Experience shows that justice by itself is ineffectual. This merely confirms what was shown before, that justice has no basis in nature. The common good proved to be the selfish interest of a collective. The selfish interest of the collective is derived from the selfish interest of the only natural elements of the collective, namely, of the individuals. By nature everyone seeks his own good and nothing but his own good. Justice, however, tells us to ask other men’s good. What justice demands from us is then against nature. The natural good, the good which does not depend on the whims and follies of man, this substantial good appears to be the very opposite of that shadowy good called “right” or “justice.” It is the natural good which is one’s own good toward which everyone is drawn by nature, whereas right or justice becomes attractive only through compulsion and ultimately through convention. Even those who assert that right is natural have to admit that justice consists in a kind of reciprocity; men are bidden to do to others what they desire to have done to themselves. Men are compelled to benefit others because they desire to be benefitted by others, in order to receive kindness, one must show kindness. Justice appears to be derivative from selfishness and subservient to it. This amounts to an admission that by nature everyone seeks only his own good. To be good at seeking one’s own good is prudence and wisdom. Prudence or wisdom is therefore compatible with justice proper. The men who is truly just is unwise or a fool- a man duped by convention.
Leo Strauss, Natural Rights and History
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