ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 39 (Number 13) Year 2018 • Page 13

Justice in Aristotle: a virtue for the perfection of the socio-legal nature of man and its incidence in the experimentation with animals

La justicia en Aristóteles: una virtud para la perfección de la naturaleza socio legal del hombre y su incidencia en la experimentación con animales

Luis Fernando GARCÉS Giraldo 1; Adriana ARBOLEDA López 2; Jovany SEPÚLVEDA-AGUIRRE 3; Astelio SILVERA Sarmiento 4

Received: 17/11/2017 • Approved: 10/12/2017

Content

1. Introduction

2. Method

3. Results

4. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

The virtue of the justice in Aristotle has been object of discussions in some of his writings: in his three ethics, Ethic to Nicomaco, Ethic to Eudemo and Magna Moralia, that completes his treaty about moral, the virtues are the base of his ethic thought, and in them, justice has an important relevance; In Retoric it is described the different  species of the oratory, and it is made a description of the justice and judge’s roll, and in Politic, talks about things related to the polis, the relations between political communities mediated by the laws and their relation with the virtues, especially with the justice.

In his Nicomaquea Ethic, Aristotle understands the virtue of the justice as a way of being by which one is willing to practice what is right, to act fairly and to want fair things. Is called fair what preserves happiness (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 130). In Retoric affirms that “Parts of the virtue are justice, braveness, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, freedom, prudence, and wisdom; the virtue is a beneficial capability and because of this they mainly honor the just and courageous” (Aristotle, 2010b, p. 36).

To Estagirita, justice is the virtue by excellence, and in it is included the others; to this thinker “is the virtue in the most complete of the senses, because is the practice of the perfect virtue, and is perfect, because the one that has it can use it with the others and not only with himself”. It seems that is the only virtue that is concerned to the other’s good because it does what is right to the others (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 133). The vice of this virtue is the injustice that is the exercise of the meanness; is the excess and defect of the useless and harmful against all proportions (Aristotle, 2010ª, p. 134).

The virtue of the justice has an importance in the investigation with animals; the scientific must develop the conditions that make his acts fair and they need to be mediated by a right reason. This need to find the good to others and to the world around us, especially nature, which the animals are part of.

The virtue of the justice and his incidence in the experimentation with animals, will approach this reflection starting in the postulates that Aristotle does according to the virtue in general and how these are acquired, and then make a description of the virtue of justice, its classes and talk about the Aristotelian fair man. By last, it is established the relation that the virtue of the justice has with the principles of Bioethics and the postulates of the three r’s  which are applied by the investigator, will generate fair acts with animals in the scientific investigation (Garces and Giraldo, 2013a).

3.1. Aristotelian virtue

In the Eudemia Ethic, Aristotle introduces us to happiness, affirming that there are three goods that conduce to her: the virtue, the prudence and the pleasure. Also, there are three genres of the life: political life, philosophical life 5 and life of pleasure 6 , it’s because of it that the philosophical life deals with the prudence and the contemplation of the truth; political life of the noble actions (those derived from the virtue); Pleasure life deals with the joy and the body pleasures (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 22).

The political life of the noble actions (those who are derivate from the virtue); the life of the pleasure deals with the joy and the body pleasures (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 22). Happiness is associated with one of the three lives; this is the major and the best of the human goods; it is the best of the things that can make a human being (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 28).

For this thinker, “the prudence, the virtue and the pleasure are in the soul” (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 35); the virtue is the best disposition, way of being or faculty of all that has a use or a function; the function of each thing is its end (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 36); therefore, the function of the soul is to make living and the function of the virtue will be a good life and as that, the perfect good, that is happiness; to Aristotle:

…what is in the soul is a way of being or an activity. And as the activity is better than the way of being, the best activity and the best activity than the best way of being and that the virtue is the best way of being then the activity of the virtue of the soul is the best. But the happiness was also the best; then happiness is the activity of a good soul (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 37).

We must talk about the virtue. To Aristotle, the virtue, is the disposition that is created by the best movement of the soul and so is the source of the best actions and passions of it (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 40-41). “Therefore, that way of being is that make us capable to do the best acts and gives us the best possible to do a better good and act according to the right reason (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 46-47). In the Ethics to Nicomaco, Aristotle defines the virtue as:

... An elective habit that consists in a relative medium term to us, regulated by the right reason in the way of a truly prudent man can do. It is a medium between to vices, one because of the excess and another by the defect and also to not reach, in a case, or surpass in others, the necessary in the passions and actions, while virtue finds and with the definition that is established in its essence, the virtue is a medium term, but respect to the best and to the good, is an extreme (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 63).

