Justice

Spinoza’s views of justice are heavily shaped by his wider moral and metaphysical commitments. The TTP defines justice as “a constancy of mind in apportioning to each person what belongs to him according to civil law” (TTP16.42; also TP2.23). This definition seems at first traditional enough. It brings to mind the Roman law maxim in Digest 1.1.10: “Justice is a steady and enduring will to render unto everyone his right [suum cuique tribuere].” That maxim was considered summative of justice across the medieval and early modern period. In fact, Spinoza thoroughly reinterpreted the meaning of “justice,” to reconcile it with his startlingly innovative metaphysics of right, power, and virtue. He did so in two ways: (1) by insisting that the sole rights that justice regulates are civil ones, introduced by human lawgiving; (2) by altering the standards of “constancy of mind” required by the virtue of justice.