When most people hear the word “justice” they immediately imagine courtrooms or police officers. Crime and punishment. Laws that need to be obeyed or consequences happen. While laws, courtrooms, and officers all are a part of justice, this virtue has so much more to it.
What is Justice?
“Justice consists in the firm and constant will to give God and neighbor their due.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1836)
This definition we receive from the Catechism gives us a clear direction, showing us that justice is focused on fairness. Justice is about searching for things that are due to others that they have not received, and then taking an action to correct it.
There are two integral parts of justice, and these are doing good and avoiding evil. Avoiding evil is usually what we think of with justice, this why we have laws and courts. The flip side of justice we have to think about is doing good. When we see someone who is starving, downtrodden, and homeless, the virtue of justice calls us to help. The virtues of justice and charity go hand in hand.
But what are we referring to when we say “due”? Rendering someone what is due means to give what is owed to another. This is the whole point of justice, giving to someone what they have a legitimate claim to.
Why Do We Need This Virtue?
Human beings will always be a part of some sort of society. This is true in family, school, work, your town or city you live in, your country, or your church. No person is ever left alone, even if they were to live in the wilderness off grid, they are still in the presence of God, who is omnipotent.
Because of this constant contact with others, we need to establish correct relations with them. This is the primary reason for this virtue. Without this incredibly important virtue, relationships deteriorate, and society along with them.
Three Types of Justice
There are three types of justice that St Thomas Aquinas focuses on. These are general or legal justice, distributive justice, and commutative justice.
General or legal justice can be described as what is owed to the political community. This would be following laws, paying taxes, participating in elections, and fighting for your country if drafted. By living in a society, we are agreeing to live by that society’s rules. In return, we receive certain things from that government.
This brings us to distributive justice, which is the political community rendering what it owes to the individual. In return for taxes, a just government would provide services such as road work and other community improvements, protection, and a fair trial. By following laws, we expect to be safe, and that perpetrators be punished to keep us safe. And the government would have to ensure that we are protected from invaders and war from other countries.
And finally, we have commutative justice, which is the most common form of justice we encounter. This can be described as an individual rendering what is owed to another individual. This is usually found in money exchanges, like paying someone for a good or service but can also include following through on a promise you gave another person. Honesty towards others is another form of this type of justice. You also owe your employer labor in exchange for your paycheck.
Related Virtues
According to St Thomas, there are 9 virtues related to justice. These are religion, piety, observance, gratitude, vengeance, truth, friendliness, liberality, and epikeia (equity).
- Religion is related to justice because with this virtue we give God what is due to Him. The first three commandments of the Ten Commandments all have to do with this virtue.
- Piety is a virtue in which duty and honor are given to parents and country.
- Observance is when we give honor or dulia toward a superior, such as a boss.
- Gratitude renders benefactors their due. In this virtue, we thank others for what they have done for us.
- Vengeance or vindication gives retribution for harm inflicted on oneself or on a friend. You cause harm to yourself, the perpetrator, and to order if you fail to adequately address this harm against yourself or a friend.
- Truth is a virtue in which you have honesty toward others because every person is due honest words and truth.
- Affability renders friendliness due to others.
- Liberality is using your goods, gifts, and currency for yourself and others. By giving others just portions in a generous portion, you are practicing this.
- Epikea can be described as withholding punishment in cases where it would be unfair to punish someone. This is typically rare.
Sins Against Justice
Aquinas gave a few sins against justice, and by learning these we may keep ourselves from falling into them.
The sin he mentions against distributive justice would be giving goods or services to persons based on how they are liked or related, not by right. An example would be nepotism, in which a government official gives a job to a person solely because they are a relative. Another example would be accepting bribes, in which an official agrees to give something to a person because they were paid.
There are several sins he mentions against communative justice and they are pretty straight forward. These are murder, bodily injury, theft, robbery, reviling (dishonoring someone publicly), backbiting (dishonoring someone privately), tale-bearing (destroying unjustly another’s friendship), derision (shaming another unjustly), and cursing.
How Do We Improve The Virtue of Justice?
To improve this important virtue, we need to form good habits. We need to engage our will to make just choices and render unto others what is due to them. We need to do this day after day, and in every action we do. And We need to continuously ask ourselves if we are acting fairly to other people. Every person is owed dignity because they are created in the image of God, but do we give them this dignity that is owed?
And those pesky laws, some of which we don’t agree with, are we actually following those? If a law is morally wrong, then we are obligated as Christians to ignore it, because God’s law and natural law always take precedence. But if we are just annoyed by a law because we find it annoying, we still have to follow it.
Another thing to do would be to improve prudence, which guides justice. In order to learn how to improve prudence, check out my post that I wrote on this virtue here.
Justice and God’s Guidance
We also receive a gift of the Holy Spirit to help us, and this is piety. As mentioned before, the virtue of piety is when we give duty and honor to our country and parents. The gift from the Holt Spirit however is far more elevated and wonderful than this, and this is because we are honoring God and fulfilling our duty to Him. And because everyone is made in God’s image, with the gift of piety we have supernatural graces to show honor to all people in addition to Our Lord.
Speaking of duty and honor toward God, another good thing to do would be to look into the laws of the Church. We find these in the Ten Commandments, and also the Great Commandments that Christ Himself gave us. There are also the requirements of the Catholic Church, found in the Catechism. The Magisterium of the Church has authority from God to guide us all to Him, and because of this, it should also be honored by us.
So good luck! Train yourself and pursue this virtue of justice!