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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2016
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of justice understood as a virtue to law and public policy. Is justice adequately understood in terms of virtue, or does the former also include certain rules—or laws—which constitute criteria of justice in human community? If the concept of justice includes the notion of rules as well as virtue, how are the two ideas related? At a more fundamental level, is justice, indeed, a viable concept in modern, pluralistic society?
In an effort to explore these questions we turn, first, to three contemporary ethicists who have attempted to ground morality in public life fundamentally upon the notion of virtue. The first of these writers—Alasdair MacIntyre—is a philosopher; the remaining two—Stanley Hauerwas and James M. Gustafson—are theologians. While each is deeply influenced by Aristotle and Aquinas, all three fail to give adequate attention to the relation of justice conceived as a virtue to law in the latter, particularly in Aquinas. The ensuing section of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the structures of justice as a requirement of collective forms of human life. Consideration of the structures of justice leads, in turn, to the question of the relationship of justice to law. Finally, it is argued that, from a theological perspective, justice is most adequately understood as a form of covenant and that the ultimate norm of justice is reconciling love. Justice is a human task which aims finally at the reconciliation of broken community and the achievement of new forms or levels of the common good.
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2. Id. at 143.
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5. Id. at 245.
6. Id. at 237.
7. Id. at 237.
8. Id. at 194-205.
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17. Hauerwas, supra note 12, at 104, 114.
18. Vision and Virtue, supra note 10, at 231-240.
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33. Id. at 143.
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37. Id, at 51.
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46. Id. at 156-57, 163-164.
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48. Id. at 160.
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50. Id. at 320-337.
51. Aquinas, supra note 34, at 21.
52. Id. at 27.
53. Id. at 49.
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58. Id. at 252-61.
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