Suum cuique

"Suum cuique" (Classical Latin pronunciation: [ˈsu.um ˈkuj.kʷe]), or "Unicuique suum", is a Latin phrase often translated as "to each his own" or "may all get their due". It has been significant in the history of philosophy and as a motto.

The Latin phrase relates to an old Greek principle of justice which translates literally into English as "to each his own". In Plato's Republic, Socrates offers the provisional definition that "justice is when everyone minds his own business, and refrains from meddling in others' affairs" (Greek: "...τὸ τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν καὶ μὴ πολυπραγμονεῖν δικαιοσύνη ἐστί...", 4.433a). Everyone should do according to his abilities and capabilities, to serve the country and the society as a whole. Also, everyone should receive "his own" (e.g., rights) and not be deprived of "his own" (e.g., property) (433e). Aristotle took up this conception of distributive justice as an alternative to justice as fairness in his Nicomachean Ethics.

The Roman author, orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) popularised the Latin phrase:

The phrase appears near the beginning of Justinian's Institutiones: iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere. (Inst. 1,1,3-4). (Translated into English: "the precepts of law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, [and] to give to each his own".)

Suum cuique serves as the motto of the Order of the Black Eagle (German: Hoher Orden vom Schwarzen Adler; founded in 1701), the highest order of chivalry of the Kingdom of Prussia.

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