A justiça comutativa e a doutrina da restituição na Suma Teológica de Santo Tomás

Abstract

Este estudo pretende analisar a temática relativa ao conceito de Justiça e às suas espécies no pensamento de S. Tomás, apresentado particularmente em algumas questões da Suma Teológica, que é considerada sua obra principal. Por este motivo apresenta-se o esquema geral da Suma Teológica para poder entender melhor onde está colocada a temática sucessivamente estudada. Em seguida analisam-se as características fundamentais da Justiça e das suas espécies básicas, a partir da reflexão aristotélica sobre "justiça corretiva", retomada por Tomás na expressão "justiça comutativa", com destaque para a restituição, considerada por S. Tomás como um ato de justiça comutativa.This study intends to analyze the concept of justice and its species in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, based on the theological Summa. Starting from the Aristotelian notion of corrective justice, Thomas Aquinas develops the commutative justice and highlights there the importance of restitution, through which it is recognized that has been the unjusted plunder of someone and that it demands the restoration of the damage caused, returning to the interpersonal relationship the absolute equality. It is here that the thomasian commutative justice theory can still help in the juridical resolution of the various types of fraud or corruption, private and public, so present in contemporary society. In addition to punishment for deviant agents, it remains the primary criterion for due reparations, in function of the damages caused to third ones in good faith. The restitution operates this reparation, because, without due compensation by the fraudulent or corrupt agent, the effectiveness of commutative justice is incomplete, generating a sense of impunity in the community, or sayings as "here the crime pays off". As frauds or corruptions, as plundering facts, cause damage to third ones in good faith, nothing more just that the wrongdoers are obliged to the compensation or repairing of the damage caused. Thus, the act of restitution realizes commutative justice.