Edward Stratemeyer - "The Rover Boys in the Air"

William Orpen - "An Onlooker in France 1917 to 1919"

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing - "Fabeln und Erzaehlungen"

Petrus Abraham Samuel van Limburg Brouwer - "Akbar"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ethics

A >> Aristotle >> Ethics




Again, all other acts of Injustice we refer to some particular
depravity, as, if a man commits adultery, to abandonment to his
passions; if he deserts his comrade, to cowardice; if he strikes
another, to anger: but if he gains by the act to no other vice than to
Injustice.

[Sidenote:1131b] Thus it is clear that there is a kind of Injustice
different from and besides that which includes all Vice, having the same
name because the definition is in the same genus; for both have their
force in dealings with others, but the one acts upon honour, or wealth,
or safety, or by whatever one name we can include all these things, and
is actuated by pleasure attendant on gain, while the other acts upon all
things which constitute the sphere of the good man's action.

Now that there is more than one kind of Justice, and that there is one
which is distinct from and besides that which is co-extensive with,
Virtue, is plain: we must next ascertain what it is, and what are its
characteristics.

Well, the Unjust has been divided into the unlawful and the unequal, and
the Just accordingly into the lawful and the equal: the aforementioned
Injustice is in the way of the unlawful. And as the unequal and the more
are not the same, but differing as part to whole (because all more is
unequal, but not all unequal more), so the Unjust and the Injustice we
are now in search of are not the same with, but other than, those before
mentioned, the one being the parts, the other the wholes; for this
particular Injustice is a part of the Injustice co-extensive with Vice,
and likewise this Justice of the Justice co-extensive with Virtue.
So that what we have now to speak of is the particular Justice and
Injustice, and likewise the particular Just and Unjust.

Here then let us dismiss any further consideration of the Justice
ranking as co-extensive with Virtue (being the practice of Virtue in all
its bearings towards others), and of the co-relative Injustice (being
similarly the practice of Vice). It is clear too, that we must separate
off the Just and the Unjust involved in these: because one may pretty
well say that most lawful things are those which naturally result in
action from Virtue in its fullest sense, because the law enjoins the
living in accordance with each Virtue and forbids living in accordance
with each Vice. And the producing causes of Virtue in all its bearings
are those enactments which have been made respecting education for
society.

By the way, as to individual education, in respect of which a man is
simply good without reference to others, whether it is the province of
[Greek: politikhae] or some other science we must determine at a
future time: for it may be it is not the same thing to be a good man and
a good citizen in every case.

Now of the Particular Justice, and the Just involved in it, one species
is that which is concerned in the distributions of honour, or wealth, or
such other things as are to be shared among the members of the social
community (because in these one man as compared with another may have
either an equal or an unequal share), and the other is that which is
Corrective in the various transactions between man and man.

[Sidenote: 1131a] And of this latter there are two parts: because of
transactions some are voluntary and some involuntary; voluntary, such as
follow; selling, buying, use, bail, borrowing, deposit, hiring: and this
class is called voluntary because the origination of these transactions
is voluntary.

The involuntary again are either such as effect secrecy; as theft,
adultery, poisoning, pimping, kidnapping of slaves, assassination, false
witness; or accompanied with open violence; as insult, bonds, death,
plundering, maiming, foul language, slanderous abuse.

III

Well, the unjust man we have said is unequal, and the abstract "Unjust"
unequal: further, it is plain that there is some mean of the unequal,
that is to say, the equal or exact half (because in whatever action
there is the greater and the less there is also the equal, i.e. the
exact half). If then the Unjust is unequal the Just is equal, which all
must allow without further proof: and as the equal is a mean the Just
must be also a mean. Now the equal implies two terms at least: it
follows then that the Just is both a mean and equal, and these to
certain persons; and, in so far as it is a mean, between certain things
(that is, the greater and the less), and, so far as it is equal, between
two, and in so far as it is just it is so to certain persons. The Just
then must imply four terms at least, for those to which it is just are
two, and the terms representing the things are two.

