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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
My purpose in this paper is to maintain that “justice” represents an objective and impersonal recognition of the nature of moral personality, and as such should retain its identity at all levels of human relationship. It is not, as certain idealist philosophers, and notably Bosanquet, have maintained, inappropriate at the deeper levels, at which it is said to be superseded by love.
page 47 note 1 The other day a Church of England clergyman of my acquaintance was asked by a Roman Catholic family in his parish to baptize their baby. When he asked the mother why she did not want to have the baby baptized into her own Roman communion, she said, “Your churchwarden’s wife was very kind getting me my set of false teeth, so I thought it was only fair that you should have little Jimmie.” We have here a nice attempt to weigh the possible destiny of a human soul against a more tangible consideration.
page 47 note 1 Cf. Thomas, St., S.T. ii, 2, qu. 58 a. 11.Google Scholar “The proper function of justice is no other than to render to each person what is his own. But what is said to be each person's own is what is due to him according to an equality of proportion.”
page 47 note 2 The demand may of course be made on bis behalf by others, e.g. maltreated children may not be conscious of their rights.
page 47 note 3 The Value and Destiny of the Individual, chap. v.
page 47 note 4 Ibid.
page 48 note 1 Cf. The Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 16.
page 48 note 2 This does not necessarily mean the rigid application of the rule without regard to circumstances which may make a particular case distinctive and exceptional (as we shall see in considering Equity). It means that the distinguishing circumstances must be relevant and be impartially weighed.
page 49 note 1 E.N. 1137b, 10–1138a, 3.
page 49 note 2 Summa Theologica ii, 2, qu. 57 a, 3. Cf. Vinogradoff, , Collected Paper, II, p. 475.Google Scholar
page 51 note 1 Although this may be true of the law as between individuals, we must, however, ask whether, as a statement of fact, it does not need to be qualified in consideration of the privileges at present afforded to various group undertakings, such as large limited liability companies.
page 52 note 1 The Nature of the Judicial Process (quoted by Muir, C. W., Justice in a Depressed Area, p. 113).Google Scholar
page 52 note 2 E.N. V, 1132b. This respective balance of positions is a form of equality, but Aristotle probably confuses the issue by describing it as a “mean.” Cf. Vinogradoff, Collected Papers II, chap. 1. “Aristotle on Legal Redress.”
page 52 note 3 Except perhaps in 1132b, 29, àλλà κàι κολαοθηναι
page 53 note 1 Men of Destiny, p. 50.
page 54 note 1 Rainboro’, Colonel, in the Clarke Papers (Camden Society Publications, 1891).Google Scholar
page 54 note 2 Cf. C. W. Muir, Justice in a Distressed Area. If he is right in alleging that the further you get from London, the harder it is to get a fair trial, because the judges on circuit are hurried, and have imperfect understanding of local industrial conditions, it means that the scales are also weighted against those who cannot afford to appeal and have their case taken up to a London court.
page 55 note 1 I have not discussed the question of justice as proportionate requital for work done, because the problem of the “just price” seems to me incapable of solution in any general terms. Short of a rigidly dictated economy, it seems as though the price of goods and services must be fixed by the interplay between demand and supply (subject of course to the possibility of fixing certain minimum standards of prices and remuneration). Great professional and business competence or the willingness to take heavy responsibility are sufficiently rare to be highly remunerated. But this is still determined by there being a demand for these services which gives them a market value, and by the bargaining power, individual or collective, of those rendering them and not by any requital proportionate to their value as persons, which is something impossible to gauge.
page 55 note 2 See his Equality, passim.
page 55 note 3 One of my students has suggested to me that the puzzling Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard might be taken as an illustration of Platonic Justice. The early comers who had borne the burden and heat of the day were refusing to mind their own business. The suggestion is an attractive one. But the parable is not surely a lesson on the nature of justice, still less on the principles on which wages should be paid. It teaches that even an eleventh-hour entry into the Kingdom of God is possible, and that membership in that Kingdom is not nicely graded by “deserts.”