875. How should we define justice?
“Justice is respect for the rights of each and every individual.”
a) What determines these rights?
“Two things: human law and natural law. As human beings have created laws in harmony with their values and character, those laws have established rights that have varied with the progress of enlightenment. Your laws, although still far from perfect, no longer include what were considered rights in the Middle Ages. Those rights, while horrific to you now, appeared fair and natural at that time. Therefore, the rights established by humans are not always compliant with justice. In addition, they only govern certain social relations, while there are an infinite number of actions that are only tried privately by our conscience.”
