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Conferences on the Virtues

By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, ocd

 

Number 35

 

Legal Justice

 

Legal Justice is defined as “the Virtue which inclines an individual to give the civil community to which he belongs its due” (what he owes it),  or, “the Virtue which inclines him to perform all those acts and deeds which the community has a right to expect from him for the sake of the common good.”

 

It is classified as a special virtue, that is, a virtue in its own right, because it places the individual in his proper relationship with the community considered as a separate moral entity, of which he is a member, and it has as its formal object that special “goodness” (Latin: honestas) which inheres in working for the common good.  The COMMON GOOD has a nobility about it that makes it a fitting and worthy goal of human activity, and as such contributes to the perfection of an individual as a human being.  Among such acts are:  the making of just laws, the keeping of just laws, being engaged in civil service, and even paying one’s fair share of taxes. 

 

The name “legal justice” is given to this virtue because it is by means of laws (Latin:  leges) that the acts of private individuals are ordained toward the common good.  A synonym for legal justice is “general justice”, not because it is a complex of all the kinds of justice, but because it tends to bring about the good of all “in general”; and there is no virtue that exists that cannot be ordained (turned to) the common good, the good of the entire civil community.

 

As directed to the good of the community, Legal Justice differs from some other closely related virtues, such as:

 

a.       Obedience, which has as its immediate motive or goal the “carrying out of the just command of a lawful superior.”  We do not need a “law” to create the obligation of each citizen to be submissive to lawfully constituted authority.

 

b.       Patriotism, which is “piety” directed toward our native land.  (True Piety is directed to our parents and the family unit within which we were born and raised).  It inclines the citizen to do those things and render those services which express loyalty, honor and devotion to one’s country as the land of his human origins and early education.  This we “owe” in virtue of our “relationship” with our native land, and it prescinds from any special motive of contributing to the common good.

 

c.       Observance, which inclines the citizen to show honor and reverence to the individual persons who stand at the head of the particular civil communities of which he is a member.  We “owe” this to them as “representing” in their persons the various civil societies of which we are members and subjects, since it is not possible to exhibit honor and reverence to the real, but “abstract” entity, which is the “community”.

 

d.       Charity toward other members of the community, which proceeds from motives of love of neighbor out of love for God.  We “owe it” to other members of the societies to which we belong to “hold them dear” (caritas means “dearness”) because we are related to them as brothers and sisters of the human family, which has God as its Father.  It is quite possible (though rare) for citizens who do not believe in God or who have no love for God, to do good to other members of the community solely from motives of the common good.

 

The Subject of Legal Justice…

 

As pointed out very briefly in a previous conference, the virtue of Legal Justice resides primarily in the lawmakers and in the governors of civil society, whose duty it is to be the “architects” of the common good.  It is their duty “to decree by law” or “to command” as civil superiors, by means of which they function as the “directors” or “supervisors” of the common good.

 

Secondarily therefore, Legal Justice resides in those subject to the Laws (made by the legislators) and to the “governorship” of those holding “executive offices”.  By adhering faithfully to the laws and by carrying out the just directives of those in authority, the subjects succeed in “directly and immediately” creating or bringing about the common good.

 

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Three “questions” are customarily dealt with under the heading of Legal Justice.  They are: 

1)      Why and How the common good must be pursued; 2)  the Components of the common good; and 3) the Defense of the common good.

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1.       To say that all members of human society have a duty to work toward the common good is the same as saying that the virtue of Legal Justice is a necessity in human society.  Our very human nature is such as to require that we live in society.  We are all “born into” social relationships, without which it would be impossible to attain first, the immediate and final earthly goals of our lives, namely, (a) a sufficiency of those things which satisfy the legitimate daily needs for human life, and which, in the aggregate, bring us (b) temporal happiness.  Without a “modicum” of that temporal happiness we would be unable to direct our thoughts and activities toward the attainment of second, our eternal happiness, which is attained through the satisfaction of our needs as children of God by adoption.

 

In the temporal sphere, common experience has shown that we have a variety of merely human needs that are satisfied by a variety of goods and services, and that there are a variety of individuals who possess or produce those goods or services.  Interestingly, the possessors or producers of those goods and services themselves need other human beings who constitute “a market” for the said goods and services.  Once we start talking about “markets” we have to talk about commerce, that is “delivery systems”, and these in turn are made possible only by the coordinated activities of all the individuals who constitute the society.  Furthermore, coordination, or simply, “order,” is not possible without rules and regulations or Laws.  Now the Common Good can be defined as that state of affairs in which all the individuals constituting a society actually do have all their minimum, legitimate human needs satisfied.  Therefore, it follows that unless each citizen of a society possesses the virtue of Legal Justice, by means of which the activities of individual citizens are “ordered” by law to bring about the delivery of all other members of the society what they need to achieve the minimum necessary temporal happiness, the Common Good cannot be attained.  Thus, Legal Justice is a “necessity” in human society. 