And there will be the same equality between the terms representing the
persons, as between those representing the things: because as the latter
are to one another so are the former: for if the persons are not equal
they must not have equal shares; in fact this is the very source of all
the quarrelling and wrangling in the world, when either they who are
equal have and get awarded to them things not equal, or being not equal
those things which are equal. Again, the necessity of this equality of
ratios is shown by the common phrase "according to rate," for all agree
that the Just in distributions ought to be according to some rate:
but what that rate is to be, all do not agree; the democrats are for
freedom, oligarchs for wealth, others for nobleness of birth, and the
aristocratic party for virtue.

The Just, then, is a certain proportionable thing. For proportion does
not apply merely to number in the abstract, but to number generally,
since it is equality of ratios, and implies four terms at least (that
this is the case in what may be called discrete proportion is plain and
obvious, but it is true also in continual proportion, for this uses the
one [Sidenote: 1131b] term as two, and mentions it twice; thus A:B:C may
be expressed A:B::B:C. In the first, B is named twice; and so, if, as
in the second, B is actually written twice, the proportionals will be
four): and the Just likewise implies four terms at the least, and the
ratio between the two pair of terms is the same, because the persons and
the things are divided similarly. It will stand then thus, A:B::C:D, and
then permutando A:C::B:D, and then (supposing C and D to represent the
things) A+C:B+D::A:B. The distribution in fact consisting in putting
together these terms thus: and if they are put together so as to
preserve this same ratio, the distribution puts them together justly. So
then the joining together of the first and third and second and fourth
proportionals is the Just in the distribution, and this Just is the
mean relatively to that which violates the proportionate, for
the proportionate is a mean and the Just is proportionate. Now
mathematicians call this kind of proportion geometrical: for in
geometrical proportion the whole is to the whole as each part to each
part. Furthermore this proportion is not continual, because the person
and thing do not make up one term.

The Just then is this proportionate, and the Unjust that which violates
the proportionate; and so there comes to be the greater and the less:
which in fact is the case in actual transactions, because he who acts
unjustly has the greater share and he who is treated unjustly has the
less of what is good: but in the case of what is bad this is reversed:
for the less evil compared with the greater comes to be reckoned for
good, because the less evil is more choiceworthy than the greater, and
what is choiceworthy is good, and the more so the greater good.

This then is the one species of the Just.

IV

And the remaining one is the Corrective, which arises in voluntary as
well as involuntary transactions. Now this just has a different form
from the aforementioned; for that which is concerned in distribution of
common property is always according to the aforementioned proportion: I
mean that, if the division is made out of common property, the
shares will bear the same proportion to one another as the original
contributions did: and the Unjust which is opposite to this Just is that
which violates the proportionate.

But the Just which arises in transactions between men is an equal in a
certain sense, and the Unjust an unequal, only not in the way of that
proportion but of arithmetical. [Sidenote: 1132a ] Because it makes no
difference whether a robbery, for instance, is committed by a good man
on a bad or by a bad man on a good, nor whether a good or a bad man has
committed adultery: the law looks only to the difference created by the
injury and treats the men as previously equal, where the one does and
the other suffers injury, or the one has done and the other suffered
harm. And so this Unjust, being unequal, the judge endeavours to reduce
to equality again, because really when the one party has been wounded
and the other has struck him, or the one kills and the other dies, the
suffering and the doing are divided into unequal shares; well, the judge
tries to restore equality by penalty, thereby taking from the gain.

For these terms gain and loss are applied to these cases, though perhaps
the term in some particular instance may not be strictly proper, as
gain, for instance, to the man who has given a blow, and loss to him who
has received it: still, when the suffering has been estimated, the one
is called loss and the other gain.

And so the equal is a mean between the more and the less, which
represent gain and loss in contrary ways (I mean, that the more of good
and the less of evil is gain, the less of good and the more of evil is
loss): between which the equal was stated to be a mean, which equal we
say is Just: and so the Corrective Just must be the mean between loss
and gain. And this is the reason why, upon a dispute arising, men have
recourse to the judge: going to the judge is in fact going to the Just,
for the judge is meant to be the personification of the Just. And men
seek a judge as one in the mean, which is expressed in a name given by
some to judges ([Greek: mesidioi], or middle-men) under the notion that
if they can hit on the mean they shall hit on the Just. The Just is then
surely a mean since the judge is also.