The virtue is a habit, a disposition or an attitude to choose the fair middle, avoiding the excess and the defects (Marcos, 2011, p. 209). This fair middle, according Aristotle, is the right reason that decides a prudent man. This medium term is a midterm position between the excess and the defect, and points to the balance between passions and actions; Medium term needs to be chosen and not the excess or the defect.

To be virtuous is a whole work, it is learned with the exercise of the new habits with formation and it requires experience and time to exercise in them. To Aristotle to become good, to be virtuous will depends on different factors as the nature, habits, and teaching (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 295):

Some people believe man become well because of the nature, others because of the habit and others because of the teaching. Now, it is clear that the nature part is not in our hands, but is present in those who are truly lucky because of a divine reason. The reasoning and teaching don’t have the strength in all the cases, but the soul of the disciple, as land that nurture a seed, it needs to be cultivated first by the habits to delight or hate things, because those who live according to their passions won’t listen the reason that will try to persuade or either understand it, and if he is ready for that, how man can be persuade to change? In general, passion doesn’t yield to the argument but to the strength; in that way, character must be in some way predisposed to the virtue loving what is noble and having an aversion of shameful things.

Lopez de Llergo (Quoted in Vidal, 2006, p. 42), points out that the word habit refers to, in the case of the virtue, a stable habit to act well, a second nature that is acquired with the repetition of good acts. To Marcos (2001, p. 20) “in the virtuous person the correct action flows naturally, without artifice. The virtue becomes a way of being, but in a selected way of being of each person, from which each one is responsible”:

In addition, the virtue of the man is the way of being by which man becomes good and makes good what he needs to do in the individuality, in his immediate environment and in the society where he belongs to; this is the way through he makes good his own functions (Silvera and Garcia, 2013; Garces and Zuluaga, 2013). Therefore, it can be affirmed that the virtuous man is the one that has acquired as a habit of a correct realization of his individual and social functions, in terms to always finding benefits and avoiding damages (Aranda and Salgado, 2005, p. 37); it acquires a constant and continuous behavior of “making good” for the formation of a good character, because in this way we can avoid the passive obedience away from the principles and reinforces the global and interior commitment of the moral agent (Vidal, 2006, p. 46).

The virtue of the man will be also the way of being by which, man becomes good and by which he makes good his own function (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 61). Aristotle explain where virtues came from (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 52) for this, he divides it in virtues or moral order (or ethics) and virtues of intellectual order (or dianoetich):

…The dianoethic has an origin and grows basically by the teaching and for it the experience and time are required; the ethic comes from the custom… this fact shows us that any of the ethical virtues are produced by nature because anything that exists by nature can be modified by custom 7 .

The virtues are acquired as a result of the previous conditions. Aristotle warns the importance of the education in the acquisition of the customs. This thinker affirms in the Eudemia ethics that “the end is the beginning of the thinking, but the conclusion of the thought is the beginning of the action. Now, if the reason or the virtue are the cause of each rectitude, and if is not the reason, is the end, although not the means that take to the end, will be right thanks to the virtue” (Aristotle, 2011a, p. 67).

And because of this, the virtue has a direct and immediate relation with the way of acting of the people. All the value of the virtue resides in the action. To be virtuous, an action needs to be done in concordance with the own duties of the virtue (Jimenez, 2003, p. 7; Carreño, et. Al. 2015). Virtue doesn’t consists only in the observance of duties, but in the fact that all the actions are completed appropriated to the mood of who has assimilated the virtuous behavior changing it in a habit, making them in the best way as possible. Happiness is simply acquired by the fact of being virtuous and exercising the virtue, beyond the results, achievements and consequences of the virtuous act (Diaz, 2009, p. 103).

To Aristotle, the authentic happiness (eudaimonia) lies in living and acting, being the activity of the good man, good nice and happy (Benitez, 2005, p. 16). In the Eudemia Ethic (Aristotle, 2011a, 40), Aristotle relates the actions of the virtue and happiness, like this:

…The actions according to the virtue will be nice and also good and beautiful, and both things in the extreme, if the virtuous man correctly judge everything about this in the way that we explained before. Happiness, is the best, the most beautiful and the nicest thing… all of them are part of the best activities; and the best of all we say that is happiness.

