JUSTICE. - The Greek word δέμις has the same origin and the same meaning as the Latin word fas and indicates the ius divinum. Νόμος is what human law is called (from νόμο, I divide) and is the rule according to which the partition of a determined thing customarily is and must be made. Δίχη then means j., from the root dik, dic, that is, to indicate, to show. Δίχημος therefore is said of one who follows the direction and example of others, who acts according to customs and usages, that is, according to the rule. Τὸ δίχημον is twofold: φωτικόν and νομικόν; the first is determined by nature, the second by human law.
I. A SURVEY OF THE PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS OF JUSTICE
In its broadest meaning, j. signifies conformity in general, correspondence, aptitude for a determined end, congruity. In this sense one says that a clock, a machine, a measuring instrument, a forecast, a road sign, a calculation, the solution of a problem, etc., are just.
Restricting ourselves now to the religious-moral field, especially to the Christian one, three principal meanings of the term j. are found. In the first of them, it stands to indicate virtue in general, good in general; whence the just man, in this sense, is he who does his whole duty, who in no way violates the norm of conduct. In this sense the term j. is found already in Plato (cf. especially Rep. IV, 10, 433: «justice consists in doing one's own office»), for whom justice is the universal virtue harmonizing all duties, and in Sacred Scripture, especially in the New Testament. In this sense, in fact, St. Joseph is called «just» (Mt. 1, 19) and St. Peter reproaches the Hebrews for having put to death the one who had fulfilled justice as no one else (Act. 3, 14 ff.); in this sense Jesus is called «just» by Pilate (Mt. 27, 34), by the centurion (Lc. 23, 27); in this sense it is said that Jesus came to call not the «just» but sinners (ibid. 5, 32), that one must seek the Kingdom of God and its «justice» (Mt. 6, 32), that one must not do our «justice» out of regard for men (ibid. 6, 1), that in the universal Judgment the angels will separate the wicked from the «just» (ibid. 13, 49), etc.
In a second sense, j. signifies a determinate virtue, that by which one gives to each what is his due, that which inclines us to give to each his own. In this sense justice is already encountered in the Pythagorean school. «Justice is for that school first of all equality, that is to say correspondence between opposed terms; and properly it may be assimilated to the square number, that is to the equal multiplied by the equal, because it renders the same for the same. Coherently with this concept, but with an even more precise determination, the same school declares that justice consists essentially in the counterexchange» (τὸ ἀντιπεπονθός: G. Del Vecchio, La g., Rome 1946, p. 44 f.). In a particular way this concept of justice is found in Aristotle, who speaks of it at length, especially in book V of the Nicomachean Ethics. Clear indications of justice in this second sense are also had in Scripture. God, in fact, is often said to judge with justice because he gives to each his own (see especially the Psalms, e.g., 71, 2; 97, 9); in the parable of the servants it is said: «Go you also into my vineyard and what is just I will give you» (Mt. 20, 4), and masters are exhorted to give their servants «what is just» (Col. 4, 1), threatening grave punishments upon those who defraud the laborers of their just wage (Iac. 5, 4).
A third concept of justice appears with Christian Revelation. According to it, in fact, moral goodness is usually accompanied by the presence in us of sanctifying Grace (and, conversely, moral evil brings about the privation of it), whence the state of justice in the first sense indicated above comes to coincide with the state of Grace, the acquisition of justice with the acquisition of Grace, the loss of justice with the loss of Grace, etc. In this sense theologians speak of original justice, of the justification of the impious, etc., and the Council of Trent dedicated its sixth session to «justification».
Of the three senses indicated by the term j., the first is substantially identified with morality. The sources from which a complete indication of the norm of conduct may be drawn are, in the end, as it results from reason and from Revelation, both divine and human law (ecclesiastical and civil). While the end and the divine law are substantially immutable, human law can and must change, having no other task than that of applying the eternal and indefeasible demands of nature and of Grace to different times and different places. Moreover, human law necessarily has a statistical character, being modeled on an average. Human law can therefore become unjust for two reasons: either because it is transferred to times and places for which it is not suited; or because one insists on its application even in exceptional cases that fall outside the average line the legislator had in view. Thus arise all the problems of reforming juridical structures in order to adapt them to new times and new places, so as to apply in the best way the demands of natural and revealed law; and the institution of dispensation from the law and of epicheia: in general, all the problems regarding the law to be constituted, against the law constituted, in view of an ever deeper fulfillment of the supreme demands of the good.
