrower sense of the virtue of right conduct in relation to others where gain or loss （whether to the agent or to other parties） is involved. δικαιοσύνη in this narrower sense is the special Moral Virtue which is the subject of Book 5; it would be described in English sometimes as Justice, sometimes as Honesty or uprightness. The related adjectives and verbs have various connotations connected with the various meanings of δικαιοσύνη both in its wider and in its narrower usage. For instance, τὰ δίκαια means sometimes ‘just acts’ in the English sense, sometimes any acts in conformity with the law, sometimes ‘rights’ or ‘claims,’ i.e., any consideration which by law, equity, or custom, certain persons have a right to expect from certain others. Or again ἀδικεῖν means not only to act unjustly, or dishonestly, but also to do, or have done, any wrongful injury to another, or any wrongful or illegal act, and so, as a legal term, to be guilty of a breach of the law. In translating however, if the connection of all these various meanings in the writer's mind is to be represented, it seems necessary to keep the words ‘justice,’ ‘injustice,’ etc., throughout, in spite of their occasional unsuitability to the context.

2 For instance, medicine studies both health and disease. Cf. 9.16.

3 i.e., it does not also mean walking lame.

4 Because a faculty or science is the same for opposite things.