Article II. Supplements to the Doctrine

35. Justice is concerned with operations. Justice, especially particular justice, immediately rectifies, not passions, but operations,¹ and chiefly indeed external operations and the use of external things.² For because it is toward another, it immediately rectifies those acts which are terminated at another. These are generally comprised in external operations and the use of external things; and they are in no way the interior affections and passions through which a man is immediately well disposed in himself.

¹ Operation, which word is taken broadly for an act of any faculty, is strictly reserved for an act which of itself does not include bodily change. It is then opposed to passion (I–II, q. 22, art. 1). Operations are called external insofar as they are terminated outwardly, chiefly through transient actions by which we either act externally or use external things.

² Therefore, according to St. Thomas, II–II, q. 60, art. 3, ad 3, internal judgments pertain to justice only indirectly.

Immediately, I say. For insofar as movements of the passions are not infrequently the principles of operations by which justice would be injured, this virtue not infrequently commands the moderation of anger or of another passion.

What we have added—namely, that this is especially true of particular justice—is nevertheless not strictly proper to it. For since a good disposition of a part can be referred to the good of the whole, legal justice can exact acts of temperance and fortitude, at least external acts. Thus, for example, the law punishes public drunkenness.

36. Because justice is toward another and rectifies external operations, it is said to have a mean of the thing.

In acts of a non-theological virtue, someone can depart from the rule by excess and by defect. Hence the good toward which the moral virtues tend has the rationale of a mean. That mean can always be denominated, in some sense, a mean of reason, since reason knows and dictates what it is to be conformed to the rule. But in constituting that mean, if reason attends to the conditions of the acting person, the mean of the virtue is said to be only a mean of reason. But if it determines the mean by comparing thing with thing, or a thing with a person other than the acting subject, so that the individuating characteristics of the latter can be disregarded, the mean is called a mean of the thing.

Now, the equality of justice, which is its mean, is not constituted through comparison with the agent, since the rights of others are the “formal object cui” of justice. But that equality is introduced into the use of external things and external operations, or into something not intrinsic to the acting subject, which can be designated by the name thing. Therefore, it has a mean of the thing.

This is illustrated by an easy example. By the same quantity of food or drink, Titius will sin against temperance while Gaius will observe it; indeed, the same Titius, according to a state of health or sickness, will at one time sin and at another act according to virtue. But whether I am rich or poor, in a purchase there must always be paid, per se, as much as the thing which I buy is worth. Cf. II–II, q. 58, art. 10, and also I–II, q. 60, art. 2, and Molina, treat. 1, disp. 2, no. 5, who demonstrates the same thing by an example pertaining to fortitude.

37. The just is predicated absolutely. Because the mean of justice is a mean of the thing, actions and even external things are said absolutely to be just or unjust, without comparison with the acting person or his intention, although, if the intention is set aside, an action is only materially just. But something is not said absolutely to be temperate or not. (Cf. II–II, q. 59, art. 2, ad 3.)

38. The otherness proper to justice is otherness of supposit or personal end. That is, those things which must be rendered from justice properly so called belong to someone insofar as he is a distinct supposit and insofar as he pursues his personal good. For they belong to him insofar as he has rights. But a (rational) supposit is the subject of a right; and rights exist as means of pursuing a personal end. (Cf. II–II, q. 58, art. 2.)

39. Between father and son as such there is no order of justice properly so called. For when they are taken as such, the son in his origin is considered as something of the father; and the things which belong to the father are ordered toward the personal good of the son. Although they are physically distinct persons, morally they are then one person, one subject of right.³ Therefore the right of paternal authority, because it must be exercised for the good of the son, is strictly a right with respect to outsiders, but not with respect to the son. Therefore, although an outside person, by taking the son away from the father, would sin against justice, the son who refuses the duty of obedience does not violate strict justice.

³ Most Illustrious D. Waffelaert, vol. 1, no. 6; vol. 2, no. 398.

The remaining duties of piety by which the son is bound toward the father, such as furnishing sustenance, are not juridical; that is, they are owed from moral goodness, but correspond to no exigency of the father’s personality, or do not render that which is the father’s by personal title. Cf. C. de Lugo, disp. 1, no. 8.

On the contrary, a son who, against his father’s will, takes from him certain riches possessed by the father sins against strict justice. With respect to those goods, they are two persons. Cf. II–II, q. 57, art. 4.

40. In disp. 1, no. 26, C. de Lugo subtly inquires whether you can, from justice, pay the same debt twice, or pay a debt already extinguished. See him in the cited place.