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Commutative Justice
Humility and Gratitude
A just man is first and foremost a grateful man. Where there is no gratitude, that is, where there is an inability to say "please and thank-you", there is no justice; for an unjust man fails to "see", to "re-cognize" a relation of inequality between himself and another. He is blind. Willfully blind. More specifically, he is unable to recognize, among all that he has, precisely what it is that has been given to him gratuitously. He is under the impression that what he has been given was rightfully his in the first place. He operates under the general conviction that he is entitled and that nothing given him brings about a relation of inequality, thereby creating a debt of gratitude, requiring of him a return of some sort. The thoroughly unjust man is convinced of his natural superiority over others. He is the center, an absolute end, while everyone else is a means to his personal ends.
A just man is first and foremost a grateful man. |
The basic falsehood and evil of egoism lie not in this absolute self-consciousness and self-evaluation of the subject, but in the fact that, ascribing to himself in all justice an absolute significance, he unjustly refuses to others this same significance. Recognizing himself as a center of life (which as a matter of fact he is), he relegates others to the circumference of his own being and leaves them only an external and relative value....in his innermost feelings and in deeds, he asserts an infinite difference and complete incommensurability between himself and others: he himself is everything, they themselves are nothing.1
The one who lies becomes unable to recognize truth because he violates the truth for the sake of the useful. He has become a pragmatist -- the criterion for moral truth has become the useful or the practical. And that the liar gradually loses respect for himself as well as for others is not hard to show. For loss of respect for oneself is part and parcel of every vice. The reason is that evil is a privation of being. What is evil lacks fullness of being. Conversely, goodness is fullness of being. Accordingly, an evil action is lacking something it ought to have. Now justice is in the will, and so injustice involves a deficient will. But we are what we will, and so an unjust man is a deficient man. I cannot love a deficiency, only a good. And so the more I commit acts of injustice, such as lying, the less there is in me to love, and thus the more I loath myself. And if lying establishes an inequality between myself and the person to whom I am lying, then I can only lose respect for that person, since I have made him less than myself whom I have begun to loath already.
There are no circumstances that can change the nature of a lie, rendering it a good action. Under normal circumstances, there is a moral debt to express ourselves truthfully to others in speaking and writing. If we have a duty to withhold information from others (mental reservation), at the very least we have a duty not to lie to them. To lie is to violate the requirement to treat others in a way that respects their status as persons equal in dignity to ourselves.
Adultery
Marriage is a common good, for it is shared in common between two. It is established through a total and mutual self-giving. That is precisely why it is a one flesh union between a male and a female, for a total self-giving includes the giving of one's body, since you are your body. In this total and mutual self-giving, the woman gives herself by receiving the total self-giving of her spouse into her own body, and he receives her in a giving sort of way. The two establish a human and temporal good that transcends them, a single good in which they both share and that is ordered to the public welfare. The two institute a common good, the most fundamental and important institution of the social whole, for every member of the civil community belongs to a family before belonging to any other community.
It is by virtue of this mutual self-giving that she has exclusive rights over his body -- for he belongs to her, he has given himself to her, and she has received the irrevocable gift of himself irrevocably. He too has exclusive rights over her body, because she has given herself entirely and thus irrevocably to him and he has received her self-giving irrevocably.
Adultery on the part of the male involves taking what is rightfully hers and giving it to another who has no rights over his body. Adultery on the part of the female involves taking what is rightfully his and surrendering it to someone who has no rights over her body. Adultery is a violation of the institution of marriage in that it treats what was irrevocably given as if it were revocable.
Adultery is, at the same time, an injustice against the common good, the good of the civil community as a whole, for the family, grounded in marriage, is the most important condition that enables individual persons to achieve personal wholeness. As in all unjust acts against the common good, the adulterer wills a benefit for himself at the expense of the greater good of the public welfare. For a person's infidelity harms the children of the marriage whether they are actually born or are only possibilities, for infidelity harms the spouses and their relationship, the health of which is a critical factor in the physical, emotional, and spiritual welfare of the children. Infidelity hurts the very cause of marriage, and the health of society depends upon the health of marriages within it.
General/Legal Justice
The Human Person and the Common Good
A common good is a human good held in common. Common goods are often confused with collective goods. The two, however, are really different and need to be distinguished. An example of a collective good is a meal. Each person sitting at table acquires only a portion of the meal. It is simply not possible for every person sitting down to enjoy the whole meal simultaneously. As the number of people invited to eat increases, the individual portions available to each one decreases. Hence, a collective good is essentially material.
A common good, on the other hand, can be enjoyed entirely, on the whole, by any number of individual persons at the same time. An increasing number of individuals partaking in that good does not in any way diminish the good available to anyone else. For example, consider the common good of a culture's literary heritage. My possession of that heritage does not diminish anyone else's ability to possess it. In fact, the more widely it is possessed, the more likely it is to be shared with others. This is not the case with a meal, an apartment building, an automobile, or a piece of land. A common good is essentially immaterial.
Consider the common good of a sports team, such as a hockey team. Victory is the end intended by the whole team, and every member of the team is working in conjunction with every other member to achieve that end, to be possessed by everyone as common property, or a common good. An individual scoring record, on the other hand, is not a common good, but a private good belonging only to one individual member of that team.
An unselfish player loves the common good of victory over his own private good, such as his private scoring record. A selfish player loves his private good over the common good of victory. Instead of passing the puck which will create the conditions that are guaranteed to increase the likelihood of victory for the whole team, he hangs on to the puck in the hopes that he can add to his personal record, even though doing so will decrease the likelihood of victory for the team, which is the common good of the team in which every member can partake entirely. In short, a common good is better than a private good within the same category.
Just as there is a common good of a hockey team, and a common good of a school, etc., there is a common good of the civil community as a whole. The common good of the social whole is its principal end. Let us explore this point here.
Personhood and Self-Expansion
The human person is the only creature in the physical universe willed into existence, by God, for his own sake. The human person is an intellectual creature, an individual substance of a rational nature. As such, he has two specific powers, namely the power to know and the power to will. The human person is a rational animal, and so his knowledge begins in sensation. But unlike the non-rational animal, knowledge does not end there. The human person grasps the natures of things. He apprehends what they are (simple apprehension of a thing's essence) and that they exist (existential judgment), and he reasons to conclusions not immediately evident to his mind (science).
