Article — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
Article I. On The Subjective Parts Or Species Of Justice
71. General or legal justice (which by some authors is also called social) and particular justice are distinguished. But particular justice is subdivided into distributive and commutative. Distributive justice is again subdivided by some into distributive strictly so called and vindicative. The individual kinds are explained. Therefore general or legal justice is distinguished from particular justice.
1. General or legal justice is the constant and perpetual will of rendering to the community (whether civil or ecclesiastical) its own right.138 Since man is by his nature a social animal, i.e. must live in human society, offices toward society also fall upon him. Therefore that virtue which perpetually and constantly inclines the will to fulfilling those social offices is deservedly called general justice, and indeed partly from its object and end, because namely the social good is a general good; partly from its effect and proper function, because upon this virtue falls the office of directing all acts and habits of man to the social and common good. Thus from the command of general justice the brave soldier fights strenuously; any citizen pays taxes and observes laws; the prince establishes good laws and urges their observance. General justice is also called, and indeed not undeservedly, legal justice, because its chief function is to establish and observe laws, since these are always necessarily ordered to the common good.
This general justice (or legal or social justice) is most necessary for the common good; for without it peace is disturbed, and many damages are also inflicted upon fellow citizens, and this especially if the governors of the community injure it by establishing unjust laws.
There are those who think that this general justice is not a special virtue, but a certain ratio common to every virtue; but better and more rightly with the Angelic Doctor139 general or legal justice is held to be a special virtue really distinct from other virtues. Certainly legal justice exercises a general force over all other virtues, ordering them to the common good, just as God also orders individual, even the smallest, creatures to the good of the whole world; but just as from this it is not lawful to conclude that God is something common and general (which would be Pantheism), so from the general force and influence of legal justice this cannot be called something common to all virtues. Besides, charity certainly is a special virtue, and yet it commands all virtues and directs their actions to its own end and object.140
2. Particular justice is the constant and perpetual will of rendering to individual persons (whether they be physical persons or juridic persons)141 their own right, and it is subdivided into commutative and distributive as into two distinct species.142
a) Commutative justice is the constant and perpetual will of a private person of rendering to another private person his strict right, with the absolute equality of the thing to be rendered to the thing received having been preserved.143 This part of justice receives the name of commutative justice because it especially has place in exchanges, for example in purchase and sale. But St. Thomas beautifully shows that this justice has place not only in purchase and sale, but in all the last six precepts of the Decalogue.144 Commutative justice is justice in the strictest sense; whence its violation involves an obligation of restitution.145
b) Distributive justice is the constant and perpetual will inclining the prince of some community to distribute rewards, dignities, honors, and also common burdens (and - when the case occurs - punishments also) among individual subjects according to the proportion of merits or capacities. Therefore in distributive justice absolute equality is not observed (as happens in commutative justice), but equality of proportion. Distributive justice is indeed principally in the prince, who through it is inclined, with acceptance of persons set aside, to justly distributing common goods and burdens; but participatively it is also found in subjects, insofar as they are content with the equitable distribution made by the superior.
c) Vindicative justice is held by several theologians as a part of distributive justice; for it is the constant and perpetual will of the prince of distributing due and condign punishments upon guilty subjects. By other theologians vindicative justice is reduced to legal or general justice, because in inflicting punishments the public good must be cared for first of all. Finally, there are not lacking theologians who wish it to be a part of commutative justice, because superiors, from a quasi-contract entered into in the reception of office, are bound to punish guilty persons. - In so great a variety of opinions let each one abound in his own sense. If vindicative justice is considered insofar as it observes a just proportion between delicts and punishments to be paid, without doubt it pertains to distributive justice; but if it is considered precisely as conducing to the common good, it is commanded by legal justice; finally, if a judge through grave negligence omits the punishment of delinquents, he harms the common good, gravely fails in his office, and consequently is bound to restitution, because he has injured commutative justice.146
138 Ib. q. 58, a. 5.
139 Ib. a. 6.
140 Cf. ib.
141 In particular justice the term toward which justice is exercised is a private person, whether physical or juridic. But in commutative justice not only the term toward whom justice is exercised is a private person, but also he who exercises justice. Thus, for example, Peter renders to Paul the just price for a thing bought. In this act of commutative justice Peter and Paul are private persons. - Peter renders to the government the just price for a thing bought. In this act also of commutative justice each contracting party is considered as a private person. For then the government is considered as a private juridic person selling its wares, and not as a superior directing its subjects.
142 Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 61, a. 1.
143 Performance and counter-performance must be materially absolutely equal.
144 Cf. S. theol. 2, 2, q. 61, a. 3.
145 Cf. below n. 203.
146 St. Thomas (S. theol. 2, 2, q. 80, a. un. ad 1) says: "Vengeance which is made by the authority of public power, according to the sentence of a judge, pertains to commutative justice." The Angelic Doctor has similar things ib. q. 108, a. 2 ad 1. Yet from this it is not yet lawful to conclude that the whole of vindicative justice pertains to commutative justice. For the Angelic Doctor seems to speak of that case in which the judge punishes one subject who has injured another. Then certainly the judge is bound to inflict upon the first subject as much punishment as the evil inflicted upon the other was, so that there may be compensation and as it were commutation. But if the judge inflicts punishments to save the injured public good, then such vindication seems to pertain to legal justice. Billuart (De iust. diss. 5, a. 3) says that vindication is indeed an act elicited by commutative justice, but commanded by legal justice. Cajetan has similar things in the Commentaries on the cited places. Besides, this whole controversy is of small moment. See Lugo, De iust. et iure disp. 1, n. 69.