So it is the office of a judge to make things equal, and the line, as it
were, having been unequally divided, he takes from the greater part that
by which it exceeds the half, and adds this on to the less. And when the
whole is divided into two exactly equal portions then men say they have
their own, when they have gotten the equal; and the equal is a mean
between the greater and the less according to arithmetical equality.

This, by the way, accounts for the etymology of the term by which we
in Greek express the ideas of Just and Judge; ([Greek: dikaion] quasi
[Greek: dichaion], that is in two parts, and [Greek: dikastaes] quasi
[Greek: dichastaes], he who divides into two parts). For when from one
of two equal magnitudes somewhat has been taken and added to the other,
this latter exceeds the former by twice that portion: if it had been
merely taken from the former and not added to the latter, then the
latter would [Sidenote:1132b] have exceeded the former only by that one
portion; but in the other case, the greater exceeds the mean by one, and
the mean exceeds also by one that magnitude from which the portion was
taken. By this illustration, then, we obtain a rule to determine what
one ought to take from him who has the greater, and what to add to him
who has the less. The excess of the mean over the less must be added to
the less, and the excess of the greater over the mean be taken from the
greater.

Thus let there be three straight lines equal to one another. From one of
them cut off a portion, and add as much to another of them. The whole
line thus made will exceed the remainder of the first-named line, by
twice the portion added, and will exceed the untouched line by that
portion. And these terms loss and gain are derived from voluntary
exchange: that is to say, the having more than what was one's own is
called gaining, and the having less than one's original stock is called
losing; for instance, in buying or selling, or any other transactions
which are guaranteed by law: but when the result is neither more nor
less, but exactly the same as there was originally, people say they have
their own, and neither lose nor gain.

So then the Just we have been speaking of is a mean between loss and
gain arising in involuntary transactions; that is, it is the having the
same after the transaction as one had before it took place.

[Sidenote: V] There are people who have a notion that Reciprocation is
simply just, as the Pythagoreans said: for they defined the Just simply
and without qualification as "That which reciprocates with another." But
this simple Reciprocation will not fit on either to the Distributive
Just, or the Corrective (and yet this is the interpretation they put
on the Rhadamanthian rule of Just, If a man should suffer what he hath
done, then there would be straightforward justice"), for in many
cases differences arise: as, for instance, suppose one in authority
has struck a man, he is not to be struck in turn; or if a man has
struck one in authority, he must not only be struck but punished also.
And again, the voluntariness or involuntariness of actions makes a
great difference.

[Sidenote: II33_a_] But in dealings of exchange such a principle of
Justice as this Reciprocation forms the bond of union, but then it must
be Reciprocation according to proportion and not exact equality, because
by proportionate reciprocity of action the social community is held
together, For either Reciprocation of evil is meant, and if this be
not allowed it is thought to be a servile condition of things: or else
Reciprocation of good, and if this be not effected then there is no
admission to participation which is the very bond of their union.

And this is the moral of placing the Temple of the Graces ([Greek:
charites]) in the public streets; to impress the notion that there may
be requital, this being peculiar to [Greek: charis] because a man ought
to requite with a good turn the man who has done him a favour and then
to become himself the originator of another [Greek: charis], by doing
him a favour.

Now the acts of mutual giving in due proportion may be represented
by the diameters of a parallelogram, at the four angles of which the
parties and their wares are so placed that the side connecting the
parties be opposite to that connecting the wares, and each party be
connected by one side with his own ware, as in the accompanying diagram.

[Illustration: Builder_Shoemaker House_Shoes.]

