6.

Virtue and Justice1

Aristotelian definition of virtue: Virtue as a Mean

Justice as Benevolence
Injustice
Justice, Human Rights and Political Ethics
This is the way Aristotle defines virtue: Moral virtue is a habit of choosing, which keeps a
mean in relation to ourselves according to the determination of reason, and in such a way as a
wise man is accustomed to determine it.2
The main elements of this definition are the following:
1) Moral virtue is a “habit of choosing” (Gr. hexis prohairetikē; Lat. Habitus electivus).
2) This habit, and this choosing, is related to a “mean” (Gr. mesotēs; Lat. medietas).
3) This mean, or act of the habit (i.e., the choice of the mean) is determined by reason (Gr.
logos; Lat. ratio).
4) The reasoning is that of a “wise man” (Gr. phronimos; Lat. Prudens or sapiens), whereby
“prudence” is identified as “practical wisdom.”3 The “norm” is not any reason, but rather
prudence (Gr. orthos logos; Lat. Recta ratio agibilium).
As a habit, moral virtue perfects the choice of actions, that is, the “choice of means”
(electio), and thereby actually produces good actions. Moral virtue in every instance, then, is a
perfection of the choosing, and that means the “action-triggering,” act of the will, and it does this
also when it actually and immediately brings about the fulfillment of a sense appetition. Moral
virtue is what keeps errors in one’s choices from happening. And vice versa: moral virtue
guarantees the rationality of the judgment that is involved in an act of choosing and determines
it: the affectively guided, ultimate, immediately act-triggering judgment of the practical reason.
Secondly, according to the above definition, moral virtue consists in a “mean” or “middle”;
this is a mean or middle “in relation to ourselves”; and it is determined by reason—by the reason,
of course, that is called prudence.
That “moral virtue consists in a mean” is perhaps one of the most frequently misunderstood
sentences in Aristotle’s works. The possibility for misunderstanding lies in taking “virtue as
mean” to imply a kind of balance, the attitude of not overdoing anything. This misunderstanding
has a long tradition, going back at least as far as Hugo Grotius’s De jure belli et pacis (1625).4
But that virtue consists merely in a kind of moderation and balance is not what Aristotle meant.
For him, rather, the mean of moral virtue is finally nothing other than what is according to

1
From M. Rhonheimer, The Perspective of Morality.
2
Nichomachean Ethics (hence EN) II, 6 (1106b36–1107a2).
3
Cf. In II Ethic, lectio 7.
4
De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (On the Law of War and Peace), trans. F. Kelsey (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1925), prolegomena, sec. 43–45. For the impact on virtue ethics of Grotius’s critique of
the Aristotelian mean, see J.B. Schneewind, “The Misfortunes of Virtue,” in R. Crisp and M. Slote, eds.,
Virtue Ethics, 178–200, here 182–83.

1
reason, and this is the right, the fitting or appropriate, the good as the “beautiful.” As such, the
mean in each case is the best (ariston) and an extreme (akrōtēs).5
The “mean” first of all is related, as Aristotle emphasizes, to sense affects. Virtue lies in a
mean between a “too much” and a “too little” in becoming influenced by an emotion. But this is
still a pure description, not the designation of a criterion as such: “too much” does not mean the
same as “much” and “too little” does not mean the same as “little.”
“Much anger” can in fact be not “too much” anger but rather just the “right amount” of
anger—between “too much” and “too little.” The question is whether anger, and this or that level
of anger, is fitting or appropriate or called for; and that finally only reason can determine.
To “eat ten pounds” of meat is to eat a great deal, says Aristotle, and “to eat two pounds” is
to eat a small amount. But that does not mean “eating six pounds” is the mean. For an athlete like
Milo it would be too little, for a novice boxer it would be too much.6
“Too much” and “too little” are really only names for a departure from what is “just right.”
The expression implies an evaluation. The middle stands by definition between a too much and a
too little. The concept of mean as such does not say anything further. It only says that with
regard to the virtues that have to do with the senses and their affects, there are in each case two
opposing vices, characterized by being too much and too little, for which the virtue is the middle,
that is, what is measured according to reason. This is the meaning of the sentence stat in medio
virtus (“virtue stands in the middle”).
This correctness—that is, the mean of the virtue—is determined, therefore, not according to
a simple quantity of affect, but according to its appropriateness as judged by reason. The middle
or mean is what is “reason-measured.” “That we must act according to the right reason (kata ton
orthon logon) is a common principle and must be assumed.”7 Therefore Thomas calls the mean
of virtue in general as “the mean of reason” (medium rationis).8
This middle of reason is determined, in the case of sense affects, “in relation to us.” “For
instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and
pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the
right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive,
and in the right way is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue.”9
Virtue as a mean, therefore, is at once a best and highest degree, in what “should” or “ought” to
be done. This “ought” expresses the good as determined by the reason.

