Abstract

For Aristotle justice is a political order, a "politeia". The book V of "Nicomachean Ethics" deals with the third fundamental determination of the right, which is respect for the equal, the "ison", and the right measure: this is the essence of justice as a specific ethical virtue. The condition of doing right actions is the possession of the "status" of free man. Relations of justice can be only between men who are "equally" free in the context of the "polis". That condition presupposes the achieved organisation of the dominion in the domestic and patrimonial context. Therefore liberty is not the foundation or the end, but it is just the ground which makes possible an order conforming to justice.