Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

His first remark on Benevolence is, that it is identified in all countries with the highest merits that human nature is capable of attaining to.

This prepares the way for the farther observation, that in setting forth the praises of a humane, beneficent man, the one circumstance that never fails to be insisted on is the happiness to society arising through his good offices. Like the sun, an inferior minister of providence, he cheers, invigorates, and sustains the surrounding world. May we not therefore conclude that the UTILITY resulting from social virtues, forms, at least, a part of their merit, and is one source of the approbation paid to them. He illustrates this by a number of interesting examples, and defers the enquiry—how large a part of the social virtues depend on utility, and for what reason we are so much affected by it.

Section III. is on JUSTICE. That Justice is useful to society, and thence derives part of its merit, would be superfluous to prove. That public utility is the sole origin of Justice, and that the beneficial consequences are the sole foundation of its merit, may seem more questionable, but can in the author's opinion be maintained.

He puts the supposition, that the human race were provided with such abundance of all external things, that without industry, care, or anxiety, every person found every want fully satisfied; and remarks, that while every other social virtue (the affections, &c.) might flourish, yet, as property would be absent, mine and thine unknown, Justice would be useless, an idle ceremonial, and could never come into the catalogue of the virtues. In point of fact, where any agent, as air, water, or land, is so abundant as to supply everybody, questions of justice do not arise on that particular subject.

Suppose again that in our present necessitous condition, the mind of every man were so enlarged and so replete with generosity that each should feel as much for his fellows as for himself—the beau idéal of communism—in this case Justice would be in abeyance, and its ends answered by Benevolence. This state is actually realized in well-cultivated families; and communism has been attempted and maintained for a time in the ardour of new enthusiasms.

Reverse the above suppositions, and imagine a society in such want that the utmost care is unable to prevent the greater number from perishing, and all from the extremes of misery, as in a shipwreck of a siege; in such circumstances, justice is suspended in favour of self-preservation; the possibility of good order is at an end, and Justice, the means, is discarded as useless. Or, again, suppose a virtuous man to fall into a society of ruffians on the road to swift destruction; his sense of justice would be of no avail, and consequently he would arm himself with the first weapon he could seize, consulting self-preservation alone. The ordinary punishment of criminals is, as regards them, a suspension of justice for the benefit of society. A state of war is the remission of justice between the parties as of no use or application. A civilized nation at war with barbarians must discard even the small relics of justice retained in war with other civilized nations. Thus the rules of equity and justice depend on the condition that men are placed in, and are limited by their UTILITY in each separate state of things. The common state of society is a medium between the extreme suppositions now made: we have our self-partialities, but have learnt the value of equity; we have few enjoyments by nature, but a considerable number by industry. Hence we have the ideas of Property; to these Justice is essential, and it thus derives its moral obligation.

The poetic fictions of the Golden Age, and the philosophic fictions of a State of Nature, equally adopt the same fundamental assumption; in the one, justice was unnecessary, in the other, it was inadmissible. So, if there were a race of creatures so completely servile as never to contest any privilege with us, nor resent any infliction, which is very much our position with the lower animals, justice would have no place in our dealings with them. Or, suppose once more, that each person possessed within himself every faculty for existence, and were isolated from every other; so solitary a being would be as incapable of justice as of speech. The sphere of this duty begins with society; and extends as society extends, and as it contributes to the well-being of the individual members of society.

The author next examines the particular laws embodying justice and determining property. He supposes a creature, having reason, but unskilled in human nature, to deliberate with himself how to distribute property. His most obvious thought would be to give the largest possessions to the most virtuous, so as to give the power of doing good where there was the most inclination. But so unpracticable is this design, that although sometimes conceived, it is never executed; the civil magistrate knows that it would be utterly destructive of human society; sublime as may be the ideal justice that it supposes, he sets it aside on the calculation of its bad consequences.

Seeing also that, with nature's liberality, were all her gifts equally distributed, every one would have so good a share that no one would have a title to complain; and seeing, farther, that this is the only type of perfect equality or ideal justice—there is no good ground for falling short of it but the knowledge that the attempt would be pernicious to society. The writers on the Law of Nature, whatever principles they begin with, must assign as the ultimate reason of law the necessities and convenience of mankind. Uninstructed nature could never make the distinction between mine and yours; it is a purely artificial product of society. Even when this distinction is established, and justice requires it to be adhered to, yet we do not scruple in extraordinary cases to violate justice in an individual case for the safety of the people at large.

When the interests of society require a rule of justice, but do not indicate any rule in particular, the resort is to some analogy with a rule already established on grounds of the general interest.