Intellectual knowledge is a specific kind of self-expansion. The things man knows exist in him, that is, in his mind. Knowledge is within us. For example, the knowledge of my friend or the maple tree in my front yard is real and in my mind. And so it is true to say that these things exist in me in a certain way, obviously in a way that is different than the way they exist outside of me. The tree outside me exists materially, but within me it exists immaterially.
Through knowledge, I become more, that is, I expand; for I am more than what I am than without knowing the thing I know. As Aristotle writes: "The intellect is in a way all things."
The human person wills to be more, to exist more fully, for "all men by nature desire to know" (Aristotle). He exists more fully as a knower. Thus, the human person has will. He not only apprehends intelligibles (the natures of things, their existence, truth, beauty, real harmonious relationships, justice, etc.,), he also wills them. The intelligibles that draw him are known by him as intelligible goods.
The will makes possible another kind of self-expansion, namely the self-expansion that occurs through love. Not only do I know the other as a person of the same nature as myself (as another self), I can also will his good for his own sake, not merely for the sake of what he does for me. I can will his good as I will my own. In other words, I can love him as another self, another me. In knowledge, he exists in me in a certain way. In love, I go outside myself and exist as him. Through love, I become two, or three, or four, depending on how extensive is that love.
The more I become, the better I become. The reason is that good is a property of being: whatever is, is good insofar as it is. The human person was brought into existence in order to know and love, that is, in order to become more than what he is without ceasing to be what he is. He exists to be most fully, for his origin is in love; for God is love, and love is effusive. God, who is Goodness Itself, freely willed to communicate the goodness and existence that He is most perfectly to things outside Himself. Man begins to exist most fully through the communication of goodness to beings outside of himself, a communication proportionate to his rational and material nature.
There is no limit to the good that the human person desires for himself; for he never stops pursuing human goods: he continues to ask questions, to create works of art, to behold ever more beautiful sights, to desire greater intimacy with friends, etc. He desires a perfect happiness, one that endures indefinitely and is secure from mishap. And if he loves others as he loves himself, such as his own children, he wills perfect happiness upon them. He wills a perfect, perpetual and secure well-being for those he loves. In short, he wills the best for himself and for those he loves, and the best means the best.
At the same time, though, he recognizes the finitude of what he possesses in knowledge. He recognizes his own finitude. He is a limited being with a limited nature and limited powers. He desires the best for his children and those he loves, but he is painfully aware of his limited capacity to communicate good to others, the limited amount of time allotted to him, and gifts he does not possess but which others do, etc. In short, he knows that he wills more for those he loves than he is capable of bringing about on his own.
But when he acts in community with others, much more can be accomplished. There is a social whole that is more capable of enriching those he loves than he is on his own efforts. For he cannot impart to those he loves a culture's literary and scientific heritage in all its rich diversity, for example. His knowledge and time are limited, and he possesses some common goods more completely than others.
If he is a grateful man, he recognizes that he is the beneficiary of the social whole, that is, of the labor of countless others before him. So much of what he possesses as common goods came about through the establishment of social conditions that preceded him, such as the existence of schools, universities, hospitals, a just legal system, etc., all of which were established at a cost. A grateful and just man wishes to return the love behind all these goods he possesses, as much as he is capable. Though most of those who labored for him are dead, he will not allow that fact to stop him from making a generous return.
The civil community as a whole has an end, just like a hockey team or a school or hospital. The end is a common good. In this case, though, it is the common good of the social whole, which is a good to be shared in and enjoyed by every member of the civil community, not a collective good to be portioned off to some. The principal end of the social whole is to bring about what the just man wants to accomplish for those he loves, but cannot by virtue of his limits, namely the well-being of every member of the society. The just man is motivated by gratitude and love of that community that preceded him to commit to this common good of the whole, to direct his labor towards the betterment of the civil community because his love is greater than himself, that is, it exceeds the limits of his own material nature. The common good of the social whole that he labors to help establish is reflected back onto the human persons within society. The concerted effort of everyone to establish a common good enriches the lives of everyone within that community to a far greater degree than would otherwise be possible for a sole individual.
The intelligible human goods to which human persons are naturally inclined are in some ways aspects of the refracted light of contemplation. When people vacation, for example, they often indicate with their words that they intend to "see" (visit) different places and different people. The human person is inclined to contemplate, to know, and his being with others is nothing other than seeing others ("...it is good to see you..."). As the just man grows in fullness of being, he wills to share what he possesses, to pour it out, to communicate it to others, that is, to make it common property, a common good. Only the egoist, painfully aware of the moral void within him, keeps what he has for himself and shares only a small portion of it when doing so proves useful for procuring adulation and praise. But the just man is a good man, and goodness is self-diffusive (bonum est diffusivum sui). The works of Aristotle, for example, are common goods. So too are The Dialogues of Plato, as well as the voluminous works of St. Augustine and the Fathers of the Church, or The Aeneid of Virgil, The Ennead of Plotinus, the two Summas of St. Thomas, the art works of Raphael, the Principia of Newton, to mention only a fraction of what we've inherited. All these people poured out what they had received, communicated it to others outside themselves, because goodness is generous and effusive, and as persons expand through knowledge and love, they become larger and more like their origin, God, who is Subsistent Goodness Itself.
The one who truly loves other persons wills that others have what he has. If his love is pure and unmixed with inordinate self-love, he wills that others have more than what he has. And so the good man wants to see the common good expand and enlarge, to be reflected back onto the persons he loves.
But the common good, no matter how large, is still not the perfect good, the bonum universale, the best that we will for those we love. Man knows himself as good, but not as the Supreme Good, the perfection of goodness, or goodness without limits. Yet he recognizes that he and others like him are perpetually open to further perfection, in fact to the whole of reality, and thus to what is larger than the common good. But he knows from within that he is limited vertically, if not horizontally, that he cannot possess the whole good (the bonum universale) according to the powers of his nature. Only God is Goodness Itself, without limits, and yet man’s nature is proportioned to finite goods. Man wills the best for himself and for those he loves, but he cannot attain it, and so his perfect happiness depends upon the divine initiative to reveal Himself and to dispose him to know, hope in, and love Him, to raise him to a level at which he may begin to possess God. In other words, man depends upon the infusion of divine grace, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in order for him and those he loves to possess perfect happiness, which is his actual destiny.
