Justice

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Justice is here taken in its ordinary and proper sense to signify the most important of the cardinal virtues. It is a moral quality or habit which perfects the will and inclines it to render to each and to all what belongs to them. Of the other cardinal virtues,prudence perfects theintellect and inclines the prudent man to act in all things according to rightreason. Fortitude controls the irascible passions; and temperance moderates theappetites according as reason dictates. Whilefortitude and temperance are self-regarding virtues, justice has reference to others. Together with charity it regulates man's intercourse with his fellow men. But charity leads us to help our neighbour in his need out of our own stores, while justice teaches us to give to another what belongs to him.

Because man is aperson, a free and intelligent being, created in the image ofGod, he has a dignity and a worth vastly superior to the material and animal world by which he is surrounded. Man canknow,love, and worship his Creator; he was made for that end, which he can only attain perfectly in the future,immortal, and never-ending life to which he is destined.God gave him his faculties and his liberty in order that he might freely work for the accomplishment of his destiny. He is induty bound to strive to fulfil the designs of his Creator, he must exercise his faculties and conduct his life according to the intentions of his Lord and Master. Because he is under theseobligations he is consequently invested withrights, God-given and primordial, antecedent to the State and independent of it. Such are man's naturalrights, granted to him by nature herself, sacred, as is their origin, and inviolable. Beside these he may have otherrights given him by Church or State, or acquired by his own industry and exertion. All theserights, whatever be their source, are the object of the virtue of justice. Justice requires that allpersons should be left in the free enjoyment of all theirrights.

A right in the strict sense in which the term is used in this connection is not a mere vague and indefinite claim against others, which others are bound to respect, on any grounds whatever. We sometimes say that the unemployed have aright to work, that the needy have aright to assistance, and it may be conceded that those phrases are quite correct, provided that such a right is understood as a claim in charity not as a claim in justice. For, at least if we confine our attention tonatural law and ordinary circumstances, the assistance to which a man in need has a claim does not belong to him in justice before it is handed over to him, when it becomes his. His claim to it rests on the fact that he is a brother in distress, and his brotherhood constitutes his title to our pity, sympathy, and help. It may, of course, happen that positive law does something more than this for the poor and needy; it may be that thelaw of the land has given a legal right to the unemployed to have employment provided for them, or to the poor a legal right to relief; then, of course, the claim will be one of justice.

A claim in justice, or a right in the strict sense, is a moral and lawful faculty of doing, possessing, or exacting something. If it be a moral and lawful faculty of doing something for the benefit of others, it belongs to the class ofrights ofjurisdiction. Thus a father has the natural right to bring up andeducate his son, not for his own, but for the son's benefit. A lawful sovereign has theright to rule his subjects for the common good. The largest class ofrights which justice requires that we should render to others arerights of ownership. Ownership is the moral faculty of using something subordinate to us for our own advantage. The owner of a house may dispose of it as he will. He may live in it, or let it, or leave it unoccupied, or pull it down, or sell it; he may make changes in it, and in general he may deal with it as he likes, because it is his. Because it is his, he has aright to all the uses and advantages which it possesses. It is hisproperty, and as such its whole being should subserve his need and convenience. Because it belongs to him he must be preferred to all others as to the enjoyment of the uses to which it can be put. He has theright to exclude others from the enjoyment of its uses, it belongs with all the advantages which it can confer to him alone. Were anyone else to make use of the house against the reasonable wish of the owner, he would offend against justice, he would not be rendering to the owner what belongs to him.

The right of ownership may be absolute or qualified. Absolute ownership extends to the substance of theproperty and to all its uses. Qualified ownership may, in the language of divines, be direct or indirect. The former is ownership of the substance of a thing without its uses, such as the landlord has over a house which he has let. Indirect ownership is the faculty of using, but not of disposing of, a thing. When anything definite and determinate is owned by anyone so that he can say--"This is myproperty"--he is said by divines to have a rightin re. On the other hand if the thing has not yet come into existence though it will come, or it is not separate and determinate, so that he cannot say that it is actually his, but he nevertheless has a strict claim in justice that it should become his, he is said to have a rightad rem. Thus a farmer has a rightad rem to the harvest of the coming year from his land; when he has harvested his crop he will have a rightin re.

