§ II. On the Subjective and Integral Parts of Justice

The subjective parts of justice are those which participate in the general reason of justice, or in which the conditions required for justice, namely otherness, debt, and equality, are verified. They are verified in commutative, distributive, and legal justice, as follows from what has been said and will be clearer from what is to be said. We must speak of each.

I. Commutative Justice. 1. Notion. Commutative justice is justice inclining an individual man to render to another individual his own right, that is, a strict right, or a right founded on the special destination of a thing for the advantage of some individual. But note that even a moral body or society is sometimes in the manner of an individual or private person. It is called commutative because it chiefly occurs in exchanges and contracts (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 61, a. 2; St. Alphonsus, III, 486).

2. Opposed vices. To commutative justice is opposed a vice by which the strict right of another is injured without title. This is done in goods of fortune by the sin of theft, robbery, and fraud of every kind; in goods of the body, by the sin of homicide and mutilation; in goods of the soul, by the external sin of infamy, contumely, whispering, violation of a secret, and by the internal sin of rash judgment; in goods of marriage, especially by the sin of adultery.

II. Distributive Justice. 1. Notion. Distributive justice is justice inclining the ruler to render to the members of society, as such, their own right, that is, goods¹ which belong to them in view of their capacity, merits, and necessity. It is called distributive because it is primarily occupied in the act of distributing by the ruler; secondarily it is in the members insofar as they subject themselves to a just distribution (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 61, a. 1; St. Alphonsus, cited place).

2. Opposed vices. To distributive justice are opposed, on the part of the ruler, every sin of acceptance of persons, whether internal or external; and on the part of the subject, every sin of murmuring, whether internal or external (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 63, a. 1).

¹ According to others, distributive justice is also occupied around burdens; but with respect to burdens there is required a debt to society, which belongs to legal justice; but with respect to goods, a debt is rendered to a member, which belongs to distributive justice. According to others, distributive justice is indirectly occupied around burdens, insofar as the ruler, by imposing a burden on one, frees another from a burden, which has the reason of a good. But freedom from a burden is rather, and at most, a quasi-consequence of legal justice exercised, than a good granted by distributive justice.

III. Legal Justice. 1. Notion. Legal justice is justice inclining the ruler and the subject to render to society, as such, its own right, that is, the good which is owed to society, as such, with regard to its end, which is to provide for the common good. It is called legal "because it belongs to law to order toward the common good" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 58, a. 5; St. Alphonsus, cited place). It is also called social,¹ because it regards the good of society and is exercised by men joined in society. It is also called general or universal, insofar as the acts of diverse virtues can be directed to the common good or be placed from the motive of the common good. Moreover, legal justice too is a special virtue according to its essence, insofar as it regards the common good as its proper object. But it is "in the ruler principally and as it were architectonically; in subjects, however, secondarily and as it were administratively" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 58, a. 6). Therefore in the ruler it is exercised especially by establishing laws useful for the common good and by preserving right order; in the subject, chiefly by fulfilling laws insofar as they serve the common good.

2. Opposed vices. To legal justice is opposed, besides contempt of the common good, the transgression of a law enacted from the motive of the common good, that is, of a good owed to the community, as such, such as a military or tributary law, as will be explained more fully in its place.

There is also a justice which is called vindicative, and which inclines one to inflicting just punishment on the guilty: just punishment, I say, by which the injured order is repaired and injuries to order are guarded against. Now, with its ends considered, it seems to regard the common good and to be reduced to legal justice, unless, which seems not altogether improbable, it must be held as a special virtue and a potential part of justice which in a private person is called vindication (n. 407).

Objection. Vindicative justice seems to be reducible to commutative justice, because it concerns rendering a debt according to equality of thing to thing.

Response. It concerns rendering a debt according to equality of thing to thing, that is, to a thing specially destined for the advantage of someone, I deny; according to equality proportionally defined (n. 379), I concede. Now commutative justice seems to regard only the former equality.

Nevertheless, by force of a tacit contract, a judge is bound by commutative justice to discharge his office rightly.

Corollary I. Besides commutative justice, concerning which there is no dispute, the reason of justice truly belongs also to distributive and legal justice. The reason is that the three conditions required for justice according to the explanation given above are found in each.

Corollary II. Commutative, distributive, and legal justice differ in species, because their formal object, that is, the reason of debt as founded on a morally diverse title (n. 379), is morally diverse.

Corollary III. Although the reason of justice truly belongs to the aforesaid justices, it is nevertheless doubted whether or not justice is divided into them as a genus into species, or in other words whether the division of justice into commutative, distributive, and legal justice is univocal or only analogical. On this point first observe that a division of a genus into species is had when the species or parts of the division participate perfectly in the reason of the genus. Now some deny that the division of justice into commutative, distributive, and legal justice is a division of a genus into species, because the reason of justice is found perfectly in commutative justice alone, and not in the others. In it there is the perfect reason of another, since ordinarily it has reference between two equal and independent individuals or quasi-individuals; the perfect reason of debt, since it is founded on the strict right of another; and the perfect reason of equality, namely arithmetic equality. The other two justices lack this perfect reason: distributive justice lacks the perfect reason of another, since it is constituted in the relation of the whole to the part; it lacks the perfect reason of debt, since greater dignity or more suitable capacity does not furnish a strict right, and consequently neither a strict debt; it lacks the reason of equality, since it claims for itself only geometric equality. The same must be said of legal justice: it falls short of the perfect reason of another, since it is between the part and the whole; it falls short of the perfect reason of debt, since its debt has its foundation only in the ruler's power of jurisdiction; it falls short of the perfect reason of equality, since it regards only equality of necessity.

Others admit the contrary, because the reason of justice is found perfectly both in commutative justice and in distributive and legal justice. For justice is the habit of rendering to each one his own right; hence the concept of the genus of justice involves rendering a debt to another proportionately. Now the concept of debt imports nothing other than debt as such, no matter in what title it is founded; the concept of another imports nothing other than someone distinct; the concept of rendering proportionately as such regards both arithmetic proportion and another kind. But if these things are true, the reason of justice is found in the three justices in every way, or perfectly, and therefore justice is divided as a genus into three species. Who will disentangle these involved matters!

¹ Cf. the encyclical of Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931.

IV. Integral Parts of Justice. According to St. Thomas (II-II, q. 79, a. 1), the integral parts of justice are two, namely: 1. to do good under the reason of debt, whether in relation to the community or in relation to the neighbor; 2. to decline from evil under the reason of what is harmful, whether in relation to the community or in relation to the neighbor. These, namely, are required for perfect justice. For "it belongs to the same thing ... to establish something, and to preserve what has been established in those things which are toward another. But someone establishes the equality of justice by doing good, by rendering to another what is owed to him; and he preserves the equality of justice already established by declining from evil, that is, by inflicting no harm on the neighbor" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 79, a. 1).