The Nature of Justice

Nature of Justice.—In God justice is an attribute in virtue of which He so treats His creatures that they can have no well-founded complaint against Him: “His own justice supported Him. He put on justice as a breastplate” (Is, lix. 16, 17). In man it is goodness towards God or towards neighbors; and it is called in Scripture by various names, such as “justice,” “equity,” “truth,” “righteousness.”

(a) In a wide sense, justice signifies the general virtue of holiness, or the collection of all the virtues, as when Our Lord says: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice (i.e., holiness)” (Matt., v. 6). Holiness, as a supernatural life communicated to the soul, is also called justice or justification: “The justice of God by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe in Him” (Rom., iii. 22).

(b) In a strict sense, it signifies the special moral virtue that consists in a firm purpose of the will to give to everyone his due or right: “Love justice, you that are judges of the earth” (Wis., i. 1); “If in every deed you speak justice” (Ps. lvii. 2). In its strict sense the word “justice” is hereafter used.

Definition of Right.—Right signifies originally that which follows a straight course or does not deviate from the true standard, as in the expressions “right ahead,” “to be in the right.” But in moral matters right has the derived meaning of that which is good, proper, suitable; and in general it is of two kinds, objective and subjective, the former being the foundation of the latter.

(a) Objective right is that which is prescribed by law, or it is the law itself as the rule and standard of what ought to be done, especially in the relations of men towards one another. In this sense there is a twofold right, natural and positive, according as reason itself or free will imposes a law (see 286, 296).

(b) Subjective right is that relationship introduced between men by reason of the laws governing their conduct one to another, which gives to one an authority to exercise certain capabilities (active right, right properly so-called), and imposes on another the necessity of respecting that authority (passive right, duty).

Right properly so called is defined as the moral power of doing or possessing something.

(a) It is a moral power, that is, a power created by the moral law giving one a true title and forbidding others to interfere with its enjoyment and use. It is not a physical power, for might does not make right; on the contrary, he who has moral power is sometimes hindered from exercising it by another who has physical power. Nor is it a mere legal power, or capacity to act validly and within human law, but an ethical power that enables one to act licitly before God and conscience.

(b) It is a power to do (e.g., to labor) or to have (e.g., to own land). The former includes also the moral power to forbear action (e.g., to rest on Sunday), to require that another act (e.g., pay what he owes me), or that he forbear action (e.g., keep off my property); while the latter includes also the power to acquire, to use, to transfer, etc.

Divisions of Right.—(a) By reason of its source, or of the law from which it springs, a right is either natural (e.g. the right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness), positive-divine (e.g., the right to receive the Sacraments), positive-human (e.g., the right of parishioners that Mass be said for them by their pastor, the right of citizens to vote and to be voted for). (b) By reason of its term, or of the power which it confers, a right is strict (legal) or non-strict (moral). One has a strict right when something is due one, because it is one’s own by a proper and exclusive title (e.g., the right to life and property). One has a non-strict right when something is due one, only because it is something common that is to be distributed and one is a deserving member of the community (e.g., the right to receive an appointment from the government), or because virtue (e.g., the right to receive gratitude for benefits shown) or the perfection of virtue (e.g., the right to be treated with liberality or affability or friendship by others) requires it.

Natural rights are subdivided as follows:

(a) in respect of their object, some rights are absolute, as being based on nature alone (e.g., the right of a child to support from its parent arises from natural origin); or they are relative, as being based on nature in its relation to concrete and contingent facts (e.g., the right of an owner to private possession of his land arises from the nature of land, which was made to serve man, and from the contingent fact that it cannot serve man as a rule without private ownership);

(b) in respect of their source, some rights are innate, that is, they are had from birth by the very fact of human nature (e.g., the right of life in the newborn child); others are acquired, that is, obtained in course of time through some contingent fact. Thus, titles to goods of fortune which the owner is the first to possess (original titles) are obtained by occupation and accession; titles to goods obtained from others (derivative titles) are obtained through prescription, inheritance, contract;

(c) in respect to their firmness, some rights are alienable, that is, they are such as may be renounced or superseded lawfully, since they are not obligatory (e.g., the right to marry, the right to drink alcohol); while others are inalienable, that is, not subject to renunciation or deprivation, as being obligatory (e.g., the right to repel temptation, the right to serve God).

Signs by which Strict and Non-Strict Rights May Be Distinguished.—(a) That to which one has a strict right belongs to one as one’s own, and hence it must be determinate or determinable. The right of a beggar to receive some assistance from someone is not a strict right, since it cannot be urged against any particular thing or any individual person; but the right of a creditor is a strict right, since it can be urged against the debtor for a definite amount.