 

[In re-reading the above, the thought occurs to me that society is composed of “children” as well as adults, and that therefore, wherever I have talked about “individual” needs, we must also understand “individual family” needs, since children obviously cannot fend for themselves in civil society, because they don’t even know, until after their education is complete, what legitimate human needs are, much less become a part of the delivery system for goods and services to individual adults and to families.  This thought underscores the reasonableness of traditional moral philosophy in conceptualizing a minor child as being “included in” and being “a part of” the person of its father, and furthermore, why the entire family was conceptualized as being identified with the father of the family.  It also underscores, in my opinion, the absurdity of talking about the “right” of a child to govern himself until after the child’s education is complete, as well as the absurdity of talking about individual rights without also recognizing individual family rights.]

 

It helps us to appreciate what has been said about coordinating efforts to produce a delivery system by thinking of society not as a mere “homogenous aggregate” of individuals, but as an “organized multitude” of individuals.  An example of the former would be a heap of sand or of wheat, the grains of which coalesce by merely being juxtaposed.  Examples of the latter (the coalescence of “heterogeneous”, interrelated elements each of which has a specific purpose and function to perform in concert with all the other constituent elements to produce or achieve a particular effect) would be a clock, a tree, or a human body.  The end or purpose of the organized multitude we call society is that the constituent elements “conspire” (act together), each in its specific and complementary mode or manner, to bring about the Common Good.

 

St. Thomas tells us, however, that society is not exactly like a clock or a human body:

 

“The totality we call the civil multitude has only the unity of order so that it is not a simple unity.  Therefore, any individual component of the civil multitude may operate in a way that is not an operation of the whole, as soldiers in an army may have a duty that is not the duty of the entire army considered as a whole (military police).  Conversely, the entire army as a whole has a duty that is not the duty of some individual “soldiers” (non-combatants), since the duty of the army is to wage war…   Thus, those living in society at times engage in activity which is directed to their own personal good or to the personal good of others, and at times they engage in other activity which is directed immediately to the good of the entire society…”

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What has been said above about the attainment of temporal happiness can also be applied in a general way to the attainment of eternal happiness by those who, as children of God by adoption, that is, by the Sanctifying grace conferred in Baptism, are members of the Church.  The members have basic spiritual needs of different kinds, and various “sources” of the various “things” which satisfy those spiritual needs.  There is a “delivery system” which engages the coordinated efforts of distinct individuals fulfilling distinct roles within the society which is the Church (Kingdom of God).  We know, too, that the Church is also a body, analogous to the “organic whole” spoken of above.  There is a Common Good as well, namely, that all those spiritual needs be adequately satisfied for each and every member of the Church.

 

However, we cannot talk about a “Legal Justice” when speaking about the Church.  We have to talk about Piety instead (and we will do so in due time).  The term legal justice does not apply because we are all members of the same family;  we are all brothers and sisters sharing the same life given to us by identical Parents, to wit, Jesus our Father and the Church our Mother.  Neither is it possible within the body of Christ which is the Church to pursue “purely individual” ends.  Efforts of an individual directed to the attainment of his own greater spiritual good, by their very nature, contribute to the good of the entire Church.  And efforts directed to the greater spiritual good of the entire Church, by their very nature, contribute to the greater spiritual good of the individual so acting.  (Provided, of course, that one’s deeds are “informed” by Charity.  Without Love (Charity), no matter how “holy” or “heroic” an action may seem, it is utterly without spiritual value).

 

It is also necessary to point out that, beginning in the days of the early Christian martyrs under Rome, obedience to the laws of the Kingdom of God, may necessitate disobedience to a law of the temporal realm.  Though such cases are rare, there should never be a doubt in the mind of the true Christian that he must obey the Divine Law rather than the human law, even at the cost of his life.  Besides, we have it on the authority of Jesus Himself that the best way for a Christian to bring about the common good of temporal society is to strive to lead a holy life:  “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven, and all other [necessary or essential] things will be given you besides.”  (Lk. 12:31).  And we remember that the Lord God promised Abraham that, if He could find ten “just” men in Sodom and Gomorrah, for their sakes He would not destroy the cities.

 

In speaking about the basic human needs of individual citizens of the temporal realm, however, we must remember that the most important and noble among them are not of a physical or corporal nature, but they are the needs of the higher faculties of our common humanity.  These are, of course, our intellect, memory, imagination and will.  We tend to lump all these faculties under the expression “mind and heart”.  Therefore every human being has the basic need to know truth, to experience love, to have good and pleasant memories of past experiences, and to use his imagination and his will in the exercise of creative and loving activities.  The latter two may be described as the “need to work” and the “need to love in return”.  In other words, our human temporal happiness is achieved principally in the exercise of the moral virtues, because that is what constitutes our “perfection” as human beings (as has been demonstrated at length in some of our earliest conferences in this series).  When the legitimate human needs of all citizens to be “truly human” are satisfied, then each individual experiences “happiness”, and society has attained its proper goal, the common good of PEACE, that is, the “tranquility of order”.  From this it should be clear that happiness is a “fringe effect” which cannot be attained directly.  It is a “by-product” of a good moral life (human perfection).

 

As already stated, it is impossible for a human individual to turn his attention to the higher needs of his nature until his basic physical needs of food, clothing, housing and employment are taken care of.  Thus, in those nations where a significant number of citizens are lacking these basic human necessities, the governments thereof have a serious obligations to try to remedy the injustice (want of legal justice on the part of the greater majority).  Where the governments themselves are the cause of these injustices, peaceful ways of replacing them are to be sought by the citizenry of those nations. 

 

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