CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF JHARKHAND

DEPARTMENT OF CONTEMPORARY AND TRIBAL

CUSTOMARY LAW

SUBJECT: JURISPRUDENCE-II (LLM 421030)

PROJECT ON: CONCEPT OF JUSTICE

SUBMITTED TO-

DR. ANUJA MISHRA

FACULTY (ASSISTANT PROF.),

CTCL CUJ

SUBMITTED BY-
VISHAL RANJAN
LLM 2nd (SEMESTER)
21250403018
SESSION: 2021-2023

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 CONTENT:

Sr TITLE Page
No. No.

1 Acknowledgement 3

2 Research Methodology 4

3 Objectives 4

4 Introduction 5

5 Justice- Concept, Origin & Evolution 5-6

6 Concept of Justice in Ancient India 6

7 Concept of Justice in Ancient Greece 6

8 Plato’s Theory of Justice 7

9 Aristotle and Justice 7-8

10 Justice in Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” 9-10

11 Justice Concept in Aristotle Politics 11

12 Book Three on Justice and citizenship 12-13

13 Conclusion 14

14 Bibliography 15

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At this point of time, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me their
support to complete this project.

I am grateful to my Jurisprudence-II Law teacher who is Dr. Anuja Mishra (Assistant

Prof.) CTCL, for giving me permission to commence this project in the first instance and
to do necessary study and research. I want to thank law faculty members and other faculty
members for all their professional advice, value added time, effort and enterprise help,
support, interest and valuable hints that encouraged me to go ahead with my project.

I am deeply indebted to my colleagues for their meticulous planning, layout, presentation

and above all for their consideration and time.

My heartfelt appreciation also goes to seniors and my classmate for their stimulating
suggestions and encouragement which helped me at each level of my research and in
writing of this project.

Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to my parents, family members and God
whose patient love enabled me to complete this project in this ongoing pandemic situation
in the world.

I have tried my best to enclose practical approach of Jurisprudence and also theoretical
approach to my project.

(Signature of the Student)

Vishal Ranjan

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research is based on Concept of Justice in Jurisprudence. Basically, the data which has
been collected for the research purpose is particularly of doctrinal in nature. It has been
collected from various books, sites, magazines and newspaper articles. So basically, the
analysis has been done through case study.

OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
❖ To understand the concept of justice.

❖ To understand the theories of justice.

❖ To know about the evolution of justice.

❖ To know about Book 3 on justice & citizenship.

❖ To understand the Aristotle and Plato’s view on justice

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INTRODUCTION

Justice is one of the most important legal, moral and political concepts. The word comes from
the Latin ‘justitia’ 1 . The Oxford English Dictionary defines the “just” person as one who
typically “does what is morally right”. Justice is not only an important moral concept, but also
a political one. In the modern day, society chooses its own leaders with the hope that they will
be justly treated. Legislators make laws which are ‘just’. The purpose of law itself is to enable
justice. Justice is almost synonymous to Goodness. A person who is just in his actions, treats
others justly, is considered a good man. And thus an unjust man is considered evil. Although
any attempt to define the term precisely, scientifically and exhaustively has presented a baffling
problem to scholars of all hues. Consequently on account of its multidimensionality, its nature
and meaning has always been a dynamic affair. From the time of Plato down to the present day
no consensus and no satisfactory definition of justice could emerge due to its abstract, universal
and all pervasive characteristics. Most thinkers have elucidated justice in terms of some simple
rules or symmetry; some of them, however, looked for the key to the concept of justice
elsewhere and have construed it in terms of rules, or merit or utility or liberty or equality.

JUSTICE:- CONCEPT, ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

There is wide divergence in the prevalent notions of justice. Philosophers like Plato and
Aristotle regard justice as a supreme virtue, the source of all others and encompassing within
itself the whole of morality. For Kant and Rawls justice is a very important aspect of human
existence, the first virtue of society. Hume and Marx and Engels denies the concept of justice;
and for them it is unnecessary if not entirely irrelevant. Nonetheless, the very charge of
inadequacy or redundancy or superfluity against justice presupposes its meaningfulness and
worth otherwise, all the charges would be irrelevant.

