SECT. I JUSTICE, WHETHER A NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE?
I have already hinted, that our sense of every kind of virtue is not
natural; but that there are some virtues, that produce pleasure and
approbation by means of an artifice or contrivance, which arises from
the circumstances and necessity of mankind. Of this kind I assert
justice to be; and shall endeavour to defend this opinion by a short,
and, I hope, convincing argument, before I examine the nature of the
artifice, from which the sense of that virtue is derived.
It is evident, that when we praise any actions, we regard only the
motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or
indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external
performance has no merit. We must look within to find the moral quality.
This we cannot do directly; and therefore fix our attention on actions,
as on external signs. But these actions are still considered as signs;
and the ultimate object of our praise and approbation is the motive,
that produced them.
After the same manner, when we require any action, or blame a person for
not performing it, we always suppose, that one in that situation should
be influenced by the proper motive of that action, and we esteem it
vicious in him to be regardless of it. If we find, upon enquiry, that
the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast, though checked
in its operation by some circumstances unknown to us, we retract our
blame, and have the same esteem for him, as if he had actually performed
the action, which we require of him.
It appears, therefore, that all virtuous actions derive their merit
only from virtuous motives, and are considered merely as signs of those
motives. From this principle I conclude, that the first virtuous motive,
which bestows a merit on any action, can never be a regard to the virtue
of that action, but must be some other natural motive or principle. To
suppose, that the mere regard to the virtue of the action may be the
first motive, which produced the action, and rendered it virtuous, is to
reason in a circle. Before we can have such a regard, the action must
be really virtuous; and this virtue must be derived from some virtuous
motive: And consequently the virtuous motive must be different from the
regard to the virtue of the action. A virtuous motive is requisite to
render an action virtuous. An action must be virtuous, before we can
have a regard to its virtue. Some virtuous motive, therefore, must be
antecedent to that regard.
Nor is this merely a metaphysical subtilty; but enters into all our
reasonings in common life, though perhaps we may not be able to place it
in such distinct philosophical terms. We blame a father for neglecting
his child. Why? because it shews a want of natural affection, which is
the duty of every parent. Were not natural affection a duty, the care of
children coued not be a duty; and it were impossible we coued have the
duty in our eye in the attention we give to our offspring. In this case,
therefore, all men suppose a motive to the action distinct from a sense
of duty.
Here is a man, that does many benevolent actions; relieves the
distressed, comforts the afflicted, and extends his bounty even to the
greatest strangers. No character can be more amiable and virtuous. We
regard these actions as proofs of the greatest humanity.
This humanity
bestows a merit on the actions. A regard to this merit is, therefore,
a secondary consideration, and derived from the antecedent principle of
humanity, which is meritorious and laudable.
In short, it may be established as an undoubted maxim, THAT NO ACTION
CAN BE VIRTUOUS, OR MORALLY GOOD, UNLESS THERE BE IN
HUMAN NATURE SOME
MOTIVE TO PRODUCE IT, DISTINCT FROM THE SENSE OF ITS
MORALITY.
But may not the sense of morality or duty produce an action, without any
other motive? I answer, It may: But this is no objection to the present
doctrine. When any virtuous motive or principle is common in human
nature, a person, who feels his heart devoid of that motive, may hate
himself upon that account, and may perform the action without the
motive, from a certain sense of duty, in order to acquire by practice,
that virtuous principle, or at least, to disguise to himself, as much
as possible, his want of it. A man that really feels no gratitude in his
temper, is still pleased to perform grateful actions, and thinks he has,
by that means, fulfilled his duty. Actions are at first only considered
as signs of motives: But it is usual, in this case, as in all others, to
fix our attention on the signs, and neglect, in some measure, the thing
signifyed. But though, on some occasions, a person may perform an action
merely out of regard to its moral obligation, yet still this supposes
in human nature some distinct principles, which are capable of producing
the action, and whose moral beauty renders the action meritorious.
