More specifically, the idea of legal justice addresses the fact that the law is not universally .
binding in the fact that is does not exist outside of the assignment of laws, which is done so arbitrarily (1791). In essence, the content of the law as well as .
the definition of acting justly or unjustly is arbitrary. Since all political things are designed to pursue one end, justice and injustice would apply to the .
level to which these things are addressed. Hobbes agrees with Aristotle's contention that the content of the laws is mostly arbitrary. He goes so far as to argue .
that man has no conception of justice or injustice in his natural state, as he is only driven to oppose other men in a warlike environment (90). Thus, the law is .
most certainly vital to the concept of justice, because it measures the means by which men maintain the protections and also the sacrifices mandated by the .
commonwealth. Since the commonwealth and the covenant of the people with the commonwealth are what remove men from their state of nature, then it is necessary .
that the commonwealth is what defines justice. Justice and injustice are again meaningless concepts without the covenant, as they represent breaking and keeping .
its conditions.Clearly, each of the philosophers establishes the solid relationship between justice and the law. Neither Hobbes nor Aristotle believes that the .
concept of justice can exist alone, thus one must examine how each establishes the law to fully understand the concept of justice. However, the sharpest .
difference between the two exists in their creation of the law: why the law exists, what the law entails, and who makes the law. Both philosophers make cases .
that the law is reasonably arbitrary: for Aristotle, the law is simply putting into effect actions that were once indifferent but later exist to promote the .
master end, and for Hobbes the law exists to promote peace among men, though specific actions in and of themselves have no worth.