Common usage continues to treat justice, despite all its inadequacies and limitations, as
denoting some of the greatest human needs. Man's longing for justice is explained as the active
process of preventing or remedying what would arouse the sense of injustice. This
consciousness of injustice arises in society in the context of a prevailing system of human
relationship. The origin of justice therefore, is traced to man's consciousness of injustice in
society and consequently to his urge for change in the situation towards a better and desirable

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meaning right or law

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one. In other words man's craving for what is good and what ought to be is the perennial
experience that gives rise to the concern for justice. Justice presupposes the existence of
conflict and it is called upon to harmonise antinomies. The problem of justice arises only if the
possibility of a conflict is admitted between claims of individuals in a society. In completely
harmonized order, free from all sorts of conflict, justice is redundant. It is only in the realm of
moral that the synthesis and perfect harmony between personal and transpersonal values is
possible, but in actual world they are in intense conflict. And it is precisely this hiatus between
the harmony of the moral ideal and the disharmony of reality that gives rise to the problem of
justice. Justice harmonises the conflicting interests and tends to bring out a balance. Justice in
its true and proper sense is a principle of coordination between subjective beings and the idea
of justice only manifests and can manifest itself in relation to persons but not between· objects
of any kind. Justice and injustice are meaningful and relevant only in context of a society i.e.,
justice and civil society can be said to go together. Hence, justice primarily, is a social concept
which has its origin in man's life in society.

CONCEPT OF JUSTICE IN ANCIENT INDIA

Ancient Indian concept of justice is based on Dharma2. There is no corresponding word in any
other language. It has a wide variety of meanings. A few of them would enable us to understand
the range of that expression. For instance, the word 'Dharma' is used to mean Justice (Nyaya),
what is right in a given circumstance, moral values of life, pious or righteous conduct, being
helpful to living beings, giving charity or alms, natural qualities or characteristics or properties
of living beings and things, duty, law and usage or custom having force of law.

CONCEPT OF JUSTICE IN ANCIENT GREECE

For all their originality, even Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies did not emerge in a vacuum.
As far back in ancient Greek literature as Homer, the concept of “dikaion”, used to describe a
just person, was important. From this emerged the general concept of “dikaiosune”, or justice,
as a virtue that might be applied to a political society.

2
Dharma is a Sanskrit expression of the widest import.

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PLATO’S THEORY OF JUSTICE

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher was one who put in writings all the thought of Socrates.
Plato was a dedicated critic of the Sophists. He used “Dikaisyne3” as the word for Justice which
meant “Righteousness”. Plato pointed out that Cephalus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon—all of them
propounded their theories of justice which contained a common element—it is external.
Whether it be, a convention, an accomplishment or otherwise, none of them carry the weight
of justice to the soul, which according to Plato is where it actually resides.

After criticizing their ideas, he puts forth his own theory of justice. According to Plato, “Human
organism contains three elements-Reason, Spirit and Appetite. An individual is just when each
part of his or her soul performs its functions without interfering with those of other elements.
For example, the reason should rule on behalf of the entire soul with wisdom and forethought.
The element of spirit will sub-ordinate itself to the rule of reason. Those two elements are
brought into harmony by combination of mental and bodily training. They are set in command
over the appetites which form the greater part of man's soul. Therefore, the reason and spirit
have to control these appetites which are likely to grow on the bodily pleasures. These appetites
should not be allowed, to enslave the other elements and usurp the dominion to which they
have no right. When all the three agree that among them the reason alone should rule, there is
justice within the individual.” Thus, according to Plato’s theory, Justice is a sort of a
specialization. It means carrying out one’s own job dutifully and at the same time not
interfering in another person’s job.

ARISTOTLE AND 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

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Means Righteousness

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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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JUSTICE IN ARISTOTLE’S “NICOMACHEAN ETHICS”

Aristotle in his book of Nicomachean Ethics says that there are two forms of particular justice:
distributive4 and reificatory5 or corrective.

