The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

(for here the difference in outward
form is great) as the ambiguity in the use of kleis for the
collar-bone of an animal and for that with which we lock a door.
Let us take as a starting-point, then, the various meanings of ‘an
unjust man’. Both the lawless man and the grasping and unfair man
are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both the law-abiding
and the fair man will be just. The just, then, is the lawful and
the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair.
    Since the unjust man is grasping, he must be concerned with
goods-not all goods, but those with which prosperity and adversity
have to do, which taken absolutely are always good, but for a
particular person are not always good. Now men pray for and pursue
these things; but they should not, but should pray that the things
that are good absolutely may also be good for them, and should
choose the things that are good for them. The unjust man does not
always choose the greater, but also the less-in the case of things
bad absolutely; but because the lesser evil is itself thought to be
in a sense good, and graspingness is directed at the good,
therefore he is thought to be grasping. And he is unfair; for this
contains and is common to both.
    Since the lawless man was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding
man just, evidently all lawful acts are in a sense just acts; for
the acts laid down by the legislative art are lawful, and each of
these, we say, is just. Now the laws in their enactments on all
subjects aim at the common advantage either of all or of the best
or of those who hold power, or something of the sort; so that in
one sense we call those acts just that tend to produce and preserve
happiness and its components for the political society. And the law
bids us do both the acts of a brave man (e.g. not to desert our
post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms), and those of a
temperate man (e.g. not to commit adultery nor to gratify one’s
lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e.g. not to strike another
nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues
and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding
others; and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the
hastily conceived one less well. This form of justice, then, is
complete virtue, but not absolutely, but in relation to our
neighbour. And therefore justice is often thought to be the
greatest of virtues, and ‘neither evening nor morning star’ is so
wonderful; and proverbially ‘in justice is every virtue
comprehended’. And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense,
because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is
complete because he who possesses it can exercise his virtue not
only in himself but towards his neighbour also; for many men can
exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in their relations to
their neighbour. This is why the saying of Bias is thought to be
true, that ‘rule will show the man’; for a ruler is necessarily in
relation to other men and a member of a society. For this same
reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be ‘another’s
good’, because it is related to our neighbour; for it does what is
advantageous to another, either a ruler or a copartner. Now the
worst man is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself
and towards his friends, and the best man is not he who exercises
his virtue towards himself but he who exercises it towards another;
for this is a difficult task. Justice in this sense, then, is not
part of virtue but virtue entire, nor is the contrary injustice a
part of vice but vice entire. What the difference is between virtue
and justice in this sense is plain from what we have said; they are
the same but their essence is not the same; what, as a relation to
one’s neighbour, is justice is, as a certain kind of state without
qualification, virtue.
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2
    But at all events what we are investigating is the justice which
is a part of virtue; for there is a justice of this kind, as we
maintain. Similarly it is with injustice in the particular sense
that we are concerned.
    That there is such a thing is indicated by the fact that while
the man who exhibits in action the other forms of wickedness acts
wrongly indeed, but not graspingly (e.g. the man who throws away
his shield through cowardice or speaks harshly through bad temper
or fails to help a friend with money through meanness), when a man
acts graspingly he often exhibits none of these