Now to apply all this to the present case; I suppose a person to have
lent me a sum of money, on condition that it be restored in a few days;
and also suppose, that after the expiration of the term agreed on, he
demands the sum: I ask, What reason or motive have I to restore the
money? It will, perhaps, be said, that my regard to justice, and
abhorrence of villainy and knavery, are sufficient reasons for me, if
I have the least grain of honesty, or sense of duty and obligation. And
this answer, no doubt, is just and satisfactory to man in his civilized
state, and when trained up according to a certain discipline and
education. But in his rude and more natural condition, if you are
pleased to call such a condition natural, this answer would be rejected
as perfectly unintelligible and sophistical. For one in that situation
would immediately ask you, WHEREIN CONSISTS THIS HONESTY
AND JUSTICE,
WHICH YOU FIND IN RESTORING A LOAN, AND ABSTAINING FROM
THE PROPERTY
OF OTHERS? It does not surely lie in the external action. It must,
therefore be placed in the motive, from which the external action is
derived. This motive can never be a regard to the honesty of the action.
For it is a plain fallacy to say, that a virtuous motive is requisite
to render an action honest, and at the same time that a regard to the
honesty is the motive of the action. We can never have a regard to the
virtue of an action, unless the action be antecedently virtuous. No
action can be virtuous, but so far as it proceeds from a virtuous
motive. A virtuous motive, therefore, must precede the regard to the
virtue, and it is impossible, that the virtuous motive and the regard to
the virtue can be the same.
It is requisite, then, to find some motive to acts of justice and
honesty, distinct from our regard to the honesty; and in this lies the
great difficulty. For should we say, that a concern for our private
interest or reputation is the legitimate motive to all honest actions;
it would follow, that wherever that concern ceases, honesty can no
longer have place. But it is certain, that self-love, when it acts at
its liberty, instead of engaging us to honest actions, is the source
of all injustice and violence; nor can a man ever correct those vices,
without correcting and restraining the natural movements of that
appetite.
But should it be affirmed, that the reason or motive of such actions is
the regard to publick interest, to which nothing is more contrary than
examples of injustice and dishonesty; should this be said, I would
propose the three following considerations, as worthy of our attention.
First, public interest is not naturally attached to the observation of
the rules of justice; but is only connected with it, after an artificial
convention for the establishment of these rules, as shall be shewn more
at large hereafter. Secondly, if we suppose, that the loan was secret,
and that it is necessary for the interest of the person, that the money
be restored in the same manner (as when the lender would conceal his
riches) in that case the example ceases, and the public is no longer
interested in the actions of the borrower; though I suppose there is no
moralist, who will affirm, that the duty and obligation ceases. Thirdly,
experience sufficiently proves, that men, in the ordinary conduct
of life, look not so far as the public interest, when they pay their
creditors, perform their promises, and abstain from theft, and robbery,
and injustice of every kind. That is a motive too remote and too sublime
to affect the generality of mankind, and operate with any force in
actions so contrary to private interest as are frequently those of
justice and common honesty.
In general, it may be affirmed, that there is no such passion in human
minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal
qualities, of services, or of relation to ourseit It is true, there is
no human, and indeed no sensible, creature, whose happiness or misery
does not, in some measure, affect us when brought near to us, and
represented in lively colours: But this proceeds merely from sympathy,
and is no proof of such an universal affection to mankind, since this
concern extends itself beyond our own species. An affection betwixt the
sexes is a passion evidently implanted in human nature; and this passion
not only appears in its peculiar symptoms, but also in inflaming every
other principle of affection, and raising a stronger love from beauty,
wit, kindness, than what would otherwise flow from them.
Were there an
universal love among all human creatures, it would appear after the same
manner. Any degree of a good quality would cause a stronger affection
than the same degree of a bad quality would cause hatred; contrary to
what we find by experience. Men's tempers are different, and some have a
propensity to the tender, and others to the rougher, affections: But
in the main, we may affirm, that man in general, or human nature, is
nothing but the object both of love and hatred, and requires some other
cause, which by a double relation of impressions and ideas, may excite
these passions. In vain would we endeavour to elude this hypothesis.
There are no phaenomena that point out any such kind affection to
men, independent of their merit, and every other circumstance. We
love company in general; but it is as we love any other amusement. An
Englishman in Italy is a friend: A Euro paean in China; and perhaps a
man would be beloved as such, were we to meet him in the moon. But
this proceeds only from the relation to ourselves; which in these cases
gathers force by being confined to a few persons.
If public benevolence, therefore, or a regard to the interests of
mankind, cannot be the original motive to justice, much less can private
benevolence, or a regard to the interests of the party concerned, be
this motive. For what if he be my enemy, and has given me just cause to
hate him? What if he be a vicious man, and deserves the hatred of all
mankind? What if he be a miser, and can make no use of what I would
deprive him of? What if he be a profligate debauchee, and would rather
receive harm than benefit from large possessions? What if I be in
necessity, and have urgent motives to acquire something to my family?
