Chapter I. On Injury in General

599. • Definition. Injury is the violation of another's right.

Division. It is 1. formal or material, according as it is done knowingly and voluntarily, or without knowledge and consent.

2. Grave or light, according as from it the neighbor suffers grave damage or only light damage.

3. Direct or indirect, according as it is intended in itself, or only foreseen and permitted in the cause.

600. • Principles. I. There is a natural precept promulgated and sanctioned by God, forbidding that the strict right of another be injured; whence every injury is opposed to natural right. The reason is plain from what was said above, n. 523 and following. For since someone has been made the legitimate owner of certain goods, he necessarily must have an inviolable right in them; otherwise his right would be illusory, or would not be a right, which involves a contradiction.

II. Injury, or the wounding of another's right, is a grave sin from its kind. The reason is that it is gravely opposed to right reason, good order, and divine law.

III. Injury is not done to one knowing and willing; because one willing yields from his right, and therefore does not wish the right to be preserved. Hence it is of the essence of injury that it be exercised toward one unwilling, or against one who is unwilling.

Except some cases in which man cannot yield his right, however much he wills: thus a married man cannot by his consent prevent the violation of his wife from being adultery, because nature demands that conjugal right be entirely inalienable. Add for Christians the right of the Sacrament, which cannot be violated. Hence the following proposition was condemned by Innocent XI under n. 50: Copulation with a married woman, with the husband consenting, is not adultery, and therefore it suffices in confession to say that one has fornicated.

601. • Resolutions. 1. Injury is done to one consenting from deceit or fear unjustly introduced, because he either in fact provides no consent, or does not provide it freely, but only to redeem himself from unjust vexation.

2. He likewise sins against justice who kills another willing to be killed. The reason is that God has reserved to himself dominion of human life; but man is merely a usufructuary, who therefore cannot abdicate from himself a right in life. Whence, if not man's right, certainly God's right is violated.

3. A usurer does injury to the borrower paying usury, just as a seller does to a buyer conceding a price beyond the highest for merchandise ¹.

¹ Namely, neither of these is judged to wish to donate; therefore the title is lacking by which the dominion either of the exacted usury or of the excess in price may be transferred.

4. The torturers did injury to the martyrs, although the martyrs desired death and bore it gladly.

602. • Questions. Q. 1. What matter is judged grave or light in injury?

Resp. That matter is judged grave which from its nature, or from the estimation of men, is apt to cause another a sadness difficult to calm, or to dissolve mutual charity. Thus Lacroix, n. 979. - Reuter, n. 436, and others. The reason is that since the end of justice is to promote common peace, public tranquillity, and mutual love through the preservation of rights, that matter is deservedly judged grave which, from its nature or from the estimation of men, can dissolve mutual love with the loss of common peace, or cause sadness difficult to calm.

I said from its nature, etc.; because in establishing a general rule attention must be paid to that which commonly occurs in men using temperate judgment and affection, not to what the tumult and intemperance of passions suggests in those circumstances; for justice follows the guidance of reason and the dictate of prudence.

Q. 2. Whether injury can effectively be inflicted on another through a merely internal act?

Resp. Affirmatively. Because sometimes by an internal act alone the strict right of another can be injured. - This is plain by the example of rash judgment, by which, according to the common sentence, justice toward the neighbor is violated, since each one has a strict right to a good estimation of himself among individuals. - Recall what was said concerning the eighth precept of the Decalogue, n. 465. - Moreover, in this case there is no special difficulty; since, as a merely internal injury inflicts no external damage on the injured person, no exterior reparation is to be made, but only the imprudent judgment of the mind is to be cast aside.

603. • Q. 3. Whether an internal act can of itself bring it about that an external act becomes unjust?

Resp. 1. Negatively, if the external act of itself materially does not injure another's right, notwithstanding the wicked intention of harming in the agent. The reason is that where no right is injured, there can be no injury. Hence one refusing out of hatred to aid another does not sin against justice, unless he is held to do so from office. - Thus most commonly. - Lugo, d. 19, n. 180. - Vogler, n. 400, against a few.

