§ II. On the General Principles of Justice

Commutative justice obliges under grave sin, and with the burden of restitution.

532. • Proof of the first part. For commutative justice aims to preserve unharmed the natural independence of private persons ¹. But the violation of that independence per se is a grave disorder against the right of the neighbor and the dominion of God; therefore, etc. I said per se, because in this matter smallness of matter is admitted, as is clear to all.

¹ For this somewhat obscure principle another common one can be substituted without loss, namely that it is proper to justice to preserve to each one his right, and that violation of another's right from its genus expresses a grave disorder.

Proof of the second part. For justice regards equality of thing to thing; but injury to this cannot be repaired except by restitution. Therefore as long as inequality remains, the obligation of repairing it remains; and the one injuring sins by preserving the inequality, just as he sinned by violating it.

The other species of justice ² per se also oblige under grave sin, but not with the burden of restitution.

² Namely justice both legal and distributive, and also vindicative, if one pleases to admit this as a fourth species of justice.

533. • Proof of the first part. For injury to them brings in a grave disorder, since it gravely harms the necessary order of society.

Proof of the second part. For they do not oblige with the burden of restitution if the violation of them violates the strict right of no one. But such is the case; for strict right is founded on independence alone from other men ³. Moreover, the other species of justice, far from regarding man insofar as he is independent, bind him in the moral order by most strict bonds toward the society of which he is a member. Therefore... Thus by legal justice a subject ought to obey the just precept of his Superior ⁴; nevertheless, if, for example, he has become guilty of disobedience, he is bound to no restitution, but only to undergoing the punishment, if any be imposed upon him.

³ Perhaps you will have a clearer notion in those things which are found in § 519, where the definitions of right, both active and passive, are proposed.

⁴ Elsewhere (note to n. 518) we observed that obedience and legal justice are entirely distinct virtues. But acts of obedience, not otherwise than acts of other virtues, then put on the form proper to legal justice when they are ordered to the common good.

Nevertheless the other species of justice are often joined to commutative justice, and the violation of this induces the burden of restitution. Thus a magistrate or judge is bound to restore who, on account of grave negligence in punishing, is the cause why private persons or the community suffer grave damage; in which case he is guilty not only of the common good being neglected, to which legal justice inclines, but also of a violated contract, by which, in assuming office, he implicitly obliged himself to forestall the damages of subjects.

534. • Hence 1. the Prince cannot without a most grave cause take away from a subject, by law, his own thing, or an acquired right; because he can do nothing concerning the goods of private persons unless the reason of the common good entirely requires something.

2. Yet the Prince can, if at any time this is required for the common good, take away a thing from a subject ⁵; because a right to the end necessarily imports a right to the means without which the end cannot be obtained. But the public good sometimes requires that someone be deprived of his thing, for example, a field for constructing a public road, etc. But then the Prince, insofar as can be done, is bound to just compensation; because it is not equitable that one man be despoiled while the others remain untouched, as is established from natural and positive law ⁶.

⁵ This is what others commonly call high dominion, namely the right which belongs to the republic over the persons and goods of subjects, the public good requiring it.

⁶ In the use of this right, as is gathered also from the Author, these things are to be guarded: 1. necessity must demand it; 2. the use must not exceed the measure of necessity; 3. acceptance of persons must be absent, lest, namely, some be burdened while others in a similar cause and condition are spared. Thus, for example, very unjustly is it sometimes done when soldiers are assigned to lodging; 4. inflicted damages, insofar as can be done, are to be repaired.

535. • 3. A Superior is not bound to restitution if he distributes the offices of society to those less worthy; because he does not violate the strict right of the worthier person, nor of the community, which cannot require anything else than that the unworthy be kept away from offices. - St. Lig., lib. 4, n. 107, against some. But otherwise, if in a competition the Superior were to prefer one less worthy to one more worthy; because in a competition a pact intervenes, from which a strict right belongs to the more worthy.

4. A Superior who distributes merely honorary dignities, whether to those less worthy or even to the unworthy, is not bound to restitution; because he has deprived no one of his right, although he has sinned on account of acceptance of persons.

5. A Superior who appoints unworthy persons to public offices is bound to restitution toward the community; because by a quasi-contract he is bound to promote the good of the community. Indeed he is bound also to restitution toward private persons who suffer unjust damage in goods of fortune from unworthy ministers.