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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 [FS, Question 23, Article 4; FS, Question
31, Article 1; FS, Question 35, Article 1] when we were
treating of the passions. Therefore justice, being a moral virtue,
is about the passions.
Objection 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.
Objection 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
(FS, Question 22, Article 3; FS, Question 59, Article
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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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 to Objection 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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