Cultivating Justice

Justice is the virtue governing our relations with others. It is the perpetual and constant will to render to each person what is due to them. Unlike virtues concerned with inner states, justice is inherently other-regarding. Its violation is not merely a personal failing but an active injury to the community and the social order.

A Method for Its Cultivation

1. Acknowledge the Debt

Begin with the recognition that you exist within a network of obligations. Identify the categories of what is "due":

To the law: obedience and civic participation.

To colleagues and competitors: fair dealing, honesty, and respect for agreements.

To family and friends: loyalty, honesty, and support.

To oneself: the debt of living in accordance with your own rational nature (this aligns with the modern concept of self-respect).

The objective of justice is to reject the premise of radical autonomy--or selfishness--and to accept that a life of justice is one of acknowledged duty. What a challenge this is to post-war liberalism! How needed it is.

2. Diagnose Injustice in Action

Conduct a clear-eyed audit of your transactions and relationships.

Where have you taken more than you gave? (for example, monopolizing conversation, failing to pull your weight on a team project, benefiting from an unfair system without objection).

Where have you given less than was owed? (for example, withholding deserved praise, shirking a familial duty, paying a worker less than their fair value).

Where have you been envious of another's rightful possessions? (Their happiness, their success, their reputation, their property.)

The objective is to move from an abstract belief in "fairness" to a concrete assessment of your own imbalances.

3. Deliberate on the Due

For a specific relationship or transaction, determine what is truly due. This requires judgment (practical wisdom).

What does the contract (explicit or implicit) require?

What does the person's worth or effort merit?

What does the common good of the community necessitate?

As an example, an employee is due not only a wage, but also clear expectations, respectful treatment, and honesty from his employer. Conversely, an employer is due not only labor, but also diligence, honesty, and loyalty from his employee.

The objective here is to define the specific content of the "due" in practice, moving beyond vague sentiment.

4. Rectify the Imbalance

Where an imbalance is identified, take corrective action. This is the core of the just act.

If you have taken too much, make restoration (for example, repay a debt, apologize for a wrong).

If you have given too little, provide. (for example, pay a bonus for exceptional work, offer a public correction of a false statement you made about someone).

If you have envied, rejoice in the good fortune of the deserving as a form of mental justice, countering the petty impulse.

The objective is to actively will the equilibrium of what is due, even at a cost to oneself. This is the essence of the just will.

5. Institute Just Habits

Embed justice into your daily conduct through disciplined practice.

Be scrupulously honest in all descriptions and accounts.

Pay your debts promptly and in full.

Judge others based on their actions and character, not gossip or prejudice. (And be charitable and Socratic in your interpretations.)

Give honest feedback when it is owed, both positive and negative.

The objective here is to make the rendering of what is due an automatic characteristic of your dealings, building a reputation for integrity.

The Modern Expression of Justice

For the contemporary man, justice extends beyond simple legality.

Procedural justice: the insistence on fair rules and processes in your professional and social spheres, ensuring everyone is subject to the same standards.

Distributive justice: the fair allocation of benefits and burdens within a team, family, or company. The just leader ensures rewards are proportional to contribution and effort.

Retributive justice: the proportionate and clear-eyed response to wrongdoing, whether in holding others accountable or accepting rightful consequences for your own errors. This is the opposite of both vengeance and weakness. In our time this is especially important, as we have developed great vices of excess when it comes to our conception of compassion, within what is often called "the therapeutic state." We need to remember the ancient saying: "He who spares the wicked injures the good" and "Mercy to the guilty can be cruelty to the innocent".

Social justice (properly understood): the obligation to reform systems you know to be systematically unjust, not from a place of resentment, but from a duty to the common good. This is justice on a macro scale.

While writing this I asked myself, what are the primary forms of injustice across the generations. It seemed quite obvious:
Among the Baby Boomers: self-righteously hoarding, with little regard for future generations.
Among Gen X: giving the middle finger to society. 
Among the Millennials: whinging about their lot in life, even while dismissing the hardships of other generations.
Between the generations: seeing the flaws in the others without charity, as purely willful, moral flaws, without regard to how the forces of history shaped them.

The Governing Principle

Justice is the virtue that binds the polis—the community. It is the highest of the moral virtues because it is ordered toward the good of others rather than the perfection of the self. A man may be brave and temperate for himself, but he is just for others. It is the virtue most necessary for building and maintaining trust, the fundamental currency of all human achievement and cooperation. To be known as a just man is to possess the highest social credit.