What is at issue here is justice as the virtue by which one gives to each his own.
II. JUSTICE IN THE STRICT SENSE
The study of it requires a deeper examination of that "his own," that is, of the right that it wishes to give to each person. Every man, having a spiritual soul and therefore being a person, has a proper end to attain: the complete development of himself in the immediate and supernatural possession of God. To attain that end, man needs very many things: goods to nourish his vegetative life, to protect his existence from the elements and from the illnesses that endanger it, to cultivate his sensitivity and his intelligence, to manifest to God his complete submission, his gratitude, his indigence, etc. Such things, at least for the strict necessities, are of the person, belong to him; they are not the person, nor do they enter into constituting him physically, yet they belong to him; they constitute that "his own" which justice, in the sense now being examined, requires to be given to each person. "Mine," "yours," "his," etc., and, in general, every right indicates something that is not the person nor enters into constituting him physically; therefore it can be taken away without destroying the person; at the same time, however, it belongs to the person, is necessary for his complete unfolding; consequently it cannot be taken away without diminishing the person himself, without offending his fundamental requirements. Herein lies the difference between personal pronouns and possessive pronouns: the former stand for the person, the latter instead stand for something that is not the person, yet belongs to him. Herein also lies the special characteristic of right: it is at once something external and internal to the person. Being external, right can be violated without destroying the person; being internal, it cannot be violated without striking him deeply.
From what precedes it follows at once that justice presupposes otherness of persons. Through justice we go out of ourselves, we break with the care of our limited personality in order to occupy ourselves with our fellow men. Justice is for each of us the defense of persons distinct from ourselves.
Furthermore, justice has in view what is owed to others, not what one is free to give or not to give; and moreover what is owed to others because it is "theirs," because it belongs to them. Since justice is the virtue that inclines one to give to others what is "theirs," it is not in its power to give or not to give; and it must give for this precise reason, that it is a matter of something belonging to others.
And this leads to fixing other characteristics of justice: it has a minimalistic character, but it can also be carried out by force and prescinds from the spirit with which one gives or does not give. Minimalistic character: the object of justice is right, that is, what is indispensable for the person to be able, if he wishes, to attain his own end. Such words must evidently be understood in a human sense, taking into account the effective possibilities of nature as it historically presents itself and the weaknesses that in fact are lamented in it; but also in a rigorous sense: what is not indispensable for the attainment of the person's ends is not the object of justice. It can also be carried out by force: one is in fact faced with something that is owed because it belongs to the person, because it is "his"; taking it here even against the will of one who in fact, but wrongly, holds something in his possession, it takes nothing that does not belong to it; it does nothing other than take factual possession of what is already "its own." It prescinds from the spiritual attitude with which one gives or refuses: justice has no interest in whether one gives willingly or against one's will, whether one gives gladly or cursing; it matters only that one give what one must give; only the object of justice matters, not the spirit of the one who must carry it out.
III. JUSTICE AND CHARITY
These characteristics of justice appear more clearly from the comparison with what happens in charity. This too presupposes otherness of persons, not however insofar as they are different and opposed, but insofar as they are in some way (communion of origin, of destination, etc.) united among themselves, insofar as, while being distinct, they form in some way a single thing. Moreover charity tends to give even what is one's own, establishing first an equality among the different persons who love each other, then a situation of favor for the beloved person (one thinks of the mother who does not sleep so that the child may sleep more peacefully, of the wife who gives up something of her own to please her husband): it therefore has a maximalist character, at least tendentially.
Consequently, what is preponderant in love is the spiritual attitude with which one gives: one can give even a most precious thing and show no love, indeed offend the beloved person; while, on the other hand, one can give even a most modest thing and show a very great love, making the beloved person happy. By such a character of spontaneity and generosity, love cannot be demanded by force: it can be asked, it can be implored; it cannot be demanded at all.
IV. INJUSTICE
We now have all the elements needed to specify what injustice is. Of it too there are — in the religious-moral field — three concepts: one general, by which it means vice in general and every violation of the moral order; one more restricted, by which it means violation of the moral order insofar as it commands giving to each his own; finally a third, still more particular, by which it means the absence of sanctifying Grace.
Here too, for injustice, we limit ourselves to the second of the senses indicated, which is also the most frequent. For there to be injustice in that sense, there must be a violation of right in the strict sense; that is, there must be otherness of persons, it must be a matter of something owed to another because it is properly his, and this something owed must not be given. Therefore, strictly speaking, a bad action, a harmful action and an unjust action are not the same thing. An act can be bad without being unjust in the sense indicated (a blasphemy, for example, takes nothing away from God). An act can be harmful without being unjust: the State, expropriating for reasons of public utility, can cause a harm, but not an unjust harm. Conversely, however, every unjust act is also harmful and bad.
