He acts voluntarily (for in a manner he knows what he is doing and with what object), and yet is not bad: for his purpose is good; so he is only half bad. Moreover, incontinent men are not unjust, 203 for they are not deliberately malicious⁠—some of them being apt to swerve from their deliberate resolutions, others of melancholic temper and apt to act without deliberating at all. An incontinent man, then, may be compared to a state which always makes excellent decrees and has good laws, but never carries them out; as Anaxandrides jestingly says⁠—

“So willed the state that takes no heed of laws.”

“So willed the state that takes no heed of laws.”

The bad man, on the contrary, may be compared to a state that carries out its laws, but has bad laws.