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107. - Justice

from J

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Johan Olsthoorn  and
Jo van Cauter
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Spinoza’s views of justice are heavily shaped by his wider moral and metaphysical commitments. The TTP defines justice as “a constancy of mind in apportioning to each person what belongs to him according to civil law” (TTP16.42; also TP2.23). This definition seems at first traditional enough. It brings to mind the Roman law maxim in Digest 1.1.10: “Justice is a steady and enduring will to render unto everyone his right [suum cuique tribuere].” That maxim was considered summative of justice across the medieval and early modern period. In fact, Spinoza thoroughly reinterpreted the meaning of “justice,” to reconcile it with his startlingly innovative metaphysics of right, power, and virtue. He did so in two ways: (1) by insisting that the sole rights that justice regulates are civil ones, introduced by human lawgiving; (2) by altering the standards of “constancy of mind” required by the virtue of justice.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 296 - 300
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Garrett, A. (2003). Spinoza as natural lawyer. Cardozo Law Review, 25(2), 627–41.Google Scholar
James, S. (2020). Spinoza on Learning to Live Together. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matheron, A. (2020). Politics, Ontology and Knowledge in Spinoza, ed. Del Lucchese, F, Maruzzella, D, and Morejon, G, trans. D. Maruzzella and G. Morejon. Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsthoorn, J. (2016). Spinoza on human and divine justice. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 33(1), 21–41.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, M. (2014). Politics and ethics in Spinoza: The problem of normativity. In Kisner, M. J. and Youpa, A. (eds.), Essays on Spinoza’s Ethical Theory (pp. 85–101). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutherford, D. (2010). Spinoza’s conception of law: Metaphysics and ethics. In Melamed, Y. and Rosenthal, M. A. (eds.), Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise: A Critical Guide (pp. 143–67). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Santos Campos, A. (2016). Spinoza on justice: Understanding the suum cuique. Epoché, 21(1), 127–43.Google Scholar
Youpa, A. (2020). The Ethics of Joy: Spinoza on the Empowered Life. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

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