Justice and Injustice on Superphysics

Justice and Injustice

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What kind of actions are the object-matter of Justice and Injustice?

What kind of middle state is Justice?

Between what points the abstract principle of it, i.e. the Just, is the mean or middle.

Justice as Perfect Virtue

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The violator of Law is Unjust. The keeper of the Law is Just.

All Lawful things are Just because by Lawful we understand what have been defined by the legislative power and each of these we say is Just.

Justice is what part of Virtue?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Justice is what part of Virtue?

(for there is such a thing, as we commonly say), and likewise with respect to particular Injustice.

And of the existence of this last the following consideration is a proof:

The Kinds of Justice

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is more than one kind of Justice.

There is one which is distinct from and besides that which is co-extensive with, Virtue, is plain: we must next ascertain what it is, and what are its characteristics.

The Just Versus the Unjust

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The unjust man is unequal, and the abstract “Unjust” unequal.

There is some mean or middle of the unequal.

The equal or exact half (because in whatever action there is the greater and the less there is also the equal, i.e. the exact half).

The Corrective

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Corrective arises in voluntary and involuntary transactions.

This just has a different form from the aforementioned; for that which is concerned in distribution of common property is always according to the aforementioned proportion: I mean that, if the division is made out of common property, the shares will bear the same proportion to one another as the original contributions did: and the Unjust which is opposite to this Just is that which violates the proportionate.

Money and Exchange

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Pythagoreans think that Reciprocation is simply just.

They defined the Just simply and without qualification as “That which reciprocates with another.”

But this simple Reciprocation will not fit on either to the Distributive Just, or the Corrective (and yet this is the interpretation they put on the Rhadamanthian rule of Just,

Natural Versus Conventional Justice

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A man may do unjust acts and not yet have formed a character of injustice.

Is a man unjust in each particular form of injustice, say a thief, or adulterer, or robber, by doing acts of a given character?

Justs and Lawfuls

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Of Justs and Lawfuls each bears to the acts which embody and exemplify it the relation of an universal to a particular; the acts being many, but each of the principles only singular because each is an universal.

Dealing Justly

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Have we spoken with sufficient distinctness as to being unjustly dealt with, and dealing unjustly towards others?

First, whether the case is possible which Euripides has put, saying somewhat strangely,

Equity versus Unjust Dealing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Is a man unjust if he gets a larger share?

Can a man be unjust to himself?

Acting Justly is Not Easy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Men suppose that acting Unjustly rests entirely with themselves. They conclude that acting Justly is therefore also easy.

But this is not really so.

To have connection with a neighbour’s wife, or strike one’s neighbour, or give the money with one’s hand, is of course easy and rests with one’s self.

Equity and the Equitable

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The relations of Equity to Justice, and the Equitable to the Just, do not appear identical nor yet different in kind.

We sometimes commend the Equitable and the man who embodies it in his actions, so that by way of praise we commonly transfer the term also to other acts instead of the term good, thus showing that the more Equitable a thing is the better it is:

Is it possible for a man to deal unjustly by himself?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One class of Justs is those which are enforced by law in accordance with Virtue in the most extensive sense of the term.

For instance, the law does not bid a man to kill himself.