Among the many questions on which casuistry has long dwelt, it seems necessary to say a word here also about the following: 1) whether consentienti fiat iniuria; 2) whether one can commit injustice by a purely internal act; 3) whether one can commit injustice by depriving someone of the attainment of a good he does not yet possess.
On the question whether consentienti fiat iniuria there are two currents among authors: one, upheld in recent times especially by the Jesuit A. Vermersch (cf. Quaestiones de iustitia, 2nd ed., Bruges 1904, nos. 142-144, pp. 152-57), reasons in this way: right is something that, although ordered to the person, belongs to him neither metaphysically nor physically; it is therefore possible, even if not always lawful, to divest oneself of it; whoever does so can no longer suffer injustice; by consent precisely one divests oneself of one's right; therefore consentienti non fit iniuria. The principle, then, according to such authors, has a universal value.
The other current, on the other hand, which was said to have been championed by a group of theologians mentioned, without naming them, by Lessius (De iustitia et iure, Louvain 1605, ch. 7, d. 3) and by some modern authors (e.g., E. Ione, Comp. di teol. mor., Turin 1949, no. 323, p. 290), reasons in this way: the connection between the right and the person is not of a physical order nor dependent on the will alone; it therefore cannot be removed by the physical detachment of the thing nor by the consent of the will; consent therefore does not remove the injury, unless it is a matter of rights to which one can renounce.
The first opinion seems without doubt to be preferred. It will be necessary, however, that it be a true consent, not a fictitious one, and a consent by which one renounces one's own right (the consent by which one accepts what another unjustly does without opposing it is not enough, for example, as happens, e.g., in the case of martyrs). It will further be necessary to bear in mind that by such consent one removes from the action the specific malice of injustice, but does not remove every other malice: the action that the other performs can therefore be bad, even if not with that particular deformity that is characteristic of injustice. The second current seems to originate on the one hand from the confusion between a valid renunciation and a lawful renunciation, and on the other from the confusion between a bad action and an unjust action. No one can lawfully renounce his own right; often, however, he can validly renounce it: when a valid renunciation has intervened, the violation of the right always ceases to be an injustice, even if it can sometimes remain a morally illicit action. In any case, the Italian Penal Code links up with the first current, saying in art. 30: "not punishable is he who harms or endangers a right with the consent of the person who can validly dispose of it."
On the question whether one can commit injustice even by an internal act alone, it is necessary first of all to clarify the sense of the question. For it is one thing to ask whether by a purely internal act one can commit an injustice, and another to ask whether the mere will to commit an injustice is already an unjust action. To the first question one must answer without doubt yes. One need only think of rash judgment. To the second question, on the other hand, one must answer no. Certainly, if one takes the term j. in the first sense indicated at the beginning, the will to commit an injustice is already an unjust action. If, however, one gives the term j. the precise meaning determined above, the mere will to despoil and in any case not to give someone what is his does not yet of itself constitute the effective negation of that "his" and therefore does not of itself constitute an unjust act.
These remarks lead toward the solution of the third question mentioned above, namely whether one commits injustice even merely by preventing someone from attaining a good. Evidently one can deny someone his own either by taking away from him what he in fact already possesses, or by preventing him from attaining what he has a right to be able to possess (on this see DAMAGE; LOST PROFITS).
V. THE REPARATIONS OF INJUSTICE
It entails, besides repentance, the restitution of what has been taken away or the compensation of damages unjustly caused. This obligation is expressly affirmed, among other places, in Ex. 22:1-3, Lev. 6:2-5, and is clearly established by reason (v. RESTITUTION). It will be necessary, however, that there truly be a damage unjustly and culpably caused; if the damage is lacking, or if the damage is not unjust, one cannot speak of injustice; if the causal relationship is lacking, one cannot affirm the obligation to make reparation.
VI. DIFFERENT FORMS OF GIUSTIZIA
From the general treatment of justice we now pass to the question of the different forms in which it presents itself or can present itself. This is a much discussed point and in several respects still very obscure. The traditional conception, by now classical, divides justice into three species: commutative justice, distributive justice and legal justice. By the first the individual renders to other individuals what is theirs; by the second society renders to the individual what is his; by the third the individual renders to society what is hers.