For all those he loves, the genuinely good man wants more than what the public welfare will ever be able to provide. Through revelation, we know that the human person really is destined for something higher and greater than the state so that his will is not destined to be forever frustrated. Man is destined for a supreme common good, the possession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity. And since the common good of the social whole is ordered to the good of all human persons, the state has a duty not to hinder man's progress towards that supra-natural end. Thus, any state that makes itself the ultimate end (i.e., makes itself divine) and hinders man from rising to his supernatural destiny, is an unjust and corrupted political body.
General justice, as the name suggests, is not a particular virtue but refers to perfect and complete virtue, or moral goodness that ranges over the entire area of moral action. General justice thus contains all the virtues. The one who directs his actions towards the common good is the man of general justice. Consider again our example comparing the common good of a hockey team to the private good of the individual player, for example his scoring record. What we need to keep in mind here is that a "good player" is understood to be good not in isolation from the end to be achieved by the team, but in reference to it. A high number of goals and assists is a good thing only because the end of victory is the good of the team, the common good. Hence, a private good, such as a good scoring record, is good only in reference to the common good of the team. So too, one is not a good and just man in isolation from the common good of the social whole, but in reference to it. A good teacher, a good parent, a good citizen, a good man, are all understood in reference to a common good, for instance the common good of the educational institution, the domestic common good, the political common good, and the ultimate end of union with God.
Legal justice is general justice with a more precise meaning. For the purpose of law is precisely the establishment and maintenance of the common good. The virtue of legal justice contains the acts of all the virtues insofar as through law they are ordered to the common good, and so legal justice is the virtue by which we exercise the acts of all the virtues in relation to the common good.
Distributive Justice
Distributive justice exists principally and primarily in those having charge of the common weal, and this type of justice orders the relation between the social whole and the individual person. Distributive justice is the virtue that inclines the will of those who hold political office to apportion to citizens what is their due by proportional equality. It is the task of public officials to distribute common goods proportionately. To understand what we mean by proportionate equality, consider the analogy of proper proportionality: 2 is to 6 as 12 is to 36. A strict proportionate equality is the following: if a person who earns 6 is taxed 2, then one who earns 36 should be taxed 12. Indeed, determining tax burdens via tax brackets is not necessarily a matter of imposing a uniform ratio. Rather, a person who earns more will pay a higher percentage of taxes. The task of those who hold public office is to determine what is a just proportion, or what is proportionately equal. There are often social and economic variables that recommend a different ratio. A person who has a larger income ought to be taxed more, but exactly how much more is difficult to determine and requires a great deal of political prudence, which includes among other things an understanding of economics, the ability to foresee consequences of certain decisions, a memory of what occurred as a result of past decisions (history), etc. Too great a tax burden on small businesses or corporations, for example, might very well be imprudent and lead to a decrease in production and higher unemployment, thus depleting the conditions conducive to a greater sharing in common goods.
Vices contrary to distributive justice include respect for person, which consists in giving position or office to a person not on the basis of his worthiness to hold office, but on the basis of his person, that is, irrelevant factors, such as personal favors done in the past, friendship, or feelings of preference, etc. Nepotism is similar in that it involves favoritism to a relative. Any kind of unmerited advancement in a position that serves the common good, such as positions in education, military, business, municipal office, etc., is a vice against distributive justice.
The entire moral dynamic between the three different kinds of justice (commutative, general/legal, and distributive) is very much like the rain cycle of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, transpiration, precipitation, etc.
The just person discovers himself by committing, in a spirit of sacrifice, to something larger than himself, the common good (evaporation). The holder of political office, if he is to be worthy of the office, must be a man of great justice and prudence, that is, a man of eminent integrity (condensation). Only then will the total conditions enabling everyone to achieve human well-being be distributed proportionately to every member of the civil community (precipitation). It is the possession of these common goods, the intellectual, spiritual, scientific, artistic, and literary heritage of civilization that enriches the lives of human beings (infiltration), conceiving within them a powerful eros that inspires them to rise up and be a part of that line and continue it, to generously bring forth the fruits of their labor (transpiration), whether that turns out to be children of noble character able to eventually assume public office and resist the temptations that periodically haunt those in office, or children who will make great teachers, or just and prudent court judges, or musicians, poets, or who will eventually make loving and down to earth parents themselves who are content to raise up devout and faithful citizens of the Church. The only difference between the two cycles is that human persons have a destiny that rises above the state to a perfect, eternal, and infinite common good that cannot ever be lost.
Vindication
The unjust man loves his private good more than the good of anyone else, and he has no difficulty disturbing the order of justice for the sake of himself.
Vindication sounds very much like "vindictive", and unfortunately many people consider vindication to be exactly that, a form of revenge. But vindication is not revenge nor does it describe a vindictive or vengeful will. Rather, it is a habit that belongs to one who loves justice. It is the virtue by which a person observes due measure in meting out punishment to one who has committed a moral offense of some sort. Vindication wills punishment because a just man loves the order of justice, which exists for the sake of the common good of the social whole, which in turn is ordered to all human persons who belong to society. The unjust man loves his private good more than the good of anyone else, and he has no difficulty disturbing the order of justice for the sake of himself. That order consists in a fair and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens, but the unjust man chooses not to exercise proper restraint for the sake of keeping that order of proportionately equal relations, but chooses instead to pursue his own private interests, despite the fact that his actions increase the burden that others have to carry, thus lessening their share in the benefits available to them, and increasing his own. As a simple example, consider tax evasion. A person who fails to pay his fair share of taxes nevertheless reaps the benefits derived from tax dollars, such as good roads, schools, and medical care. If those tax evaders fulfilled their obligation to the social whole, the tax burden on everyone else would be lighter and more equitable, all things considered.
Moreover, it may appear that the widespread opposition to the death penalty and its increasing eradication is a sign of moral progress and marks an overall increase in reverence for the value of human life. But that may only be appearance. It could very well be a sign of an increasing indifference towards injustice and a depletion of a sense of the intrinsic value of human life, leading essentially to a loss of a horror of sins against life. |
Liberality and the Offspring of Covetousness
Liberality is the virtue by which one exercises proper stewardship over excess riches. It is the mean between covetousness on the one hand, and prodigality on the other. A just man recognizes the debt he owes to the civil community, that he is the beneficiary of the generosity of countless others who have gone before him. He recognizes that not everything he has is strictly the result of his efforts alone. He knows he is not self-sufficient, but dependent upon many factors entirely outside of his control. Why should he benefit from the generosity of a large multitude before him, but others that come after him not benefit? A truly just man will use his excess wealth for good causes, for he is moved to respond to those who suffer, to do his part in creating conditions for their well-being.
