The place of justice among the virtues, both moral and theological, has always been a delicate issue. Machiavellians tend to underestimate or deny its central significance. Contemporary religious rhetoric often tends to exaggerate it. Classical philosophy was ever aware of the ambiguity of justiceits impersonality and rigidity. Unless placed within a higher order of good, as Plato saw, or of charity, as Aquinas understood, justice introduces an unsettling utopianism into any existing polity.
James V. Schall, "Justice: The Most Terrible of the Virtues," Journal of Markets & Morality 7, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 409-421