In Aristotle (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 35) “Happiness is something perfect and enough, because is the end of the acts”. Palli, translator of the Ethic to Nicomaco, used in this reflection, shows clearly that “one of the important actions of the Aristotelian moral is that happiness is the good that, when we have it, make us independent and man is independent when he owns all the necessary for happiness” (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 35). All the required conditions for happiness can be in the virtue, prudence or in certain wisdom, or in one of them. “Our reasoning agrees with those that says that happiness is the virtue or a class of it, because the activity according to the virtue is an own activity of it” (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 38-39).

We need to have clear that there is not a specific or closed list about virtues; in some parts of his writing 8 , Aristotle refers to different classes of virtues; he modifies them through his life. Among moral virtues we can find the liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, ambition, meekness, kindness, sincerity, sharpness, modesty and shame, justice, continence, friendship, courage, moderation, concord, benevolence, self-love; and in the intellectual virtues wisdom, science, intuition, prudence and art (Garces & Giraldo, 2013b, Silvera & Saker, 2016).

In the next section, we will talk about the virtue of the justice and as we said in the introduction this is the most perfect virtue because it practices the fair with the others and with the world that’s around, more than with itself.

3.2. Justice in Aristotle ethics

Of all the Aristotelian virtues appears one that is in charge of improve the sociopolitical nature of man: is the dikaiosyne or justice, as the practice of the fair. Aristotle (2010a, p. 146), describes justice as a virtue and affirms that:

…Justice is a virtue by which is said that a fair person practice intentionally the fair and that distributes between himself and others, or between both, not in a way that he receives more of the good and the others less, but proportionally the same distribution between the two of them.

This virtue is derived from the dike or the reality of the fair. Justice as a virtue is the ethical shed, consistent this dike in the adjustment at the cosmos that has political and social vocation (Corral, 2003, p. 139). In the Retoric, justice is defined as “the virtue through everybody and each one has their own, and as every law demands; and injustice through things that are not from us, not as the law demands” (Aristotle, 2010b, 37).

Justice constitutes a practice that in its actions makes effective what is fair; then, while actions are thinking starting from its fulfillment, and that different from the production (poiesis) and from the action (praxis) has an end in themselves and because of this and of that is good and better, the virtue of justice constitutes that capability or power to do certain actions (Karmy, 2006, p. 5). In Nicomaquea Ethic, Aristotle meditates about the actions that are done with intention, like this:

If the damaged is produced with intention, the act is unfair, and it is because of the virtue of this injustices that the one that act unjustly is unfair, as always as he violate the proportion or equality. In the same way, a man is fair when he acts fairly by choice and he acts fairly if only he acts voluntarily. From the involuntary acts, some of them are forgivable and others not. How many mistakes we commit just with the ignorance, but also for it, they are forgivable; but when the ignorance is not the reason and is due to a passion that is not natural or human, they are not forgivable.

It’s called fair, actions that gives and save happiness and its parts to the political community (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 132). Action are characterized because they are not done conform to the virtue, being justice the most perfect of all, because is the one that cares over other’s good; those that have it, use it with others and not only for themselves. Justice represents the relation with the other and this is the hardest part to achieve. Then, of all the virtues, justice is the one refers to the others and for that is the most important budget of the polis (Karmy, 2006, p. 5).

In the same way in his Magna Moralia, Aristotle talks about the fair and unfair in relation to the equal and unequal: “the fair respect to others is shortly the equal because the unfair is unequal”. Because when I give to myself the same quantity of goods and the less quantity of evils, this is unequal and is in this way that we made injustice (Aristotle, 2011c, p. 171).

To the Estagirita is evident that fair behavior is a medium term between makes injustice and has it. Justice in a medium term but in the same way the others virtues, it belongs to the medium, while injustice is in the extremes 9 (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 145). About the practice of fair and unfair, Aristotle says:

And the justice is a virtue by which is said that the fair man practice intentionally the fair and distributes between himself and the others, or between two, not in the way that he receives the better and the others less, but proportionally the same and if the distribution is between the two of them. And talking of the unfair, injustice is the opposite [of the justice], this is, excess and defects of the useless and harmful, against every proportion. Injustice is excess and defects, in the way that is excess of the usefulness absolutely in relation to ourselves, and defect of what is harmful; talking of the others, in union with the same but against proportion in each of the cases (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 145).

In Aristotle, this virtue doesn’t bring his origin of the law or strength, but the nature, not always but this doesn’t mean that justice doesn’t have a relation with the dispositions of the law (Contreras, 2012, p. 64). On the other hand, in Politics (Aristotle,2011b, p. 23) talks about the laws of relation with the justice and happiness, like this: “The laws refers to all the things, giving the hand to what is convenient for everybody or the best, or the ones that are powerful or anything else like that; therefore in one direction, we called fair which is of the nature of produce and preserves happiness and its elements to the political community”.

