Article II. Formulation and Arguments of the Conclusion

General justice commands, as owed on account of the common good, those acts of the various virtues which are imposed upon citizens either by the positive law of the community or by their necessary connection with the common good.

44. I. State of the Question. 1. THE END OF THE THESIS is this: that through an accurate definition of the material and formal object, the very notion of legal justice may become manifest.

2. THE TERMS ARE EXPLAINED.

General justice commands. Acts which are the proper object of other virtues are said to pertain to some virtue by way of command when they are performed under the inclination of this prior virtue. Yet it is not required for this that the act effectively proceed from two virtues, one of which would, as it were, issue a command to the other.

It seems worthwhile to define a little more accurately the notion of a commanding virtue and a commanded act. An act of some definite virtue—for example, mercy—to which you are drawn by a different motive can be taken merely materially, or formally as an act endowed with that definite moral goodness. If you perceive yourself to be moved to that act only in the former manner, you have not properly commanded an act of that virtue: both because there is no act of a virtue unless the execution of the material act is clothed through the intention with the proper moral goodness of the virtue as with a form, and because an act of this kind can proceed even from a vicious command, as if you were to pour out alms merely from vainglory. Therefore, in order that a certain virtue truly and properly command the act of another virtue, it must, from its own motive, will that act together with the form or goodness of the other virtue, insofar as this appears useful for its own end. Thus, in bringing aid and relief to a needy neighbor, if you are impelled by mercy alone, you will have performed an act of mercy; if, disregarding the consideration of his misery, you intend merely to foster the union by which your neighbor is joined to you in Christ, you will have exercised charity alone; finally, if you formally refer the very affection of mercy to the love of God, to whom mercy is acceptable, then at last you will have commanded an act of mercy from charity.

For this reason, no special matter is assigned to legal justice, and the acts of the other virtues are said to be commanded, because this justice considers the acts as formally good by various kinds of moral goodness and then inclines toward them as necessary for the common good of the civil State, that is, as owed by the right of the civil State.

As owed on account of the common good. By these words we express the formal object of this virtue. Moreover, by owed we understand acts which must be furnished on account of the community’s own right. Take care to observe that we do not say simply, “from the intention of the common good,” a manner of speaking which is not free of ambiguity, but rather, “as owed on account of the common good,” so that the process is this: the exigency of the common good gives the community a right to which a debt corresponds. Legal justice inclines one to render this debt.

Acts of the various virtues. These acts, therefore, are the matter of legal justice. The words of the various virtues except no virtue. And indeed, according to St. Thomas,¹ justice can command the acts of all the virtues.

¹ II–II, q. 58, art. 5. Cf. also I–II, q. 96, art. 3.

Come now: by acts we understand both positive duties, or those which consist in doing something, and negative duties, or those which are fulfilled by a voluntary omission.

Which either. For not all acts pertain to legal justice, but only those which are contained in the two classes to be indicated presently.

By the positive law of the community. Under this name comes every law enacted for that community. It can be either divine positive law, such as the Jewish people had or the Church still has, or human law.

Or by their necessary connection with the common good. This is the other rationale by which certain acts enter the province of legal justice: if a manifest necessity of the common good demands them. For this, there is required an evident necessity for which one can provide efficaciously without a law.

Are imposed upon citizens. By these words the description of the material object which legal justice regards is completed. It is always an act of some virtue, but one which either acquires necessity from law or possesses it of itself in relation to the common good.

45. II. Proof. 1. CONCERNING THE FORMAL OBJECT.

That formal rationale must be assigned to general justice which a) preserves for the virtue the common rationale of justice, and b) shows it to be a special justice. But a formal rationale of this kind is nothing other than the rationale of a debt on account of the common good. Therefore, general justice commands acts as owed on account of the common good.

The minor is proved. The common rationale of justice demands that the formal object be to render some right; the rationale of a special justice requires that it be a right specifically diverse from the right of commutative or distributive justice. But there is no right unless a debt corresponds to it; nor is there a special right unless it is founded upon that proper need of a moral person of this kind, namely, that its members procure its good. Therefore, the formal rationale is nothing other than the rationale of a debt on account of the common good.

46. 2. CONCERNING THE MATERIAL OBJECT.

a) It commands the acts of the various virtues. For the common good demands certain goods and a good disposition of man manifested in upright works: both in relation to God, in himself, and in relation to others, whether fellow citizens or the community itself insofar as it is a person joined to him, a parent, etc. (Cf. 7 b and 49.) But those good dispositions pertain to the various virtues, as is evident; and, from the terms recited, it is no less evident that no virtue is excluded.² Therefore, the acts by which they are manifested are acts of the various virtues, and indeed in such a way that none is excluded.

² St. Thomas shows the same by this rationale (II–II, q. 58, art. 5): “But a part, as to what it is, belongs to the whole; hence every good of a part can be ordered toward the good of the whole.” Cf. I–II, q. 96, art. 3, with the notes of Cajetan; and Suárez, cited place, ch. 12, no. 7 ff.

b) Those acts are imposed upon citizens. For justice regards a debt. Cf. 30 and 32 at the end.

c) By the positive law of the community or by their necessary connection with the common good. For in order that sufficient provision be made for the good of that moral person which is the community, it is necessary that it be owed both that cooperation of the citizens which is manifestly required for the common good and that cooperation which society itself demands as conducive to that same common good.

But God, who established the right of the community, intends the efficacious procuring of the common good.

Therefore, acts are imposed upon citizens for this twofold rationale.

Most excellently, Most Illustrious D. Waffelaert:³ “That debt is according to a certain equality which must be measured by the necessity in which the commonwealth is placed.... Likewise it is called legal because it extends to all those things which have been established by law for the common good.”

³ De Iustitia, vol. 1, no. 4, note 20.

47. III. Difficulty.

The will to procure the good of the commonwealth has a special moral goodness. But the virtue which intends this can only be legal justice. Therefore, the intention of the common good will be its formal object; and the material object will not be circumscribed solely by necessary acts. Cf. Lessius, ch. 1, no. 11, and R. D. Pottier, nos. 23, 27, 28.

Reply. I deny the major; that is, I deny that there is a special goodness in this will, which is assuredly excellent.

For this will, according to the variety of the good which it intends, will pertain to various virtues. In those who by reason of their office must care for the commonwealth, it will pertain to commutative justice; if you attend to your conjunction with the commonwealth, the will will belong to charity, under which every morally good love is comprehended; if you attend to the rationale of a principle which inheres in one’s fatherland, recourse must be had to piety.

Therefore, only when a peculiar right of the community intervenes is there place for a special virtue.

But it is in no way established merely because that moral person is more worthy, because it is a community and not an individual man, that the virtues terminated at a moral person and those terminated at a physical person differ specifically from one another—unless you further teach that those persons stand as formally different termini, or, if you prefer, unless you show that the good which the virtue intends to furnish to the community pertains to the community in a different manner than to private persons. Thus, for example, he who steals a good possessed by the commonwealth will be said by no one to be guilty of an injury opposed to a commutative justice other than that which protects the goods of private persons. In like manner, he who loves his community exercises no new species of charity.

Moreover, the difficulty proposed would prove too much. For if the simple intention of a private or common good were to vary the virtues, and the latter intention constituted legal justice, then, just as the virtues which are terminated at individual persons differ specifically according to the good intended, so too would the virtues which regard the community differ; and as many species of legal justice would have to be distinguished as there are species of goods which can be procured for the community.

The unity of the virtue is finally preserved only if there is one sole rationale of the good. In the present case, that one rationale of the good is the equalization of the peculiar right with which the community is endowed. Cf. 8.