(b) That to which one has a strict right is owed in justice, and hence it may be enforced by legal means, or in case of need by physical force. The right of a child not to be slighted in the distribution of presents made by its parents, the right of a person who has had a falling out with another that the latter shall accept advances for a reconciliation, and the right of a benefactor that the beneficiaries show signs of gratitude, are not strict rights, because they cannot be enforced in courts of justice, but the right of a laborer against his employer is a strict right, since it can be vindicated by legal means. It should be noted that a strict right is one that is granted as a proper, exclusive and enforceable power by any law, whether natural or positive, and hence the fact that human law will not vindicate a right (e.g., the right arising from a contract naturally good, but legally not defensible, the right of a parent to his child’s respect) does not prove that the right is not strict.

A strict right to have or to own is either in re or ad rem. (a) A right in re (real or complete right) is the right to that which one already lawfully has as one’s own (e.g., the right that Caius has to the wages paid him by Balbus). (b) A right ad rem (personal or inchoate right) is the right to that which one is entitled to obtain as one’s own (e.g., the right that Caius has to receive the wages promised him by Balbus).

Legal Enforcement of Strict Rights.—(a) The right in re authorizes recourse to a real action (actio in rem), that is, to a suit against the thing itself, no matter where it be or by whom it be held, as when one sues to recover one’s property through the ejectment of a wrongful possessor; for the thing is immediately and juridically bound to him who has the right, as being his own.

(b) The right ad rem enables one to enforce one’s claim by a personal action (actio in personam), that is, to bring a suit against a definite person on whom one has a claim by reason of contract, domestic relationship, fiduciary position, etc., as when one sues for recovery on account of the non-fulfillment of the conditions of a compact.

The right in re to property is either perfect or imperfect.

(a) A perfect right (right of full dominion) is that which enables one to exercise all the prerogatives of ownership, that is, to dispose at will of an object (e.g., to sell, lend, give away, etc.), to use it (e.g., to occupy a house, to make alterations in it, to tear it down, etc.), and to exclude others (e.g., to put a fence about one’s property to exclude the public).

(b) An imperfect right (right of partial dominion) is had when one is restricted as to the right of the disposition of one’s goods, for example, when one is forbidden to sell; or when one has the right of disposition without the right of use, for example, when one is forbidden on account of the vows of religion to use property one owns (radical dominion); or when one has the right of use without the right of disposition, for example, when one is forbidden to make permanent alterations in a house one occupies as tenant (indirect or useful dominion); or when one has the other rights of ownership but lacks the right of exclusion, for example, when one may not exclude a neighbor’s flock from grazing in one’s pasture (ownership subject to servitude).

The Subject of Justice, or the Faculty of the Soul in Which It Exists.—(a) Justice is not in the intellect, for we are not called just because we know a thing rightly, but because we act rightly; (b) nor is it in the sensitive appetite, since a sense faculty does not apprehend the relations between rights and duties; (c) hence, justice is in the rational appetite or will.

The Objects or Subject-Matter of Justice.—(a) The material object of justice (i.e., all those things with which it deals) is remotely the external things which are the objects of exchange and distribution among men, and proximately the actions by which they are exchanged or distributed.

(b) The formal object of justice (i.e., that which it principally intends in dealing with its material object) is that the rights of others, or their inviolable moral power of doing, having or acquiring, may be respected. Justice thus differs from charity. For charity is owed also to self, justice only to the neighbor; charity considers the neighbor as he is one with self and gives him what belongs to self, while justice considers the neighbor as he is distinct from self and gives him what belongs to him.

Since justice is shown not to self but to another, it is not so fully-realized when two persons are in some sense one.

(a) Parent and child are especially one, since the child is from the parent and a part of the parent, and hence the natural obligations that spring from their special relationship pertain to the virtue of filial and paternal piety, which is not strictly justice, but obliges more strictly on account of the greater rights involved. But obligations that spring from relationships that are common (e.g., from a contract between a father and his son) pertain to strict justice; for in these relationships they treat with one another, not as father and son, but as man and man. Employer and employee may also be considered as one, inasmuch as the latter is the agent or instrument of the former, and the same conclusions may therefore be applied to them.

(b) Husband and wife are less perfectly one than parent and child and than master and servant, for neither is descended from the other, and neither is servant to the other. But since they form one conjugal society and the husband is head of the wife, they owe one another stricter obligations than if they were strangers to one another, although those obligations partake less rigorously of the character of justice.