ABSTRACT
The defining treatment of profit and loss in Aristotle's writings appears in the Nicomachean Ethics v.4, which opens his discussion of corrective justice. Accordingly, under Proportion A the superior party would certainly "make a profit," and thus would commit injustice. Aristotle's theory has come under criticism from contemporary advocates of fairness. Such criticism defends popular contemporary belief that justice is fairness. Use of diagonal pairing would seem to prevent the superior party from exploiting the weaker in an exchange. But now Aristotle says that under diagonal pairing the superior one suffers a loss, and the friendship and community becomes for him a burdensome office. Aristotle's theory of reciprocal justice suggests that civilization is the constant interchange among the "different and not equal." The result is rather different from modern notions of justice and right.
