XVIII. On Injustice

What sort of sin is opposed to justice? Up to this point we have treated justice; now we treat injustice, which is the vice opposed to the virtue of justice. Violation of legal justice is contained in transgression of laws, and it is a grave or light sin according as it gravely or lightly injures the common good. Transgression of distributive and vindicative justice is had by acceptance of persons, through which, in the distribution of common goods and burdens, rewards and punishments, regard is not had to the reason of the cause which makes the person worthy, or to the motive of justice, but to the reason of the person, namely of those qualities of his which do not pertain to the matter, e.g., blood relationship, friendship, flattery, etc. This is a grave or light sin according to the matter concerned; and thus the election of an unworthy person even to secular offices, e.g., of governor or judge, is a grave sin. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 63, a. 1. Finally, transgression of commutative justice is properly contained in injury. St. Thomas, Quod. 10, a. 12.

What is offense and injury? - Resp. To the 1st: Simple or pure offense is one thing, and injury is another. Simple offense is the wounding or irritation of another's will, by which someone brings trouble to another against his rational will, and as it were gives him some right to anger, indignation, or aversion against the offender, yet without injuring any right of property. If you deny to your friend asking for a book as a loan, of which he greatly needs and which you can easily do without, you undoubtedly offend your friend, and give him sufficient motive of aversion; yet you do not inflict injury on him, because you injure no right of his. Hence by justice you are not obliged to satisfaction for injury, but only to satisfaction for offense, by the virtue of charity and human reconciliation of peace, renewing friendship.

Resp. To the 2nd: Injury is voluntary lesion of another's right, when he is reasonably unwilling, by which namely someone knowingly and willingly does something not only against the will, but also against the true and strict right of another. Moreover such an injury can sometimes be done without damage to another, and then it is called mere injury, such as occurs if you commit occult adultery with no child conceived; for in such a case you injure the right of another, yet you do not cause damage. Hence you are held to satisfaction, but not to restitution; namely to satisfaction of the injury, by suffering something which brings trouble or burden, at least, e.g., by humbly asking pardon. This satisfaction is compensation for personal injury. Cf. 1319. But sometimes injury is done with damage to another and is called damaging injury. Such occurs if you commit adultery and a child is conceived. Hence you are held to restitution or to reparation of the damage. Wherefore this restitution is compensation for real injury. L. 584; C. A. 1293-1295; Inst. l. 4, t. 4.

What is the object of injury? - Injury can have place: 1. in the goods of reputation and honor, concerning which there is discussion in the Eighth Precept of the Decalogue; 2. in the goods of body and life, concerning which it is treated in the Fifth Precept of the Decalogue; 3. in the goods of fortune, concerning which the question chiefly is here; 4. in the goods of the soul, whether natural or supernatural. - C. A. 1293.

How many kinds of injury are there in the goods of fortune? There is chiefly a threefold kind, namely theft, robbery, and simple damaging. Theft properly is the hidden taking away of another's thing, when the owner is reasonably unwilling. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 60, a. 3. Taking away: so that he may have it for himself; not so that he may burn it, throw it away, or destroy it. Those participate in the malice of theft, and therefore are reduced to theft, who accept even another's thing taken away by another, or simply detain another's thing, or usurp another's thing; for that acceptance is a certain continuation of theft, and "to detain that which is owed to another has the same character of harm as unjust taking." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 66, a. 3. And the same harm is had if someone occupies or usurps another's thing as though his own. When he is reasonably unwilling; otherwise the right of another is by no means violated. - But robbery is the taking away of another's thing by force or violence brought upon the person. L. 1, Cod. de Vi bonorum raptorum. Hence robbery adds to theft a distinct species of the sin of injustice, because to the owner who is reasonably unwilling and wishes to preserve his own thing force and personal injury are brought. Finally, simple damaging is when, while the owner is reasonably unwilling, some damage is inflicted without anything being accepted or retained by the one inflicting the damage. - Inst. l. 4, t. 1, 2, 3; L. 1, C. de Usucap. pro empto; L. 2, C. de usucap. pro donato; L. 518; St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 66, aa. 3, 4, 9. "If some private thing is taken away from a private person, it is called theft; if it is secretly taken from the public by him to whom a public office has been entrusted, it is called peculation; they call it kidnapping if a free man or another's slave is led away into servitude; but if a sacred thing is taken away, it is named sacrilege." Roman Catechism, 5. The unjust taking away of animals is cattle-theft. "Labeo says that theft is said from furvus, that is, black, because it is done secretly and in darkness, and generally at night; or from fraud, as Sabinus says; or from carrying and taking away; or from the Greek speech, which calls thieves phores; indeed the Greeks also said phores from pherein, that is, from carrying. § 1. Hence the mere thought of committing theft does not make a thief. § 2. Thus he who denies a deposit is not immediately also held for theft, but so if he has concealed it for the cause of intercepting it. § 3. Theft is fraudulent handling of a thing for the sake of making profit, either of the thing itself, or even of its use or possession; this is prohibited by natural law to admit." L. 1, de Furtis ff.

