ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of virtuous persons in good institutions. More specifically, it defends a view of the character virtue of justice and its relationship to institutional justice. The view—“justice as lawfulness”—consists of three claims. First, just institutions are composed of the relations between just persons. Second, the just person has a disposition to act in accordance with the legal and social norms (collectively, the nomoi) of an existing political tradition. Third, departures from the nomoi require that the just person act with practical wisdom to reform the nomoi according to a standard of justice implicit in an existing political tradition. The chapter also explores the connections between justice as lawfulness and the Socratic view of justice in Plato—s Crito.
