Article II: On the Obligation of Performing Military Service

632. The burden of undergoing military service is a special personal tax. They are bound to undergo it from obedience owed to law and from legal justice, on account of necessity, namely, the defense and conservation of the republic; unless someone is exempt by natural law, for example, on account of illness, or by ecclesiastical law, or by a just privilege of civil law, or is compelled to fight in a manifestly unjust war. Hence they sin against legal justice:

1. Who exempt themselves from the burden of military service by illegitimate means, for example, by mutilation of themselves, lies, corruption of a physician or magistrate;

2. Those designated for military service who desert it, unless they have a just cause for deserting, for example, grave danger to health; hence per se they would be held to return to military service, but often they are excused on account of the great penalties which await them;

3. But if they have freely enrolled themselves in military service by contract, those deserting or exempting themselves also sin against commutative justice.

633. A special question can be posed: whether, by those who in this way liberate themselves from military service, injustice is committed toward others to be substituted in their place? This has force in the case in which not all are called to military service, or de facto are not bound to it.

Response: a) They certainly violate commutative justice and are obligated to restitution who, by unjust means, for example, by corrupting physicians, directly act against a third person, namely, so that one apt may be declared who otherwise would be exempted. For anyone has a strict right not to be deprived of the good of liberty by an unjust action.

b) According to almost the common doctrine, those likewise are held to restitution who corrupt publicly hired physicians or magistrates by gifts, so that they themselves may be exempted without true causes and others consequently enrolled in military service: for thus they cooperate in the injustice of those who are bound by office to act according to the laws. He who is exempted by thus cooperating is held to restitution in the first place, since he himself receives the benefit of the injustice; then, however, magistrates and physicians also are held to it. In other words, those themselves who receive the gain and are holders of the gain, as holders of another's thing, are held to restitution; but if these do not restore, the magistrates and physicians are held because they are an efficacious cause of the damage, and thus they are held in solidum.

c) Probably they also hold as guilty of injustice those who liberate themselves by mutilation, feigned illnesses, or frauds, because, given a law of military service which does not enroll all, they cannot furnish this without necessarily transferring the burden onto others, and therefore they are an efficacious cause of the damage. Yet this is probably denied by others, because the whole obligation arises from the disposition of the law; hence they are only the cause of damage by accident; nor is it established that exempt youths have a strict right against those designated, that these should go to military service.

d) The same is commonly held for deserters from military service, namely, that they must restore nothing, even if another is substituted in their place, because another does not have a strict right that they not desert military service.

634. Observation. He does not sin against commutative justice who seeks only the benevolence of the physician, for he uses his own right. Likewise, if someone, in doubt concerning fitness or concerning a legitimate cause of exemption, were to corrupt physicians, he could not certainly be obligated to restitution, for the restitution to be made is doubtful, and in doubt officials can choose the exemption of someone. Indeed, he who withdraws himself from military service by emigrating does not seem to sin, because it is not a fraudulent but a legitimate withdrawal.