Prodigality is the vice by which a person is inclined to use his excess wealth for himself, to gratify his passions. The result is that he takes no delight in virtue. The defect of liberality is covetousness, the inordinate love of possessing. Covetousness spawns a number of other vices against commutative justice, such as fraud, insensibility to mercy, treachery, falsehood, perjury, violence, restlessness, murder, etc.
Fraud
Fraud is a kind of deception employed to cause the loss of some value to a person. One might sell a defective product without letting the buyer know, or sell a product without any sort of discount, while allowing him to believe that the product is worth much more than it actually is. Selling a person short is also fraudulent, for example, selling a person eleven bagels and charging him for a dozen. Deceptive advertising is fraudulent. For example, advertising a school as Catholic, naming it after a Catholic saint, and then proceeding to teach a personal agenda that is inconsistent with the formulated teachings of the Catholic Church is deceptive and, like all these instances of fraud, violates the requirement not to do to another what one would not like done to oneself.
Insensibility to Mercy
Insensibility to mercy describes a depletion of empathy, a hardening of the heart. As we said above, love expands the self in that the one who loves another as another self becomes the other. But the covetous have an inordinate love of self. Consequently, they are not able to empathize, to feel what another is feeling, and so they cannot sympathize. They do not suffer at seeing others suffer. In fact, they may even delight in it. At this point, self-love moves to another level, a more pathological level involving a narcissistic envy. Envy delights in the misfortunes of others, for their misfortunes provide the envious man with an opportunity to rationalize a sense of superiority over the unfortunate and to believe that fate has favored him by reason of some superior quality in him. The misfortunes of others may also provide the narcissist with an opportunity to "come to the rescue" and "save the day" in order to appear to be sympathetic and compassionate. But in truth, he is nothing of the sort. He has no heart. Others are not his equal, but have value only insofar as they are of use to him.
Falsehood and Deceit
The covetous will exhibit a false prudence, namely cunning. They can be very clever and for the most part have many people fooled. But they are entirely false. Their words and actions do not aim to reveal, but conceal, for they cannot achieve their ends unless they appear to others as entirely normal. Their lying becomes perjury when confirmed under oath. A man who lies under oath, that is, while calling on God as his witness, has lost himself. As Bolt has More saying to his daughter Margaret while visiting him in prison: "When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then -- he needn't hope to find himself again."8 This is an example of how loving oneself to the point of covetousness leads to a tragic loss of self.To mock is to laugh contemptuously at another and to shame another by exposing his faults or vices in jest. A great deal of comedy today has degenerated into mockery, and many enjoy this kind of humor because envy and covetousness are rather widespread. |
The covetous have no friends. Everyone is a tool, an instrumental good of relative value. When a tool is of no use any more, it is discarded or sold. The covetous have no loyalty. They see no absolute value in fidelity. They do not love justice. Virtue is only in the appearance, not in the heart. And so anyone who is no longer of use is discarded or sold for a price. That is the reason why the facade of the fraudulent and covetous narcissist is destined to collapse; for he is eventually exposed by the victims of his treachery.
Murder
It is a small step from treachery to murder. The covetous man does not look at the world in terms of the common good, but, at the most, only in terms of the collective good. He has no eyes for the common good, for everything is referred to himself. Recall the difference between a common good and a collective good. The former is an immaterial good that does not diminish as the number of partakers increases. A collective good, on the other hand, diminishes as the number of those who partake of it increases, like a meal or a financial reward. Covetousness leads to a confusion between the common good of the social whole and the collective good. For they see the increase in population not as a blessing, but as a threat to their share in the collective good. If a person loves his own life more than the life of the other, he tends to be open to the idea of contraception and abortion. The step from the contra-life behaviour of contraception to the contra-life and murderous acts of abortion and infanticide is not a large one. Hence, the NSSM 200 Directive, signed by Henry Kissinger, that holds up abortion as a vital part of the movement towards global well-being.
Good parenting is the cornerstone of civilization; for there is no prudence without right orientation, that is, an ordering to the right end. A person who has made himself the ultimate end of all he does (the center of his life) cannot be prudent, only cunning. |
For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasures that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.9
Now in light of the fact that virtue is the principle of emotional stability and the means of happiness, the debt of gratitude owing to a good parent is quite simply impossible to fully satisfy. But justice demands that we begin to try, that is, to satisfy it as much as we are reasonably able. Piety is that part of justice by which we manifest the honor, respect and reverence we owe our parents. The social whole has a special debt to good parents at the same time; for its health and well-being is directly dependent upon the way they choose to carry out the burdensome responsibility of child rearing. The reality of this debt should in some visible way be reflected in law.
Patriotism is that virtue annexed to justice that bears upon the country as a whole, including its entire history. It is a love for the civil community and a willingness to satisfy, as far as possible, the debt we owe it. |
Patriotism is that virtue annexed to justice that bears upon the country as a whole, including its entire history. It is a love for the civil community and a willingness to satisfy, as far as possible, the debt we owe it. This will involve showing due honor to the country, which includes standing for the country's national anthem, a willingness to defend the country should it find itself under attack, etc. It is no coincidence that those who couldn't be bothered standing respectfully for their country's national anthem also evidence a lack of a sense of gratitude to the country as a whole. Such people are unaware that they are the beneficiaries of the generosity and labor of millions, for no one, within today's culture of Individualism, has ever called their attention to such a notion. On the contrary, a great many in the western world seem to have been brought up to think mainly in terms of their private rights, not their public duty.
Individualism has affected some countries more than others. For example, one of the great failures of Canada since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been an almost complete neglect of emphasis of those parts of justice, such as general justice, observance, piety, and religion, that rightly order the individual towards the social whole either directly or indirectly. In the minds of many people, the civil community alone is the subject of duties and has the sole obligation to supply the conditions for the free exercise of individual liberty, while individual citizens need only concern themselves with their subjective rights. The Individualism of the 60s and 70s is the philosophical and cultural framework that spawned the Canadian Charter in particular, which tends to confuse the distinction between objective and subjective rights.