5
EN II, 6 (1107a8). Cf. also O. Höffe, Aristoteles (Munich: Beck, 1996), 223f., who also defends this
Aristotelian doctrine of the mean against Kantian misunderstandings.
6
Cf. EN II, 5 (1106b1–7).
7
EN II, 2 (1103b33).
8
I-II, q. 64, a. 1 and a. 2.
9
EN II, 5 (1106b18–24). Translator’s note: In his (1981) revision of the (1925) Ross translation,
Urmson uniformly replaced “virtue” as an English equivalent for Greek aretē with the English word
“excellence.” In quoting here from this (otherwise very serviceable) Ross-Urmson translation I have
chosen to reverse Urmson on this point and restore “excellence” to the more specific “virtue.”

2
 It is determined “in relation to us.” It depends upon who we are, to whom the emotion is
directed, and what the circumstances are. This is why, as Aristotle stresses over and over again, it
can only be indicated “roughly” or “in outline” wherein virtue consists or the actions in
accordance with virtue, and this is because human actions, emotions, and acts of choosing, the
habit of which is moral virtue, have to do with what is concrete, contingent, bound up with
situations, determined by a multiplicity of circumstances. The right and the good in action is
“what can always be otherwise.”
Justice as Benevolence

The virtue of justice is the perfecting of the will with regard to “seeking the good of others.”
It is the firm and constant will to give “each his own,” to give each person what is due to each
person, and to do this, of course, as already mentioned in the various fields of interpersonal
relationships, which form, in turn, the various parts of the virtue of justice, as special virtues:
commutative, distributive, and legal justice.
Why does the will need this at all—a habitual perfecting in its being directed toward the
good of others? Thomas Aquinas answers this question as follows:10 The good of another person
can only be an object of reason: the sense power cannot strive after and grasp a good for others,
but only for oneself, the one who himself is striving.
In order, for example, for sexuality to really be a subject of human love and virtue, it must
always be more than mere sexuality, since otherwise it would remain purely self-interested. In
the same way, we have no drive to be nourished by food and drink that strives for the self-
preservation of others. Only a rationally directed appetition would be capable of that. But the
drive for nourishment as a sense-drive and self-interested drive, serves self-preservation, by its
nature. Human sexuality, however, is by nature not at all self-interested, but rather a component
of a relationship between two persons, and consequently it must always be directed toward the
“good of the other” (and the good of the human species falls under the same category), which as
mere sexuality, that is, as a mere drive, it could never do.
Since reason has the good of another for its object, this good nevertheless transcends the
“proportion” of the will. What the will naturally strives for spontaneously and persistently, that
is, habitually, is only one’s own good. The striving of the will must therefore also be directed
according to reason. This is why it requires a habitus of justice in the will, namely, the virtue.
But this is not in the least meant to imply that the human being is an egotist by nature. There
are principles of justice that are naturally reasonable, such as the golden rule: “Whatever you
don’t want others to do to you, don’t do to them” or, put positively: “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.” Similar is also: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
For such principles to be intelligible and to be able to strive to do what they command,
reason and will do not need any virtue as such. Hence Aristotle can say that man feels toward
man as a friend and belonging to a family.11 There is a kind of natural solidarity among human
beings that can only be destroyed by a habitual rejection of justice—by the vice of injustice.
Thomas also speaks in a similar way about a “natural instinct” by which human beings help and
support each other.12

