Justice: The Social Virtue
Justice allows us to live purposefully and well within a community.
What does one need to do to live happily?
We can become happier if we know where to go (practical wisdom). We can become happier if we do treat others well and receive similar treatment in kind (justice). We can become happier if we have the courage to overcome the obstacles of life (courage). We can become happier if we have the stamina to keep our pleasures ordered toward bigger goals (moderation).
This is not big news. One finds this list in ancient Stoic philosophers, the ethics of Aristotle, and even in the wisdom literature of the Bible (Wisdom 8:7) which arose from the cross-fertilization of Hellenic and Hebraic thought. These came to be known as the cardinal virtues because they were the hinge, pivot, or key (cardo) from which the whole of the moral life, and a happy life, hangs.
I’ve recently looked at the meaning of happiness and the importance of “practical wisdom” (prudence) in matching the appropriate means with the right ends. Another major virtue or human excellence, one required for a happy life, is justice. This is the virtue that tells us how to regulate our relationships with others, especially those outside the circle of our friends and family.
The Definition and Parts of Justice
Briefly put, justice renders to another what is their due. This classical definition originates in Roman jurisprudence, if not earlier, and became a canonical definition of of the virtue in late antiquity and the middle ages.
One can think of justice in terms of parts and wholes. You could think of the whole as the community and the part as the individual in that community.
Commutative justice involves what one individual or part of a community owes to another individual or part of a community. When you go to the store and pay for a gallon of milk and some eggs, you are displaying commutative justice. You exchange your money in return for some good or service that another provides. This is justice of exchange (more fancily: commutation) and what we normally think of as justice in the ordinary sentence. Obviously, you need this kind of justice for a society to work well for any length of time.
Distributive justice involves what the whole owes the part. When the state offers law and safety to its citizens, builds roads and bridges, and maintains clean air and rivers, for example, it is providing what it owes to its citizens. The whole—the city, nation, kingdom—offers something to its constituent parts. In the modern world, things like social security and medical care might also fall under this rubric, especially for those who are to poor to afford it, though one could provide this through non-governmental channels. However one supplies it, the whole of the community is providing to its members.
General justice involves what the part owes the whole. We do not normally think of what one owes to the whole community. Of course, taxes and military service in time of necessity could fall under this category. But there is also the question of what I owe to my community in a broader sense. That might go far beyond, for example, compulsory taxes and military service.
These three kinds of justice involve our participation, either as the ones who receive what is due, as in the case of distributive justice, or as the ones who give what is due, as in the case of general justice. In the case of commutative justice, we are both on the giving and receiving sides: giving our labor in return for pay, giving our money in return for goods or services, and so on. These are the basic archetypes for relationships stretching beyond the circle of family and friends.
The Happy Life is a Just Life
What does all of this have to do with happiness?
Part of it, I think, comes down to this: we cannot live fully happy lives without living within a community of people—with family and friends, but also within a larger political community. And living within a community often involves a great deal of friction and challenge. We need a distinct human excellence that allows us to share a life with others, within a community, and to find purpose there.
After all, ordinary happiness would be nearly impossible in a society that did not recognize justice of exchange. And without distributive justice one would arguably be left in a lawless vacuum, without a stable political and legal order which most of our economic affairs presuppose. But most of us do take those for granted, at least in western democracies and some other places in the world.
So, without justice, ordinary happiness is impossible, or nearly so.
Community, Purpose, and Happiness
But what about that third category of justice: general justice? This is perhaps the most interesting for us when thinking about happiness. For it asks us to think about our work in life in a context of higher purpose: How does my life serve the common good, the aims of the community, of which I am a part?
The pursuit of happiness gets a lot of press these days. And, of course, the American Declaration of Independence does, indeed, affirm that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But we often forget the final sobering line of that foundational document: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” The Founders did not pledge their lives, fortunes, and honor to the pursuit of happiness, but to forming a regime that made that possible.
The order of their lives was not toward their own isolated wellbeing but to a good beyond themselves. This purpose would draw upon all that they had: their lives, their fortunes, their honor. We might not be founding a nation. But we are still building families, communities, and societies that call upon all that we have to provide a good beyond our own sphere of personal and familial concern.
Part of this might simply mean taking another view of your work, your family, and your social life: not as something that is primarily for yourself, but something that serves a larger end beyond yourself. The garbage collector is performing an indispensable operation for his city. The same is true of the teacher, the police officer, the painter, the bank teller, the doctor, the poet, the judge, the legislator, the journalist, and so on. Each contributes to the proper functioning of the community, the village, city, or nation, of which he or she is a vital part.
When we think of our lives and work beyond our paycheck, we can find a greater purpose in it, and therefore a greater joy in the doing of it. This is not wishful thinking, but a realization that we each have a role to play, some more noticeable, others less noticeable, but all relevant, and many indispensable, to our community.
Building the Cathedral
We live in a society that says we should seek out being “special” above all things. Most of us think that if we have more money, status, strength, or beauty than others, then we will be happy. So we sacrifice being happy for being special.
But that’s a lie. A big one. You don’t need to “stand out” to be happy. You don’t need to be “special” to be happy. In fact, the quest for being special can really harm your chances of living a happy life. Living happily, with greater happiness, is more about finding your place in the whole, where your interests and talents and background can serve a good beyond yourself within a community.
I think of the old fable of the masons cutting blocks outside a cathedral. A man asks each of them what they are doing. One mason responds: I am cutting stones. The other mason responds: I am building a cathedral. Who do you think was happier? Who do you think took greater pride in his work? Who do you think more often went home to his wife and family with a bounce in his step?
Practicing the skill of general justice, rendering what is due to the community, can come in many forms. It might mean building a cathedral. It might mean founding a nation. But it might also be something more prosaic and ordinary: building your life, that of your family, and that of your community.