"Cattle-thieves are properly held to be those who withdraw cattle from pastures or from herds, and in some way plunder them, and practice the pursuit of driving away as though an art, leading horses from droves or oxen from herds. Certainly, if someone has led away a wandering ox, or horses left in solitude, he is not a cattle-thief, but rather a thief." L. 1, 3, de Abigeis Dig.

Whether legitimate consent removes the character of injury? - To one who knows and consents fully and at the same time juridically, no injury is done. It is proved 1. from Rule 27 of Law in 6, where it is expressly said: To one who knows and consents, injury is not done, nor deceit. And Rule 145 ff. de Regulis Iuris: No one seems to defraud those who know and consent. 2. Because he who juridically consents has, according to human and divine laws, legitimate power of consenting; therefore by the very fact that he fully and perfectly consents to some action, such an action is not injurious to him. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 54, a. 3.

Whether simple consent also removes the character of injury? - To one who knows and freely consents without the right of validly consenting, injury is done by an action which otherwise is injurious to him. It is proved, because by the very fact that the consent is invalid by law, in moral estimation it is null; and therefore injury is done to one consenting in such a way just as if consent were absent. Without the right of validly consenting; for if some consent were only prohibited by law, but not void and invalid, it would still be efficacious in moral estimation, and consequently would remove the active right and the injury. Thus, although the defloration of a virgin outside marriage, and consent to it, is prohibited, nevertheless if the virgin consents to it, no injury is done to her, and there is sin only against chastity. St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 59, a. 3, ad 3.

Resolutions: Injury is done to a cleric, although he consents to being dragged before a secular tribunal or to being struck, because he cannot validly and efficaciously yield the right conferred in favor of the whole clerical state. Likewise injury is done to a husband, although he consents to the adultery of his wife; for such consent, on account of reverence for the sacrament and the indissolubility of marriage, is invalid by divine law. Cf. pr. 50 condemned by Innocent XI. "At most this will be effected from the consent of the spouse, that the spouse consenting to the adultery of the other cannot institute a complaint concerning the injury inflicted on himself by the adulterer, since he seems to have stripped himself voluntarily of action against him." Ithur., Cas. 6, n. 16.

Whether consent from error and fear removes injury? - Injury is done to one consenting from error, fear, or necessity. It is proved because by the very fact that consent is made from error, fear, or necessity, it is involuntary, at least in some respect, and the one consenting does not wish altogether freely to yield his right. Therefore, while such consent stands, injury is done to him.

Whether injury can be inflicted by an anterior act alone? - Although injury can be inflicted on another through a merely internal act, nevertheless an internal act of itself cannot cause an external act to become unjust. The first part is proved, because sometimes by an internal act alone the strict right of another can be injured. This is clear from the example of rash judgment, by which, according to the common opinion, justice toward neighbor is violated, since each person has a strict right to the good estimation of himself among individuals. The second part is proved, because an internal act cannot change the nature of an external act. Hence he who refuses out of hatred to help another does not sin against justice, unless he is held by office; nor does a judge, condemning a murderer from hatred to the death he deserves; nor a merchant, selling his goods at the lowest price so as to deprive other merchants of profits. Of itself; for an external action inchoatively indifferent is determined only by the interior intention, so that it is the beginning of a completed unjust external action rather than a just one. And thus one who accepts a thing from the hands of a thief does not sin against justice if he does it to restore it to the owner, but he does if he does it to retain it. Lugo d. 22, n. 156; La-Croix l. 3, p. 2, n. 635, 636; C. A. 1305.

What sort of sin is injury? - Injury is a grave sin from its kind. But that matter is judged grave which from its nature, or from the estimation of men, is apt to cause another sorrow difficult to calm, or to dissolve mutual charity. The first part is proved, because injury of itself brings grave harm to the good of others; and therefore tends to dissolve charity. But mortal sin is "that which is contrary to charity." St. Thomas, 2. 2, q. 59, a. 4.

The second part is proved, because since the end of justice is to promote common peace, public tranquility, and mutual love through the conservation of rights, that matter is deservedly judged grave which from its nature, or from the estimation of men, can dissolve mutual love, with loss of common peace, or cause sorrow difficult to calm. From its nature: because, generally speaking, in establishing a general rule, attention must be paid to that which commonly occurs among men using tempered judgment and affection, not what the tumult and intemperance of the passions suggests in these circumstances; for justice follows the guidance of reason and the dictate of prudence.

But speaking specifically of justice, since it belongs to justice to preserve equality of thing to thing, one must attend in it to the objective lesion itself of another's thing, and by no means also to the subjective dispositions of the individual, to which charity further extends itself in attending. - L. 700. But injury is of a diverse species according to the diverse right injured, and the morally diverse object, as regards the supernatural or natural goods of the soul, as regards intrinsic goods of life and members, and as regards extrinsic material goods of fortune, or as regards extrinsic moral goods of reputation and honor.