Understanding Justice, Aristotelian Ethics, and Kantian Morality

Understanding the Virtue of Justice

Justice is the moral virtue consisting of the constant and firm will to give each person their due. It seeks to ensure respect for individual rights, thereby establishing harmony in human relationships and promoting equity regarding people and the common good.

Types of Justice

• Commutative Justice: Governs relations between private individuals; it is the virtue that inclines a person to give others what belongs to them.
• Distributive Justice: Governs relations between the State and the citizen. It involves the sharing of burdens and employment benefits based on the objective capacities and merits of the governed.
• Social Justice: Governs the relations of the individual with respect to society. It encompasses all decisions, rules, and principles related to the organization of society or specific social groups, including social equality, opportunity, the welfare state, poverty eradication, income distribution, and labor rights.

Aristotle's Ethics: The Pursuit of Happiness

Aristotle’s ethics is teleological, meaning it considers actions based on their end goal: happiness. For Aristotle, the end of all human life is happiness, though it can be found in various forms—such as wealth or health—depending on one's lifestyle.

Aristotle defines virtue as the habit of acting in a way that achieves the best human activity. Being virtuous is the habit of doing good, which is the essential attitude required to be happy.

The Three Types of Life

Aristotle distinguishes three types of life based on the good sought:

1. Life of enjoyment: Pursues satisfaction and pleasure.
2. Political life: Focused on governing with justice and serving others.
3. Theoretical life: Devoted to the truth of things.

The first two are not considered full happiness because they are not sufficient in themselves. The third, the life of wisdom, is the only path to complete happiness, as it incorporates prudence, the greatest of the virtues.

Kant and Deontological Ethics

Immanuel Kant provides a clear example of deontological ethics. The significance of Kantian ethics lies in its attempt to base morality on a transcendental foundation rather than a transcendent one. Kant did not believe morality could be rooted in God; rather, he argued that faith in God is based on moral awareness.

The Categorical Imperative

Kant specifies that only actions taken out of duty are subject to moral evaluation. The main feature of the moral law for Kant is universality, which supports no exceptions. This is expressed through the Categorical Imperative:

• Actions must be ordered as an end in themselves, not as a means to an end.
• Any action that does not align with this universality must be rejected.
• Morality must not be governed by interest; it must be autonomous, meaning the law is self-imposed rather than heteronomous.