For the proper object of a right is that which is just. As we pointed out above, right refers to 'the just', implying a relation of equality between persons. An objective right is a thing or action due another. The civil community as a whole has objective rights, which patriotism, legal justice and observance have as their object. In other words, citizens have obligations towards the social whole. A subjective right is the moral power that an individual person possesses for doing or acquiring something, such as the right to vote, or the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
A subjective right, however, is dependent upon an objective right. The moral power that one has is called a 'right' in relation to and consequent upon an objective right (a thing or action due another). The right to marry and beget new life, for example, has always been grounded in the duty towards the common good; for society proceeds from the family unit as the organs of the body proceed from its cells. So, as we have been generously given life, education, and a cultural and religious heritage, we owe it to our country, our parents, and to God to continue that generosity.
The civil community as a whole has a right to expect a certain level of generosity and loyalty from its citizens. Indeed, every individual person has rights, and this presupposes the duty of the state to establish the ensemble of material and other conditions that favor the realization of each and every person's own flourishing, which of course includes the realization of each one's obligations to his equals, to his parents, to the social whole, and to God.
But when we reverse the relationship between objective and subjective right such that subjective right becomes primary, then the order of law and justice becomes subordinated to the liberty (freedoms) of individuals. When this happens, the aim of society becomes freedom, not justice or the common good. The inevitable outcome is an almost complete lack of patriotism in the citizenry, especially the young.
Moreover, when individual liberty is held up as an absolute end, it necessarily relativizes the moral order and the order of rights, making them entirely subjective. And when individual liberty becomes an end above and beyond the common good, individual freedoms -- such as those typically listed in a modern Charter of Rights -- will lack objective criteria that justly limit them. Within such a context, legal decisions are bound to be unprincipled, ad hoc, and thus unpredictable.
But the right of individual liberty is subordinated to the common good of the social order. My individual freedoms are limited by my duties to the common good of the civil community, that is, by the objective rights of the civil community to expect certain just actions from me.
Patriotism and War
Patriotism includes, as was said above, the willingness to defend the country should it find itself under attack. The patriotic are willing to fall in battle for future generations as others before them have done. Not only is there an increasingly widespread -- not to mention questionable -- rejection of the death penalty as in itself unjustifiable, there seems to be an increasingly widespread, unqualified and absolute rejection of war as something in itself contrary to peace. But it may very well be the case that such a movement also hides something far more insidious, such as a growing indifference towards oppression and injustice and a cowardly unwillingness to fall in battle for something larger than oneself, such as the common good that is threatened externally by an unjust power. It may speak of an unwillingness to expand oneself through love, an unwillingness to love others of another country as another self so as to be willing to come to their aid and act in their defense. What better way to hide such depravity than to shroud it under the cloak of a peace sign?
Aquinas argues quite persuasively that war is not unlawful in itself and not necessarily contrary to peace. In fact, it can very well be an act of peacemaking. In order for war to be just, a number of things are necessary. The authority of the sovereign must be just and legitimate, and only that authority can command war to be waged; for the public authority has as its primary duty the protection of the common good of the city, the province or country subject to them, and so a private citizen cannot legitimately declare war.
...there seems to be an increasingly widespread, unqualified and absolute rejection of war as something in itself contrary to peace. But it may very well be the case that such a movement also hides something far more insidious, such as a growing indifference towards oppression and injustice and a cowardly unwillingness to fall in battle for something larger than oneself, such as the common good that is threatened externally by an unjust power. |
Aquinas argues that there is a duty to wage war under certain circumstances, and he quotes Psalm 82, 4, addressed to those in authority: "Rescue the poor: and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner". Hence, a just cause is required for a just war. A just cause aims not only at defending the just order, but also at restoring the just order, which is disrupted by an external enemy of the state. It is demanded by the virtue of vindication, existing in the will of the public authority.
It is necessary that those waging war have right intention, which is the intention to protect the common good or to promote it, and not the motive of aggrandizement or revenge. The intention must be to secure peace and to restore the just order and establish the common good. As Aquinas writes: "For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention."
There are four objections that Thomas treats in the Summa regarding this question, three of which are particularly relevant.10 The first cites Matthew, 26, 52: "All that take the sword shall perish with the sword". The second objection cites the Sermon on the Mount: "But I say to you not to resist evil," as well as the Letter of Paul to the Romans, 12, 19: "Not revenging yourselves, my dearly beloved, but give place to wrath" ("Never try to get revenge; leave that, my friends, to God's anger". trans. The Jerusalem Bible). The third objection makes the argument that nothing, except sin, is contrary to an act of virtue, but since war is contrary to peace, war is always a sin.
To the first objection, Thomas points out that to "take the sword" is to arm oneself in order to take the life of anyone, without the command of proper authority. This is not the same as having recourse to the sword as an instrument of public authority and to use it as commissioned by that authority, which has charge of the common good. His reply to the second objection refines his argument. He says that we ought to keep the biblical precepts cited well in mind so as to be ready to obey them and, if necessary, to refrain from self-defense. Nonetheless, he argues, it is at times necessary for us to act otherwise for the sake of the common good, or even for the good of those we're fighting. Here he quotes St. Augustine: "Those whom we have to punish with a kindly severity, it is necessary to handle in many ways against their will. For when we are stripping a man of the lawlessness of sin, it is good for him to be vanquished, since nothing is more hopeless than the happiness of sinners, whence arises a guilty impunity, and an evil will, like an internal enemy" (Ep. ad Marcellin. cxxxviii). And to the third objection, Thomas simply replies: "Those who wage war justly aim at peace, and so they are not opposed to peace.
I have heard and considered the arguments of pacifists in favor of the absolute prohibition of war, and to my mind, their arguments have not been able to stand up to the simplest tests of common sense reasoning. For example, should a disgruntled student or two come to school with semi-automatic machine guns and start firing randomly at every young person in sight, would the pacifist argue that administrators have a duty not to call the police, since the police carry guns and are willing and likely to use them? The pacifist position would have to require us not to cooperate with unjustifiable conduct on the part of gun carrying police officers. If the pacifist admits that one may call for armed help, then it is admitted that armed self-defense is justifiable in principle.
