Justice Commutative Legal Distributive

Justice Justice is first and foremost a virtue that perfects the will. It is the constant will to render to another that which is due him/her.

Justice Wherever there is a debt, there is a duty of justice. There are three different kinds of relationships to which correspond three different kinds of justice

I can have a debt to another, for example, I can owe him $5. To satisfy that debt by paying him back is an act of commutative justice Commutative

We all have a debt to the civil community as a whole; for we are the beneficiaries of the labor of countless others who have gone before us. We benefit from “common goods”, such as public hospitals, public schools, public libraries, community centers, community sports, programs, etc. We have a debt to pay to the social whole, one that we cannot fully repay. Legal

To begin to repay that debt is a matter of legal justice. This means living not just for oneself, but for the common good. The criminal couldn’t care less about the common good, but is concerned solely with his own private good.

The social whole, however, has a duty to the individual persons that make up society. Individual persons pay their share of taxes (legal justice), but the social whole has a duty to provide common goods, such as safe roads, just laws, public institutions, hospitals, educational institutions, fair wages, good working conditions, laws that protect the weaker members, etc. Distributive

These are matters of distributive justice.

Disorders of Justice There are a number of disordered views of justice. Some people think that the only justice is distributive justice. Hence, if there is injustice in society, it is the government’s fault. I have no duty to justice, only the government does. I have rights only. This is the Charter of Rights Mentality.

Disorders The other disorder is to fail to realize that individual persons have a duty in justice to live for the common good, the good of the social whole. Another problem is to fail to see that the social whole, the state, has duties towards the individual members of the state. We find this in many Third World Countries.

Preferential Option for the Poor There are a number of basic principles of Catholic social teaching that we need to keep in mind. In matters of distributive justice, the state as a whole should exercise a preferential option for the poor. In other words, the state should prefer those options that will benefit more immediately the vulnerable of society.

Preferential Option for the Poor Sometimes the state will introduce economic measures that will help the poor in the long run, but in the mean time leaves them vulnerable to deeper poverty.

UDMG The principle of the universal destination of material goods. This means that the material goods of this world are destined for the benefit of everyone, not just the few (such as the owners of the means of production, land owners, the wealthy elite, etc.). Property has to be arranged in such a way as to ensure that everyone benefits from the material goods of this world. Private property is the best way to ensure that the goods of this world benefit everyone. In some countries, however, 1% of the population owns 50% of the land. This creates poverty for the many, wealth for the few.