In all these cases, the original motive to justice would fail; and
consequently the justice itself, and along with it all property, tight,
and obligation.
A rich man lies under a moral obligation to communicate to those in
necessity a share of his superfluities. Were private benevolence the
original motive to justice, a man would not be obliged to leave others
in the possession of more than he is obliged to give them. At least
the difference would be very inconsiderable. Men generally fix their
affections more on what they are possessed of, than on what they never
enjoyed: For this reason, it would be greater cruelty to dispossess a
man of any thing, than not to give it him. But who will assert, that
this is the only foundation of justice?
Besides, we must consider, that the chief reason, why men attach
themselves so much to their possessions is, that they consider them
as their property, and as secured to them inviolably by the laws of
society. But this is a secondary consideration, and dependent on the
preceding notions of justice and property.
A man's property is supposed to be fenced against every mortal, in every
possible case. But private benevolence is, and ought to be, weaker in
some persons, than in others: And in many, or indeed in most persons,
must absolutely fail. Private benevolence, therefore, is not the
original motive of justice.
From all this it follows, that we have no real or universal motive for
observing the laws of equity, but the very equity and merit of that
observance; and as no action can be equitable or meritorious, where
it cannot arise from some separate motive, there is here an evident
sophistry and reasoning in a circle. Unless, therefore, we will allow,
that nature has established a sophistry, and rendered it necessary and
unavoidable, we must allow, that the sense of justice and injustice is
not derived from nature, but arises artificially, though necessarily
from education, and human conventions.
I shall add, as a corollary to this reasoning, that since no action can
be laudable or blameable, without some motives or impelling passions,
distinct from the sense of morals, these distinct passions must have a
great influence on that sense. It is according to their general force
in human nature, that we blame or praise. In judging of the beauty of
animal bodies, we always carry in our eye the oeconomy of a certain
species; and where the limbs and features observe that proportion, which
is common to the species, we pronounce them handsome and beautiful.
In like manner we always consider the natural and usual force of the
passions, when we determine concerning vice and virtue; and if the
passions depart very much from the common measures on either side, they
are always disapproved as vicious. A man naturally loves his children
better than his nephews, his nephews better than his cousins, his
cousins better than strangers, where every thing else is equal. Hence
arise our common measures of duty, in preferring the one to the other.
Our sense of duty always follows the common and natural course of our
passions.
To avoid giving offence, I must here observe, that when I deny justice
to be a natural virtue, I make use of the word, natural, only as opposed
to artificial. In another sense of the word; as no principle of the
human mind is more natural than a sense of virtue; so no virtue is more
natural than justice. Mankind is an inventive species; and where an
invention is obvious and absolutely necessary, it may as properly be
said to be natural as any thing that proceeds immediately from original
principles, without the intervention of thought or reflection. Though
the rules of justice be artificial, they are not arbitrary. Nor is
the expression improper to call them Laws of Nature; if by natural we
understand what is common to any species, or even if we confine it to
mean what is inseparable from the species.
SECT. II OF THE ORIGIN OF JUSTICE AND PROPERTY
We now proceed to examine two questions, viz, CONCERNING
THE MANNER, IN
WHICH THE RULES OF JUSTICE ARE ESTABLISHed BY THE
ARTIFICE OF MEN;
and CONCERNING THE REASONS, WHICH DETERMINE US TO
ATTRIBUTE TO THE
OBSERVANCE OR NEGLECT OF THESE RULES A MORAL BEAUTY AND
DEFORMITY. These
questions will appear afterwards to be distinct. We shall begin with the
former.
Of all the animals, with which this globe is peopled, there is none
towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercised more
cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities, with
which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords
to the relieving these necessities. In other creatures these two
particulars generally compensate each other. If we consider the lion as
a voracious and carnivorous animal, we shall easily discover him to be
very necessitous; but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, his
agility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find, that his
advantages hold proportion with his wants. The sheep and ox are deprived
of all these advantages; but their appetites are moderate, and their
food is of easy purchase. In man alone, this unnatural conjunction of
infirmity, and of necessity, may be observed in its greatest perfection.
Not only the food, which is required for his sustenance, flies his
search and approach, or at least requires his labour to be produced, but
he must be possessed of cloaths and lodging, to defend him against the
injuries of the weather; though to consider him only in himself, he
is provided neither with arms, nor force, nor other natural abilities,
which are in any degree answerable to so many necessities.
