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fair to both parties, but if this cannot be achieved, it would seem not
only necessary that the person who gets the first service should fix the
reward, but also just; for if the other gets in return the equivalent of the
advantage the beneficiary has received, or the price lie would have paid
for the pleasure, he will have got what is fair as from the other.
We see this happening too with things put up for sale, and in some
places there are laws providing that no actions shall arise out of volun-
tary contracts, on the assumption that one should settle with a person to
whom one has given credit, in the spirit in which one bargained with
him. The law holds that it is more just that the person to whom credit
was given should fix the terms than that the person who gave credit
should do so. For most things are not assessed at the same value by
those who have them and those who want them; each class values highly
what is its own and what it is offering; yet the return is made on the
terms fixed by the receiver. But no doubt the receiver should assess a
thing not at what it seems worth when he has it, but at what he assessed
it at before he had it.
2
A further problem is set by such questions as, whether one should in all
things give the preference to one s father and obey him, or whether when
one is ill one should trust a doctor, and when one has to elect a general
should elect a man of military skill; and similarly whether one should
render a service by preference to a friend or to a good man, and should
show gratitude to a benefactor or oblige a friend, if one cannot do both.
All such questions are hard, are they not, to decide with precision?
For they admit of many variations of all sorts in respect both of the
magnitude of the service and of its nobility necessity. But that we should
not give the preference in all things to the same person is plain enough;
and we must for the most part return benefits rather than oblige friends,
as we must pay back a loan to a creditor rather than make one to a
friend. But perhaps even this is not always true; e.g., should a man who
has been ransomed out of the hands of brigands ransom his ransomer in
148/Aristotle
return, whoever he may be (or pay him if he has not been captured but
demands payment) or should he ransom his father? It would seem that
he should ransom his father in preference even to himself. As we have
said, then, generally the debt should be paid, but if the gift is exceed-
ingly noble or exceedingly necessary, one should defer to these consid-
erations. For sometimes it is not even fair to return the equivalent of
what one has received, when the one man has done a service to one
whom he knows to be good, while the other makes a return to one whom
he believes to be bad. For that matter, one should sometimes not lend in
return to one who has lent to oneself; for the one person lent to a good
man, expecting to recover his loan, while the other has no hope of recov-
ering from one who is believed to be bad. Therefore if the facts really
are so, the demand is not fair; and if they are not, but people think they
are, they would be held to be doing nothing strange in refusing. As we
have often pointed out, then, discussions about feelings and actions have
just as much definiteness as their subject-matter.
That we should not make the same return to every one, nor give a
father the preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice everything
to Zeus, is plain enough; but since we ought to render different things to
parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors, we ought to render to each
class what is appropriate and becoming. And this is what people seem
in fact to do; to marriages they invite their kinsfolk; for these have a part
in the family and therefore in the doings that affect the family; and at
funerals also they think that kinsfolk, before all others, should meet, for
the same reason. And it would be thought that in the matter of food we
should help our parents before all others, since we owe our own nour-
ishment to them, and it is more honourable to help in this respect the
authors of our being even before ourselves; and honour too one should
give to one s parents as one does to the gods, but not any and every
honour; for that matter one should not give the same honour to one s
father and one s mother, nor again should one give them the honour due
to a philosopher or to a general, but the honour due to a father, or again
to a mother. To all older persons, too, one should give honour appropri-
ate to their age, by rising to receive them and finding seats for them and
so on; while to comrades and brothers one should allow freedom of
speech and common use of all things. To kinsmen, too, and fellow-tribes-
men and fellow-citizens and to every other class one should always try
to assign what is appropriate, and to compare the claims of each class
with respect to nearness of relation and to virtue or usefulness. The
Nicomachean Ethics/149
comparison is easier when the persons belong to the same class, and
more laborious when they are different. Yet we must not on that account
shrink from the task, but decide the question as best we can.
3
Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should not
be broken off when the other party does not remain the same. Perhaps
we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking off a friendship
based on utility or pleasure, when our friends no longer have these at-
tributes. For it was of these attributes that we were the friends; and
when these have failed it is reasonable to love no longer. But one might
complain of another if, when he loved us for our usefulness or pleasant-
ness, he pretended to love us for our character. For, as we said at the
outset, most differences arise between friends when they are not friends
in the spirit in which they think they are. So when a man has deceived
himself and has thought he was being loved for his character, when the
other person was doing nothing of the kind, he must blame himself;
when he has been deceived by the pretences of the other person, it is just
that he should complain against his deceiver; he will complain with more
justice than one does against people who counterfeit the currency, inas-
much as the wrongdoing is concerned with something more valuable.
But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and
is seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible, since
not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil neither
can nor should be loved; for it is not one s duty to be a lover of evil, nor
to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear like. Must
the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]