The Theoretical and Historical Concept
The center of the Nicomachean Ethics is the discussion in Book V of Justice. Justice is central, too, as a fundamental moral virtue that extends beyond the individual to regulate proper conduct within a political community. Thus Justice occupies a central place both within the Ethics and the Politics .[1] Although Aristotle does not completely depart from Plato's concept of Justice as an "immutable, eternally valid, and universal idea," he considers it as a virtue operating within a political and social context.[2] For Aristotle, Justice is based on a system of law: the ultimate sovereign that governs, for the good of its members, the ethical relationships within a political community among men of free and equal status. Compared to a narrower, legal sense of the term in English, Justice in Greek (Dikaiosyne ) connotes righteousness or honesty. Aristotle distinguishes between a general or universal type of Justice, "the whole of goodness . . . being the exercise of goodness as a whole . . . towards one's neighbour," and Particular Justice.[3] Justice represents, and is identical with, perfect virtue, not only as an individual moral state but as a quality that governs relationships to other people. Although part of universal or general Justice, Particular Justice is concerned with behaving fairly or, as Aristotle terms it, "equally" to other men.[4] In turn, Particular Justice is itself divided into two types. The first of these is Distributive Justice, "which is the justice shown by the whole state in distributing offices, honours, and other benefits among its members."[5] The second kind of Particular Justice is Corrective or Remedial Justice, which adjusts or awards on a fair basis damages or punishments among individual parties.
As king of France, Charles V had a particular interest in Aristotle's definition of Justice. Since antiquity, Western thought emphasized that Justice (along with Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence) is one of the four cardinal virtues, or essential moral qualities, required by the ideal ruler.[6] In various conceptual and historical contexts, Justice is connected with the ruler or state, an embodiment of the supreme, ethical force guiding the regime and articulated in a system of laws enacted and enframed by the sovereign power of government. The influential genre of the Mirror of Princes literature, subject to changing concepts of Christian kingship, reiterates the identification of Justice with the ideal ruler. To take one important example, John of Salisbury's Policraticus of 1159 views the king as an image
of equity and the mediator between divine and human law.[7] The same text conceives of the state as a natural organism, "a kind of body of which the king is the head; and in turn the king must rule according to the higher reason which participates in justice and equity."[8] The integration of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics within Christian political and social thought, and specifically in the Mirror of Princes literature, promotes a more secular and naturalistic frame of reference. Giles of Rome's influential De regimine principum (ca. 1282) associates the ruler's most important function with his moral character and ability to act and judge wisely for the good of the whole community.[9]
Preceded by Thomas Aquinas's treatise of the same title, Giles of Rome's work was written for the heir to the French throne, Philip the Fair. As was mentioned in Chapters 1 and 4 above, Philip commissioned a French version of Giles's text from Henri de Gauchi, Li livres du gouvernement des rois . The closely related mid-fourteenth-century text, the Morgan Avis au roys , shows the reduction of complex Aristotelian texts to simple pedagogical maxims. Following a long tradition, this work associates Justice with the ideal prince. But Aristotelian definitions of Distributive and Remedial Justice now appear. The Avis au roys also states the ruler's obligation to maintain the rights, liberties, and freedom of his subjects.[10] The function of the king as dispenser of Justice had concrete application during the expansion of the French monarchy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The king's power to legislate and administer laws grew considerably, while the supremacy of royal justice over the courts of princes and the church played an important role in Capetian claims of sovereignty. Using precepts taken from Roman law, legal theorists articulated the supremacy of the king's courts in judicial matters. On grounds of the common welfare and defense of the realm, a climax in the monarchy's claim to sovereignty came at the turn of the fourteenth century during Philip the Fair's confrontation with the papacy.[11]
During the same period, mystical language and visual symbols forcefully articulated claims that God had chosen the rulers and people of France over those of other nations.[12] The myth of sacral kingship also asserted that God had bestowed on French rulers Wisdom, Piety, and Justice.[13] Indeed, Philip the Fair himself stated that the kingdom of France surpassed all others as the seat of Justice.[14] The example of Louis IX, canonized as St. Louis in 1297 and known as a holy and wise dispenser of Justice to his people, buttressed these claims.[15]
In response to internal and foreign threats to the Valois dynasty, Charles V and his publicists restated the identification of royal sovereignty with law and justice. Treatises and ordinances used mystical formulas associated with sacral kingship, as well as language derived from natural and Roman law theories.[16] Commissioned by Charles V around 1376 and finished in 1378, Le songe du vergier is a prime example of a tract designed to bolster the monarchy's claims of sovereignty. A fictional dialogue between a cleric and a knight, the Songe rehearses the perennial conflicts between church and state and comes down firmly on the secular side.[17] Such concepts as that the territory is inalienable from the crown and that the king is emperor in his own kingdom assert his sovereignty.[18] Inserted in the Songe is a
detailed list of the king's specific rights and powers.[19] In a very different tone, the lengthy preamble to the Songe , tinged with mystical allusions, celebrates the name of Charles V as the signifier of the clear light of peace, truth, and justice.[20]
The iconography of Charles V features a symbol rooted in the king's identification with Justice. Several images in his Coronation Book show him holding one of the distinctive emblems of the French monarchy. The main de justice , a rod surmounted by an ivory hand, not only signifies the monarch's duty to rule and to embody the principles of Justice but also sets the French king apart from other rulers.[21] Charles V's keen awareness of the value of ritual in confirming his prerogatives as the supreme source of Justice may well have prompted Oresme to take special pains in formulating Aristotle's authoritative definition of this fundamental moral and political virtue.