Justice (Dikaiosyne)
This week's concept is Justice, known in Greek as dikaiosyne (say it: dih-KAY-oh-soo-nay), which simply means giving others what they are genuinely owed and refusing to take from them what is not yours to take. The Stoics placed it among the four cardinal virtues, and they considered it the most social of the four: it is the one virtue that faces outward, toward other people, toward the community, toward the world. By the end of this week you will understand not just what justice means in the abstract, but how it shows up in the small, concrete choices you make every single day with the people around you.
Passage
The good, in every instance, is subject to these same laws. The advantage of the state and that of the individual are yoked together; indeed it is as impossible to separate them as to separate the commendable from the desirable. Therefore, virtues are mutually equal; and so are the works of virtue, and all men who are so fortunate as to possess these virtues.
— Seneca, Letters 66.10
Reflection
Seneca makes a move today that can feel surprising: he says the virtues are equal, and the advantage of the individual and the advantage of the community are not just aligned but inseparable, like a thing that is both commendable and desirable at once. What this means for justice, dikaiosyne, is that acting justly toward others is not a trade-off against your own flourishing; it is your flourishing. You cannot peel them apart. This is the Stoic answer to the person who asks, 'why should I be just when being unjust would benefit me?' The question contains a false assumption: that benefiting yourself and acting justly are two different directions to go.
Go deeper
In what area of your life do you most often experience justice toward others as a cost to yourself, and what would it mean to actually believe Seneca's claim that they cannot be separated?
Practice
Find the Yoke
Think of one relationship, at work, at home, or in your community, where you tend to keep a private mental scoreboard of what you give versus what you get. For ten minutes, write about what that scoreboard is costing you in terms of the quality of the relationship itself. Notice whether the accounting is making you richer or poorer in any real sense.