Aristotle and his concept of justice

The entire Greek political thought revolves around the important concept of justice. This is an abstract concept and is difficult to define it in fixed terms, as it is viewed differently by different thinkers. But for Aristotle, justice is of two types, universal justice and particular justice. The former refers to obedience to laws that one should be virtuous. As far as particular justice is concerned, it is again of two types, distributive justice and remedial or corrective justice. Distributive justice implies that the state should divide or distribute goods and wealth among citizens according to the merit. Again remedial justice is divided into two, dealing with voluntary transactions (civil law) and the dealing with involuntary transaction (criminal law).  

Further, Aristotle added commercial and cumulative justice to the above-mentioned types of justice. The term "just," as used by Aristotle,' has two separate meanings .In its first meaning it is principally used to describe a conduct in agreement with the law, therefore, which conforms to an established, authoritative rule of human conduct; in short, it is used to describe a conduct which conforms to whatever constitutes an authoritative instrument of social and moral control. In this sense Justice denotes a moral disposition which renders men apt to do just things and which causes them to act justly and to wish what is just. It refers primarily to the application or observance of certain authoritative rules of human conduct and should, consequently, rather be called the virtue of righteousness or of moral Justice a virtue displayed towards others a social virtue.  

In its second meaning Justice signifies Equality, or, to be exact, a fair mean. It is this second meaning of Justice in the narrower sense in which we are primarily interested, since it constitutes that concept by means of which the law in action, and not merely the moral conduct of man, can be more specifically evaluated. In order to make clear the distinction between Justice according to an authoritative rule" and Equality, Aristotle states that a person whose conduct is unjust, who acts contrary to certain moral principles and, therefore, lacks virtue, is not necessarily unjust as far as the principle of Equality is concerned that is to say, he need not be one who has or claims more than his fair due. 

Justice can mean either lawfulness or fairness, since injustice is lawlessness and unfairness. The laws encourage people to behave virtuously, so the just person, who by definition is lawful, will necessarily be virtuous. Virtue differs from justice because it deals with one’s moral state, while justice deals with one’s relations with others. Universal justice is that state of a person who is generally lawful and fair. Particular justice deals with the “divisible” goods of honour, money, and safety, where one person’s gain of such goods results in a corresponding loss by someone else 

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