The virtue of the justice is previous to the law; the fair must know when he need to stop applying the law: when its application generates an unfair result (Huertas, et. al., 2016). It means, fair cannot denominate the one that complies with the law; the Aristotelian fair man must have the necessary capability to the right judgment; from here, the closed relation with the phronesis (Isler, 2009, p. 193). Politics talks about that the virtue of the justice is the discernment of the fair (Aristotle, 2011b).

Aristotle recognizes in a man, a capability. Phronesis that acts as mediator between the universality of the exigencies of the justice and variability of the contingence situations in which needs to put his work (Garcia, 2012, p. 6). You can be fair, according to Aristotle, without the capability of thinking the practice, the dikaisoune requires of the phronesis (Isler, 2009, p. 195).

Aristotle, in his Politics, indicates us that the perfect man is the best of all the animals, but if he get away of the justice can be the worst of all; man is full of weapons to serve the prudence and the virtue and also he can use them to the opposite things (Aristotle, 2011n, p. 252). Aristotelian prudence give us the discernment of the fair, of the fair and right reason; it’s because that the learning of the virtue of the prudence in relation with the justice is important. Prudence constitutes the place of the decision that gives the fair strength (Karny, 2006, p. 2).

To Aristotle, of the things that are fair, ones are because of its nature and others because of the law. The fair by nature cannot be understood as something that can’t change; Even to Estagirita, these things are susceptible of the change because of the use that we let them; also, he defines that the fair by law is what we have and establish. He finishes saying that “is better the fair by nature than the fair by law” (Aristotle, 2011c, p. 175). In Ethic to Nicomaco, this thinker introduces us in the discussion about what is natural and legal in justice terms, like this (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 148):

Political justice can be natural and legal; natural, the one that has all the parts with the same strength and is not subject to human opinion; legal, the one that considers actions in its indifferent origins, but that they stop being once it is establish, for example that the rescue be of a mine or that in the example we need to sacrifice a goat and not two sheep, and all the laws for particular cases, as offer sacrifices in honor to Brasides 10 , or the decisions in forms of decrees.

In Aristotle, exists a difference between an unfair action and a fair one. The unfair is by nature or by disposition of the law; the fair acts denominated fair actions and acts of justice are applied in the repair of unfair actions. In his Ethic to Nicomaco (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 150) says that:

Being the actions fair and unfair those who we mentioned before, we make a fair or an unfair act when these action become voluntarily; but when they do involuntarily, we don’t act neither fair and unfair excepts by accident, because then we do something that results accidentally fair or unfair.

It can be established the relation between fair and unfair with the classes of justice according to the Aristotelian thought; regarding what he says in the Ethic to Nicomaco (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 135) the following:

We defined the unfair as illegal and unequal, and fair as legal and equal. Well, the injustice we were talking before is the illegal and it’s because of that the unequal and the illegal are not the same but different, just like the part of everything (because unequal things are illegal, but not all the illegal is unequal), either unfair and injustice are the same, but they differ between them, one as part and the other as an everything; this injustice is part of the total [or universal] 11 justice- as the particular justice is part of the integral.

According to the previous, to the Estagirita is evident that there are some classes of justice. It’s important to talk of two types of justice; these are the two types: Universal justice 12 and particular justice, that at the same time is divided in distributive justice and corrective justice.

Universal justice is understood as the one that has all the virtues and its exercise put the good to the others and to the community in order; particular justice is the one that concern the distribution of the goods and loads or relations between particular (Huertas, Trujillo and Silvera, 2015; Garces, 2015). Both justices have the same strength in relation to the other, but one of them is part of the other, because the first one talks about everything that matters to the virtuous man and the second one of giving each thing to the right person (Forero, 2009, p. 185).

As was exposed, particular justice is divided in two classes: distributive justice and corrective justice. Distributive justice, according to Aristotle, is the one that distributes in an equal proportion; “the fair is a medium term in relation of something or with somebody. As medium term will be one of the extremes; as also can be according to the terms and as fair in relation of certain people” (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 137). This type of justice is based on the geometrical proportion and is developed in the distributions of honors, money and any other good. It is a midterm measure on the proportion, an equality of reasons, refers to people and things; it constitutes the proportional thought of the political communities and the principal reason of the existing disagreements (Tierno, 2009, p. 7).