1. Distributive justice deals with the distribution of wealth among the members of a
community. It employs geometric proportion: what each person receives is directly
proportional to his or her merit, so a good person will receive more than a bad person.
This justice is a virtuous mean between the vices of giving more than a person deserves
and giving less. Aristotle was of the opinion that this form of justice is the most
powerful law to prevent any revolution, as this justice believes in proper and
proportionate allocation of offices, honours, goods and services as per their requirement
being a citizen of the state.
This justice is mostly concerned with political privileges. Aristotle advocated that every
political organization must have its own distributive justice. He, however, rejected
democratic as well as oligarchic criteria of justice and permitted the allocation of offices
to the virtuous only owing to their highest contributions to the society, because the
virtuous people are few. Aristotle believed that most of the offices should be allocated
to those few only.
2. Reificatory justice remedies unequal distributions of gain and loss between two people.
Rectification may be called for in cases of injustice involving voluntary transactions
like trade or involuntary transactions like theft or assault. Justice is restored in a court
case, where the judge ensures that the gains and losses of both parties are equalled out,
thus restoring a mean. All laws related to commercial transactions are dealt within the
remedial and corrective actions. It aims to restore what an individual had lost due to the
injustice of the society. This justice prevents from encroachments of one right over the
other. Aristotle opined that corrective justice relates to voluntary and commercial
activities such as hire, sale and furnishing security. These actions involve aggression
on life, property, honour and freedom. In brief, this justice aims at virtue and moral
excellence of character and it is for this reason, it is called corrective justice.

Justice must be distributed proportionately. For instance, a shoemaker and a farmer cannot
exchange one shoe for one harvest, since shoes and harvests are not of equal value. Rather, the

4
This justice deals with the distribution of wealth among the members of a community.
5
This justice remedies unequal distributions of gain and loss between two people.

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shoemaker would have to give a number of shoes proportional in value to the crops the farmer
provides. Money reflects the demand placed on various goods and allows for just exchanges.

Some key points in Nicomachean Ethics are:

• The commonly accepted opinion with respect to justice is that it is a disposition to be

just, to do what is just, and to wish what is just. A disposition is often only understood
by looking at its opposite, and so the discussion of justice will include an examination
of injustice as well.

• The unjust man is considered to be both someone who breaks laws and also someone
who is grasping and unfair; the just man will therefore be a law-abiding and fair man.
The unjust man is grasping in the sense that he seeks goods which are not goods in
themselves, and often sacrifices higher goods for the sake of lesser goods.

• All lawful things are in some sense just. Laws deal with matters that are commonly
expedient with respect to virtue or honour in this sense that which preserves happiness
in a political community is called just. The law orders us to perform the actions of a
virtuous man through certain commands and prohibitions.

• Both justice in the specific sense and justice as the whole of virtue are defined in
relation to other people, but justice in the specific sense is concerned with honour,
property, safety and similar things, while justice in the larger sense is concerned with
virtue as a whole.

• That which is unjust (in the narrow sense) defies the proper proportion, since the person
who acts unjustly gets a greater proportion of the good, while the person who is treated
unjustly gets a smaller proportion.

• Justice is a disposition to do what is just and to distribute good equitably, in accordance

with an equitable proportion.

• A man may act unjustly without being unjust; for example a man who commits adultery
because of passion acts unjustly but is not unjust, but rather intemperate.

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JUSTICE CONCEPTS IN ARISTOTLE’S “POLITICS”

Aristotle says Political Justice can be divided into—

1) Natural
2) Legal Natural

Natural Justice refers to those areas which are unaffected by the differences in people’s
thinking and are equally applicable to all. Legal Justice is made as equal for all when it is put
down in the Constitution of the Polis but while applying it, it may not be so indifferent.

He says that though people may believe that all justice is natural justice, it may not be true. He
cites an example and says that by Nature, the right hand of man may be stronger yet it is
possible that all men will be ambidextrous. He further says that in the way which the prices of
wine and corn are different in the wholesale and retail markets, similarly, the things which are
not made just by nature but by human conventions, will not be the same everywhere. Thus, the
need for Legal Justice.

Aristotle says, “Principles of political justice of a polis might correctly be said to constitute the
standard of justice or of right and wrong for its citizens.” According to Boucher and Kelly,
“this conclusion is a logical implication of Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship
between ethics and politics”. They say that the political rules are the same as the moral rules
and that it was not possible for Aristotle to allow an independent yardstick for justice which
could be used to measure the effectiveness or righteousness of the laws of the polis. In
Aristotle’s own words, “the aim of the true politician is to produce good citizens who are
'obedient to the laws' no matter what the specific character of these laws happens to be. For
'whatever is lawful is in some way just'”.

