Yet since in any city there will be a great number of adults who are not virtuous, laws are necessary for one's entire life. Laws are thus especially necessary for the young, so that at an early age their passions will be properly trained and they will learn to take pleasure in what is virtuous. Since 'passion seems to yield not to argument but to force,' laws are necessary in order to habituate citizens in virtuous action. Law is also crucial for the moral education of citizens. Judges should make up for this shortcoming in the law by basing their decisions not necessarily on what the law actually says but on the reasoning behind the law. A problem with laws is that they need to formulated in a universal way and thus are not able to take into account the particulars of each situation. Yet to be truly just a law must be in accordance with natural justice. LawĪll laws are in some sense just, since any law is better than no law. Therefore while the principles of natural justice don't change, natural justice in action varies because in applying natural justice conventional justice needs to be added. In theory, then, there exists a universal standard of natural justice which is unchangeable, but in practice there must always be a mix of natural justice and legal justice in the laws of the city. Legal justice is that which is just according to law it ought to be in accordance with natural justice.

The reason is that governments vary and no perfect regime exists thus there seem to be different definitions of justice implied by the laws of each regime. Aristotle does admit that from observation it may difficult to see the existence of this natural justice.

It is, in a sense, comprised by the laws that order the universe and that order beings toward their ends. Natural justice is the same in all times and places. In this sense, justice unifies and orders the virtues.Īristotle also makes a distinction between natural justice and legal justice. The virtue of justice is one of the peaks of virtue, since being truly just requires having all the other virtues as well.

Aristotles nichomachean ethics