Article II. Formulation and Arguments of the Proposition

Justice properly so called is a cardinal moral virtue, according to which “someone, with a constant and perpetual will, renders to each one his right” (II–II, q. 58, art. 1).

13. I. State of the Question. Since, as regards the matter itself, the doctors agree almost entirely about this definition, it will suffice to explain briefly each of its terms.

Justice properly so called: that is, the justice which corresponds to the rationale of those acts that are particularly called just.

It is a moral virtue. A moral virtue: a) Is opposed to a theological virtue, insofar as through the latter we are rightly ordered toward the supernatural end itself,¹ while through a moral virtue we are ordered toward those things that are for the sake of the end; b) Is more strictly opposed to an intellectual virtue. The latter perfects the intellect; a moral virtue, on the contrary, perfects the appetite. Moreover, this stricter sense is the present use of the word; and the appetite in which justice resides is the rational appetite, or the will.

¹ I–II, q. 62, art. 2; and compare what is said in the preceding volume.

Cardinal. This word is attributed: a) To the four conditions of rectitude that are predicated of every virtue. For every virtue must be prudent, just, brave, and temperate; b) To the four special virtues² in which, by reason of the matter about which they are concerned, one of these conditions shines forth in a singular manner. Hence these virtues become principal virtues, to which the others are logically referred as to so many heads. Cf. I–II, q. 61, arts. 1, 3, and 4, and the preceding volume of our questions.

² A virtue is called special when, because of its distinct essence, it is numbered with the other virtues and is not merely a common designation of all or many virtues.

Because this principality pertains to the matter, it is in no way necessary that a cardinal virtue be simply more eminent or excellent than the virtues subject to it. Thus justice yields in dignity to religion.

Because the division is logical, it happens that a virtue subordinated to a cardinal virtue is in another power and is no more intimately connected objectively with the cardinal virtue than with any other virtue. We shall give the example of humility, which resides in the will and is referred to temperance, whose subject is the sensible concupiscible appetite.

In this place we take cardinal virtue for a special virtue.

According to which someone: a person, I mean, whether physical or moral, who is bound by a duty.

With a constant and perpetual will. St. Thomas employs the former word subjectively, the latter objectively: so that the will is constant insofar as it firmly perseveres in the purpose of observing justice; perpetual insofar as it intends to render a right, not in some particular case or for a time, but perpetually and in all cases (art. 1, ad 3).

Will: an actual will,³ as though you were to say: according to which someone constantly and perpetually wills.

³ St. Thomas, here, ad 1.

His right: taken objectively, or that which, according to the inviolable faculty of another, is owed to him.

To each one: namely, to a person or subject of right, whether a physical person or a moral person, that is, a community.

Renders: either by positively procuring what is owed under the title of justice, or by negatively (yet voluntarily) abstaining from the violation of a right.

14. II. Proof.

N.B. Take care to observe that the proper signification of a word is to be drawn from common or ordinary usage, with a philosophical explanation added insofar as this is necessary. That is, ordinary usage supplies the elements which must be unfolded by a scientific method. We borrow these elements, as our conclusion concerning the division of justice will make manifest, from the best-known species of justice properly so called, namely, commutative justice.

The argument is arranged in parts.

1. a) Certain actions (the same holds for omissions) are everywhere declared to be adorned with this proper praise, that they have been done according to justice; so that the man who performs actions of this kind is therefore called just. In these actions, assuredly, there is found the proper rationale of justice.

Again, if you examine what these actions are, you will easily see that they are those which are necessary, or which must be done, because of a title inhering in another, and which does not demand any special relation of someone to the person who is obligated, but can be present in every man.

If, concerning these actions, you wish to give an account by a continuous series of questions and answers, one following another, the series will have to be arranged approximately thus:

Why is such an action morally good? — Because it is just;

Why is it just? — Because it is owed to Titius;

Why is it owed? — Because he has a right;

Why does he have a right? — Because he possesses this thing, because he is a man, because it has been assigned to him by contract, etc.

In agreement with these things are the sayings by which rendering what is just is presented as something that must be furnished to everyone and as, so to speak, the least part of those things that must be done. Thus, for example, we are accustomed to say in French: Justice is owed to everyone; it is only justice; it is surely the least one can do.

But someone would not be said to possess justice who, as though by accident or only toward certain persons, satisfied this debt; rather, only he who so constantly renders a right to everyone that he reveals a permanent inclination within himself to act in this manner.

b) Thus far, ordinary usage. Now, however, as is evident from moral philosophy, that which is owed equally to everyone is the observance of their rights. Rights, however, are observed by rendering to each one his own right.

Therefore, justice properly so called is a habit by which someone, with a perpetual and constant will, renders to each one his right.

2. But this habit:

a) Does not permit abuse: no one uses it badly;

b) Rectifies our operations, and indeed those of the rational appetite:

Appetite. For although acts of the cognitive faculty, if they are true, are called just, the man himself is nevertheless not called just because he has judged true things.

Rational. For the proportion of one thing to another, which is considered in justice, exceeds the sensible faculty. This virtue pertains to the will and resides in it as in its subject.

Therefore justice is, in the strictest sense, a moral virtue.

3. Finally, it is a cardinal virtue. For:

a) That which belongs in some measure to all the virtues belongs more perfectly to this virtue, namely, to do what is owed. For the debt corresponding to a title inhering in another is a perfect debt; and justice discharges it adequately. The performance equals the debt in quantity. The other virtues, however, either render what is owed less strictly, as liberality and affability do; or do not equal the debt, as religion and piety do. For those things which we can furnish to God always fall below His merit. This also holds in some respect of a parent as the cause of our existence. Therefore, concerning the positive duties of justice, these or similar words are heard not infrequently: I now owe you nothing. But what well-born son would dare to blurt out anything of this kind concerning the obligation of piety and to declare himself released from every debt toward his father?

b) All the virtues by which we are ordered toward others are logically referred to that one which renders with exactness what is owed to others.⁴

⁴ For I owe another less strictly if the rationale of the debt is not the exigency of a title which the other possesses.

15. III. Difficulties may generally be compared in St. Thomas, II–II, q. 57, art. 1, and q. 58, art. 1. Most of them seem to have been sufficiently cut away by the very exposition of the notions.

1. Thus, if you object that justice is defined by St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae, ch. 25, as “love serving God alone,” it is sufficiently evident that he is treating charity, which is called the form of all the Christian virtues, inasmuch as it perfects them so that they are ways of arriving at the blessed life. He assigns to this informing charity the functions of the four cardinal virtues. But since to serve God alone⁵ is most of all owed to God, he rightly adorns this affection of charity with the name of justice—justice toward God, as he himself observes in the same place, no. 44. But for that reason he does not deny that, among the parts of that justice toward God, or among the virtues informed by charity, there is justice among men, with which he is in no way dealing in that place.

⁵ Deut. 6:13; Matt. 6:24.

2. JUSTICE SEEMS TO BE AN INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE. For:

a) Justice orders us toward others. But to order belongs to reason. Therefore, etc.

R. I distinguish the major. It orders formally, I deny. It inclines us to will this order toward another which reason proposes; consequently, it inclines us to that will for which the formal ordering is found in reason itself, I concede.

b) Judgment (the sentence of a judge) is an act of justice, and yet of the intellect. Therefore.

R. It is an immediate or elicited act, I deny. It is a mediate or commanded act, or one which follows through the mediation of the will to render to each one his own, I concede. But only an immediate and elicited act specifies a virtue and reveals its subject.