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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow QUESTION LXXX.: OF THE POTENTIAL PARTS OF JUSTICE. - Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas, vol. 2 (Summa Theologica - Secunda Secundae Pt.2)

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Subject Area: Philosophy
Subject Area: Religion

QUESTION LXXX.: OF THE POTENTIAL PARTS OF JUSTICE. - St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas, vol. 2 (Summa Theologica - Secunda Secundae Pt.2) [1274]

Edition used:

Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas. A Translation of the Principal Portions of the Second part of the Summa Theologica, with Notes by Joseph Rickaby, S.J. (London: Burns and Oates, 1892).

Part of: Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas, 2 vols.

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QUESTION LXXX.

OF THE POTENTIAL PARTS OF JUSTICE.

Article I.—Is the list of virtues annexed to justice duly made out?

R. In the virtues that are annexed to any principal virtue, there are two things to consider: one, how those virtues agree in some point with the principal virtue: the other, how they fall short of the perfect notion of it. Now, since justice is to another, all the virtues that are in relation to another may be annexed to justice in point of that agreement. Now the essence of justice consists in this, that there is rendered to another his due according to equality. In two ways therefore a virtue that is to another comes short of the full idea of justice: in one way, as coming short of the idea of equality; in another way, as coming short of the idea of a thing due. For there are some virtues that render to another his due, but cannot return it in equal measure. And in the first place, whatever is rendered by man to God is due, but cannot be in equal measure: that is to say, it is impossible for man to make such a return as he ought. So the Psalm has it: “What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He has rendered to me?”1 Annexed in this way to justice is religion. Secondly, to parents, it is impossible to make recompense according to equality of what is due to them; and thus filial piety is annexed to justice.

Considering justice as the observance of something due, there are two manners of falling short of it, answering to the two manners in which a thing may be due, namely, as a moral and as a legal debt. That debt is legally due, which a man is bound by law to pay: debts of this kind are the proper object of justice, a principal virtue. That debt is morally due, which one owes as part of the seemliness of virtue. And because the idea of a debt involves some necessity, there are two classes of debts, or things due. For some things are so necessary that without them the decent order of morality can hardly be maintained; and these things answer more than other things to the idea of a debt, or something due. Considering what is thus due on the part of him of whom it is due, we find it to be due in this way that a man should show himself to his neighbour in word and deed for such as he really is; and therefore another virtue attached to justice is truthfulness. Again we may consider this debt in regard of him to whom it is due, inasmuch as one person makes return to another according as that other has done to him; and thus there is annexed to justice gratitude. There are other things necessarily due in this sense, that they point to a better moral order, yet so that without them a decent order of morality can still be maintained. What is due in this way, is matter of liberality, affability, and virtues of that sort, wherein the idea of a debt, something due, only slightly appears.

[1 ]Psalm cxv. 3.