What is Justice?

[fakename]

Okay, so in Catholic moral theology, what is justice and does it entail that some sins are unintentional?

I ask only because I read a monk who wrote that justice is an objective thing and not altered by subjective states of mind so that an injustice is always a sin regardless of intent.

Is this true?

 

[Joe_5859]

From the Catechism:

CCC 1807 Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. The just man, often mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, is distinguished by habitual right thinking and the uprightness of his conduct toward his neighbor. “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” [68] “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” [69]

[68] Lev 19:15.
[69] Col 4:1.

 

[fakename]

From the Catechism:

CCC 1807 Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. The just man, often mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, is distinguished by habitual right thinking and the uprightness of his conduct toward his neighbor. “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” [68] “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” [69]

[68] Lev 19:15.
[69] Col 4:1.

You’d think that it would be that simple but apparently it is not simple enough for me.

"A man might drink a pint of wine before breakfast and be thumpingly intemperate; whereas he could drink the same pint of wine with his dinner and be a temperate man. But if his thirst is for other people’s jewelry, it makes no difference whether he quenches it before breakfast or after dinner. For while justice, in common with all the moral virtues, seeks a medium between excess and defect of the rule of reason, unlike all the other moral virtues, the coincides with the medium of objective reality. In justice, that is, the question is always one of equality, or measuring up to something outside.

…These outside things are not changed by any subjective dispositions of ours. No matter how much of a nervous release it may be for a man to commit murder, no matter how innocently he deprives a laborer of his wages…these things remain unjust. It is always a question, in this matter, of what is due to another; only on that consideration may we judge the justice of a thing." catholicprimer.org/farrell/compfram.htm

So does this imply that accidental injustice is a sin? It seems so since he says “no matter how innocently”. But that seems like saying “if you are innocent, then you are evil” which is a contradiction. On a closer reading perhaps the author is merely overstating his definition and description since he knows the reader will fill in the blanks. But there’s no indication that this is so, and his description seems to imply that every debt and every deprivation of wages is bad. It seems that neither are always wrong, for wages that are too high must be reduced and sometimes one owes a debt to usurious people who don’t even have a right to be paid back. So why insist on the “objectivity” of justice?

I’ve always preferred the similar definition of justice by Plato and Socrates as opposed to Aristotle. Why do you think there even is a difference b/t particular, general, distributive, and commutative justices and all the other virtues? To me it seems that any and each virtue is just, and thus the practice of each virtue is justice, and that justice is a harmony of each with each.

 

[davidv]

You’d think that it would be that simple but apparently it is not simple enough for me.

"A man might drink a pint of wine before breakfast and be thumpingly intemperate; whereas he could drink the same pint of wine with his dinner and be a temperate man. But if his thirst is for other people’s jewelry, it makes no difference whether he quenches it before breakfast or after dinner. For while justice, in common with all the moral virtues, seeks a medium between excess and defect of the rule of reason, unlike all the other moral virtues, the coincides with the medium of objective reality. In justice, that is, the question is always one of equality, or measuring up to something outside.

…These outside things are not changed by any subjective dispositions of ours. No matter how much of a nervous release it may be for a man to commit murder, no matter how innocently he deprives a laborer of his wages…these things remain unjust. It is always a question, in this matter, of what is due to another; only on that consideration may we judge the justice of a thing." catholicprimer.org/farrell/compfram.htm

So does this imply that accidental injustice is a sin? It seems so since he says “no matter how innocently”. But that seems like saying “if you are innocent, then you are evil” which is a contradiction. On a closer reading perhaps the author is merely overstating his definition and description since he knows the reader will fill in the blanks. But there’s no indication that this is so, and his description seems to imply that every debt and every deprivation of wages is bad. It seems that neither are always wrong, for wages that are too high must be reduced and sometimes one owes a debt to usurious people who don’t even have a right to be paid back. So why insist on the “objectivity” of justice?

I’ve always preferred the similar definition of justice by Plato and Socrates as opposed to Aristotle. Why do you think there even is a difference b/t particular, general, distributive, and commutative justices and all the other virtues? To me it seems that any and each virtue is just, and thus the practice of each virtue is justice, and that justice is a harmony of each with each.

No accident is a sin unless willful negligence caused the accident. All sins are “on purpose”.

God created you. God doesn’t create evil. Evil occurs when good people chose to go against God.