The Goal of Justice - Aquinas

The commutative quality of Thomistic justice is also evident in the advocacy of the death penalty. Of primary concern to Thomas are the needs and wants of those other than the executed. By slaying the wicked, we enhance the safety of the virtuous. It may even be praiseworthy and good to inflict execution to assure communal tranquility. Retaliation, the vengeful fomenting of the harmed and injured party, is at times properly within the province of commutative justice. To retaliate is to parlay passion for passion. But Thomas warns that passion for passion is not the same equation as act for act. Equality of an act heavily depends upon a theory of proportionality. One cannot retaliate with the death penalty for a theft of food, or, as Thomas remarks, one's stolen chattel repossessed under a theory of retaliation. Thomas insists that the retaliator, in order to be just, equalize both passions and corresponding acts of retaliation. Passions of the inordinate variety are beyond the horizon envisioned in commutative justice. Passion need "be equal to the action." Proportionality assures justice; disproportionality fosters injustice.

Thomas's inquiry into vengeance continues this logical line of reasoning. Obviously, vengeance for ulterior or hateful motives nurtures not justice, but hatred in the avenger. Vengeance is compatible with justice if directed toward some good, or for the reformation of the sinner, "for instance that the sinner may amend, or at least that he may be restrained and others be not disturbed, that justice may be upheld, and God honored." But vengeance has no place for those acting in ignorance or by accident, mistake, or other involuntary means. Early on Thomas evaluates intentionality as the criteria for exerting commutative justice and tolerates it only when the party whose aim it focuses upon acts with pure, unaffected will. That party "suffers something that is contrary to his will;" namely vengeance, because reciprocity, sees vengeance as the agency necessary for equilibrium. Those sinning by will may be punished by those willing vengefully.

Commutative justice fosters individual tranquility and peace and is an indispensable condition of social existence. Complementing commutation, that relation of the individual to the state, distributive justice is allocative and proportionally determinative.


[comment] There are those who cite Aquinas for the proposition that the death penalty is acceptable. It is but some tend to forget the fact that it is to be used to enhance the safety of the community. As the Church has concluded, in most modern societies it is not necessary to kill someone in order to render her harmless to society.
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