Ownership in the sense explained is the principal object of the virtue of justice as it regulates the relations of man with man. It sharply distinguishes justice from charity, gratitude, patriotism, and other virtues whose object is a claim against others indeed, but a claim of a less strict and more indefinite character. Justice between man and man is called individual, particular, or commutative justice, because it is chiefly concerned with contracts and exchange. Individual justice is distinguished from social, for not onlyindividuals have claims in justice against otherindividuals but a subject has claims against thesociety to which he belongs, associety has claims against him. Justice requires that all should have what belongs to them, and so the just man will render to thesociety, or State, of which he is a member, what is due to it. The justice which prescribes this is called legal justice. On the other hand, the individual subject has claims against the State. It is the function of the State to protect its subjects in theirrights and to govern the whole body for the common good. Authority for this purpose is given to the State by nature and byGod, the Author of man's social nature.

The power of the State is limited by the end for which it was instituted, and it has no authority to violate the naturalrights of its subjects. If it does this it commitsinjustice asindividuals would do if they acted in like manner. It may indeed levy taxes, and impose other burdens on its subjects, as far as is required by the common necessity and advantage, but no further. For the common good it has authority to compel individual citizens to risk life for the defence of their country when it is in peril, and to part with a portion of theirproperty when this is required for a public road, but as far as possible it must make suitable compensation. When it imposes taxes, military service, or other burdens; when it distributes rewards, offices, and honours; when it metes out condign punishment for offenses, it is bound to do so according to the various merits and resources of thepersons concerned; otherwise the State willsin against that special kind of justice which is called distributive.

There is a controversy among authorities as to whether commutative, legal, and distributive justice are so many species of one common genus, or whether commutative justice is in reality the only species of justice in the strict sense. There is much to be said for the latter view. For justice is something which is due to another; it consists, asAristotle said, in a certain equality by which the just and definite claim of another, neither more nor less, is satisfied. If I have borrowed a horse and cart from my neighbours, justice requires that I should return that particular horse and cart. Thedebt in its precise amount must be paid. Consequently, justice in the full and proper sense of the term requires a perfect distinction between debtor and creditor. No one can be bound in justice towards himself; justice essentially regards others. However, between the State and theindividuals who compose it there is not this perfect distinction, and so there is something wanting to the proper and complete notion of the virtue in both legal and distributive justice.

Therights which belong to every human being inasmuch as he is aperson are absolute and inalienable. Theright to life and limb, the essential freedom which isnecessary that a man may attain the end for which he is destined byGod, theright to marry or remain single, suchrights as these may not be infringed by any human authority whatever. A man himself even has noright to dispose of his own life and limbs;God alone is the Lord of life and death. But a man has theduty and theright to use and develop his faculties ofsoul and body, and if he chooses he may dispose of his right to use these faculties and whatever advantage they can procure him in favour of another. Noperson then can become theproperty of another human being, slavery in that sense is repugnant to the dignity ofhumannature. But a man may by various titles have theright to the labour of another.

All things inferior to man were created for his use and benefit; they fulfil the end of their being by ministering to his wants and necessities. Whatever, therefore, pertains to the animal, vegetable, or inorganic world may be brought under the ownership and made theproperty of man. The right thus to acquireproperty which is useful andnecessary for an orderlyhumanlife, is one of man's naturalrights, and it can not be taken away by the State. The State may indeed make reasonablelaws regulating and defining thepropertyrights of its subjects for the common good, but it cannot abrogate them altogether. Suchrights are antecedent to the State, and in their substance independent of it; the State was instituted to protect and defend them, not to take them away.