The corrective justice is to the Estagirita a different way of the previous one because is the medium term between the loss and the gain; it is an equality between individuals, but not only according to the proportion but according to the arithmetic (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 139-140). It is based on the arithmetic and not only rectifies the inequalities that can be produced in the behavior of the individuals. It is composed by the principle (compensatory) of the relations of change (Tierno, 2009, p. 7-8).

In summary, in Politics book, it is shown that “the discernment of the fair... (And) the virtue of the justice (make) the politic community order” (Aristotle, 2011b, p. 252). Justice or fair actions are realizations of a virtuous man, it means, of the man that is owner and free, the citizen that lives in the polis (Benitez, 2005, p. 14). Laws are social tools by which we can materialize in a certain way the justice: legal or general (Contreras, 2012, p. 64). Let see how we can apply this virtue to the experimentation with animals.

3.3. The fair, the virtuous of the justice in the experimentation with animals.

In previous lines, we had defined the unfair as illegal and unequal, and the fair as the legal and equal. Right now it’s necessary to talk about the relation of the equal with the fair; To Aristotle, if the equal is better that a certain class of justice, is fair. The fair and the equal are the same thing and even both are good, equal is the best; it appears a difficulty in both because the equal, also called fair, it is not according to the law, it is a correction of the legal justice (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 157).

In his Magna Moralia, this thinker affirms that “to keep the equality with the others is fair, and fair is the man that keep it” (Aristotle, 2011c, p. 171). Clearing this situation out, the Greek thinker refers to equitable man as: “The one that choose and practice fair things, and the one that keeping away from the strict justice and of his worst rigors, knows how to give, even though he has the law on his side. In that way is the equitable man, and in this way of being is the equal, that is a type of justice, not a different way of being” (Aristotle, 2010a, p. 158).

Is in that way that fair and equitable man is the one that acts by choice and voluntarily, and when that man, the means and the end are met, that’s is a fair justice (Aristotle, 2011c, p. 175). The fair man, the one that practices the virtue of the justice, being this one the most complete of the virtues, is the truly good man (Silvera, Arboleda and Saker, 2015). The rectitude of the human acts can’t be achieved in a constant way without the exercise of moral virtues, as the justice, that inclines will to the good because act good is not necessary the theoretical knowledge, but it requires a good disposition of the goods (Lukac, 2010, p. 183).

The virtue and especially the justice, must be regulated by a right reason to deliberate about what’s good and everything that makes the good. The Aristotelian virtuous should check if his acts are mediated by the will to choose what is fair, not for itself but to the others; this one as we discuss before, is the right principle of the justice virtue: wanting to practice what is fair, do things with justice –and as Aristotle said, in the justice we can find all the virtues- is the practice of the perfect virtue because the person is fair with the others; the other virtues improve the development of the individual good, while justice is oriented to the polis; and it is, by far, the virtue of the good citizen(Garces and Giraldo, 2013).

Also we need to consider that virtue is achieved if the justice is practice in all the ways and not only in one of its ways. Superiority of the justice is explained as the diffuser of the good and it is found in the subject in the noblest part of the soul: the spiritual appetite or will (Lukac, 2010, p. 188). “

“Virtue in general is to diligently seek the disposition in relation to the soul, provided with calm and orderly movements,  harmonized in all its ways; for this, the disposition who is diligent of the soul seems to be the paradigm of a good political regime” (Aristotle, 2009, p. 144).

Rodríguez (quoted in Garces and Giraldo, 2012, 161) affirms that:

… one of the characteristics that differs the human being of other species is the ethical subject; it means that he is able to know the consequences of his acts, to make value judgments and differentiate the good from the evil, choosing freely whatever he wants. It’s because we need to know that in the ethical concerns that human being has been developed are: Love to the nature, environmental defense, concern about biodiversity and biosecurity.

Man, as always, had generated dynamics that alter nature through its worldviews, its instincts and wishes. Human history has been a large process of natural coevolution (Leff, 2006, p. 2). Nowadays, man must have a different look to nature, to the world that’s around us and living beings that are in itself; Pardo (2005, p. 404) tells us that:

…world appears through our eyes as something valuable, as a good; if this animated or not-animated world is a good in itself, its destructions seems, at first vetoed. The respect of the nature is part of man’s dignity; this makes it an inviolable living being, always worthy of respect by others.

That dignity needs to be mediated by the virtue of the justice. A virtuous man is the person that acts, making not only what is appropriated in certain circumstances of the life, but doing it in a fair way, with an adequate disposition to all that is around him, especially to nature (Diaz, 2009, p. 103). Man can’t degrade his dignity with a behavior that doesn’t know the importance of the living beings, for example: animals and their pain, and if he allows or produces it, is because serious reasons (Pardo, 2005, p. 406).