Not all agree on the particulars: some indeed (e.g., A. Vermeersch, op. cit., n. 21 p., 17) divide justice into particular and general, then subdividing the latter into distributive and legal; others (e.g., St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor., l. III, tr. V, n. 486 [ed. L. Gaudé, II, Rome 1907, pp. 3-4]), pass immediately from justice to commutative, distributive and legal justice. However, all agree in admitting three species of justice: only the violation of commutative justice would carry with it the obligation of restitution.
A second current, represented especially by the Dominican M. Hering, maintains that the forms of justice are only two: commutative justice and distributive justice; what is usually called legal justice would be, according to him, nothing but a special virtue ordering the acts of the other virtues to the common good, or simply the assemblage of the other virtues without any relation to the common good. This would make intelligible, among other things, the absence of the obligation of restitution in violations of legal justice.
Finally a third current, quite small, tends to admit three forms of true and proper justice with the obligation of restitution for each of them. Thus, for example, J. Carrière, who writes: « Iustitia commutativa duplici sensu valde diverso apud auctores multos sumitur : aliquando idem sonat ac iustitia stricta; aliquando significat eam quae exercetur a privato erga privatum. Hae duae notiones si non attendantur, magna erit confusio : saepe enim dicitur v. g. violationem solius iustitiae commutativae inducere obligationem restituendi : porro illud verum erit, si sumatur in priori sensu; aecus, si in posteriori; nam aliae iustitiae aliquando pro obiecto habent ius strictum ». (De iustitia et iure, I, n. 7, 2°, p. 9 ff.; cf. also III, n. 1107, p. 151).
Without entering here into long and subtle discussions, it seems that Hering's opinion is hardly tenable: wherever indeed there is a person there is a right and therefore there is room for an injustice. Now society is also, morally, a person; it therefore also has a "its own" that must be given to it; just as it also owes to others "theirs." It therefore seems difficult to deny a threefold relation or a threefold form of justice: that by which the single person gives to the other single persons what is due to them; that by which society gives to individuals what is due to them, and that by which individuals give to society what is due to it.
It is not necessary to recall that the last two forms of justice have been particularly emphasized in the recent pontifical documents, especially in the great social encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI and in the radio messages of Pius XII. It would be well for the attention of theologians and jurists to concentrate on them if the problems that our time poses in this field are to be solved. In such investigations the determination of the end of human life seems to be decisive and, in particular, the determination of the end of associated life. The latter consists above all in the creation of the common good, that is, in the creation of conditions by which everyone can, if he wishes, live according to the moral norm and therefore attain his own end. On the other hand, society does not have the means to create the common good from itself, nor does it receive them directly from God, but it needs to receive them from the members of society themselves. Whence we arrive at these formulas: society owes to each one everything that is necessary to be able to attain his own end; each one owes to society everything that is necessary for the common good, that is, so that, in turn, each one may have everything that is indispensable to be able to attain his own end, or, as someone likes to say (with an expression that needs some clarification): to each according to his needs; from each according to his possibilities.
Distributive justice imposes on society the duty of giving to each one the indispensable means by which he can attain his own end. Legal justice imposes on each one the obligation of giving to society what is indispensable for the existence of the common good. Beyond that limit the individual owes nothing to society by justice, nor does society owe anything to the individual.
Within this framework are to be placed the problems of state intervention, of civic freedom in its various applications, of criminal law, of the death penalty, etc., on which it seems that something still remains to be said.
VII. IMPLEMENTATION OF GIUSTIZIA
To whom does the realization of justice belong, that is, the assignment of what is due to each? Undoubtedly in many cases the interested parties will suffice. Experience proves every day that many just things are carried out by individuals without any intervention of third parties. This, however, especially in controversial cases, is not always possible. It is enough to keep in mind on the one hand that law is minimalistic and enforceable even by force, and on the other that man, as he historically presents himself, is profoundly selfish and therefore inclined to exaggerate his own rights and to undervalue those of others. Leaving it therefore to the very holders of the right to do justice for themselves, one would run into the very grave danger of violating justice. For this reason it is said that no one may take justice into his own hands.
With a millennial effort humanity has sought to withdraw more and more from the interested parties the realization of justice, entrusting it to third parties. Included in that effort are the prohibition of vengeance and of self-defense, the progressive structuring into ever broader social groups (from the tribe to the infranational society, to the national society, and to the supranational society), the division of powers (legislative, executive, judicial) with the attendant independence of the judiciary; the search for forms of control (courts of appeal and, within certain limits, of cassation), etc.