Rights are the appanage of intelligent beings as such, beings who can reflect on themselves,know their own wants, and who can will to supply them by permanently appropriating to themselves objects which are subordinate and which will satisfy those wants. Every human being, therefore, is the subject ofrights, even before he has been brought into the world. The unborn child has aright to its life; it may even havepropertyrights as well. Justice then is violated if suchrights are interfered with unwarrantably. Minors and marriedwomen have theirrights like others, but positive law frequently modifies theirpropertyrights for the common good. In past ages thepropertyrights ofwomen especially were largely modified by positive law on their being married, the husband acquiring more or less extensiverights over theproperty of his wife. In modern times, and especially in English-speaking countries, the tendency has been to do away with such positive enactments, and to restore to marriedwomen all thepropertyrights which unmarriedwomen possess.

Not onlyindividuals, butsocieties of men as such are the subjects ofrights. For men cannot singly and by their own unaided exertions do everything that isnecessary for the security and dignity of human existence. For this end man needs the co-operation of his fellows. He has then a natural right to associate himself with others for the attainment of some lawful end, and when suchsocieties have been formed, they are moralpersons which have theirrights similar to those of naturalpersons. Suchsocieties then may ownproperty, and although the State may makelaws which modify thoserights for the common good, it is beyond its power altogether to abrogate them. Men have this power to form themselves intosocieties especially for the purpose of offering toGod the public and social worship which is due to Him. TheCatholicChurch, founded byGod Himself, is a perfectsociety and independent of the State. She has herrights, God-given, andnecessary for the attainment of her end, and justice is violated if these are unwarrantably interfered with.

As we have seen,humannature, its wants and aims, are the source of the fundamental and naturalrights of man. By his industry man may occupy and annex to hisperson material things which are of use to him and which belong to nobody else. He thus acquiresproperty by the title of occupation.Property once acquired remains in the possession of its owner; all that it is or is capable of isordained to his use and benefit. If it increases by natural growth or by giving birth to offspring, the increase belongs to the original owner. By the same law of accession increase in value, even unearned increment as it is called, belongs to the owner of that which thus increases--"Res fructificat domino". Positive law may, as we have seen, modifypropertyrights for the common good. It may also further determine those that are indeterminate by thelaw of nature; it may even createrights which would not exist without it. Thus a father may by law acquire certainrights over theproperty of his children, and a husband may in the same way have certainrights over theproperty of his wife. When suchrights exist it is, of course, a matter of justice to respect them. Finally,rights may be transferred from one to another or modified by a great variety of contracts, which are treated of under a special heading. SeeCONTRACT.

The foregoing is in very brief outline thedoctrine on justice which has been gradually elaborated byCatholicphilosophers and divines. The foundations of thedoctrine are found inAristotle, but the noble, beautiful, and altogether rational edifice has been raised by the labours of such men asAquinas, Molina,Lessius,Lugo, and a host of others. Thedoctrine as it appears at large in their stately folios is one of the chief and most important results ofCatholic thought. It fully accounts for the peremptory, sacred, and absolutely binding character with which justice is invested in the minds of men. It was never of greater importance than it is nowadays to insist on these characteristics of justice. They disappear almost if not altogether in the modern theories of thevirtue. Most of these theories deriverights and justice from positive law, and when socialists andanarchists threaten to abrogate thoselaws and make new ones which will regulate men'srights more equitably, no rational defense of the old order is possible. It becomes a mere question of might and brute force. Even if some with Herbert Spencer endeavour to find a deeper foundation for justice in the conditions of human existence, it is easy to answer that their interpretation of those conditions is essentially individualist and selfish, and that human existence thus conditioned is not worth having; that the new social order peremptorily demands their abolition. TheCatholic doctrine of justice will be found one of the main safeguards of order, peace, and progress. With even balance it equally favours all and presses unduly on none. It gives the State ample authority for the attainment of its legitimate end, while it effectually bars the road to tyranny andviolence.

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