In the Bioethics theme, is included the justice and it is part of the basic principles of this discipline as: charity, not maleficence, autonomy and justice. In the following table are related these principles (Osorio and Martinez, 2001, p. 10)

As we can see in the previous table, the justice in the use of animal life is below the ethical responsibility of the investigator, who will need to make sure that animals are exposed just to the necessary practices and consider the bioethics principles to the use of living organisms in scientific investigation (Bugarin and others, 2003, p. 4). The investigator that experiments with animals must practice the virtue of the justice to rationalized the experiments that he performs, with a more respectful conscience to the other living beings. In the exercise of the practical reason, we can see how justice is shown as virtue, and at the same time as rationality, to conclude that every conception of the justice has with it a conception of the reason (Leon, 2010, p. 89).

The fair investigator must rationalize properly the inversion that society has let in his hands to make just those projects that have pertinence and relevance in the knowledge and in the community. When we replace animals and reduce its use to the minimum, with the purpose of doing less damage to them, is expressing the respect to other living beings, which will uses and cares (Cardozo and Mrad, 2008, p. 66). Society demands innovation, commitment and leadership to generate fair environments (Hernandez & Jiménez, 2015).

Without doubt, the virtue of the justice, mediated by the fair and right reason that must have a scientific inside his professional development, needs to be working with fairer processes to identify palliative strategies to do less damage to animals in the investigation. It must be accompanied by fairer processes to identify strategies. There are mechanisms to replace, reduce and refine the experiments with animals that help to minimize the pain and make less damage to them. This strategy of refinement was perfected by Russell y Burch and they called it the rule of “three R’s”: reduce the number of animals involved, replace the alive animal material by alternating experimental techniques; refine techniques to minimize the animal suffering (Mrad, 2006, pp. 175-176; Sanchez, 2000, p. 207).

These principles have been adopted to the application through the bioethics rules, such as the Declaration of the Global Medical Association About the Use of animals in the Biomedical investigation, adopted by the 41st Global Medical Assembly celebrated in Hong Kong, in 1989; Principles of the international council of Medical Sciences organization (CIOMS, 1993) to the biomedical investigation that involves animals, its guides to the care and use of laboratory animals of National institutes of health in the United States of America; The Mexican declaration and basic principles of experimentation in animals, and the Official Mexican Norm about the technical specifications for the production, care and use of laboratory animals. In Colombia, the 008433 resolution of Social Protection Ministry of 1993, contemplates the application of the “Three R’s” in investigations that are made with animals in our country; however, they just need to define the mechanisms for its adequate application in our environment (Cardozo and Mrad, 2008, p. 49).

All of these mechanisms let virtuous and fair Scientifics have with animals three types of attitudes: respect, animals must be treated as living beings that will feel suffering and also death, in benefit of our own specie; affection to living beings that share to us life in Earth planet; gratitude, his sacrifice results benefit to our specie because of the important function that they have in the development of the medicine and biology to the treatment of illness in humans (Giraldez, 2003, p. 8).

To Sanchez, (2000, p. 207), animals have sponsored rights by international dispositions, as the adopted by the Animals Rights International League, proclaimed in 1978 and approved then by the UNESCO and ONU but it doesn’t mean that these norms are recognizing moral rights. By the way, with norms or without them, there is a moral obligation of man in relation to the utilization of laboratory animals. These obligations are summarized in the following four core goals:

• Define the purposes that can legitimate the use of animals.
• Ensure the tolerable conditions of accommodation and care.
• Keep a public transparence and a responsibility of the professionals that are involved.

Now, justice means to recognize in the others the reality as human beings and the grade of human superiority in front of other living beings. To Pardo (2007, p. 24):

… Part of the perfection that needs to be oriented by man actions, consists in the recognition of the reality as it is, with its natural gradation of living beings, and that it behaves with every living being with transparency.

That attitude of the will is the virtue of the justice. This, differs from the others because it finds the orientation out of the man, in things. When man appreciates these grades of living beings that are around him, he will act in a fair way when things are related to the transparency of everything. And the habitual disposition of this way of behavior is the virtue of the justice.