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BOOK THREE ON JUSTICE AND CITIZENSHIP

Book three is ultimately concerned with the nature of different constitutions, but in order to
understand cities and the constitutions on which they are founded, Aristotle begins with an
inquiry into the nature of citizenship. It is not enough to say a citizen is someone who lives in
the city or has access to the courts of law, since these rights are open to resident aliens and
even slaves. Rather, Aristotle suggests that a citizen is someone who shares in the
administration of justice and the holding of public office. Aristotle then broadens this
definition, which is limited to individuals in democracies, by stating that a citizen is anyone
who is entitled to share in deliberative or judicial office.

Aristotle's suggestion that a citizen is someone who shares in the deliberative or judicial offices
of a city may seem odd to the modern reader, as very few people in the twentieth century would
count as citizens by this definition. In the polis, on the other hand, involvement in the affairs
of the city defined one's identity to a large extent. Though there were certain leaders concerned
exclusively with the government of the city, all citizens were required to contribute in some
way. Assemblies of citizens made decisions in bodies whose modern equivalents are law courts
and city councils, and these assemblies would rotate membership so that every citizen served
a specific term. The only aspect of this system that remains in modern times is jury duty.

Points to ponder:

• The citizen is one who shares in holding office and making decisions. This type of
citizen in the unqualified sense really only exists in a democracy. In general, one can
say that whoever is entitled to participate in an office even if he actually does not do so
is a citizen.

• Commonly speaking, however, a citizen is usually defined as a person whose parents

are both citizens. There can be difficulty in this definition, however, as regards those
who came to be citizens after a revolution. There is a question of whether such people
are citizens justly or unjustly.

• There are several kinds of citizens, corresponding to the different types of regimes. In
a democratic regime, labourers must be citizens, while in aristocratic regime citizenship
is granted only in accordance with virtue and merit. In an oligarchy, on those who are

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 wealthy are citizens. In one type of city the virtue of the excellent man and the excellent
citizen is the same, but in another it is not.

• In reality, however, it always happens that the majority are poor and only a few are
wealthy. The cause of dispute between democracy and oligarchy is that while some are
poor and others rich, all are free.

• "The political good is justice, and this is the common advantage. Justice is considered
to be a certain sort of equality, but what remains to be determined is what sort of
equality and equality in what things. Persons preeminent in some things may not be
preeminent in others, and some things are more of claim to honour and merit than
others. The wellborn, the free and the wealthy deserve some sort of honour.

• In the best city, the virtue of the excellent man is identical to the virtue of the excellent
citizen.

• Aristotle wants to avoid rule by a single man because it is apolitical and also thinks that
the rule of law should be preeminent because human beings are too easily swayed by
their passions, he cannot deny that if such an outstanding person or group of people
existed, it would be irrational not to allow them to rule.

Book three is, thematically speaking, probably the central book of the Politics. In this book
Aristotle lays out almost all of his major ideas about the purpose of politics, the virtue of
citizens, the varieties of regimes and the nature of justice.

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CONCLUSION

Thus I would like to conclude that, Aristotle believes that it is impossible for a man to act
unjustly to himself because no one voluntary wishes for anything that is not good. Implied in
this belief is the idea that the human will is naturally directed toward the good, and that human
beings do not voluntary and knowingly choose something that is an absolute evil, but rather
that they choose a lesser good over a greater good. The Ethics and The Politics cannot be
properly understood in isolation from one another. Without knowledge of the virtues, and
particularly of justice, it is impossible to know what a good regime is, since the end of politics
is to live virtuously. Yet politics is important for ethics because it is only within the polis that
a person learns how to live virtuously and can attain full virtue and happiness.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
§ www.yourarticlelibrary.com
§ Jurisprudence & Legal Theory, V.D Mahajan’s, 6th Ed., Eastern Book Company
§ www.legalserviceindia.com
§ blog.ipleaders.in

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