The builder is to receive from the shoemaker of his ware, and to give
him of his own: if then there be first proportionate equality, and
_then_ the Reciprocation takes place, there will be the just result
which we are speaking of: if not, there is not the equal, nor will the
connection stand: for there is no reason why the ware of the one may not
be better than that of the other, and therefore before the exchange is
made they must have been equalised. And this is so also in the other
arts: for they would have been destroyed entirely if there were not a
correspondence in point of quantity and quality between the producer and
the consumer. For, we must remember, no dealing arises between two of
the same kind, two physicians, for instance; but say between a physician
and agriculturist, or, to state it generally, between those who are
different and not equal, but these of course must have been equalised
before the exchange can take place.

It is therefore indispensable that all things which can be exchanged
should be capable of comparison, and for this purpose money has come
in, and comes to be a kind of medium, for it measures all things and so
likewise the excess and defect; for instance, how many shoes are equal
to a house or a given quantity of food. As then the builder to the
shoemaker, so many shoes must be to the house (or food, if instead of a
builder an agriculturist be the exchanging party); for unless there is
this proportion there cannot be exchange or dealing, and this proportion
cannot be unless the terms are in some way equal; hence the need, as was
stated above, of some one measure of all things. Now this is really
and truly the Demand for them, which is the common bond of all such
dealings. For if the parties were not in want at all or not similarly of
one another's wares, there would either not be any exchange, or at least
not the same.

And money has come to be, by general agreement, a representative of
Demand: and the account of its Greek name [Greek: nomisma] is this, that
it is what it is not naturally but by custom or law ([Greek: nomos]),
and it rests with us to change its value, or make it wholly useless.

[Sidenote: 1113b] Very well then, there will be Reciprocation when
the terms have been equalised so as to stand in this proportion;
Agriculturist : Shoemaker : : wares of Shoemaker : wares of
Agriculturist; but you must bring them to this form of proportion when
they exchange, otherwise the one extreme will combine both exceedings of
the mean: but when they have exactly their own then they are equal and
have dealings, because the same equality can come to be in their case.
Let A represent an agriculturist, C food, B a shoemaker, D his wares
equalised with A's. Then the proportion will be correct, A:B::C:D; _now_
Reciprocation will be practicable, if it were not, there would have been
no dealing.

Now that what connects men in such transactions is Demand, as being some
one thing, is shown by the fact that, when either one does not want the
other or neither want one another, they do not exchange at all: whereas
they do when one wants what the other man has, wine for instance, giving
in return corn for exportation.

And further, money is a kind of security to us in respect of exchange
at some future time (supposing that one wants nothing now that we shall
have it when we do): the theory of money being that whenever one brings
it one can receive commodities in exchange: of course this too is liable
to depreciation, for its purchasing power is not always the same,
but still it is of a more permanent nature than the commodities it
represents. And this is the reason why all things should have a price
set upon them, because thus there may be exchange at any time, and if
exchange then dealing. So money, like a measure, making all things
commensurable equalises them: for if there was not exchange there would
not have been dealing, nor exchange if there were not equality, nor
equality if there were not the capacity of being commensurate: it
is impossible that things so greatly different should be really
commensurate, but we can approximate sufficiently for all practical
purposes in reference to Demand. The common measure must be some one
thing, and also from agreement (for which reason it is called [Greek:
nomisma]), for this makes all things commensurable: in fact, all things
are measured by money. Let B represent ten minae, A a house worth five
minae, or in other words half B, C a bed worth 1/10th of B: it is clear
then how many beds are equal to one house, namely, five.

It is obvious also that exchange was thus conducted before the existence
of money: for it makes no difference whether you give for a house five
beds or the price of five beds. We have now said then what the abstract
Just and Unjust are, and these having been defined it is plain that
just acting is a mean between acting unjustly and being acted unjustly
towards: the former being equivalent to having more, and the latter to
having less.

But Justice, it must be observed, is a mean state not after the same
manner as the forementioned virtues, but because it aims at producing
the mean, while Injustice occupies _both_ the extremes.