Gratitude demands that one should pay back more than what one has received. |
The first response to the generosity of a giver is to say thank-you. And so prayer, in particular the prayer of thanksgiving, is the first interior act of religion by which a person renders due honor and worship to God. We also honor God by recognizing our utter dependency upon Him and thus restraining the inordinate hope we might have in ourselves. Hence, the prayer of petition. Prayers of praise and adoration follow upon sufficient reflection on divine providence.
Gratitude demands that one should pay back more than what one has received. St. Thomas writes:
...gratitude regards the favor received according to the intention of the benefactor, who seems to be deserving of praise, chiefly for having conferred the favor gratis without being bound to do so. Wherefore the beneficiary is under a moral obligation to bestow something gratis in return. Now he does not seem to bestow something gratis, unless he exceeds the quantity of the favor received: because so long as he repays less or an equivalent, he would seem to do nothing gratis, but only to return what he has received. Therefore gratitude always inclines, as far as possible, to pay back something more.11
But it is not possible to exceed the giver in this case, neither in deed nor in will. But it is sufficient if there is a very ardent will to repay, as much as possible, what one has received. It is this will that leads to the worship of God, to the complete surrender of one's entire person to Him, making Him the center around which our lives revolve. This will is so strong that it seeks to express itself through external acts of religion, or religious ritual, expressing devotion and including acts of sacrifice. We see this in the Jewish offerings of the first fruits of the harvest, an act that makes visible the interior feeling of gratitude and the recognition of our utter dependency upon divine providence.
God is the origin of everything that is, and He is the ultimate end towards which all things tend, for all things are inclined to be most fully, and God is fullness of being (Ipsum Esse Subsistens). Man is also naturally inclined to be most fully, within the limits of his human nature. But as an intellectual creature, he is open to the whole of reality, for he understands the very notion of the "whole of reality". The human goods to which he is naturally inclined all seem to be aspects of contemplation. Man tends to contemplate and he desires to contemplate the causes of things, seeking the highest causes and ultimately the highest cause; for his mind can taste a certain rest in the possession of these causes (knowledge). He will be perpetually restless (not necessarily miserable) until he comes to possess the highest and absolutely First Cause, in the knowledge of which he will possess the whole of reality; for in possessing the cause, one possesses the effect.
The Theological Virtues
But he cannot come to possess the origin of being through the limited powers of his nature, because God is not an object proportioned to his nature. God infinitely exceeds the limited capacity of human nature. That is why in order to achieve perfect happiness, the rest his heart seeks in every one of his actions, he depends upon the divine initiative to freely and gratuitously lift him up through divine grace so as to proportion him to achieve the end of supernatural contemplation.
The ultimate good attracting and moving the will is both natural and supernatural. As natural it lies within the scope of our natural powers; it is the felicity matching human nature about which philosophers discourse -- the contemplative happiness of active wisdom, the practical happiness of active prudence spreading out into the activities of the other moral virtues. As supernatural, it exceeds unaided human nature and cannot be reached by our inherited powers; we cannot think it or wish it of ourselves. We are set on this happiness solely by divine liberality.12
The infused virtues are the beginnings of that life, but the human person must grow in faith, in hope, and in the life of charity in order to be properly prepared for life hereafter. Without that preparation, the life of heaven will be so contrary to our character that we can only experience it as painful, like the birth of a premature baby who has to now endure conditions the rest of us are used to, but to which his body is insufficiently adapted. A breeze that we would find pleasant would strike him as cold and profoundly uncomfortable. |
The human person is naturally proportioned to human goods. He has a natural inclination to preserve his life, to beget life, to know the natures of things, to contemplate beautiful things, to enter into deeper relationships, to establish friendships, and to seek harmony between himself and his country, and between himself and God. But he does not know God as He is in Himself, nor can he love God as he loves his friends. He cannot attain God, because God is supernatural. And so if he is to achieve perfection, God must freely choose to infuse in him a supernatural inclination analogous to the natural tendencies of his nature towards natural human goods. Through these infused qualities, he is inclined to what is above the natural capacities of his nature.
The end is in the beginning: no one is directed to an end unless he be already proportioned to it. Otherwise he would not desire it, for like likes like. The motion of human nature towards happiness starts from the first principles of reason, which are like the seeds of wisdom, and the first principles of the natural law, which are like the seeds of the moral virtues. The parallel applies to the world of grace: it is consonant with the way things work that the happiness of eternal life should already be planted in him who has received the promise. Eternal life consists in the full knowledge of God: this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God. This supernatural knowledge is now entered into by faith, which believes, through infused light, truths exceeding our natural wits.13
The first of these supernatural inclinations is faith, which is the intellectual assent, commanded by the will, to what God has revealed about Himself. It effects an interior illumination by which the articles of faith become intelligible.14 Consequently, before Christ's coming, "no philosopher by his entire sustained effort could have known as much about God and the truths necessary for salvation as can a humble old woman now that Christ has come."15
The theological virtue of hope is the next of the three supernatural inclinations infused into the human person, for it is not enough to believe what God has revealed about Himself. We need to be inclined to look expectantly towards Him, to await confidently the fulfillment of what He has promised, namely the promise of eternal life and the promise of His help.
But it is through the infused virtue of charity that we actually attain God and begin to possess Him in this life. The union that charity establishes is a union of friendship, which involves a love that is mutual. This friendship does not begin with us, but with His love for us. He freely and gratuitously shares His happiness with us, raises us up by grace, perfects our free will, reveals Himself, moves the will to believe and hope in Him without compelling us. To cooperate with grace, to choose to believe in Him and confidently await the fulfillment of his promises, to converse with Him and contemplate Him is to love Him back. This is to enter into friendship with God. This is supernatural charity.
For friends to converse together is the proper condition of friendship. Men's conversation with God is through contemplation...Next, friends delight in each other's presence, enjoying each other's actions and talk, and finding comfort there in their anxieties....Lastly, friends agree together. Accordingly, instructed by his precepts and moved by the Holy Spirit to fulfill them, we consent to God's will.16
And so man's return to God is led by the virtue of religion, the most perfect part of the virtue of justice, and it is achieved through the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. But there is one place where the analogy between between the inclinations of human nature towards intelligible human goods and the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity falls short. The theological virtues have to be developed and nourished, or they will die. Heaven is not comparable to a Club Med or some other lush tropical resort. We naturally incline to such conditions, but we do not naturally incline to the life of faith and charity or the heavenly liturgy (Rv. 4). The infused virtues are the beginnings of that life, but the human person must grow in faith, in hope, and in the life of charity in order to be properly prepared for life hereafter. Without that preparation, the life of heaven will be so contrary to our character that we can only experience it as painful, like the birth of a premature baby who has to now endure conditions the rest of us are used to, but to which his body is insufficiently adapted. A breeze that we would find pleasant would strike him as cold and profoundly uncomfortable.
