Abstract

Aristotle opens his much‐anticipated treatment of general justice with a focused discussion of whether general justice is the same as virtue. Competing answers to this question have been offered on Aristotle's behalf, and different parts of EN V.1–2 appear to support alternative views. This paper offers an account of the relationship between general justice and virtue—and an explanation of Aristotle's puzzling claim that justice and virtue are “the same but different in being”—by appealing to his distinction between general justice as a state (ἕξις) and general justice as an exercise (χρῆσις). General justice and virtue are the same state. However, justice as an exercise and virtue as an exercise stand in a part–whole relationship. This account resolves Broadie and Rowe's charge that Aristotle has no coherent conception of the relationship between particular justice and character virtue. It also has implications for understanding whether justice is always another's good, whether a just ruler is necessarily virtuous, and the cultivation of justice and virtue.