Justice is in some ways an overused word, a label attached to all sorts of things, some of which—like “reproductive justice,” arguably—have nothing to do with real justice. What is justice, really?
Justice is the second of the “cardinal virtues.” No, they’re not virtues for senior clergy. “Cardinal” comes from the Latin cardo, meaning “hinge.” The cardinal virtues are the main hinges on which the moral life swings. Beneath them are lots of individual connected virtues. Fortitude, for example, is another cardinal virtue, and beneath it is found the virtue of magnanimity. If fortitude is about doing good despite fear, magnanimity specifically refers to doing good when one has to risk big assets like money to achieve the good.
St. Thomas Aquinas arranges the whole of his discussion of morality around the cardinal virtues, later treating specific virtues as concrete exemplifications of a given overall cardinal virtue.
The classical definition of justice is to give everyone his “due.” Note what that says—and doesn’t. Our “due” is what we are owed, what we have a right to. What is “due” is not necessarily strict equality, because not everybody is necessarily owed the same thing. In justice, we must ascertain what we have a right to.
The traditional treatment of justice identifies three kinds of justice: commutative, distributive, and legal or social justice. Let’s explain each one.
Commutative justice is the most straightforward. It is a relationship, usually between two individuals. It is often, though not always, based on strict equality, and it is usually the simplest kind of justice: what does A owe B? If A buys something from B, did B receive fair compensation for what he sold?
Distributive justice regulates the community’s relationship with its members. It is about how to “distribute” the common wealth (hence the word “commonwealth”) to its members. That relationship is not one of mere equality. At some level, there is a basic equality involved but, beyond that, distributive justice must determine how the allotment of goods serves the common good. That may mean that A gets more than B because, ultimately, distributive justice involves proportionality, not strict equality. And, because it involves how all the members of a community fit into that community, the determination of how to distribute social goods properly is the decision of the sovereign, of him who has “care of the community,” because he should see and is responsible for the “big picture,” the lay of the land.
Social or legal justice regulates the member’s relationship with the community. Here again, beyond basic equality, a certain proportionality also enters the picture. A may owe the community more than B, either because A makes more use of social goods than B or A has the means to contribute more fully to the common good. Somebody who extensively uses a highway (a social good), for example, should contribute more than someone who doesn’t.
If these ideas sound strange to some American ears, it’s because there’s possibly a deeper problem. Catholic social thought, in contrast to some streams of American thinking, considers society something good. Yes, society can get too big and, therefore, too controlling, but at root, society is a good thing. “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18), so God puts man in society—even though it was God, not Adam, who recognized the need for the “suitable companion.”
As John Donne put it, “no man is an island.” No person is so utterly self-sufficient that he does not need the presence and help of other people to develop his own humanity. That’s why society is good: it promotes human flourishing. And that is what puts Catholic social thought at odds with most versions of “social contract” thought—the kind of thinking dominant since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and influential on the Founding Fathers—which takes people fundamentally as individuals, for whom social bonds are artificial and often deemed inimical to their humanity.
That’s why Catholic teaching on justice perhaps grates on some American ears, ears used to hearing about “rugged individualists” without necessary social ties.
But modern politics also deforms the classical approach to justice. The traditional approach to justice envisions the leader of a society as trying to be impartial, to making an honest assessment of what the common good demands here and now. If our politics worked that way, people would likely be much happier.
But it doesn’t. Instead, in the social contract theory of community, where the individual’s interface with others is often seen as adverse to him, real human needs and rights are often reduced simply to “interests.” The leader of the community, instead of trying to determine what serves the common good, focuses on how to coordinate those “interests” in such a way that the greatest number of people at least live with his decision and the least number are actively disaffected (and, therefore, likely to want to “throw the bum out” at the next election).
By the way, the cardinal virtue of justice also finds itself in particular virtues, one of which is “religion.” If justice is about what we owe others, then “religion” is part of justice, because we owe nobody more than God. It also means religion is not just some “optional extra,” but something in fairness—in justice—due to God from each one of us.
Catholic teaching about justice is rich and worth studying, but it presupposes a vision of society that’s even more important: that we need (and not just find useful) other people. For those who want to learn more, Josef Pieper’s oldie-but-goodie, his Four Cardinal Virtues, remains the evergreen classic.