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.