Unfortunately this effort is far from being concluded. One need only think of the lack of a seriously structured supranational society with legislative, executive and judicial power; one should also think, within the national society itself, of the lack of bodies suited to resolving all labor disputes (for example, those aimed at obtaining new labor contracts).
Indeed humanity seems to be by itself incapable of establishing juridical institutions capable of offering to all and always an absolute and complete protection of law and an absolute and complete defense of justice. It is supposed in fact, for the sake of simplification, that the supranational society has been perfectly realized: who will defend the individual or the single State from an abuse of power by that society? How can one prevent the usurpations that have historically so often occurred in national society from being repeated in that forum? The same may be said of the division of powers and of the establishment of courts of appeal: who will be able to offer an effective guarantee against possible abuses of judicial power, at least in its highest structures?
There remains therefore, in order to realize justice completely, only to appeal to good will (with which to remedy the inadequacies of institutions) or to refer to another life (in which to give satisfaction to what in this one cannot always obtain satisfaction).
In the absence of good will, even before the complete realization of justice that will take place in the other life, one does not see how one can, at least in extreme cases, when primordial rights are at stake, deny to the individual or to subordinate groups the right to do justice for themselves.
Included in this order of considerations are the right to take what is necessary for one who finds himself in a case of extreme necessity, occult compensation, the strike, the lockout, legitimate defense, war, revolt, etc. Referring to the individual entries for a complete treatment of the matter concerning them, here it will be sufficient to note that in all these institutions it is only a matter of defending fundamental rights in cases in which society does not offer sufficient protection. For all those institutions therefore it is required: a) that it be a question of an evident and moreover fundamental right; b) that the impossibility of obtaining justice by means of appropriate institutions be evident (either because they are totally lacking or because at a given moment they are not operative); c) that one do only what is indispensable to defend one's own right. It is therefore not a matter of offending the right of others, but only of defending one's own; and of resigning oneself to doing so for oneself, with all the dangers that there may be, only because the institutions that ought to do so do not exist or do not operate. These considerations must be kept in mind in a particular way for war and the strike, if one wishes to avoid both the danger of a mystique of the strike and of war and the danger of a mystique of peace and of anti-strike. It will be necessary that everywhere preferences be guided by the superior demands of a greater justice in the world.
VIII. EXISTENCE OF GIUSTIZIA IN THE WORLD
Passing now from considerations of a normative character - that is, from the "ought to be" - to considerations of a historical character - that is, to the "is" - it is not difficult to discern how in this world justice is not always realized. The imperfection of institutions and the progressive perfecting of the instruments of force, in the service of a profound egoism, bring it about that each one is not always given "his due." The fields and the forms in which justice is violated vary and sometimes vary profoundly (individual rights [e.g., slavery], civic rights [e.g., totalitarian forms of government], economic rights, etc.); but violations seem always to have existed.
One understands, then, humanity's ardent invocation of God and of the beyond as a function of a complete realization of justice. To what extent such a demand and such an invocation are a rationally sufficient motive for admitting the existence of God and of a future life is left to philosophers to judge. To sociologists too is left the judgment of to what extent that appeal stands historically at the basis of the religious fact.
Here it is only wished to say that, according to Catholic doctrine, that justice, which does not always exist in this life, will certainly be realized in the beyond. For each one will have in the other life what he will have "merited" in this life through his free actions. Grace constitutes a true right to glory and guilt a true title to damnation; moreover, both the reward and the punishment will correspond to criteria of justice. The infinite wisdom and power of God and the perfect knowledge that he has of the human heart and of the use of freedom, far from being an obstacle, will be precisely the precondition for giving each one "his due" and therefore for truly and completely realizing justice.
IX. EVOLUTION OF GIUSTIZIA
A first evolution of justice occurs in the search for ever more perfect institutions to realize historically acquired rights. In this sense the introduction of the division of powers was certainly an achievement; likewise the structuring of a supranational society will be one in the future.
A further form of evolution lies in the deeper determination of the sphere of rights. The affirmation, that is, that justice gives to each his own is still purely formal, since it does not of itself say what concretely falls within that "his own" that one wishes to give to each: does the family wage, for example, fall within the scope of that "his own"?
This second line of development requires an ever deeper understanding of the inalienable demands of the human person and of his absolute value, at least in the created world.
From this point of view Christianity has historically meant an incalculable contribution to the evolution of justice.
Bibliography5 works
Giovanni B. Guzzetti