10
I-II, q. 56, a. 6.
11
EN VIII, 1 (1155a21–22).
12
Summa contra gentiles, III, cap. 116.

3
 The just person is pleased about the good of the other to the same degree as he is pleased
about his own good (and it is the same with sadness about the evil of others: the vices opposed to
this virtuous joy and sorrow would be envy and delight in the misfortunes of others). It appears
just as pleasant and attractive for the just man to seek the good of others as to seek his own. The
other person becomes an alter ipse to him, “another self.”13 He has acquired that affective
connaturality which he naturally has only with relation to what pertains or is owed to himself,
but now also in relation to what pertains and is owed to others. He loves his neighbor “as
himself.” This is because “to love” in this context is only another word for “to will.” Thus the
virtue of justice is already a habit of “good willing” with respect to others, the first realization of
that love that is called “the love consisting in friendship” (amor amicitiae or amor
benevolentiae).
Justice, then, by its very essence has to do with the relationship with one’s fellow human
being: to the other as a person: to the life, physical integrity, material and spiritual goods that
belong to him. Justice strives for a certain “equilibrium,”14 an aequalitas that has the character of
something owed to the other person in each case. This is the “right” or “justice” of one’s fellow
man, ius or iustum, a datum that exists objectively for one who acts, and based on the actual state
of things, on legal considerations and other limiting conditions.15 This is precisely the object of
the virtue of justice. For justice is nothing other than “a habit through which someone gives to
each person what is just, with a constant and lasting will.”16
Injustice

Injustices, consequently, are all “injuries” [cf. Lat. in + ius, iuris] to what is just. They take
respect away from the other person through denying what belongs to him. They destroy the
balance between rights and duties. In saying this Thomas distinguishes between justice in general
and special kinds of justice. The former refers to what we owe others as a whole, that is, to the
common good. This priority of interest in the common good may be surprising, but it illustrates
the fact that for Thomas the relation to fellow men is necessary and is always mediated through
the shared structures of community living within society. “Therefore, the acts of all the virtues
belong to justice, since they orient men to the common good.”17
Since it is the business of law to direct the actions of men to the common good, this general
justice can also be called “legal justice.” In this most universal sense, also: “All vices, insofar as
they are opposed to the common good, have the characteristic of being unjust.”18 Whenever we
do something bad we always—in this most general and unspecified sense—do something against
justice.
Injustice is here an “imbalance in the relationship to others, to the extent that someone wants
too many of the goods—such as wealth or honor—and too little of the evils—such as toil or
loss.”19 Thus for each area of justice, there is a peculiar kind of injustice opposed to it. Special
kinds of justice involve, as Thomas puts it, “co-ordination” with one’s fellows when it comes to
external actions and the things with which these actions are concerned.
13
EN IX, 4 (1166a 32); Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 28, a. 1.
14
II-II, q. 57, a. 1.
15
This concept of “right” should not be confused with “right” in the modern sense of a subjective “right” or claim on
justice (a “right to” something).
16
II-II, q. 58, a. 5.
17
II-II, q. 58, a. 5.
18
Ibid., q. 59, a. 1.
19
Ibid.

4
 Justice cannot be separated from social coordination and cooperation. Justice always
possesses a social character at its core. As such, it is the virtue through which man directs
himself to the well-being of society and of all human beings quite independently of law.
But the good will or benevolence that we have been speaking of, which is the essential mark
of justice, strictly speaking pertains only to the “justice” or “right” of another person. And
“right” (what is “owed”) can be taken in two senses:20 that which is “naturally” or “by nature”
just, and that which is just by human convention (positive justice).
It is right by nature for a definite service performed to receive an equivalent compensation.
An article for sale “naturally” has a price (but not a determined one). A gift “naturally” expects a
“thanks” from the receiver.
Something is just “on the basis of human convention,” for example, when a contract is
signed or something is done according to a regulation, or the like. This establishes relationships
of justice. Aristotle wrote: “Natural justice is that which everywhere has the same force and does
not exist by people’s thinking this or that; legal justice is that which is originally indifferent, but
when it has been laid down is not indifferent, e.g. that a prisoner’s ransom shall be a mina, or
that a goat and not two sheep shall be sacrificed, and again all the laws that are passed for
particular cases, e.g. that sacrifice shall be made in honor of Brasidas, and the provisions of
decrees.”21
Justice, Human Rights, Political Ethics

