Living the Good Life

9. Injustice

112 9 Injustice He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it. Plato Using Others If justice is equality, then injustice is inequality, which is derived from the closely related word “iniquity.” Injustice treats others as tools, mere instruments for the sake of some further good. The unjust person sets himself above others as the arbiter of their destinies. In this respect, the concept of injustice is aptly expressed by Kant’s second formulation of his categorical imperative, a kind of overarching moral principle, which says that we should always treat others as an end and never merely as a means. Other people are not mere tools; their end and good is not subordinate to ours. If Bob kills his aunt in order to come into his inheritance, then clearly he is treating her as a mere means to the end of wealth. Kant’s categorical imperative would 113 inJUsTiCe condemn such abuse. We are all equals; the good of others is on par with our own. All injustice treats others as somehow subordinate —means to our own goals. Thomas would not wholly endorse the categorical imperative , at least not without significant clarification. Kant wishes to treat everyone as an end because he thinks everyone is wholly autonomous, determining for himself the law he must follow. In other words, Kant is something of an individualist. One of Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative brings in a community, but it makes each individual a sovereign in a kingdom of ends. Nevertheless, Aquinas could find much good in the second formulation of the categorical imperative, for the equality of justice implies that no single person’s good stands above the rest, as the goal for which the others exist.1 No one, therefore, is a mere means to someone else’s good (I, 96, 4; I-II, 104, 1, ad 4). Nor can any single individual direct others to an end. We are “autonomous,” in this sense, that we must direct ourselves to the end, but not in Kant’s sense, that we determine the way to go. Rather than a kingdom of ends, in which each individual is an end unto himself, Thomas has a kingdom of individuals who direct themselves to one common end, the good of the whole human community. Everyone shares a common goal, rather than each individual being a separate goal, and for this reason we must treat everyone with love and respect. No one, therefore, should treat another as a mere means, because doing so is opposed to the equality of justice. We have seen that justice has two equalities, giving rise to distributive and commutative justice; consequently, there will also be two 1. On the supernatural level, Christ would be an obvious exception. 114 inJUsTiCe kinds of inequity or injustice, one opposed to just distribution, the other opposed to justice between individuals. Injustice of Distribution The fundamental injustice of distribution is partiality; while it is commonly called “favoritism,” it has been traditionally called “respect of persons,” that is, treating someone in a special way apart from any merit on his part (II-II, 63, 1), as when a government official gives a coveted post not to the person who is qualified but to her best friend or to her daughter. The position is distributed not on the basis of merit but on the basis of some incidental quality. Similarly, a teacher who gives out grades based upon his likes and dislikes for certain students is playing favorites . Judges or juries oppose just distribution when they award plaintiffs based on sympathy rather than upon the justice of the cause, or when they give out too severe or too mild a punishment for the offense. In general, one opposes distributive justice by giving rewards and punishments apart from merit. Just distribution requires an equality of proportion, in which a person receives in proportion to his merit, so when someone receives either reward or punishment for some reason other than merit, injustice has been done. Injustice of Exchange Thomas spends more time on the injustices opposed to commutative justice. These include murder and lesser physical harms, theft, robbery, fraud, and usury, as well as harm inflicted through our words, through such things as backbiting, gossip, and perjury in court. We will consider each of these briefly. Special attention should be given to the question of homicide , since in our age...