Article — Vermeersch, Questions on Justice
Article I. Formulation and Arguments of the Proposition
29. I. State of the Question. 1. THE INTENTION OF THE THESIS is directed toward simultaneously declaring and demonstrating the principal properties of justice approved by the common judgment of the doctors. Understanding them will assist us not a little in grasping various consequences which bring the rationale of justice to greater perfection.
Moreover, our proposition affirms that these are two properties of justice; yet for that reason we have no intention whatever of separating other properties from it, but omit the inquiry into how many there appear to be.
2. THE TERMS ARE EXPLAINED.
Properties: that is, qualities flowing proximately from the essence, and consequently pertaining to every species of justice properly so called and not common to the other virtues;
Of justice: of justice properly so called, I mean;
Are: to be, terminatively—that is, when considering the subject to whom the performance is made, to whom the debt is rendered—toward another, taken as such, or reduplicatively; and by otherness we understand otherness of supposits;
And to regard a debt. In what manner this is a property of the virtue of justice must be explained briefly. For most virtues, not to say all, have necessary acts and consequently in some manner regard a debt. But although the other virtues observe a morally inviolable order, they nevertheless do not perform only those acts which are necessary in order that the order be preserved. For the moral goodness which they intend, or their formal object, is not circumscribed by the rationale of debt, nor does it rest upon it. In the order which they govern, a certain moral goodness shines forth, and to pursue it is always praiseworthy and virtuous, whether the act is imposed upon the will or leaves a free choice. Then, because some of these morally good acts are joined by a necessary bond with the end willed by God, those acts are commanded to us by God; but their primary moral goodness is not derived from the obligation itself.
On the contrary, it is the proper praise of justice that it does what is owed, so that, if every rationale of debt is removed, the very moral goodness which it intends is removed. “The good,” says St. Thomas, “under the rationale of a debt pertains properly to justice.” II–II, q. 79, art. 3, corpus.
30. II. Proof of the Thesis.
1. To be toward another and to regard a debt pertain to justice as two things which proximately follow the essence of justice.
Proof. The essence of justice consists in this, that it equals each one’s right. For equality is the general form of justice;1 and the function of rendering a right is assigned to justice in the very definition of the first thesis.
1 II–II, q. 61, art. 2, ad 2.
But. From the fact that justice renders a right, it is proximately brought about that it is toward another; from the fact that it renders a right according to equality, it is brought about that it furnishes that which is owed, neither more nor less.
Therefore. Proximately from the essence of justice, we have that it is toward another and regards a debt in the manner which has been stated.
The first part of the minor is proved. Because no one has rights in relation to his own person. For rights belong to a man as a safeguard of his personality against others, not against himself. Moral inviolability enters into the rationale of a right, and it is therefore sanctioned so that someone may freely tend toward his personal end. But to what purpose is moral inviolability in relation to oneself, since no one can be constrained by himself? You can indeed abstain from using your right, but you can in no way violate it.
The matter is evident, and its more profound rationale is this. A right is violated when it both perseveres and is impeded. But a right designates a certain faculty. Therefore, in order that someone might violate his own right, it would be necessary for him simultaneously to have and not to have the faculty, because he would be impeded by his own action. These things conflict with one another.
The other part of the minor is proved. The right or just thing which justice renders corresponds to right taken subjectively. But since right taken subjectively is an inviolable faculty, nothing corresponds to it except a performance that is owed. There is neither a right to that which is not owed, nor therefore can there be justice. Therefore, to render a right according to equality is to equal the debt by the performance, or to do that which is owed, neither more nor less.2
2 R. P. Cathrein, op. cit., p. 271, aptly says: “If someone does not give all that he owes, he sins against justice; if he gives more than he owes, he no longer does it from justice, but from liberality.”
2. This otherness and this regard for debt do not pertain to the other virtues.
N.B. The comparison is instituted, not with the virtues which are referred to justice itself as potential parts—for these can participate in either property—but with the other virtues, whether principal virtues or those subordinated to principal virtues. Therefore it is in no way an obstacle that, for example, religion seems to be toward another; for it is annexed to justice.
It is proved. In order that a virtue be terminated at another reduplicatively, it must observe an order of which another is the necessary terminus; in order that it regard a debt, its object must borrow from its antecedent necessity all that moral goodness which the virtue intends.
But. Only the order which governs the coexistence of distinct persons (the juridical order in a broader acceptation) is necessarily terminated at another; and what moral goodness founded wholly upon an antecedent necessity can be indicated besides the moral goodness of furnishing that which someone’s personality, or his rights, exacts? But the juridical order, resting upon the distinction of persons, is entirely committed to justice.
Therefore. No other virtue is terminated at another reduplicatively, nor does it incline toward only that which is owed.
The same thing can be shown a posteriori by considering how, in the three other cardinal virtues, the right is taken only by comparison with the agent.3 This is evident concerning fortitude and temperance, which moderate the passions. It is indeed true that among the actions governed by prudence there are many which are terminated at others, since the very acts of justice are commanded through it. But in the case of prudence, attention is given formally to the perfection which the intellect of the agent receives from right reason concerning things to be done, and not to the manner in which the commanded action is terminated at another.