Is also the responsibility of the investigator, to applies the principle of justice, with the purpose that when the procedures of analgesia, euthanasia and wellness of the animal are being defined, we can study the behavior, its manifestations of tranquility, affectivity, stress, fear, anguish, pain and discomfort, it means, its ethology, and in this way we can also defined the conditions of the experimentation work (Cardozo and Mrad, 2008, p. 66). There is a moral and fair obligation between scientists, and is to study the physiological and pathological mechanisms that delineate the sharp and chronic pain in animals and also to acquire information that allows the development of better techniques for the pain control (Bugarin and others, 2003, p. 3).

In summary, the pursuit of the excellence represents a challenge that impregnates of sense this bioethics work, which major potential is found in the education (Brussino, 2001:57) The virtuous person is not happy simply with the accordance of the exterior act, but in some way let its character impregnated in what he does. In Aristotle, the major reason of happiness is the virtue from which every man that completes himself in his individual condition, being free and aware (Diaz, 2009, p. 120-121). The virtue of the justice contributes to make actions honest. It means that the duties that are needed to reach a fair action also contributes to make it honest, but an action is not honest if it’s not prudent, fair, strong and temperate. The justice marks the duties of the action that pretends to be fair (Jimenez, 2003, p. 8).

Aranda, J. and Salgado, E. (2005). Formation of values in human being. Educative innovation, 5(28), 33-43.

Aristotle.  (2010a). Nicomaquea Ethics.  Madrid: Gredos Editorial.

Aristotle.  (2010b). Retoric.  Mexico: UNAM.

Aristotle. (2011a). Eudemia Ethics.  Madrid: Editorial Gredos

Aristotle. (2011b). Political.  Madrid: Gredos Editorial.

Aristotle. (2011c). Magna Moralia.  Madrid: Gredos Editorial.

Aristotle. (2009). Virtues y vices.  Philosophical discussions, 10(14), 133-145. 

Benitez, J. (2005).  Eutopia and Polis: the place of the innocence and happiness in the image of Greek ancients. Magazine of Philosophy, (34), 7-17.

Brussino, S. (2001).  Ethic of the virtue and medicine (II).  Topics. 8(9), 43-58.

Bugarin T., Olivia and others. (2003). Bioethics considerations of the investigations of pain in experimented animals, Investigation in health, (1), 1-6.

Cardozo, C. and Mrad, A. (2008). Ethic in investigation with animals: a responsible attitude of the investigator with scientific quality. Latin-American Magazine of Bioethics, 8(2), 46-71.

Contreras, S.  (2012). the justice in Aristotle. A revision of the fundamental ideas of Nicomaquea Ethic. Agora. Classics studies in Debate (14), 6 3-80.

Corral, J. (2003). The notion of justice in the rhetoric of Aristotle. Telematics Magazine of Law Philosophy, (6), 137-166.

Diaz, A. (2009). Ethic of the virtue and Bioethics.  Colombian Magazine of Bioethics, 4(1), pp. 93-128.

Forero, C. (2009). The distributive fair: considerations about a concert case. Dikaion Magazine (16), 185-195.

Garces, L. and Giraldo, C. (2012). Bioethics in the experimentation with animals: Question of regulation of the human attitude.  Revista Lasallista de Investigación, 9(1), 159-166.

Garces, L. and Giraldo, C. (2013a). The professional and responsible ethic in the experimentation with animals: a look from the prudence as a virtue. Revista Lasallista de Investigación, 10(1), 164-173.

Garces, L. and Giraldo, C. (2013b). Virtue: the right reason in the professional that experiment with animals. Civilize, 13(24), 181-191

Garces, L. and Giraldo, C. (2014). Ethical virtues in Aristotle: the reason of the wishes and actions to reach them. Virtual Magazine North Catholic University, (41), pp. 70-78

Garces Giraldo, L. F., & Giraldo Zuluaga, C. (2013). Caring for each other and others in Foucault, guiding principle for the construction of a bioethics of care. Philosophical discussions, 14(22), 187-201.

Garces Giraldo, L. F. (2015). Aristotelian virtue as a path of human excellence and the actions to achieve it. Philosophical discussions, 16 (27), 127-146.

Garcia, J. (2012). Natural justice and conventional justice.  A case of reception of Aristotelian iusnaturalism in contemporary German philosophy: Eric Voegelin. Santiago de Chile: Santiago of Chile University.

Giraldez, A. (2003).  Ethics in animal experimentation: justice for animals? Bioethics Magazine and health sciences, 5(3), 1-16.

Hernandez, H. y Jimenez, A. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. Economic urban zone CUC, 36 (2), 9-18.

Huertas, O.; Silvera, A. & Ossa, A. (2016). Dynamic integration of the Colombian jurisprudence. Republican Magazine, 20 (20).

