Questions to Guide Your Reading
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues
JUSTICE
1. On Rights
1. Consider the following quotation from the philosopher Immanuel Kant: "Man's
greatest and most frequent troubles depend on man's injustice more than on
adversity." What does he mean? Do you agree or disagree?
Why or why not?
2. What is the simplest and most basic sense of justice, mentioned already
by the philosopher Plato, as if it had been handed down by long tradition?
3. What does it mean to say that "right (ius) comes before justice."
4. What is Pieper's first answer to the question: How does man come to have
his due? (This is another way of saying, How is it that man comes to
have something – namely a ‘right' – that is due to him?) Why is this
answer not yet sufficient?
5. What is the basis, then, upon which something comes to be the inalienable
due (ius) of a person – something which is the presupposition of justice?
6. What, according to Pieper, is the problem that ensues politically if we
deny that it is possible to have a concept of man and of human nature?
7. In the ultimate analysis, then, why is something inalienably due to man?
2. Duty in Relation to "The Other"
8. According to Pieper, what distinguishes "justice" from "love"?
9. Why, according to Pieper, are things like calumny, malign aspersion, backbiting,
slandering, and talebearing such gross violations of justice?
10. What is Pieper's response to the notion that, "At first glance, it might
seem that, as long as a partner does not come forth with a concrete claim,
a person may do whatever he thinks fit"? (Another way of putting the
same thing would be to say: As long as no one complains, why can't I do whatever
I want?) Note all the different ways in which Pieper responds on the
following pages.
11. Pieper explains that the obligation that is to be fulfilled within the
scope of justice is utterly distinct from the obligation the man of fortitude
or the man of temperance is under. Explain the difference.
12. What do you suppose Pieper means when he says that "the whole field of
sexual aberration, not adultery and rape only, contains an element of injustice"?
Explain. Do you agree or disagree? If so, why. If not,
why not?
13. What does Pieper mean when he says that "Every external act is of social
consequence"?
14. Explain what Pieper means when he says that "it may be quite possible
and logical to reject a certain political objective as "objectively unjust"
– and even to combat it with intensity – without at the same time bringing
the moral integrity of one's opponent into the discussion?"
15. What is the difference between doing a just act and doing the just act
the way a just man would do it? What is the difference, in other words,
between simply doing the just act and having the virtue of justice?
3. The Rank of Justice
16. Why, according to Pieper, does justice have a higher rank than any others?
17. According to Pieper: "To exercise restraint and moderation, to overcome
fear of death, is not yet "doing good." What does he mean? If
these are not properly realizations of the human good, what are they then?
18. What does Pieper mean when he makes the shocking claim that, "We ought
to be prepared to fin that the most powerful embodiment of evil in human
history, the Antichrist, might well appear in the guise of a great ascetic"?
(And note, please don't be misled by the translation of the German here.
When the text says "in the guise of a great ascetic," it doesn't mean that
the person is merely "pretending" to be an ascetic. Rather, the meaning
is that the person in question really is an ascetic, but precisely for that
reason, becomes "the most powerful embodiment of evil in human history.")
What does this statement tell us that we undoubtedly should keep in mind
about moral complexity?
4. The Three Basic Forms of Justice
19. According to Pieper, when may justice be said to prevail in a community?
20. What, according to Pieper (and Thomas Aquinas) are the three basic forms
of justice? What is the "hallmark" of all three basic forms of justice?
21. When a consistent individualist looks at Thomas's three forms of justice,
he would recognize only one of them. Which? Why would the others
be irrelevant as far as he is concerned?
22. When a collectivist looks at Thomas's three forms of justice, he too
would find them irrelevant as far as he is concerned. Why?
* NB: Note, if you will, that the next two chapters deal with the first two
of the "basic forms of justice": namely, commutative justice ("Recompense
and Restitution") and distributive justice. The third and final chapter
in this section deals with "The Limits of Justice," which, largely has to
do with the third of these, namely legal justice, but from the perspective
of the limitations of what a state or community can accomplish through law
or by passing rules.
5. Recompense and Restitution
23. Why is compensatory or commutative justice the "classic form of justice"?
24. Why is commutative or "contract justice" not merely a matter of some
miserly minimalism? What are the differences between the relationship
of love and those of justice? What does Pieper mean when he says that
a contract represents a form of "mutual understanding" – a "balance of interests"?
