<<<home page index to Virtues>>>

 

Conferences on the Virtues

By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd

 

Number 32

 

Injustice and Injury in General

 

Injustice Considered in Itself…

 

Etymologically, “injustice” means the absence of justice or a violation of justice, in the same way that “injury” means the violation of a “right”.  (The Latin ius, iuris means law or right).  But in actual fact, the word injustice can be understood to signify either a particular human act, a “situation”, i.e., a state of affairs, or a “frame of mind”, i.e., a disposition of soul.

 

1)      Properly speaking, an injustice or an “unjust act” is any action or deed that actually violates a “right” or a “law” which the violator is bound in justice to respect and obey.

2)      As a state of affairs, it is a “complex” of sins, vices and transgressions of law.  We live in an unjust world.

3)      As a frame of mind or disposition it is the constant, abiding tendency to disregard the rights of others and to disobey the “laws” that the lawgiver has established properly to govern human conduct and relationships.

 

Injustice and Injury as it will be understood here is defined as the willful and actual violation or harm inflicted upon the right of another.

 

That is to say:

 

Willful – harm done unknowingly and unwittingly is a material injustice, not a formal one, which requires knowledge and intent.

 

Actual – the harm or violation is factual and objective.  The “intent” to harm or do violence must issue in an act or deed that effectively inflicts the harm or the violation.

 

Harm – An abnormality, a defect or a distortion in a “relationship” that is perceptible and perceived with some kind of “pain”.  The defect is the want of due order. The “pain” need not be “physical”.  Sorrow is an emotional pain.  In Latin, the word for pain is the same as the word for sorrow (dolor).  (And in case you haven’t picked up on it, want of due order is the philosophical definition of evil).

 

      Upon a right of another – as we said in a previous conference, every true right creates a moral obligation in others to respect it, that is, to do no harm to it.  It is quite possible to offend and “hurt” others by doing harm to their sensibilities, or acting contrary to their “desires” or “druthers”.  But not all the desires and wishes of other spring from a “right” of theirs in the strict sense.  Thus, not all actions that cause pain or sorrow in another are unjust.  It may be “uncharitable” to ride roughshod over another’s wishes or feelings, but it is not an “injustice”.

 

It is possible to create “categories” of injustices.  We have already distinguished a material from a formal one.

 

Then there are “degrees” of injustice.  A mere injustice has no external repercussions.  A ruinous (Latin damnosa) injustice causes detrimental, external after-effects.

 

Still again, in view of the “good things” that may be harmed, there is a real injustice (as in real property), when external tangible goods are damaged, or a personal injustice when the injury or harm is done to another’s person, i.e., to internal goods of body or soul. 

 

Finally, from the point of view of how the injury is inflicted, there is a verbal injustice inflicted by the spoken or written word, and a factual injustice, if inflicted by act or deed or failure to act.

 

In this regard, can there be a mental injustice, that is, one inflicted by the internal act of thought?  It would seem not, because the injured party would not be aware of it and thus could not perceive and be pained by the injustice.  However, since we speak of offending God in thought as well as by word and deed, insofar as the culprit is concerned, yes, there is a mental injustice.  But there would be no corresponding obligation to make “reparation”, except to God alone, for the “damage” done to the rights violated.

 

How serious a sin is “injustice”?  By its very nature, that is, considered in the abstract, injustice is a grave sin, because it consists in willfully inflicting damage upon another human being in his relationships, that is, in his/her very PERSONHOOD.  It belongs to the very nature of Love to desire “good” for every human being.  (In an earlier conference we spoke of the love called Benevolence).  At the very least, Love requires that we should desire “no harm” to befall our fellow human beings.  Now LOVE is the Life of the human soul, since God, who IS the life of the soul, IS Love.  Therefore, whoever deliberately inflicts “evil” upon another is lacking in love, and thus is lacking in that life which is true and eternal.

 

Injustice is a serious sin considered in itself also because of its effects upon the social order.  Peace, which is the tranquility of order is the only reliable sign that we as individuals are living up to our dignity and status as human beings, and thus tending infallibly to the attainment of the destiny for which God created us.  Without justice, peace in human society is utterly impossible to achieve, which means that without justice, the possibility of everyone in society attaining eternal happiness is put in jeopardy.  It is justice practiced by everyone that alone brings peace.  Peace is the FRUIT of justice.  Peace grows out of justice, or it doesn’t grow at all.

 

What I have just asserted concerning human society is corroborated by the last six of the Ten Commandments.  Each of them, 5th through 10th forbids us to do a specific category of injustice to our fellow human creatures.  The other four have to do with the authors of our human life, and they, too are all about “rights.  There’s an old Latin proverb:  Corruptio optimi pessima, which can be translated:  The worst evil flows from the corruption of the greatest good.  In itself, then, injustice is gravely evil.

 

Nevertheless, not all actual sins of injustice, considered in the concrete, are mortal, i.e., deprive the soul of union with God in love.  Because of extenuating circumstances, they are often venial, that is, they diminish the fervor of love in the soul, but do not deprive the soul of love.

 

Those extenuating circumstances are generally i) slight matter, ii) lack of full knowledge and deliberation, iii) lack of full consent of the will due to powerful feeling, passions and emotions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<<<home page index to Virtues>>>

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

MISSION STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work of Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D These conferences may be reproduced for private use only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of the Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel Rd., Hubertus, WI 53033-9770.