Introduction: Natural law and justice
Introduction may eat and drink even more than that, so long as they do not actually indulge themselves so much that they impair their own health or wellbeing or undermine harmonious relations within their community.
Natural law and justice Having discussed the relationship between the theory of natural law and the affective virtues, we must return to natural law and show how it informs Aquinas's account of justice as well. Recall that the superordinate and inclusive good for human beings is the good of reason. And as Aquinas explicitly says in aae ., reason orders us to a common, social good, which involves an individual's relationships with other people. As I have said before, reason does not supersede the lower goods; rather, it transforms them. So in human beings even the lower-level inclinations are transformed in light of this higher-level inclination 'to live in society'.
Even though temperateness and fortitude are directed to the agent's own good, the domains in which temperateness and fortitude are exercised have implications for the common good. We see this clearly in the case of sexuality. Initially sexuality has to do with temperateness, but because sexuality has implications for the common good, there are precepts of justice that regulate our sex lives: fornication and adultery are violations not only of chastity but also of justice. Clearly fear and daring will have implications for the common good as well – think about soldiers. So there is a sense in which temperateness and fortitude are not completely specified and put into context until we have spelled out the demands of justice.
WhatIwanttodrawyourattentiontoisthatneithernaturallawtheorynor virtue theory stands alone here. Although the specific demands of justice are spelled out within virtue theory, it is natural law theory that exposes the need for justice to complete and transform the affective virtues.
This point about the relationship between justice and the affective virtuesbringsusbacktomyearlierpointabouthowthegoodsarearranged inclusively. The goods of reason transform the lower-level goods: what it is for a human being to be good with respect to the lower-level goods is not the same as what it is for a cat to be good at the lower-level goods, precisely because we have reason and cats do not. For us to be good at the lower-level goods means not only for us to have our sensory desire aimed properly at our own attainment of human perfection, but to have both sensory desire and intellectual desire (will) aimed at the common good. xvii