“Human rights” are those rights that pertain to the human being “by nature”: they are not
attributed to man only on the basis of man-made legislation. But just as every man-made legal
determination—in the realm of commercial contracts, for example—modifies and concretizes the
justice that is already there by nature, just so human laws are always a modification of human
rights.
“Abstract” human rights that could be appealed to unconditionally as such are a figment of
the imagination. What we mean by abstract is the claim to have rights without basis in a true
good that is due to a person. This would be like presenting a check for payment without the
funds to support it.
“Human rights” and “natural rights” are always historically variable since they can only
exist within concrete and ever shifting historical conditions. This is because human beings
always live in particular historical conditions that change. But this does not mean that human
rights themselves are only “historical” or “relative,” or even, as MacIntyre himself maintains,
“fictions.”22
20
Cf. II-II, q. 57, a. 2.
21
EN V, 7 (1134b 19–24).
22
Ibid., 70. See also Rhonheimer, Natural Law and Practical Reason, 522–25, and E. Schockenhoff, Natural Law
and Human Dignity: Universal Ethics in an Historical World, trans. B. McNeil (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2003), 30–41. MacIntyre is here arguing against the position of Gewirth,, Reason and
Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 63, and his thesis (in MacIntyre’s words) is that “every
rational agent has to recognize a certain measure of freedom and wellbeing as prerequisites for his exercise of
rational agency. Therefore each rational agent must will, if he is to will at all, that he possess that measure of goods”
(After Virtue, 66). MacIntyre is correct to affirm in this connection that there is a difference between what someone
needs and what someone has a right to, and in any event, Gewirth would scarcely deny this. But he also affirms that
the above-mentioned principle expresses a claim on other persons, not to rob them of such basic presuppositions
(“freedom and well-being”) or to act against them (cf. Reason and Morality, 66). As soon, of course, as third
persons are assumed, in suitable circumstances right-claims can be derived from needs that qualify.

5
 Contemporary society is characterized by such conflicts that result from the appeal to rival,
mutually exclusive, abstractly conceived “human rights” without taking the common good into
consideration. No matter how fundamental it may be, every “human right” is always one
component of the totality of the relationships of justice within a certain society and the assertion
of that right must in turn be judged by moral criteria (even though that is often not possible
through lack of consensus).
The abstract idea of a “natural right” is a creation of the modern era, which contains many
indispensable insights, but at the same time manifests the one sided spirit of rationalism. A
theory of natural rights would have to be completely recast in terms of the doctrine of justice as a
virtue. The problem of “human rights” is ultimately a theme of political philosophy, which
according to classical understanding is the conclusion and crown of ethics, since it has for its
theme the life of mankind in its totality.23
It would seem therefore to be both correct and illuminating to realize that, in view of the
Aristotelian understanding of the human being as a political being (the zoon politikon, “political
animal”), there really are no human rights that are, as it were, “prior” to politics, that is rights of
a human being considered as outside social, political, or civic existence, simply because there is
no such thing as a nonsocial or nonpolitical human being. An approach like that would
completely miss the essence of the human being as a “political animal.” In this sense, “the notion
that certain rights are natural rights goes very far back in history. The impression easily arises
that certain things like private property or the freedom to assemble could actually exist or have a
meaning completely divorced from any kind of state. In reality, such things all assume a political
order. It would make more sense to refer to these rights as political or social rights.”24
Human rights are goods that are due to each person for being a person. The others have the
duty of giving these goods to the person. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights crafted by
the United Nations in 1948 give a good summary of these rights. These are some of them: the
right to life, liberty and security of person, the right not to be held in slavery, the right not to be
tortured or treated inhumanly, the right to be treated as a person before the law, the right to
immigrate, to own property, to practice one’s religion, to express opinions, to association, and so
forth.

23
Cf. Thomas Aquinas’s Proemium to the Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, where he states that “politics” is the
first and most perfect of all the practical sciences; see Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, trans.
R. Regan (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 2007). Cf. also for the medieval period in general G. de Lagarde, La
naissance de l’esprit Laïque au declin du Moyen Age, 5 vols., 1 and 2 (Louvain and Paris: Ed. E. Nauwelaerts, 1956
and 1958).
24
C.J. Friedrich, Der Verfassungsstaat der Neuzeit (Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg: Springer, 1953),
182 (the original is Constitutional Government and Democracy [New York: Blaisdell, 1950]) Cf. also the
ever indispensable standard work of G. De Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism (1925; rpt., Boston:
Beacon Press, 1959).