Huertas O.Trujillo J., and Silvera A. (2015). Perspectives of the right humans and the liberty in penitenciary system. Political analysis, 28(84), 115.

Isler, C.  (2009). Alasdair Macintyre about the virtue a justice in Aristotle. ArsBoni et Aequi, (5), 183-212

Jimenez, J. (2003).  Deliberation and judgment: about the classic ontological approach of the virtues.  “Saberes” Magazine of juridical economic and social studies, (1), 1-14.

Karmy, R. (2006). About the decision in the prudence in Aristotle. An introduction to the problem of the animal and human thing.  Rei, (46), 1-16.

Leff, E.  (2006). Ethic for the life.  Praise of the will of power.  Polis, Magazine of the Bolivarian University, 5(13), 1-13.

León, F.  (2010). Justice and bioethics in the Inequalities in health in Latin America.  Bioethics, 5(1), 85-99.

Lukac, M.  (2010). Virtuous response of the ontological personalism to the principles bioethics.  Life and ethic, 11(1), 181-193.

Marcos, A. (2011). Learning doing: paideiayphronesis in Aristotle.  Educacao. 34(1), 13-24.

Mrad, A.  (2006). Ethic of the investigation with experimental animals. Alternatives and the 3 R’s of Russell.  A responsibility and an ethical commitment that belongs to us. Colombian Magazine of Bioethics, 1(1)163-183.

Osorio, R. and Martinez, A.  (2001). Bioethical aspects of animal and human experimentation in Psychology. Hispanic American Psychology Notebooks, 1(2), 7-22.

Pardo, A. (2005). Ethics of animal experimentation. Legal and ethical guidelines. Bioethical notebooks, 16(58), p. 393-417.

Pardo, A. (2007). Animal experimentation.  Medical magazine of the University of Navarra, 51(3), 23-25.

Pineda, M., Páez, J., Vanegas, L., Meza, H., and Silvera A. (2015). Citizen access in justice as a dynamic exercise of publicity and contradiction, through guaranteed strategies of due process (Digital access testing). Lasallista magazine of Investigation, 12 (2).

Pozzoli, M.T. The subject facing the animal phenomenon: Towards an integrative view from the new paradigm of complexity.  Polis, Bolivarian University Magazine, 2.6 (2003): 1-14.

Rodriguez. E. (2007). Ethic of the investigation in animal models of human diseases.  Bioethics record, 13(1), 25-40.

Sanchez, F. (2000). Ethic in biomedical investigation.  Nomads, 13(1), 199-208.

Silvera A. and Saker, J., (2016). Citizen coexistence and security: social barrism as scenario for the signification of the juvenile reality of the district of Barranquilla. Culture Education and Society, 4 (2).

Silvera A. and Saker, J., (2013). City educational project: development of the social being facing the global life. Magazine Logos science and technology, 4(2), 62-69.

Silvera A., Arboleda A., and Saker J. (2015). The conciliation, a tool of interdisciplinary to improve culture of agreements in the solution of conflict in Colombia. Justis Justice, 11(2), 89-99.

Tierno, P.  (2009). the conception of the political justice in Aristotle. 9° National Congress of Political Science: center and periphery. University of Buenos Aires-Argentina.

Vidal, J. (2006). The virtues in the clinical medicine. Files in familiar Medicine, 8(1), 41-52.

1. Doctor in Philosophy at Pontifical Bolivarian University. Teacher at American University Corporation in Medellin, member of Law, justice and social state of right investigation group of the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty. Students of the Postdoctorate in Law of the National University of Colombia. E - mail: lgarces@americana.edu.co

2. Postdoctoral researcher in Education Sciences with a Focus on Complexity and Transdisciplinary Research at Simón Bolívar University Barranquilla. Doctor in Contemporary Procedural Law. Students of the Postdoctorate in Law of the National University of Colombia. Research professor associated with the Research Group in Justice Law and Social Law of the Univeristaria Americana Corporation. E-mail: aarboleda@americana.edu.co

3. Master in technological innovation management, cooperation and regional development at Metropolitan technological institute. Vice chancellor of investigation at American University Corporation in Medellin. Associated investigator in Research Group in Law at Lasallista University Corporation.  E-mail: vicerrectorinvmed@americana.edu.co

4. Doctor in Education sciences, Simon Bolivar University. Master of Law, National University of Colombia. National Vice-Rector for Research of the American University Corporation. Students of the Postdoctorate in Law of the National University of Colombia. E-mail: asilvera@coruniamericana.edu.co