ARTICLE I: ON THE NATURE OF JUSTICE

580. Definition. - The name of justice is used in a multiple sense, even in Sacred Scripture, and signifies 1° the complex of all virtues; 2° charity or sanctifying grace; 3° generally a right act; 4° any good habit; 5° finally the special virtue from the four cardinal virtues, which is defined by St. Thomas¹ as "a habit according to which someone by a constant and perpetual will renders to each one his right."

It is said 1°: "a habit," or a constant and perpetual will, as the definition pursues. Cf. n. 247.

It is said 2°: "by will"; for this is the subject of justice: "for we are not called just from the fact that we know something rightly" (namely what is to be rendered to each one), "... but we are called just from this, that we do something rightly" (or that we actually render to another his own right): "but the proximate principle of act is the appetitive power"; in the present matter not the sensitive, but the rational, power, or the will.¹

It is said 3°: "his right," i.e. the very thing which is owed to each one. Hence "it is proper to justice, among" or besides "the other virtues, that it order man in those things which are toward another":² and therefore "the proper operations of justice are exterior operations according as they are ordered to another."³ For "justice imports a certain equality, as the name itself shows; for those things which are made equal are commonly said to be adjusted; but equality is toward another."⁴ Wherefore someone can be called just toward himself only metaphorically.⁵

It is said 4°: "renders": namely by conserving the right of another, or not injuring it, or, if it has been injured, by repairing it.

581. Division. - The subjective parts, or species, of justice are general justice, which is also called legal, and particular justice, which is divided into commutative and distributive. For in however many ways someone can be compared to another, so many species of justice must there be. But as far as the present matter is concerned, someone can be related to another in three ways: namely either as a part to the whole, as a citizen to the city; or as part to part, as citizen to citizen; or as the whole to a part, as a Superior or city to subjects. The justice which makes man right or just in the first way is called general and legal: general indeed, because it pursues and intends the good of the city or republic, which is a certain general good; but legal because it strives toward that general good through law, whose function it is to procure the common good.¹ The justice which rightly disposes man compared to man in the second way is called commutative; for it is concerned with contracts, exchanges, and commerce, which are accustomed to be exercised between private persons. Finally, that which directs man compared in the third way is called distributive, because it has place in distributions of common goods and burdens; for it effects that both goods and common burdens are distributed to private persons in right order and by right reason.² Now commutative justice observes simple or arithmetical proportion; but distributive observes comparative or geometrical proportion. Namely commutative justice brings in an equality of all things, such as is between thing and thing, so that what is rendered is entirely equal to that which had been received; for example, if someone has received four coins by loan, he is bound to repay four coins to the creditor. But the equality which is observed by distributive justice is not of this kind, except by a certain proportion, namely that one receive so much more than another as he excels him more in dignity or merit; and thus there is not equality of thing to thing, but proportion of thing to person. It is called geometrical proportion, because as merit is related to merit, so reward is related to reward, so that if one having merit as eight receives one hundred coins, one having merit as four receives fifty.¹ In like manner the distribution of burdens ought to correspond to the unequal capacity of those upon whom they are imposed. Wherefore, other things being equal, greater taxes are to be imposed on the richer than on the less rich.

Legal justice "is in the Prince principally and, as it were, architectonically," because by making law he prescribes the manner of contributing to the common good; "but in subjects secondarily and, as it were, administratively,"² because namely they execute and fulfill the law. Distributive justice likewise is principally in the Prince and electors; yet it is "also in subjects, to whom distribution is made, inasmuch as they are content with a just distribution."³

582. Vindicative justice. - Some add this to the three species of justice just mentioned. It is defined: "justice inclining the prince to punish the guilty with congruous penalties for the good of society." Neither does St. Alphonsus commemorate this as a distinct species of justice, nor does St. Thomas⁴ hold it as such.