1For neglecting defence and deserting duty there are usually several reasons; 1for men are unwilling to incur enmities or toil or expense, or else they are so hindered by negligence, laziness, idleness, or by certain pursuits or occupations of their own, that they allow those whom they ought to protect to be abandoned. 1So we must consider whether what Plato says of philosophers may fall short: that because they are occupied in the investigation of truth, and because they despise and count as nothing the things that most men eagerly seek and over which they are wont to fight one another, they are therefore just. 1For they attain the one kind of justice, in that they harm no one by inflicting wrong, but they fall into the other; 1for, hindered by their zeal for learning, they desert those whom they ought to protect.
1And so he thinks they will not even enter public life unless compelled. 1But it would be fairer for this to happen by choice; 1for this very thing, which is done rightly, is just only on condition that it is voluntary. 29There are also those who, either from zeal for looking after their estate or from a kind of hatred of men, say that they mind their own business and are seen to do no one any wrong. 29These men are free from the one kind of injustice but run into the other; 29for they desert the fellowship of life, because they contribute to it no zeal, no effort, no resources.
29Since, then, having set out the two kinds of injustice, we have added the causes of each kind, and have earlier established the things on which justice depends, we shall easily be able to judge what duty is at each moment, unless we love ourselves too much; 30for concern for the affairs of others is difficult. 30It is true that Terence's famous Chremes 'thinks nothing human foreign to him'; 30but still, because we perceive and feel more keenly the good or bad things that befall ourselves than those that befall others, which we see as if across a long distance between, we judge differently about them and about ourselves. 30Therefore those give good advice who forbid us to do anything when we are in doubt whether it is fair or unfair.
30For fairness shines out by itself, while doubt indicates a thought of wrongdoing.