25. According to Thomas Aquinas, the act of justice which orders the association
of individuals with one another is resitutio, recompense, restoration.
What is restitutio? Why, according to Pieper, is commutative justice
always a "restoration" – even when we're not talking about cases like theft,
fraud, and robbery?
6. Distributive Justice
26. Why is it the case the "whoever speaks of distributive justice has to
speak of exercise of power"?
27. What, according to Pieper, is the "characteristic structure of distributive
justice"?
28. What does it mean to say that distributive justice does not authorize
individuals to determine and assert on their own initiative what is due to
them on the part of the social whole? Why not? Do you accept
that proposition (not only as true, but as binding on your actions)?
29. To whom is the claim and appeal of justice made, in the case of distributive
justice?
30. According to Pieper, what has our collectivist mind-set caused us to
think of when we consider the one representing the social whole?
31. On pp. 83 and 84, Pieper lays out several differences between commutative
justice and distributive justice. There are three. List them.
Explain each. Be sure to explain (as part of the third difference)
the different types of equality appropriate to commutative justice, on the
one hand, and distributive justice, on the other.
32. On p. 85, Pieper asks: But are there not things to which I have an irrevocable,
a truly absolute claim, even when confronted with the social whole, with
the state? What do you think? How would this apply to the "inalienable
rights" mentioned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence? How about
the "rights" in the U.S. Bill of Rights? (You'd better be able to list
them!)
* The rights to life, liberty, and property – pursuit
of happiness?
* Bill of rights:
1. Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly,
petition for redress.
2. Right to keep and bear arms
3. Right not to quarter soldiers.
4. Right against unreasonable search and seizure.
5. Right to an indictment; right of non-double
jeopardy; right to non-incrimination; right to due process of law; right
not to have private property taken for public use without just compensation
(note the word!).
6. Right to speedy and public trial, impartial
jury, informed of the charges, confronted with the witnesses against him,
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have
assistance of counsel for his defense.
7. Right to trial by jury in suits at common
law.
8. No excessive bail or fines; no cruel or unusual
punishment.
9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people.
33. What does Pieper mean when he says (on p. 89): "merely asserting rights
never creates justice"? What doesn't asserting rights create justice?
What does create justice?
34. On a related topic, why is it "indispensable," according to Pieper, that
a sense of the greatness and dignity of governing and ruling be revived in
the mind of the public? Why, according to Pieper, is this the "very
opposite of the totalitarian glorification of power"?
35. On p. 94, Pieper makes the following comment: "There can be little doubt,
for instance, that in a "first ballot," the average person cannot be expected
to answer the question: ‘Do you want a higher wage, a tax cut, release from
the draft, etc., or not?" with the bonum commune [the common good] primarily
in view." What does this mean? Do you agree or disagree?
36. Why is "contentment on the part of the ruled" important when it comes
to distributive justice?
37. Discuss Pieper's use of the term bonum commune, the "common good."
Why is understanding this concept essential to the notion of distributive
justice?
38. On p. 99, Pieper says that, "It is in the nature of things that a ‘distributor'
should take some thought of the person who receives, but that a ‘buyer' should
consider only the actual objective value of the thing received." This
indicates another important difference between commutative justice and distributive
justice. Explain.
7. The Limits of Justice
39. Why is it the case (according to Pieper) that, "the world cannot be kept
in order through justice alone"? Explain. (Be sure you understand
the "two aspects" of this "limit" of justice. One is developed on the
next several pages; the second is not mentioned until p. 110.)
40. How is the virtue of "religion" connected with justice? How about
the virtue of "piety"? How about the virtue of observantia? Why
are all three of these virtues important in realizing "justice"? Do
we have these virtues in our society? What is the danger of not having
them?
41. What conception of man is presupposed in all these virtues related to
justice?
42. Why is affabilitas (kindness) though "strictly neither due to another
person nor can it be rightfull claimed and demanded," yet it is necessary
if man's communal life is to remain human and if men are to live together
joyfully?
*NB: To be willing to watch over peace and harmony among men through the
commandments of justice is not enough when charity has not taken firm root
among them.