Quotation
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“Justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will.”
Thomas Aquinas · Scholasticism · Medieval · c. 1271
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a definition with three parts: justice is a habit, its act is giving each person what is due, and the will that does this is constant, not a one-off impulse. A competing reading hears a slogan about fairness in general, including duties to oneself. In the same article he says justice, properly speaking, is toward another. The sentence is the cleaned-up definition in II–II, question 58, article 1, where he has stated objections to the lawyers' formula and then accepts it once habit replaces a bare act of will. Due, ius, is the object. Constancy is what makes it a virtue rather than a mood. Aristotle's similar formula is cited as close, not identical.
Did Thomas Aquinas really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The Dominican translators' English of the form Aquinas says the definition should take. He is repairing the jurists' formula, 'the constant and perpetual will to render to each his right', by calling justice a habit. It is his proposed wording, not a loose summary.
Where it comes from
Summa Theologiae II–II, question 58, article 1, in the English Dominican translation
Approximate date: c. 1271.
How to use it
A landlord in Leeds who returns one deposit and keeps the next, depending on whether the tenant will complain, fails the 'constant and perpetual will' even if he can point to a just act. The sentence does not list what is due. It says justice is the settled habit of rendering it to each person, not to the people you like. A policy that is fair on the poster and arbitrary at the desk fails the definition in the place Aquinas cared about, the will that holds.
A mindset reading
Do not call an occasional decent decision a just character. The habit is to ask whether the same due would be rendered when nobody is pushing. He also refuses to let justice collapse into a warm feeling about the group. Each one is in the definition. The person who does not benefit you is the test of the habit.
Understand the philosophy
The second part of the second part of the Summa treats the virtues one by one. Question 58 asks what justice is. Aquinas starts from the Roman definition and from Aristotle's Ethics. The key repair is habit: a virtue is a stable principle of acts, so a definition that names only the act of will is incomplete. Right, ius, is what is due in dealings with others. That is why he can connect this article with the definition of law, already in this library, as an ordinance of reason for the common good.
- justice
- virtue
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a definition with three parts: justice is a habit, its act is giving each person what is due, and the will that does this is constant, not a one-off impulse. A competing reading hears a slogan about fairness in general, including duties to oneself. In the same article he says justice, properly speaking, is toward another. The sentence is the cleaned-up definition in II–II, question 58, article 1, where he has stated objections to the lawyers' formula and then accepts it once habit replaces a bare act of will. Due, ius, is the object. Constancy is what makes it a virtue rather than a mood. Aristotle's similar formula is cited as close, not identical.
Did Thomas Aquinas really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The Dominican translators' English of the form Aquinas says the definition should take. He is repairing the jurists' formula, 'the constant and perpetual will to render to each his right', by calling justice a habit. It is his proposed wording, not a loose summary.
Which work is it in?
Summa Theologiae II–II, question 58, article 1, in the English Dominican translation Approximate date: c. 1271.