3 II–II, q. 57, art. 1. Cf. q. 58, art. 9.
You will demonstrate with equal ease that the other virtues range beyond the limits of precept and in no way imitate justice, which attains its acts under the sole rationale of debt.
III. Difficulties.
31. 1. EVEN COMMUTATIVE JUSTICE IS NOT ALWAYS TOWARD ANOTHER. For:
a) Satisfaction for an injury is its compensation according to the equality of justice. But Christ made satisfaction to Himself. Therefore the equality of justice does not require otherness.
b) A guardian pays to himself those things which are owed to him by the ward according to strict justice. Therefore.
Reply. I deny the assertion. And to the argument:
To a) I concede the major. I distinguish the minor. Christ as God made satisfaction to Himself as God, or as man to man, I deny; as man He made satisfaction to Himself as God, I concede.
For although Christ is one person, His hypostasis is nevertheless composite insofar as, after the assumption of human nature, it was made the principle of subsisting for this nature, and thus subsists in two natures. Therefore, as regards the present consideration, the person of Christ must be established as virtually twofold. To say the same thing in other words: because in Christ there is a twofold principle by which the person is constituted a subject of right, a twofold moral person, a subject of right, can be conceived in Him according to the consideration of reason. Thus, approximately, Most Illustrious D. Waffelaert, vol. 1, no. 6.
To b) I distinguish the antecedent. The guardian pays to himself as representing the person of the ward, I concede; in his own name, I deny. Moreover, he does not merit the praise of justice insofar as he pays himself.
32. 2. IN TWO SPECIES, AT LEAST, OTHERNESS IS LACKING. For, through legal and distributive justice, the order between the community and its members is observed as between a whole and its parts. But between a whole and its parts there is an inadequate distinction. Therefore, through those virtues an order is observed which is not perfectly toward another; and consequently the virtues themselves are not perfectly toward another.
Reply. I deny the assertion. And to the argument:
I distinguish the major. Through legal and distributive justice, the order between the community and its members is observed as between a whole and parts, yet the whole differs from the parts in supposit and personal end, I concede; between a whole and parts among which that distinction does not obtain, I deny. I concede the minor. Between a whole and its parts there is an inadequate distinction which can be joined, as in the present case, with a disparity of supposit and personal end, I concede; a distinction which is repugnant to this disparity, I deny. But the otherness which is required and suffices is otherness of supposit and personal end. For the rationale of a right coheres with the rationale of a supposit. Cf. what was said at the beginning, no. 5, and what is to be said below, no. 38.
Indeed, if, as in a physical whole such as man, the whole and the parts belonged to one and the same supposit, there could be no order of justice between them. But now, since a society is a person distinct from the persons who are its members, there is sufficient otherness for an order of justice to be possible between them.
For it to be possible, I say; for not every order between those two termini is governed by justice, but only those orders in which one owes something to the other by reason of the exigency of his distinct personality.
And here it must be observed accurately which orders are ascribed to legal and distributive justice.
Indeed, no one will deny that it is morally good or fitting for a part to consult the good of the whole, and for the whole to provide for a part.
Are these, however, the moral goods which legal and distributive justice intend?
By no means. Orders of this kind would not belong to justice. But the common good, which is the personal end of society, exacts that certain things be done by the members; and the personal end of the members also exacts that they be assisted by society. Hence a twofold right; hence the order of each justice. For the things which either legal or distributive justice furnishes, they furnish as owed by reason of one or the other of these two rights, and therefore as owed to another person.
You will say: Nevertheless, those things which the members furnish to the community redound mediately to their own good, and thus at length otherness sometimes fails.
We answer that this reflection into one’s own good is not always present. For what does he expect for himself from the common good that has been procured who, for the sake of that good, desires death, so that by the action through which he preserves the community he departs from that same community?
But if it is present at some time, we shall concede that the duty does not belong to legal justice except insofar as it mediately profits the other members, who are persons plainly distinct. Legal justice, as St. Thomas says,4 is “toward another in common, namely, insofar as he who serves some community serves all the men who are contained under that community.”
4 II–II, q. 58, art. 5.
And because one man in comparison with so great a multitude is morally as nothing, that reflection into one’s own good—which is not always present—can safely be neglected and disregarded.
33. 3. OTHERNESS IS NOT A PROPERTY OF JUSTICE. For charity itself orders us toward others, since many things must be done for one’s neighbor from charity.
Reply. Charity itself orders us only toward others, I deny; for a man’s charity toward himself is prior. It orders us also toward others, I subdistinguish: insofar as they are in some manner one with us in nature and in the vocation to supernatural beatitude, I concede; insofar as they are contradistinguished and independent persons, I deny. But otherness pertains to justice insofar as justice is not of a man toward himself but toward others reduplicatively as such.
34. 4. JUSTICE DOES NOT ALWAYS REGARD A DEBT. For he who, for the sake of security, pays a debt which probably does not exist exercises justice, even though objectively he is bound by no obligation.
Reply. I distinguish. He exercises justice either effectively or affectively, I concede; always effectively, I deny. Because he is moved by the intention of fulfilling whatever he may perhaps owe to the right of another, he merits the praise of justice through his affection; but if, on the part of the thing, he pays more than he owes, his external act does not belong to justice, any more than if through error he were to remain below the debt.