Justice and Virtue

Abstract

Abstract This chapter argues that justice as a personal virtue should be seen as loving justice. The problem is that unlike beneficence, benevolence, caring, and forgiveness justice is not a virtue of love. Excellent manifestations of love in appropriate forms are not the target of justice. Rather, using Kant’s conception of the two moral forces, we should say that justice is a virtue of respect rather than love. To show that concern for justice can, however, be integrated with both caring and proper respect for autonomy we first show that love and respect as moral forces can be integrated through a Kantian account of proper forbearance. The argument then requires positing a conception of institutional justice as the field of the personal virtue and a clearer understanding of the nature and point of loving justice in society. This discussion proceeds with an analysis of Buber’s I/It I/Thou distinction.