One of the most fundamental and yet challenging issues in the philosophy of criminal law is understanding the relationship between morality and law, and determining the limits of the moral legitimacy of criminalization. In this context, Aristotelian moral philosophy—centered on concepts such as eudaimonia, virtue, and justice—provides important theoretical resources for grounding the principles of criminalization. However, common interpretations of Aristotle often suggest that he advocates a complete overlap between individual morality and legal regulation. A careful examination of his works, particularly within the framework of justice theory, reveals a clear and essential distinction between moral faults and legal faults.
This study critically reexamines Aristotle’s conception of justice as a form of virtue, to clarify this distinction and explore its implications for the foundations of criminalization. The central question of this article is to investigate Aristotle’s theory of justice in relation to virtue, and to derive its implications for criminal law. The objectives of the study are: first, to explore the relationship between individual virtue and social justice within Aristotle’s ethical-political system; second, to analyze the role of key Aristotelian ethical concepts—such as good intention, the mean, practical wisdom (phronesis), and justice—in determining the limits of legislation; and third, to clarify the fundamental distinction between moral faults and legally punishable acts from Aristotle’s perspective. Ultimately, the study aims to establish the criterion of “harm to others” as the cornerstone of the legitimacy of criminalization in the Aristotelian framework.
The research employs an analytical-critical methodology, drawing primarily from Aristotle’s key texts, particularly the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. The methodology involves conceptual analysis of virtue ethics, logical deduction of its implications for criminal law, and critique of reductionist interpretations of Aristotelian justice. An interdisciplinary approach, bridging moral philosophy and the philosophy of criminal law, is also utilized.
The findings indicate that Aristotelian ethics, with its emphasis on eudaimonia as the ultimate goal of human life, conceives virtue as a dispositional state grounded in conscious choice and situated within the mean between extremes. The full realization of virtue requires the simultaneous presence of good intention and right action, meaning that ethical judgment ultimately depends on the agent’s motivation. Key concepts in this ethical system—such as the mean, which is context- and person-dependent, and practical wisdom (phronesis), the capacity to discern the right course of action in particular circumstances—are inherently agent-centered and situational. Consequently, Aristotelian ethics cannot directly provide a basis for fixed legal rules, since determining the right action requires the judgment of a virtuous agent (phronimos) in a specific context, and cannot be reduced to universal principles.
Justice, in this framework, serves as the bridge between virtue and law. Aristotle distinguishes between general (universal) justice and particular (specific) justice. General justice refers to complete virtue in relation to others and conformity with the law, thus defining the scope of legislation and criminalization. Particular justice, on the other hand, is divided into distributive justice—concerned with the allocation of resources and positions based on merit—and corrective or rectificatory justice, aimed at restoring balance after harm has occurred. Crucially, from Aristotle’s perspective, the domain of law is defined by the criterion of “harm to others.” In other words, legitimate legislation is not intended to guide individual morality, but rather to preserve collective well-being and prevent harm to others. This criterion establishes a clear boundary between moral faults—concerned with individual character—and legal faults or punishable acts.
The study demonstrates that Aristotle does not conflate individual morality with law. Certain acts, such as murder, theft, and adultery, may be regarded as “pre-legal” or “intrinsically wrong” because they inherently disrupt human relations, regardless of positive law. Therefore, the central criterion for criminalization in the Aristotelian framework is objective harm to others, or the undermining of the common good and the conditions necessary for societal flourishing. This perspective explicitly rejects legal paternalism, which involves government intervention solely for individual welfare without harm to others.
Although practical wisdom is an individual attribute, mechanisms can be devised to institutionalize it within legislation and adjudication. The legislator, acting as a phronetic agent, can identify and criminalize public vices—collective patterns of behavior harmful to society—while considering the common good and citizens’ flourishing. Likewise, judges can assess intent, conscious choice, and situational factors through practical wisdom to determine the extent of criminal liability. Thus, virtue theory informs not only the definition of criminal acts but also the assessment of legal responsibility.
In conclusion, Aristotelian virtue ethics, despite being agent-centered and context-sensitive, provides a coherent moral foundation for criminalization through the lens of justice and the central criterion of “harm to others.” In this framework, legitimate criminal legislation rests on two pillars: first, the criminalization of intrinsically harmful pre-legal acts, such as murder and theft; and second, the criminalization of public vices that objectively undermine collective welfare and citizens’ potential for flourishing. This approach, by avoiding both moral relativism and legal paternalism and by clearly distinguishing between individual ethics and law, offers a balanced and coherent solution to the problem of criminalization. In this model, the practical wisdom of legislators and judges replaces rigid, inflexible rules without leading to subjectivism or arbitrariness in law.