It is by society alone he is able to supply his defects, and raise
himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquire a
superiority above them. By society all his infirmities are compensated;
and though in that situation his wants multiply every moment upon him,
yet his abilities are still more augmented, and leave him in every
respect more satisfied and happy, than it is possible for him, in his
savage and solitary condition, ever to become. When every individual
person labours a-part, and only for himself, his force is too small to
execute any considerable work; his labour being employed in supplying
all his different necessities, he never attains a perfection in any
particular art; and as his force and success are not at all times equal,
the least failure in either of these particulars must be attended with
inevitable ruin and misery. Society provides a remedy for these three
inconveniences. By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented:
By the partition of employments, our ability encreases: And by mutual
succour we are less exposed to fortune and accidents. It is by
this additional force, ability, and security, that society becomes
advantageous.
But in order to form society, it is requisite not only that it be
advantageous, but also that men be sensible of these advantages; and
it is impossible, in their wild uncultivated state, that by study and
reflection alone, they should ever be able to attain this knowledge.
Most fortunately, therefore, there is conjoined to those necessities,
whose remedies are remote and obscure, another necessity, which having a
present and more obvious remedy, may justly be regarded as the first
and original principle of human society. This necessity is no other than
that natural appetite betwixt the sexes, which unites them together, and
preserves their union, till a new tye takes place in their concern for
their common offspring. This new concern becomes also a principle of
union betwixt the parents and offspring, and forms a more numerous
society; where the parents govern by the advantage of their superior
strength and wisdom, and at the same time are restrained in the exercise
of their authority by that natural affection, which they bear their
children. In a little time, custom and habit operating on the tender
minds of the children, makes them sensible of the advantages, which they
may reap from society, as well as fashions them by degrees for it, by
rubbing off those rough corners and untoward affections, which prevent
their coalition.
For it must be confest, that however the circumstances of human nature
may render an union necessary, and however those passions of lust and
natural affection may seem to render it unavoidable; yet there are other
particulars in our natural temper, and in our outward circumstances,
which are very incommodious, and are even contrary to the requisite
conjunction. Among the former, we may justly esteem our selfishness to
be the most considerable. I am sensible, that generally speaking, the
representations of this quality have been carried much too far; and that
the descriptions, which certain philosophers delight so much to form
of mankind in this particular, are as wide of nature as any accounts
of monsters, which we meet with in fables and romances.
So far from
thinking, that men have no affection for any thing beyond themselves,
I am of opinion, that though it be rare to meet with one, who loves any
single person better than himself; yet it is as rare to meet with one,
in whom all the kind affections, taken together, do not overbalance all
the selfish. Consult common experience: Do you not see, that though
the whole expence of the family be generally under the direction of the
master of it, yet there are few that do not bestow the largest part of
their fortunes on the pleasures of their wives, and the education of
their children, reserving the smallest portion for their own proper use
and entertainment. This is what we may observe concerning such as have
those endearing ties; and may presume, that the case would be the same
with others, were they placed in a like situation.
But though this generosity must be acknowledged to the honour of human
nature, we may at the same time remark, that so noble an affection,
instead of fitting men for large societies, is almost as contrary
to them, as the most narrow selfishness. For while each person loves
himself better than any other single person, and in his love to others
bears the greatest affection to his relations and acquaintance, this
must necessarily produce an oppositon of passions, and a consequent
opposition of actions; which cannot but be dangerous to the
new-established union.
It is however worth while to remark, that this contrariety of passions
would be attended with but small danger, did it not concur with
a peculiarity in our outward circumstances, which affords it an
opportunity of exerting itself. There are different species of goods,
which we are possessed of; the internal satisfaction of our minds, the
external advantages of our body, and the enjoyment of such possessions
as we have acquired by our industry and good fortune. We are perfectly
secure in the enjoyment of the first. The second may be ravished from
us, but can be of no advantage to him who deprives us of them. The last
only are both exposed to the violence of others, and may be transferred
without suffering any loss or alteration; while at the same time, there
is not a sufficient quantity of them to supply every one's desires and
necessities. As the improvement, therefore, of these goods is the chief
advantage of society, so the instability of their possession, along with
their scarcity, is the chief impediment.
In vain should we expect to find, in uncultivated nature, a remedy to
this inconvenience; or hope for any inartificial principle of the
human mind, which might controul those partial affections, and make us
overcome the temptations arising from our circumstances.