But obedience is not really a specifically canine trait at all -- even in dogs. Far from being below us, obedience is actually well above us. Through it, we become more than what we are without ceasing to be what we are. |
Related Issues of Justice
Contraception and Natural Family Planning
Contraception is not, strictly speaking, homicide. But I have chosen to treat it in the context of the virtue of justice because contraception has something in common with homicide, namely a "contra-life" will, that is, a will set against a basic human good. The difference between the two is that contraception involves a will set against a possible baby, not an actual baby -- otherwise contraception and abortion would be the same thing.. Now setting one's will against a possible baby is morally significant, because all basic intelligible human goods are possibilities before they are actualities. In other words, a possible person is not nothing. Potentiality is not the same as non-being. One's will cannot bear upon non-being, but it can and often does bear upon a potentiality. A possible baby is still a human good, just as a possible friendship is humanly good and an object of the will. Consider that acting to prevent a possible friendship from becoming an actuality would indeed be morally significant and worthy of discussion within the context of justice. That is why contraception is worthy of consideration in the context of that virtue which deals with rightly ordered willing, namely justice.
This issue can best be understood by recalling that one need not actually kill anybody physically in order to acquire the moral identity of a murderer. I may intend to kill a person, perform an act with that intention, and actually convince myself that I have succeeded without actually having done so (i.e., I could hire a hit man to kill my wife without realizing that he is in fact an undercover police officer). By choosing to conclude a deal with such a person to have my wife eliminated, I take on the moral identity of a murderer, even though my wife was not to be killed. For I have made a choice to murder my wife. The action was a murderous action, even though the act did not result in her death. What makes the action an act of killing, morally speaking (as opposed to physically and/or legally), is the relationship that exists between my will and the human life it bears upon (in this case, my wife). That will or intention was contra-life. Morally speaking, there is no difference between that action (concluding a deal with the undercover cop) and actually succeeding in killing my wife. There is only a physical difference.
Now, what does this have to do with contraception and natural family planning (NFP)? Contraception is not homicide -- unless, of course, we refer to abortifacients, such as the IUD, the morning after pill, or in some instances the birth control pill, for these dispose of already conceived life. But what contraception and homicide have in common is a contra-life will. This does not make contraception an act of homicide, but if the contra-life intention makes homicide morally evil, it is precisely this contra-life intention that makes contraception morally wrong.
But if contraception is contra-life (as the word indicates), isn't NFP contra-life as well? Indeed, both have as their end the avoidance of a pregnancy. But it is the means employed to realize that end that is the difference between the two. Let me illustrate the difference using a table.
Firstly, the couples in both cases consider having sex.
| Table 1: | |
|---|---|
| Couple C (Contraception) |
Couple N (Natural Family Planning) |
| 1. Consider having sex | 1. Consider having sex |
But they realize that they have a good reason to avoid a pregnancy, and that if they perform the sexual act, they might initiate a new life. So, they project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse.
| Table 2: | |
|---|---|
| Couple C | Couple N |
| 1. Consider having sex | 1. Consider having sex |
| 2. They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. | 2. They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. |
Up to this point, there is no real difference between the contracepting couple and the NFP couple. But it is at this point that the couples begin to choose differently. Couple C chooses to have sex. But this decision necessitates another choice, which is the choice to take steps to prevent the possible baby they projected from becoming an actuality. In other words, it requires a choice to contracept. But couple N simply chooses not to have sex. Consider the table below.
| Table 3: | |
|---|---|
| Couple C | Couple N |
| 1. Consider the sex act. | 1. Consider the sex act. |
| 2. They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. | 2. They project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. |
| 3. They decide to have sex, and they choose to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actuality. | 3. They choose not to have sex. |
Couple N has chosen not to do something. They have a good reason not to have another baby, and since sexual intercourse is a life giving action, they have a good reason not to have sex. Hence, their decision not to have sex is reasonable.
Couple C chooses to have sex even though they have a good reason not to. Hence, that choice is already unreasonable. But they take steps to prevent a possible baby (which they have projected) from becoming an actual baby. This is contra-life. For the act is directed against a potential human life.
There is a real difference -- even a moral difference -- between preventing something from being and choosing not to cause something to be. In the legitimate use (unselfish use) of NFP, the couple chooses not to cause a baby to be. The contracepting couple chooses to prevent a possible person from coming to be. These two relationships, with respect to human life, are not morally the same.17
But if I choose not to cause something, do I not choose to prevent it from being? Not at all. I may choose not to cause a person to get a job, but that does not mean that I have prevented him from getting the job, nor does it mean that I will that he not get the job. A person may choose not to cause a friend to come to her wedding, but that does not mean that she wills that she not come to the wedding.
It is not possible to intend to prevent a possible baby unless a baby is about to emerge as a result of a life-giving action, or unless one believes that one is about to emerge. If a couple simply chooses not to have sex, they are not preventing a possible baby, because choosing not to have sex is not a life giving act. There is no need to contracept an act that is not life-giving. But sexual intercourse is a life giving action, which is why the contracepting couple, after choosing to engage in sexual intercourse, takes steps to contracept it. A baby is a real possibility if they choose to have sex, and it is against this real possibility that the couple willingly act against.
Moreoever, the sex act embraces within itself two intelligible human goods: the unitive and the procreative. These two goods constitute the human good of marriage, for marriage is an institution that is established as a result of a mutual decision to become a one flesh union. The intention to establish that one flesh union includes the openness to new life, at least on the level of the will, since new life is the result of the union of the male and female gametes. That is why the deliberate intention not to have children renders a marriage invalid. That is also why a contracepted act of intercourse cannot consummate a marriage.
And so there is a nuptial or conjugal meaning to the sex act. The sexual act is the marital act. The unitive and procreative goods together form a whole, and the attack on one is an attack on the other, which in the end amounts to an attack on the marriage. By intentionally rendering the marriage act sterile, the two actually intend to limit their mutual self-giving (the unitive good). But their mutual self-giving is their marital love for one another, which is a willed and total self-giving. There is a sense in which their intention to prevent a possible baby amounts to willing and establishing a limit to their mutual self-giving. By choosing not to cause a baby, they accept the fact that they will not see and experience a visible and tangible completion of their intention to be one body. On the other hand, by willingly preventing a possible baby, they will a limit. But this is contrary to conjugal love, and such action cannot nourish married love.