Resp. 2. Likewise negatively, when the agent has the right of directly placing an external act which is harmful to another, even if he acts from the intention of harming. The reason is that a wicked intention cannot make unjust what of itself is just, since it cannot change the nature of the external act. Hence a judge does not sin by an external act against justice by condemning a murderer, out of hatred, to the death deserved; nor a merchant by selling his merchandise at the lowest price so as to deprive other merchants of profits. - Thus most commonly according to Vogler, n. 402, with Lugo, d. 8, n. 79, and d. 18, n. 98.

Resp. 3. But affirmatively, if the external work is indifferent to harming or not harming, apart from the direct right of the agent; for then often the wicked intention determines the external work, so that it becomes harmful. Therefore you do not indeed sin against justice by accepting a thing from the hands of a thief in order to restore it to the owner; but otherwise if you accept it in order to retain it. Nor do you do injury to a friend by taking his book so that you may run through it in passing; but otherwise if in order to steal it.

604. • Q. 4. What if an external work is indeed placed from a bad intention, but it is not truly probable that damage will follow?

Resp. It is disputed among very grave theologians. But the state of the question will be clearer from the following examples. 1. Someone places poison or a snare in a place in which his enemy very rarely passes, but with that intention, that he may be killed if perhaps he passes. 2. A physician uses all the diligence to which he is held, but does not wish to use greater diligence out of hatred, so that the death of the sick man may follow. It is asked whether they are the cause of an unjust death, if in fact it follows. There is a twofold opinion.

The first opinion, which seems the more common, denies. The reason is that on the one hand the external act is not unjust, since the mere possibility of another's damage ought not to be attended to in human affairs; on the other hand the internal act is not made injurious by reason of intention, since intention does not flow into the efficacy of the cause, or into the danger of damage. Wherefore it must be called a cause merely by accident, nor does a wicked intention change its nature. - Thus Lessius, lib. 2, c. 9, n. 133 ². Vogler, n. 404, and not a few others. The second opinion, however, affirms, resting on a foundation not weak. The reason is that in the aforesaid cases homicide is certainly against justice, and is not excused except insofar as it is involuntary. But the intention renders it voluntary. For, intention set aside, it is therefore not voluntary because the one placing the cause is not judged effectively to will the effect, since the effect is not probably connected with the cause; but intention supplies that connection and brings it about that the one operating is the true cause of it, since the intention of the one operating conduces much to the character of cause. Therefore, etc. - Thus Lugo, d. 8, n. 75. - The Salmanticenses. - Lugo moreover warns that in the aforesaid cases, for the character of injury, the foresight of the possibility of damage does not suffice, but the intention of procuring it is also required.

² Cardinal De Lugo (De Iust., disp. 11, n. 80) observes that Lessius, who very often taught that that diversity of intention by which someone does something out of hatred or so that damage may follow matters nothing, so that therefore the obligation of restitution follows, ... at last recurs to that diversity of intention in order to posit or deny the obligation of restoring for damages following from killing... Whence he admits that if one should kill to this end, that the damage of others would follow, he would indeed be held to restitution... He concedes the same thing... with respect to the creditors of the one killed, to whom, if, so that you might harm them, you killed their debtor, you are held to restore the debts which otherwise they could not recover.

Moreover, this inconstancy of doctrine is seen not only in Lessius, but also in others, whom one may see in St. Alphonsus (lib. 3, n. 633). And he indeed, in order to avoid this note, replies that in the aforesaid case not only is there a wicked internal intention, but this breaks forth into a force externally unjust, according as it is the homicide of the debtor, from which the intended damage of the creditors follows. But indeed the difficulty does not seem to be solved by these things, or Lugo's doctrine refuted. For the same killing of the debtor, as St. Alphonsus himself acknowledges, is judged or is not judged the cause of the creditors' damage, and therefore unjust toward them, solely according to the intention of harming or not harming; for otherwise the killer will be held to restitution even if that wicked intention is absent, because an action, if of itself it brings injury to another, imposes the burden of restitution, even if the intention of harming is absent, provided the damage was foreseen. Since, therefore, the exterior force itself becomes unjust toward the creditors only from internal intention, the foundation of the distinction which is assigned between this and the other cases collapses.