[Sidenote: 1134_a_] And Justice is the moral state in virtue of which
the just man is said to have the aptitude for practising the Just in
the way of moral choice, and for making division between _, himself and
another, or between two other men, not so as to give to himself the
greater and to his neighbour the less share of what is choiceworthy and
contrariwise of what is hurtful, but what is proportionably equal, and
in like manner when adjudging the rights of two other men.

Injustice is all this with respect to the Unjust: and since the Unjust
is excess or defect of what is good or hurtful respectively, in
violation of the proportionate, therefore Injustice is both excess and
defect because it aims at producing excess and defect; excess, that is,
in a man's own case of what is simply advantageous, and defect of what
is hurtful: and in the case of other men in like manner generally
speaking, only that the proportionate is violated not always in one
direction as before but whichever way it happens in the given case. And
of the Unjust act the less is being acted unjustly towards, and the
greater the acting unjustly towards others.

Let this way of describing the nature of Justice and Injustice, and
likewise the Just and the Unjust generally, be accepted as sufficient.

[Sidenote: VI] Again, since a man may do unjust acts and not yet have
formed a character of injustice, the question arises whether a man is
unjust in each particular form of injustice, say a thief, or adulterer,
or robber, by doing acts of a given character.

We may say, I think, that this will not of itself make any difference; a
man may, for instance, have had connection with another's wife, knowing
well with whom he was sinning, but he may have done it not of deliberate
choice but from the impulse of passion: of course he acts unjustly, but
he has not necessarily formed an unjust character: that is, he may have
stolen yet not be a thief; or committed an act of adultery but still not
be an adulterer, and so on in other cases which might be enumerated.

Of the relation which Reciprocation bears to the Just we have already
spoken: and here it should be noticed that the Just which we are
investigating is both the Just in the abstract and also as exhibited in
Social Relations, which latter arises in the case of those who live in
communion with a view to independence and who are free and equal either
proportionately or numerically.

It follows then that those who are not in this position have not among
themselves the Social Just, but still Just of some kind and resembling
that other. For Just implies mutually acknowledged law, and law the
possibility of injustice, for adjudication is the act of distinguishing
between the Just and the Unjust.

And among whomsoever there is the possibility of injustice among these
there is that of acting unjustly; but it does not hold conversely that
injustice attaches to all among whom there is the possibility of acting
unjustly, since by the former we mean giving one's self the larger share
of what is abstractedly good and the less of what is abstractedly evil.

[Sidenote: 134_b_] This, by the way, is the reason why we do not allow
a man to govern, but Principle, because a man governs for himself and
comes to be a despot: but the office of a ruler is to be guardian of the
Just and therefore of the Equal. Well then, since he seems to have no
peculiar personal advantage, supposing him a Just man, for in this case
he does not allot to himself the larger share of what is abstractedly
good unless it falls to his share proportionately (for which reason he
really governs for others, and so Justice, men say, is a good not to
one's self so much as to others, as was mentioned before), therefore
some compensation must be given him, as there actually is in the shape
of honour and privilege; and wherever these are not adequate there
rulers turn into despots.

But the Just which arises in the relations of Master and Father, is not
identical with, but similar to, these; because there is no possibility
of injustice towards those things which are absolutely one's own; and
a slave or child (so long as this last is of a certain age and not
separated into an independent being), is, as it were, part of a man's
self, and no man chooses to hurt himself, for which reason there cannot
be injustice towards one's own self: therefore neither is there the
social Unjust or Just, which was stated to be in accordance with law and
to exist between those among whom law naturally exists, and these were
said to be they to whom belongs equality of ruling and being ruled.

Hence also there is Just rather between a man and his wife than between
a man and his children or slaves; this is in fact the Just arising in
domestic relations: and this too is different from the Social Just.

[Sidenote: VII] Further, this last-mentioned Just is of two kinds,
natural and conventional; the former being that which has everywhere the
same force and does not depend upon being received or not; the latter
being that which originally may be this way or that indifferently but
not after enactment: for instance, the price of ransom being fixed at
a mina, or the sacrificing a goat instead of two sheep; and again, all
cases of special enactment, as the sacrificing to Brasidas as a hero; in
short, all matters of special decree.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.