The Ethics of Baby Making
The hardest issue to deal with in all of ethics -- at least in my experience -- has been the issue of baby making (In Vitro Fertilization). Catholic teaching on the ethics of In Vitro Fertilization, for example, seems counterintuitive, at least initially. For the action of conceiving a baby in vitro is not directed against human life. It is not contra-life, but apparently pro-life. So why the opposition? And why wouldn't we recommend to a married couple who cannot conceive a baby on their own to turn to In Vitro Fertilization?
We've already seen that the human person is an end in himself. Every other type of being on the hierarchy of beings within the physical universe exist to serve the needs of the human person. The elements do not exist for their own sake, nor do plants. Vegetative and animal life exist ultimately to serve the needs of human beings. They are all instrumental goods. But man alone is a good to be loved for his own sake, not for the sake of what he can provide others.
That is why we naturally recoil from being used as a means to an end. When we discover that we've been lied to and manipulated for the sake of someone else's private purpose, we quite naturally become angry. Using a human person as a means to an end is abusive. This person or that person does not exist "for my sake" as if his existence is primarily a gift "for me". As Pope John Paul II pointed out, "man is the only being that God the Creator willed into existence for his own sake." That is why I must relate to human persons in line with that divine will, that is, as ends in themselves, not as means to my own personal ends. To use a person is to abuse a person.
From this principle it follows that a human being is not a right. To make a child or any human person the object of a right is to reduce the person to the level of an object to be possessed. But a child is not a right, but a gift, the supreme gift of matrimony.
The principle that human beings must never be treated as means to ends but always as ends in themselves means that human beings must be loved not for what they can do for me, but only and always for their own sake. This implies that the very existence of a person must be willed not for the sake of what that existence can do for me, but simply for the person's own sake.
So how does this apply to In Vitro Fertilization and all other related issues around technologized parenthood? A couple would like to have a baby, but they cannot for some biological reason. What could be wrong with getting a little help from the medical profession? Nothing, as long as it does not involve treating a baby as a means to an end. The problem is that IVF necessarily involves treating a baby as a means to an end.
The best way to explain this -- in my experience at least -- is to distinguish between the act of procreation and that of production. The act of manufacturing is very different than that of procreation, and the two involve a completely different way of relating to the product and the baby. Consider the following:
Production and Procreation
What the couple get when they conceive a child in the act is simply more of them -- it is an expansion of their marriage -- an enrichment and enlargement of the community of their marriage.
To produce something means to manufacture a product in order to satisfy the desire for it (the product of the manufacturing process). Production is an activity carried out for the sake of a product that is brought into being in order to satisfy the desire for it. To manufacture anything is to subordinate what you are making (product) to the desire to possess it. Thus, the project of producing anything (a new car, a house, medicine, etc.) is to bring that possible product into existence to satisfy the desire to have it.
The project of producing a baby is to bring a possible baby into existence in order to satisfy the desire for a future that includes that baby. But a baby must not be evaluated by relating the baby's existence to my desire for a future which includes that baby. This is to treat a baby as a means to an end. Thus, the principle that a person must be willed into existence for his own sake (and not for the sake of satisfying one's desire for a baby) is violated in the laboratory production of human life.
Procreation, on the other hand, is not the same as production. Procreation is the bringing forth of new human life as the fulfillment of the conjugal act. In performing the sexual act, the married couple become reproductively one organism. By intending to come together in the sex act (one body unity), the couple intend their marriage (their one flesh union). The act signifies their marriage and is a celebration of it. Now marriage is a basic human good, willed for its own sake, not an instrumental good. The first requirement for the procreation of new life is that the couple perform the sex act for its own sake, as a celebration of their marriage.
Now, the child is the completion of their one flesh union. So the will to become one body in the conjugal act (which they perform for its own sake as a celebration of marital love) is identical to the will to have a child -- for the couple trying to have a child, that is. By willing a child as the fulfillment of their one body unity, the two are willing their fulfillment as parents. The baby perfects and completes the couple as a one flesh union. Their will to be completely one body is the same as their will for a child. If they will to be completely one body for its own sake, then they intend the child for its own sake. The child is an expansion of the community of the couple's marriage. What the couple get when they conceive a child in the act is simply more of them -- it is an expansion of their marriage -- an enrichment and enlargement of the community of their marriage.
In the procreation of human life, the couple simply will to be more of what they are, that is, they want to be one body as much as possible, as much as they can be, and the child makes them more deeply one body. The couple is trying to function as a one flesh unity and they hope that their marriage act will be fruitful. When they conceive, they are delighted that their marital love is blessed and made complete.
In the laboratory generation of human life, the child does not perfect or complete the one body unity of the couple, the couple only pretend that it does. For they do not become reproductively one body; the child is generated outside the marital act. The child is the product of the individual act of the scientist who unites the male and female gametes in vitro. But to produce anything is to subordinate the product to the desire to possess it. The production of human life in vitro involves willing the child's existence to satisfy one's desire to have a baby -- thus treating the child as a means to an end, as a means of satisfying the desire for a future which includes the baby.
Similarly, having sex not as a marital act but simply in order to have a baby would also be wrong for precisely the same reason. The child would not be willed as the fulfillment of their one body union. It would also constitute an abuse of the marital act; for it violates its integrity.
Notes
The Virtue of Prudence by Doug McManaman
The Virtue of Temperance by Doug McManaman
The Virtue of Fortitude by Doug McManaman
The Virtue of Justice by Doug McManaman
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
McManaman, Douglas. "The Virtue of Justice." (March 2006).
Reprinted with permission of Douglas McManaman.
THE AUTHOR
Douglas McManaman is a high school religion teacher with the York Catholic District School Board in Ontario. He is currently teaching at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario and maintains a web site, A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page, in support of his students. He studied Philosophy at St. Jerome's College in Waterloo, and Theology at the University of Montreal. Mr. McManaman is the past President of the Canadian Chapter of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Douglas McManaman is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.
Copyright © 2006 Douglas McManaman