Whether Justice Is About the Passions?
Objection 1: It would seem that justice is about the passions. For
the Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 3) that "moral virtue is about
pleasure and pain." Now pleasure or delight, and pain are passions,
as stated above [*I-II, Q. 23, A. 4; Q. 31, A. 1; Q. 35, A. 1] when
we were treating of the passions. Therefore justice, being a moral
virtue, is about the passions.
Obj. 2: Further, justice is the means of rectifying a man's
operations in relation to another man. Now such like operations
cannot be rectified unless the passions be rectified, because it is
owing to disorder of the passions that there is disorder in the
aforesaid operations: thus sexual lust leads to adultery, and
overmuch love of money leads to theft. Therefore justice must needs
be about the passions.
Obj. 3: Further, even as particular justice is towards another person
so is legal justice. Now legal justice is about the passions, else it
would not extend to all the virtues, some of which are evidently
about the passions. Therefore justice is about the passions.
_On the contrary,_ The Philosopher says (Ethic. v, 1) that justice is
about operations.
_I answer that,_ The true answer to this question may be gathered
from a twofold source. First from the subject of justice, i.e. from
the will, whose movements or acts are not passions, as stated above
(I-II, Q. 22, A. 3; Q. 59, A. 4), for it is only the sensitive
appetite whose movements are called passions. Hence justice is not
about the passions, as are temperance and fortitude, which are in the
irascible and concupiscible parts. Secondly, on he part of the
matter, because justice is about man's relations with another, and we
are not directed immediately to another by the internal passions.
Therefore justice is not about the passions.
Reply Obj. 1: Not every moral virtue is about pleasure and pain as
its proper matter, since fortitude is about fear and daring: but
every moral virtue is directed to pleasure and pain, as to ends to be
acquired, for, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 11), "pleasure
and pain are the principal end in respect of which we say that this
is an evil, and that a good": and in this way too they belong to
justice, since "a man is not just unless he rejoice in just actions"
(Ethic. i, 8).
Reply Obj. 2: External operations are as it were between external
things, which are their matter, and internal passions, which are
their origin. Now it happens sometimes that there is a defect in one
of these, without there being a defect in the other. Thus a man may
steal another's property, not through the desire to have the thing,
but through the will to hurt the man; or vice versa, a man may covet
another's property without wishing to steal it. Accordingly the
directing of operations in so far as they tend towards external
things, belongs to justice, but in so far as they arise from the
passions, it belongs to the other moral virtues which are about the
passions. Hence justice hinders theft of another's property, in so
far as stealing is contrary to the equality that should be maintained
in external things, while liberality hinders it as resulting from an
immoderate desire for wealth. Since, however, external operations
take their species, not from the internal passions but from external
things as being their objects, it follows that, external operations
are essentially the matter of justice rather than of the other moral
virtues.
Reply Obj. 3: The common good is the end of each individual
member of a community, just as the good of the whole is the end of
each part. On the other hand the good of one individual is not the end
of another individual: wherefore legal justice which is directed to
the common good, is more capable of extending to the internal passions
whereby man is disposed in some way or other in himself, than
particular justice which is directed to the good of another
individual: although legal justice extends chiefly to other virtues in
the point of their external operations, in so far, to wit, as "the law
commands us to perform the actions of a courageous person . . . the
actions of a temperate person . . . and the actions of a gentle
person" (Ethic. v, 5).
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